Sorceror Spell Selections

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Many mentions melf's as a good spell to finish off trolls, but I usually have soemone with a weapon with fire-bonus or use a wizard with burning hands before I get the hands on one such weapon. Melf's is too weak to be useful for anything else.
Aganazzor's Scorcher is as I mentioned earlier powerful when you first get it, but later on there are many better lvl2 spells.

 

Look at it this way, revmaf. Any spell that has its damage limited in some way will tend to become increasingly less powerful after you've past its limit.

Fireball is an excellent example. It is a 1d6 perlevel spell, but is limited to 10d6 dice of damage. Thus, after level 10, it will become increasingly less potent compared to the increasingly nasty enemies that you'll end up facing.

The trick is to find/select damaging spells that don't have limits on their damage or other spells that don't have limits on their duration (beyond perhaps topping out at level 30).


Revmaf, I just looked up Melf's Acid Arrow in DLTCEP and as its description in the manual implies, its duration is 1 round + 1 round per 3 levels of the caster ... all the way up to level 30. So, while M's AA isn't the most deadly of spells, for a L2 spell, it's not all that bad.

OTOH, Ag's Scorcher makes a single 6d6 attack (well, actually two 3d6 attacks in a single round) and that's it. That's as good as it's gonna get.

Personally, Melf's AA is the only Level 2 attack spell that I bother taking. I prefer to take web, mirror image, invisibility, and bull's strength as my L2 spells.

 

Thanks, mudde and crucis. I may (agh! gasp! o no!) use the dale keeper 2 program to change my sorceror's choices. And you've helped me understand how to evaluate the spell description better. Things that look rosy when your spellcaster is at level 4 or 5 aren't so wonderful later - duh.