The Best Arcane Spells

[Roquen]

Hey,

which are the best arcane spells? It surely depends on what you wanna do, but lets leave this kind of disscussion for later, lets talk about any type of arcane spell. Don't limit yourselves in the high levels! :)

Thanks.

PS.: if there is a similar thread, please point it out to me.

[Dhavaer]

Prestidigitation, Slow, Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, Timestop, Glitterdust, Gate, Forcecage, Phantom Steed, Overland Flight.

[Jasdoif]

You will almost certainly be directed to TLN's guide to wizards at some point, might as well mention it now.

[Ditto]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500

EDIT: Hm, third isn't bad. I'm normally so far behind when I try to jump in answering this question.

[Saph]

Level 1 - Grease. So many uses.

Level 2 - Glitterdust. Blind enemies and stop them attacking you! Reveal invisible creatures! Stop enemies from hiding! Allow the rogue to sneak attack them! All this and it's No-SR, too.

Level 3 - Haste. Haste is awesome. You could be a wiz/sorcerer who cast nothing at all but Haste, and you'd still be worth your weight in gold to the party.

Level 4 - Charm Monster. Charm Person is great, but many enemies aren't humanoids, and the 1/hour duration can be an issue. Charm Monster fixes both these problems.

Level 5 - Baleful Polymorph. Because nothing's more fun than turning your enemy into a hamster or a chicken.

- Saph

[Gavin Sage]

So nobody else can say it.... Fireball

Face it have we met a wizard that doesn't know it. And blowing enemies away by the boat-load. That's the whole purpose of being a mage right there I think.

[Jacob Orlove]

The following two lists don't cover all possible spells, but are really, really good otherwise (note: both contain profanity, although some words are slightly masked):

Spells that Kill People

Utility Spells

Fireball is on the latter list, mostly because you can hit targets 600' away with it.

[Jimp]

Fireball

Face it have we met a wizard that doesn't know it.

Every wizard that I have ever played.

[kjones]

Compared to what you could be doing with 3rd level spells, Fireball just seems kind of silly, dunnit?

And that's just in Core...

[Gralamin]

The greatest core 3rd level spell: Dispel Magic
Close 2nd: Phantom Steed

Outside Core: Shivering Touch From frostburn

[kemmotar]

silence cast with its center being the enemy caster...If you yourself keep your distance of 30 ft he can also be an annoyance to other casters especially at low levels.

Against a single enemy, antigravity or if you have a familiar transfer the concentration to it. Now you have effectively made useless a barbarian/fighter/rogue.

Polymorph the other into a human being with no legs or arms...you have now effectively made him useless without killing him...

mirage arcana or illusory terrain to make armies jump if cliffs.

sphere of invisibility and silence, now your party can get past the guards all together without rolling checks.

arcane sight- tell you who is a caster and who's not, see invisibilty, see what is a magic item and what it not, see magical auras to cast dispell or not

gate--position a gate to the fire plane horizontally over the city you want to destroy. Designate the position of the gate in the fire plane within a lava river. Wave goodbye to the town.

Fly-->Invisibility-->Flaming sphere and just guide it to whatever you want to set aflame without becoming visible...

Mirage arcana the gate of the castle that the enemy army is trying to take out of existence.

Arcane mark the symbol of nerrul on the cleric of pelor's back just to laugh at him...or inversely the symbol of pelor on the cleric of nerrul's back if you wanna kill him without actually doing anything...

Deser Binding from sandstorm, make you enemy into the sand of the desert and let him roam aimlessly for 1year per caster level or turn him into sand in an hourglass and keep him with you. He can speak and hear everything but can't do anything...so you can ask him anything you want and use his knowledge for 1 year/ caster level. When you're bored of him break the hourglass to kill him

[kjones]

Polymorph the other into a human being with no legs or arms...you have now effectively made him useless without killing him...

Baleful Polymorph (? You didn't specify which...) can do a lot of "save-or-suck" things, but surprisingly, this isn't one of them. Even if you go by Polymorph Other from 3.0 ed., you still only turn them into "an average member of the species". This is so you can't polymorph into a bodybuilder human with 18 STR, but it also means that you can't polymorph your enemies into a limbless fellow.

[kemmotar]

with 3rd level spells, Fireball just seems kind of silly, dunnit?

And that's just in Core...

Indeed fireball isn't the solution to everything but you easily destroy everything you need to. Fly at a high altitude and "air bomb" the enemy camp...alternatively stand at the top of a nearby hill/mountain overlooking the bombing site and kill everything that moves while they sleep. Have the rest of the party be around the camp so they can kill off the weakened enemies and you can dimension door closer when needed.

Also with multiple permanent symbols of death you can make the perfect trap for anything you wanna keep there...for example you phylactery...Jut cast them around the room with the phylactery in the middle. Set the "password" as anything touching that goes within 5 feet of the phylactery or the symbols or casting a spell will detonate them. Thus 150 damage per symbol going off at the same time and then recharging 10 minutes later. Just failing one or two of the saves can be fatal...imagine having ten of those in a single room...besides, looking for traps won't help since there are none...just make sure that they cannot be seen from outside the room.

[kemmotar]

Baleful Polymorph (? You didn't specify which...) can do a lot of "save-or-suck" things, but surprisingly, this isn't one of them. Even if you go by Polymorph Other from 3.0 ed., you still only turn them into "an average member of the species". This is so you can't polymorph into a bodybuilder human with 18 STR, but it also means that you can't polymorph your enemies into a limbless fellow.

Polymorph as per the 4th level spell. It doesn't specify what you can to turn the recipient into. It just says another form of living creature. A legless-armless human is another form of living creature...Alternatively you can make it permanent (by making it an armless-legless member of its own race) and then promise to polymorph them back (with a normal polymorph) and then laugh your way back when he goes back to being helpless after the normal polymorph wears off...

[Droodle]

For wizards (but not sorcerers), Fireball is a great spell. It's hard to make a wand of fireballs and then never, ever, memorize the spell again without knowing the spell in the first place. Wands of Fireball are great. Fireball only actually sucks when it takes up one of your spell slots.

[Armads]

Prestidigitation, Shivering Touch, Gate.

[Gavin Sage]

Compared to what you could be doing with 3rd level spells, Fireball just seems kind of silly, dunnit?

And that's just in Core...

I don't care for summons much as spells. The others are fine spells to have, but don't put enemies in the ground. Simple yet always useful, blasting for damage is something that can be used in any fight. As enemies level up they make saves, and Haste doesn't improve leveling up. Fireball levels up and only saves for half.

[Emperor Tippy]

Fireball si worthless as anything but a utility spell.

When you need a distraction it is good, do to the long range.

But it is not something a sorcerer should ever take and wizards should rarely if ever prepare it (take it and scribe a few scrolls each level to up the CL)

[TheOOB]

"Arcane" is kinda of a meaningless distinction, what matters it what class list a spell is on, not if it's arcane or divine.

That said I find the most useful sorc/wizard spells to be the mental control ones, primarly the charm, suggestion, and dominate series. A good charm spell can save you a lot of time and energy, and avoid many fights. A good suggestion or dominate spell can remove a foe and possibly create an ally (net bonus +2 for team good :P).

[Godhand]

I don't care for summons much as spells. The others are fine spells to have, but don't put enemies in the ground. Simple yet always useful, blasting for damage is something that can be used in any fight. As enemies level up they make saves, and Haste doesn't improve leveling up. Fireball levels up and only saves for half.

Haste doesn't need to improve as it levels up, the things your hasting are leveling up. Haste is one of those spells that makes everyone better. Melee types can get in another swing with higher accuracy, Rogues can tumble into flanking positions etc. The amount of extra damage your allies can do with a haste spell overrides any damage a fireball can do. Combined with Fire being a damage type most creatures have immunities and resistances to, Fireball doesnt make a good showing. Like others have said, its good in wands or scrolls, but dont bother preparing it when other spells can take its place.

Good Arcane Spells? Wall of Stone, Stoneskin, Dispel Magic, Ray of Exhaustion/Enfeeblement. Shatter.

Edit: Sorry for the double post, the boards went insane on me.

[prufock]

Fireball si worthless as anything but a utility spell.

You win the "most contradictory statement of the post" award!

[Jacob Orlove]

To quote from the second thread I linked, talking about Fireball:

It's long range and does about 21 points of damage to a big area, ignoring the hardness of flamable stuff.

That means that it is often structurally the same as invisibility for the whole party - there's a group of sentries way over there and you can either run forward and engage them, try to sneak past, or you can just fireball their camp and not have to worry about it.

Things that you use to remove enemies when they are too far away to bother rolling initiative are not combat spells in any meaningful way. Indeed, actually using fireball in combat is madness. But a 6th level Warmage can throw that bad boy at targets over 600 feet away - making it an overland damaging spell. The thigs you hurt with it aren't even miniatures on the battle map.

-Frank

[TheOOB]

The only time I have use fireball to deal good damage was on a white dragon (double damage), who failed their save, and the fireball melted the ice they where climbing on, causing them to fall and take more damage, and become prone.

[Lemur]

Silent Image. All the other Image spells, while we're at it. Create concealment, enclose an area with an illusion to block out the sun, create distractions, or just use it to freak people out with the strangest thing you can think of. Images are pure imagination in spell form.

[Gavin Sage]

Haste doesn't need to improve as it levels up, the things your hasting are leveling up. Haste is one of those spells that makes everyone better. Melee types can get in another swing with higher accuracy, Rogues can tumble into flanking positions etc. The amount of extra damage your allies can do with a haste spell overrides any damage a fireball can do. Combined with Fire being a damage type most creatures have immunities and resistances to, Fireball doesnt make a good showing. Like others have said, its good in wands or scrolls, but dont bother preparing it when other spells can take its place.

While your party levels up Haste doesn't so becomes proportionately smaller a benefit as time passes. Still very useful but hey that's why you prepare more than one spell. But when you don't have a party with you, there are other running spells and melee is not something any mage should be in really. And haste as a lasting enchantment can be countered, not as much to do on damage. Also fire resistance at later levels is so, but less so earlier and I've never found total fire resistance to that common.

And good in wands or scolls still counts as that's just a different way to prep a spell now isn't it?

[TheOOB]

Well, the bonuses of haste become slightly less useful as time goes on, but the extra attack becomes more useful as time goes on.

[Catch]

You win the "most contradictory statement of the post" award!

Not if you're playing a useful wizard.

[Corolinth]

Cantrip (now known as Prestidigitation)
Melf's Minute Rice
Magic Missile
Stick
Mage Hand

[TheOOB]

shadow conjuration, most versitile spell ever (except for wish, but they have an xp cost)

[prufock]

Not if you're playing a useful wizard.

Kaboom! How many heads can we make explode?