Underappreciated spells

[TheGeoff]

Recently I was making a female bard for my female only group and I noticed a little spell I hadn't looked ta much. Its a first level wizard spell called spook. You hardly EVER find them on scroll or for sale so Id thought id check it out. (Other than the usual first level spells that are always good, armor, MM, etc). This spell gives a minus one to save against the target per level till a max of -6 at level 12. The target runs away for 3 rounds. This spell is proving to be very useful. The group Im running is only the female NPCs from the game and a female half elven bard/blade main character.

Laurana Bard/Blade
Jaheira
Mazzy
Nalia
Imoen
Aerie
Viconia

Yah that's 7 but I don't have Mazzy or Imoen yet and Viconia is starting to get on everyones nerves.

Its been fun but the group lacks the Omf to take down baddies quickly so far and the Spook spell is great for taking one baddie out of the picture for awhile.

Just wanting to know other peoples thoughts about underused/appreciated spells they may have run into. I like spells that give a negative modifier to saves since the baddies seem to almost always make thiers anyways.

[JackOfClubs]

Both Xyx and UserUnfriendly mention the virtues of this spell in their respective guides. I gave it to my sorceror on the strength of UserUnfriendly's recommendation, but I have yet to find it truly useful.
To be fair, I rushed to Spellhold after only doing the Mae'Var quest to gain the necessary cash, and am just now entering the Underdark, so I haven't really encountered the types of situations that User is talking about. I am doing this adventure semi-solo (only using Yoshi/Imoen so far, but I may add Mazzy later).

But using this spell on the groups of enemies that have been my biggest problem so far has not worked out very well. Even with the penalty, they often make their saves and having one of a group disabled for 3 rounds does not give adequate time to kill of the rest of the group.

Also, the enemies I most want to disable are usually the spell casters and they have the best saves. I prefer to use Magic Missile for spell disruption, since it actually does damage as well. But it would be nice to have a low-level disruptor for those pesky mages who seem to have uniteruptible scripts. But so far, my luck with this spell hasn't woked out very well.

[CrownHead]

Doom is prett underappreciated. First level druid spell.

Spook is pretty good, but what I like to do is contingencies with a few spooks and ray of enfeeblement. Works like a charm against warriors. A oure mage can even beat them up after that!

[UserUnfriendly]

before the dragon scripts got updated, on one of wes mods, i think, spook could be used to kill dragons safely....

hit a dragon with multiple spooks, cast by several mages in spell trigger with lower resitance, or multiple spooks in spell sequencer....dragon runs away, hardly uses breath weapon, no spells, no attacks....just slice and dice...

now, spook is good against fire giants, and beholders...

[Phantom Lord]

There are some very strong low level spells, namely those that get better at higher levels. Chromatic Orb for example, it kills outright if the save is failed at high levels and therefore can replace high level spells with the same ability, unless the target has a level based spell immunity or protection. In the latter case you can breach the protection with a high level anti-protection spell and then take down the target with a low level attack spell.

[Tamerlane]

Just playing the game again and Blur is an amazing spell. Its a cumulative spell, giving the enemy a -4 to hits and you a +2 to saving rolls everytime you cast it... well thats I think anyways

Doing a solo bard game, and throw three of them on and your practically invincible.

[nephtu]

Hmm..like some others, I have not had good luck with spook, save penalty or no. Multiple horrors have served me very well for encounters where the party gets ambushed - they're handy crowd control.

Chromatic orb is really good in the upper end of BG1 (once it becomes a stun) and in the earlier bits of BG2, untill as the beasties get tougher, EVERYTHING always saves.

Bless & Doom are probably both underused, also.

That's about it for me.

[Xyx]

Spook is better for a few tough enemies, Horror for large groups. Horror gives a +2 bonus to the save, though. At level 8, that's a 6 point difference already. Whether that is enough depends on the number of opponents, and the need to disable a specific one.

Doom can be OK, but only if you need those save and THAC0 lowered. Again, more for taking tough lone enemies than fending off hordes.