Most OP spells in the game?

[YossarianLives]

What are the most powerful spells in 3.5/pathfinder?

[GilesTheCleric]

Do you mean most powerful as in most dice, or most versatile?

[Rubik]

What are the most powerful spells in 3.5/pathfinder?Wish and Miracle, of course. With a little thought and optimization, they can do literally anything -- including things well beyond what the authors believed was reasonable.

Also, Silent Image.

[With a box]

Do you mean most powerful as in most dice, or most versatile?

isn't miracle are most powerful in both meaning?

[GilesTheCleric]

Miracle/wish could probably deal a lot of dice, but perhaps not more than an uncapped spell. Besides, the OP asked for "spells", which means more than one. To me, wish and miracle don't really count as different spells, despite their small differences.

Edit: it looks like you've changed your avatar.

[YossarianLives]

I don't mean 'powerful' as in dealing lots of damage, but spells that are extremely powerful when used cleverly like polymorph.


Edit: it looks like you've changed your avatar.
Edit: indeed, I thought it more fitting.

[GilesTheCleric]

I nominate walls of x. They can be used defensively, offensively, and even in rp and skill situations, and as someone was mentioning in another thread, with metamagic (invisible), they can make quite an upset. They're not as game-winning as glitterdust, but in terms of applicability, they're much more useful.

[Rubik]

I don't mean 'powerful' as in dealing lots of damage, but spells that are extremely powerful when used cleverly like polymorph.Wish and Miracle still count.

What, you say you can't use Wish to emulate a 9th level spell? Of course you can! Just Wish for a scroll of it and cast from the scroll.

[Heliomance]

Heightened Earth Spell Silent Image from a Shadowcraft Mage with Arcane Disciple (Luck).

[Kurald Galain]

What are the most powerful spells in 3.5/pathfinder?

There's a third party spell called Dice Storm (I think it's in the Munchkin handbook), a 9th level wizard spell which is basically "roll every die you own, you deal that much damage, save for half". So in terms of rolling damage dice, this is clearly the most powerful. :smallcool:

[Quild]

There's always "shivering touch". It's a level 3 Cleric or Sorcerer/Wizard spell.
It deals 3d6 DEX damage on a melee touch attack that lasts 1 round/level. No saves.

One or two casts of these will be of a great help against some strong opponents.

[Silva Stormrage]

Heightened Earth Spell Silent Image from a Shadowcraft Mage with Arcane Disciple (Luck).

Why stop there? :smalltongue: Add twinned, quickened, repeated, empowered, maximized, etc etc to it using that one trick Tippy used involving planar trait emulation and setting up your own demiplane.

My own suggestion not counting spells that can duplicate other spells (Shapechange is #1 in that case for easily getting infinite wishes), would probably be Ice Assassin or Energy Transformation Field as both are so unbelievably broken that I can't think of a good reason NOT to ban them both outright.

[JohnDaBarr]

What are the most powerful spells in 3.5/pathfinder?

Prestidigitation

oh and Explosive Runes

[Lerondiel]

On the WuJen spell list: Giant Size, & particularly Body Outside Body feature in some of the more famous builds


My favourite 'no save - you suck' combo of 2nd level spells is Kelgore's Grave Mist and (Ray of) Escalating Enfeeblement. Throw some metamagic in there and leave a heap of warriors unable to even stand in their armour :)

[Emperor Tippy]

Shapechange because it gets you XP and material component free Wish's to use on Scrolls of any other spell in the game and then lets you turn into a Lilitu so that you can auto make the UMD checks to use those schools.

If not for that then Ice Assassin followed by Wish probably.

[atemu1234]

Celerity and Contingency. Combine them and you get ...

[NeoPhoenix0]

I'll just mention a few low level spells that seem way to powerful for their level.



benign transposition: use with raven familiar an you have something resembling to a dimension door at level 1
dark way: level 2 spell that acts like a wall of force except one of the dimensions is 5 ft. has some other clever uses too, like making enemies fall to their death when it is used as intended.
ray of stupidity: level 2 ranged touch attack for int damage and no save. cripples wizards and a couple of them will get many other things ready for your coup de grace. though being a damage spell, probably the least useful one on this list.


I'll add more if i can think of them.

[Chronos]

I think we need to control for level. Level 9 spells are stupidly overpowered, yes, but they're level 9. They're supposed to be stupidly overpowered. The most power for its level, though, I think has to go to Lesser Planar Binding/Ally. In high op, you can leverage it into infinite Wishes and all that, but even in low op, you're spending one or two spell slots and a little XP or money to get an entire creature that's supposedly significantly more powerful than you are yourself.

[Rubik]

ray of stupidity: level 2 ranged touch attack for int damage and no save. cripples wizards and a couple of them will get many other things ready for your coup de grace. though being a damage spell, probably the least useful one on this list.
RoS is a major component of an easy way to epic levels from level 1 in under a day.

1.) Precocious Apprentice (RoS) as a level 1 wizard means you can one-shot elephants to level you up several times. Combine with Versatile Spellcaster and/or Sanctum Spell/Forceful Magic (to create level 0 scrolls of RoS) to cast RoS multiple times per day to one-shot multiple elephants per day. Take one out, level up. Repeat.

2.) After one hour of rest (using a Heward's fortifying bedroll, or two using a ring of sustenance) and one of preparation, cast Planar Binding for three Supernatural Wishes to nab a thought bottle (already attuned to you, with every spell in the game stored in it), another thought bottle (already attuned to you, with a googol XP in it), and a third thought bottle (with stored memories of, I dunno, every porn ever made, or something).

3.) Use the thought bottles.

4.) There is no 4

5.) Profit.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My banlist:


Alter Self (Replace with Pathfinder version)
Anyspell, and derivatives
Arcane Fusion, and derivatives
Arcane spellsurge
Astral Projection
Body Outside Body
Celerity, and derivatives
Consumptive Field, and derivatives
Contact Other Plane
Draconinc Polymorph
Fabricate
Fission
Fusion
Gate
Genesis
Glibness
Guidance of the Avatar
Ice Assassin
Limited Wish
Love's Pain
Mage’s Lucubration
Mage's Disjunction
Metamorphasis
Metaocncert
Mindrape
Miracle*
Mnemonic Enhancer
Necrotic Tumor
Planar Ally, and derivatives
Planar Binding, and derivatives
Polymorph (Replace with Pathfinder version)
Polymorph Any Object
Power Word Pain
Psychic Reformation
Ray of Stupidity
Reality Revision
Schism
Shades
Shadow Conjuration, and derivatives
Shadow Evocation, and derivatives
Shapechange (Replace with Pathfinder version)
Shivering Touch
Simulacrum
Summon Monster (all)
Summon Nature's Ally (all)
Touchsight
Triadspell
Venomfire
Wings of Cover
Wish*

*These spells may be available on a quest-based basis, such as a demon offering wishes in return for souls, but players should not be able to freely or reliably access them.

[Wacky89]

My banlist:


Alter Self (Replace with Pathfinder version)
Anyspell, and derivatives
Arcane Fusion, and derivatives
Arcane spellsurge
Astral Projection
Body Outside Body
Celerity, and derivatives
Consumptive Field, and derivatives
Contact Other Plane
Draconinc Polymorph
Fabricate
Fission
Fusion
Gate
Genesis
Glibness
Guidance of the Avatar
Ice Assassin
Limited Wish
Love's Pain
Mage’s Lucubration
Mage's Disjunction
Metamorphasis
Metaocncert
Mindrape
Miracle*
Mnemonic Enhancer
Necrotic Tumor
Planar Ally, and derivatives
Planar Binding, and derivatives
Polymorph (Replace with Pathfinder version)
Polymorph Any Object
Power Word Pain
Psychic Reformation
Ray of Stupidity
Reality Revision
Schism
Shades
Shadow Conjuration, and derivatives
Shadow Evocation, and derivatives
Shapechange (Replace with Pathfinder version)
Shivering Touch
Simulacrum
Summon Monster (all)
Summon Nature's Ally (all)
Touchsight
Triadspell
Venomfire
Wings of Cover
Wish*

*These spells may be available on a quest-based basis, such as a demon offering wishes in return for souls, but players should not be able to freely or reliably access them.


Wow some of your ban's seems unnessecary Wings of Cover SNA SM

[Chronos]

I suspect that the summons are on the list not so much for their power, but for how much they slow down play.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wow some of your ban's seems unnessecary Wings of Cover SNA SM
Wings of Cover is a second-level spell that breaks line-of-effect as an immediate action. It's a one-stop "no" button to virtually every effect in the game. You can stop gods with that spell. I would much rather not have that around, thanks.


I suspect that the summons are on the list not so much for their power, but for how much they slow down play.
Sort of, yeah. They slow the game down too much, and offer way too much versatility for a single spell. But mostly they're on the list as part of my broader houserules, which include making summoning a class feature (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?317495-The-Conjurer-summons-teleports-and-balance-Oh-my!-%28Fixed-List-Caster-Project%29) (in the name of balancing the thing). You can strike them from the list for these purposes, though.

[Story]

ray of stupidity: level 2 ranged touch attack for int damage and no save. cripples wizards and a couple of them will get many other things ready for your coup de grace. though being a damage spell, probably the least useful one on this list.

Why would you use it against Wizards? That will just make them lose a single spell slot if you're lucky. The real use of Ray of Stupidity is one-shotting Hydras and Animals. Incidentally, you can get the same effect from Polymorphing that one psionic monster, albeit as a melee attack instead of ranged.

Anyway, Grod the Giant's list covered most of the most OP spells. The ones I can remember that noone's mentioned yet

Streamers - This one is infamously broken
Friendly Fire - Ranged attacks: just say No
Wings of Flurry - One of the few attack spells that can do unlimited damage
Holy Word and co - No save, no attack roll, just die.
Reaving Dispell - Assuming it allows you to transfer Personal-only spells that you couldn't normally cast.

Shrink Item - Not quite as broken as some of the others but the shenanigans it allows are almost limitless. And it lasts for days.




Also, there are a very large number of spells that are broken when Persisted, but listing that would take forever and the real problem is with Persist Spell.