Under-rated and over-rated mage spells

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Heh, you'd never have thought squirrels could be so threatening.

 

Power Word: Blind is an awesome spell. It does not depend on the level or hit points of the target and there is no saving throw. Once a target is blind, death soon follows.
Finger of Death blows as does Power Word: Kill.
Glitterdust is agreat spell early on and can be useful in later gameplay, but you don't hear about it being used by anyone.
Death Spell is a nice spell for getting rid of summoned creatures or low-level troublesome ones like Umber Hulks and such.

 

I sometimes fire off a glitterdust or two. I don´t know if its anti-invisibility effect requires a save (it doesn´t in PnP 3.5 ed), but it´s just that there are a few other very good 2nd level spells. Mirror image, for one thing, or blur.

Skull trap is mean. You have to get closer though - no chance of bombarding from afar. Of course, you could always lure them afterwards, with some practice. Power word Silence would be a killer, but most mages seem to be vocalized. They don´t even need to cast the spell.

Feeblemind, when not saved, is just as devastating as FoD. It might allow a better save... but as a lvl 5 spell can be put in triggers more easily. However, I prefer chaos and cloudkill - the first for what it can do if failed (mages don´t seem to cast much with it - and it´s save at -4), the second for the synergy with web, entangle and grease.

What other creatures - except undead - are not affected by spook, by the way? Can I, for example, spook Firkraag?

((Edit: of course, no one could consider the spell sequencer or contingency spell trees underrated, would they?

Edit 2: for a fun combo, a mage-cleric can have the following sequencer: magic resistance - SETS the MR at 2xcaster level, lower resistance, harm. Has anyone tried it?))

 

I'm pretty sure Harm isn't affected by magic resistance. At least my monk got more then he asked for it in battle with Sendai. She hit him with Harm, and he had 100% MR, and still got affected.

Or am I not understanding what are you asking?

 

Well, I thought MR affects harm - otherwise I need to mention that in the cleric spell thread. No SR and no save... heh, that'd be too mean.

 

Will that trigger even work? What I mean is can Harm be cast on a target? I thought that it is cast on the cleric, and once it is cast you have to go touch the target. If that's right then the harm part if the trigger will fail.

Even if I'm wrong about that it's hard to use touch spells in sequencers or triggers. You have to be next to the target when you fire the trigger. If not you lose the whole thing.

 

There is another "item disappearing" spell in the game that is dangerous to use because of this unpleasant feature - Sphere of Chaos. In ToB I used it on Yaga-Shura and turned him into squirrel, which disabled looting the Hammer of Clangeddin and the Shuruppak Plate from his dead body In SoA I used this spell from scroll just for a test and two times got the same result - polymorphed creatures lost all their items.

 

@Mordokai

Oversight's Sendai uses a new version of Harm:Ranged, auto-hit and which ignores MR. Funny, eh?

 

Guess I'll find out soon enought, since I'm close to battling Oversight's Sendai It does sound a wee bit of cheesy to me, but hey, what would this game be without a wee bit of cheese

 

Play it on insane setting, otherwise she will not use all of her abilities fully!

 

Don't listen to Silverstar! Yeah, she uses her abilities to the full on Insane, but you really don't want her to be doing that. She's cheesy enough as it is on Core and bear in mind the longer you take to defeat her, the more drow reinforcements arrive. The more enemies on the screen, the slower your computer will run until you risk crashing...

Trust me, Core is hard enough for your first experience with her.

 

I wasn't even considering battling her on insane, as Silverstar suggested I'm fully aware of her abilities,and considering this IS my first time against improved Sendai, I agree with you, Core will be more than enought for me. Maybe too much even

Sorry to dissapoint you Silverstar, but I still value my sanity a little And I doubt there would be much left of it after battle with improved Sendai on Insane. Hell, I think I would went insane

 

Death spell is amazing for hordes of lower level creatures.

 

Heh, it is OK, on insane she is even too much for me! But that is the fun part!

I agree Death spell is wonderful enough, killing very nasty critters like Umber hulks and Myconids and whatever instantly. And, it is cool!

 

I tend to find that Prismatic Spray is a more effective spell than Finger of Death, especially against crowds. The chance of it having two effects on one opponent makes it far superior.

 

In my experience, you can make a lot of spells very good if you combine them with others. A good example is the Web/Spider Spawn combo which got me thorugh de'Arnise keep with my puny level 8 solo sorcerer without too much trouble.

I also used to hate sunfire because it messed up my own party, but going solo, combined with stoneskin or mirror image, it really is devastating. Nothing like seeing hordes of enemies attacking you without hitting while you hit them with a few sunfires.

 

A spell that I am really having fun with at the moment and the I think is severely underrated is Teleport field. Whenever I know I am about to walk into a horde of hard monsters (with my 4 sorcerers) I have 2 cast web, 1 cast greater malison and the other cast teleport field. All of the enemies become trapped in the web and constantly teleported all over the places. It is a great spell for breaking up the ranks of the enemies and allowing several free shots with ranged weapons before the emeny gets lucky and is teleported to the nearest edge.

 

If I'm doing a solo game, I'll use 2 lower resists and a finger of death in a sequencer. This usually kills any target. The nice thing about the finger is it does *some* damage if they save. Then it's time for the magic missile attacks, etc.

Most overrated spell = contingency. I always use this thing too. I have recently noticed that it never activates. I know you can set it to "instantly" or whatever, but you only get a lvl 1 or 2 spell. I usually go with invisibility when i'm stunned. They always cast true sight and kill me.

Most underrated spell = Most of the Power Word spells. They're all known, but never get used. Just about any of these will neutralize an opposing spellcaster(no save). Blind, Stun, Death will definately stop there spellcasting.

I recently noticed that the spell Shield gives immunity to Magic Missiles. It doesn't say this in the description, but it actually does in the coding of the spell. So, if you're playing BG1 or Tutu, it's great against the MM users.

 

You can put higher level spells to Contingency at high caster levels, it is not only limited to level 1-2 spells.

 

Contigency to dispel magic when helpless is a great use of it. Another goodie is for mage/clerics- sanctuary with any of the options available.

[ December 15, 2006, 04:04: Message edited by: ChickenIsGood ]