Quote Originally Posted by SharkForce View Post
well stinking cloud and sleet storm, for the same reasons as web. also earthquake and reverse gravity. sadly sorcerers don't get magic jar, as careful would be an amazing option for that spell :) good to remember for multiclass though i suppose.

hypnotic pattern, fear, and confusion. they don't create zones, but any time you want to use them after enemies have closed the distance to your party, there is a world of difference between careful and non-careful.

basically you're just looking for spells that have an AoE save effect that is not *half* effect on a successful save, but rather no effect. i agree that careful fireball isn't that amazing (unless everyone has evasion or equivalent). and if the only thing your sorcerer could do was fireball, careful wouldn't be that great. but careful lets you use some very powerful offensive debuffs safely and it is definitely worth it to consider adding one or two of those spells to your selections purely on the strength of careful spell.
I just wanted to mention I recently started playing a sorcerer with careful spell (the first time I have played the class in any edition) so I find this discussion very useful.

I was wondering about Quickened Spell. Conventional wisdom is that this is an essential pick and for gishes and blaster sorcerers it certainly is. But for more of a control-oriented sorcerer like myself it seems ... solid but perhaps not essential. So I didn't take it. Is there is something that I am missing?