IT'SATRAP! - Worst Spells Per Level [3.5]

[taltamir]

I agree with most of them Saph, but:

Erase - very useful for various RP and non combat purposes. Can be used to erase an arcane mark, a spell, or just regular text. And as for magical traps, if they are on something that you wish to protect from being damaged by the explosion, this beats having a summon trigger them or some such.

Contagion - unlike a normal disease, contagion immediately deals attribute damage without incubation period. The save DCs however are laughably low.

Caster chooses which disease:
Disease DC Damage
Blinding sickness 16 1d4 Str
Cackle fever 16 1d6 Wis
Filth fever 12 1d3 Dex and 1d3 Con
Mindfire 12 1d4 Int
Red ache 15 1d6 Str
Shakes 13 1d8 Dex
Slimy doom 14 1d4 Con

Each time a victim takes 2 or more points of Strength damage from blinding sickness, he or she must make another Fortitude save (using the disease’s save DC) or be permanently blinded.

[Saph]

Erase I can buy that it's got social and utility value, but Contagion really is terrible.

Let's say you want to blind someone. You can cast the 4th-level spell Contagion, requiring them to pass a DC 21 (or whatever) Fort save and then another DC 16 Fort save and for you to roll 2+ on a d4 . . . or you can just cast Blindness, which is 2nd-level and only allows one save. The 2nd-level spell is more powerful than the 4th-level one.

[Teron]

Contagion obviously isn't a combat spell. It's mainly an indiscriminate jerk spell; used with a bit of finesse, it can also soften up a community before an attack, distract and occupy good clerics, and so on. In short, it's a villain spell, and reasonably useful as such, but PCs won't have much use for it outside an evil campaign.

[daggaz]

Im actually surprised to see resistance on this one. As said before, its a cantrip, so its free. But not only that, the point is you dont use it in battle. As soon as you are out of initiative, the action economy is non-existant, so who cares if it takes "one standard action" to cast?

Cast it on the rogue before he attempts to disarm some horrible trap for which he does not have an auto success and is likely to set it off..

Cast it on a hero before he quaffs a potion which has an unfortunate negative side effect.


Remember, its a level 0 spell, so at level one, you dont have access to batmans bat-belt, and +1 can really come in handy when your best save is maybe +5. Even at higher levels, I have always kept one resistance memorized for that one situation where a +1 could save your butt. You never know whats going to happen when you are out of your better spells..

[Saph]

Even at higher levels, I have always kept one resistance memorized for that one situation where a +1 could save your butt. You never know whats going to happen when you are out of your better spells..

Slight problem - Resistance gives a resistance bonus.

Cloak of resistance? Also gives a resistance bonus. The two don't stack.

So any character who has a cloak of resistance, or equivalent - which at mid-levels and up is everyone - gets no benefit from that cantrip at all.

That's why Resistance is terrible. It doesn't stack with what's probably the single most common protective item in all of D&D.

[PhoenixRivers]

Im actually surprised to see resistance on this one. As said before, its a cantrip, so its free. But not only that, the point is you dont use it in battle. As soon as you are out of initiative, the action economy is non-existant, so who cares if it takes "one standard action" to cast?

Cast it on the rogue before he attempts to disarm some horrible trap for which he does not have an auto success.

Cast it on a hero before he quaffs a potion which has an unfortunate negative side effect.

Cast it on the dwarf so he has that tiny bit more of a chance to jump the pit and escape whatever incoming death is incoming.

Remember, its a level 0 spell, so at level one, you dont have access to batmans bat-belt, and +1 can really come in handy when your max rank is 4.
Even at higher levels, I have always kept one resistance memorized for that one situation where a +1 could save your butt. You never know whats going to happen when you are out of your better spells..

The Resistance line doesn't really come into its own until you get into the Spell Compendium versions. (which is the time players get cloaks of resistance, as well)

+1 to one save just isn't enough to justify any slot, even a level 0. It's not about action economy, it's about spell economy. You'll get more use from a detect magic, an open/close, a light spell.

You're marketing it as a utility, but it just doesn't pull its weight, even for that. At best, it provides a mild increase in success for a generally non-lethal effect at levels 1-4. That's the absolute "at best" scenario. And it only benefits you when you roll exactly what is needed to succeed. Win by more than one? You'd have won without it. Lose? It didn't help.

Spells that provide the all day boost give a reasonable chance to see it actually matter. The level 0? 95% of the time, won't. The other 5%? You'd have likely gotten through fine on the failure.

[daggaz]

True, but not every game is played where the DM runs Magik-Mart. By 15th lvl, yeah, I would hope to god the spell is out of use, but at 7th? Maybe you only found 2 or 3 cloaks of resistance... who knows. Its still a useful spell, and costs you nothing if cast out of battle.

Especially when you look at some of the alternatives. Cuz yeah, daze blows hard chunks.

[Saph]

Especially when you look at some of the alternatives.

Detect Magic. Open/Close. Dancing Lights. Prestidigitation. All are far better than Resistance. Wizard cantrips are actually amazingly useful. Even something like Ray of Frost will probably do more good at low levels than Resistance.

[PhoenixRivers]

True, but not every game is played where the DM runs Magik-Mart. By 15th lvl, yeah, I would hope to god the spell is out of use, but at 7th? Maybe you only found 2 or 3 cloaks of resistance... who knows. Its still a useful spell, and costs you nothing if cast out of battle.

Especially when you look at some of the alternatives. Cuz yeah, daze blows hard chunks.

The Resistance spells from Spell compendium basically act like cloaks of resistance. So no need for Magik Mart.

Daze is far more useful, at low levels. Force an enemy to save or lose a turn?

That's about the best possible effect you can get out of a level 0 spell. A shift in action economy for the party.

[daggaz]

"typeo" on my part, I meant flare.. get them mixed up in my head..

[Tyndmyr]

Detect Magic. Open/Close. Dancing Lights. Prestidigitation. All are far better than Resistance. Wizard cantrips are actually amazingly useful. Even something like Ray of Frost will probably do more good at low levels than Resistance.

If you have dancing lights, you don't need Light. Open/Close is situationally handy, but not frequently useful. Detect Magic...can't argue with that one. It's good. Prestidigitation is circumstantial, again. Ray of Frost is ok at level 1, if only because you have few spell slots(ditto acid splash), but they *very* quickly become worthless as you gain more spell slots. Frankly, you're usually better shooting a crossbow than using either of those spells, due to more damage and better range.

The biggest reason to take it at low/moderate levels is that cantrips slots are of very low value. You frankly won't use them all most days, or even close to it. Also, the good ones are readily duplicated with items. Detect magic is a frequent choice. Sure, stacking rules make it irrelevant later, but until then, resistance is fine.

Think of it this way. Your rogue finds a trap with a save. Odds are decent that it's not the only trap, and hey, disarming might fail catastrophically anyhow. DCs and bonuses are both low...say he has a +5 reflex, and the DC is 10...you made it 20% less likely that he will fail.

[Saph]

Think of it this way. Your rogue finds a trap with a save. Odds are decent that it's not the only trap, and hey, disarming might fail catastrophically anyhow.

That's what Open/Close is for. :) A large fraction of traps are on doors, chests, etc. After the rogue detects the trap and decides that it's dangerous, you stand well back and cast your spell.

[Tyndmyr]

Ah, see we normally get far, far too many traps for that to be a realistic approach. You just slap the resistance on the rogue, and have him disarm as many as possible before it wears off. It helps if you find and leave traps until you have a good number at once. Sometimes possible, sometimes not.

I agree that it's weak, just not really a trap. After all, you learn it for free, and the slots are pretty unimportant.

[Kurald Galain]

Ah, see we normally get far, far too many traps for that to be a realistic approach. You just slap the resistance on the rogue, and have him disarm as many as possible before it wears off. It helps if you find and leave traps until you have a good number at once.

The thing is that even if there are so many traps around, statistically, casting Open on one door or chest is (much) more likely to be of benefit than giving the rogue +1 to his saves. The resistance spell only makes a difference in one out of every twenty saving throws; how many saves exactly do you expect the rogue to make in one minute?

[taltamir]

Erase I can buy that it's got social and utility value, but Contagion really is terrible.

Let's say you want to blind someone. You can cast the 4th-level spell Contagion, requiring them to pass a DC 21 (or whatever) Fort save and then another DC 16 Fort save and for you to roll 2+ on a d4 . . . or you can just cast Blindness, which is 2nd-level and only allows one save. The 2nd-level spell is more powerful than the 4th-level one.

well, yes... as I mentioned, horrible saves..
but it is not a case of "cast and come back a few weeks later"...

If you have dancing lights, you don't need Light. Open/Close is situationally handy, but not frequently useful. Detect Magic...can't argue with that one. It's good. Prestidigitation is circumstantial, again. Ray of Frost is ok at level 1, if only because you have few spell slots(ditto acid splash), but they *very* quickly become worthless as you gain more spell slots. Frankly, you're usually better shooting a crossbow than using either of those spells, due to more damage and better range.

The biggest reason to take it at low/moderate levels is that cantrips slots are of very low value. You frankly won't use them all most days, or even close to it. Also, the good ones are readily duplicated with items. Detect magic is a frequent choice. Sure, stacking rules make it irrelevant later, but until then, resistance is fine.

Think of it this way. Your rogue finds a trap with a save. Odds are decent that it's not the only trap, and hey, disarming might fail catastrophically anyhow. DCs and bonuses are both low...say he has a +5 reflex, and the DC is 10...you made it 20% less likely that he will fail.

Prestidigitation is the single most used spell in the game I am currently playing.. multiple trips to sewer means using it to clean... cleaned wet blood off of a book (had to do more work to get the stuff that already soaked in), cleaned ourselves after battles from the guts and grime so we don't look suspecious, etc... You can't have enough cleans :)

[PhoenixRivers]

If you have dancing lights, you don't need Light. Open/Close is situationally handy, but not frequently useful. Detect Magic...can't argue with that one. It's good. Prestidigitation is circumstantial, again. Ray of Frost is ok at level 1, if only because you have few spell slots(ditto acid splash), but they *very* quickly become worthless as you gain more spell slots. Frankly, you're usually better shooting a crossbow than using either of those spells, due to more damage and better range.

The biggest reason to take it at low/moderate levels is that cantrips slots are of very low value. You frankly won't use them all most days, or even close to it. Also, the good ones are readily duplicated with items. Detect magic is a frequent choice. Sure, stacking rules make it irrelevant later, but until then, resistance is fine.

Think of it this way. Your rogue finds a trap with a save. Odds are decent that it's not the only trap, and hey, disarming might fail catastrophically anyhow. DCs and bonuses are both low...say he has a +5 reflex, and the DC is 10...you made it 20% less likely that he will fail.

True. He is 20% less likely to fail.
It's still 95% likely that the spell will be of no use.

If the die roll comes up anything other than a 4? Then resistance didn't grant you a success or failure. You'd have succeeded or failed on your own. (a 3 or less will fail with or without the spell. A 5 or higher will pass with or without the spell. Only a roll of 4 results in a success or failure based on the spell. Odds of rolling that 4? 5%.)

This spell is useful 5% of the time, for 1 minute. Assuming you make one saving throw every round for that minute, the spell has about a 40.1% chance of turning at least one failure into a success. the other 59.9% ? The spell did absolutely nothing for you.

And that's assuming 10 saves in 10 rounds. More realistically is 5 saves (22.6% chance of being useful, 77.4% chance of doing nothing).

Now, if I have to cast a spell 4 times before it has any impact at all? That's not what I'd consider useful.

[Tyndmyr]

Three or four, most likely. Hmm, that's a good point.

Eh, move it to the trap pile.

Light/Dancing lights? I can't see a reason to prepare both of them...and dancing lights seems more flexible. Is it reasonable to dump light?

Endure Elements is pretty weak. I guess it's potentially useful, though.

I would also like to submit Hypnotism. Fascinate several creatures for 2d4 rounds. Sounds ok...but you have much better save or lose spells, including sleep and grease at that level. Worse, they need to both see and hear you to be affected, and if it's in combat, they get a +2 to their save.

Ventriloquism. Trying to think of a use for this that isn't replicated by Ghost Sound that's actually reasonable is...difficult.

Tounges. It's like Comprehend Languages, except higher level, and doesn't work for reading. The *only* advantage is that you can cast it on another person. How often does it matter if you or another person in the party is doing the talking? Especially if the caster is a sorc, and thus, already the party face.

[Thespianus]

Detect Magic. Open/Close. Dancing Lights. Prestidigitation. All are far better than Resistance. Wizard cantrips are actually amazingly useful. Even something like Ray of Frost will probably do more good at low levels than Resistance.

Acid Splash for your Arcane Rogue is my favorite cantrip. 1D3 of damage with no save and no SR, with a ranged attack roll? Hell yes!

With Craven and Hunter's Eye (with the Unseen Seer PrC), it's just plain wonderful. At level 8, I'm hitting Greased or Glitterdusted monsters with 1D3+6D6+8 from a safe distance, basically for free.

Granted, a wand of 50 Acid Splashes cost 375 GP or so, which makes it just ridiculously sweet to at least mid-levels.

[Sinfire Titan]

I think there was a list of spells by school over on Gleemax that gave really bad ones a turkey smiley. The Conception The upgrade broke it though (still readable if you can ignore the :turkey: formating appearing instead of smilieys.

The GOD handbook was rescued from Gleemax's Explosion.

[PhoenixRivers]

Tongues. It's like Comprehend Languages, except higher level, and doesn't work for reading. The *only* advantage is that you can cast it on another person. How often does it matter if you or another person in the party is doing the talking? Especially if the caster is a sorc, and thus, already the party face.

Comprehend Languages is quite useful for understanding what's being said.
It's useless for speaking it back. It just lets you read and hear. Not speak or write.

Tongues, however, lets you understand spoken language and talk back. Speaking back is more than situationally useful.

[Rhiannon87]

5th-level
Mind Fog - If the targets fail a Will save, it gives them -10 to their Will saves. Except, if you can get them to fail a Will save, why not hit them with something that'll actually take them out of the fight? While this one isn't totally useless, it's really hard to make it effective.

Eh, I've been in situations where Mind Fog has really screwed up a party. Mind Fog followed by enchantment spells, like dominate? Really sucks. My character almost died when her rogue boyfriend got mind fogged then dominated by a vampire, then he got to make a full attack against her. He got sneak attack on two of the three hits because he's an invisible blade and he can feint as a free action and she failed her sense motive checks. She went from max HP to the mid-teens thanks to 1d4+8d6+3 twice.

[Kurald Galain]

Eh, I've been in situations where Mind Fog has really screwed up a party. Mind Fog followed by enchantment spells, like dominate? Really sucks.

The point is that mind fog + dominate takes two turns to pull off and requires two saves (albeit one at a huge penalty) whereas regular dominate takes only one turn to pull off and requires only one save. It's the dominate that's nasty, not the mind fog.

[technophile]

Eh, I've been in situations where Mind Fog has really screwed up a party. Mind Fog followed by enchantment spells, like dominate? Really sucks. My character almost died when her rogue boyfriend got mind fogged then dominated by a vampire.

Except if he failed the Will save vs. Mind Fog, he'd have failed it against Dominate too...

That said, I could see it making sense if you had a lot of spells/abilities that gave Will saves; you could spam Mind Fog until it succeeds, then proceed with your other spells, which are now more likely to succeed. Of course, given that most Will saves are save-or-lose anyway, just spamming the actual spells until you fail one is probably enough.

[quick_comment]

Well, for starters, you can simply ignore the entire Evocation school, other than Contigency and Defenstrating Sphere.

Not true. Evocation has good spells, its just that it has less of them than conjuration.

[Rhiannon87]

The point is that mind fog + dominate takes two turns to pull off and requires two saves (albeit one at a huge penalty) whereas regular dominate takes only one turn to pull off and requires only one save. It's the dominate that's nasty, not the mind fog.

The vampire cast Mind Fog before he was in range, and then while we were all busy fighting an undead giant he waltzed in and dominated the rogue.

Luckily our cleric was able to cast magic circle against evil on said rogue before a) the rogue could attack again and b) the cleric got torn into little bitty pieces by the giant.

Mind Fog affects multiple targets as well, and can be cast at a relatively decent distance. It's a good covering-your-bases spell, imo; you cast it in the surprise round, hit several people with it, and the odds are at least one of them is going to fail their save. Then you hit the failed-save people with dominate or whatever. If you are, for some unknown reason, a lone caster, it's a terrible spell. But if you've got the drop on enemies and you have big hulking brutes to distract the enemies while you're casting your will-save-or-suck spells in the first round, it can be quite useful.

[Indon]

The point is that mind fog + dominate takes two turns to pull off and requires two saves (albeit one at a huge penalty) whereas regular dominate takes only one turn to pull off and requires only one save. It's the dominate that's nasty, not the mind fog.

The fog lasts for 30 minutes. You can cast the spell well before combat and still cast a Will Save spell during the surprise round for an ambush.

Edit: Also, it affects multiple targets with its' potent save penalty.

[Tyndmyr]

Comprehend Languages is quite useful for understanding what's being said.
It's useless for speaking it back. It just lets you read and hear. Not speak or write.

Tongues, however, lets you understand spoken language and talk back. Speaking back is more than situationally useful.

If you understand a language, then could you not speak it back, albeit in a limited form, unless your physiology prevents it somehow? After all, you're comprehending what they say, not merely having it translated into a language you understand.

Likewise, if you can look at a written language in a book, and understand what it's saying, you should be able to write it, at least to a reasonable degree.

[Draco Ignifer]

I've always viewed comprehend language as, if not magical translation, then magically allowing you to understand what's being said to you at the time. It definitely doesn't give you an innate knowledge of all languages. If they say a phrase, you might be able to repeat it back to them, but even slightly complex uses of language would be beyond your capabilities.

[jiriku]

Comprehend languages explicitly does not grant the ability to speak or write the language you're comprehending. I guess this is discount-bin magic.

[Tyndmyr]

Gotcha. Upgraded to "situationally useful", then.

Still wouldn't reccomend it as a very high priority pick, of course.

Is someone going to make a master list of all these?