What 0th-level spells should any Wizard have?

[dcollins]

A while back I made some polls to generate a "baseline" core Wizard's spell list. I just realized I never did one for cantrips. You can pick as many selections as you like.

Say you have a Wizard of about 3rd level -- adventuring, PC or NPC, non-specialized, non-multiclassed, core rules only. He or she can prepare 4 spells of 0th-level. What spells should he or she prepare in those slots?

You can pick as many selections as you'd like -- I would suggest 4.

 

[blargney the second]

Message and prestidigitation for sure.

 

[Kylas]

Presty mos' definetly. They should pull a 4th ed and make all cantrips at will and roll it all into prestidigitation. Heh heh.

 

[Vorput]

Detect Magic, prestidigitation hands down.

Light is always good.

After that, it's more of a toss-up- I picked ghost sound.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I picked 5, cause one is a technicality.

Prestidigitation, Detect Magic, Message, Mage Hand, Daze. Daze is only there because you said a level 3 wizard, so Daze is still useful. If it were even just one level higher, I'd have not picked it.

Other ones I'd have picked if there were more slots open: Light, Read Magic, Ghost Sound.

 

[Legildur]

Presty mos' definetly. They should pull a 4th ed and make all cantrips at will and roll it all into prestidigitation. Heh heh.

We've been playing a related house rule since 3.0 - wizards spontaneously cast cantrips (and clerics orisons) - but are still limited to the number of times per day as usual.

 

[awayfarer]

I voted Prestidigitation, Detect magic and Read magic.

Always take prestidigitation. The fun factor of this spell is immense.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Detect magic and read magic are obvious requirements. Prestidigitation is just so much more useful than all the others for non-combat stuff that it's also a requirement. Resistance should be picked by everyone and, if not, they are not thinking ahead (or plan to craft anything, which is mind-boggling inofitself). Everyone needs cloaks/vests of resistance and you need resistance to make them (or use a scroll, blah, blah, c'mon). Since you didn't specify a race, I picked light as my fifth option, just for those non-darkvision characters.

PS. I'm not sure why you wanted people to limit to 4 spells. Since when does a wizard learn only the number of spells he can cast? That made no sense to me, but nevertheless I and apparently most others here followed your suggestion. It is, after all, your poll.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Detect magic and read magic are obvious requirements. Prestidigitation is just so much more useful than all the others for non-combat stuff that it's also a requirement. Resistance should be picked by everyone and, if not, they are not thinking ahead (or plan to craft anything, which is mind-boggling inofitself). Everyone needs cloaks/vests of resistance and you need resistance to make them (or use a scroll, blah, blah, c'mon). Since you didn't specify a race, I picked light as my fifth option, just for those non-darkvision characters.

PS. I'm not sure why you wanted people to limit to 4 spells. Since when does a wizard learn only the number of spells he can cast? That made no sense to me, but nevertheless I and apparently most others here followed your suggestion. It is, after all, your poll.

Knowledge of spells isn't an issue. A wizard automatically knows ALL cantrips. He limited it to 4 because he's asking which you would prepare for the day. Hence why I wouldn't pick resistance. Definitely want to know it, but you can just put it on scrolls and eventually make cloaks/vests, so no need to prepare it on a regular day. Also, Read Magic isn't as important if you can jack up your spellcraft check. By level 3, with an 18 int, you should have a +12 (synergy w/ know arcana). It's DC 20-29 to read any spell scroll w/o the read magic spell, one try per day. So, arguably not so important to keep prepared. (And nothing seems to stop you from preparing it tomorrow if something's giving you trouble).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Knowledge of spells isn't an issue. A wizard automatically knows ALL cantrips.

Good point. I totally forgot not to consider my house rule. Sorry. I must've been delirious or something, too, because for some reason I didn't even follow the idea that it's prepared. Oh well, my choices sullied your poll, dcollins, sorry. If you care to, replace 1 resistance and 1 read magic with a 1 mage hand (my personal choice otherwise).