spells that you would never want.

[Ignimortis]

Decreases blasting value?

I pad encounters by adding low(er) level enemies quite often. AoE blasting clears those out nicely, leaving just the boss.

Choosing off the CR10 table. Rakshasa. Eh, it'll get mobbed, and DR 15 means nothing vs a mid-level ubercharger. I want to bring the encounter up to CR13ish, and I don't want to use 2, so I go shopping at half it's CR and give it.. 12 gargoyles. Not the best synergy, but it definitely ups the difficulty. They clutter up the battlefield, break up Charge lines, etc. Or fly to stay away from melee (and out of the Stinking Cloud). Their DR works well vs most summons, without nerfing the actual melee toons. The Rakshasa's Haste benefits them. His Silent Image either hides them, or makes more of them. Maybe swap out his Acid Arrow for Levitate, so the whole encounter has an aerial component.

Now you have an invisible levitating Rakshasa buffing his gargoyles and reading the party's minds to adjust his tactics, while choosing his opportunity to intervene directly.
I might even let his Change Shape include Gargoyle as a form, so he can blend in with them. (I have been know to use an ad-hoc unpublished rules exception from time to time...)

A cloudkill or a couple fireballs won't worry the Rakshasa at all. But they will clear most of the gargoyles, or at least keep them from mobbing the wizard, while using up some party resources.

The quoted post referenced having fights with several level = CR enemies, not one level = CR creature with lots of small fry. Blasting is good for small fry, but make that same CR13 encounter into three CR10 enemies. Not necessarily three rakshasa, but just three CR10 enemies. That's not gonna make Fireball stand out at any rate, I would say.

[NigelWalmsley]

Wings of Flurry for scaling with your Caster Level with no Cap.

Honestly the reason Wings of Flurry is good is as much because it's an AoE daze as because it does any actual damage. Scaling longer is better, obviously, but unless you're cheesing up your CL something fierce, d6/level just doesn't hold up when enemies are getting d8s or better, Constitution bonuses, and HD > CR.

Magic Missile for it's an excelent spell to put into an Arcane Fusion (Greater) and apply the Fell Drain Metamagic on. Put in an Arcane Spellsurge can drain a LOT of levels in one turn.

I feel like that's not really "damaging spells are good" though. If you're using the spell to deliver a debuff, that's not really an argument that blasting is something you care about.

Flame Arrow can be an excelant cheap way to substitute Alchemist Fire (for when you run out of spell slots at low levels) and is spell resistance: no so it can penetrate AMFs and hurt Golems consistantly.

You should be boxing Golems with Silent Image, not trying to find spells to hurt them.

I'd also never focus too much on Enchantment and Illusion as schools. Past some level, most things will be Imune to those schools one way or an other.

This is not really true. Certainly some things are immune, but the only way most things are immune is if the DM is heavily skewing encounters that way. And if he does that, it's testament to the power of the schools.

[Asmotherion]

Honestly the reason Wings of Flurry is good is as much because it's an AoE daze as because it does any actual damage. Scaling longer is better, obviously, but unless you're cheesing up your CL something fierce, d6/level just doesn't hold up when enemies are getting d8s or better, Constitution bonuses, and HD > CR.



I feel like that's not really "damaging spells are good" though. If you're using the spell to deliver a debuff, that's not really an argument that blasting is something you care about.



You should be boxing Golems with Silent Image, not trying to find spells to hurt them.



This is not really true. Certainly some things are immune, but the only way most things are immune is if the DM is heavily skewing encounters that way. And if he does that, it's testament to the power of the schools.

On Buffing Caster Levels: I've yet to play in a group of veterans whose caster didn't have at least 10 caster levels above his character level after some point. I mean, it takes minimum effort to do so, and save for the cheese options, some are relativelly balanced, so why would you NOT get as many caster levels stack on you?

On Golems: Eh, I'm more into putting them in a "transmute rock to mud" and then build a Wall of stome myself.

On magic Missile: Sure, it's not used as a damage dealer, but it does end up being usefull, is all I'm saying.

On Enchantment: Depends on the DM really; That said, if you have a Boss Fight and the Boss figure is not protected against Domination one way or an other, you're doing something wrong as a DM. Sure, you can dispell his protection and weaken his Will save, but it still requires a few extra steps and spell slots.

[Zanos]

On Buffing Caster Levels: I've yet to play in a group of veterans whose caster didn't have at least 10 caster levels above his character level after some point. I mean, it takes minimum effort to do so, and save for the cheese options, some are relativelly balanced, so why would you NOT get as many caster levels stack on you?

I'd like to see the game where having a CL of 10+Level isn't somewhat cheesy. Even if you're using reserves of strength on every spell and you have the ring of arcane might, an orange ioun stone, and a magic tattoo, that's 'only' +6, and using reserves on every spell usually indicates some form of cheese is already going on.

[Rynjin]

You are paying 500gp per shot though, which is a bit steep.

A small price to pay for peace of mind.

[Squire Doodad]

It's a bit off topic, but I saw this and immediately thought

The power to place a comically oversized bathtub drain on any surface

[Particle_Man]

The Blindness part of the spell works on 6HD or lower. The rest of the spell works on any creature.

I want to believe you but do you have a source for that? Because the sentence seems to apply both effects to the same critter and says "a creature of 6 HD or less suffers X (blindness) and also Y (random badness)" rather than "a creature suffers Y, and if 6 HD or less, also is blinded". It doesn't say that a creature of more than 6HD suffers anything at all.

[RexDart]

Speak with plants.

Mundane plants are mindless and have no useful senses. So unless you need to know what the climate has been like very unlikely to help.

Plant creatures overwhelmingly fall into 2 categories: things that eat people and don’t care to chat and things that have languages, can probably speak common, and if not Sylvan (which most druids and rangers know) and would definitely be no harder to chat with with Tongues, which is often lower level, longer duration and not personal (so you can cast it on the party face).

While I agree with you generally, our party actually used Speak With Plants just this Saturday, and it was actually useful.

Granted, it was an unusual scenario. The plant in question is an extremely ancient and huge tree in the middle of a vast forest, and the bad guys are working from inside said tree to do nefarious things involving some kind of super-fertilizer and I think using the tree as an energy source in some way. (My character has an intelligence of 6, which gives me an excuse to not pay excessive attention to the details....)

Anyway, we learned a few things about what the bad guys are doing (though not a huge amount, because, hey, it's a tree), and ruled out some other things (e.g., the tree itself isn't evil or sentient, it's just a tree, albeit an incredibly old and huge one.)


As written, it sounds like Leomund's Trap will have no effect when the rogue tries to use Disable Device. Like she'd make a Disable Device roll and then discover, oh, there is no trap after all, and open it without incident. It might be kinda fun if Leomund's Trap also fools Disable Device. So:

Rogue: I roll to disable the trap. Ooh, natural 20, plus 15... 35!
DM: You do not disable the trap.

Still just a prank when all is said and done, but at least one with comedy potential. What stuck out for me, though, is in addition to being pretty useless, the material component costs 50 gp! Which, OK, checking the DMG, that's not enough to buy your own trap, but at least those fake security cameras you can attach to the ceiling only cost a couple bucks, right?

[Troacctid]

Yeah, sure, and I'm sure you just happened to randomly roll four encounters with groups of enemies that have no particular resistance to Fireball. Definitely not a remotely biased sample.

The topic is "spells you would never want." Not "spells that you would want fairly regularly but not 100% of the time."

Yeah but having enough HP to tank Fireballs is more common than either.

So would you say divine power is useless as well? There's no way a cleric with a weapon is outdamaging a fireball even with full BAB. What about bless? It just helps your team hit; it doesn't increase DPR nearly enough to make you one-shot anything. What about haste? Same problem, right? What about literally any strategy that uses HP damage, but doesn't have enough burst damage to kill the target in a single round?

[Wildstag]

This is actually a very usefull spell. Having these material components means you can fetch those out of you component pouch to set the mundane alarm without having to go mundane 'bell shoping' beforehand.

I know it's a late reply, but Spell Component Pouches specifically do not contain components that have a specific cost. Since mundane bells have a specific cost, you can't just materialize one out of your pouch.

And since you HAVE to go mundane bell shopping before you are even able to cast the spell, at low levels it's better to just have your rogue or ranger just manually produce a bell-tripwire that'll last all night instead of just one or two shifts.

I will concede as Rynjin says that it's a great spell for Permanency later on. Speaking solely to its usefulness in early level exploration, I'd never want it. And by the time I have the Permanency option, there's better alternatives for trapping my crap. The mental alarm only extends 1 mile. If you're doing all your gameplay in a city, it's probably that the Permanent Alarm is useful later on, but I've never played in such a game.

On a side note, is this a subjective or objective question about "you would never want"? Because I have a hard time playing evil characters, or at least intentionally committing evil acts, so a spell like Black Bag is something I would never want, use, or take. There might be uses for other people, but I would never have a use for it. Same with Extract Drug... or really just the majority of the spells in the Book of Vile Darkness. I just dislike that book in general.

Circle Dance is pretty boring too, I just would never use it.

Distilled Joy just seems weird and janky to me, I've never really been fond of it. But then, I also never really care for arcane casters, and less so for item creators.

[RexDart]

Several spells discussed seem bad for players, but pretty good for NPCs. For instance, Flame Arrow seems like a pretty nice way for an enemy spellcaster to beef up the 10 goblin archers he's using to keep the party busy.

[Kalkra]

Circle Dance is pretty boring too, I just would never use it.

Distilled Joy just seems weird and janky to me, I've never really been fond of it. But then, I also never really care for arcane casters, and less so for item creators.

Circle Dance has unlimited range and offers no save or SR. You can use two of them to triangulate the location of any creature on the same plane as you, without alerting said creature.

Distilled Joy is used for cheese. Or as an antidepressant, I suppose. But mostly cheese. Because paying xp costs is for chumps.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Distilled Joy is used for cheese. Or as an antidepressant, I suppose. But mostly cheese. Because paying xp costs is for chumps.

Distilled joy also gives you (potentially) an infinite amount of ambrosia for a single casting. The duration is Permanent, so every time the target experiences joy, you get ambrosia. Some would argue that it's just one dollop of ambrosia that can be dispelled, but the spell has "Target: One living creature," rather than being "Effect: 8 oz of ambrosia (130 calories per serving)," or whatever. So it's a Permanent effect on a creature, not a Permanent dollop of gooey goodness.

I imagine it tastes like cinnamon-apple-caramel cheesecake, though. It'd better, since it's the literal essence of joy.

So, yeah. Unlimited crafting XP! And there are enough ways to get around the casting time (such as self-resetting casting traps, and all the myriad ways psionics can do so) that it's easy to get lots of ambrosia, so long as you can get your hands on creatures who enjoy enjoying enjoyable things and are willing to let you subject them to happiness. I can't imagine too many sane creatures don't enjoy enjoying joy.

[Telok]

Several spells discussed seem bad for players, but pretty good for NPCs. For instance, Flame Arrow seems like a pretty nice way for an enemy spellcaster to beef up the 10 goblin archers he's using to keep the party busy.

Well, except that it's a 3rd level spell, affects a quiver the arrows are in, and doesn't help with getting hits in.

So you're facing 10 1hd gobbo archers and a level 5+ caster. The caster can magic one quiver for all the archers to clump up at and double the damage of each hit (not including crits and doesn't increase the to-hit) as long as there is no fire resistance, wind wall, etc., in play. OR. Haste doubles the rof of some of the archers, improves defenses, improves attack, doesn't force them into fireball formation, and still benefits them if they get into melee. Plus, alchemical fire arrows are a thing, as is just sticking a gob of burning pitch on the arrow, if you really want massed ranged fire attacks to set stuff alight.

That's nearly the best case scenario type thing for flame arrows. The caster could also do fireball, deep slumber, stinking cloud, any of the hundred+ actually useful 3rd level spells.

[Asmotherion]

I'd like to see the game where having a CL of 10+Level isn't somewhat cheesy. Even if you're using reserves of strength on every spell and you have the ring of arcane might, an orange ioun stone, and a magic tattoo, that's 'only' +6, and using reserves on every spell usually indicates some form of cheese is already going on.

Reserves of Strength drawback is not that big if you're under the effect of Freedom of Movement, which is a pretty standard buff to persist on your party (and by the way, never seen anyone actually using Persistant Spell without reducing it's metamagic Cost somehow).

Also, Consumtive Field alone can pack a serious buff in caster level. Arcane Casters can easyly replicate via Limited Wish. By the level it becomes available (at least to Clerics) it already gives +4 Caster Levels. Add your +6 and you already hit a +10. Which is more than enough to use for Buffing yourself for example. Or, again, persisting on yourself.

Now it depends on what you mean as cheese. 'Cause that's just standard reading of the rules, and I can't think of a different way to read/interpreat RAW in this case, which is usually what I consider the "cheese" line.

[Zanos]

I'd definitely qualify somehow burning 300xp a day on limited wish for consumptive field combined with chicken slaughtering and extensive persistomancy to be relatively cheesy, yeah.

[Toliudar]

Thinking further about useless spells, there are all of those nightmare/dream communication/etc spells, and whenever I see one, my eyes kind of glaze over. I have never found a gaming situation in which I really, really want to make an enemy 200 miles away have nightmares. Or cause have my sister have dreams about me flying around naked.

Has ANYONE ever used these spells in an actual game setting?

[Elkad]

The quoted post referenced having fights with several level = CR enemies, not one level = CR creature with lots of small fry. Blasting is good for small fry, but make that same CR13 encounter into three CR10 enemies. Not necessarily three rakshasa, but just three CR10 enemies. That's not gonna make Fireball stand out at any rate, I would say.

It also referenced padding encounters to raise the CR. I pad in various ways, but one of them is adding lots of low-level guys.
It's also the method I recommend for new DMs because it's so easy to control. You can add a few more gargoyles a couple at a time if it's too easy, or have them break and run, leaving just the boss, if the party is losing.

Also happens to give Mr Fireball a chance to shine. Or Mr Great Cleave.

[Particle_Man]

Thinking further about useless spells, there are all of those nightmare/dream communication/etc spells, and whenever I see one, my eyes kind of glaze over. I have never found a gaming situation in which I really, really want to make an enemy 200 miles away have nightmares. Or cause have my sister have dreams about me flying around naked.

Has ANYONE ever used these spells in an actual game setting?

Not yet but now I have an idea where the entire campaign is the players slowly realizing that they are inside someone's very very extended dream.

[Quertus]

Or cause have my sister have dreams about me flying around naked.

Which spell are you inflicting upon your sister, and why?

[Telok]

Which spell are you inflicting upon your sister, and why?

Nightmare. My wife's brother is a wonderful guy but if he's flying around the bedroom naked then terrified screaming is definitely in the top three reaction choices.

[Wildstag]

Distilled joy also gives you (potentially) an infinite amount of ambrosia for a single casting. The duration is Permanent, so every time the target experiences joy, you get ambrosia. Some would argue that it's just one dollop of ambrosia that can be dispelled, but the spell has "Target: One living creature," rather than being "Effect: 8 oz of ambrosia (130 calories per serving)," or whatever. So it's a Permanent effect on a creature, not a Permanent dollop of gooey goodness.

I imagine it tastes like cinnamon-apple-caramel cheesecake, though. It'd better, since it's the literal essence of joy.

So, yeah. Unlimited crafting XP! And there are enough ways to get around the casting time (such as self-resetting casting traps, and all the myriad ways psionics can do so) that it's easy to get lots of ambrosia, so long as you can get your hands on creatures who enjoy enjoying enjoyable things and are willing to let you subject them to happiness. I can't imagine too many sane creatures don't enjoy enjoying joy.

Your response just goes back to my main point though. I would never want it because I've never cared for magic item crafting, and any "create a feedback loop for maximum spell efficiency" system is just putting more effort into a system than just buying a custom item from some shop with the GM, especially since a lot of games I've played in tend to just make shopping less of a hassle. It just seems like extra work, and any feedback loops would require extended amounts of downtime to even set them up.

If you have no interest in playing an item craftsman, you'd never want this spell. It's just too much hassle to actually make it efficient. Sure, it could be useful. Forcing nightmares on a foe could be useful. But it requires a level of effort I don't think the vast majority of players or GMs would care for.

[Telonius]

Would never want: Tenser's Transformation. At the level you can cast it, you can be Polymorphing into a Chuul to get (most likely) better stats and natural armor, with the added bonus of still being able to cast spells and not needing to waste a potion to activate it, and for minutes/level (Polymorph) instead of rounds/level (Transformation). Insult to injury; Polymorph is a 4th-level spell, and Transformation is a 6th.

This one doesn't even get the excuse of splatbook power creep; both of them are in the PHB, and Chuuls are in Monster Manual 1.

[vasilidor]

It also referenced padding encounters to raise the CR. I pad in various ways, but one of them is adding lots of low-level guys.
It's also the method I recommend for new DMs because it's so easy to control. You can add a few more gargoyles a couple at a time if it's too easy, or have them break and run, leaving just the boss, if the party is losing.

Also happens to give Mr Fireball a chance to shine. Or Mr Great Cleave.

great cleave and cleave are feats that never were useful in the 3.5 games i have played, for the same reason that fire ball and other blasting spells were considered bad.

[Unavenger]

I don't think I'd ever want to forcefully reanimate a dead body like that. Pretty sure that spell's got the [Evil] descriptor

Quick, no-one tell Edea about animate with the spirit.

---

Re blasting spells: I rarely encounter a situation where a blasting spell is a complete waste of time, and comparatively often encounter situations where they're the best use of my action. YMMV.

---

As for the thread title, I don't think I have ever cast aid, align weapon, animal trance, antilife shell, antipathy, antiplant shell, greater arcane sight, baleful polymorph, bane, banishment, bear's endurance, mass bear's endurance, bless water, blight, bull's strength*, mass bull's strength, call lightning*, call lightning storm*, calm animals, calm emotions, cat's grace, mass cat's grace, cause fear, changestaff, chill metal, circle of death, cloak of chaos, clone**, command plants, lesser confusion, consecrate, contagion, control plants, creeping doom, crushing despair, curse water, and seriously are we just at the end of the letter C in the PHB? Yeah there are a lot of subpar spells out there.

*Except in the Neverwinter Nights games, where these spells work very differently.
**I'm aware that it's good, it just hasn't become necessary in any of the games I've played.

[Troacctid]

great cleave and cleave are feats that never were useful in the 3.5 games i have played, for the same reason that fire ball and other blasting spells were considered bad.

Cleave is a great feat if you're the party's primary striker. You'll be dealing the finishing blow pretty consistently, so it will get you extra attacks regularly. The more damage-dealers you have in the party, however, the more you have to share those finishing blows, which makes Cleave less reliable (unless your party coordinates its tactics around it).

Great Cleave, on the other hand, is trash.

[Pex]

Sounds like it's a trap spell, heheh.

Pathfinder has a lot of these kinds of noob-trap spells. I was talking about Youthful Appearance with a guy last night and it's just terrible, a flavorful spell that accomplishes nothing a disguise or a little wrinkle-hiding makeup can't do.

Alarm is one of those spells that annoys me. Its material components work well for just making a mundane trap that actually lasts the full night. Levels 1-3 your spell won't last the full night, but a string and bell. It's just so pointless, it actually confuses me why anyone would take it.

Basically any of those spells that duplicate a simple mundane trick that costs less than 5 gp to perform and can be used repeatedly, Alarm is just the most obvious to me.

Oh, and in 3.5, those spells that deal with addiction. I don't think I've ever seen a GM implement addiction in a game, so why would I want to ever use the spell Addiction.

Chain of Perdition is another trap spell. It sounds cool. You get to do dirty trick maneuvers using your caster level and spellcasting modifier instead of BAB and Strength. The problem is the same for warrior characters who want to use maneuvers. The CMD of monsters are so high it will never work. I tried the spell in different campaigns, but the only use I ever got out of it was to use it on myself using the chain to help me get over walls and out of pits. I could never beat the CMD of monsters to use the spell as intended. Should I play a Pathfinder game again I'm not taking this spell anymore. It looks great on paper. It fails in practice.

[Thunder999]

Meteor swarm disappoints me, it's not even good at doing AoE damage, let alone comparable to other 9th level spells.
Soul bind is pointless, why kill someone then trap their soul when you could just cast trap the soul and skip the bit where you have to fight them.

Oh and Alarm is definitely better than a mundane alarm, it trips if anything enters the AoE it tells you, there's no flying over the tripwire, silencing the bell etc.

[Quertus]

Great Cleave, on the other hand, is trash.

That… depends.

I mean, sure, I'm pretty sure I ran a Fighter who never once got to Great Cleave. I've also seen (and, in a one-shot, ran!) large and/or reach Great Cleavers who could and would wipe the board in one action. It was like a muggle Fireball.

Also, Great Cleave was better in 3.0, with crit stacking and on-crit Vorpal action.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, Great Cleave is a lot better if you consider trips and other things that result in a prone enemy to be "dropping" them.

Maybe then it'd see some actual use.