Useless arcane or divine spells

[jmucchiello]

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.

That depends on how soon after "use" it disappears. If it disappears as soon as the arrow clears the bow or as soon and the stone exits the sling, it's not going to do much damage.

 

[jmucchiello]

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...

Don't remember the police one but the others were Remove Hand and Locate Hand. Someone else mentioned Detect Fire. IIRC, there was also a Blind Self. Great just before a medusa encounter but I think it was permanent.

Got to remember to fire up the Dragon Mag CDs tonight.

 

[Chimera]

there was also a Blind Self. Great just before a medusa encounter but I think it was permanent.

Was the material component a sharp stick?

 

[rkanodia]

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.

This is precisely why I suggested eternal wands, from the Eberron campaign setting. Basically a normal wand, except that it allows infinite uses at the rate of two per day, instead of 50 uses at the rate of 50 per day. Thus, you can rent it on a day-by-day basis without worrying that the customer is going to lie about how many charges they spent.

 

[Saeviomagy]

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.

Except for the fact that the spell which does this costs you 1000 gp any time you cast it, and furthermore it can be negated by a 0th level spell.

In fact, there it is. Most useless (real) spell - drawmij's instant summons.

In all honesty the only use I can imagine for this spell is a 1000gp remote trigger for a trap, and even then you'd be better off with something else.

I mean really - can someone think of a use for this spell?

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Another contender from the ToM (which I am pretty sure was a 2e book by the way) was Nahal's Reckless Dweomer. Pick any spell from your books, and apply that spell to th 'wild surge' table. It gave about a two percent chance of casting the spell as intended, or it might create butterflies, or heal you enemies, or render the caster unable to speak...

glass.

Sounds like they made this into the Rod of Wonder....

 

[rkanodia]

Rod of Wonder was definitely in the 2E DMG. But I remember Nahal's Reckless Dwoemer and it often felt the same way.

Gawd, I just looked at Drawmij's Instant Summons. 1000 gp gem consumed by the spell, AND it fails if someone is holding the item? For a 7th-level spell? Oh and you have to have the 1000 gp gem with you in order to get the item back, so you can't even use it to have 'backup gear' for when you've been captured. So. Awful.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Oh and you have to have the 1000 gp gem with you in order to get the item back, so you can't even use it to have 'backup gear' for when you've been captured.

Ah, but you can. There are ... certain places ... where you can hide a 1,000 gp gem where you definitely cannot hide a staff.

 

[apsuman]

Ah, but you can. There are ... certain places ... where you can hide a 1,000 gp gem where you definitely cannot hide a staff.

In your hair.
In your ear.
In your stomach.
As part of a piercing somewhere on your body - tounge, ear, lip, eyebrow.
Between your cheek and gum.
Up your nose.
Under skin.
In your belly button -- no really in your belly button but only if you've got an "innie" and are perhaps a bit overweight.


Where were you thinking?