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I am currently rolling along on playing with my first mage character. I find that I am consistantly using only 2 or 3 spells per level. It makes me wonder what I am missing.

What are your favorite mage spells on each level, and why? What do you think is not worth the trouble, and what have you found usefull despite a poor first impression.

To date I have access to level four spells. Generally, summon spells are always good. Even dire badgers can be cannon fodder. Because I was a noob and picked a specialist mage that blocked Transformation spells, all those cool sounding spells for enhancing my character and allies are out. I see little point, then, beyond direct damage and general immobilizing spells. But I freely admit I might be missing the boat. I also suspect my tactics could be subtler. Heres what I use regularly:

Level 0:
Any of the damage spells - nice and quick for disrupting enemy spell casters

Level 1:
Magic Missle - quick and reliable
Color Spray - can take a good chunk of bad guys out of the action and can be useful into the middle game.
Sleep - similar to Color Spray, but less usefull due to the "sum of levels affected". I use a wand rather filling a slot.

Level 2:
Melf's Acid Arrow - so-so scaling damage, but only real offensive spell at this level.
Web - good area so it can pin down a ton of baddies

Level 3:
Fireball - 'nuff said
Stinking cloud - like web, only better

Level 4:
Black Tenticles - immobilize AND damage!
Ice storm - nice area and cold effect damage spells are rare, damage does not scale, though.
Lesser Missle Storm - Killer single enemy damage spell and totally awesome animation!

I find that I keep the difficulty setting on the one that will allow me to cast area spells with out harming my allies. I realize this is kind of lame, but the AI sucks at running henchment and etc. If I had better control of them and they didn't keep making insane kamakazee charges into hordes of enemies, I might do otherwise.

I play a wizard myself, and I frequently change the spells I use. I didn't specify a specific school of wizardry when I created the character because I didn't like the limitations, and I almost never bother to bolster my henchmen, either. I've 'specialized' on doing mass damage, so to speak. Here goes:

Level 0, Cantrips: I... never used any of them. Ever. Unless your enemy has like, 1 AC, I find even stuff like Acid Splash to be useless.

Level 1:
- Burning Hands - Mass damage
- Ice Dagger - single enemy
- Magic Missile - single enemy and almost useless.
- Horizikaul's Boom - nice stunning effect
- Sleep - particularly effective against Goblins
- Rod of Frost - received in prelude, used against lesser enemies

Level 2:
- Death Armour - I love this. Enemies take damage BECAUSE they damage me
- Combust - fire damage to single enemy
- Knock - unlocks most chests and doors in the immediate area
- Web
- Continual Flame - I use this now and then and take it out if I don't use it. Continual Flame, if cast on an equipped item, makes that item glow forever. It leaves free a slot for other equipment so you don't have to have an item that sheds light.

Level 3:
- Fireball - mass damage
- Lightning Bolt - single damage, but effective
- Gust of Wind - dissolves area spells like Acid Fog
- Scintillating Sphere - energy damage, mass damage
- Haste - cast on Henchman before a melee fight

Level 4:
- Ice Storm - mass damage. Love it.
- Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm - random but powerful energy missiles, mass damage, and it DOES damage to more than one enemy.
- Evard's Black Tentacles
- Wall of Fire - cast from a distance between you and the enemy. They take damage if they try to pass through the fire. Good for melee fights.

Level 5:
- Cone of Cold - mass damage
- Mestil's Acid Sheath - enemies take damage while melee-attacking you
- Firebrand - same as Missile Storm, but with fire, and stronger
- Ball Lightning

Level 6:
- Chain Lightning - mass damage. Very useful.
- Isaac's Greater Missile Storm - stronger than the "lesser" one
- Undeath to Death - a mass killer against Vampires, mummies, etc
- Greater Disspelling - against enemy mages? Priceless.

Level 7:
- Finger of Death - single enemy, useful against stronger enemies because it requires a will save ( I'm not 100% sure of that last part... )
- Prismatic Spray - like Colour Spray, only a lot stronger. Mass damage
- Great Thunderclap - mass damage, causes enemies to fall over
- Banishment - banishes summoned enemy creatures
- Spell Mantle - usefull against enemy mages

Level 8:
- Horrid Wilting - Lovely. Mass damage. Loves it, presciousssss.
- Sunburst - mass damage, good against undead, good against most enemies
- Incendiary Cloud - mass damage.

Level 9:
- Wail of the Banshee - mass and MASSIVE damage. Can kill instantly.
- Power Word, Kill - single damage, not as effective as the name sounds
- Weird - mass damage. Good against non-mage/shaman creatures, also kills instantly
- Energy Drain - saps the strength out of your enemy. Good against Balor Lords etc.

Spells I find useless:
- All charm/domination spells. I want my enemies dead, not in love with me.
- All Summon Creature spells. I do learn them when I find them, but I rarely use them.
- lower Invisibility spells. I find them extremely useless. They make me invisible UNTIL I attack or cast a spell, so unless I want to steal something ( can think of exactly one place in the first chapter to use them ) I don't need them. I'll just end up standing around because I'm literally bound to.

[QUOTE=Ningengirai]

Level 7:
- Finger of Death - single enemy, useful against stronger enemies because it requires a will save ( I'm not 100% sure of that last part... )
.[/QUOTE]
finger of death has a fortitude save......

[QUOTE=Ningengirai]
Level 9:
- Power Word, Kill - single damage, not as effective as the name sounds
- Energy Drain - saps the strength out of your enemy. Good against Balor Lords etc.
.[/QUOTE]

Powerword kill has no save, So combined with a maximised missile storm it is teh spell.

Energy drain don't sap strength as the descriptor says, it saps levels. Permanent if played in a D&D hardcore rule game

Originally Posted by Ningengirai

Level 1:
- Magic Missile - single enemy and almost useless.

Magic Missile doesn't allow save so it's used against high lvl rogues with Improved Evasion (until you get damage dealers that require Fortitude and not Reflex save)

Level 2:
- Bull's Strength, Fox's Cunning, Eagle's Spleandor, Cat's Grace, Owl's Wisdom, Endurance - each give bonus to base abillity score

Level 6:
- Greater stoneskin - protect's you from melee damage
- Mass Haste - as Haste but afects all allies

Level 9:
- Time Stop - freezes everyone else for 2-4 rounds

If you have SotU and HotU expansions take Create wand feat so you can make wands from following spells:
- Bull's Strength
- Fox's Cunning
- Knock
- Find Traps - Finds and removes all traps in range
- Flame Weapon - HotU spell - give add. fire dmg based on lvl to weapons
- Endurance
- Keen Egde - HotU spell - improve chance of critical hit with edged weapons

Don't forget your defense

At level 1 I always take Mage Armour and Protection from Alignment. They last 1 hour per level. I also usually take burning hands early on, but replace it with Magic Missile later.

For level 2 Ghostly Visage is a great defensive spell in the early going, until you get its better version later. Melf's Acid is my favourite offensive level 2.

At level 3 I love Negative Energy Burst. Damage + Strength reduction to a fairly large area.

Level 4 onwards I find you don't need to be as picky. Your mage will start to blast through everything anyway. There are a lot of other posts on this issue as well, that do tend to focus on higher level spells.

Level 6 - chain lightning!! Absolutely my favourite. Except at one point when I ran into a romm, let fly and damaged something crucial to completeing a side mission. Live and learn....

From the start, I did tend to use Animal familiars - basically anything that the enemy would attack whilst I sorted out where the heck I had put my quick keys for offensive spells. I know that lowers the experience points, but I got fed up with re-loading....

Power Word Kill has no Save?!?! I need to read up about that, I gave up using it because it never seemed to damage anything.

I also love anything involving Fireballs, Weird and Banshee's scream, mainly because they look cool. Weird freaked me out because the first time I ran into it, I died. Every single time (I was a twelfth level Ranger). Time Stop - YES! Need multiples of them. Gate - would love to use this but didn't always have a protection staff on me. Got mashed experimenting.

Charm/dominate spells - I'm sure these are great when they work. I am biased against them because the dragon/demon/wizard/fighter etc. I was fighting at the time would simply have more time to hack bits out of my hide.

[QUOTE=ladyblack]
Power Word Kill has no Save?!?! I need to read up about that, I gave up using it because it never seemed to damage anything.

[/QUOTE]

It has no save, but can only kill one enemy with no more than 100 hitpoints. So a greater missile storm to weaken the enemy before finishing of with Powerword Kill. It can also kill monsters in a area that has no more than 200 hitpoints all togehter (max 20 hp each).

Ahhhhh, thank you. A great many people have mentioned how good the Magic Misile storm is, especially when you get to higher levels. I will try combining the two, when I finally get my NWN to work again.....

But the problem is that Power Word Kill is level 9, so you would probably be better just filling to with a maxed isaacs which deals 240 (or 120 against 2 etc.). Or for greater radius you could use an empowered delayed fireball.

Celestral avanger is a great summon, at least till you reach 20+ levels.

I prefer wail of the banshee to weird. Its enemy mages thats really dangerous. Warriors are much eailer to kill.

Improved invisibility/displacement is great. 50% chance of missing!!!

Missile storm against a single boss without helpers nearby is just godly.

In really high levels ice storm is great, since there is not saving throws.

For those enemies without fire DR, flame arrow is really good.

Black Tenticles aren't really that useful. Enemies make saves against it easily, not to mention that the damage is really puny.

Haste isn't required in official moduels, seeing that you can easily find perm haste items for you henchman.

I rarely take Fox's Cunning, Eagle's Spleandor, Owl's Wisdom and Endurance. Bouues to int, wis, cha and con isn't of much use. ES is great for paladins muticlasses though.

[QUOTE=Coo]I prefer wail of the banshee to weird. Its enemy mages thats really dangerous. Warriors are much eailer to kill.[/QUOTE]

Just a note, Wail is better at killing mages, not warriors because it is a fortitude save. Weird is worse because it requires two saves (both fort and will) however it is not limited by number of victims.

My fav spells:

Maximised Isaac's Greater Missile Storm - best pvp spell ever (well not if they have magic DR)
Timestop - Still one of the best even though Bioware quartered the duration.
Epic Warding - Great spell, simply legendary when used with a Palemaster.
Bigby's Crushing Hand - a fourty round timestop that deals damage against melee, quite entertaining when used against dragons.
Greater Sanctuary - Unbreakable invisibility, the best retreat spell (excellent for waiting out buff durations).
Horrid Wilting - Now that Firebrand has been weakened, this returns to the top tier of area damage spells
Maxed/Empowered Firebrand - Still good even with a save.
Mestil's Acid Sheath - The only good acid spell at high levels.
Mordenkainen's Disjunction - Reduces and SR, dispels and is a universal counter, needed against monks and other high SR's.
Empowered Spell Mantle - This > Improved Spell Mantle.
Premonition - Long term DR.
True Seeing - When you don't have the item.
Haste - Also when you don't have the item. An extra spell a round saves you from taking Auto-Quicken (don't forget the attack either).
Greater Spell Breach - Apparently also lowers SR.
Energy Buffer - Top anti-elemental.
Cone of Cold - Classic .
Prismatic Spray - Colourful but useless.
Ice Storm - Bludgeoning Damage (and good damage).
Improved Invisibility - 50% concealment.
Find Traps - Disarms traps too!
Knock - Classic utility.
Level 2 Buffs - Excellent for Bards and Sprc/Pally's.
Summon Creature 1 - For running over traps .

I have to agree with everybody on the Isaac's Greater Missile Storm. When I got that spell... it was god. I like it not only for the damage but for the fact that it isn't elemental. It's near amazing how many enemies have elemental resistant in the game.

I also like fireball (at early levels, that spell is awesome... still good when empowered).

I'm surprised like only one person mentioned firebrand. That spell... has to be the most pathetic looking one but it does a lot of damage for what it is.

Other than that I like Energy Buffer, Spell Mantle, and Greater Stoneskin. Using those there isn't all that much that can stop a sorcerer.

[QUOTE=Noober]Just a note, Wail is better at killing mages, not warriors because it is a fortitude save. Weird is worse because it requires two saves (both fort and will) however it is not limited by number of victims.

My fav spells:

Maximised Isaac's Greater Missile Storm - best pvp spell ever (well not if they have magic DR)
Timestop - Still one of the best even though Bioware quartered the duration.
Epic Warding - Great spell, simply legendary when used with a Palemaster.
Bigby's Crushing Hand - a fourty round timestop that deals damage against melee, quite entertaining when used against dragons.
Greater Sanctuary - Unbreakable invisibility, the best retreat spell (excellent for waiting out buff durations).
Horrid Wilting - Now that Firebrand has been weakened, this returns to the top tier of area damage spells
Maxed/Empowered Firebrand - Still good even with a save.
Mestil's Acid Sheath - The only good acid spell at high levels.
Mordenkainen's Disjunction - Reduces and SR, dispels and is a universal counter, needed against monks and other high SR's.
Empowered Spell Mantle - This > Improved Spell Mantle.
Premonition - Long term DR.
True Seeing - When you don't have the item.
Haste - Also when you don't have the item. An extra spell a round saves you from taking Auto-Quicken (don't forget the attack either).
Greater Spell Breach - Apparently also lowers SR.
Energy Buffer - Top anti-elemental.
Cone of Cold - Classic .
Prismatic Spray - Colourful but useless.
Ice Storm - Bludgeoning Damage (and good damage).
Improved Invisibility - 50% concealment.
Find Traps - Disarms traps too!
Knock - Classic utility.
Level 2 Buffs - Excellent for Bards and Sprc/Pally's.
Summon Creature 1 - For running over traps .[/QUOTE]


Hey Noober. I'm thinking of creating another sorceror/pally/monk. Two questions: does the lower SR effect of Greater spell breach and Mordenkainen's disconjunction stack up? does Premonition and Epic warding stack up? If not, does Premonition continue to function after Epic Warding stoped working?

thanks

I do believe that they stack. I know that x2 Mord's Disjunctions stack (so Spell Breach and Mord's should stack).

It's kind of weird that this game doesn't allow dex/AC bonus and concealment bonus to stack, but allows things like two mordenkainen's to stack.

I am curently playing on a server that got buffed spells, so spellcasters can stand against the monsters on the server. Suddenly IGMS does 480 damage when maxed out Not to mention that fireballs does 40d6. But it only does 40d6 when you are lvl 40.

That is a harsh blow from one spell.

Bigby's Crushing Hand/Grasping Hand

I think many people overlook the power of these spells. Both of these spells in effect immobalize your enemy. Cast on a non-spell casting enemy basically disables the enemy from causing any damage. Once this happens you can use either a bunch of low level direct damage spells or with a ranged weapon. This strategy works especially well if your character has a stealth score. While hidden you can target your enemys, then by the time they can see you they are powerless and you can go to work on them.
I've been able to knockout about half a dozen enemies before I even get hit. Furthermore, in conjunction with Time Stop & Automatic Quicken Spell III, you can really immobalize a ton of enemies before they even know what hit 'em.
Note: some enemies can still hurt you with non-ranged weapons if you get real close to them. So you can't just cast Grasping Hand and think you can go and hack 'em up with a greatsword or Double Axe.