Your Favorite Underwhelming Spells
Grum
Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
Icewind Dale
Cat's Grace (lvl 2 arcane) +1d8 dexterity, max 20
Why? Because if you have a dwarf or 2 in your party, it is a good buff. That dwarf warrior with 17dex now gets +1 armor class for 1 hour/level of the caster. That's pretty good. The dwarf fighter/thief you took with you for traps and locks? He gets the AC bonus, and his thief skills are better. This spell is useful throughout the game.
Friends (lvl 1 arcane) +5 Cha for 3 rounds + 1 round/level
Why? Because you can't get reputation increases in icewind dale. Have your Cha18 bard cast this, and suddenly your 15% discount jumps up to 25%. Very much worth a lvl1 spell slot.
Baldur's Gate
Strength (lvl 2 arcane) sets strength to 18/50 for 1 turn/level
Why? How many NPCs have Str under 18/50 who could really use that buff?
Valygar (17)
Keldorn (17)
Haer Dalis (17)
Yoshimo (17)
Rasaad (16)
Jaheira (15)
Mazzy (15...though she can self buff)
Viconia (10)
For most of the game, the best you can do is buy a belt of hill giant strength, giving one of these characters Str19. For the rest? This spell really does help them. Even characters like Nalia, Imoen, Aerie...if they are using slings or throwing daggers for when you want to save spells, then Str 18/50 will help them do more damage.
Up until ToB this spell remains highly useful. I can't get enough of it.
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So...which spells can you just not go without, with the exception of stables like stoneskin and magic missile?
Cat's Grace (lvl 2 arcane) +1d8 dexterity, max 20
Why? Because if you have a dwarf or 2 in your party, it is a good buff. That dwarf warrior with 17dex now gets +1 armor class for 1 hour/level of the caster. That's pretty good. The dwarf fighter/thief you took with you for traps and locks? He gets the AC bonus, and his thief skills are better. This spell is useful throughout the game.
Friends (lvl 1 arcane) +5 Cha for 3 rounds + 1 round/level
Why? Because you can't get reputation increases in icewind dale. Have your Cha18 bard cast this, and suddenly your 15% discount jumps up to 25%. Very much worth a lvl1 spell slot.
Baldur's Gate
Strength (lvl 2 arcane) sets strength to 18/50 for 1 turn/level
Why? How many NPCs have Str under 18/50 who could really use that buff?
Valygar (17)
Keldorn (17)
Haer Dalis (17)
Yoshimo (17)
Rasaad (16)
Jaheira (15)
Mazzy (15...though she can self buff)
Viconia (10)
For most of the game, the best you can do is buy a belt of hill giant strength, giving one of these characters Str19. For the rest? This spell really does help them. Even characters like Nalia, Imoen, Aerie...if they are using slings or throwing daggers for when you want to save spells, then Str 18/50 will help them do more damage.
Up until ToB this spell remains highly useful. I can't get enough of it.
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So...which spells can you just not go without, with the exception of stables like stoneskin and magic missile?
8
Comments
You know, I actually really like Incendiary Cloud and Firestorm. What's good about them is that it's really easy to make a party member immune to fire, and then kite enemies to death with those spells. That said, I'm also getting progressively more enamored of lower level ways to take down powerful enemies like liches or such. So, since Cloudkill won't work on a lich, use Death Fog, which will work and doesn't force you to wait until Incendiary Cloud or Firestorm or my calling card are available. Plant more than one at a time, and the lich probably won't be able to cast anything.
It's meh on a first level character, so players tend to choose spells like CLW, Bless, Sanc, Command and Doom early, but it surpasses those spells in the later part of the game, probably starting at level 10 with a 15% damage reduction. That's significant on hard hitting enemies such as Golem's and Dragons. It also fits nicely in your Pali's or Rangers limited spell selection.
Strength of One.
As @Grum pointed out, there are a lot of NPCs under 18/75 strength. Unlike the arcane version though, this one affects the whole party. Take out a Holy Smite, Animate Dead, or CMW to give a damage and AB boost to all your characters at once (besides Dorn and Minsc).
Good to stack damage upon an enemy caster.
Armor. Great to have for multiclas thief/mage. Cast it, it last 8 hours and you don't need to wear the standard armor.
Shield. Best protection against Magic Missiles. It absorbs them.
Color Spray. I think most people don't realize how good this is against a throng of enemies. Sure, it allows saves, but if used in conjunction with let's say Curse or Prayer, it can kill/disable several enemies.
Both super underwhelming.
Why?
I want to know via role-playing whether it makes sense to use spells like (Un)holy word, (Un)holy smite, protection from evil (x radius), as well as weapons that provide bonuses to the extremes (equaliser for instance).
It is a nice way to see the artwork on the entire map (often you can't even reach everything and Farsight needs multiple castings). Off-hand I only remember two maps where it spoils the plot a bit: Werewolf Island (you see the ship) and maybe the Shadow Temple (see the altar).
I wish Spell Revisions left it in.
Other than that, blur actually do not suck, when cocast with mirror image in a sequencer for fighter-mages.
although one time i had something amazing happen to nalia, she was casting polymorph other on a mage that had spell turning, and i wasnt paying attention and the spell got bounced back on to nalia, and she failed her save and she was turned into a squirrel, ah good times
-Friends, Specially in BG1 where quest reward changes are only triggered by 18 charisma a god send.
-Invisibility, beats thief stealth every day of the week.
-Clairvoyance, love to cast it then i feel i finished a map, removing all the tiny black spots that are left is my personal "done" stamp.
-Polymorph self, why waste fire arrows or lvl 1/2 spells for every single troll if you can be a Gnoll with inbuilt fire Helebarde.
invisibility 10 radius for convenience/utility
In BG1 they can do almost everything a wizard can do, only with the ability to use missile weapons against trash mobs. Free identify, wand use...they’re great.
In BG2...kinda moot. As there is only a blade and that’s more of a single class fighter/mage
Bards offer lots of great options though, would be nice if they could wear the Ring of Wizardry!
Edit: Does the Ulgoth's Beard Bard instrument actually work? Couldn't get it to actually do anything, just gave false positive feedback and did nothing.