1) Natures beauty 2) Insect plague 3) Dire charm(just a fun spell)
Maybe not the best spells but they are very good in some(a lot of) encounters. Insect plague makes casters a cakewalk and natures beauty either makes enemies harmless or outright kills them.
1. emotion (slays once you get it in bgee and still very useful throughout 2 and tob, especially in combination with greater malison) 2. death spell (cleans up groups of monsters easily. umber hulks, minotaurs, other random encounters, oasis in tob) 3. finger of death/disintegrate/flesh to stone (i just love instakill spells, soo satisfying)
edit: instakill spells make me feel like irenicus in his cut-scenes. so badass.
Certain spells really boost your power pretty disproportionately. Imho, here are a few
BG1: Divine: Command: Clerics dont need to worry as much about mobs like arcane casters, and this spell is a crazy fast shutdown, and makes many tough enemies into a joke. The key is no save obviously. Silence: Caster killer! Usually don't even need 2 casts to afflict a group. Animate Dead: Very overpowered when you get it. Hilariously so. Once you get Skeleton Warriors, most of SoA is pretty easy.
Arcane: Web: Ridiculously effective. Summon some spiders to make it even more cruel! Slow: I usually opt for status afflictions over just straight damage... until you are pretty high level, Slow is pretty effective. Skulltrap is good, but Slow works in almost any situation. Chaos: Sarevok is much easier if you can manage to cast this, either with an Avenger or scroll. Yikes is it strong with that save penalty!
BG2: Divine: Uh, less here for clerics. Creeping Doom: This family of spells are very nasty if you can cast them, especially vs mages. Nature's Beauty: Solid shut down. Animate Dead: Eh, some like Aerial Servants, or Bears (some even like Werebears!), but summoning a Skeleton Warrior with a 3rd level slot?? A few can clean out nearly anyone in SoA. You might need to resummon a few times, but its this or Holy Smite, and Holy Smite does low damage, but is admittedly useful. By ToB, they're still durable speedbumps to deal with non-bosses, and not really worthless vs most bosses.
Arcane: Greater Malison: Very, very dirty spell. Obviously combine with very nasty save vs for maximum profit! I see this as less necessary for BG1, as saves arent as good. Spell Immunity: Very cheesey, but effective in Vanilla, required for SCS and many difficulty mods. Triggers, Contingencies, Sequencers: Terribly abuseable. Comical in many cases, these spells really make Divine casters curl up in the corner, sobbing for their Deity.
Overall 3 Favourites, Not in Order: Greater Malison, Triggers/Sequencers/Contingencies, Spell Immunity.
1. Chain Contingency - do I really need to explain? 2. Righteous Magic - this spell alone makes Anomen and Jaheira put out more damage than Sarevok/Korgan/Dorn (edit: kind of. Jaheira can do it easily. Anomen needs some help). And they're tankier. 3. Maze - loved it ever since it helped me win Ascension final battle.
1) Nature's Beauty. This is THE spell of cheese: permanent blind, no save, area effect - once a creature is blinded it is basically taken out of the game. It is done. It cannot cast spells or attack, unless you are in melee range. Since it's permanent all you need is a sling and it will die, eventually. Blindness works on almost all creatures. The spell is AoE centered on the caster, meaning spell deflection/turning do not protect from it. It is level 7, so Liches have no immunity against it. The only thing that protects against it is magic resistance, or getting struck while casting. That and you have to be a druid or ranger/cleric. Such a broken spell, it's as close to the "I win button" as you can get. Oh and it won't even break invisibility when cast, imagine that.
2) Mislead. If Nature's Beauty is the offensive spell of cheese, this is the defensive one: you cannot be attacked while this is in effect. You cannot be taken out of this sort of immunity unless the clone you create is in the area of a true sight or similar spell, or gets killed. Very easy to avoid both of these conditions unless fighting in a small area. Also, cast time of 1 (instant with Amulet of Power). If you played Oblivion and got yourself to 100% chameleon, you will know just how broken this is.
3) Chain Contingency: cast any 3 spells up to level 8 instantly. It doesn't even use up the casting for the round. You can also target invisible enemies with it. Here is more information about it if you want to see how to use it (scroll to middle of page, AHF's post): http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5734/spells-you-never-use/p3
1.Lower Resistance - yesterday killed the shadow dragon using it. And Jan. Basically 4 magic missiles 3 flame arrows and 2 Lower resistance+3 traps by Jan = dead dragon. 2.Stoneskin+fireshield= ultimate goldem killer. killed the golems in Nalia keep using this method. Playing on hardest setting. Cast stoneskin even few seconds and most of them fell pretty quickly thanks to their own improved haste. 3. Polymorph self- Mustard jelly= untouchable by most lich spells(maze somehow always goes throught).
1.Lower Resistance - yesterday killed the shadow dragon using it. And Jan. Basically 4 magic missiles 3 flame arrows and 2 Lower resistance+3 traps by Jan = dead dragon. 2.Stoneskin+fireshield= ultimate goldem killer. killed the golems in Nalia keep using this method. Playing on hardest setting. Cast stoneskin even few seconds and most of them fell pretty quickly thanks to their own improved haste. 3. Polymorph self- Mustard jelly= untouchable by most lich spells(maze somehow always goes throught).
Which is why @Kamigoroshi is a berserker, for the Maze immunity. Berzerker jelly! GO FOR THE EYES, PSEUDOPOD!! RRAARRGGHH!
Comments
1) Stoneskin
2) Invisibility - later changes with another invisibility spell, e.g. Mislead
3) Spell Immunity
For a group run:
1) Stoneskin
2) Improved Haste
3) Slow
2) Insect plague
3) Dire charm(just a fun spell)
Maybe not the best spells but they are very good in some(a lot of) encounters. Insect plague makes casters a cakewalk and natures beauty either makes enemies harmless or outright kills them.
2. death spell (cleans up groups of monsters easily. umber hulks, minotaurs, other random encounters, oasis in tob)
3. finger of death/disintegrate/flesh to stone (i just love instakill spells, soo satisfying)
edit: instakill spells make me feel like irenicus in his cut-scenes. so badass.
BG1:
Divine:
Command: Clerics dont need to worry as much about mobs like arcane casters, and this spell is a crazy fast shutdown, and makes many tough enemies into a joke. The key is no save obviously.
Silence: Caster killer! Usually don't even need 2 casts to afflict a group.
Animate Dead: Very overpowered when you get it. Hilariously so. Once you get Skeleton Warriors, most of SoA is pretty easy.
Arcane:
Web: Ridiculously effective. Summon some spiders to make it even more cruel!
Slow: I usually opt for status afflictions over just straight damage... until you are pretty high level, Slow is pretty effective. Skulltrap is good, but Slow works in almost any situation.
Chaos: Sarevok is much easier if you can manage to cast this, either with an Avenger or scroll. Yikes is it strong with that save penalty!
BG2:
Divine: Uh, less here for clerics.
Creeping Doom: This family of spells are very nasty if you can cast them, especially vs mages.
Nature's Beauty: Solid shut down.
Animate Dead: Eh, some like Aerial Servants, or Bears (some even like Werebears!), but summoning a Skeleton Warrior with a 3rd level slot?? A few can clean out nearly anyone in SoA. You might need to resummon a few times, but its this or Holy Smite, and Holy Smite does low damage, but is admittedly useful. By ToB, they're still durable speedbumps to deal with non-bosses, and not really worthless vs most bosses.
Arcane:
Greater Malison: Very, very dirty spell. Obviously combine with very nasty save vs for maximum profit! I see this as less necessary for BG1, as saves arent as good.
Spell Immunity: Very cheesey, but effective in Vanilla, required for SCS and many difficulty mods.
Triggers, Contingencies, Sequencers: Terribly abuseable. Comical in many cases, these spells really make Divine casters curl up in the corner, sobbing for their Deity.
Overall 3 Favourites, Not in Order:
Greater Malison, Triggers/Sequencers/Contingencies, Spell Immunity.
Arcane is overpowered in BG2.
Though I'm not even sure how many of the old classics have been fixed. Does the Planetar Army still work? Bunny Bomb?
2. Righteous Magic - this spell alone makes Anomen and Jaheira put out more damage than Sarevok/Korgan/Dorn (edit: kind of. Jaheira can do it easily. Anomen needs some help). And they're tankier.
3. Maze - loved it ever since it helped me win Ascension final battle.
2) Mislead. If Nature's Beauty is the offensive spell of cheese, this is the defensive one: you cannot be attacked while this is in effect. You cannot be taken out of this sort of immunity unless the clone you create is in the area of a true sight or similar spell, or gets killed. Very easy to avoid both of these conditions unless fighting in a small area. Also, cast time of 1 (instant with Amulet of Power). If you played Oblivion and got yourself to 100% chameleon, you will know just how broken this is.
3) Chain Contingency: cast any 3 spells up to level 8 instantly. It doesn't even use up the casting for the round. You can also target invisible enemies with it. Here is more information about it if you want to see how to use it (scroll to middle of page, AHF's post):
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5734/spells-you-never-use/p3
2.Stoneskin+fireshield= ultimate goldem killer. killed the golems in Nalia keep using this method. Playing on hardest setting. Cast stoneskin even few seconds and most of them fell pretty quickly thanks to their own improved haste.
3. Polymorph self- Mustard jelly= untouchable by most lich spells(maze somehow always goes throught).