Best low level Necromancy, Conjuration, and Evocation Spells (Wizard 1-4)

[sage20500]

Playing a low op campaign currently and I'm functioning as a 3 man bands artillery essentially. As a super specialist evocation wizard/incantatrix I've mainly been focused on pimping out my Fire Ball and Scorching Ray spells, but aside from those what are some other good battlefield control spells I can look into that belong to the Evocation, Necromancy, and Conjuration Wizard spell list? My banned schools are Illusion, Enchantment, and Abjuration (I think I might also have lost access to transmutation, need to look back and see if specialist wizard plus incantatrix cost me 3 or 4 schools) Also on the conjuration side I'm avoiding summon monster spells when possible, party has a full 20 druid in it so they'll pretty much be doing most of the summoning of monsters, I'm mainly looking at spells like Evards Black Tentacles etc.

Currently on my spell list I have:

Ray of Enfeeblement,
Grease,
Magic Missile,
Burning Hands,
Mage Armor,
Scorching Ray,
Incendiary Slime,
Fire Ball,
Resonating Bolt.


Spells I've seen that I was thinking about trying to get include:
Curse of Impending Blades, Legions
Blindness/Deafness
Bestow Curse,
and of course Evard's Black Tentacles.

Any other good suggestions for a Battlefield Commander Mage-Knight themed character who wants to have one or two tricks up his sleeve when excessive collateral damage will not be able to answer his problems?

[Zancloufer]

100% sure that banned Abjuration is NOT allowed as an Incantrix. So you have to ban a different school other than that. Though not sure what school to ban. You can't ban Divination ever iirc, and banning Conjuration or Transmutation is considered beyond reproach as those two schools are the biggest AND most versatile ones.

The Number of bans schools is generally 2 (unless you spec Divination then it is 1) and Incantrix requires a 2nd or 3rd that isn't Divination or Abjuration. Not a huge fan of Incantrix if your going the blasting route as you kind of end up in a "No win" situation on what 3 schools to can. If you want cheap meta-magic and don't mind waiting Dweomer Keeper is probably better (Wizard 5 / Cleric 1 w/Magic Domain and max ranks in Spellcraft and Know Aracana + 1 Meta Magic to enter). Mantle of Spells let's you choose 1-4 spells that you can convert like the cleric's Cure/Inflict ability, and the capstone is a nice -1 to any spell adjustment that metamagic causes.

Solid Fog is a nice 4th level "No anything just suck" spell. Reduces any movement to a crawl and blocks ranged attacks and line of sight. The weaker Fog Cloud is also a solid BFC spell.

Of the higher level spells Black Tentacles is probably the only one really worth getting. Enervation is really nice and I would honestly check out the "Orb of X" spells if you have access to them.

[Gildedragon]

Focused specialist Incantatrix cost you 4 schools (out of 8) unless you were specialized in abjuration then it's 3

Schools I'd keep
Divination (no choice)
Abjuration (no choice)
Illusion
Conjuration

Though if not using a big part of Conjuration maybe pick some other school to use.

I advocate keeping illusion because of its general utility to the party; unlike necromancy it has out of combat uses

[sage20500]

100% sure that banned Abjuration is NOT allowed as an Incantrix. So you have to ban a different school other than that. Though not sure what school to ban. You can't ban Divination ever iirc, and banning Conjuration or Transmutation is considered beyond reproach as those two schools are the biggest AND most versatile ones.

The Number of bans schools is generally 2 (unless you spec Divination then it is 1) and Incantrix requires a 2nd or 3rd that isn't Divination or Abjuration. Not a huge fan of Incantrix if your going the blasting route as you kind of end up in a "No win" situation on what 3 schools to can. If you want cheap meta-magic and don't mind waiting Dweomer Keeper is probably better (Wizard 5 / Cleric 1 w/Magic Domain and max ranks in Spellcraft and Know Aracana + 1 Meta Magic to enter). Mantle of Spells let's you choose 1-4 spells that you can convert like the cleric's Cure/Inflict ability, and the capstone is a nice -1 to any spell adjustment that metamagic causes.

Solid Fog is a nice 4th level "No anything just suck" spell. Reduces any movement to a crawl and blocks ranged attacks and line of sight. The weaker Fog Cloud is also a solid BFC spell.

Of the higher level spells Black Tentacles is probably the only one really worth getting. Enervation is really nice and I would honestly check out the "Orb of X" spells if you have access to them.


Dm is actually being nice with me on this one. My original 2 banned schools were Illusion and Enchantment, because the requirement for players guide to Faerûn says that a "Candidate" may not have abjuration as a prohibited school, then he ruled that as long as its not banned upon trying to enter I'm good, and that after I take the first level then I can totally have it be my 3rd prohibited school. Aside from that, my main reason for taking incantatrix over Dweomerkeeper is that Incatatrix gets 3 bonus meta magic feats over the 10 levels you take which is what I care about most at the moment.

Really the big thing spell wise is that the party I'm playing is is a low op party, and we're running a Red Hand of Doom campaign (first time playing it but I've skimmed the start of a few campaign journals), which to my knowledge from what I've seen so far has been mostly just lots of fighting against encroaching army among other things. So most aoe spells like fireball and Evard Black Tentacles should be just fine and not make the DM want to throw a book at me or want to flat out kill my character. In story the background for the character is that he was taught and raised to essentially be the human equivalent of a strategic nuke, and so his focus is supposed to be using the best spells for the job to neutralize any given situation in a way that is either explosive or if blowing up the target is not allowed, then through other non explosive ways (Such as Evards Tentacles, or making it easier for his allies to slaughter the enemy by screwing with team monsters ability to hit them or defend like the curse spells in Necromancy)

[Gildedragon]

Dm is actually being nice with me on this one. My original 2 banned schools were Illusion and Enchantment, because the requirement for players guide to Faerûn says that a "Candidate" may not have abjuration as a prohibited school, then he ruled that as long as its not banned upon trying to enter I'm good, and that after I take the first level then I can totally have it be my 3rd prohibited school. Aside from that, my main reason for taking incantatrix over Dweomerkeeper is that Incatatrix gets 3 bonus meta magic feats over the 10 levels you take which is what I care about most at the moment.
Abjuration would be your FOURTH banned school as incantatrix requires one to ban a (third) school that isn't divination or abjuration

[Deophaun]

To actually answer your question, there is a distinct lack of benign transposition in your list. I take that to be a typo, because of course you have benign transposition. The only wizards that don't have benign transposition are those that banned Conjuration, but then Wizards that ban Conjuration probably lack the Int score to learn spells to begin with. They're just... I don't know... Barbarians that call themselves Wizards or something. Really, we just don't associate with those kinds of people.

Next, you need the third greatest overlooked spell of all time: undead eyes. Battlefield commander? Animate a zombie bird and use it to gaze at the battlefield from high above. Really, scouts are just unreliable and if you want a job done right, do it yourself. Need to coordinate with troops across a wide frontline? Animate a skull and toss a pearl of speech into it: instant walkie-talkie. Get this. (Actual greatest overlooked spell of all time is dragoneye rune, and the second greatest you banned by forbidding abjuration).

That will get you started. Really, if you're going for a battlefield commander, you want spells that aid in commanding, not blowing things up. After all, we don't put the generals in the bombers.