Best 9th Level Spell for a 1/Day item?

[EastbySoutheast]

One of my characters is looking at crafting/buying a item with a 1/day 9th level spell in it.
The question is what spells would you recommend? and what book can i find them in?

If it can be helped id rather stay away from spells that need a focus or an XP cost as that increases the price dramatically

[Necroticplague]

Miracles has no XP cost for the 'simulate a spell' uses, so acts as a decent 'get out of one sticky situation' card.

[thecrimsondawn]

ANIMATE CITY from RoD looks like it would be fun to have, but not much in the way of use

Apocalypse from the Sky from BoVD is one of my top faves for my evil casters

[EastbySoutheast]

Apocalypse from the Sky from BoVD is one of my top faves for my evil casters

Thats a pretty cool spell but i feel it wouldn't be that useful on a 1/day item due to the 1day casting time so it would rarely get much use.

I have looked at Summon Elemental Monolith in Complete Arcane cause that seems like it would have use daily but it has a focus so its almost double the price :/

[SinsI]

One of my characters is looking at crafting/buying a item with a 1/day 9th level spell in it.
The question is what spells would you recommend? and what book can i find them in?

If it can be helped id rather stay away from spells that need a focus or an XP cost as that increases the price dramatically

What is his build? What are his weak points he might want to cover using this item? What are his strong points you might want to bolster with it?
What threats and enemies is he facing, especially the ones against which he doesn't have an efficient solution?
What are his goals?

If you can craft such an item, you must be some kind of caster, right? (unless Warlock)
In that case, wouldn't it be better to get something similar to Pearl of Power instead?

You want an item that you are going to use more than 8 times over its lifetime.

[Ashtagon]

Thats a pretty cool spell but i feel it wouldn't be that useful on a 1/day item due to the 1day casting time so it would rarely get much use.

I have looked at Summon Elemental Monolith in Complete Arcane cause that seems like it would have use daily but it has a focus so its almost double the price :/

MIC says items always take a standard action to activate :smallcool:

Alternately, there's Planar Handbook's heqavenly host spell. Be Angel Summoner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw)!

[ExLibrisMortis]

Shapechange is a pretty nifty spell, good for solving lots of problems for 170+ minutes per day. The focus is a jade circlet (1500 gp). You could perhaps rule that you simply enchant the circlet, so that the focus is the magic item and vice versa.

[SinsI]

Apocalypse from the Sky from BoVD is one of my top faves for my evil casters

I think an item with that would be a little bit out of his price range - it has a "low" material component cost of one freaking artifact!, so to create such an item you would need _10_ of them.

[EastbySoutheast]

What is his build? What are his weak points he might want to cover using this item? What are his strong points you might want to bolster with it?
What threats and enemies is he facing, especially the ones against which he doesn't have an efficient solution?
What are his goals?

He's a 20th level Wizard and was looking to basically expand my 9th level spells per day by having a spell that is going to be useful everyday and would be practical to at least some degree, which is possibly why I'm thinking Summon Elemental Monolith but from what I've read above a 1/day miracle would be good as it would allow me to use a spell a day not on my spell list.

The build is so far:
Wizard 5/Mage of the Arcane order 7/Fatespinner 4/ Archmage 4

[Randomguy]

It's hard to go wrong with Shapechange. Just turn into something that has a SU ability that does whatever you want. It's got a good duration, too. A bit cheesy, though.

Time Stop is also always useful, assuming the wearer is a caster.

[nyjastul69]

MIC says items always take a standard action to activate :smallcool:

Can you give me a page citation for that? The MIC definitely changed some casting times for items, but I can't find where it says all MI's cost a standard action. Many items are, individually, defined differently. e.g. some are swift, some are standard, some are some other type of action.

[Hellborn_Blight]

Can you give me a page citation for that? The MIC definitely changed some casting times for items, but I can't find where it says all MI's cost a standard action. Many items are, individually, defined differently. e.g. some are swift, some are standard, some are some other type of action.

Yeah I second this, as I was pretty sure myself that the change that happened was that it uses the same casting time as the spell now, which is what made certain spell based items awesome and other just ok.

[SinsI]

It takes a standard action to activate a normal custom magic item, but the power will actually manifest as normal for the spell (i.e. if the spell takes 10 minutes it will activate 10 minutes later - but you don't have to attend it for the whole 10 minutes).


Activating a magic item is a standard action unless the item description indicates otherwise. However, the casting time of a spell is the time required to activate the same power in an item, regardless of the type of magic item, unless the item description specifically states otherwise.

As for "best spell" I'd look at 24 hour buffs (maybe via Persisted Spell). If they take a 9th level slot and last 24 hours, they must be something you want constantly on, so are a good choice.

[General Sajaru]

It's hard to go wrong with Shapechange. Just turn into something that has a SU ability that does whatever you want. It's got a good duration, too. A bit cheesy, though.

Time Stop is also always useful, assuming the wearer is a caster.

A second on both of these.

Also, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Foresight, or Energy Drain might be useful to have (and more likely to be used more often).

[AnonymousPepper]

If he can hack the UMD check to pull it off, the absolute best 9th level spell in the game, in my opinion, is Choose Destiny, which is found in Races of Destiny, as a 9th level Destiny Domain divine spell. As far as bang for your buck goes, anyway. For rounds per level - the only downside - you get to roll twice and take the better on literally every attack roll, ability check, skill check, and saving throw you make. As a swift-action cast, which is huge.

Other good options would be Shapechange (so many choices; I'm fond of the Chronotyryn, which gets two sets of actions per turn), Time Stop (get all your other buffs off, or set up a Delayed Blast Fireball/Vortex of Teeth/etc. bomb of your choice), Miracle (SO versatile), Elminster's Effulgent Epuration (no questions asked defend yourself from a number of spells that target you directly equal to your caster level), Absorption (hey, lemme eat your spells AND get the cost of this one back), and possibly Disjunction (because sometimes, "nuke the mage" means NUKE the mage).

Incidentally, with Miracle, I'd highly advise that the gold standard for using it, aside from its extraordinary uses, would be for Favor of the Martyr, Paladin 4. The list of immunities is so vast on its own as to be highly worth it, so if you ignore the prime Limburger I'm about to mention, it's STILL worth it, but the potential with it runs extremely high when you notice it gives you Daze immunity... so a caster could spam Celerity once per round (at the cost of her immediate/swift actions and her fourth-level spell slots) to drop an extra spell every round whenever she wanted with no penalties. Combine with Shapechange into the aforementioned Chronotyryn for extra hilarity and more thrown books.