Best Spells NOT in the Spell Compendium?

[threefivearchve]

My group mostly uses the Spell Compendium and PHB for spell reference, and for picking new spells. What are the best spells (particularly for cleric, but just in general) that are not in the PHB or Spell Compendium? So spells from PHB II, Complete Champion, Complete Scoundrel, and Complete Mage mostly. And Dragon Magic. I wish the rereleased Spell Compendium had updated to include all the spells in every sourcebook but that didn't happen and likely never will.

So what are the coolest or most powerful or weirdest spells that aren't found in PHB or Spell Compendium?

[H_H_F_F]

For powerful, Shivering Touch and its lesser version usually get a lot of attention. They're in Frostburn. They do a lot of no-save dex damage, which can be easily leveraged to be an encounter-ender.

For cool, I'm a big fan of BoED's Glory of the Martyr. It's a paladin spell that's essentially mass shield other.

[Anthrowhale]

In the top-10 spell/level list (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?663227-Summary-of-top-10-spells-per-level) we worked on, only 26% were not from the Spell Compendium. The PHB(37%) was the biggest source of top-10 spells, but the remainder were spread over many sources.

[Biggus]

My favourites are:

Player's Handbook II
Alter Fortune
Renewed Vigor*
Chain Dispel
Hunter's Eye

Complete Mage
Spellcaster's Bane*
(Greater) Arcane Fusion
Heart of Air/Earth/Fire/Water
True Casting

Book of Exalted Deeds
Elation*
Empyreal Ecstasy
Amber Sarcophagus
(Greater) Luminous Armor
Exalted Raimant

Complete Champion
Benediction
Body Ward
Soul Ward
Lore of the Gods
Footsteps of the Divine
Surge of Fortune

Dragon Magic
Ferocity of Sanguine Rage
Arcane Spellsurge
Primal Instinct

Other books
Combat Readiness (DotU)
Inner Beauty (FCI)
Snowsong (FB)
Pronoucement of Fate (HoH)
Investiture of the Pit Fiend (FC2)
Devastating Smite (tFoW)
Arrowsplit (CoR)
(Greater) Mighty Wallop (RotD)

There are also these, which I don't use as they're game-breakingly good in my opinion. YMMV.

(Greater) Celerity (PHB2)
Shivering Touch (FB)
Starmantle (BoED)
Venomfire (SK)
Wings of Cover (RotD)

*persistable

[Saintheart]

Dragons of Faerun
Threesteel (Sor/Wiz 3): carry a Large greatsword around with you. Don't wield it, just cast this spell and it creates 3 duplicates of itself which you're deemed proficient with and can hurl for ranged attack rolls (explicitly using the attack bonus of a fighter of your caster level) on a target. It destroys all 3 duplicates, but everything such as feats, critical hits, sneak attack, etc etc are all treated as having taken effect as if you'd struck in melee. A wand of this, or better yet a permanent rune of it, would be cool for low-BAB gishes maybe.

Dragonblood Spell-pact (Sor 5): two dragonblood creatures can freely swap known spells between them. Good for getting those annoying spells on your list without Archivist shenanigans.

Spectral Dragon (Sor/Wiz 6): Not bad for a sort of Spiritual Weapon that hits for negative levels and Str damage.

Shining South
Kyristan's Black Tentacles: (Sor/Wiz 6): Evard's Black Tentacles, but draining levels too!
Streamers: (Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 5): 5d10 damage per streamer on a touch attack, maxing at 4 at 18th level. No save, though SR applies.

[Inevitability]

Friendly Fire from Exemplars of Evil lets you deflect any ranged attack that comes your way to a new target of your choosing within 30 ft. Ranged touch attacks are explicitly included. Druids/sorcerers/wizards all get it. A bit limited in what it does, but countering a Meteor Swarm or Energy Drain with a 4th-level slot will never not be useful.

It's a full-round action to cast and only lasts 1 round/level, but you can also cast it as an immediate action to get the benefit against any single attack.

[St Fan]

From Complete Mage, the spell smoky confinement is impressively versatile.

It can be used not only to capture foes, but also make them easily portable. A spellcaster could capture monsters this way and easily replace summoning magic by having a collection of bottles (better clearly label them, though). Sure, no control is involved, but you can just release the pissed-off monster in the middle of enemies (maybe with invisible servant if you don't want to break the expensive focus) and see what happen.

The fact that the subject is paused in time can be quite handy too; if you don't have ready access to healing, you can save a dying ally this way and store him until the moment you find a healer.

The spell can also be used to sneak several people unnoticed in some restricted area, just by carrying them inside bottles.

It can even be used as party-wide hibernation method; although you better plan for someone to open the bottles at the right time if you don't want to find yourselves a couple centuries in the campaign's future.

[Khedrac]

I'm a fan of the Heart of X spells from Complete Mage.
In addition to having all 4 up fortification for immunity to criticals and sneak attack for one hour/level (i.e. all day) heart of earth is both temporary hit points and a component-less stoneskin effect (and because it is a discharge spell I see no reason to assume that the spell goes down once the temporary hit points are all used up - so I believe it still counts for the other benefits until it ends).

From the same book druids and rangers get primal senses - a nice extra initiative boost if you want one.

Mirror image, greater (PHB2) is always useful for a mage. at least until all the opponents have true sight and etherealness, swift (PHB2) is excellent for getting out of tight corners.

[Biggus]

From the same book druids and rangers get primal senses - a nice extra initiative boost if you want one.


I think you mean Primal Instinct?

[Anthrowhale]

Had a moment to look into this more. The set of top-10 spells in that list not in the Spell Compendium or PHB that are cleric-accessible on the list are:

1. Heartache (BoVD). Helpless for 1 round will negates. Partner with a frontliner for a Coup de Grace.
1. Snowsight (Frostburn) See through snow. This is a domain spell.
2. Obscuring Snow (Frostburn). Snow in 30' radius block LoS, except for those with Snowsight.
2. Substitute Domain (Complete Champion). Swap amongst deity domains.
3. Love's Pain (BoVD). At high levels combo with Mindrape to get an infinite range damage spell.
3. Venomfire (Serpent Kingdoms). Tons of bonus damage for those with natural poison.
3. Shivering Touch (Frostburn). 3d6 dex damage.
4. Animate with the Spirit (CoV). The good version of Animate dead can give amazing SLAs. Sanctified Spell.
4. Dweomer of Transference (Psionics, Expanded). Psionic creature is immune to spells and SLAs.
4. Mindworms (Dragone #343). Requires a feat, but allows you add metamagic for free.
5. Surge of Fortune (CC). Auto 20.
5. Power Leech (BoVD). Gain massive enhancement bonus to stat. Corrupt spell.
6. Eyes of the Oracle (Dragon Magic). Bonus readied action.
7. Empyreal Ecstasy (BoED). Use persisted for immunity to new mind-affecting affects for the whole party and half attack damage.
7. Heaven's Trumpet (BoED). 120' burst paralyze 1d4 rounds, need to access Archon form.
8. Unearthly Beauty (BoED). Supernatural passive attack causing save-or-die in 30' radius. Domain Spell.
8. Evil Weather (BoVD). Huge area, shut off divine casting, 1d2 damage/round, polymorph at random, or rain of frogs. Corrupt Spell.
8. Searing Seed (Dragon#300). Ick spell that creates a duplicate creature with fiendish template. Corrupt Spell
9. Genesis(Deities & Demigods). Create a demiplane... apparently you chose the traits. There are amazing traits and it's abusable everywhere with Planar Bubble.

Lots of particularly good or evil aligned spells here.

[Khedrac]

I think you mean Primal Instinct?
Probably - I was afb and forgot to check.

Another fun one is the wu jen (9) spell arboreal transformation - be slowed for 1 day/level if you make the save (fail and you are a treant under the caster's control).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I love curse of lycanthropy. No, not the one in the Spell Compendium. That one's dumb. A mid-level spell creating actually real sapient creatures wholesale, with souls and everything? Bleh. It's not even interesting or particularly useful.

I'm talking about the version in Defenders of the Faith and Complete Divine, the one that grants the target the lycanthropy template of your choice.

Yeah, it's very powerful and very abusable, and it really does need a few boundaries (such as not applying the extra HD, later castings replacing previous ones instead of stacking, and not actually being the lycanthrope template but instead simply granting the alternate forms (along with stat bonuses), and having a limited duration [1 min/lvl?] rather than being Permanent) but it's also very fun, flavorful, and useful!

[Ramza00]

Benign Transposition (which is in the Spell Compendium)

with Elemental Familiar from the WOTC website (spellbook article By James Wyatt) saving you a feat so you do not waste it on improved familiar for this gets you 90% of the milk for merely gold.

so for a 3rd level spell and 500 xp, you make your normal familiar into a flying air elemental with 100 ft move speed and +2 to initiative instead of the old familiar bonus.

Now you have an awesome familiar that can get out of town when it needs to and can switch people around with benign transposition as long as it within 110 feet of the two subjects. The familiar has access to your UMD ranks and likely can speak Auran for Air Elementals get to do that (pearl of speech if your dm says no), the air elemental can be a monkey, or a raccoon, or a flying cat with opposable thumbs 👍 thus give the familiar a wand or a command word unlimited item of the spell.

Also while XP is XP, you can instead buy a scroll of Elemental Familiar for 2875 gp, aka 375 gp market price but merchants charge 5 gp for every xp thus the extra 2500 gp cost.

[Chronos]

Not a cleric spell, but I'm fond of Linked Perception (Dr 2, Rn 1) from PHB2, which gives you and all of your allies +2 untyped to Listen and Spot per ally.

There's a sort of arms race in D&D between stealth and detection, but at the very top of the arms race, nothing beats a sufficiently-high Spot check, other than an even higher Hide check. And it's not hard to get a ludicrously large number of allies, at which point this spell gives you a ludicrously large Spot check.

The only drawback is that the duration is only 1 min/level, but it's persistable.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Not a cleric spell, but I'm fond of Linked Perception (Dr 2, Rn 1) from PHB2, which gives you and all of your allies +2 untyped to Listen and Spot per ally.

There's a sort of arms race in D&D between stealth and detection, but at the very top of the arms race, nothing beats a sufficiently-high Spot check, other than an even higher Hide check. And it's not hard to get a ludicrously large number of allies, at which point this spell gives you a ludicrously large Spot check.

The only drawback is that the duration is only 1 min/level, but it's persistable.Time to summon the swarm?

[Prime32]

Some spells I like:

Power SightMotW (Druid 1) - Learn a creature's HD total, no save or SR allowed
Wings of CoverDM (Sor 1) - Immediate action spell that blocks a single attack or area effect, can protect allies if you're dragonblooded

Eberron options:

Cloak of KhyberCoS (Sor/Wiz 3) - Conceals alignment; staying in a magical disguise for 6 hours makes it impenetrable
Clothier's ClosetMoE (Bard 2, Sor/Wiz 2) - Creates a hanger of clothes; interacts weirdly with Shadowcraft Mage to create nonmagical illusions
Protective InterpositionFoW (Clr 1, Pal 1) - Castle with ally as a swift action; you get +2 on a melee attack roll while the ally gets +2 to AC and saves
Summon Marked HomunculusDrMk (Art 1, Sor/Wiz 1) - Summons a homunculus for 1 hour/level, scales to better types of homunculus as you level; the packmate (shaped like a living chest) is fun if you use the variant where summon spells call the same creature each time
Swift ReadyFoW (Art 2, Ass 2, Bard 2, Dusk 2, Hex 2) - Cast on equipment, and later equip it from from anywhere within line of sight as a swift action
Artifact SpellsSoX: Jack Vance callback spells which must be memorised directly from giant immobile tablets and can only be cast 1/year

[quetzalcoatl5]

Baneblade ( https://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/unapproachable-east--33/bladebane--3472/index.html ) on a Paladin with Battle Blessing