|
BadAstronaut posted:This will obviously be effort for you, but I'd appreciate it. I tried to play this about 6 years ago and got stuck by a gamebreaking bug, and it would be nice to go through it at some point this year. Alright. The spell list may seem imposing, but most of the spells aren't actually worth the effort. Basically, this game uses the Core rules for D&D 3.5 edition. General overview on spellcasting: Spells usually work by having you cast the spell on the target, and then the target usually makes what's called a Saving Throw where the target rolls a twenty-sided die and adds a number, trying to roll higher than a target number set by the spellcaster. Success and the spell is mitigated, if not canceled entirely. Saving throws are divided into three categories. -Fortitude saves are using your bodily health to resist things like poison or disease. Fighters and big monsters that like to fight in melee tend to have high fortitude saves. -Reflex saves are made using your agility to dodge out of the way of stuff like fireballs or dragonbreath. Rogues tend to have high reflex saves. -Will saves use your mental strength to throw off effects like fear. Casters tend to have high will saves. An important note is that the overwhelming majority of creatures you will encounter will be things that like to mix it up in melee, and have terrible Will saves. Thus, things that target a monster's will can be very useful in this game. Casters will be more resistant to Will-effects, but they're rarer and not immune to being stabbed by your party. Spells like Fireball are showy and fun to cast, but the problem is that unless you're facing a bunch of scrubs, they don't tend to take opponents out of the fight, and they're among the easiest spells to resist through other spells. A 5th level wizard might cast fireball to do 5d6 damage on a failed save, which is about 18 points of damage on average, or half that if the target succeeds. A 5th level wizard is probably going to be fighting things with more than 18 HP. If the wizard used that 3rd level spell slot for something like Haste or Slow, the wizard could enable the party attackers to make extra attacks per round for more damage on average than provided by the fireball, or take the enemies and render them unable to do anything while the party mows them down. Sorcerer/Wizard Spells worth using: 0th level: If you're relying on 0th level spells, something has gone horribly wrong. Read Magic is about the only thing that matters in here. 1st level: -Gharm Person: Makes a humanoid fight for you. -Color Spray: One of the staples of lower-level wizards, it's a Will-based spell that tends to seriously gently caress up any low-level monsters it hits, doing things like blinding them, stunning them, or knocking them out so you can murder them. -Enlarge Person: Cast it on a fighter or barbarian to get a big beefy buddy who can cover more ground and hit even harder. -Grease: An area of effect Reflex spell, anyone in the area (including your allies) must save or fall on their rear end. Keeps dudes off you, and if you can somehow get them on the edge of the area or have guys who can ignore the spell's effect, you can stand there and kick them when they try to get back up. -Identify: You're going to need it to identify your magic loot. Either that or just use console commands, I suppose. -Mage Armor: A staple for protecting your wizard, or any other lightly armored character. -Protection from Evil: Grants a bonus to defenses against evil characters. There are a lot of evil characters in the game. -Shield: Shorter duration than Mage Armor means that Mage Armor has priority, but it stacks, so at higher levels you can use this to protect your mage in big fights. -Sleep: One of the staples of low-level fights, it will take a bunch of weak monsters and put them to sleep, so you can wander up and Coup de Grace them to instantly kill them after you deal with their friends. 2nd level: -Fox's Cunning: Part of a series of spells that boost your ability scores, while Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace are favored by barbarians and rogues, wizards need Fox's Cunning, especially if they want to craft items that boost their intelligence even higher (and yes, they really want that) -Glitterdust: Despite the rather harmless-sounding name, it's one of the best spells in the game. It's an area of effect Will spell that blinds targets, meaning that if you cast it on a bunch of monsters they suddenly can't hit you very well, while you can mow them down. Rogues especially can sneak attack all they want against blind targets, and will quickly eviscerate them. -Hideous Laughter: A single humanoid target (including goblins and bugbears) must make a will save or be unable to do anything for a while as you sit there and hit them. Nonhumanoids are harder to affect. -Invisibility: Makes you invisible until you attack. Useful for scouting, but there's a ring that gives you this power that you can in the game, so not vital. -Resist Energy: A staple at higher levels, it lets you ignore the first 10/20/30 points of damage from specific energy attacks like fire. 3rd level: -Deep Slumber: Sleep's bigger sibling, good for more higher level monsters. -Dispel Magic: Good for shutting down the plans of enemy casters, but that's kind of a rarity. -Greater Magic Weapon: Cast it on a weapon to make it better. It doesn't stack with the weapon's normal bonus, and the game tends to bug out when you transition across areas, but it can be useful. -Haste: Makes your killers even better at killing, since they move faster, are harder to hit, and attack an extra time on a full attack. -Hold Person: A humanoid (again, including goblins and hobgoblins) must make a will save or be paralyzed, so if you have a melee type standing next to the target, you can just instantly kill them as soon as they fail the save. -Keen Edge: Makes a weapon twice as likely to score critical hits. Especially good for things like rapiers, falchions, scimitars, and kukri, where you can be taking heads maybe 1/3rd of the time. -Magic Circle Against Evil: Like Protection from Evil, but provides it to everyone within range, and lasts longer. Cast it on your melee types and then throw them into battle. -Slow: The opposite of haste. Cast it on enemy fighter types to make them have trouble fighting back. -Stinking Cloud: Fortitude save or be nauseated and have trouble fighting. Most things you'd want to use this on have a high fortitude, so slow might be better. -Suggestion: Makes the enemy work for you. 4th level: -Charm Monster: Makes most things want to fight for you -Confusion: A great spell. All people in the area of effect must make a will save or spend most of their turns just randomly flailing around. -Crushing Despair: Makes enemies worse at everything, but usually you don't need this. -Greater Invisibility: Invisibility, but doesn't end if you attack. Keeps your mage safe from harm for one fight, or lets your rogue sneak attack nonstop. -Phantasmal Killer: If a subject fails a will save and then a fortitude save, the target dies. Not as reliable as some other spells. -Solid Fog: Used to tie down opponents so they can't move around. -Stoneskin: Protects a target from 10 points of damage per attack. I think either the game or the Circle of 8 mod makes this spell drain your gp when you use it, so use it carefully. 5th level: -Animal Growth: If you have animal buddies, make them bigger and meaner. -Cloudkill: Kills low-level monsters, but by this point you usually don't need this spell. Could be useful for some swarms though. -Dominate Person: Makes humanoids into your allies. -Feeblemind: Make a will save or be turned into an idiot unable to cast spells. -Hold Monster: Like Hold Person, but affects almost anyone. Be sure to have an ally nearby to kill them before it wears off. -Mind Fog: Creatures in the fog who fail their will saves take a huge penalty to further will saves. Though if you're counting on them to fail will saves, it might be better just to use a spell. Cleric Spells Worth Using Clerics have the ability to cast healing spells, and good-aligned clerics can spontaneously convert spells into healing spells of the same level. Thus, if you're a good cleric, no need to prepare healing spells. Also, you should avoid healing in the middle of battle if you can and save it until after the fight. Every turn you spend healing someone is a turn you're not spending killing the enemy and letting them attack you some more, which means you're treading water on the HP front and might run out of spells before you run out of enemies. The exception would be if your ally is likely to be dropped in the next round or so. 0th level: Again, not a major factor in this game. 1st level: -Bless: Gives allies a bonus to hit. Doesn't stack with Bard song. -Divine Favor: Gives an increasing bonus to attacks and damage, good for making your clerics into strong combatants, especially at higher levels. Short duration though. -Protection from Evil: Still useful. -Shield of Faith: Provides a bonus to AC, meaning you're tougher to hit. Doesn't stack with certain items, but it's always useful, especially later on. 2nd level: -Bull's Strength: Cast it on your fighty-types to make them hit harder and more accurately for a fight. -Hold Person: Still useful -Resist Energy: Always useful -Silence: Shuts up enemy casters. Cast it on a rogue or fighty-type and they become a roving zone of no-caster. -Sound Burst: Terrible damage, but can stun opponents for a round if they fail a fortitude save. -Spiritual Weapon: Free floating sword which will stab things for you. 3rd level: -Blindness/Deafness: Permanently blinds the target if they fail a fortitude save. Glitterdust is probably more useful at this point, but this isn't bad to have. -Dispel Magic: Probably more useful on a cleric since you don't have to scribe it into your spellbook. -Magic Circle Against Evil: Again, still useful. -Magic Vestment: Makes your shield/armor better. You can even cast it on clothing if you've got a rogue or monk who doesn't need armor. Combos well with Mage Armor on those kinds of characters. -Prayer: Makes your allies better and your enemies worse at fighting. 4th level: -Death Ward: Protects from instant-kill effects and negative levels. Not a whole lot of creatures that use these, but useful against those that do. -Divine Power: Makes your cleric as good of a fighter as a fighter is for a fight. A great spell (sucks to be fighters though). -Freedom of Movement: A long-lasting spell that makes you immune to many things that slow you down or otherwise hinder your movement. There are rings that provide this effect, but it's still great to have. -Restoration: Makes you better if you're hit with level/ability loss. 5th level: -Break Enchantment: Not something you need to be in the habit of preparing, but it can fix most of the worst effects. -Dispel Evil: Protects the target from evil attacks. -Righteous Might: Makes you bigger and tougher, good for murdering things. Combines well with Divine Power and Divine Favor to turn a cleric into a killing machine. -Slay Living: Touch target and it makes a fortitude save or dies. Useful on frail targets, but then so is your sword. Druid Spells Worth Using Like clerics, druids can prepare healing spells, but they aren't as efficient with them and can't spontaneously cast them, so you don't want to rely on a druid for healing. Nothing that says you can't have both a cleric and a druid though. Druids can spontaneously cast Summon Nature's Ally spells, which are usually better than Summon Monster spells, so druids make excellent summoners especially if you get the Augment Summoning feat. 0th level: Again, don't bother. 1st level: -Charm Animal: Make friends with bears, I guess. -Cure Light Wounds: Not that you normally should be in the habit of this, but there aren't many other spells worth it at this level. -Entangle: Big area that locks down creatures that fail a reflex save. This includes your allies, so be careful. 2nd level: -Barkskin: Makes a target harder to hit with weapons, so good for boosting the defenses of anyone (including any of your animals) -Bull's Strength/Cat's Grace: The usual boosters for your characters. -Hold Animal: Like Hold Person, but only animals, so not as useful. -Resist Energy: Always useful. 3rd level: -Dominate Animal: Make an animal fight for you. -Greater Magic Fang: If something uses fangs, claws, or fists, you make it fight better. Good for your animal companion. -Spike Growth: Throw it in front of your enemies and they'll injure themselves running over to you. 4th level: -Dispel Magic: Takes a higher level slot than a cleric or wizard, but it's not bad to have one if you can't think of anything else to put up here. -Freedom of Movement: Still awesome. -Spike Stones: Spike Growth, but a little better damage. Probably not that worth it. 5th level: -Animal Growth: You've got the summons, you've got the animal companion, now combine them with this spell to create a zoo of murder. -Death Ward: Like the cleric spell, but you get it later, so not as efficient. -Stoneskin: Like the wizard spell, but you get it later, so not as efficient and still costs cash with the Co8 mod. Useful for blocking damage though. Bard Spells Worth Using The bard shares a bunch of spells with the wizard. Also note that the bard has bard songs, which can last essentially forever, or can be used for tricks like Fascinate (which is really hard to resist). You can maintain a bard song while fighting, but you can't maintain one while casting a spell. Bards don't get as many spells or as powerful of spells, so you might be better off just picking a few always-useful spells. 0th level: Same old, same old. 1st level: -Charm Person: Make friends out of people -Grease: AoE slip and slide, like the wizard spell -Identify: You're going to need it somewhere. -Sleep: Still useful at low levels -Tasha's Hideous Laughter: Lets you lock down a humanoid foe for a few rounds. 2nd level: -Glitterdust: Always useful. -Hold Person: Still comes in handy -Invisibility: Useful for scouting -Suggestion: Makes allies out of enemies. 3rd level: -Charm Monster: More allies -Confusion: Still awesome -Deep Slumber: Save or fall asleep. -Haste: Makes your party fight better. Always awesome. -Slow: Shuts down enemy fighters 4th level: -Dominate Person: More telepathic control -Freedom of Movement: Still useful -Greater Invisibility: Lets you get your murder on in safety. -Hold Monster: Like the wizard spell, paralyzes a monster so you can kill it.
|
| ← # ? Apr 20, 2012 02:21 |
|
