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D&D: planning ahead
Because I have so few spell slots, it would be silly to waste slots on redundant spells or ones that get superseded quickly. (I've already made one mistake along this line, and do not want to make another.) So I'm trying to plan the next few levels' worth of spells now, to reduce the odds of this happening.
The character has certain preferences. Larissa started out, magically speaking, by manipulating physical objects around her. She is definitely on a path toward telekenesis. She would be a quasi-physicist, if D&D had such a notion.
In addition to manipulating forces, she has experimented some with manipulating actual objects/beings, including herself. She practices flying with magically-produced wings; her owl familiar laughs at her. (Alter Self lets you make and use wings, but maneuverability is poor.) She is definitely on a path toward polymorph.
She deals very much in reality. Illusion is not her thing, and she's not entirely certain about mind-control spells. Not that she would automatically rule them out, but it hasn't been a natural research area for her.
She has a knack for fire. (Well, conjuring up bursts of energy, more broadly, but mostly fire.) She thinks of magical fire as sort of like real fire with everything going really, really right. A fireball is a huge blob of fire contained in a very small space by a force field, she thinks -- and then you drop the field and things go boom. Force fields make sense to her, after all (Mage Armor is just a force field), so I figure she is trying to broaden the concept.
She is starting to get used to the idea that you can also move things through space in unusual ways, covering distances quickly. She is definitely on a path toward teleportation.
Ok, now let's look at spells. I should
mention up front that the group is averse to
save-or-die effects, so I won't be looking
at those. (Save-or-take-huge-gobs-of-damage
is something else entirely. :-) )
At her next level (7th), she will get to learn her final first-level spell. So it's important that I pick a good one; it's my last chance outside of working with another spellcaster to manufacture magic items. Currently she knows: Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Shocking Grasp (this was the mistake), and Unseen Servant. I am currently considering the following possibilities: Endure Elements (but only if I do not take Protection from Elements at third level), Protection from Evil (potentially useful but harder to justify from a character perspective), and Expeditious Retreat (more likely if I get a ruling that this applies to flight and not just running). I don't really want another attack spell, much as Ray of Enfeeblement might be handy at times. I'm not seeing a lot of interesting options on the first-level spell list.
At second level, I currently know Flame Sphere and Alter Self. I will get another at my next level, and two more after that. Pyrotechnics will almost certainly be on the list. Others that I am considering are Web, Darkvision, See Invisibility, and maybe Ghoul Touch or Glitterdust (but probably not the latter). Second level is where all the stat-enhancing spells come in (Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Endurance), but it appears that our party would not benefit from these enough for me to spend one of five spell slots on one. Given time, money, and experience points, I can make something like bracers of ogre strength, which fills a similar role without costing a spell slot.
At third level, I will ultimately get four spells (including one at the next level). I currently know Fireball. Fly and Dispel Magic will definitely be two of the others. For the last, I'm considering Protection from Elements, Stinking Cloud, and Vampiric Touch. I sort of need to decide on this (at least on the Prot Elements question) soon. I definitely want one of the elemental protection spells; the first-level one is a utility spell that could be useful under many circumstances, and the third-level spell is a shorter-duration spell that grants much better protection (for a few minutes). The first keeps you warm and cozy in the dead of winter outdoors; the second keeps you alive when someone throws a fireball at you, if you had some hint that that might be coming.
Looking ahead to fourth-level spells, Polymorph Self is the only certainty right now. This might also be the time to learn one of the Summon Monster spells; by fourth level there's a fair bit of flexibility in what you can summon. Ice Storm might also be appropriate.
The last level I've looked at in detail is fifth. (I won't get there for a few more levels yet.) Teleport and Telekenesis are definitely two of the four spells I will ultimately learn. I'm not sure what else.
I didn't really mention cantrips. Ultimately I'll be able to know half of them, and I don't see much in the way of problems here. Currently I know Mage Hand, Detect Magic, Light, Daze, Prestidigitation, Disrupt Undead, and Detect Poison. I'll learn Read Magic one of these days.
So that's my current thinking. Feedback from other
D&D players, including the people in this
campaign, is welcome.
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I am willing to allow you to delay picking your spells until later, so you don't have to choose right away.
One thing to consider: at present, most of the party's heavy firepower is in the form of fire spells. But you don't want to commit yourself to that--sometimes you will meet fire-resistant creatures, particularly as you go up in level.
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Fire: yes, this is part of why I was thinking about Ice Storm. Besides, sometimes we need to do damage in places where we don't want to risk setting fires. Aside from Lightning Bolt, which has its own problems (including also causing fires), we don't really get non-fire area-of-effect damage spells until fourth level or higher.
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Oh -- there's a magic ointment we can make together that can cure both hit point loss and disease -- wanna make some sometime?
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As for spells, I've never used Ghoul Touch but I have seen the other four 2nd level spells be useful for parties (and I regularly memorize web and glitterdust for my mage characters even if I don't cast them all the time). I'd advise coordinating with Liandra and Prolix at least for emphasis. Carl should have some comments on the various protection from elements spells.
Ice storm isn't as cool as fireball in that it has a lower number of d6s for damage. However, it has no save and two types of damage and that can be useful sometimes. The summoning spells can be cool. Summoning eagles is pretty useless though. Grease can be quite useful. The characters in the Greyhawk campaign I'm in seem to get a lot of use out of magic circle vs evil but you really only need one character that can cast it. It has a radius and lasts longer than protection from evil (if I'm remembering correctly).
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Oh -- there's a magic ointment we can make together that can cure both hit point loss and disease -- wanna make some sometime?
There is? Tell me more. :-)
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So, it *might* be a good choice, but I don't know enough to say that.
teleportation
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You should meet Alten. Substituting lightning for fire, a large number of the spells you mention are ones he regularly has memorized, and he's currently paranoid of mind-influencing spells because of the last plot arc's villain and his tendency to use Feeblemind. :) (And hey, if you've been dealing with Kyle, you might even have some tolerance for halflings.)
I would recommend Grease, as Mike mentioned. It's been useful so far partly due to the ruling that the spell produces highly flammable grease, leading to its recent chief use being its application to trolls and subsequently its ignition. Aside from that, Shield is really nice because it grants +7 AC that stacks with everything, and if you don't cast it yourself you can't get it.
The second-level energy protection spell (Resist) is useless, don't take it. The first-level one (Endure) and the third-level one (Protection) probably have about equal application opportunity, one being for environmental hazards and one for magical hazards, as you noted. The third-level one is mostly useful if you happen to be fighting a dragon or sorceror, since you can determine the dragon's color (and what it breathes) before casting the spell, and a sorceror is likely to throw the same energy spell multiple times. (At this point you hope the GM isn't evil and says something like "The blue dragon drops the Change Self spell it had been maintaining, and you see that it's really a red dragon.") As for environmental hazards, the main one is probably heat. If you know ahead of time that you're going to the desert (or the lake of lava or whatever) you can usually get potions or scrolls of Endure Elements fairly cheaply.
Fly is nice. Fly is convenient. Fly increases your movement rate to 90' and lets you do dive attacks and drop well-placed vials of Alchemists' Fire and carry your max weight of stuff at full speed and perform scouting missions from the air. I highly recommend Fly be liberally spread around the party.
Dimension Door and Teleport, despite being both instant-travel spells, are different in application so you probably don't need to worry about them overlapping. For one thing, Dimension Door never screws up and doesn't need you to study the place you're going to. You can use it to get to the other side of walls (or Wall of Fire, as was my last use of it), to escape from cave-ins, to quickly get your downed companion to the cleric on the other side of the field, to cross unbridged bottomless chasms, and to get a jumpstart when you need to flee. It's much harder to use Teleport as a battle or utility spell, and its use as a transport spell is limited both by the need-to-know-where-you're-going requirement and the weight limit. Applications of Reduce can help with the latter, but the former is hard to do away with and means that you can only reliably teleport to places that you've already been to a lot. The main use of Teleport in Mike's campaign so far has been to take a few of us back to Greyhawk overnight so that we could make a mid-mission shopping run. :) DDoor is also helped by Reduce, if you can convince people to accept it being cast on them. One combo that I've been waiting to try is to cast Fly, touch a small boulder, and then Dimension Door to directly above an enemy. I fly, the rock doesn't. Unfortunately it's usually more effective to just hit them with a lightning bolt.
Anyway, you might want to skip Teleport and wait for Teleport Without Error, especially since by that time your max teleport weight will be 200lbs. higher.
Telekinesis is a multi-application spell which I only got recently and haven't explored the uses of. It seems okay so far. It's ability to be used on creatures is nice.
[To be continued...]
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Polymorph is another one of those fun spells that I highly recommend, especially for use against wizards and to incapacitate people so that they can be captured. For some reason the other party members have been resisting my suggestion that we'd travel faster if I turned one or more of them into griffons or pegasi for a bit. :)
You may want to consider one of the wall spells; Wall of Force would probably fit for you, but Wall of Ice or even Wall of Stone can be good too. They're convenient both for frustrating pursuers and for isolating particuarly nasty opponents from the rest of their group so that they can be taken care of separately. (You've surely heard Mike tell about the famous Sklaw / Lolth Priestess fight under the ice dome.)
Pod has apparently been finding Darkvision to be pretty useful. See Invisibility has also been useful, but somewhat less frequently, though it works well in combination with Glitterdust for revealing unseen enemies. Pyrotechnics is okay--its major problem is that it requires a previously existing source of fire. Magic Circle against Evil is useful if you fight demons or orcs and the party doesn't already have rings of protection. Web combined with fire spells can get nasty since the web is flammable and inhibits reflex saves.
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I want every dragon in the campaign to be a significant and noteworthy dragon.
Color-coding dragons seems just... dorky.
(On the other hand, I'll probably provide other cues to the type of dragon breath, when you do encounter dragons.)
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dragons
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Grease: I hadn't given that one much thought, but it sounds like I should. And it's conjuration, which the wizard in the party can't do.
I commissioned a wand of Shield a little while back. It's not as effective as knowing the spell (wands can be stolen or interfered with), but it seemed a reasonable compromise.
Good point about first-level spells probably being gettable on scrolls. They have been so far, somewhat. And I have the Craft Wonderous Item feat and am not afraid to use it. :-)
Polymorph Other: the issue here for me is that the effect is permanent (though, of course, I can always cast it again to change the victim back). That's awfully close to "save or die" for my tastes. If there were a non-permanent version of the spell, I would be tempted by it.
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(BTW, Dispel will also cancel Polymorph Other, and since you cast both spells, the Dispel can be automatically successful. You can even use it to dispel multiple polymorphs at once if you can get them all within 30' of each other.)
What's the difference between having a nonpermanent PolyOther and having the habit of restoring people after you no longer need them to be disabled?
I can't actually help you, because the save-or-be-captured aspect is primarily what I use the spell for. :) A couple encounters ago I cast it at the ~+30 Fort save delver in the hopes that it would roll a 1 and we could avoid having to kill the thing in a rather messy battle in which Basil lost his clothing. Hmm...though, notably, when I cast it on the necromancer we last encountered, his buddy wizard dispelled it on the next round.
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What's the difference between having a nonpermanent PolyOther and having the habit of restoring people after you no longer need them to be disabled?
One spell casting, and distance. :-) Consider: I successfully turn the evil baddie into a frog, which enables us to run away from his minions. The next day he's back to his normal form, so no permanent harm done, but we're miles away by then.
That said, I don't know if we would actually do that all that much. And if I'm just going to turn him into a frog so the fighters can squish him, I don't really care about permenancy. :-)