Useless arcane or divine spells

[Sigdel]

Here are some useless spells I found:
Cloud Shape: You can shape any nonmagical cloud
Devlins Barb: You create an arrow, bolt or sling-stone. It disappears after use
Pirates Booty: Causes up to 100hd of creatures to forget about the pirates booty. This can include the caster.
Sum Up: You can quickly count stuff. Lame.
Wash: Just as it sounds.
I guess it is all relative on what you find useful. If changing the color of sand gets you off, cool, just dont make me a wand and expect me to buy it. Or sand art for that matter. The same with speed reading. I have yet to encounter a time when the pc's are hard pressed for time to read something. Hell, I am lucky if I can get them read anything I hand them. But thats a different rant on a different thread.

 

[Chimera]

Besides, they could just rent a wand of lightning bolt. Why didn't I think of that?

What a great idea! My next Wizard will make it his goal to open a chain of magic rental shops!

Only problem with charged items is that you'd either have to take their word for how many charges they used, or do an Identify to learn the number of charges remaining. Then there's dealing with theft, loss in combat, disjunctions, etc.

And then there's some yokel coming in to rent a +1 sword so he can take on that wight... You just know he ain't bringing it back!

 

[Orius]

hey, I remember that Dramij's instant death spell article... there was a whole bunch of them. From what I remember, one spell instantly chopped off one the hands of the mage who cast it (hard to see any situation where that one would be useful... well, maybe if you had a cursed ring on that hand), another that allowed the mage to magically locate his own hands (but it required both hands to cast it, so if your mage is missing a hand, he can't cast it, nyuck nyuck), and a summons spell that magically brought a squad of policemen with an arrest warrant to get the mage (often because he was suspected of killing some guy named Dramij...), and so on...

Wasn't there one that let the mage shout swear words at a range of like 10 miles or something?

 

[Allanon]

...
Devlins Barb: You create an arrow, bolt or sling-stone. It disappears after use..

Actually for an assasin it's pretty darn usefull, leaves no trace.

 

[VirgilCaine]

What a great idea! My next Wizard will make it his goal to open a chain of magic rental shops!

Only problem with charged items is that you'd either have to take their word for how many charges they used, or do an Identify to learn the number of charges remaining. Then there's dealing with theft, loss in combat, disjunctions, etc.

And then there's some yokel coming in to rent a +1 sword so he can take on that wight... You just know he ain't bringing it back!

No, it's called--bring it back or we teleport it back.
Wouldn't be too powerful a spell, magically mark the item in a special ceremony, give the item to someone and you can teleport/plane shift it back when the duration runs out, and the spell tells how many charges were used.

I like this idea. Another thing for my Guild to do...rent magic items to wizards.

 

[glass]

Much to the chagrin of my compatriots, that was one of my favorite spells in earlier days. That campaign got a little out of hand on many fronts, though, so I wasn't that out of line...

Oh yeah, I loved it too. Still not the most sensible spell ever.


glass.

 

[glass]

And, IMHO an average of 15 to 16 extra HP at higher levels is negligable.

20 hitpoints THAT YOU HAVE TO GET HEALED BEFORE THE SPELL EXPIRES ANYWAY are, I daresay, more useless.

Not to mention the fact that they don't stack with items that increase constitution.

Or the fact that you can empower false life if you really want to, which bumps it up to 16-30 extra hitpoints.

Or just cast it again once you have used up the hp it gives.

LOL nope I knew that one too...I guess having an opinion of the rules makes me ignorant of them then?

NICE

You didn't mention it in your side-by-side comparison, so it appeared you didn't know about it. Hence my use of the word 'apparently'.

Of course, the other possibility is that you deliberately didn't mention it because it puts a serious dent in your argument, but then why make the argument in the first place?

glass.

 

[Chimera]

I like this idea. Another thing for my Guild to do...rent magic items to wizards.

About 12 years ago, we were just coming out of the BWCA, a wilderness area in northern Minnesota, when we encountered a group of guys just on their way in.

Everything they had came from the outfitters. Not only the canoes and packs (which had paper lists of contents plastered on the outside), but even the brand spanking new clothes on their backs and the boots on their feet. The price tag was still hanging off the hat one guy was wearing.

Top to bottom, head to toe, everything they had came from the outfitter.

So I'm laughing my butt off picturing a team of adventurers in a similar state, down to swords stamped Roger's Sword Rental, price tag hanging from the wizard's hat...maybe even a rented familiar.

 

[LizardWizard]

Very useful in construction. Move earth to excavate the foundation, raise/lower water to lower the water table, etc.

And quite useful in NPCs' hands, too: causing cave-ins, drowning, etc.

 

[Kormydigar]

No, no, no, it's Drawmij's Instant Death. It was in a series of spell name rotations where you pair up the beginings and ends of spell names to create funny spell names. This was a play on Drawmij's Instant Summons and (I suppose) Finger of Death.

(And jericho is right, ToM is a 2e book, not 1e. My bad.)

I think I remember the funniest one of all: The variant version of Drawmij's Instant Summons- " When cast, this spell summons the wizard, Drawmij" I remember the comments that Drawmij wrote this spell for his closest pupils and was truly irritated when it became a common spell