Sorcerer spells [3.5]

[Project_Mayhem]

I'm making a level 9 sorc for an upcoming 3.5 game, and I'm a bit rusty. Couple of points to this thread; first, general spell advice would be appreciated. Secondly, does anybody know the name and source of that low level teleport spell that swaps you and an ally?

[Thespianus]

I'm making a level 9 sorc for an upcoming 3.5 game, and I'm a bit rusty. Couple of points to this thread; first, general spell advice would be appreciated. Secondly, does anybody know the name and source of that low level teleport spell that swaps you and an ally?

The spell is called Benign Transposition. In Spell Compendium?

[Project_Mayhem]

That's right ... what level is it?

[Reynard]

BT is 1st level spell.

Are you going for blasty or battlefield control?

[Project_Mayhem]

Kind of a mix of both. This is what I have at the moment.

Level 1: Grease, Charm Person, Silent Image, Benign transposition, Lesser Orb of Acid

Level 2: Glitterdust, Alter Self, Invisibility, Scorching Ray

Level 3: Slow, Fly, Wind Wall

Level 4: Evards Tentacles of Forced Intrusion, Enervation

[gbprime]

Decent list. I'd recommend Confusion over Enervation, myself.

Are you looking at feats and prestige classes as well? If so, may I recommend Searing Spell out of Sandstorm? (Adds 1 level to any fire spell, but the spell then IGNORES fire resistance, making Scorching Ray universally useful.) Also, if you want survivability, you might consider using your 9th level feat on Minor Shapeshift and spending a 4th level slot on Polymorph. (You can then use a free action every round to give yourself temporary HP equal to your caster level.)

And every sorcerer should consider the bloodline feats from Dragon Mag Compendium. One of those (all you're allowed) will add 1 spell known per spell level around a theme. (Air, Fire, Celestial, etc) Pick the one you like for the 1 or 2 spells you really like. Air Bloodline, for example would get you Obscuring Mist, Gust of Wind, Windwall, and Shout as spells known and would later give you Telekinesis, Control Winds, et al.

[Project_Mayhem]

But Enervation is sweeeeet!

Also Polymorph is totally banned or I'd be on it. Searing spell and the dragon feats sound good, but I'll need DM approval

[Greenish]

Kind of a mix of both. This is what I have at the moment.

Spoiler

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Level 1: Grease, Charm Person, Silent Image, Benign transposition, Lesser Orb of Acid

Level 2: Glitterdust, Alter Self, Invisibility, Scorching Ray

Level 3: Slow, Fly, Wind Wall

Level 4: Evards Tentacles of Forced Intrusion, Enervation

Needs moar dragon!

Namely, Wings of Flurry (RotD) is an excellent blasty spell: 1d6/level damage (untyped, uncapped!), decent AoE, ref save or dazed. Wings of Cover from the same is almost broken defensive spell. They're 4th and 2nd levels, respectively.

[Hyfigh]

Solo's guide is a great place for ideas. His spell list is fantastic. The guide is thurough, and should help you throughout your career.

[Tokuhara]

Quick question on spells, while I'm thinking about it: Can you ignite a Grease spell, with say a cone of fire?

[Greenish]

Quick question on spells, while I'm thinking about it: Can you ignite a Grease spell, with say a cone of fire?

RAW says nothing about it, and SC has a 2nd level spell that works like Grease except that it can be set to fire.

[Tokuhara]

RAW says nothing about it, and SC has a 2nd level spell that works like Grease except that it can be set to fire.

I just thought flaming grease would make an ideal battlefield control

[kme]

What would I change.

lvl1:Lesser Orb of Acid is nothing special. Magic missile is better in almost every way.
lvl2:Alter Self can be useful, but if you want to use it only for disguise, better pick a hat of disguise. It affects your cloths too, which is a big problem for alter self. If you drop it, web or cloud of bewilderment are good choices.
lvl3:Slow is unnecessary, you already have glitterdust to target will saves. Haste will be stronger in many situations and it is good to have some buffs instead of all offensive spells. Otherwise, pick some fort or ref targeting spell, stinking cloud or fireball (you cannot blast without this or something similar, single target spells won't cut it, especially if they require a range touch) from core.
Wind Wall is very situational, not worth a spell known. If you are paranoid, pick 2-3 scrolls, it's a no save spell.

In general, it is nice if you have at least one spell for each save. Pick heighten if you are worried about save DCs. One feat I would greatly recommend is sculpt spell. It will significantly improve your grease, glitterdust and later tentacles. It also combos well with some of the other choices that I mentioned (web, cloud of bewilderment, stinking cloud, fireball).

[Project_Mayhem]

Needs moar dragon!

Namely, Wings of Flurry (RotD) is an excellent blasty spell: 1d6/level damage (untyped, uncapped!), decent AoE, ref save or dazed. Wings of Cover from the same is almost broken defensive spell. They're 4th and 2nd levels, respectively.

Both of those spells failed to get approval unfortunately

What would I change.

lvl1:Lesser Orb of Acid is nothing special. Magic missile is better in almost every way.
lvl2:Alter Self can be useful, but if you want to use it only for disguise, better pick a hat of disguise. It affects your cloths too, which is a big problem for alter self. If you drop it, web or cloud of bewilderment are good choices.
lvl3:Slow is unnecessary, you already have glitterdust to target will saves. Haste will be stronger in many situations and it is good to have some buffs instead of all offensive spells. Otherwise, pick some fort or ref targeting spell, stinking cloud or fireball (you cannot blast without this or something similar, single target spells won't cut it, especially if they require a range touch) from core.
Wind Wall is very situational, not worth a spell known. If you are paranoid, pick 2-3 scrolls, it's a no save spell.

In general, it is nice if you have at least one spell for each save. Pick heighten if you are worried about save DCs. One feat I would greatly recommend is sculpt spell. It will significantly improve your grease, glitterdust and later tentacles. It also combos well with some of the other choices that I mentioned (web, cloud of bewilderment, stinking cloud, fireball).

1.) I wasn't sure about magic missile. It was considered - I might swap it out.
2.) Alter Self is brilliant. I'm using it for the +8 natural armour thanks
3.) Yeah I'd forgotten about the whole different saves thing. I've got a fort AOE and a Will AOE. Fireball sucks though right?

And yeah - I took metamagic specialist and am human, so I'm going to take as much metamagic as I can

[satorian]

On Magic Missile vs. Orbs... yes. The 4th level orb spells are great, and are wonderful metamagic fodder. Not so the 1st level ones. I'd go with magic missile. 9th level is kind of a sweet spot for it. You might end up switching it out. Probably not, though.

Alter Self is an excellent spell to be abused. Keep it, but only if your dm will allow you to gain all the neat stuff that comes with it. DR/flight/etc. If he lets you turn into an avariel, you don't need to burn 3rd level spells yourself to fly and may consider giving up Fly.

Wings of Cover and Flurry. Yes.

Enervation is sweet. But remember, with all those rays, you are going to want archery feats, which sucks. You should be picking neat feats from races of the dragon. Consider Silverbrow human as a race. Consider subbing your familiar out for either the racial sub level in Races or for metamagic.

[Project_Mayhem]

I'm waiting on an email from my DM, before I decide on alter self.

And I'd feel a bit jammy taking an obscure subrace for purely mechanical reasons. It's like all those water orc melee builds.

Aaand, I'm pretty sure I can't use races of the dragon.

[Greenish]

Fireball sucks though right?

It's serviceable for it's purpose - clearing out massed weak mooks.

For a sorcerer I might look for something more flexible, though fireball has certain old school charm.

[gbprime]

3.) Yeah I'd forgotten about the whole different saves thing. I've got a fort AOE and a Will AOE. Fireball sucks though right?

Fireball doesn't suck, no. It's part of a complete breakfast, so to speak, and you have that covered with a Fort-blasty spell and a Will-blasty spell. Fireball as a Reflex-blasty spell complements those nicely, allows you to auto-counterspell incoming Fireballs should you ready an action to do so (it's SO common, bad guys will use them against you, guaranteed), and lends itself very nicely to the aforementioned Searing Spell metamagic feat.

[ericgrau]

Common question. Google search spell list such as "wizard spell list site:www.giantitp.com" or "sorcerer spell list site:www.giantitp.com". It's the same either way, only difference is that sorcs would only use a wizard's general purpose spell list not spells that a wizzy would only swap in on ocassion. Beware of common misconceptions telling you to pick shadow spells (they suck hard, you don't need "more versatility" when you can know as many general purpose spells as a wizard can prepare) or all blasty spells (you shouldn't have all of any one kind of spell, it's redundant and a waste of spells known)

As for fireball it's awesome sauce for mopping op mobs. Think about it, large AoE. 3-4 targets is a total of 30-40d6, more if empowered or etc., and it stacks with your allies efforts to mop up their dwindling HP. Even as the most common resistance fire resistance is fairly uncommon, and you can always switch spells when it does happen. Especially as a sorc who can blow all his 3rd level spells per day on something else. I can see getting a low number of damage spells if you want, especially single target where the above does not apply, but you should have at least 1 and fireball is a great choice there.

EDIT: Oh ya. Another difference is that sorcerers benefit more from situational metamagic than wizards like heighten spell, still spell and maybe silent spell because they can apply them spontaneously when desired (and not when not desired). Extend spell for low level buffs is better on a 3,000 gp metamagic rod. Other good metamagic is still good for sorcs, though they get shafted on quicken unless you get the PHB 2 feat.

[Shadowleaf]

Beware of common misconceptions telling you to pick shadow spells (they suck hard, you don't need "more versatility" when you can know as many general purpose spells as a wizard can prepare) or all blasty spells (you shouldn't have all of any one kind of spell, it's redundant and a waste of spells known)

Shadow Evocation is awesome if you build for it. They're more than useful if you do not. They don't suck hard at all.

[ericgrau]

Maybe if you can get it 120% real with shadowcrafter cheese. But changing all those no saves, hard to remove spells into a will save, can remove is baaaaaad. Or even spells with a save, now get 2 saves and 1 level lower. You really don't want a lower level on damage spells, and you really don't want 2 saves on conjurations. It's very weak for something you don't even need, because your known list is just as long as a wizard's general purpose prepared list. There's really know reason for these spells to be related to the word "sorcerer". There is a tiny handful of utility options, better for a wizard who doesn't have to keep the spell prepared, but damage, battlefield control, etc. are much weaker with shadow spells.

[gbprime]

Shadow Evocation is awesome if you build for it. They're more than useful if you do not. They don't suck hard at all.

Shadow Evocation gives the illusion (pun intended) of versatility. When in reality, a sorcerer doesn't NEED versatility, (s)he needs POWER. Pick a small handful of "I want to kill people" spells and apply metamagic to them so that they always work. (Searing Spell as an example again, one of my favorites) Then you use the rest of your spells to fill in the buffing/debuffing roles your party needs.

Yes, you may get only 3 to 5 spells per spell level, but once you add in wands, spellstaves, and a bloodline feat, that's all you NEED. Unless you're going to specialize in those shadow spells so that they always work, don't bother.

[valadil]

You'll have to wait a level, but Wall of Stone is fantastic and would satisfy your want of a reflex save based spell. It's nice on a sorc because it's just one spell but has so much versatility. Use it with a save to take one enemy out of the combat. Draw a line through the battlefield to separate several enemies for a couple rounds. Or build bridges and other utilities.

Another good damage spell to consider is Melf's Unicorn Arrow. The damage is rather high and I think it's force based. It can push enemies around. IIRC it's third level.

[Tvtyrant]

Besides, the blast spell you really want to use Shadow stuff for is Disintegrate for nuking undead, and you do not get it :(

On the other hand, the things you summon can still use their own spells, so picking Fiends to summon gets you extra spells as normal.

[gbprime]

You'll have to wait a level, but Wall of Stone is fantastic and would satisfy your want of a reflex save based spell. It's nice on a sorc because it's just one spell but has so much versatility. Use it with a save to take one enemy out of the combat. Draw a line through the battlefield to separate several enemies for a couple rounds. Or build bridges and other utilities.

Wall of Force is even better. It doesn't have those out of combat uses, but it's pretty impervious. And it's also invisible, meaning your enemy wastes one extra round figuring out that there's a wall there in the first place.

And I'm a big believer in stopping charging cavalry by getting them to run into an invisible barrier at top speed. Hilarity.

[kme]

Shadow spells are unreliable. They are only good for utility depending on how your DMs rules replicating stuff such as contingency or phantom steed that usually requires you to disbelieve your own spell.

The big difference between wizards and sorcerers spell selection is that wizard wants to pick spells that are only meant to be cast once in single combat. Sorcerer on the other hand can afford picking those "brute force" spells since he can always decide to cast a certain spell more then once. Blasting spells and all stackable spells fall in that category. Enervation for example, you cast it once on a BBEG, 2 negative levels not enough? Cast again, 5 not enough? 7 will be. Wizard usually cannot afford to prepare a single spell 3 times.

That's why fireball is good, it can be applied to almost any situation and if cast enough times it will do job. Of course, you want to avoid wasting unnecessary slots, but having the option is always good.

[Keld Denar]

Wall of Force is also vertical only and 2D, which means you can't scuplt it around a foe without 4 seperate castings, and you can never use it to make a lid or floor. Its only really good in close quarters underground where you can anchor it to other surfaces. Wall of Stone is great because you can encapsule someone fairly easily with just one casting, taking them out of the fight for as long as it takes them to escape.

[ericgrau]

Ya wall of force has got to be my favorite battlefield control spell, or at least one of my favorites. My first battlefield control sorcerer had both though, because wall of stone also lets you make bridges (or other horizontal barriers) and embattlements. A later lower level caster got wall of ice because it's even more versatile but as you get more and more versatile the walls get weaker and weaker. Wall of ice merely delayed foes for a round with its low HP total and zero hardness.

I've never ever, however, been able to encapsulate someone with a wall of stone despite much time spent looking for good opportunities. They get a reflex save if you make the wall too tight, plus it's not really worth it to trap only 1 foe in a thin destructible wall. If it's only 1 foe I might use a resilient sphere, and even then I didn't usually think it was worth it. You're more likely to trap 1 or preferably multiple foes on one side of a room or a corner with wall of force (or a straight wall of stone out of the foe's reach, but that's not curved now is it). If battlefield control is your goal then wall of force is best. The others merely have other minor side uses.

EDIT: Btw, both become wall of maybe if you shadow them whereas the real spells are reliable and in the case of wall of force almost unstoppable.

[Asheram]

Wall of Force is even better. It doesn't have those out of combat uses, but it's pretty impervious. And it's also invisible, meaning your enemy wastes one extra round figuring out that there's a wall there in the first place.

And I'm a big believer in stopping charging cavalry by getting them to run into an invisible barrier at top speed. Hilarity.

You want hilarity? ;) Invisible spell and prismatic wall... Muhahahaha.

[gbprime]

You want hilarity? ;) Invisible spell and prismatic wall... Muhahahaha.

I like.

But I try never to subject my opponents to anything that might result in plane shifting them. They're much harder to loot that way.