Long duration high level sor/wiz buffs

[Aegis013]

I'm playing an arcane gish and I'm looking for long duration sor/wiz buffs. I have up to 5th level and eventually will get up to 8th level spells. I'm using Swift (Swiftblade) Haste and Bite of the WereX for rounds/level buffs. This is enough (or even too much) for short term buffs, so I'm looking for minutes/level or longer, 5th level spells or higher.

Enchant and Evocation are banned. Please keeps spells limited to the Sor/Wiz list, I won't be doing any shenanigans to get spells from other lists.

I will not be using persistent spell, and the way the game has been going Extend is pointless, minutes/level will cover my whole adventuring day, so please no recommendations that include Persistent Spell.

WotC sources allowed as long as I can provide the DM the text (if you give a Dragon article and a page number, I can get it, Dungeon is less likely). Please do not recommend homebrew or third party as it's not worth the fight to get them approved.

For 5th level all I have found is Dragonsight for long duration buffs. Surely there's something I'm missing, even mediocre buffs are desirable.

Feel free to honorable mention other useful spells granted that my caster level is atrocious for my character level and I will never beat SR, my casting stat is not my primary focus so my DCs aren't great, but I likely won't use them as utility spells have had no place in this game; it has been super duper hack-n-slash.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

[Âmesang]

Looking over a character of mine the spells I tended to cast at the beginning of the day were endure elements, false life, greater mage armor, mind blank, protection from arrows, as well as a custom-made runestaff that allows her to use heart of air/earth/fire/water each once per day—so a bunch of spells with either 1 hour/level or 24 hour durations. Aside from mind blank and the runestaff it's nothing that should be too terribly overpowered, just fairly typical buffs.

Also if you're using a familiar try and see if you can grab Enspell Familiar from DRAGON Compendium to extend your spell-sharing range from 5 ft. to one mile. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Bleah, I should read a bit more carefully before suggesting metamagic feats. XÞ

[Elder_Basilisk]

From Spell Compendium, Create Magical Tattoo and Dragonskin are standouts. Contingent Energy resistance and energy immunity are good too.

From the PHB, don't overlook contingency. Use it to trigger a buff like greater blink. At higher levels, foresight, mind blank, and moment of prescience are nice to have up.

You don't seem interested in attack spells but a few that you should consider having in your back pocket just in case:
Whirling Blade (spell compendium), Steeldance (spell compendium). Also, wraithstrike and extended wraithstrike if your DM is silly enough not to ban them on the spot.

And with metamagic: empowered scorching ray (PHB), quickened scorching ray (PHB), quickened whirling blade (Spell Compendium), Quickened Ray of Enfeeblement (PHB), quickened true strike (PHB--situationally useful)

[Morcleon]

Superior Resistance is a 6th level spell in Spell Compendium that gives +6 resistance to saves for 24 hours. :smallbiggrin:

[Beheld]

Hour per level spells:

Hoard Gullet
Create Magic Tattoo +1 CL version
Create Magic Tattoo +2 competence to Attack
Heart of Air
Heart of Water
Greater Magic Weapon
Heart of Earth
Dragonsight
Heart of Fire
Cloak of the the Sea
Detect Scrying
Elemental Body Fire
Elemental Body Water
Elemental Body Earth
Elemental Body Air
Non-Detection
Deeper Darkvision


24 Hour spells:
Greater Anticipate Teleport/Anticipate Teleport
Superior Resistance
Energy Immunity
Mindblank

Based on your description, apparently all the 10 minute per level buffs would also be all day buffs, and there are too many of those to even thing about listing.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Superior Resistance is a 6th level spell in Spell Compendium that gives +6 resistance to saves for 24 hours. :smallbiggrin:

It's nice but I'm actually not a fan of it except in either REALLY low wealth games or super-high level. It won't stack with a cloak of resistance and it's only one more than a +5 cloak of resistance (which is relatively cheap as top end items go). Even so, you might decide to go with it and put another 25,000gp into something else except... it is dispellable and as a gish you REALLY don't need to be any more dispellable than you already are. I'd stick with the +5 cloak of resistance and use the sixth level slot for something like a quickened whirling blade. You might be able to blow a sixth level spell slot on an incremental +1 to your saves until it gets dispelled when you reach 20th level but even then there's a lot of competition for those spell slots.

EDIT. The last poster is so right... Anticipate Teleportation and Greater Anticipate Teleportation. Have them up at all times. Nothing better than the enemy thinking their going to hit you with a scry and fry only to find out it's scry and die instead. "We're buffed and they're not, hahaha... wait, why am I dimensionally locked in a forcecage with an elemental monolith?"

The lower level anticipate teleportation can also have some unanticipated tactical uses too--check with your DM about whether it delays your teleportation spells or not if you teleport to a location within it. If so, it's great misdirection (he cast dimension door where did he go?) and will render you and anyone you teleport with you invulnerable until your next turn. (The delay on greater anticipate teleportation is too long to be useful in that way).

[Morcleon]

You could always put between 6k-9kgp (depending on stacking) of the 25kgp toward a Ring of Enduring Arcana (+4 to DC to resist dispel) and 20k-3kgp toward a Ring of Arcane Power (flat +1 CL). Alternately, get Spellblade for greater dispel and any other common dispel magic effects.

[Aegis013]

Looking over a character of mine the spells I tended to cast at the beginning of the day were endure elements, false life, greater mage armor, mind blank, protection from arrows, as well as a custom-made runestaff that allows her to use heart of air/earth/fire/water each once per day—so a bunch of spells with either 1 hour/level or 24 hour durations. Aside from mind blank and the runestaff it's nothing that should be too terribly overpowered, just fairly typical buffs.

Also if you're using a familiar try and see if you can grab Enspell Familiar from DRAGON Compendium to extend your spell-sharing range from 5 ft. to one mile. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Bleah, I should read a bit more carefully before suggesting metamagic feats. XÞ

Custom runestaff is right out with the homebrew, even though there's rules existent for designing such. Enspell Familiar actually sounds like it could be fantastic, as I have 6 shocker lizard familiars. They still need to stay bunched up so they can use their lethal shock together but letting me slip away if I don't need to be healed would be nice (Lesser Mechanatrix race).


From Spell Compendium, Create Magical Tattoo and Dragonskin are standouts. Contingent Energy resistance and energy immunity are good too.

From the PHB, don't overlook contingency. Use it to trigger a buff like greater blink. At higher levels, foresight, mind blank, and moment of prescience are nice to have up.

You don't seem interested in attack spells but a few that you should consider having in your back pocket just in case:
Whirling Blade (spell compendium), Steeldance (spell compendium). Also, wraithstrike and extended wraithstrike if your DM is silly enough not to ban them on the spot.

And with metamagic: empowered scorching ray (PHB), quickened scorching ray (PHB), quickened whirling blade (Spell Compendium), Quickened Ray of Enfeeblement (PHB), quickened true strike (PHB--situationally useful)

Dragonskin is interesting, however I have a lot of wand charges of Resist Energy at minimum CL (good enough) that I got for free and I'm already using Alter Self for Troglodyte NA and, currently, Bite of the Wereboar for insane enhancement to NA. It's a pretty good one for 3rd level though (too low for this request), but one I'll keep in mind for the future.

Contingent Energy Resistance is OK, but I've usually been able to tell what kind of energy damage we're up against and just use regular Resist Energy for greater effect.

Contingency is Evocation and thus I can't cast it at all. :smallsigh:

I use Wraithstrike from a Wand chambered in my weapon, so there's no swift action on a full attack routine for Bladeweave or the like. Steeldance is too short in duration, and the attack bonus and damage wouldn't be worth the action.

I don't have Quicken or Empower and don't plan on taking them. Attack spells usually aren't super helpful when your CL significantly under your Character level (and I have no plans for Practiced Spellcaster feat). Thanks for the suggestions though. Whirling Blade is a consideration for a low level spell though.


Superior Resistance is a 6th level spell in Spell Compendium that gives +6 resistance to saves for 24 hours. :smallbiggrin:


Hour per level spells:

Hoard Gullet
Create Magic Tattoo +1 CL version
Create Magic Tattoo +2 competence to Attack
Heart of Air
Heart of Water
Greater Magic Weapon
Heart of Earth
Dragonsight
Heart of Fire
Cloak of the the Sea
Detect Scrying
Elemental Body Fire
Elemental Body Water
Elemental Body Earth
Elemental Body Air
Non-Detection
Deeper Darkvision


24 Hour spells:
Greater Anticipate Teleport/Anticipate Teleport
Superior Resistance
Energy Immunity
Mindblank

Based on your description, apparently all the 10 minute per level buffs would also be all day buffs, and there are too many of those to even thing about listing.

Most of these aren't 5th level or higher and I use several of them now. Heart of Water just fell off my buff routine as Haste now gives me Freedom of Movement (Swiftblade class), and there's just about 0 chance of an underwater adventure in this game.

Greater Magic Weapon isn't a great pick for me due to poor caster level.

Cloak of the Sea would be awesome for an underwater adventure, so thank you for that one as I wasn't aware of it. Unfortunately it wouldn't do anything for this particular game.

Detect Scrying is pretty good, but lower level than what I'm looking for.

Elemental Body is fantastic, and I will be taking it as soon as I have 7ths. Thanks.
Energy Immunity is good.

Greater Anticipate Teleport is a spell I'll be sure to grab when I have 6ths.
Superior Resistance too, just because even eeking out a +1 over my +5 cloak of resistance matters. My DM often uses save-or-lose with dangerously high DCs, so every point of bonus matters to me. (I'll probably keep the cloak too, I've been hit with dispel magic before and neutered during a fight in regards to that conversation)


Thanks all for the ideas! Some good spells listed here.