Best 1st level combat spell for 1st level caster?

[starwed]

Rain of Stone (or stone rain) from Complete Arcane is pretty good, but it has a 5gp material component.

 

[mikebr99]

Yep, not only does the spell almost assure you of killing the low level creature you cast it on, but it scales nicely at higher levels where it can be used to be a spell like Coup de Grace. Knock a mob down, cast Hold, Slow etc, and watch it die.

At my table it is called: Power Word: Broken.

And at mine.. it's 4th level.

Mike

 

[Archade]

Rain of Stone (or stone rain) from Complete Arcane is pretty good, but it has a 5gp material component.

You mean Hail of Stone - and I believe it's better than magic missile. It's got a 5-foot burst, so you can catch more than one target, it does 1d4 per level of the caster (to a maxmimum of 5d4), so it scales up nicely until you can cast fireball or the like, and it doesn't require a hit roll or allow spell resistance. The downside is the expensive material component (chips of jade or something like that). I think it's also printed in the Spell Compendium.

 

[TheGogmagog]

Second vote for Sleep.

Aside from that Fist of stone is also noteworthy (and maybe a longbow that's wieldable at your new strength score).

If you are playing a warmage, it also gets some burst spells, can't remember the levels though. The empower feat, or quickened empower (taken earlier than the class feat) are both great bargains for the warmage. With the edge you can get more damage with empower than with maximize on most of the spells. Especially ones with D4 dice and +1/level modifiers. I took quickened empower, then took quickened maximize long before I gained them by class.

 

[taferial]

Ah hah! I remember, Chromatic orb.

Best spell ever, damn 3rd edd for ever removeing it.

 

[Thanee]

At my table it is called: Power Word: Broken.

I, personally, like Power Word: WTF!?

And yeah, 4th level is certainly closer to it's power (maybe a bit much even; there is no errata switching those two PW in RotD, or is there?), which, incidentally, is also why I can say with confidence that this is the best 1st level combat spell for a 1st level caster (by a wide margin).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Radiating Gnome]

One problem with Sleep is that, much like summoning spells, it takes a full round to cast (something that is often forgotten at the table). And it doesn't scale well once you get into higher levels (it stops being of any use once your typical opponents have 4hd or more).

 

[papakee]

Sleep and the old 3.0 burning hands (fan shaped and sets things on fire)

 

[Magesmiley]

I'm a bit of a fan of Ray of Enfeeblement myself. Dropping the STR of a single big bad enemy is often more effective at dealing with a single big, bad enemy than direct damage - particulalry if he suddenly can't carry the weight of the armor he's wearing.

I'm also a big fan of enlarge person for upping the damage and reach of the party's tank (I suppose it could be viewed as indirectly damaging the enemy).

 

[pallandrome]

True strike. It's ALWAYS useful. Personally, I like casting true strike on myself and lobbing great-swords at the baddies.