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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Qbert" data-source="post: 6908202" data-attributes="member: 6814320">3[SUP]rd[/SUP] level – Prepared and Chosen: Counterspell, Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Melf’s Minute Meteors – We play counterspell as an arcana, nature, or religion check to identify the spell being cast, (DC=10+spell level). That has worked quite well and I find counterspell success or failure to be the swingiest single factor in any battle.  If my counterspell against the opponents cc, aoe damage, or mass heal works, the battle is easy after that, if it fails, I am out a high level spell slot for no benefit. It’s very fun.  Vs one BBEG two successful counterspells meant he went down with barely a whimper in two rounds, while in a battle vs. drow an Evard’s Black Tentacles and a Mass cure wounds caused our party significant casualties when my counterspells failed.  Hypnotic Pattern and Fireball are great, but finding a way to fit in the AOE w/o hitting members of my party frequently poses a challenge. My plan is to eventually take the alert feat to help deal with this problem by going before our brawlers run into battle. That is why I took melf’s. The aoe is easier to avoid hitting party members or at least reducing the number hit when i roll too low on initiative to cast a big aoe, and I can still cast other non-concentration spells with my action.Clairvoyance, Lightning Bolt, Sending, Dispel Magic, Tidal Wave, Wall of Sand, Wall of Water, Vampiric Touch, Haste, Bestow Curse, Glyph of Warding – Clairvoyance has not been needed due to adequate scouting with or without invisibility. Sending has been used extensively for out of combat utility and roleplaying. I prepared Lightning Bolt along with Fireball for a while to try and vary up the shapes of my aoe’s but dropped it b/c I never used it.  I have thought of using Haste on either our barbarian or fighter but have never estimated it to be as useful to use my concentration on that rather than on a cc.4[SUP]th[/SUP] Level – Prepared and Chosen: Conjure Minor Elementals, Banishment, Watery Sphere, Polymorph, Vitriolic Sphere – I found Vitriolic Sphere luckily b/c I would have been in a bind whether to choose that or one of the other spells.  Even though it is similar to fireball it does slightly more damage (over two rounds as long as they don’t save) than a fireball upcast into a 4[SUP]th[/SUP] level slot and I like having two types of aoe damage.  I haven’t used conjure minor elementals or watery sphere yet, but I’m really looking forward to grabbing powerful spellcasters or archers in my sphere while we clean up their guards, and the many in and out of combat applications conjure minor elementals will give me.  Banishment hasn’t worked yet in two tries due to bad luck, I also plan to get conjure elemental so this will be useful in case I lose control of one.  Polymorph I’ve only used once, but it was to turn our fighter into a trex right after he went down and then was healed but still had low hp against a void dragon.  Now with full t-rex hp he ripped the dragon to shreds in an epic scene. Confusion and Hallucinatory Terrain round out my 4[SUP]th[/SUP] level spells, but I have yet to prepare these and doubt I will, as watery sphere seems to be a better cc and the applications of hallu. Terr. Seem very very situational.   Overall I find myself contributing to battles with blasting more than I anticipated due to worrying about my aoe cc spells hitting my party. It’s been fun though.  I plan to take Rary’s Telepathic Bond and Seeming next level to add something different to my mix of abilities.  I want to play around with telepathic communication in combat and social situations and turn the party into different looking creatures for infiltration and possible combat applications. I can make everyone look like the enemy during a battle for instance, and not worry about the party’s ability to distinguish friend from foe due to telepathy.</blockquote>

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