Bottom Worst Spells of 3.5 by level

[AvatarVecna]

Awhile back I made a thread titled Retribution Magic that was an attempt to gather together every spell in the game that worked somewhat like fire shield - that is to say, while the spell is up, if someone hits you, they take damage, without you having to spend any actions on the "deal damage" part. Individually, I think most of these spells are garbage by default; casters tend to be squishier than the people hitting them, and the retributive spells on this list tend to not hit as hard as the monsters that might be triggering them. You can mitigate that downside if you're basically immune to whatever damage the monster is doing, but if that's the case there's probably plenty of strategies for defeating them anyway. There's also a niche use-case where you stack up a bunch of these on the same person, and then anybody who hits you for one attack's worth of damage gets hit with 20 attacks worth of damage and a half-dozen conditions. That helps make up for the downsides where you win by deliberately letting the enemy hit you. But outside something like that, most of these spells suck pretty hard.

I'm not sure if most of them belong on this list, but there's one in particular I think belongs: Ectoplasmic Empowerment is a lvl 3 Sor/Wiz spell, lasts for 1 min/CL, and deals 1d6+CL (max +10) force damage to somebody that hits you with an incorporeal touch attack. SR applies to this damage.

The first and most obvious problem is, this is an incredibly niche spell. It doesn't apply to most touch attacks. It doesn't apply to non-touch attacks from incorporeal targets. Picking this as a spell prepared for a wizard is something you do when you're gonna be wading into an army of ghosts (uncommon situation) and you know that ahead of time (incorporeal enemies tend to be used as surprise "horror" monsters, so at least IME you're generally less warned than usual). Picking this as a spell known for sorcerer is insane.

The second and also obvious problem is, the damage is pitiful. Force damage is at least very rarely resisted, but 1d6+(5-10) just isn't that much damage. Combine that with how SR can cause it to fail entirely, and you're not even guaranteed to be trading hits; it might just be they hit you, and your spell whiffs the SR check.

The third and less obvious problem is that most incorporeal touch attacks really suck to get hit by. Ability damage, ability drain, negative levels, "turns you to spawn on kill". Casting a spell that maybe works a little bit if you let yourself get hit by some of the nastiest effects in the game...it's not a great strategy.

EDIT: One that's probably hugely a matter of opinion/experience, but IMO/IME Soul Bind is garbage. You're gonna spend a lvl 9 slot and a small fortune on an attempt to further inconvenience someone you've already killed, which has three points of failure (Will negates, gem too small, can be dispelled). Oh, and this only works in the immediate aftermath of their death, so it's not just someone you killed, it's a chump you killed while keeping a 9th lvl slot in reserve. Just destroy the corpse, that takes out most rez magic opportunities anyway. If your DM is in the habit of true rezzing villains you've already proven you can beat like red-headed step-children with one hand tied behind your back, then I guess this has a use-case. But that doesn't align with my experience.

[FauxKnee]

I don't know that it's truly the worst of the worst, but protection from winged flyers (Shining South) is a waste of ink and paper. Sure, it still defeats mind control like protection from evil/good/law/chaos but how often are you going to bother preparing a level 1 spell that specifically gives you a defensive boost against a really narrow niche (creatures with non-magical flight) instead of against a broad swathe (pick an alignment) ?

While it has the advantage of lacking an alignment descriptor when compared to the other four, even clerics with their alignment restriction only require that the effect not be opposed to their deity, rather than insisting it's aligned. (At least one of the four protection from alignment spells is going to be castable.)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Every psionic manifesting class that's ever been written is a spontaneous caster in a similar vein to the sorcerer, although most classes have even fewer powers known. That means that every psionic power needs to be flexible and usable fairly regularly, else it's a complete waste of time.

Unfortunately, many powers are written as though they're spells on the wizard list: niche case uses at best. At least a wizard/sorcerer spell occasionally comes in handy due to how wizards can change things up every day and don't have to spend permanent resources (a very limited spell known) to learn them. That, and augmentation exists for psionic powers, so all powers should be designed to be used for the entirety of a campaign. 1 die of [Fire] damage per round of concentration after the 1st with no way to boost it (I'm looking at you, matter agitation) is NOT acceptable.

Astral traveler, bolt, call to mind, catfall, conceal thoughts, control flames, control light, daze (psionic), demoralize, distract, ecto protection, empty mind, float, know direction and location, matter agitation, and missive, and that's only for the 1st level psion/wilder powers in the XPH. CPsi and Hyperconscious are, overall, significantly worse.

I'm sure someone can come up with the occasional use for one of the above, but enough to actually take as a power known when you only have 1/2 levels (wilder), 1/level (psywar) or 2/level (psion) with vastly better powers available to take instead?

Most of those used to be 0 level powers back in 3.0, but they were weak even then. Now they're a waste of a 1st level power known.

[Troacctid]

I don't know that it's truly the worst of the worst, but protection from winged flyers (Shining South) is a waste of ink and paper. Sure, it still defeats mind control like protection from evil/good/law/chaos but how often are you going to bother preparing a level 1 spell that specifically gives you a defensive boost against a really narrow niche (creatures with non-magical flight) instead of against a broad swathe (pick an alignment) ?

While it has the advantage of lacking an alignment descriptor when compared to the other four, even clerics with their alignment restriction only require that the effect not be opposed to their deity, rather than insisting it's aligned. (At least one of the four protection from alignment spells is going to be castable.)

The main advantage is that it's on the druid list, where druids don't normally have access to protection from evil. But honestly, even for wizards, I feel like it still beats protection from good, which has to be an even narrower niche. How often do you fight good guys? Not very often.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The main advantage is that it's on the druid list, where druids don't normally have access to protection from evil. But honestly, even for wizards, I feel like it still beats protection from good, which has to be an even narrower niche. How often do you fight good guys? Not very often.

Note that the protection from [alignment] spells and anything based on them still protect you from charms, compulsions, and any attempts at possession regardless of alignment. This extends to protection from winged flyers, as well.

[Inevitability]

Eh, PFWF isn't as good as Protection from Evil, but it seems like a solid middle-of-the-pack Protection variant. Slap on your favorite means of magical flight and you have a pretty comprehensive defense going - and unlike Protection from Evil this one also works against, say, a druid summoning hippogriffs at you.

[Kurald Galain]

A lot of these are only bad in the default use case, and I'd hesitate to put them on this list. Acid Splash is a great vehicle for precision damage that comes in really cheap wands; Pyrotechnics can work off of a torch or even a matchstick and there's ways of making yourself/your allies immune (assuming your DM doesn't let everyone close their eyes for a round a la gaze attacks). Telekinesis notoriously lets you make 15 attacks with large greatswords in a single round: that's 45d6 damage to be split as you please, no save no sr.

I'll admit that TK may be better than I thought. On the other hand, I don't think that a rogue would be likely to give up his full attack (including ITWF and Haste) for a single UMD'ed wand.
And, does any party actually carry torches given that various Light spells exist? After all, torches still take up a hand which can be better used for almost anything else. It seems to me that a blinding spell that requires you to hold a torch (and that allows for SR) is clearly inferior to the equal-level Glitterdust.

And to the best of my knowledge, anything that "breaks the economy" (such as Wall of Iron) is strictly theory op and highly unlikely to be allowed in actual gameplay, so I think we can discount that.

[Inevitability]

I'll admit that TK may be better than I thought. On the other hand, I don't think that a rogue would be likely to give up his full attack (including ITWF and Haste) for a single UMD'ed wand.
And, does any party actually carry torches given that various Light spells exist? After all, torches still take up a hand which can be better used for almost anything else. It seems to me that a blinding spell that requires you to hold a torch (and that allows for SR) is clearly inferior to the equal-level Glitterdust.

And to the best of my knowledge, anything that "breaks the economy" (such as Wall of Iron) is strictly theory op and highly unlikely to be allowed in actual gameplay, so I think we can discount that.

1. Well, if we're using melee TWF rogues as the point of comparison, those need some way to move and full attack, don't they? That's not always doable, and a touch spell from a wand chamber is a better use of a standard action than a single weapon strike, especially against high-AC-low-touch foes. And as for ranged rogues, those commonly enough get forced into a snipe/hide routine that only permits a single attack per turn anyway, so you really don't lose anything by switching to wands.

2. Torches are also standard dungeon illumination - and it's not like a bard or wizard needs their off-hand that badly. Actually, re-reading the spell it explicitly uses (but doesn't consume) 'magical fire sources', so maybe providing the component is as simple as casting a Continual Flame on your hat. At any rate you can just light a matchstick before combat and give it to Eight-Ball The Raven Familiar to hold.

3. Alright, the DM probably won't let you become an old iron salesman and buy everything you ever wanted, but like, Fabricate is one spell level beneath Wall of Iron, craft checks exist, Wall of Iron is a very clean source of raw materials that a caster of that level shouldn't struggle to put to use.

[Kurald Galain]

1. Well, if we're using melee TWF rogues as the point of comparison, those need some way to move and full attack, don't they? That's not always doable, and a touch spell from a wand chamber is a better use of a standard action than a single weapon strike, especially against high-AC-low-touch foes.

I had forgotten about wand chambers (because I haven't met any DMs that use that book). Sure, with a wand chamber it's a sizeable to-hit bonus for cheap. Without one, this is simply not practical.

And as for ranged rogues, those commonly enough get forced into a snipe/hide routine that only permits a single attack per turn anyway, so you really don't lose anything by switching to wands.

I thought the go-to tactic for ranged rogues was to use Blink or Greater Invis to get sneak damage on their full attacks? Snipe/hide and one attack per turn doesn't sound like an effective character to me.

At any rate you can just light a matchstick before combat and give it to Eight-Ball The Raven Familiar to hold.

Sure, but that's kind of my point. The spell has an unusual restriction (of needing a fire source), and you can do all kinds of things to work around that, but after accounting for those complications the spell is still inferior to Glitterdust.

Wall of Iron is a very clean source of raw materials that a caster of that level shouldn't struggle to put to use.

It's a nice combo in theory, but I still struggle to think of a practical usage that isn't more easily covered by the lower-level Major Creation. Unless there's a shortcut here to magical item creation that I'm overlooking, of course.

[Inevitability]

I had forgotten about wand chambers (because I haven't met any DMs that use that book). Sure, with a wand chamber it's a sizeable to-hit bonus for cheap. Without one, this is simply not practical.


I thought the go-to tactic for ranged rogues was to use Blink or Greater Invis to get sneak damage on their full attacks? Snipe/hide and one attack per turn doesn't sound like an effective character to me.


Sure, but that's kind of my point. The spell has an unusual restriction (of needing a fire source), and you can do all kinds of things to work around that, but after accounting for those complications the spell is still inferior to Glitterdust.


It's a nice combo in theory, but I still struggle to think of a practical usage that isn't more easily covered by the lower-level Major Creation. Unless there's a shortcut here to magical item creation that I'm overlooking, of course.

Fair point on ranged rogue strats and glitterdust (though 'worse than one of the best spells at that level' does not mean 'worst'), but Major Creation has the kinda big drawback of all conjured iron disappearing after 1 hour/level. Even in situations where you only need the created item for a few hours, Wall of Iron doesn't force you to prepare and cast the material-creation spell on the same day as the crafting one.

[Anthrowhale]

Amusingly, TK is in the top 10 list for level 5 that we worked on. There, the thinking was:

This is a broad utility spell for moving and/or attacking without actually being there. At one extreme you might violent thrust 15 Shalantha's Delicate Disk's and followup with a fireball to set them all off simultaneously. As another you might just want to extract the mcguffin you see from the trap filled room without actually going in there (or touching it).

Edit:

Sublime Revelry cures a small number of lingering effects an then makes its targets (1/level within 30 feet) take half attack damage and get mind blanked for 1 minute per level. I could maybe see some niche situations where this could come up but why would a 17th level cleric prepare this? Also, if you really want the effect, the spell is a sidegrade, not upgrade but sidegrade, to the 7th level spell Empyreal Ecstasy.

The good thing about Sublime Revelry is that it combos with Empyreal Ecstasy to provide complete immunity to melee and ranged damage since -50% + -50% = -100% (according to D&D math for abstract units). Not a good 9th level effect, but potentially handy in some circumstances.

End to Strife is a 9th level cleric/Apostle of Peace spell that forced all intelligent creatures within 80 feet of the caster take 20D6 damage any time they make an attack roll. "Oh," you might say. "What if somebody is attacking the caster with a longbow? What if somebody has a medium-range spell? What if somebody has a construct? What if somebody summons something?" To which I answer, good news! End to strife is not dismissable.

The best I can make of this spell is that an evil cleric can cast it before routing an army or a castle with their undead army, and that's a weird primary use case for a spell in the Book of Exalted Deeds. If you're engaging your enemy without you rolling attack rolls in the first place, then you probably should just prepare a 9th level no-save-just-lose spell instead of this. Oh, if and you're using this on level-appropriate encounters, it's both [Mind-Affecting] and stopped by spell resistance.

End to Strife is metamagic redeemable. For example, Persistent Maximized Purified End to Strife in an invasion of the Abyss scenario is reasonably useful.

[Troacctid]

Pyrotechnics is a nice versatile option because it's two spells in one: a weaker version of Flashburst, or a weaker version of Stinking Cloud. You just have to set it up by casting a fire spell first sometimes.

[ciopo]

Pathfinder: the stark contrast of command plants and control plants always amuses me when it crosses my awareness

[Harrow]

I haven't actually been in any play high enough level to use it, but M's Disjunction has always struck me as a dubious use of resources at best. It can be used to destroy artifacts? Neat, but, first of all, you probably shouldn't be doing that (for plot reasons). Also, you're almost guaranteed to get a deity-level being personally interested in you, if you roll a "1" on the Will save you lose all spellcasting, and it only has a caster level % chance of even working. What about its more general use-case, as super-dispel? Well, on the drawbacks side, it destroys magic items. Sunder isn't any better when a Wizard can do it (even if they are better at it). Also, it's a 40 ft radius burst. I can't imagine what a dungeon would look like with 9th level spells being thrown around, but it makes targeting a pain even in an open field after the enemy side has closed with yours. Deleting a handful of +3 weapons and cloaks of resistance off of enemies is annoying, but taking out your own team's magic items is unforgivable. There's also the meta drawback of the Gentleman's Agreement. Using M's Disjunction against npcs is giving implicit permission for it to be used against you.

For anyone with experience with the early pokemon games, M's Disjunction is a lot like geodude/graveler or zubat/golbat. The first has high defensive capability and can be found in the wild with a move that knocks itself out, but almost assuredly does the same to your pokemon. The latter two have really high speed and moves that poison or confuse. Your pokemon are basically always outnumbered (many wild fights and/or trainer battles between you and the next boss fight, or the Elite 4 which is just a boss rush) so trading 1-for-1 is almost never in your favor, while poison doesn't affect npcs out of combat and confusion isn't reliable. All this to say they're very effective tools to be used against the player, but lose most of their "oomph" when used by the player.

But, all of those many, horrible drawbacks must be worth it, right? What else even competes for dispelling? Well, there's Chain Dispel. That's targeted Dispel Magic, targeting a creature per level (so you don't have to worry about friendly fire) and it caps out at a +25 boost from caster level. That means, even at 20th level, you're still benefiting from caster level boosts. And it's only an 8th level spell!

[Beni-Kujaku]

I haven't actually been in any play high enough level to use it, but M's Disjunction has always struck me as a dubious use of resources at best. It can be used to destroy artifacts? Neat, but, first of all, you probably shouldn't be doing that (for plot reasons). Also, you're almost guaranteed to get a deity-level being personally interested in you, if you roll a "1" on the Will save you lose all spellcasting, and it only has a caster level % chance of even working. What about its more general use-case, as super-dispel? Well, on the drawbacks side, it destroys magic items. Sunder isn't any better when a Wizard can do it (even if they are better at it). Also, it's a 40 ft radius burst. I can't imagine what a dungeon would look like with 9th level spells being thrown around, but it makes targeting a pain even in an open field after the enemy side has closed with yours. Deleting a handful of +3 weapons and cloaks of resistance off of enemies is annoying, but taking out your own team's magic items is unforgivable. There's also the meta drawback of the Gentleman's Agreement. Using M's Disjunction against npcs is giving implicit permission for it to be used against you.

You don't throw Disjunctions around. A Disjunction is a spell so completely broken, so devoid of restrictions, that it should exclusively be used in the final fight of a campaign, when nothing else matters.

Either it's used by the BBEG as its sole action for the first round, and it's a great way to show how powerful they can be if they can remove every buff and destroy about half of their magic items in one go. Or it's used by the PCs when they really don't care how many items they destroy, the point is to beat the person in front of them to prevent them from threatening the world, not to loot their body afterwards. Also, you're a level 17 wizard, if you don't have a way to fly so that your Disjunction does not affect your friends, you're doing it wrong.

You cannot say an atom bomb is one of the worst weapons ever created because when you use it it spells total destruction for one side or another and you cannot use their facilities afterwards. The atom bomb is one of the most powerful weapons ever created because it can destroy everything (and we all hope it is never used for that reason). Disjunction is one of the most powerful spells in the game because it dispels everything and destroys magic items (and we all hope it is never used against us for that reason).

Oh, yeah, and Chain Dispel. You know what Chain Dispel requires that Disjunction doesn't? Rolling. If I'm using my uberpowerful dispel spell, I don't want to have a 25% chance of not dispelling a CL20 spell despite all my CL boosters. I don't want to have a 5% chance of not dispelling any single one of the BBEG's spells. I want everything dispelled. I want this spell to win on the spot. No save, no SR. Just pure magical dispelling that still allows me to use my spells afterwards. I want those dweomer disjoined, period.

[AvatarVecna]

I played in an epic gestalt game for a couple months. Epic spells were allowed as long as we weren't cheering around the costs. But the epic settlement we were in had a standing policy against using Disjunction, enforced through the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. Items and permabuffs make tye difference between standing a chance and getting stomped. If you demonstrate you're willing to be that ruthless and strip things away in a small squabble, it makes every other epic person in the city worriedbthey might he next. That's how you get a dozen archmages from every corner of the alignment pool lining up to disjunction your ****.

It's not one of the weakest spells.

[MornShine]

Mutually Assured Destruction, in-character, never did anyone any good— the resource cost of always having Destruction on tap to Assure is irksome.

I'd like to submit Heart Ripper (the Complete Arcane version) as perhaps the most terrible forth-level spell.

On the upside, it's a multi-target save-or-die and it's extremely metal.

On the downside, it's Fortitude Negates and SR: Yes, and it only works on creatures with a heart. And fewer than 4 HD. And total HD of all targets up to CL.

If you want to kill a large horde of mooks, there's Fireball for that.

If you want to kill one or two minions (with HD at least three lower than your CL, may I say), there's Fireball for that.

If you want to mildly inconvenience the miniboss, there's Fireball for that.

If you want to pick off minions interspersed with your allies, there's Lightning Bolt for that. Or even Magic Missile.

It's also Assassin 4, which requires Character Level 12; or a Wu Jen 4, which requires you to play a Wu Jen instead of a Wizard.

(The Spell Compendium version is substantially different— single-target, save-or-die for HD < CL, significant stunlock otherwise... but the same have-a-heart requirement. Oh, and now it's not on the Wu Jen list, so even with Practiced Spellcaster you can at best take out one creature that's weaker than you are. With your highest-level spell.)

[Inevitability]

It's also Assassin 4, which requires Character Level 12; or a Wu Jen 4, which requires you to play a Wu Jen instead of a Wizard.

(The Spell Compendium version is substantially different— single-target, save-or-die for HD < CL, significant stunlock otherwise... but the same have-a-heart requirement. Oh, and now it's not on the Wu Jen list, so even with Practiced Spellcaster you can at best take out one creature that's weaker than you are. With your highest-level spell.)

I don't actually think the assumption that it got removed from the Wu Jen list is correct - rather, it seems to me to flow naturally from the way 3.5 updates work that Wu Jen can access the updated spell, and in fact only the updated spell.

We all agree that spells can be on a class list if the class mentions it but the spell description doesn't, right? Blackguards can cast Cure Light Wounds even if the PHB entry for CLW does not mention blackguards.

(And on the flip side, we all agree that Fengut is on the wizard list - our sole source is the spell description itself, but that's enough.)

So a spell is on a class list if either the spell or the list's first printing mentions that. And it is plain that the (unupdated) Wu Jen list mentions Heart Ripper, making the fact that the spell no longer does irrelevant. Sure, the words 'Heart Ripper' now refer to an updated spell, but that doesn't change that whatever-is-the-most-recent-printing-of-Heart-Ripper gets referenced directly in the Wu Jen entry.

[InvisibleBison]

I played in an epic gestalt game for a couple months. Epic spells were allowed as long as we weren't cheering around the costs. But the epic settlement we were in had a standing policy against using Disjunction, enforced through the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. Items and permabuffs make tye difference between standing a chance and getting stomped. If you demonstrate you're willing to be that ruthless and strip things away in a small squabble, it makes every other epic person in the city worriedbthey might he next. That's how you get a dozen archmages from every corner of the alignment pool lining up to disjunction your ****.

It's not one of the weakest spells.

This thread isn't about the weakest spells, though. It's about the worst spells, which is a much more nebulous category. I think it's reasonable for a spell you can only use under extremely limited circumstances to be considered among the worst spells.


I'm also surprised no one has mentioned ability rip yet. It lets you temporarily remove a supernatural ability from one creature and give it to another - at the cost of the recipient permanently losing one of their own supernatural abilities, or two levels if they don't have any. The cost is so ridiculously high that it basically only is usable as a way to remove bad supernatural abilities that you don't want to have.

[Anthrowhale]

Disjunction used inside a Time Stop can strip spells without destroying loot since Time Stop makes the possessed items invulnerable while leaving existing spells vulnerable. It's somewhat expensive to use this way since you need 2 9th level spells, but the downside removal often makes this a 1/day tactic rather than a 1/campaign tactic.

Complement with Chain Spell Greater Dispel Magic not in a Time Stop to suppress(but not destroy) most items as well, since items are typically made with a minimal caster level.

[Wildstag]

Magic of Faerun's Spider Poison is a 3rd-level sorc/wiz spell that deals... 1d6 strength damage! On a melee touch attack! It's so insanely outclassed by Ray of Enfeeblement or Lesser Shivering Touch (1st-level spells!) that it's not even funny.

Ah, but there is one advantage to it: Unlike Ray of Enfeeblement, it can actually drop a creature to 0 Strength.

[Inevitability]

Ah, but there is one advantage to it: Unlike Ray of Enfeeblement, it can actually drop a creature to 0 Strength.

...and it even has a 50% chance of actually doing so if used against a 4 strength creature! Owl familiars, tremble in fear!

In all seriousness, at that point just go with Shadow Spray (2nd-level, ranged AoE instead of touch attack, dazes, less RNG, not poison), which isn't even that good of a spell.

[Metastachydium]

dazes

That's never the worst thing!

[Inevitability]

That's never the worst thing!

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to imply Shadow Spray was bad, just that it was a solid spell that compares ridiculously well to Spider Poison.

[icefractal]

But, all of those many, horrible drawbacks must be worth it, right? What else even competes for dispelling? Well, there's Chain Dispel. That's targeted Dispel Magic, targeting a creature per level (so you don't have to worry about friendly fire) and it caps out at a +25 boost from caster level. That means, even at 20th level, you're still benefiting from caster level boosts. And it's only an 8th level spell!

I think this is one that varies based on optimization level. The last time I was in a really high-power campaign (20th level, fairly optimized within certain limits), my normal "in the field" CL was 24, entirely dispel-able with +25. But my ritual / prepared CL was 44 - 56, depending how much resources I wanted to put into it (and could have been even higher if things like Consumptive Field were on the table). Nobody was dispelling those buffs with anything less than a Disjunction.

So I'd say that in the fairly rare high-power high-op campaign, Disjunction is a major equalizer, without which buff-mancy just facerolls everything else. In the same way that without Wish ignoring dimensional protections, high-level casters could be truly invincible (even to each-other).

[St Fan]

And finally, the granddaddy of all terrible spells, it's...
Transcend Mortality! This 9th level Wu-Jen only spell allows you to become much harder to damage or kill for 1 round/level, gaining DR, SR, energy resistance, immunity to many status effects (including ones like starvation and disease, which I find hilarious), and a +10 to saves. What happens when the spell ends? You are reduced to a fine pile of ash, no save. But don't worry: If you can't wait a full round per level, you can dismiss it early to put truths to those myths of spontaneous human combustion.

Have you learned, prepared, and cast Transcend Mortality? I've found three failure points in your plan.

Transcend mortality is actually usable if you've prepared a pact of return or death pact beforehand. Yeah, it's lots of preparation and probably requires a theurgist, so it doesn't necessarily makes the combo any good... but it's doable.

[Anthrowhale]

Transcend mortality is actually usable if you've prepared a pact of return or death pact beforehand. Yeah, it's lots of preparation and probably requires a theurgist, so it doesn't necessarily makes the combo any good... but it's doable.

Pact of Return seems like the right choice there since Death Pact starts with "lose 2 constitution". You could always just use a ring of Spell Storing---no need to theurge. The issue with Transcend Mortality for me is that it's kind of marginal compared to alternate spells at lower levels or which you want anyways.

Damage reduction 30/epic. L9 Shapechange for effective DR 15/-.
Spell resistance equal to 21 + you caster level. L9 Shapechange into something with spell resistance + L6 Greater Spell Resistance (Dragon #304)
Acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic resistance 50. L6 Energy Immunity.
Immunity to ability damage, disease, energy drain, poison, and death effects. L4 Death Ward, L3 Amethyst Aura, L4 Sheltered Vitality.
+10 enhancement bonus on all saving throws. L1 Instant of Power for +4 enhancement bonus.
You do not need to eat, drink, or breathe. Shapechange or other form changing magic.

It's a reasonable defense if you only afford to dedicate one spell to defense, but there's nothing new here except some larger numbers for damage resistance and saves.

[CactusAir]

I remember seeing some speculation that Jade Phoenix Mage (PrC) could be used to get around the death from Transcend Mortality.

Alternatively, Spellguard of Silverymoon (also a PrC) lets you use Transcend Mortality offensively to kill enemies.

[Beni-Kujaku]

The issue with Transcend Mortality for me is that it's kind of marginal compared to alternate spells at lower levels or which you want anyways.

Damage reduction 30/epic. L9 Shapechange for effective DR 15/-.
You do not need to eat, drink, or breathe. Shapechange or other form changing magic.

It's a reasonable defense if you only afford to dedicate one spell to defense, but there's nothing new here except some larger numbers for damage resistance and saves.

Did you just say the benefits of a spell was bad because they can be replicated by Shapechange of all things? The spell so absolutely broken in every possible and conceivable way that WotC themselves errataed every single monster in the game to remove any mention of its lesser version and invented a whole new subschool of magic to replace it because there was absolutely no way to balance it in any meaningful way? If "you'd better cast Shapechange" makes you a contender for this list‚ then literally 99.9% of the spells (and 95% of the 9th level spells) in the game are the worst spells in the game. Neither Polymorph nor Shapechange should appear in that kind of conversation because they just make basically all spells redundant. (Hells‚ if Polymorph was level 9 and we didn't have D.Polymorph‚ T.Polymorph or Shapechange‚ people would still be using it and saying it's a pretty good spell.)

And even then Shapechange can hardly reproduce all the benefits of Transcend Mortality (insane SR without being a golem‚ DR30). It's a bit disingenuous to say that those benefits are marginal. They're really good‚ they're just not worth the hassle of preparing a contingent resurrection beforehand.

[bekeleven]

I'm surprised nobody has yet brought up the power words from Races of the Dragon.

Most of the power words are reasonable enough in power level to dodge this list; they have no saving throw, after all. But there were two power outliers noticeable enough that players at the time speculated their levels were accidentally swapped. Did this happen? It's not likely, but it does feel like one should be at least one level higher, and the other at least one level lower.

Power Word Pain hits anybody with 100 HP or less that can't SR it. The target takes 1d6 instantly, and another 1d6 every following rounds, which can be from 1d4 to 4d4 depending on their stats. Pretty slow, all things consid... first level?! This thing competes with magic missile?

Meanwhile, power word distract makes its target... flat-footed until their next action. It can hit targets up to 150 HP, though, because it's fourth level. Imagine being a 7th level wizard and spending a standard action on this. Distract Assailant is a first level spell that, while it allows a saving throw, does the same thing as a swift action and it's not even particularly good. (Also it might last longer? The header indicates it does but the text does not.) Want to spend a standard action to get someone vulnerable? Cool, Grease is also first level. I know Grease is really good, but if they took the same resources, I'd hope most fourth-level battle debuff spells would be taken over it at least 1% of the time.