D&D 3.5 Precocious Apprentice feat, Sorcerer Edition: Which 2nd-level spells to pick?

[thorr-kan]

Precocious Apprentice from Complete Arcane allows a character to have one 2nd-level spells from any school of magic they have access to. Assume this character has access to the sorcerer spell list.

Independent of any other character features what one would you choose? Any WoTC 3.5 published book, excluding Dragon Magazine.

ETA: For purposes of this discussion, I'm going with the interpretation that one single spell slot cannot power reserve feats.

[liquidformat]

Well Alter Self is always a solid choice, beyond that will have to think it over...

[nedz]

You can use this to power a Reserve feat and never cast the spell itself, e.g.

Acidic Splatter (acid spell of 2nd) very short range ray
Hurricane Breath (air spell of 2nd) very short range bullrush
Winter's Blast (cold spell of 2nd) 15' cone

Reserve feats are most useful at low-level.

This is all good - so long as you are running the retraining rules.

[liquidformat]

You can use this to power a Reserve feat and never cast the spell itself, e.g.

Acidic Splatter (acid spell of 2nd) very short range ray
Hurricane Breath (air spell of 2nd) very short range bullrush
Winter's Blast (cold spell of 2nd) 15' cone

Reserve feats are most useful at low-level.

This is all good - so long as you are running the retraining rules.

even E6 no retrain can work pretty well with these...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ray of stupidity.

It can one-shot any animal in the game (including epic level ones), as well as a lot of other critters. A lot of which are widespread at low levels.

[Karl Aegis]

I hear Stinking Cloud is pretty good, so Cloud of Bewilderment should be just as good. Also available for Bards, but Bards might just want Battle Cry if they took the Fey Bard animal companion.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I went with chain of eyes. Info gathering can be invaluable.

[thorr-kan]

Interesting suggestions. I'm leaning towards monster summoning 2 myself, but I'm reconsidering.

For purposes of this discussion, I'm going with the interpretation that one single spell slot cannot power reserve feats. I've updated the original post.

ETA: Are there any sorcerer-only spells that are 2nd level?

[Psyren]

ETA: Are there any sorcerer-only spells that are 2nd level?

Wings of Cover is a good one IIRC

[liquidformat]

Glitterdust is always a great choice.

Gust of Wind is an interesting option that gets more powerful with more levels.

Detect Thought is pretty powerful especially early on.

Protection from Arrows is very powerful early game and a good choice is retraining is on the table.

Web is interesting

mirror image is a cool choice.

Rope Trick is always handy and pretty powerful early game.

For a Duskblade this is a pretty good feat to pickup another spell to shore up some holes or just another touch spell you don't have access to normally.

[Zombulian]

Wings of Cover is a good one IIRC

Arguably the best one in this context.

[rrwoods]

I’m going to third Wings of Cover. Low-level PCs are very squishy, and being able to just say no to an attack can be invaluable.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, you won't be low level for long if you can one-shot elephants...


At level 1, take a level of wizard and Precocious Apprentice (Ray of Stupidity), along with Sanctum Spell and Forceful Magic (https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/feat/Forceful_Magic). Kill some small animals for XP, then make a few 0-level scrolls of ray of stupidity via Sanctum Spell and Forceful Magic. Now go find some elephants. Knock 'em out with ray of stupidity; it's a ranged touch attack which will hardly ever miss, and the chance of hitting and not insta-K.O.ing them is completely nil. You should be able to level up to mid-levels in just a few rounds (one level per elephant, and one elephant per round). Once you have access to planar binding, call up a genie and use a wish for a thought bottle that's attuned to you and is filled with enough XP to get you to whatever level you want.

Alternatively, wish for an empty thought bottle, and use Extra Spell to get greater restoration and curse of lycanthropy (https://dndtools.net/spells/complete-divine--56/curse-of-lycanthropy--719/). Cast curse of lycanthropy on yourself for a high HD lycanthropy strain (such as elephantitis), hit yourself with some negative levels (waiting long enough to make them permanent), then cast greater restoration on yourself. This will reset your XP to incorporate the LA and RHD of yourself with the lycanthropy strain. Now store your XP in the thought bottle, break curse of lycanthropy via break enchantment and restore your previous XP level from the thought bottle. This will allow you to gain a ton of levels very fast, and it's repeatable!

[Troacctid]

Command undead. You know what's even better than one-shotting animals? One-shotting undead AND gaining control of them at the same time. Make those skeletons work for YOU.