Becoming Archmage, Now What Spells To Pick? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Becoming Archmage, Now What Spells To Pick? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Metabubbles
03-17-05, 12:02 PM First I hope this is the right area to get help choosing spells. I thought the spell thread, but it seemed more of 'if you have a question regarding a spell'. So if this isn't right let me know, I will replace it elsewhere, thanks.

We had a grand adventure,we defeated;a 13th lvl monk, 10th lvl wizard and cleric, literally 70 low level wizard's (probably 1st lvl), 30+goblins (some w/lvls), 100+ undead (from zombies to skeletons to ettin undead), and finally a cr 15 dracolich. We are a party of 5; 12lvl rogue (2 lvls horde stealer), 12lvl dwarven defender (2 lvls dwarven defender 10 fighter), 12lvl fighter/wizard, 12lvl cleric and sorcerer (both straight class). Sorry had to tell somebody! Wow it was a fun month! You want more details let me know.

Ok so I am the 12th lvl sorcerer working my way up to Archmage (req's; 5 spells from different schools of 5th lvl or higher, ability to cast 7th lvl spells, 15 ranks in spellcraft and Knowledge arcana) and I need to decide on specific spells to meet the req's. That is where you come in, we just leveled after all that so I am now 13th (lucky huh?). I hate to tell my buddy fighter/wizard but I want spells so I won't need him, so versatility is key, killing things is nice too though......lol.

Current spells (schools listed that apply to Archmage 5th or higher only)
6th-Chain Lightning (evoc)
5th-Hold Monster; needed an ench spell (ench)
Teleport (Conj)
4th-Lower spell res, from draconomicon (sp?)
Invisibility, Greater
Shout; I needed an anti-grappling spell
3rd-Fireball
Lightning Bolt
fly
Dispel magic (sorry I hate this spell...)
2nd-Invisibility
Scorching ray (took out the draco lich!!!MVP!!!)
Snillocs Snowstorm (needed a cold dmg spell)
Web (DM's worst nightmare)
Shatter (not entirely useful, yet)
1st-Magic Missile
Burning Hands
Feather Fall
Mage armor
Shield
0- Dancing lights
Horz cough (faerun somewhere)
acid splash (needed for feat)
detect magic
detect poison
disrupt undead

MY PLANS
Since I am at an even number level I can replace 1 spell with another of my choice. So I plan to replace Dispel Magic with Haste.
-6th-Get Dispel Magic, Greater (abju)
-5th-Get Telekinesis (trans)
-4th-Get Evards Black Tentacles (no saving throw or spell res and deals
bludgeoning dmg, yea!)
Why?-I just acquired all the req's for ArchMage except for ability to cast 7th lvl spells which occurs next lvl at 14th, so i can go ArchMage at 15th. I rarely use dispel magic and when I do I fail, so the greater definitely can replace the 'lesser'. I need the tentacles to hold the npc's (hold monster is hard to get it to work) so I can blast from afar. Telekinesis I am told is a useful spell, and it fits the bill for arch mage.

My Doubts
Since I have 2 levels to get to arch mage I really don't want to be constrained to specific spells. Also I am not sure haste is really the spell to take at 2nd lvl, although since I don't have expeditious retreat....I do still have teleport, but haste can work if within a realm of dimensional anchor effects. Well let me know what you think, sorry thread so long.
Squirrelloid
03-17-05, 10:13 PM Current spells (schools listed that apply to Archmage 5th or higher only)
6th-Chain Lightning (evoc)
5th-Hold Monster; needed an ench spell (ench)
Teleport (Conj)
4th-Lower spell res, from draconomicon (sp?)
Invisibility, Greater
Shout; I needed an anti-grappling spell
3rd-Fireball
Lightning Bolt
fly
Dispel magic (sorry I hate this spell...)
2nd-Invisibility
Scorching ray (took out the draco lich!!!MVP!!!)
Snillocs Snowstorm (needed a cold dmg spell)
Web (DM's worst nightmare)
Shatter (not entirely useful, yet)
1st-Magic Missile
Burning Hands
Feather Fall
Mage armor
Shield
0- Dancing lights
Horz cough (faerun somewhere)
acid splash (needed for feat)
detect magic
detect poison
disrupt undead

MY PLANS
Since I am at an even number level I can replace 1 spell with another of my choice. So I plan to replace Dispel Magic with Haste.
-6th-Get Dispel Magic, Greater (abju)
-5th-Get Telekinesis (trans)
-4th-Get Evards Black Tentacles (no saving throw or spell res and deals
bludgeoning dmg, yea!)

Comments on spells you have. (Note that i'm mostly restricting myself to core spells):

0th: no read magic? you aren't serious, right? And whats with all the damage dealing spells in 0th (acid splash, disrupt undead), these are useless. Ghost Sounds and Prestidigitation are also must haves, and there are a number of other useful 0th spells (mending, mage hand, etc...). IMHO, optimal 0th: Prestidigitation, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Message, Mending, Mage Hand, Ghost Sound, Dancing Lights, Read Magic (by 20th).

1st: magic missile is a decent early dd spell, but this is past its prime now. Burning Hands is never good. Feather fall and Shield are both good choices. Mage armor is only good at low levels - you should have bracers of armor by now. Grease is an awesome spell that sees disturbingly little play. Party fighters would love you for Enlarge. Expeditious Retreat is useful, as are any number of other spells. My optimal 1st sorc list looks like this: Feather Fall, Shield, Hold Portal, Unseen Servant, Grease. Its all utility, and all incredibly useful.

2nd: Gah, more damage spells! Ok, scorching ray isnt bad, but the snowball spell is awful. Web and Shatter are passable choices, the rest is really not useful. My picks for 2nd: Rope Trick, Knock, Mirror Image, Glitterdust, Alter Self (replaced eventually with Whispering Wind or Daylight). Rope Trick is the auto-safe resting place for the night. Knock is just useful, Mirror Image is awesome defense, Glitterdust is one of the best utility spells in the game, and Alter Self can give you some good capabilities.

3rd: Fireball and Lightning bolt? Useless. Choose one at low levels, you'll sub it out eventually. Direct Damage is not what a mage excels at. Seriously. I'd swap one of these out if i were you. Dispel Magic is a solid choice, though replacing it with Greater Dispel is a good idea. Fly is good. My optimal picks: Slow, Fly, Invisibility Sphere, Protection From Energy (replacing 3rd level direct damage). Invisibility Sphere can arguably be replaced by haste, by i think invisibility sphere is more useful. If the fighters want haste, they can buy you a wand for you to use on them.

4th: Lower Resist is not that useful. Seriously. Especially since no SR spells are your friend. Or just take feats to help pump your penetration. Invisibility, Greater has the same caveat as haste - if the rogue wants it, he can buy you a wand (or buy himself a wand and use it himself). For anti-grappling you should make acquiring an item of Freedom of Movement a priority. Besides, you'd have to cast that in a grapple anyway; suck. My picks for 4th: Enervation, Evard's Tentacles, Shadow Conjuration, Dimension Door. This spell level is where most of your combat threat is coming from - Evards is battlefield control; Enervation is perhaps the best direct attack spell in the game (1d4 neg levels = -1d4 all rolls, - 5-20hp, no save, ranged touch), Shadow Conjuration fills in all the lower level conj spells and gives you some summoning among other usefulness. Dim door gets you around traps and other hazardous areas, useful. Note that list is for at 20th, i'd probably take polymorph as my 1st 4th spell, and swap it out when i get shapechange.

5th: Well, i can't argue with teleport. Hold Monster? Um, not so hot. Too easy to be immune to it. Don't screw around with TK, its not nearly as good as the other options available to you. My picks: Teleport, Cloudkill, Fabricate, Wall of Force. If we're not using core only, i swap Wall for Fleshshiver (PGtF), which is arguably broken. Autostuns 1 round, and next round they fort save or take up to 15d6 damage? Awesome. Note im more interested in it for the autostun than the damage, but hey, nice side benefit. Cloudkill goes well with Forcecage (which we won't actually take, we'll just pretend we have it with Greater Shadow Evocation), and is useful besides. Fabricate is just too incredibly useful not to have.

6th: Chain Lightning? Uggh. Get off the direct damage kick, you have far too much of it. And enervation or fleshshiver are inarguably better. Greater Dispel Magic should have been your first choice. My picks: Greater Dispel Magic, Disintegrate, Anti-Magic Field. AMF is totally abusable with Mastery of Shaping from archmage, especially with polymorph or shapechange. Disintegrate not only acts as direct damage (since you seem to like it so much), it also acts as dungeon hazard removal, door removal, or any other object removal. This is the height of utility.

Looking forward:
My picks for 7th: Limited Wish, Monster Summoning 7, Spell Turning. Though there are a lot of good spells for this level. Consider Greater Scrying, if your DM gives you reason to be paranoid.

My picks for 8th: Polymorph Any Object, Greater Shadow Evocation (duplicate any evocation 7th and below? great!), and the Bigby's for this level. Its the best of the Bigby's spells, and great for battlefield control. Polymorph Any Object should be every casters 1st 8th spell pick.

My picks for 9th: The holy trinity: Shapechange, Timestop, MDJ. If you don't understand why, you don't understand that high level combat is degenerate, and it all boils down to which arcane caster rolled the best initiative. Frankly, these are the most powerful spells in the game, and make the arcane caster far superior to any other class. (Wizards are actually better, because of Rods of Quicken, but even the sorceror can adopt these tactics with appropriate shapechange forms, like Chronotryn).

Truly understanding a sorceror means you have no spells whose primary purpose is to deal hp damage. Thats why you keep a few combat characters around, to mess up the enemies you've disabled or abused into helplessness.
Metabubbles
03-19-05, 11:08 AM My only fear of posting my spells (and my character in general) is the scrutiny of others that 'know' the game and sufficiently know how to optimize the list. However knowing that is exactly what could and should happen I just wanted to thank you for responding in such detail.

The first question, is if I don't have the spell knock for example and I buy a wand of Knock, I need a use magic device check correct? Well since that is not one of my listed class skills (although Chr check,weird huh) that skill is very low. So I really won't be able to help the fighter/rogue in such instances, at least effectively.

Time for a little rebuttal
0 level -Read magic by looking at the SRD list, it states scrolls, but at the spell itself it looks at magic items weapons etc...with any writing on it. Obviously my bad, with an extremly int wizard/fighter in our party I overlooked an important spell (many of course). Disrupt undead, I really have no idea, we were fighting a lot of undead, spur of the moment I guess at a lower level. Acid splash I needed for the Energy Sub Feat, changing all spells with an energy type in it to acid at no increase in spell level. Had I known about archmage earlier I would have forgone this feat, oh well. Presdigitation cleans stuff? I know some really know how to abuse this spell, but maybe I do not. Magical tricks for 1 hour, not sure that really matters I could be wrong.
1st level- Magic missile, I know but its a favorite of mine, and I actually was going to do the max spell feat, and that was the biggest reason to keep it. Burning hands and mage armor are past their prime, in fact I cast Mage armor in the morning because it lasts all day and gives my a +1, so why not. Unseend servant can set off traps for me, hmmmm, that's not so bad. The menial things like cleaning opening doors etc...no biggie, but traps are nice. Hold portal sounds nice, but there are only going to be a limited number of spells I will be able to switch out. I definitely like grease, especially using on items, wow! Definite work on the 1st lvl spells.

(keep in mind we pretty much have a spell blasting group, wizard/cleric/sorcerer and then the rogue and fighter)

2nd level-Dmg Spells, well in a fight I sit back, and blast everything. The snowball thing of course was a versatile weapon against fire elementals and such. But I agree probably not needed now. Rope trick; I think your goal was to tell me to read the spells, thoroughly, wow, I think i get the message. I had nooooo idea of its power, 2nd lvl even, wow! Mirror image and knock I really relied on the wizard and rogue for knock, and of course we have a larger than average party so I didn't think about mirror image. Gliterdust I will have to pass, if I get w/in 10' of anything 'bad' I am in more trouble than gliterdust will 'fix'.

3rd level-Currently direct damage is the most fun. Honestly all we do is have random encounters, little or no role-playing is done, could explain a lot. Anyways dispel magic to me seems over rated, maybe I just roll low, who knows. But I plan to keep the dmg for a bit, maybe after I hit archmage I may change it.

4th level-I have taken feats to increase spell penetration, but the draco lich would have just laughed at us with the usual spells. I was on the back of my dwarven defender with fly, and got w/in 50' cast it, stayed w/in 50' and the draco lich was toast after that. Since we are a blasting party (wizard/sorcerer/cleric) lowering the spell resistance for 'everybody' seems to be the most important thing I do first (just above greater invisibility on the rogue). Shout, at least I can do something in a grapple, I got a great concentration check (+23) and it only requires a verbal component. I am not sincerely 'that' worried about it to buy an expensive item (rather up my chr, !!!) but its a just in case spell. I know I want to get away from relying on the wizard, but after I lower spell res, he cast's enervation (although not too good on undead...).

5th level- Hold monster, well I needed a spell focus, and enchantment seemed good enough, so I got hold monster spell as well. When it works though, wow, nothing like some sneak attack damage and auto hits from the dwarf! But I concede the spell lacks something (power probably, LOL). Oh yea it also fits my archmage req's. Cloudkill seems weak. We usually fight a BBEG, not many little guys and its uncontrollable moving away 10ft per rd. Wall of force, as soon as I meet the req's I am sooo going to get that spell. I love it. Fabricate does what again? We are guarding a mithral mine, so If I have 10cubic ft of mithral I can make it into a shield/armor/weapon etc...just not magical?!? Seems pretty good to me, can you clarify, for me? I'll ask the DM about wall of fleshshiver.

6th level-Chain lightning, well if I will be getting rid of some of my lower dmg spells, I need something to replace them with. The spell gets better as I advance 20d6 first target max, then 10d6, 5d6, 2d6, 1d6= possible 38d6 (with max spell rod...hmmm....) and ability to change it to acid via my energy sub feat. But I agree I really wanted disintegrate; range touch, not bad, max 40d6, not bad, can use on objects, very handy, fortitude save for only 5d6 not so good. So i have to hit, then they get to save, might as well use scorching ray, no save I just have to hit and I get 3 rays of 4d6 each. I will get it, just won't put a rush on it.

Well again, thanks soooooo much for the input, now I know why they say "hind sight is 20/20". Well if we start new characters or if I start another game, many changes are in sight. Later days...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Metabubbles 03-17-05, 12:02 PM	First I hope this is the right area to get help choosing spells. I thought the spell thread, but it seemed more of 'if you have a question regarding a spell'. So if this isn't right let me know, I will replace it elsewhere, thanks. We had a grand adventure,we defeated;a 13th lvl monk, 10th lvl wizard and cleric, literally 70 low level wizard's (probably 1st lvl), 30+goblins (some w/lvls), 100+ undead (from zombies to skeletons to ettin undead), and finally a cr 15 dracolich. We are a party of 5; 12lvl rogue (2 lvls horde stealer), 12lvl dwarven defender (2 lvls dwarven defender 10 fighter), 12lvl fighter/wizard, 12lvl cleric and sorcerer (both straight class). Sorry had to tell somebody! Wow it was a fun month! You want more details let me know. Ok so I am the 12th lvl sorcerer working my way up to Archmage (req's; 5 spells from different schools of 5th lvl or higher, ability to cast 7th lvl spells, 15 ranks in spellcraft and Knowledge arcana) and I need to decide on specific spells to meet the req's. That is where you come in, we just leveled after all that so I am now 13th (lucky huh?). I hate to tell my buddy fighter/wizard but I want spells so I won't need him, so versatility is key, killing things is nice too though......lol. Current spells (schools listed that apply to Archmage 5th or higher only) 6th-Chain Lightning (evoc) 5th-Hold Monster; needed an ench spell (ench) Teleport (Conj) 4th-Lower spell res, from draconomicon (sp?) Invisibility, Greater Shout; I needed an anti-grappling spell 3rd-Fireball Lightning Bolt fly Dispel magic (sorry I hate this spell...) 2nd-Invisibility Scorching ray (took out the draco lich!!!MVP!!!) Snillocs Snowstorm (needed a cold dmg spell) Web (DM's worst nightmare) Shatter (not entirely useful, yet) 1st-Magic Missile Burning Hands Feather Fall Mage armor Shield 0- Dancing lights Horz cough (faerun somewhere) acid splash (needed for feat) detect magic detect poison disrupt undead MY PLANS Since I am at an even number level I can replace 1 spell with another of my choice. So I plan to replace Dispel Magic with Haste. -6th-Get Dispel Magic, Greater (abju) -5th-Get Telekinesis (trans) -4th-Get Evards Black Tentacles (no saving throw or spell res and deals bludgeoning dmg, yea!) Why?-I just acquired all the req's for ArchMage except for ability to cast 7th lvl spells which occurs next lvl at 14th, so i can go ArchMage at 15th. I rarely use dispel magic and when I do I fail, so the greater definitely can replace the 'lesser'. I need the tentacles to hold the npc's (hold monster is hard to get it to work) so I can blast from afar. Telekinesis I am told is a useful spell, and it fits the bill for arch mage. My Doubts Since I have 2 levels to get to arch mage I really don't want to be constrained to specific spells. Also I am not sure haste is really the spell to take at 2nd lvl, although since I don't have expeditious retreat....I do still have teleport, but haste can work if within a realm of dimensional anchor effects. Well let me know what you think, sorry thread so long.
Squirrelloid 03-17-05, 10:13 PM	Current spells (schools listed that apply to Archmage 5th or higher only) 6th-Chain Lightning (evoc) 5th-Hold Monster; needed an ench spell (ench) Teleport (Conj) 4th-Lower spell res, from draconomicon (sp?) Invisibility, Greater Shout; I needed an anti-grappling spell 3rd-Fireball Lightning Bolt fly Dispel magic (sorry I hate this spell...) 2nd-Invisibility Scorching ray (took out the draco lich!!!MVP!!!) Snillocs Snowstorm (needed a cold dmg spell) Web (DM's worst nightmare) Shatter (not entirely useful, yet) 1st-Magic Missile Burning Hands Feather Fall Mage armor Shield 0- Dancing lights Horz cough (faerun somewhere) acid splash (needed for feat) detect magic detect poison disrupt undead MY PLANS Since I am at an even number level I can replace 1 spell with another of my choice. So I plan to replace Dispel Magic with Haste. -6th-Get Dispel Magic, Greater (abju) -5th-Get Telekinesis (trans) -4th-Get Evards Black Tentacles (no saving throw or spell res and deals bludgeoning dmg, yea!) Comments on spells you have. (Note that i'm mostly restricting myself to core spells): 0th: no read magic? you aren't serious, right? And whats with all the damage dealing spells in 0th (acid splash, disrupt undead), these are useless. Ghost Sounds and Prestidigitation are also must haves, and there are a number of other useful 0th spells (mending, mage hand, etc...). IMHO, optimal 0th: Prestidigitation, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Message, Mending, Mage Hand, Ghost Sound, Dancing Lights, Read Magic (by 20th). 1st: magic missile is a decent early dd spell, but this is past its prime now. Burning Hands is never good. Feather fall and Shield are both good choices. Mage armor is only good at low levels - you should have bracers of armor by now. Grease is an awesome spell that sees disturbingly little play. Party fighters would love you for Enlarge. Expeditious Retreat is useful, as are any number of other spells. My optimal 1st sorc list looks like this: Feather Fall, Shield, Hold Portal, Unseen Servant, Grease. Its all utility, and all incredibly useful. 2nd: Gah, more damage spells! Ok, scorching ray isnt bad, but the snowball spell is awful. Web and Shatter are passable choices, the rest is really not useful. My picks for 2nd: Rope Trick, Knock, Mirror Image, Glitterdust, Alter Self (replaced eventually with Whispering Wind or Daylight). Rope Trick is the auto-safe resting place for the night. Knock is just useful, Mirror Image is awesome defense, Glitterdust is one of the best utility spells in the game, and Alter Self can give you some good capabilities. 3rd: Fireball and Lightning bolt? Useless. Choose one at low levels, you'll sub it out eventually. Direct Damage is not what a mage excels at. Seriously. I'd swap one of these out if i were you. Dispel Magic is a solid choice, though replacing it with Greater Dispel is a good idea. Fly is good. My optimal picks: Slow, Fly, Invisibility Sphere, Protection From Energy (replacing 3rd level direct damage). Invisibility Sphere can arguably be replaced by haste, by i think invisibility sphere is more useful. If the fighters want haste, they can buy you a wand for you to use on them. 4th: Lower Resist is not that useful. Seriously. Especially since no SR spells are your friend. Or just take feats to help pump your penetration. Invisibility, Greater has the same caveat as haste - if the rogue wants it, he can buy you a wand (or buy himself a wand and use it himself). For anti-grappling you should make acquiring an item of Freedom of Movement a priority. Besides, you'd have to cast that in a grapple anyway; suck. My picks for 4th: Enervation, Evard's Tentacles, Shadow Conjuration, Dimension Door. This spell level is where most of your combat threat is coming from - Evards is battlefield control; Enervation is perhaps the best direct attack spell in the game (1d4 neg levels = -1d4 all rolls, - 5-20hp, no save, ranged touch), Shadow Conjuration fills in all the lower level conj spells and gives you some summoning among other usefulness. Dim door gets you around traps and other hazardous areas, useful. Note that list is for at 20th, i'd probably take polymorph as my 1st 4th spell, and swap it out when i get shapechange. 5th: Well, i can't argue with teleport. Hold Monster? Um, not so hot. Too easy to be immune to it. Don't screw around with TK, its not nearly as good as the other options available to you. My picks: Teleport, Cloudkill, Fabricate, Wall of Force. If we're not using core only, i swap Wall for Fleshshiver (PGtF), which is arguably broken. Autostuns 1 round, and next round they fort save or take up to 15d6 damage? Awesome. Note im more interested in it for the autostun than the damage, but hey, nice side benefit. Cloudkill goes well with Forcecage (which we won't actually take, we'll just pretend we have it with Greater Shadow Evocation), and is useful besides. Fabricate is just too incredibly useful not to have. 6th: Chain Lightning? Uggh. Get off the direct damage kick, you have far too much of it. And enervation or fleshshiver are inarguably better. Greater Dispel Magic should have been your first choice. My picks: Greater Dispel Magic, Disintegrate, Anti-Magic Field. AMF is totally abusable with Mastery of Shaping from archmage, especially with polymorph or shapechange. Disintegrate not only acts as direct damage (since you seem to like it so much), it also acts as dungeon hazard removal, door removal, or any other object removal. This is the height of utility. Looking forward: My picks for 7th: Limited Wish, Monster Summoning 7, Spell Turning. Though there are a lot of good spells for this level. Consider Greater Scrying, if your DM gives you reason to be paranoid. My picks for 8th: Polymorph Any Object, Greater Shadow Evocation (duplicate any evocation 7th and below? great!), and the Bigby's for this level. Its the best of the Bigby's spells, and great for battlefield control. Polymorph Any Object should be every casters 1st 8th spell pick. My picks for 9th: The holy trinity: Shapechange, Timestop, MDJ. If you don't understand why, you don't understand that high level combat is degenerate, and it all boils down to which arcane caster rolled the best initiative. Frankly, these are the most powerful spells in the game, and make the arcane caster far superior to any other class. (Wizards are actually better, because of Rods of Quicken, but even the sorceror can adopt these tactics with appropriate shapechange forms, like Chronotryn). Truly understanding a sorceror means you have no spells whose primary purpose is to deal hp damage. Thats why you keep a few combat characters around, to mess up the enemies you've disabled or abused into helplessness.
Metabubbles 03-19-05, 11:08 AM	My only fear of posting my spells (and my character in general) is the scrutiny of others that 'know' the game and sufficiently know how to optimize the list. However knowing that is exactly what could and should happen I just wanted to thank you for responding in such detail. The first question, is if I don't have the spell knock for example and I buy a wand of Knock, I need a use magic device check correct? Well since that is not one of my listed class skills (although Chr check,weird huh) that skill is very low. So I really won't be able to help the fighter/rogue in such instances, at least effectively. Time for a little rebuttal 0 level -Read magic by looking at the SRD list, it states scrolls, but at the spell itself it looks at magic items weapons etc...with any writing on it. Obviously my bad, with an extremly int wizard/fighter in our party I overlooked an important spell (many of course). Disrupt undead, I really have no idea, we were fighting a lot of undead, spur of the moment I guess at a lower level. Acid splash I needed for the Energy Sub Feat, changing all spells with an energy type in it to acid at no increase in spell level. Had I known about archmage earlier I would have forgone this feat, oh well. Presdigitation cleans stuff? I know some really know how to abuse this spell, but maybe I do not. Magical tricks for 1 hour, not sure that really matters I could be wrong. 1st level- Magic missile, I know but its a favorite of mine, and I actually was going to do the max spell feat, and that was the biggest reason to keep it. Burning hands and mage armor are past their prime, in fact I cast Mage armor in the morning because it lasts all day and gives my a +1, so why not. Unseend servant can set off traps for me, hmmmm, that's not so bad. The menial things like cleaning opening doors etc...no biggie, but traps are nice. Hold portal sounds nice, but there are only going to be a limited number of spells I will be able to switch out. I definitely like grease, especially using on items, wow! Definite work on the 1st lvl spells. (keep in mind we pretty much have a spell blasting group, wizard/cleric/sorcerer and then the rogue and fighter) 2nd level-Dmg Spells, well in a fight I sit back, and blast everything. The snowball thing of course was a versatile weapon against fire elementals and such. But I agree probably not needed now. Rope trick; I think your goal was to tell me to read the spells, thoroughly, wow, I think i get the message. I had nooooo idea of its power, 2nd lvl even, wow! Mirror image and knock I really relied on the wizard and rogue for knock, and of course we have a larger than average party so I didn't think about mirror image. Gliterdust I will have to pass, if I get w/in 10' of anything 'bad' I am in more trouble than gliterdust will 'fix'. 3rd level-Currently direct damage is the most fun. Honestly all we do is have random encounters, little or no role-playing is done, could explain a lot. Anyways dispel magic to me seems over rated, maybe I just roll low, who knows. But I plan to keep the dmg for a bit, maybe after I hit archmage I may change it. 4th level-I have taken feats to increase spell penetration, but the draco lich would have just laughed at us with the usual spells. I was on the back of my dwarven defender with fly, and got w/in 50' cast it, stayed w/in 50' and the draco lich was toast after that. Since we are a blasting party (wizard/sorcerer/cleric) lowering the spell resistance for 'everybody' seems to be the most important thing I do first (just above greater invisibility on the rogue). Shout, at least I can do something in a grapple, I got a great concentration check (+23) and it only requires a verbal component. I am not sincerely 'that' worried about it to buy an expensive item (rather up my chr, !!!) but its a just in case spell. I know I want to get away from relying on the wizard, but after I lower spell res, he cast's enervation (although not too good on undead...). 5th level- Hold monster, well I needed a spell focus, and enchantment seemed good enough, so I got hold monster spell as well. When it works though, wow, nothing like some sneak attack damage and auto hits from the dwarf! But I concede the spell lacks something (power probably, LOL). Oh yea it also fits my archmage req's. Cloudkill seems weak. We usually fight a BBEG, not many little guys and its uncontrollable moving away 10ft per rd. Wall of force, as soon as I meet the req's I am sooo going to get that spell. I love it. Fabricate does what again? We are guarding a mithral mine, so If I have 10cubic ft of mithral I can make it into a shield/armor/weapon etc...just not magical?!? Seems pretty good to me, can you clarify, for me? I'll ask the DM about wall of fleshshiver. 6th level-Chain lightning, well if I will be getting rid of some of my lower dmg spells, I need something to replace them with. The spell gets better as I advance 20d6 first target max, then 10d6, 5d6, 2d6, 1d6= possible 38d6 (with max spell rod...hmmm....) and ability to change it to acid via my energy sub feat. But I agree I really wanted disintegrate; range touch, not bad, max 40d6, not bad, can use on objects, very handy, fortitude save for only 5d6 not so good. So i have to hit, then they get to save, might as well use scorching ray, no save I just have to hit and I get 3 rays of 4d6 each. I will get it, just won't put a rush on it. Well again, thanks soooooo much for the input, now I know why they say "hind sight is 20/20". Well if we start new characters or if I start another game, many changes are in sight. Later days...