What are good spells for a Sorc to "chain"?

[DispelAkimbo]

I dont see his max cha as being a problem, as stated above, hes going to raise it every level and will thus eventually have a cha of 19 or more with items and enhancements.

I've also now decided that he's going to go into the Incantatrix prestige class and focus on metamagic casting. Eventually gaining the ability to lower metamagic spell level increases by one.

That should mean that he could apply the "reach spell" feat and "chain spell" feat to a spell and its level would only be raised by three and not five. So by my reckoning at level ten, he should be able to cast cats grace on ten people by using up a level five spell slot.

Firstly, can anyone think of any problems of using "reach spell" and "chain spell" in conjunction?

Secondly, what new spells would be opened up for "chaining" by making them "reach"?

I'm also going to have to go with chain Dispel Magic and chain GMW. Most of the offensive spells don't chain well, either do to the -4 secondary save (don't chain an enchantment!) or the fact that you just can't. On the other hand, chain can be a wonderful quick buffing utility metamagic. It's expensive, but...

And chain dispel has a very real possibility, even with the +10 max, of cancelling every magical item on someone for 1d4 rounds. Item caster levels are pretty low.

Absolutely right. Plus his charisma may only be 14, but 18 is considered "high" and thats only realisticly 2 modifier points different (10% on a d20). Now if i'm chaining a spell onto potentially twenty targets (at lvl 20), then I think the 10% less chance of suceeding is EASILY negated by the 2000% increase in potential targets .

How about Blindness/Deafness?

Another fine choice! I'll see if i've got room in my second level spells for it.

Thanks again for all the ideas, keep them coming please!

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Reach + Chain + Shocking Grasp

1D8+CL / 1D8+CL/2 to up to 20 targets. Not as good as say Fireball (35 dmg at 10th level), But it isn't true AoE. No friendly fire.

Is there a spell that causes nausea? THAT could hurt a large group.

 

[Prism]

Reach chain vampiric touch - lots of bonus hit points?

 

[DispelAkimbo]

Reach chain vampiric touch - lots of bonus hit points?

Oh my word.

Vampiric touch does a max of 10d6 damage. So at level twenty, that would mean 20 x 10d6, or roughly 700 temporary hit points per casting (with a few caveats, such as the targets having sufficiend hps to 'donate').

For a single seventh level spell thats.....nasty

 

[Pyrex]

Does Grease count? The "chain spell" feat states that it can be applied to "Any spell that specifies a single target and has a range greater than touch".

With Grease you can specify a Target or an Area. If you specify a Target, it's Chain-able (same as Dispel Magic)

 

[Pyrex]

Firstly, can anyone think of any problems of using "reach spell" and "chain spell" in conjunction?

I belive that Reach Spell actually changes the spell from Range: Touch to Effect: Ray, which means you can't chain it; but you could subsequently use Split Ray.

 

[Thanee]

Hmm... Reach Spell turns a touch spell into a ranged touch spell (ray)... I don't think those can be chained.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Deset Gled]

I was reading through Chain Spell last night to design a character myself. After reading over the description, I have come to the conclusion that Dispel Magic is quite possibly the absolute best spell to chain.

Chaining states that if the spell does damage, damage for each successive target is halved, and they get a reflex save. If it doesn't do damage, the save for the spell is increased by 4 each time. But Dispel magic doesn't do damage and doesn't have a save: it has a caster level check. Since the caster level check doesn't change when chained, you can effectively target a multitude of magic items and supress all their abilities with one 6th level spell. It's like having a Mordenkainen's Disjunction that doesn't suck!

 

[Thanee]

The best one is chained Fleshshiver. Stun, no save, 1 target/level. Ouch!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Someone]

List of arcane "chainable" spells in the SRD (you may need epic levels for some of them):

-Animate rope
-Baleful polymorph
-Banishment
-Binding
-Blindness/deafness
-Cause fear
-Charm monster
-Charm person
-Command undead
-Daze monster
-Demand
-Detect poison
-Discern location
-Dismissal
-Dispel magic (targeted version)
-Greater dispel magic
-Dominate monster
-Dominate person
-Dream, probably
-Enlarge person
-Erase (targeting only scrolls with nonmagical writing)
-Eyebite
-Feeblemind
-Finger of death
-Flesh to stone
-Freedom
-Geas
-Geas, lesser
-Grease (targeting objects only)
-Hideous laughter
-Hold monster
-Hold person
-Hold portal
-Insanity
-Instant summons (can get a bit expensive, though)
-Keen edge (only weapons)
-Knock
-Levitate
-Mage hand
-Magic jar (technically, but debatable)
-Magic mouth
-Greater magic weapon
-Maze
-Mending
-Mind blank
-Misdirection
-Nightmare
-Open/close
-Phantasmal killer
-Lesser planar binding
-Polymorph any object
-Power word blind
-Power word kill
-Power word stun
-Prestidigitation (certain uses)
-Reduce person
-Sending
-Shatter (targeting solid objects)
-Soul bind
-Stone to flesh
-Sugestion
-Telekinesis
-Trap the soul (another epic, expensive proposition)