Overlooked, underappreciated, spells and powers

[caudor]

On my player's top-ten ignore list...Santuary. This is really a great spell.

 

[KarinsDad]

On my player's top-ten ignore list...Santuary. This is really a great spell.

What's so special about Sanctuary?

It 100% prevents you from attacking your opponents (unless you want to give it up), but doesn't necessarily prevent your opponents from attacking you. And, the DC on it is low.

So although you can occasionally heal and/or buff using it with some small measure of safety, your opponents are still attacking someone else in your group (assuming you are not alone). It doesn't really gain that much in most circumstances except use up a spell and use up a round casting it where a Cleric can often just take a 5 foot step and cast relatively safely anyway without giving up the extra spell and the extra round.

The main uses for it are to cast it before moving past a boatload of enemies and preventing some of them from getting Attack of Opportunities against you, or to use it to run away from a group of opponents where only some of them can attack while pursuing. Even using it to heal allies somewhat unmolested seems to be more of a lose/lose situation since most Clerics seem to be able to do that in combat without using it.

Is there something I am missing with it?

 

[Jack Simth]

Tiny Hut.

Why? It's got some nifty properties, useful for virtually any ranged attacking:
1) it's got a 20-ft radius - so a 40-ft diameter, and is thus 7-8 squares across.
2) It doesn't interfere with the vision of those inside
3) It's opaque to those outside (you have total concealment! Yay!)
4) Standard Action
5) 3rd level

Thus, in combat, you can summon it, and take a five-foot step (or even a move action - you can be anywhere in the hut in the same turn you make it) to cover most, if not all, the party with total concealment. An attacker (who isn't using area attacks or some such, anyway) not only has to guess at which square you are in, but has a 50% miss chance even if the attacker picks the right one (and there should be about 50 of them to choose from, in a fully open area (pi*r^2; r = 4 5-ft squares))! Even better, at that level, it's the only spell that covers most the party in one round AND doesn't interfere with the party's actions. Sure, your opponents can charge in and see as well as you can - but then they are moving into an area where they don't know the layout of the party, and any non-area abilities are virtually useless from outside.

 

[moritheil]

Use it to heal a weak NPC surrounded by relatively weak (for the party, not for the NPC) enemies. This scene is a fairly common DM opening trick to introduce the party to a storyline.

What's so special about Sanctuary?

It 100% prevents you from attacking your opponents (unless you want to give it up), but doesn't necessarily prevent your opponents from attacking you. And, the DC on it is low.

So although you can occasionally heal and/or buff using it with some small measure of safety, your opponents are still attacking someone else in your group (assuming you are not alone). It doesn't really gain that much in most circumstances except use up a spell and use up a round casting it where a Cleric can often just take a 5 foot step and cast relatively safely anyway without giving up the extra spell and the extra round.

The main uses for it are to cast it before moving past a boatload of enemies and preventing some of them from getting Attack of Opportunities against you, or to use it to run away from a group of opponents where only some of them can attack while pursuing. Even using it to heal allies somewhat unmolested seems to be more of a lose/lose situation since most Clerics seem to be able to do that in combat without using it.

Is there something I am missing with it?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'm just jealous that druids got a Phantom Stag that is the same spell except it has more hit points (40), +5 hp's every caster level, +10 BAB, ghost touch and wounding attacks, trample, etherealness, AC bonuses, AND MOVES FASTER!

Welcome to the splatbooks, where the philosophy is, if any other spellcaster has a spell, the druid should get a nature-themed one as or more powerful! :\

 

[Bront]

I've always found sound burst quite effective. 2nd level Cleric and Bard spell that does 1d8 sonic (no save) 10' rad, and will save vs stun for 1 round. Even at higher levels, the stun can be usefull, but it's definately a very good low level spell.

Sculpt Sound is a very nice 3rd level bard spell to do everything from silence the party without forcing them to loose their voices (Change sound of armor and footsteps, but not voices), to mute or otherwise render an enemy spellcaster ineffective. Plus, there is nothing mentioned that it can only be used the same way on all it effects, and the Duration is long.

 

[KarinsDad]

Use it to heal a weak NPC surrounded by relatively weak (for the party, not for the NPC) enemies. This scene is a fairly common DM opening trick to introduce the party to a storyline.

You can do this without casting Sanctuary.

 

[KarinsDad]

Tiny Hut.

I talked our Warmage into taking Tiny Hut as his advanced learning spell. The advantage from it is huge.

 

[two]

I think acid fog is underappreciated at mid-high levels.

It's quite easy, in one round, to mix together:

1) Acid Fog (catching enemy party in radius)
2) Silence (overlapping the Acid Fog)

This stops a lot of spellcasting, obviously. Then add:

3) Evard's Black Tentacles (overlapping Acid Fog and Silence)

Because in 3.5 the tentacles are immune to all damage, they co-exist with the Acid Fog just fine.

Basically, this will stop/kill anything except a freedom of movementized wizard/sorcerer with a silent dimdoor prepared.

Not 100% guarenteed, but any fighter-type, rogue-type, cleric-type, bard-type, etc. is pretty much a goner.

Does require a wizard capable of casting acid fog, however, and perhaps a cleric cohort for the silence. Evard's is just icing.

*by the way necklaces of adaptation are quite, quite useful sometimes!*

 

[Vraister]

Obscuring Mist - saved my behind lots of times. Surrounded by large big monsters, cast Obscuring Mist and most of them are more than 5 feet away and can't see and hit you while you walk out.

Vraister