What's your favorite PHB spell?

[howandwhy99]

Magic Jar is a favorite of mine. It's bodysnatching 101, but requires you to be extra careful both to stay in range of the jar and hiding your lifeless body. (extradimensional spaces don't count as within range). The current description is very limited just like polymorph, but with its several hours duration and the ability to switch between bodies gives spying and infiltration a whole new meaning.

 

[Slife]

Personally, as a concept I like the reversable old version of the enlarge spell. Need some extra strength on your fighter? Enlarge him! Want to shrink the BBEG? Reduce him! Want to carry away the dragon's hoard? Reduce it! Want to get a higher price for the gold? Enlarge it!

Don't even get me started on iron to gold/gold to iron

 

[Testament]

Wall of Thorns

Firstly, which bastard of a Druid came up with this beast of battlefield control spell? And was nasty enough to have it hold the enemy in place hard as all hades, but not give them a lick of cover?

And how does Druidic spell research work anyway?

Plus, its just a cool visual effect.

 

[Sigurd]

I think Rope Trick is a wonderful spell

1. Its the first player controled real estate my characters ever get.
2. You can place it above a stream of things. Go up on one and come down on another.
3. You can hang a rope in the middle of the open world. It can be like a portable crane capable of holding 16000lbs.
4. Technically you are no longer on the Prime Material when you are in it. So you can hide from very big baddies.
5. In an absolute emergency you can cast it from within itself and throw your whole party on the whims of fate -- but you ain't burried alive.
6. You can always tell the mage to 'go to his room'
7. You can hide things up in it and dispel the thing when targets are below it.
8. You can hide in it, pull up the rope, and come down after you have been looked for. Go into a shop before closing time and come down when everyone leaves.
9 The spell components are cheap.

 

[Wombat]

Prestidigitation, anyone?

Nope, not talking about combat here...

Imagine what the world would be like with a wizards, sorcerers, and adepts able to cast this spell on a regular basis. Easy Clean of clothing, even those hard to remove blood stains. Fancy hair colour or wildly patterned clothing for the night. Reheat those leftovers in a jiffy and then sweep the house clean!

Everyone would want this little time-saver. Colour, lifting, heating, cooling, repairs, cleaning -- this is the amazing Ronco Spell-o-Matic! A sorcerer with this little spell could actually make a very tidy living from people who just want things a bit easier in life.

 

[Thanee]

Entangle was the one surprise spell for me. It stopped 2/3 of an orc skirmish against a small village we were defending.

Heh. We had a really similar situation a while ago. It was a village as well, but the attackers were goblins and barbarians. Entangle stopped the goblins on one side dead in their tracks and allowed us to concentrate on the barbarians first.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Alzrius]

Scorching ray is also a great spell. A 2nd-level spell that deals 4d6 points of damage (on a ranged touch attack, no less) is incredibly powerful to the 3rd-level wizard casting it. It's probably the only spell where you can inflict more dice of damage than caster levels. A must-have for low-level arcane spellcasters.

 

[Stalker0]

Got to throw in another vote for shatter, its the only kind of sorc I want to play, sonic all the way!!

 

[Napftor]

Thanks once again for the responses. Feel free to keep them coming but I've now chosen the two winners for the pdf giveaway.

maggot and Aaron_L please contact me at: dmbretb (at) comcast (dot) net.

And if anyone is interested in the Behind the Spells series, look for mirror image to be out sometime today.

 

[Napftor]

Hmm, no contacts yet today so I'll give this a friendsly bump. If the chosen winners don't email me, I'll just pick two other winners.