First 2 8th level spells to take?

[just__al]

Just Became 15th level. I decided on Quicken Spell and Greater Spell Penetration for feats but I could use a little advice on spells. (3.5)

I think I've narrowed it down to the following choices...

Bigby's clenched fist, Maze, Otto's Dance, Polar Ray, Prismatic Wall, Scintillating Pattern and Maybe SM VIII.

He's been mostly relying on damaging spells and enchantments if the foes seem like they'd be able to be charmed or confused.

The wrinkle is this. From what we were able to get from Commune and Contact Other Plane we are expecting to deal with a lot of constructs so I'm already wondering about what to do when we face them.

Any suggestions on the spells?

If it helps here are my current 5th level and higher spells.

7th
Ethereal Jaunt
Mass Invisibility
Plane Shift
Prismatic Spray
Summon Monster VII
Greater Teleport

6th
Acid Fog
Analyse Dweomer
Chain Lightning
Disintegrate
Greater Dispel Magic
Legend Lore
Planar Binding
Mass Suggestion
Summon Monster VI
True Seeing

5th
Baleful Polymorph
Break Enchantment
Cone of Cold
Contact Other Plane
Dominate Person
Feeblemind
Hold Monster
Overland Flight
Permanency
Lesser Planar Binding
Rary's Telepathic Bond
Teleport
Wall of Force

 

[der_kluge]

Well, with the possible exception of summon monster VIII, none of those will work on constructs.

About the only spells that do work against constructs are ones that don't affect them directly, like Wall of Force. But, a construct could just walk right through a prismatic wall.

Telekinetic sphere might be handy, because you could encase someone in it, and the golem wouldn't be able to affect them. But, you could still move it around telepathically. That might come in real handy.


Otherwise, I got nothin'.

 

[Nightfall]

Can you move outside of Core?

 

[just__al]

Can you move outside of Core?

I might be able to talk my DM into allowing splat book spells, but that would be about it.

 

[Aaron L]

Greater Earth Elementals. They can move through stone like water so it doesn't matter if you're in a dungeon or outside.

Summon 2 and watch things die.

SMVIII is awesome.

 

[green slime]

What about Mind Blank? I wouldn't leave home without it...

 

[Sejs]

Depends on if we're talking about Constructs or Golems, here. If we're talking just Constructs, there's plenty you can do - Maze works just dandy against most constructs, particularly the unintelligent ones. Maze has no save, but does allow SR, and requires a DC 20 int check to get out of before the 10 minute time limit is up. Kinda hard to do if you don't have an int score, heh.

Otto's Dance is a mind effecting spell, so no good against constructs.
Polar Ray is a decent blasting spell. No save, allows SR.
Prismatic Wall is good in general, but SR applies on each color layer in turn.
Scintilating Pattern is both an illusion and mind-effecting, again no good vs constructs.
Summon Monster is nice and straight forward.


If it's Golems in particular that you'll be fighting, you've gotta look for things that don't allow SR. That magic immunity trait they have is annoying, but not unsermountable. Incendiary Cloud doesn't allow SR, but it takes time to be really effective. Pretty much all the other spells that work by doing stuff to the target allow for SR, so focusing on affecting your guys instead would be the way to go. Polymorph Any Object is a personal favourite.

 

[just__al]

Depends on if we're talking about Constructs or Golems, here. If we're talking just Constructs, there's plenty you can do - Maze works just dandy against most constructs, particularly the unintelligent ones. Maze has no save, but does allow SR, and requires a DC 20 int check to get out of before the 10 minute time limit is up. Kinda hard to do if you don't have an int score, heh.

Otto's Dance is a mind effecting spell, so no good against constructs.
Polar Ray is a decent blasting spell. No save, allows SR.
Prismatic Wall is good in general, but SR applies on each color layer in turn.
Scintilating Pattern is both an illusion and mind-effecting, again no good vs constructs.
Summon Monster is nice and straight forward.


If it's Golems in particular that you'll be fighting, you've gotta look for things that don't allow SR. That magic immunity trait they have is annoying, but not unsermountable. Incendiary Cloud doesn't allow SR, but it takes time to be really effective. Pretty much all the other spells that work by doing stuff to the target allow for SR, so focusing on affecting your guys instead would be the way to go. Polymorph Any Object is a personal favourite.

From our divinations we are expecting Steel Predators and Blade Golems and I think one other kind of Golem that's escaping me at the moment.

Summon Monster VIII just seems too sweet, Greater Elementals will do well in battle. The ability to summon 1-3 Avorals for Healing would be excellent and 1-3 Red Slaads would be good if we have to fight more Steel Predators, they really wreaked havoc with us the last battle. My wizard ended the battle improved invisible and bleeding to death, those sonic roars are NASTY. Luckily he stabilized the round before he was going to die since nobody could find him.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I tend to focus on flexibility, so along those lines consider:

Summon Monster VIII
Greater Shadow Evocation

Both spells allow you to use a single spell to deal with different situations, making the important decisions at the time of casting.

 

[just__al]

Well, Summon Monster 8 is definately one of my 2 choices. Still not sure about the other one. Anybody else have any ideas?