Useless Spells?

bariumdose · Post by **bariumdose** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:52 pm

Besides the "Detect <Anything>" spells that seem bugged, are there any other spells that are mostly useless and should not be learned (in reference to the wizard class) or memorized (in reference to the other caster classes)?

I'm putting down "discern lies". I can't seem to figure out how this improves the Sense Motive skill. It doesn't seem to work for my spokesperson.

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:50 am

Off the top of my head (with the manual in front of me, so not really):

Animal Trance
Blight
Calm Animals
Calm Emotions
Chill/Heat Metal
Clairvoyance
Consecrate
Contagion
Curse Water
Delay Poison
Detect Secret Doors
Dimensional Anchor
Entropic Shield
Feeblemind
Hide From Animals
Hold Portal
Meld Into Stone
Mind Fog
Quench
Remove Blindness/Deafness
Remove Curse
Remove Fear
Remove Paralysis
Repel Vermin
True Seeing
Virtue
Wind Wall

Most of these work fine, but just aren't much use in ToEE (unless you're tying them to a specific strategy that's totally not necessary, such as using mind fog to make dominate easier).
I've heard it written (heh) that magic circle against ____ doesn't actually confer benefits the way it's supposed to, but I never looked into it. In that case, it'd also be a good one to avoid.

bariumdose · Post by **bariumdose** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:39 am

Well, I might disagree slightly with you on a couple of the spells you listed and that you feel are useless.

Animal Trance works a lot like Charm Animal except that it appears to have an area effect emanating from the druid caster. I tried it once when I was beset by the black widow spiders in the ToEE. If I remember correctly, the spell seemed to stop the spiders in their tracks.

Chill/Heat Metal works a lot like a Melf's Acid Arrow on metal armor-wearing enemies. After casting it on the enemy, the enemy suffers cold/fire damage each round that the spell is in effect. I'm not sure if he can save against the damage.

Otherwise, I agree with you on the other spells as to their uselessness.

[QUOTE=Lord Plothos]Off the top of my head (with the manual in front of me, so not really):

Animal Trance
Blight
Calm Animals
Calm Emotions
Chill/Heat Metal
Clairvoyance
Consecrate
Contagion
Curse Water
Delay Poison
Detect Secret Doors
Dimensional Anchor
Entropic Shield
Feeblemind
Hide From Animals
Hold Portal
Meld Into Stone
Mind Fog
Quench
Remove Blindness/Deafness
Remove Curse
Remove Fear
Remove Paralysis
Repel Vermin
True Seeing
Virtue
Wind Wall

Most of these work fine, but just aren't much use in ToEE (unless you're tying them to a specific strategy that's totally not necessary, such as using mind fog to make dominate easier).
I've heard it written (heh) that magic circle against ____ doesn't actually confer benefits the way it's supposed to, but I never looked into it. In that case, it'd also be a good one to avoid.[/QUOTE]

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:33 am

Yeah, I added animal trance because there are so few animals in the game, so unless you have memorized where everything is, you're never going to prepare it (although I guess you did).

Chill/Heat Metal I added, again, because there are relatively few enemies in the game with any metal armor, and it's damage is spread over time (which nearly caused me to added Melf's to my list here). Stuff you face just dies too quickly most of the time for you to get full value from using these spells much of the time. Add to that the fact that you can only use it on a small percentage of the enemies in the game, and again, I just don't think it's worth memorizing unless you know ahead of time you're going to fight a bunch of guys in metal armor.

But you're right, they do have their uses.

Philos · Post by **Philos** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:59 am

Remove Paralysis

I seem to remember using Remove Paralysis somewhere but where eludes me at the moment. I would think that Remove Fear "might" be handy given who some of the big guns are at the end but maybe not.

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:32 am

Yeah, but again, there's very few instances where you'd even want to memorize it, and then only if you know ahead of time that you're going to have to deal with the effect in question.

The question of whether these sorts of things should be on a list of "useless" spells is interpretive. I included them more for the sake of being comprehensive than anything else.

Philos · Post by **Philos** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:23 pm

For sure,

One man's trash might be someone else's treasure. For any RPG I can't remember the last time (if ever) I took remove fear. But I do occasionally take remove paralysis. Too many enemies like to use hold person and "somebody" in the party usually fails to save.

ordnaryjones · Post by **ordnaryjones** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:31 pm

I like to scribe scrolls for spells I'm not sure if I'll ever use, that way I'll have them in a pinch.

Vampiric touch is broken too, it damages enemies, but the caster doesn't receive any hp.

Shellhead · Post by **Shellhead** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:31 pm

Do any of the Detect Spells work now? I gave up on them a long time ago, but maybe there's a patch or mod that makes them work?

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:23 pm

Hiya

'Detect Undead' works, but is somewhat flawed. When you cast it in ares where there are lot's of 'invisible' Skeletons & Zombies, i.e. Emridy Meadows & the corridor at Teple lvl 1, the location of all Undead shows as 'blue' circles. You can then target them with attacks and arrows, forcing them to appear.

One of the frustrating things with these encounters is that you kill one undead, combat ends, run forward into a new undeads location, combat starts and the skeleton or such ALWAYS goes first. With 'Detect Undead' you can target the skels. at your own leizure and get the advantage.

Still a crappy spell, though, you won't find any other practical uses for it.

I also think D.Secret doors works, if you don't have an Elf or a good 'Searcher' in your party. But the spell alone won't reweal anything, you'll have to do a manual search with the 'search' funtion on the Radial Menu. Hidden doors should then appear if you do it before the spell runs out.

I think the rest of the 'Detect' spells are broken..

( i advise you to play around with 'Meld Into Stone' though, it can be a game killer if used wisely..)

Have Fun!

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:37 pm

Hiya Mulligan.

By "game killer", do you mean a way to make the idiotic AI attack an invulnerable party member while the rest wail away on them from a distance? (Kinda like the pre-patch version of spiritual weapon.)

Spoiler alert (highlight to read):
Also, most of the time you can target the "invisible" undead anyway by just pressing "c" and hovering over where they are with the cursor. When it turns into a sword, hack away. Works in the "bone hall" and the spider and stirge rooms on the first level of the temple. Probably other places as well that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:01 pm

[QUOTE=Lord Plothos]Hiya Mulligan.

By "game killer", do you mean a way to make the idiotic AI attack an invulnerable party member while the rest wail away on them from a distance? (Kinda like the pre-patch version of spiritual weapon.)[/QUOTE]

It could be used that way, and this was one of my strategies when soloing.

. But the AI wasn't that crappy in the early days...Bugbears would run past the stoned PC and go for your mages. But the stoned PC is invulnerable, and this can be a real life saver. Against the Galeb Duhr i blocked two narrow openings with my cleric&druid, allowing the rest of the party to regroup and heal. Otherwise i would have died. Now i have more strategies to use against the really hard enemies, but this helped in a pinch. And you could use potions and buffs on the stoned Pc, then end the spell and fight on..

My point of view is that this spell is NOT useless, even if everbody else has it on their 'craplist'. If anything, it is too powerful..

Mull.

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:05 pm

Fair enough. Consider it off my craplist (though I probably still won't ever use it).

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:11 pm

'Calm Emotion' negates the 'Rage' of those nasty Bugbears you'll meet in the temple...Of course you might fight them and survive and put all your magic power into damage & healing, but i works, and if you like to roleplay, by playing a Cleric with this as a Domain Spell, it is a good choice.

Mulligan · Post by **Mulligan** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:25 pm

'The Mind Powers your will...'

Mind Fog spell generally lowers enemies 'Will' save, and can be used to a great advantage, as for making strange monsters into powerful npc's, or other will/save effects.

Any TOEE fan played BG2?? Think of MindFog as a Malison spell, if you need to get through, cast it followed by your choice spell...

It can do wonders..

bariumdose · Post by **bariumdose** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:13 pm

Magic Circle of Uselessness?

Do any of the Magic Circle Against <insert alignment or energy> spells do anything except generate a circle of light?

I tried Magic Circle Against Chaos and Magic Circle Against Evil and they don't seem to work per the spell description. They don't repel any chaotic or evil creatures. And I don't see any modifiers added to my party's AC. Anybody have any thoughts on the Magic Circles?

PS I heard that there's a new mod by Ted or ShiningTed from the co8 forum that works off the Livonya 1.5 mod. Anybody heard any news on this?

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:16 pm

Yeah, ShiningTed (who is often just called "Ted") has created a mod to add to Liv's. Don't know much about it, but many have responded favorably, with no negative feedback that I've seen.

I've not experimented with the circles, myself, but I've seen it mentioned in several places that the circles don't work. You're probably right.