Essential spells for the arcane caster

[CTSparky]

Guys I know or hope this has been done before but I'd like to see your opinions on the following questions?

What are the essential spells for a primary arcane caster in 3.5e. To make things harder explain your reasoning. Also assume no other arcane Casters so a bit of everything would be nice.
Finally in order to force decisions I'm going to limit the number per level:
5 1st Level
4 2nd Level
4 3rd Level
3 4th Level
3 5th Level
2 6th Level
2 7th Level
1 8th Level
1 9th Level

 

[Driddle]

Wish.
None of the others matter.


... And Bigby's Finger of Nasal Tidying.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Guys I know or hope this has been done before but I'd like to see your opinions on the following questions?

What are the essential spells for a primary arcane caster in 3.5e. To make things harder explain your reasoning. Also assume no other arcane Casters so a bit of everything would be nice.

It varies by level. What you need are some categories: defense, offense, miscellaneous. I'm not the right person to ask about the latter.

1) Color Spray is the best one IMO. Magic Missile becomes better, but I wouldn't pick it until 3rd-level. Mage Armor is great, and so is Shield. The latter you'll be casting for the rest of your character's existence, probably.

2) Glitterdust - area-of-effect blinding spell. Small radius means you can sometimes use it when your buddies are in melee with the bad guys. Ignores SR! (This means you can blind golems, who tend to have lame Will saves.) Also sometimes reveals the invisible. See Invisibility - very handy. Invisibility is, IMO, broken, requiring you to use this spell. (Broken because making the Spot check is basically impossible, and it makes ambushes too easy.) Mirror Image (see the FAQ) is one of the best defense spells ever; anything that protects you from targeted save-or-suffer spells is great. As long as you move at least 10 feet each round, at most you might lose two images per round (unless your opponent is an archer).

3) Fireball. Lightning Bolt is also good because often your enemies will be strong vs fire. Displacement is very strong against non-magic attacks.

4) Fear kicks a lot of butt; for some annoying reason enemies always made their save against it when I used it, but that was luck - Glitterdust, two levels lower, worked more often. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, like Glitterdust, but a bit more limited.

5) Hold Monster is one of my favorites.

6) Flesh to Stone and Disintegrate are two of my favorites. FtS is especially good; it's not a death effect but it might as well be! Chain Lightning is one of the better attack spells.

7) Finger of Death - decent but not great. Clerics have a much better spell at this level. Never played a mage of this level though.

8) Horrid Wilting is great. Never played a mage of this level, though.

9) Dominate Monster is a cool one, but I've only been a character with this many levels twice (and never as a mage). Prismatic Sphere is a perennial favorite; it's cool, but the rules are a bit iffy and it's blatantly obvious that you're using it. Wail of the Banshee looks good, too.

 

[Henry]

Are we saying Core rules only?

If so, I'd say:

1st Level: Magic Missile (force damage!), grease (reflex saves at 1st level!), mage armor (given), Color Spray (will save or weak creatures), expeditious retreat (getting Hell out of Dodge)
2nd Level: Glitterdust (blinding and coating invisibles), Web(area control and missile cover), alter self (rudimentary wings, gills), shatter (destroy enemy weapon or key plot device!)
3rd Level: Fireball (all-purpose melee and long range), fly (given), Dispel magic (multi-purpose), magic circle vs. good/evil/chaos/law (multi-purpose defensive spell)
4th Level: Greater invisiblity (excellent defense), Polymorph (adapt to environment, turn into physically powerful creature), Scrying (know thy enemy!)
5th Level: Wall of stone (instant earthworks & bridges!), Teleport (given), Telekinesis (manipulating or hurling things from afar)
6th Level: Chain lightning (multiple damage but doesn't hit allies), True Seeing (see invisible, ethereal, etc.)
7th Level: Limited Wish (the swiss army knife of spells, despite cost), Forcecage (stop most any enemy that doesn't teleport)
8th Level: Horrid Wilting (mass damage, LOTS of it.
9th Level: Time Stop (when you ABSOLUTELY have to either get away or kick someone's butt).

Those are my suggestions: They'd probably be different if things like Spell compendium were available.

 

[Felix]

I'm going to argue that there are no real "must have's" in the first 4 levels; an arcanist can get by pretty much without any one of them. At higher levels though, you'll want these spells, or at least scrolls of them.

(I had the Sorcerer in mind when I came up with this list: only True Seeing has a material component, so I might not have this as a Spell Known, but I'd have a few scrolls of it lying around. The others are good spells to use multiple times in a day, or have varied uses.)

5th
1 Teleport
2 Sending
3 Telekinesis

6th
1 Disintegrate
2 True Seeing

7th
1 Plane Shift
2 Spell Turning

8th
1 Mind Blank

9th
1 Time Stop

 

[wmasters]

You can get away without any of the spells, in principle, but if making a list of must haves for a non-specialist, I'd go with:

1st: Ray of Enfeeblement, Mage Armour, Magic Missile
Ray of Enfeeblement is an amazing utility spell, the strength drain is always useful when you kick off the fight against the BBEG, and is often more effective than a block of damage.

Mage Armour - does this really need explaining? The core defence, and a bonus for monks in your party too.

Magic Missile - because sometimes there's no match for auto hitting magical force damage.

2nd: Rope Trick, False Life, Glitterdust

Rope Trick - the emergency sanctury for the party.
False Life - free hit points which last basically all day, this is always going to be worth a slot
Glitterdust - When fighting creatures that see, this is an amazing combat spell, even when your opponents are visible.

3rd: Dispel Magic, Haste

Dispel Magic - Great utility spell
Haste - An excellent party buff, especially in a fighter-heavy party.

4th: Evard's Black Tentacles, Dimension Door, Scrying

Evard's Black Tentacles - can end a combat in one easy step. A very powerful 4th level spell
Dimension Door - Instant escape from the tricky situation
Scrying - Because every wizard should

5th: Teleport, Passwall

Teleport - Travel made easy, and situational escape
Passwall - From time to time walls can be pesky

6th: Contingency

Contingency - Sometimes things don't go to plan

7th: Limited Wish

Limited Wish - Sometimes they really don't go to plan

8th: Clone

Clone - When Contingency and Limited Wish have failed.

9th: Wish

Wish - When is a Wish not useful?

There's not a lot of pure offence because there's always an alternative spell out there, so there aren't many that I consider essential.

 

[Bardsandsages]

It depends on the character concept. My Red Wizard had a lot of spells designed to help her escape in a hurry, and took spell mastery and still spell feats to make sure that even if she was captured she could take gaseous form and sneak out. If I'm multiclassing rogue/wizard, then I'm focusing on spells to make me more stealthy. I had one wizard character that was a prima donna and couldn't be bothered actually maintain a horse, so she had to have the Summon Mount spell. I'd say it depends on how the player is going to play.

 

[Felix]

If you're going to look at the arcane spells and decide which are absolutely necessary, you have to look at them as how they perform together; what kind of synergy will they have? Will spells become redundant in the presence of other spells?

Passwall and Disintegrate arn't the same spell, but they can perform the same function: boring your way through a physical obstacle. Passwall does it much more efficiently, but lacks other applications. I would argue Disintegrate is the better option here.

Similarly, you don't want to have all of Wall of Fire, Ice, Force and Stone; pick which one suits what you want to do with battlefield control and go with that one.

A sorcerer shouldn't have both Limited Wish and Wish, nor do I think it would be wise to have each Summon Monster spell (though a few of them for varying purposes wouldn't be necessairly unwise).

Other spells become much more attractive in conjunction with others; the Symbol spells are permanent until discharged, but they are much more useful when you also have access to Permanency.

----

That being said, there are no real "must-haves" for arcanists; it has everything to do with what is in your spellbook, or in your spells known, and how they work together: to protect you, to sustain you, to attack, and to revive.