Best Spells to plunder

[Irish]

So I've been wondering this for a while now- with the prevalence of spell plundering present nowadays in Pathfinder, as well as the Bard in 5E DnD, what spells are actually worth stealing onto a different class' spell list? Are there any Cleric spells with taking as a Wizard? Any Druid spells worth stealing as a Bard?

Or is spell plundering not really as strong as it seems at a glance?

[RobbyPants]

You mention both PF and 5E. Is there a specific edition you are asking about for the best spells?

[8d8]

How specifically are you getting off with these purloined spells? When do you add them, and to what? I'll throw in a: where? but ignore the why?

[Username17]

People spend a lot more time worrying about dumpster diving spells off other lists than is warranted. It makes people feel clever to find off-list combinations. It makes people feel like they've gotten away with something - like the power they've achieved is better because it took more effort to find.

But honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a list jumping build that was better than just being a regular full caster and taking spells that happened to be good. People have been dicking around with Factotums and anyspell shenanigans for over a decade, and I haven't seen anything come out of it that was in any objective sense "worth it."

There's this pervasive feeling that spells are assigned to lists due to hard thinking balance concerns, and that mix and matching pushes the envelope of what is or should be possible. And that's just not true. The spell lists are assigned by people who think magic missile is the most powerful 1st level Wizard spell because they remember using it a lot in 2nd edition AD&D. The strongest caster shenanigans aren't even combos - they are just walking into encounters and casting good spells so that you win those encounters instead of losing them.

There is a certain merit to proving that "everything you can do, I can do better." Mixing spells from different lists is a decent way to demonstrate that kind of thing. In the same way that the Cleric Archer convinced people that Casters > Fighters in a way that simply making a Caster who cast awesome spells and won all the time didn't and couldn't. But the fact remains that a Druid who sits back and entangles enemies with vermin and plants is still much better than one who moonlights as a Fighter.

-Username17

[Ice9]

Although that depends on what kind of caster you were to start. There's plenty of Sor/Wiz spells a Cleric might want. Whether a Sor/Wiz gives a shit about picking Cleric spells is more situational.

There's one case it's obviously beneficial - getting spells at a lower level, usually by grabbing them off the list of a limited caster like a Bard, Paladin, Ranger, etc. Irresistable Dance as a 6th level spell is pretty nice, for instance. Depending how much dumpster-diving you do, there are PrCs that give stuff at an extremely lower level, like Antimagic Field as a 2nd level spell.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Having just today poked through the 5e spell list for the first time, I'm nominally curious as to effective bard magical secret selections, and would welcome suggestions to the below. A Valor Bard would drop Counterspell and 1 other from 6 or 10.
6th Animate Dead/Counterspell
10th Contagion/Swift Quiver
14th Planar Ally/Simulacrum (possibly Create Undead)
18th Gate/Wish

3e spell list dipping largely came in 4 varieties: Archivists, Crafters, Chameleons, and Dips/Feats. The Archivist mainly capitalized on domain/druid/ranger/paladin access to offset loss of domain powers and gaining scribing costs, while Artificers and 12th level Warlocks could also take advantage of otherwise unused arcane semi-casters like Trapsmith. A Chameleon could make the most of dipping from different lists but would be down 6 feats before getting 9th level spells, and so not only needed to be in a game with cheese like flaws or UA generic classes to get off the ground, doesn't entirely hold up when compared to full casters+said cheese.

While there are worse feats than Arcane Disciple, most PrCs proved less useful for list access. 2 levels of Wyrm Wizard could add Miracle to a list at the cost of a caster level, Recaster could add 2 spells and class-specific metamagic for a CL and race selection, 4 levels of Eldritch Master adds a whole list to a Beguiler so long as they're either above 20th level or willing to shoot their character in the foot, and Rainbow Servant could add an entire list provided making a "Text Trumps Table" argument doesn't get one immediately labeled an asshole.