Sorcerer Party Buffer

[ddude987]

Anybody in Xervous's campaign (except Xervous) stay out, there are spoilers

So the jist of the story...
I love my current character to death, and well that's where I'm going to put him. Its the final evolution in a very dynamic character. That means I get to make a new character! So I'm making a drake (custom race, basically dragonmen), and he will be a sorcerer gish, abjurant champion and the whole 9 yards, and I'm taking feats for wings and breath weapon + metabreath feats. I wanted to focus my spellcasting on buffing my party, as my last character was a loner who did lots of damage. Its an e10 campaign, e8 + 2 epic levels (kinda). The DM increased the sorcerer spells known by 1 extra spell known per level.

tl;dr Ignoring cantrips, what are some good spells 1st through 4th level? I want to focus on buffing the party and/or utility.

[Courier6]

Well, if you're a dragon Alter Self could be very powerful allowing access to flight and NA. Haste and Fly are powerhouses for third level. Silent Image has massive utility. If you want to go for debuffs Glitterdust, Web, and Great Thunderclap are all good.

[nedz]

Have you considered Bard ?
Much better at buffing.

[ericgrau]

What are the other characters?

[Rebel7284]

Polymorph is probably the best buff.

[ddude987]

The other characters are a bard, who is also a lycan lion, a wildshape ranger, a dungeoncrasher fighter, and an alchemist (backported from pf).

I thought about bard because snowflake warsong (or whatever) but we have a bard and it doesn't fit the character flavor either. Because its a gish I've dropped 2 casting levels and we are currently level 9, so I don't have 4ths yet. Polymorph and friends don't exist (including alter self) and I got flight and breath weapon from feats.

Spells I've considered are silent image, shield, haste, heart of water, glitter dust. Looking at my current spell selection, I have a lot of self buffs, and I'm looking more for buffs to use on the other party members. Also wands are nonexistent for the most part.

[nedz]

Haste is the big one.

Various "animal" buffs for the other characters might be helpful.

Enlarge Person for the melee types.

Invisibility is often good — or Invisibility Sphere for the whole party.

Fly — for the other party members.

Trouble is the Bard and Alchemist can possibly do many of these, and you might be stepping on their toes.

[ddude987]

The alchemist can already invisible and fly, and the wildshape ranger can fly, so only the bard cannot currently. I don't want to step on their toes but at the same time, I already played a high dpr character and wanted to see if I could take a new angle. Perhaps debuffing? My cha mod is +7 so glitterdust is a dc 19 save, which doesn't seem very high. Also if I were to debuff, wouldn't wizard be strictly better?

[watchwood]

DC19 is pretty good for a second level spell. You can boost it higher with spell focus feats, if you feel the need.

The Necromancy school has got some great debuffs, I suggest looking there too.

[ericgrau]

Buff: Haste, greater magic weapon, stoneskin, greater invisibility, mass bear's endurance
Debuff: [empowered] ray of enfeeblement, [empowered] enervation

The longer duration ones you cast ahead of time. If your party doesn't full attack often then mass snake's swiftness is a nice alternative to haste.

[incarnate236]

Depending on the campaign Magic Circle Against X can be useful. In a campaign with a lot of undead and demons for example the immunity to mind affecting spells and natural attacks can keep your party safe in a lot of fights.

[ddude987]

magic circle against X are level 3 spells and I only get to know 2 of those so far, and one is going to be haste. I will consider Protection from X though, as pro X is a level 1 touch spell I can put on any of my party members.

[Bigbeefie]

Go the Route of De-buffing and Crowd Control.

Slow, Enervation, Ray of enfeeblement, Grease, Wall of Force, Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, Ash Storm, Black Tentacles, Waves of exhaustion, Confusion, insanity, Hold X.

Also picking prime Summon Monster X at levels 3, 5, 7 might help a lot too as Summon monsters bring spells not on your spell list, heals, other Special abilities, and will add extra meat to the field to give your team mates a reprieve from damage.

[ddude987]

Well I won't be getting past 4th level spells, so if I pick some debuffing spells I need to choose carefully. Alternatively I play Wizard, but the flavor I had in mind was Cha based, and the race is good for cha.

[ericgrau]

Single target short duration buffs like protection from evil are pretty lousy. Even if an ally finally does get dominated after 2 campaigns, you can simply blow 25 gp on a scroll to be ready for an emergency. In general you can do that with most first level spells that you might use "some day". Obscuring mist too. Come to think of it 24 hour mage armor is epic with wild shape. Get that and tag the ranger and yourself with it. Get a lesser rod of extend spell to get more uses. Can't believe I forgot that.

Using the Player's Handbook and Spell Compendium, the spell loadout I would use is below. I think they are head and shoulders above most others:
1 (5): mage armor, ray of enfeeblement, feather fall, benign transposition, swift expeditious retreat (to get in range)
2 (3): quick potion (+ coordinate with half-casters), craft magic tattoo (+2 attack rolls, +1 attack rolls), slapping hand
3 (2): haste, greater magic weapon
4 (1): greater invisibility

Heroics is another option for level 2. Especially if you go into a lot of dungeons. Maybe swap it in in place of slapping hand at level 8, since you have plenty of other spells to blow your standard action on at that point.

Gear: Lesser rod of extend spell, wand or scrolls of nerveskitter (carry one at all times, tag an ally every single fight), 2,000 gp worth of tatoo inks. Don't be afraid to spam 400 gp in tattoos to give +3 to the attack rolls of the two melee every single day you expect a fight. It's well worth it. Much more than getting a few thousand gp of permanent items because the number of fights in an entire campaign is astoundingly small. Btw, check out how many of the above spells have saves. Yeup, zero. So no cha item. I wouldn't even necessarily make cha your primary stat. Dex and con are kinda nice.

Feat: point blank shot, precise shot, empower spell. Yeup, for only 1 spell. Ray of enfeeblement is just that good. Enervation instead of greater invis would be ok too. Halfling or whisper gnome are great for the +2 to hit, for that matter. With con, dex, 30' speed and other misc bonuses whisper gnome is the obvious choice if your DM doesn't mind the power