Spells You Never Use

[Saulus]

What are some spells you just never use (Other than cantrips) and why?

Is there something (within reason) you think, would make this more useful without putting it beyond it's level in terms of power?

Discuss!

[Kaizen]

The spells that immediately spring to mind are: Summon Creature I-IX.

Consider making them hour/level as the Summon Undead series, so the goodly/neutral mages/druids/clerics/favored souls (lol) have something to hang out with during those 1+hour events.

[Dave Fritz]

The spells that immediately spring to mind are: Summon Creature I-IX.

Consider making them hour/level as the Summon Undead series, so the goodly/neutral mages/druids/clerics/favored souls (lol) have something to hang out with during those 1+hour events.

I would agree with this proposal. Apart from that, I have not spent enough time as a magic-user to comment fairly.

[Seheren]

The spells that immediately spring to mind are: Summon Creature I-IX.

Consider making them hour/level as the Summon Undead series, so the goodly/neutral mages/druids/clerics/favored souls (lol) have something to hang out with during those 1+hour events.

Also they could use some minor tweaks, there are quite a few summons that should really be scaled up to be in line with their spell level. Of the few alignments that I have top summons for, I cant think of one that could take a Death Knight on and even be close, and the DK is 8th level summon for 1/hour per level!

[roguethree]

Undeath's Eternal Foe and Greater Visage of the Deity.

Undeath's Eternal Foe will be more useful when Death Ward is fixed to not prevent ability drain, but it's a 9th level spell, and it only has one benefit Death Ward won't (besides poison and disease immunity, but that's not really a concern at the upper levels, and lower level solutions exist). That one benefit is only round/level, so a cleric (and definitely not a favored soul) isn't going to take that spell over Implosion / Storm of Vengeance / Mass Heal. If the duration were minute per level, I could see it getting used.

Greater Visage of the Deity seems neat until you realize that the spell Spell Resistance gives better Spell Resistance, DR 10/magic doesn't stop anything, +1 natural armor from a 9th level spell is hilarious, you already have energy resistances from other, much lower level spells, and your stat increases also come from much lower levels spells (not to mention that all of those lower level spells have a much longer duration than does this 9th level spell). Again, an increased duration (and perhaps increasing the SR to 31) would probably earn this spell more (any) use.

[Kaeldorn]

Sheesh.. this might end up being a long list

First off, due to the large number of encounters you have to face it would be helpful if offensive spells were more effective against non-player targets in general. This includes all damage spells, debuff spells, crowd control etc. What would help with this is lower saving throws on monsters and vulnerabilities to (magic) damage types.

These spells specifically could use additional help on top of that:

Burning Hands
Because it doesn't scale above caster level 5, has a saving throw and it's much harder to target with than magic missile. Allowing it to scale to a higher level (9d4 at level 9 maybe?) would go a long way towards making it more worth using. And we need trolls that can only be killed with acid and fire

Blades of Fire
Because even if you can quicken this, it's still too little damage to make any sort of difference. 2 rounds = too short. Make it 30 seconds or something.

Cause Fear
One creature of 5 HD or less flees for 1d4 rounds, with will save. A CHANCE for a single creature that's spittlefist or weaker to flee for 1d4 rounds is hardly worth taking since the server starts off at 3rd level. I'd say boost the max HD to a higher level (7?), or scale it with caster level.

Scare
Ok, so this affects multiple creatures... up to 1 level higher and for 1 round/level. Stops being useful almost as quickly as the above, though. Same as above, scale max HD with with caster level. Or make it so that creatures classed as 'fodder' remain susceptible to the effect regardless of level.

Sleep
Powerful spell at low level, but quickly loses any use since you will only be facing enemies of a CR that makes them immune after just a few levels. Maybe make it so that creatures classed as 'fodder' are susceptible to the effect regardless of the max/total HD affected.

Deep Slumber
Useful for a longer period, but again you really won't have any sleep spells you can use against higher level enemies unless you take at least 8 more levels in wizard/sorcerer. Make it so that all creatures classed as 'fodder' or 'standard' are susceptible to the effect regardless of the max/total HD affected.

(Mass) Snake's Swiftness
1 round of haste is too short to make any kind of difference. Make it 3-5 rounds and then we're talking.

All Poison/Disease type spells (Poison, Contagion) and effects are extremely insignificant in this environment because even if they're permanent, that means nothing if the enemy is supposed to die anyway. Would be good if the effects themselves were just stronger (i.e. more than -2 to a single ability score).

Neutralize Poison and Remove Disease are quite weak as well, as you can just rest the effects off (note that this is no longer true for resting 'in the wild' once the new resting system goes live, but still it's dumb that you can just rest those effects off at a campfire).

Power Word: Disable
Reduces a creature with under 51 hitpoints to 1 hitpoint. Seems lackluster for a 5th level spell, considering you have to guess at how many hitpoints your target has left. Maybe up the max hp to 75 or so.

Power Word: Weaken or Maladroit
2 points of strength or dexterity damage... for a 3rd level spell. And it's not even always permanent, if anything happens at all:

25 or less hit points - Permanent
26-50 hit points - lasts 1d4+1 minutes
51-75 hit points - lasts 1d4+1 rounds

Make it 6 points of str/dex damage and increase all the caps by 25 hitpoints.

That's all.
For now.

[Lothoir]

Without a doubt the summon series, for sure. It doesn't help that Create Death Knight is bugged and runs for a minute per level instead of a round per level as the description states, but it can destroy any other summon and several PC's without any sort of trouble at all.

Beyond buffing Summon spells maybe make them long range to allow more tactical positioning while making Create Undead close or short range.

Also on the subject of summons, to be a decent conjurer you have to b neutral to get the elementals because everything else is pretty terrible.

EDIT: Also, Shadow Simulacrum: Because it's capped at 1/2 caster level rather than twice caster level as the description states it's terrible as a 9th level spell when it could be really, really awesome.

[Kaizen]

Well, the summon series benefits from something the Undead series doesn't: It's not illegal, you won't get the Legion mercin' you, and the good guys won't fuck your day up.

So, the RP aspect is a fair trade off for the power difference, imo.

I'd just like to see them both last the same duration. Either ... very short, very long, or somewhere in between.

[Redjack]

Actually the Black Guard's skeleton can beat the death knight. Makes a very close match.

[Redjack]

I never use the ability reducing spells like:
Doom
Angry Ache
Curse of Ill Fortune
bestow curse
contagion
Mass Contagion
Necrotic Skull Bomb

I like the idea of those spells. They just don't make much of a difference.
One of the best spells is Energy Drain. Causes real issues with your victim with out killing them outright (unless you cast it on a level 7 or less).

Oh and another vote to extend poisions usefulness in Sundren.

[Lothoir]

With Death Ward no longer protecting from ability damage I can see stat damage being a lot more viable now.

[Root]

Still, it's not really that useful a trade off. Most important stat-reducing spells need them to fail a save, and there's more useful things you can do to someone who fails a save (like kill them, or paralyze them) and even more useful things to do to people who aren't failing them (like Bigby's and other such)

[Doubtful]

Death spells will still be warded off by Death Ward, whereas ability damage won't be, making level and ability drain very useful.

I expect to see spells such as Necrotic Skull Bomb becoming very popular.

[Kaizen]

LIVING UNDEATH.

if it hasn't already been done...

NUKE IT FROM ORBIT. OUTTAHERE!

[Lothoir]

That was one of the first spells to be removed, n00b.