Spells You Never Cast

[hogarth]

Clairvoyance/Clairaudience. The 10 minute casting time is an insult.

[Cynic]

I just looked up Know direction on the srd. It is a ridiculous enough spell but then you read the entire spell description.

[quote="D20srd on Know direction]You instantly know the direction of north from your current position. The spell is effective in any environment in which “north” exists, but it may not work in extraplanar settings. Your knowledge of north is correct at the moment of casting, but you can get lost again within moments if you don’t find some external reference point to help you keep track of direction.[/quote]

So if you waste your time by casting this and then forget to say that the rock that you are looking at is northwards, well that spell was a waste then wasn't it?

[Ganbare Gincun]

Stone Tell. 10 minutes to cast. But more importantly: what the hell is a stone going to tell you? What senses do they have? How intelligent are they? What language do stones and rocks speak? I mean, yes, I'm assuming Terran for the last one, but the rest of the spell's effects are firmly planted in Magical Tea Party territory.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Stone Tell. 10 minutes to cast. But more importantly: what the hell is a stone going to tell you? What senses do they have? How intelligent are they? What language do stones and rocks speak? I mean, yes, I'm assuming Terran for the last one, but the rest of the spell's effects are firmly planted in Magical Tea Party territory.

Reminds me of this topic.

Which is the only circumstance where I can figure out what the stone would tell you.

[fbmf]

What language do stones and rocks speak?

The spell gives you the ability to communicate with stones.

Stone Tell. 10 minutes to cast. But more importantly: what the hell is a stone going to tell you? What senses do they have? How intelligent are they?

This I am with you on...

A stone’s perspective, perception, and knowledge may prevent the stone from providing the details you are looking for.

Bolding mine, and what the fuck does that even mean?

Game On,
fbmf

[Gods_Trick]

What language do stones and rocks speak?

The spell gives you the ability to communicate with stones.

Stone Tell. 10 minutes to cast. But more importantly: what the hell is a stone going to tell you? What senses do they have? How intelligent are they?

This I am with you on...

A stone’s perspective, perception, and knowledge may prevent the stone from providing the details you are looking for.

Bolding mine, and what the fuck does that even mean?

Game On,
fbmf

It means the stone tells you nothing, since stones have NO perception! Maybe an earth elemental subject might work.

[Cynic]

I got one, from AD&D: metamagic spells. One of the best things D&D3 did was introduce the concept of metamagic feats.

What would the difference be? I mean, I kinda like the idea of metamagic spells that don't waste a wizard's feats.

Do these spells have an additional cost? I mean if metamagic spells are counted as a higher level spell, those feats could be used for something a little bit more helpful. I like this mainly for the idea that it pushes the idea of gish a little further by making it more the norm rather than a tangential build.

[Ancient History]

A metamagic spell was literally a separate spell that you cast before another spell to modify the effects. So you'd cast, say, Pierce Magic Resistance (5th level spell) one round, and then the spell you cast next round gets the benefit of the effect.

[Aharon]

As in 3rd Ed, there was absurdly powerful metamagic stuff in obscure sourcebooks

[talozin]

I don't think they were ever folded into the official canon ruleset of 1E.

They were in Unearthed Arcana, if you consider that to be "official". And, honestly, I wouldn't blame you for going either way on that.

As for the thread topic, these are a few of my never memorized Cleric spells:

Bless Water - You might argue that you don't always know in advance if you're going to need holy water, and you'd be right, but by requiring an expensive material component, this spell makes it a choice between "pay 25gp for a vial of holy water", or "pay 25gp and a spell slot for holy water".

Detect Alignment - For values of alignment that do not correspond to the main axis of good guy/bad guy-dom in any given campaign. If a game is about Good vs Evil, you will never bother memorizing Detect Chaos. If a game is about Law vs Chaos, you will never bother memorizing Detect Good.

Find Traps really needs no introduction.

Blindness/Deafness - Blindness is actually a great spell (it's one of the few low-level ranged spells that requires a Fort save), but it's 3rd level for Clerics, which means the party Wizard could have been casting it 2 levels ago.

Control Water - I know Clerics have to be able to be Moses, but 4th level, seriously?

Raise Dead - If you can't afford True Rez, you're better off if you just reroll. And so is the rest of your party.

[tzor]

I don't think they were ever folded into the official canon ruleset of 1E.

They were in Unearthed Arcana, if you consider that to be "official". And, honestly, I wouldn't blame you for going either way on that.

Oh yea, right. Dark tea time of the gaming soul. I mostly missed out on UA because it was published in 1985, two years after I graduated from college, had no gaming group to speak of, and was way too busy collecting the next Lankhmar module to even think of new hard cover books.

[LR]

Bless Water - You might argue that you don't always know in advance if you're going to need holy water, and you'd be right, but by requiring an expensive material component, this spell makes it a choice between "pay 25gp for a vial of holy water", or "pay 25gp and a spell slot for holy water".

The holy water you buy is created with the spell and then sold at the cost of the component. You might never cast it, but there's probably an Apprentice Cleric sitting in a temple who spends all of his spell slots on it because he was told to do so by his Mentor. That's the intention, at least.

In, reality, holy water comes from Rogues and that chalice mentioned in the UMD description or high-level casters who bottle it from the Silver Sea in Celestia. Bless Water is still useless, but useless in an entirely different way than you thought.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Raise Dead - If you can't afford True Rez, you're better off if you just reroll. And so is the rest of your party.

Mechanically, yes, but I would be pissed to permanently lose a character that I put any investment into making and roleplaying.

[Ravengm]

I always thought Foresight had a pretty high level for what it did. That and some of the "Hand" spells.

[Roy]

I always thought Foresight had a pretty high level for what it did. That and some of the "Hand" spells.

[talozin]

Mechanically, yes, but I would be pissed to permanently lose a character that I put any investment into making and roleplaying.

Sure, that's part of what makes Raise Dead such a terrible spell -- when it's your only option after a character dies, you're screwed no matter what you do.

[Kaelik]

Mechanically, yes, but I would be pissed to permanently lose a character that I put any investment into making and roleplaying.

I just make his mysterious twin brother with identical stats and classes and items, and fuck death level penalties.

[Starmaker]

I always thought Foresight had a pretty high level for what it did.

Foresight is "a hint from the MC". Hints, depending on the MC, range from (1) completely useless to (2) too damn specific and railroady to (3) necessary to (4) actually powerful. Example: one of the most useful skills in GURPS is Scrounging, which allows your PC to locate and obtain mundane items and come up with clever ideas on how to get more exotic ones.

Good MCs are rare. Worldbuilding, NPC creation, description, pacing, organizing - a lot of skills to suck at. Miscommunication, especially with newb MCs or MCs you have no experience with, can ruin an otherwise decent game. Hints can tell you if you missed an important fact about the world, or that the MC failed to mention one, or that the MC has a retarded preconception of how stuff works. Once, our party spent several IRL hours searching for a mysterious monster that's been eating the inhabitants of a small town. We exhausted all options and started complaining in-character that the investigation was going nowhere. The MC snickered all the time, saying that the solution was laughably easy. At some point, we got fed up and asked for the solution. "You should go to the public library to read local legends", she said.

So an all-knowing instantaneous effect that suggests the best action to take in any situation is pretty powerful, and the earlier in the game you gain it, the better. At level 17 and at the cost of a 9th level slot, it's useless. This is better:

Uncommon sense [Noob]
Benefit: As an immediate action, you can roll a Knowledge (Intelligence) check, DC -5, to take back whatever you just said. This is an extraordinary ability that can be used a number of times per session equal to 1 + your (not your character's) Charisma bonus.
Normal: Upon saying "Lol nitric acid?! Awsum I drink it! so randum lol!", you get to suffer consequences.
Special: As long as every player, including the MC, is drunk, the ability can be used an unlimited number of times.

[fbmf]

How about any of the Mordenkainen Spells, with the obvious exception of MDJ?

I've never cast a Bigby spell in 3.x? Anybody else want to weight in?

Game On,
fbmf

[K]

I'm a great fan of the Magnificent Mansion. You can cast it and 5' step in and basically get a perfect escape, but you can also open it at will and attack.

As for the hand spells, they basically fell out of favor when monster summoning was made decent. They used to be the thing you used to keep monsters off your face because the fighting guy as tank has always been a shared delusion in DnD.

[Kaelik]

I think one of the Bigby spells is pretty good, it's a hand that moves around grappling and stunning and doing small damage. That could be useful if it had it's level reduced.

MD, and mansion are used a fair amount. I don't know any other M spells, so I guess not. Except that one Chain Missile one, I guess that's not bad.

[fbmf]

I've been playing for 20+ years, and I've never seen anyone cast Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound.

Game On,
fbmf

[Ice9]

Yeah, M^3 is actually a pretty nice spell - I've used it quite a bit, a lot more than MDJ actually. Faithful Hound - yeah, I can't even remember the details of that one. Or the sword one.

Secret Chest is one that always seems hypothetically useful, but I've never ended up actually using it.

Foresight is a weird one. Going by just the "not flatfooted and minor bonuses" part, it's pretty useless (except for specific Celerity shenanigans). Going by what it implies - that you get at least enough warning to do a standard action in response, and specific enough to be useful - then it's pretty damn powerful and certainly worth the slot. But the wording is vague enough that you'll have to find out how the MC is actually going to run it.

[fbmf]

(except for specific Celerity shenanigans)

You have my undivided attention, Sir.

Game On,
fbmf

[name_here]

I will freely admit to not having gotten much practical non-CRPG experience, but the sword is a force effect, which can come in handy, and doesn't seem to have too crappy a to-hit for sorcerers, and you only need to use a standard action on it when a target runs away or dies.