Most Useless Spells

[Amran_X_Kaiser]

Originally Posted by Deadalready

Additionally although they have their uses: Level Drain and Blade of Chaos were poor spells completely useless for their level requirements.

If they have their uses can they really be called useless because a low-level cannot have access to them ? I disagree.

Level drain can affect even the most powerful but also it is an incredibly useful spell for limiting the power of those that seem incredible in their spellcasting especially but also for a character that is versatile - F/M/T or a Monk,

'Blade of Chaos' ? im assuming you mean 'Black Blade of Disaster' or 'Phantom Blade' as I've never heard of that particular spell in BG1 or BG2. This is an incredibly potent spell and it is not to be understimated when combined with a Kensai/Mage that has profeciences in Single Weapon Style it can augment this power as it creates a near unbeatable weapon of power, save for one weapon I believe that is similar to it.

Know Alignment effects those that is not a paladin or have such means of doing so. It can determine the outcome of many quests as to which a choie is given and it is in doubt whether a particular character is evil as it isn't considered an offensive spell.

If you have a spell that you believe is useless please post as i'm trying to convince myself and others that no spell is.

[jDED]

Magical Stone... While not completely useless, I think it definitely rates up there for me as ineffective for SOA. Even given the +1 to hit and is considered a magic weapon the measly 1D4 of damage makes it quite an ineffective spell in my book considering you start at level 7!

Magical weapons are found quite easily and early in the game with better damage in SOA or you can even use Shillelagh.
I would rather use extra slots for more level 1 spells that remain useful at level 7 like Sanctuary, Bless, pro evil, Entangle!, and yes even detect Evil.

Now starting at level 1 is another story. I remember using magic stone quite often in BG and Icewind dale, even spending more than one slot for memorization.

Oh ya! Color spray is defininitly more fun than casting sleep. The idea behind it... spraying bright colors, from your hand, so clashing that it disorientates an opponent unconscious!

[Aramant]

Originally Posted by Amran_X_Kaiser

On the infravision note, yes its not as good as Oracle or Wizards Eye - but note, neither of these are in BG1, and that infravision does allow you to view an enemy beyond normal sight.

I'm not sure what you mean by this; are you saying that Infravision uncovers more of the visibility fog than regular vision does?

Originally Posted by jDED

The idea behind it... spraying bright colors, from your hand, so clashing that it disorientates an opponent unconscious!

Probably like an epileptic fit or something.

[Philos]

Regarding Chill Touch it be last resort for a pure mage but I think (haven't tested this) it might be very helpful for mage combo (such as fighter/mage) since they would probably have a decent A/C and a pretty good THACO. Thus reducing the risk of being vulnarable to being hit and have a better chance to apply the spell in return. Might be just the thing if you run into an opponent you are having a hard time hitting with a weapon due to high AC (or has protection from normal or magical weapons running). The spell ignores certain aspects of AC (can't remember which) and with the better THACO they would have a pretty good chance of applying it.
I may be missing something regarding the Magic Missle thought but a mage gains a new missle every "two" levels and not "a single missle per level of caster". So for a 5th level mage chill touch will do 5d4 while MM will do 3d4 (a missle gained at 1st, 3rd, and 5th).

Regarding Infravision again, I haven't tried the spell obviously and might test your proposal. But I have frequently dropped opponents before they got within spitting range. Far easier to have an invisible scout as a spotter and then send in long range artillery (spells) safely from a distance and outside the target's viewing range. Any survivors of the spell usually die from the first round of bullets, bolts, arrows as they try to close. Haven't tried using a bow from extreme range but this infravision trick might make some of the "extra distance" bows in the game more useful. So might be worth a try. None the less, Infravision is at its best a VERY limited use spell, if not useless, (To Me )

[Amran_X_Kaiser]

Glad to see someone knowing specifics since I uninstalled BG2 and the best I could do was a guess at the chill touch so its good to know it was even more powerful than I suspected.

lol may as well me limited rather than useful

Any more queries ?

[ellipsis jones]

I hadn't thought about fighter/mages using chill touch. That's a good point - it counters a lot of the spell's drawbacks.

The spell damage you list for chill touch and magic missile is off, though. The missiles actually do 2D2 each, and chill touch only does 1D8. So for a seventh level caster it's an average of 12 damage for missiles vs. an average of 4 with chill touch. Chill touch also counts as a non-enchanted piercing weapon, although it has a +4 to hit.

Even assuming a fighter/mage protagonist, I don't think the spell pulls its weight for general usage. In the heat of battle, you're going to want to use your one action per round for more important things - casting powerful spells, quaffing heals, etc. It also limits your options: you basically have to charge in immediately and smack someone to use up the chill touch, because until you do, you're stuck with having it equipped. You can't use missile weapons, and you lose any passive benefits from whatever melee weapon you normally have equipped.

But in a situation where you know there's single combat coming up, it could theoretically be useful. Let's assume an 11th level enemy fighter with a thac0 of ten, versus your fighter/mage with an AC of zero. You hit him with chill touch and he fails his save, bringing his thac0 up to 12. You've just taken away 1/5 of his hits. Not bad. Unfortunately, he'll save half the time, so the actual benefit is more like 1/10. Still, not useless (there, I admitted it!).

I'm guessing we've just about exhausted the possibilities of discussion for chill touch, so I'll throw out another spell: Protection from Acid. What enemy uses acid attacks? There's melf's acid arrow, but it does so little damage that its main use is to disrupt casting, and protection from acid doesn't stop that disruption from happening.

Can we agree on infravision and know alignment as being definitely useless? Infravision has the exact same range as the caster's default sight radius, as far as I know. And know alignment appears to be superceded by detect evil, so I think that's still in the useless column as well.

[Earnest]

Know Allignment: Im not sure if one of the mods I have used has changed the effect of this spell, but when I have used it, it has checked everyone on the map (or at least, within a large radius). I therefore get an idea of remaining monsters. Regardless of their allignment, there have been times when I just wanted to know IF they were there at all. Thus it has provided information about how many foes I may be facing around the corner.

Infravision: Never used this, never will.

Protection from Acid: The first time I killed Pontifex I used this spell. Last time I survived his breath with a Spell Immunity.

Color Spray: Unfortunately it only effects very low level creatures - ones which are easily defeated while fully conscious.

Non-Detection: My experience comes from the cloak of non-detection. I have found that enemies can still reveal my invis with True Sight etc, so I am not convinced of the utility of this spell. Certainly I have never memorised it.

Larlochs Minor Drain: In SoA, surely this is a waste of a spell slot. 4 hit points and no side effects is close to useless in my opinion.
UNLESS it disrupts casters, in which case base cast time of 1 makes it a good spell for that purpose (I havent tested this).

Summon Nishruu / Hakeashar: After learning there may have been a chance of magical items being consumed, I have never used this line. The best way to remove spells from an enemy mage's memory is to kill that mage ;)

[Amran_X_Kaiser]

Note Hakeasher/Nishruu can kill enemy spellcasters, Hakeashar especially when the spellcaster in question as it reduces the spells he has by draining per attack a spell per attack, the highest spell is consumed I believe (I may be wrong if so correct) this coupled with their spellcasting ability, which Include Ghost Armor and Lightnig Bolt make them powerful.

Spellcasters that have little in the way of equipment just happen to number some of the most powerful: Irenicus in Suldenessar, Lavok in the Planar Sphere or Conster in Windspear Hills.

Infravision is useful - refer to an earlier post:
'On the infravision note, yes its not as good as Oracle or Wizards Eye - but note, neither of these are in BG1, and that infravision does allow you to view an enemy beyond normal sight.

Answer me this - how many of you have killed an enemy before he reached you or initiated dialogue and you got a few hits in there ?

This spells gives you the advantage of getting even more cheeky hits as it increases your line of sight without risking yourself if that character is a powerful melee character such as Sarevok in BG1 or Abazigal in BG2.'

Ever equipped the Helm of Infravision in Irenicus Dungeon or wore the Ring of Infravision ?

As for the spell, although the magical items mentioned above to do not have the same ability as per the spell, it is useful - ever accidentally stumbled into the pillars in the Asylum Maze ? Crushed. No thank you.

[ellipsis jones]

I still haven't seen evidence that infravision actually extends the player's viewing range. And I have used the helm of infravision, as well as played characters with infravision. It never helped me get more hits in on distant enemies, it just tinted them pink. How does it help you avoid the asylum crusher? It looks the same to me with or without infravision...

[Amran_X_Kaiser]

If you play with characters that have infravision ofcourse the spell or helm won't help.

Although I am aware that in BG 1 the evidence of Infravision increasing the users line of sight is apparent, as for BG2 considering I use party infravision I am uncertain at the time and have no way of testing - uninstalled BG2 temporarily.

Although in a certain Chosen of Cyric mod battle, the infravision grants the user extended sight - this is what I believe infravision is intended to do.

[Deadalready]

Answer me this - how many of you have killed an enemy before he reached you or initiated dialogue and you got a few hits in there?

Heaps of times, I've had to reload a few times when I've blown up a person when their scripts didn't kick in fast enough at a certain hp range.

~

As for your level drain arguement, to have that spell normally would require what more than 2,950,000 experience? At level 18 a sorceror doesn't fight monsters where draining 8 hitpoints off them matters enough to make it a useful or a viable tactic. Add to this the cheesy way many monsters are structured and scripted to actually have infinite spells and where losing a few couldn't even possibily matter.

A spell that is equal in level requirement as something like Meteor Storm, Imprisonment (instant kill), Powerword Kill or Spell Trap, makes it seem even more out of place. Additionally I've had many fights where I've had Misc or Valygar level drained to level 2 and they still continued to fight with considerable vigor, this is a level drain of about 8 levels too. I hardly think a monster with a THACO of TOO GOD DAMN HIGH reduced to ALMOST TOO GOD DAMN HIGH (1 or 2 THACO difference) would be enough to affect a battle considering the range of of to hit rolls.

The only opponent that could be affected by this spell would have to be so pitifully low a level that fireball would easily kill it; Reducing a monsters fighting power to make it even easier to one hit KO it makes it more ludicrous.

~

Now that I think of it, any weapon protection spell after level 6 Protection from Magic weapons has lost their use. Mantle for example I think it protects up to +3 weapons? At level 7 spell power? Protection from Magic Weapons on the otherhand is level 6 and protects from all magic weapons (save normal), don't even try and put protection from normal weapons is a must, when again monsters that are armed with such pathetic weapons aren't even a consideration (and countered by Stoneskin). Due to the way spell progression is structured and high level spells are seriously outnumbered by low level ones it's easier to use two low level ones than waste a precious high level one to equal the same effect.

[Amran_X_Kaiser]

Man that spell-scripting thing bites. The only instance I used it was when I was facing the Chosen of Cyric and that small guy came at me - level drained him to prevent him from casting any level 6 spells that he so loved throwing my way or when that woman sends an Abi-Dhalzim on me.

True the Level Drain is not a powerful spell especially with comparisons to other spells. The ability to possess Level Drain in terms of a weapon effect on the other-hand is the exact opposite.

The spell is largely in my opinion a bad move to have for a mage, always thought a cleric should have been able to reduce the power of a character rather than a mage.

Not exactly the most effective spell in the world, but every spell genre; offensive, defensive or magical (white) has a bad cookie that is close to being classed as useless. This time it might be the Level Drain.

[Earnest]

Level drain has one thing going for it - its a single target level 9 spell. In my last game I kept 2 Level Drain scrolls and used them to self-feed spells back through Spell Trap and Project Image. Saved having to have PWK memorized. I will probably do the same this time also.

[Philos]

Concur with you, ellipsis

Quote: "I still haven't seen evidence that infravision actually extends the player's viewing range. And I have used the helm of infravision, as well as played characters with infravision. It never helped me get more hits in on distant enemies, it just tinted them pink. How does it help you avoid the asylum crusher? It looks the same to me with or without infravision..."

That has been my experience as well. Had Minsc early on using that helm and a bow but saw no benefit. There may be some write up or notes somewhere that say infravision will do ......, but does not "SEEM" to be the case in actual play. As I mentioned earlier far easier to position an invisible scout just within viewing range of the enemy and then have a spellcaster launch from nice area effect spell from outside the enemy's view. Anomen casting Firestorm works pretty good.

But will probably try again just to be sure.

[Da_venom]

about he infravision thing
wasn't it that without infravision you could not see good in the dark
for example a green trol would be dark green thus seeing him not very good

with infravision on the other hand it wil glow pink so you can see him easily
in dark area's enemy's will lit up

however as said by some IT DoEs "NOT" enlarge your vision!
infravision makes your enemy lit in the dark nothing else

at least that is my experiene of the spell
and thus it's very useless
i mean pres spacebar and the red circle will be seen too IIRC