ThirdWizard
First Post
Detect Magic
It has so many uses, you're all around must have spell!
It has so many uses, you're all around must have spell!
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What's your favorite PHB spell?
- Thread starter Napftor
- Start date
Create Food and Water
Good comments, you guys.
When playing a cleric, I must admit I'm highly enamoured of Speak With Animals. I had one character who always had it, everyday through his career.
At high levels, Searing Light and Flame Strike are my friends. At all levels, CLW and its companions up through Resurrection are no doubt the most important spells. I really like Tongues and True Seeing, too. Protection from Evil is great too, and I wait for "Create Food and Water" with a cleric almost as much as I wait for Fireball with a mage. Command is fun, but it rarely works.
For mages, Magic Missile and Fireball are indeed the most obvious, but Rope Trick has saved our lives many, many times when we had a wizard with the Extend feat. Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, and Break Enchantment also save many lives.
Finally, I have a great fondness for Leomund's Secure Shelter and Helping Hand as "concepts", but I've never actually used them as a PC.
In Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary, someone said the difference between football and baseball is:
- Football is played on a gridiron, to the rigid control of a timeclock, measured to the inch with chains, to plays ordered by the numbers and executed by players whose job is indicated by the number on their back. The object is to get the ball in the other's guy end zone. It's a game of the industrial age and ground warfare, a metaphorical version of the World Wars.
- Baseball is played on a field, at a park. The game lasts as long as it takes, and everyone gets a turn at bat. The object is to get home safely.
Leomund's Secure Shelter, Create Food and Water, Rope Trick, and Speak With Animals are more in the baseball side of D&D. Magic Missile, Fireball, and Searing Light are more the football side.
Good comments, you guys.
When playing a cleric, I must admit I'm highly enamoured of Speak With Animals. I had one character who always had it, everyday through his career.
At high levels, Searing Light and Flame Strike are my friends. At all levels, CLW and its companions up through Resurrection are no doubt the most important spells. I really like Tongues and True Seeing, too. Protection from Evil is great too, and I wait for "Create Food and Water" with a cleric almost as much as I wait for Fireball with a mage. Command is fun, but it rarely works.
For mages, Magic Missile and Fireball are indeed the most obvious, but Rope Trick has saved our lives many, many times when we had a wizard with the Extend feat. Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, and Break Enchantment also save many lives.
Finally, I have a great fondness for Leomund's Secure Shelter and Helping Hand as "concepts", but I've never actually used them as a PC.
In Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary, someone said the difference between football and baseball is:
- Football is played on a gridiron, to the rigid control of a timeclock, measured to the inch with chains, to plays ordered by the numbers and executed by players whose job is indicated by the number on their back. The object is to get the ball in the other's guy end zone. It's a game of the industrial age and ground warfare, a metaphorical version of the World Wars.
- Baseball is played on a field, at a park. The game lasts as long as it takes, and everyone gets a turn at bat. The object is to get home safely.
Leomund's Secure Shelter, Create Food and Water, Rope Trick, and Speak With Animals are more in the baseball side of D&D. Magic Missile, Fireball, and Searing Light are more the football side.
Sigurd
First Post
0 level Spells
I think there is a special magic to 0 level spells.
Since they have generally lowered the power of magic spells in 3.5 I think, by comparison, low level spells have gotten better.
One I like a lot is...
Disrupt Undead - Deals 1d6 damage to one undead. 1d6 is not a lot of damage but its a range attack and it softens skels etc without you going toe to toe with them. If going into a graveyard or such I basically fill my 0 level spells with this one. This spell is available to every mage that doesn't sacrifice the useful school of necromancy.
Sigurd
I think there is a special magic to 0 level spells.
Since they have generally lowered the power of magic spells in 3.5 I think, by comparison, low level spells have gotten better.
One I like a lot is...
Disrupt Undead - Deals 1d6 damage to one undead. 1d6 is not a lot of damage but its a range attack and it softens skels etc without you going toe to toe with them. If going into a graveyard or such I basically fill my 0 level spells with this one. This spell is available to every mage that doesn't sacrifice the useful school of necromancy.
Sigurd
Thanee
First Post
Apart from Prestidigitation, which really runs out of the competition...
Always liked Polymorph (not mainly because of its combat power, but just because shapechanging is fun).
Other contestors would be Charm Person, Grease, Mount, Arcane Sight, Blink, Phantom Steed, Dimension Door, Magic Jar, Planar Binding.
Bye
Thanee
Always liked Polymorph (not mainly because of its combat power, but just because shapechanging is fun).
Other contestors would be Charm Person, Grease, Mount, Arcane Sight, Blink, Phantom Steed, Dimension Door, Magic Jar, Planar Binding.
Bye
Thanee
Kelleris
Explorer
Shadow Conjuration (and the rest of the chain)
I love this spell. It's so useful from a mechanical standpoint, allowing you to pull out a trick of some sort for almost any situation. Anything that gives me that moment of panicked searching for options followed by a moment of glorious triumph is a good time.
But more than that, it's just a sexy spell. You're drawing quasi-real matter from the Plane of Shadow to create the object of your desires - how cool is that?
And, as a DM, I appreciate that the shadow conjurations are tied into an interesting aspect of the D&D cosmology and that all kinds of things can go wrong with that spell if you need something to liven up the action. Accidental summonings? Failed castings creating a planar bleed to Shadow? Strange, permanent shadow-items of possibly sinister origin? Anything could happen!
I love putting the spell on scrolls and watching low-level casters wonder if the chance to miscast is worth it. I can just sit there smiling as they ponder the wisdom of using the key that fits all locks.
I love this spell. It's so useful from a mechanical standpoint, allowing you to pull out a trick of some sort for almost any situation. Anything that gives me that moment of panicked searching for options followed by a moment of glorious triumph is a good time.
But more than that, it's just a sexy spell. You're drawing quasi-real matter from the Plane of Shadow to create the object of your desires - how cool is that?
And, as a DM, I appreciate that the shadow conjurations are tied into an interesting aspect of the D&D cosmology and that all kinds of things can go wrong with that spell if you need something to liven up the action. Accidental summonings? Failed castings creating a planar bleed to Shadow? Strange, permanent shadow-items of possibly sinister origin? Anything could happen!
I love putting the spell on scrolls and watching low-level casters wonder if the chance to miscast is worth it. I can just sit there smiling as they ponder the wisdom of using the key that fits all locks.
Sejs
First Post
Thanee mentioned it already:
Prestidigitation. Far and away my favourite spell in the game.
It's just so useful for so many things that just make magic, magic for me. Need to create a little hokey illusion of someone in the palm of your hand so the person you're describing them to will know what they look like? Prestidigitation. Need to change the color of your clothes, hair, etc for a disguise? Prestidigitation. Clean up the room in a jiffy? Make that hard tack taste like a fancy pastry? Enhance your bardic performance with various special effects? Cover your tracks? Make a room look dusty and unused? Any of a thousand other uses?
Prestidigitation has got you covered. Other spells make magic effective. Prestidigitation makes magic fun.
Prestidigitation. Far and away my favourite spell in the game.
It's just so useful for so many things that just make magic, magic for me. Need to create a little hokey illusion of someone in the palm of your hand so the person you're describing them to will know what they look like? Prestidigitation. Need to change the color of your clothes, hair, etc for a disguise? Prestidigitation. Clean up the room in a jiffy? Make that hard tack taste like a fancy pastry? Enhance your bardic performance with various special effects? Cover your tracks? Make a room look dusty and unused? Any of a thousand other uses?
Prestidigitation has got you covered. Other spells make magic effective. Prestidigitation makes magic fun.
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Polymorph.
For two reasons: 1) it's such a useful spell! 2) if ever there was a spell that needed to be clarified...
-blarg
For two reasons: 1) it's such a useful spell! 2) if ever there was a spell that needed to be clarified...
-blarg
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