Soon to be 5th lvl Sorcerer seeks spell help

[Arcanus]

I have posted before to get ideas on spells and thought this time I would mention the members of my party to see if the spell ideas would change.

I have these feats Spellcasting Prodigy, Improved initiative, and Point Blank shot. Cha 19 Dex16 and Str12

The party is Druid 5th, Cleric 5th, Fighter/Rogue 2nd/2nd, Some type of Dragoon core class variant, Barbarian 4th and finally a 2nd level finheaded suarial Paladin.

The Paladin and Dragoon always charge in (dragoon uses common sense though). The paladin has good to attack bonuses but always seems to choke on the die rolls. He has an awesome Armor class and twice as much hit points as the rest of us.
The paladin always berates me for cowarding in the rear and never lets me turn him invisible (from wand) to charge enemy spellcasters in the rear or whatever.

The Rogue never flanks or tries to sneak attack. Always uses crossbow further than 30ft away w/o precise shot! Arrgh!
So far she never failed any open locks, search, listen, or disable device rolls though.

Barbarian just joined party so I have no knowledge of his fighting style, but he has displayed common sense when it comes to magic and the unknown.

The elven druid is 1 of the 2 charcters with low light vision. He wants to be more involved with combat. He does run around and heal people during combat though. He also uses flaming sphere alot. Also DM lets him use a shortbow.

The cleric has made alot of bad spell selections; he has casted Random Action to no effect other than to make them want to hit him. Daze on subjects that were to high hit die, never ever blessed the party, has tried to cast bane a few times. Always tries to use up his spells trying to be combative but doesn't have anything left to heal members later.

I like to be combat oriented and contribute. I use web when possible, I have flaming bolts ( or fire bolts from R&Rituals), Silent Sound from BOEM and shield. My next 1st level is identify ( House rule lets you identify 1 item or ability of item if more than one ability per your level with no lengthy time to cast of cost DM hates to keep track of all unidentified stuff).

Still undecided on 2nd level spell. With the lack of party cohesion I am thinking DEFENSE!!!!
For back-up I have a masterwork shortspear and a +2 light crossbow.
My character gets targeted alot. Been a victim of silent image from an assassin and many arrows from enemies.

The party has been hampered from lack of vision at night and light spells only reveal so much, but they reveal you more. Other than that we haven't been really stumped so far.

 

[BronzeDragon]

For a 2nd-level spell, get Tasha's Hideous Laughter if you already haven't got it. It's probably the most effective 2nd-level spell ever, since it forces a will save to avoid being useless (and, almost inevitably, dead) for 1d3 rounds.

When you get to choose a 3rd-level spell, take Fly. It's the most useful spell of its level (followed closely by Haste - for those who have PCs with long lifespans), and since you are a sorcerer, you will be able to cast a LOT of them.

At higher levels, when the durations starts to get REALLY big, you can even start planning all your travels using the Fly spell as a basis, since you triple your normal speed (30 to 90 feet), and can Fly for a LOOOONG time.

 

[Arcanus]

Thanks I have considered fly and haste for 3rd level spells.

I prefer just picking offensive spells that either had no saves or partial effects if save is made. So I think I'll pass on the Tasha HL.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

If you want enemies to miss you with weapons, try Blur or Mirror Image. If you are attacked by arrows a lot, you might want to get Protection from Arrows, which gives you, at your level, DR 10/+2. If you want to help your front line fighters more (and maybe convince that annoying paladin of your worth) get an ability enhancing spell, like I]Bull's Strength[/I] or Endurance (but these spells can be duplicated by the Cleric) or Cat's Grace if you want to help your Rogue. If you like touch spells but don't want to get on the front lines, take Spectral Hand. Try using Darkvision if you are tired of casting light spells all the time. Endure Elements might be good as well.

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

I prefer just picking offensive spells that either had no saves or partial effects if save is made. So I think I'll pass on the Tasha HL.

Nonsense, just don't cast it on the enemy casters, target the 'meat shields' surrounding him. You will note that, although very impressive in a fight, the typical 'fighter type' doesn't have much in the way of a Willpower save bonus. And, conversly, that caster type probably doesn't have much in the way of AC or HP, which he'll no doubt regret once your own tanks walk over the helpless forms of his former body-guards and run thier Great Sword through him.

Hatchling Dragon

 

[bret]

Take Blur.

It can be cast on others and makes a reasonable defense. In my opinion, Mirror Image runs out of gas at higher levels.

Cast it on the Paladin before he goes charging in, it is a simple protective spell similiar to the spell that Clerics of his church would cast but this protects against all attacks. (Entropic Shield gives a miss % for missles. Paladins don't get Spellcraft for a class skill, and nothing of the above is a lie or even really misleading.)

If the Paladin continues to berate you after casting this on him a few times, ask why he doesn't consider the defensive help you've given helpful. You selected something that you thought would be helpful to the whole party rather than something that only you could benefit from.

If you have some diplomacy skill and he continues to verbally berate you, seek out a cleric of his faith and ask for help. Explain your actions and how you don't understand why the holy warrior constantly berates you, especially since you started trying to help the group rather than just yourself.


Roleplayed correctly, this should give you a good spell and solve the verbal abuse the Paladin has been giving you.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It's too bad you can't cast spells on other players, or I would suggest Owl's Wisdom, closely followed by Fox's Cunning

Looking at the problems you've mentioned:
-The Lighting problem. Your solution is actually 0-level: Dancing Lights. Create four torches as a standard action which can move at up to 100 ft./round. If foes are shooting you from the back of a dark warehouse, send the dancing lights in to illuminate them. If they're dancing at the edge of your vision in the wilderness, send the lights out to illuminate them. I never thought of it until a fellow player in an RPGA game mentioned how some other players had used it to ruin an otherwise challenging encounter that I wrote. (Too bad that was after my wizard had neglected to prepare it that adventure--it would have been very useful).

-1st level spells: Consider a utility spell like charm person or feather fall or obscuring mist (a great spell if your opponents like to used ranged attacks but your party isn't effective in that department). Protection from Evil would also be an excellent choice although more defensive in nature. For identify, buy scrolls. You probably won't need to cast it too often and if you do, then you'll have the cash to buy scrolls. It's probably not something you'll use often enough to be worth putting on a spell-list.

-2nd level spells: Cat's Grace is a good combination offense/defense spell. It would boost your ranged attack bonus (I noticed you took point-blank shot and flame bolt so you probably shoot things a lot) as well as your AC (defense) and reflex saves (always a good thing). You can cast it on the fighters to boost their AC as well. I can't really recommend Blur--a 20% miss chance isn't that big a deal (it's almost always effectively less than the 4 points to AC that Mage Armor would give you). Its biggest benefits are that it stacks with regular armor and that it grants sneak attack immunity (sneak attack doesn't work on targets with concealment--see the PHB description of sneak attack). Glitterdust would also be a very good choice. It's likely to blind fighters and rogues you are facing for the duration of combat (will save to avoid blindness) and it has the fringe benefit of revealing invisible creatures. Blindness is a pretty good way to effectively remove foes from combat so, considering that it's area effect, non-mind effecting, and lasts 1 round per level (rather than 1d3 rounds), I would say Glitterdust is clearly superior to Tasha's Hideous Laughter. At 5th level, you really need to be developing a way to deal with invisible creatures too because you're likely to see them fairly often. Glitterdust would fill that hole too.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm

Go for an often neglected 2nd level spell with horrific effect. BLINDNESS.

Fort saves... which means you can effectively neutralize enemy spellcasters. Your save DC is high enough to use it on fighters and clerics too. (My group sorcerer was similar to you and he took out several enemy "paladins" with horrific saves)

Hmm. Combine Dancing lights with see invisibility and your friends always know where to hit (still suffer 50% miss chance though)... and you don't need to take actions to move the lights with the enemy

 

[Arcanus]

thanks for all the input.

For those that are wondering why I am taking Identify it is this simple "I am not able to purchase arcane scrolls"

We can buy a few weak divine ones though and some arcane potions.

I have been fighting enemy clerics that seem to be making their will saves almost all the time. The cleric and Druid spells were failing to make a difference.

My Dm has started countering my methods of attack lately.
He knows I try to get at least 30ft away so my ranged touch firey or flaming bolts have more effect, so he puts people in my way or pins me down with missles or fortitude saves from Trogdylites or ghouls and ghasts. The last time we played he modified a brooch of shielding to also stop my firey bolts (flaming?) oh well, his loss I just webbed them and picked them off with my crossbow. Now we have 3 brooches of shielding.

So now I want to keep him on his guard and keep him wondering on how to keep me at bay and then the fighters can waltz on in.

I probally will take Cats Grace or Glitterspray. Cats grace will improve both me, the rogue and the Druid, probally the Saurial Paladin as well.

 

[bret]

I have been fighting enemy clerics that seem to be making their will saves almost all the time. The cleric and Druid spells were failing to make a difference.

Clerics are tough, they have both good Will and Fort saves. Best to take out the people shielding them.

Glitterdust can do that.

Good luck.