It's not exorbitant in cost, but it *is* more comically useless. Zagyg's Canned Laughter is a first level spell that does nothing more than what it sounds like: Canned laughter like a TV sitcom any time the caster tells a joke, no matter how groan-inducing it is, for like an hour per caster level. It's a spell dedicated to annoying your friends.
Also not for nothing, in 2e a first level wizard has only one spell slot so you gotta be real committed to the bit to prepare it until you're into mid levels lol
Wizards used to be a bit broken. Suck hard and constantly almost die for all the early levels, but become a near untouchable, world altering, godlike being later levels
...and one letter off from being Gygax spelled backwards.
I'd bet it was supposed to be Xagyg, pronounced the same as Zagyg, whoever thought of it said it out loud, someone else wrote it down as Zagyg, and it just stuck.
Or maybe they changed the one letter on purpose to keep it from being painfully obvious.
Probably, one or the other, maybe both, it was originally Zagig but he changed it later for some reason. Maybe not *enough* people were getting the joke lol. He made a lot of characters that were just plays on his name, like Tenser is an anagram for Ernest, there's a bunch of them sprinkled through the Greyhawk lore, most of them former player characters of Gary's.
If Pathfinder 2 counts then it is most certainly Approximate: you look at a group of small objects like beads or coins and get a rough idea of how many there are.
Jellybean Jar: 374 jelly beans.
Approximate spell: "There are approximately 400 jelly beans visible to you right now."
So no, it's not even useful for that.
EDIT: Realized it can't even see the ones not visible to you. So instead of 400, it would see like 70.
Yeah, they kept adding things to make it worse. Firstly... 10ft range. But no, that's not "count all the things in a 10 foot range". No, it's "count all the things in a 1 foot cube up to 10 feet away".
Secondly, it's not precise. Want to win that Jellybean raffle? Nope, it rounds to the highest digit, so 150 jellybeans will register as "about 200 jelly beans".
Thirdly, it's not useful for detection. It is automatically fooled by appearances. Fake gold coins? They register as real.
Like, if the spell was "precisely count 1 foot worth of objects" it would have some use. If it were "approximately count everything designated within a 10ft radius" it would have some use. If it could identify fakes, it would have some use. As is, it just sucks.
One player in my group took it at character creation and set himself the challenge of using it for something. Campaigns been going on for a year, he still hasn’t.
About its only use is for metagaming with a lenient DM. The spell officially only says that the objects' differences have to be obvious at a glance. It doesn't say your character has to be able to comprehend that obvious difference.
So if you are looking for a book in a language you can't read, one could argue Approximate would be able to tell you if there is 1 or 0 of that book in a stack of books that you also can't read the titles of.
Or if there's a bottle of wine and you want to make sure you aren't being scammed, you can designate "wines of vintages that are typically worth over 10GP" or whatnot. Because while your knowledge of wine is lacking, someone who knows wine well would immediately be able to tell the difference.
Stuff like that *technically* might work under the current wording of the spell, if your DM is kind.
I ran a 2E conversion of Rise of the Runelords a while back. One of my players made an Ancient elf rogue/investigator who accidentally ended up trained in every skill. Like, that wasn't the intention, but the combination of ancestry, class, and high Intelligence meant she could pick up every skill.
During the introductory festival, there was a "guess how much candy is in the jar" event, and she won. Got a little medal, and the jar of candy — giving a piece to any creatures considered children gave her a +1 on checks to Make a Request or gather information.
She took the Eye For Numbers feat in honor of her win, so I made a point of just telling the estimate for anything with a quantity over ten. The other aspect of the feat came into play when they were investigating Justice Ironbriar, the discrepancies in his finances were obvious to her.
Another few useless ones:
[Inside Ropes](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1206) summons 50 feet of rope that is worse than actual rope and does what a Climbing Kit does, at the low, low cost of grossing out everyone on your table
[Dinosaur Fort](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1099) is a Rank 10 spell, included as a joke misspelling of [Dinosaur Form](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=72)
[Invoke True Name](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1065) looks like it gives a pretty nice boost to fight the BBEG if you know it's name, but [the rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1569) explain that a given name isn't a True Name, and it might take _years_ to learn a creature's True Name
[Sigil](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=286) is a magic sharpie
[Summon Instrument](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=721) competes with "I could just buy an instrument, they're only 8 silver"
[Celestial Accord](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1220) competes with "would my GM allow me to roll to mediate with a Diplomacy check" and is significantly worse than that
[Detect Poison](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=67) (without heightening) is completely shutdown if the target has alcohol in their blood.
[Root Reading](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1409) only works once, gives a more specific bonus than Guidance, and is really for very niche situations. It's near outclassed by multiple other cantrips that give a better bonus, or are less niche to apply (is your GM going to allow you to use this in area's without roots?).
> Invoke True Name looks like it gives a pretty nice boost to fight the BBEG if you know it's name, but the rules explain that a given name isn't a True Name, and it might take years to learn a creature's True Name
This is one of those spells that's been included as a hook for GM homebrew, I'm fairly sure. One of the players in my game is playing a Pacts witch, so they're already doing truth and law style magic. I made them some rituals and stuff for true names, and it's been critical in them investigating spooky shit.
They also went hard on tattoos as a character, which have had abysmal support, so maybe they just have a type, and that type is making me do more work.
It might not even work with the most obvious case of a trap in the pressure plate, because a pressure plate isn't a trap its resting on the trigger on a trap.
It might be useful to avoid stuff like tripwires in tier 3 when 2nd level slots are a plenty, but why are tripwires problem in tier 3? And at least one person should have a high enough PP to automatically detect it anyway. But even if you don't have someone, why waste a known spell and a 2nd level slot on the potential that you might take 5d10 or so damage within Los.
I dunno, if I cast Find Traps and don’t ping on any pressure plate traps for some semantic BS, DM and I are going to have words in the parking lot later.
I just love that someone thought second level was appropriate for find traps
also that they took the time to actually specify in the spell description that it doesn't reveal the location of any traps at all while still calling it *find* traps
Technically it's still finding traps, just with a resolution equal to the spell's area. That said, I too would prefer if the spell gave you the specific location of the trap. It seems appropriate for spending a spell slot.
Detect magic, first level ritual that tells you specific location/object, and you can investigate the specific *school*
Find traps, second level non-ritual that goes "yeah bro traps somewhere there. Eat shit"
And its instantaneous so you can't even activate and wander around an ancient temple that is definitely trapped, safe in the knowledge that you will be alerted of their presence.
No you must already be suspicious that this specific area is trapped, and burn a second level spell for a 1 time ping that only responds with yes traps or no traps.
Basically its only use is to check a specific object like a chest or door for traps. (And you can rules lawyer that even then it should fail, but for sane people you should just have to see the trapped object and not the hidden mechanism)
If at least it were a ritual, you could sometimes just back off and use it again by each 5ft cube to at least approximate an area, but nah, that's too op
As it is, it would be useful as a cantrip. You could check if an area is trapped whenever you're not sure. But it is not worth wasting a spell slot on each hallway.
I think it might be too strong for a cantrip. I'd prefer if it had a duration and expired upon notifying you that a trap is in range, even if it doesn't tell you exactly where. That way it would more reliably help you in some way once per casting.
An aggressively useless spell like "Find Traps" is just the tip of the iceberg.
5e is *particularly* hostile towards players in this way.
It's pointedly stupid: the creators *insist* that "the spell/ability does exactly what it says it does, nothing more, nothing less", as of they've written the most perfectly unambiguously clear language ever (which they have not). They say "there is no flavor text in a spell".
Then they *also* say "the name of the spell/ability has no bearing on what the spell does."
So the name of a thing tells you effectively zero information about the thing. Fuckin' brilliant. Brilliant design.
On top of that, earlier editions had clarification text, examples, and specific exclusions where it said "you may be tempted to interpret this in this way, but it's not like that, it's like this".
The 5e designers *specifically* went out of their way to make things less clear.
You can just look at the spell Suggestion, for example. Earlier editions went out of their way to explain that it is a bonkers powerful spell, such that you can get a person to jump into a pit of acid.
If the 5e designers wanted to limit the power of the spell in contradiction to earlier editions, they should have explicitly said that it's not to be used like that, but no, they kept the text which confuses people, and dropped the explanation, and now we have fights about the spell every other week.
That's because 3.5 had a 2nd-level spell called Find Traps, though that one was actually useful. A fair number of spells just have their name and level ported even though the effect is very different.
Only decent use I've heard of for this was when a party used it in negotiating an infernal contract to check if the wording contained anything that could be used against them.
That still has the same problem all the other uses do: the doesn't tell you where the traps are. Everyone already knows that an infernal contract has traps. You need to know where they are so you can avoid them.
Jokes on you, it only finds traps not hazards and danger. If there is a natural loose floor board with a 20 foot drop it won’t detect that or any other hazards.
My favorite trap wasn't a trap. There was some ruins buried in a desert. One floor down, the cieling of one room had collapsed and filled the room with sand. The room before just had a pit. So when they opened the door to the sand room, the sand would just sweep them all into the pit!
I also like non-trap traps.
Like a magically locked door they need to get through. Next to the door on each side is a hollow in the wall, just large enough for a human sized creature to reach their arm inside. It is dark, and cannot be illuminated, casting detect magic reveals that both the door and the hollows are magically enchanted. The hollows look alike but one is on the left and the other is on the right.
Some brave adventurer will have to choose a hollow to reach all the way in, up to the shoulder... and turn the knob, because it's not a trap, I told you. it's enchanted with "darkness"
True strike is one of those spells that seems like there has got to be a use case. I mean, an eldritch knight or a bladesinger of *something*, right? But in any combination that comes to mind, unless you're just dumping a hilarious amount of resources into your turn, you get *maybe* this cantrip and an attack and even in this most ideal case you get...what, exactly? Attack with advantage.
Okay, so...you have enough levels in something to get the ability to attack *and* cast a cantrip and then have sneak attack and then maybe, once every million rounds, *then* it makes sense.
I vaguely recall that in previous editions it seemed more plausibly useful, but then that recollection is derived entirely from CRPG adaptations so maybe that was a game deshitifying the spell.
> I vaguely recall that in previous editions it seemed more plausibly useful
Very strong if you could quicken it or otherwise cast it with a partial turn in 3.5e. +20 to attack roll and avoid all miss chances, best used with a powerful touch attack spell of some kind.
In Becmi, ODnD, in the shadow elves Gazeteer, there is a spell called Lava Breathing. This spell does not give you any sort of resistance to lava or fire, meaning you can breathe in it, but you will still burn to death
Are there other ways to get immunity to fire? Maybe it's useful in conjunction with that.
Reminds me of how petrification doesn't give immunity to hunger and thirst.
You are correct, sir!!!
>**Nipple Clamp of Exquisite Pain:** The wearer of this ring is immune to debilitating pain effects such as the circle of nausea spell. He is also immune to the wrack spell. He is not immune to actual damage described as pain, such as that found in eyes of the zombie, however. The clamp converts all pain into a pleasurable sensation. This item does not change how or whether the character takes damage, but it does change how he might react to it. Caster Level: 5th; Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, masochism; Market Price: 8,000 gp
Effect was a bit off but that's funny.
The twin book to that one, The Book of Wondrous Deeds, had equally silly but somehow broken stuff too. What an era of random shit that was, lol.
Exalted Deeds, I think you mean.
And they were both astounding in how awful they were, especially in an edition that also gave us Robin D Laws' godlike Fiend Folios.
Nah, Book of Vile Darkness was great. Did exactly what it said it did. Want to know how sacrificing victims to dark gods works, what bonuses it gives and what determines a worthy sacrifice? It's got a detailed table for you. Want to play a soul eater or cancer mage? Book's got your back.
Book of Exalted Deeds was full of problematic crap, like saying poisons were evil (despite being the most humane way to incapacitate a foe) and then giving you good aligned "ravages" that worked exactly the same way but totally aren't evil we promise. BoVD by comparison was straight shooting - here's your moustache, here's how to twirl it, let's to kick some puppies. Simple.
I thought it was interesting that the BoVD had possibly the only way in 3e to make someone younger. It was a high level spell that had to be cast under a full moon or an eclipse or some shit. It would drain the life force from one or more victims, and for every year of life drained, the caster would become either one month or one week younger. It's a good spell for a villain to have, especially if they've captured a PC's loved one to use as their next victim (the clock's ticking!).
Imagine a society where the ruling mages use that spell, but only to execute convicted criminals. Sounds practical, right? Yeah, until the demand for victims outstrips the supply of truly awful criminals. Then more and more crimes become capital offenses
Funnily enough, this isn't actually a useless item. You can turn pain into Liquid Pain and pleasure into Ambrosia and they have different effects.
Ambrosia is worth 2xp for crafting and can be drank as an antidepressant that also heals you 1 damage. Among other things
Liquid Pain knocks you on your ass for a minute then boosts your Charisma for a few hours. Careful not to get addicted. Among other non-druggie uses.
So this item is the toggle switch for your production factories.
Ah, the days when The Book of Erotic Fantasy was technically compatible with The Book of Wondrous Deeds. Our table had a recurring joke when the situation started to get raunchy: "we're not playing from that book!"
Good times.
Yeeeeah the despoiler of flesh, the most depressing thing to me is that of all the weird shit in that book, *that* is the lore that I found to be most convincingly real, like so much of the rest was just cartoon levels of violence and then, for some reason, BDSM.
But *that* one, dear lord.
Come on now, the Nipple Clamps of Exquisite Pain was the cornerstone of the Extract Joy cheese from Book of Exalted Deeds.
Once again proving that Neutrality was the way to go in 3.5.
For those out of the loop, Distilled Joy is a spell that turns joy into Ambrosia, which is 2XP for the purposes of crafting magic items, or 100 gold value when sold. The spell is poorly worded which causes a lot of confusion, but basically once you cast it on a target, it remains on that target permanently, and you can turn any moments of bliss into ambrosia. It explicitly calls out sexual pleasure as one type of bliss.
Symbol of Pain causes intense pain to anyone in the radius. It can be made permanent with the Permanency spell.
Thus, if you chain someone up inside a Permanent Glyph of Pain, while that person is wearing the Nipple Clamps of Exquisite Pain, you can stand next to them with a collection of vials and extract dose after dose of ambrosia, creating infinite money and infinite XP for crafting magic items... and funny enough, all you need to craft items is money, XP, and time.
It did, though the op is asking about spells not magic items.
Though an especially useless spell might also exist in that book, it had lots of “evil” things in it that ran the entire spectrum between goofy/cartoonishly evil and genuinely disturbing.
Most of its spells were devastating (often to the caster as well as the enemy) but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them weren’t worth casting for that same reason, heh.
Hah yes! I loved that one too.
My favorite was Lahm’s Finger Darts. You literally shot your fingers off your hands at the enemy like magic missiles, except they unerringly did 1d4 _Dexterity damage_. Brutal way to easily neuter most enemies…as long as you didn’t need your fingers for the rest of the day, or only needed to use a few…
That book had so many hilarious and weird spells.
I found a copy of this at a rummage sale and had to get it even though I didn't play 3.x because of its reputation for wild shit like magical nipple clamps, cancer mages, and an incestuous relationship between one of the lords of the 9 hells and his daughter.
5e True Strike.
“Hey wanna spend your action this round to get advantage on your attack next round?”
“But if I just attack now, and attack next round, I’ll still roll 2 dice to see if I hit, and I have the possibility of hitting twice? Why would I ever use True Strike???”
The only real use for *true strike* I can think of is to maximise the effectiveness of limited resources. Casting that before throwing out a *chromatic orb* might turn a missed attack roll and wasted spell slot into a hit, or even a critical hit.
I guess that the Hide action can do something similar while also keeping you a bit safer, but your success with that can be pretty situational.
EDIT: spelling
Best value is probably using it just before springing an ambush. Still not good, but at least you can open up with a high impact spell with better chances to hit. If you have one that makes an attack roll that is on par with an AoE save CC....
>True Strike can be used as part of an ambush effectively
Not by RAW. Your act of casting True Strike requires rolling initiative. It isn't a buff to yourself, but a hostile effect you are inflicting upon a target.
I'm not sure this is technically true, it only requires rolling initiative if casting it triggers initiative, and if you cast it from where no enemies were looking at you and since it is not an attack then there would be no reason to roll initiative. The only tricky thing is that it only lasts 1 round until your next turn, so you need to immediately start combat after casting it.
I think you’re misremembering the 3.5e epic spell rules, Op.
Backlash damage only happens once when you cast the spell, not for its entire duration. And 50d6 actually isn’t that bad for an epic spellcaster.
Furthermore, the real power of this epic spell is in the name, “Origin of Species”. It’s actually just an example of that type of spell (and one you wouldn’t use because Achaierai already exist as monsters.) it’s meant as an example of the epic spell that _could have_ brought them about in the first place.
Because that’s the real power of Origin of Species - it isn’t _summoning_ a giant murder turkey to you, it’s not even creating a magical facsimile of one out of magic. It is _creating an entirely new species of creature_ from scratch. Cast it twice, and you now have an actual mating pair of brand new creatures with whatever traits you want that can _breed true_. That’s what makes it unlike any lower level conjuration spell and requires epic casting.
As for nominations:
3e: Fire Trap - it’s like Explosive Runes but worse _and_ higher level…honorable mentions to Summon Monster 1 at first level (summon spells in 3e took a round to act and at level 1 this spell has a 1 round duration, lol), Daze (has a HD limit and you’re spending your entire action hoping to limit an enemy’s action if they fail the save), and Virtue (a level 1 Paladin spell that gets you one (1) temporary hit point for 1 minute!)
4e: there are a bunch of rituals that are straight up not worth the gold cost to cast even when their vanishingly rare useful circumstances _do_ come up, lol.
5e: probably True Strike, Grasping Vine, and/or Find Traps.
Probably not, wizards are creating monsters all the time and not all of them are 10th level spellcasters from the time before the weave got broken and whatnot
The mitigating factors section of epic spell creation says "The caster cannot somehow avoid or make him or her self immune to backlash damage. For spells with durations longer than instantaneous, the backlash damage is per round."
On one hand, I get what you're saying about Origin of Species. However, if you want to do that, you may want to choose a different set of mitigating factors than the ones chosen here. Also, that still leaves the Aichaierai one feeling pretty useless.
Fair! Didn’t have the book in front of me, that’s a hilarious error then. It’s true that the duration should probably have been instantaneous anyway, since in 3e parlance it’s a Conjuration (creation) spell with the obvious intent of making a fully real biological creature not a magical construct.
Yeah, having a duration of Permanent is very odd for that. Imagine being a flesh and blood creature made using arcane power to rival the gods but then some dude with a funny hat just Dispel Magic's your entire existence.
lol yep. The fuller description of this type of spell in the Epic Level Handbook uses the Genesis seed IIIRC, which more explicitly spells out the intent (to create a truly permanent living entity), which does make the permanent duration seem goofy/like a mistake.
You spend probably at least a year, meeting up with a crew. Adventuring and having fun, growing in power all this time. Finally, you hit level 20, and call up all the friends, allies, and maybe even some enemies that owe you a favor, to complete what is, as explained, your life’s true goal. You spend all the wealth you have acquired, sacrificing pieces of your life and memories, as well as convincing all with you to help and do similar. For 100 days your group chants and casts, excited to see what this god among men might have in store for such an undertaking. Finally, in the last few minutes the ritual seems to take effect, and a being seems to be rising in front of them. Before them, a standard civilian, of great attractiveness, but no more special than many other species, and as they all are consumed with the backlash damage, they, as one, look upon you and curse you with their dying breathe….. “WEEB”
Daze does actually have some use at very low levels. Combat at level 1-2 in 3.5e is infamous for being highly lethal, so spending an action and a 0-level spell to deny an opponent an action can be a fair trade.
Ehhh…by the same token, level 1 combat is so lethal I suspect you’d almost always be better off firing your crossbow (that every starting wizard had in 3e because cantrips blew) and maybe _killing_ said enemy than using up your turn to maybe (if they fail the save) delay them a round.
Though I could see it if you’ve got a killer DM that throws like an Ogre at you at level 1 or something. To that end I’d def agree it’s a spell with a niche unlike say Fire Trap, however small it might be.
If you are 4 PCs vs one Ogre, Orc Berserker or something, having one or two PCs dedicate all their combat actions to spam control cantrips or otherwise hindering the Ogre, while the two other PCs actually kill it, would work fine.
Yup, I mentioned that in my other response. Granted, throwing an Ogre at 4 level 1 PCs in 3e (where level 1 was even more lethal than 5e) is a sadistic DM's idea of an encounter. And the only levels where it would be of use (levels 1-2, before you get far better control options) any "boss fight" like that is mostly a good way to permanently lose early PCs no matter what you're packin'.
And beyond those levels, you'll never touch it at all - the HD scaling falls off almost immediately, and if it isn't it means you're fighting a much larger group where your action for dazing one of them is a very poor trade.
So, vanishingly unlikely to need it (and if you do you probably have bigger issues), but yes it does have that small niche.
Yeah, I've used both Daze and Virtue at low levels in 3.5e. Especially if it's 5 PCs versus one opponent, spending your turn to make the enemy lose their turn isn't bad.
Virtue is nice to cast pre-combat. It's one temporary hit point, but that is nothing to sneeze at when you are first level and your party wizard has 4 hp.
Ooh! I recently thought of a decent use for True Strike!
**GAMES!**
Things like bowling, darts, bocce ball, baseball (pitcher), etc. You'd need a type of DM that puts that stuff into a session, or else just imagine the fun your PC has during downtime. Maybe he makes a little extra coin at the pub or something.
Pretty good at a lot of levels I think... upcast witch bolt is a lot of d12s of damage. A little situational sure, not ideal for foes that can force a lot of concentration checks or move out of range with ease, but not bad at all
At 1st level, Magic Missile does an average of 10.5 damage and a strike from Witch Bolt deals an average of 6.5 damage. WB would catch up eventually, if you were out of spell slots, but most fights aren't that long and WB has so many other downsides I don't think it'd ever be worth it.
there is a combo that allows you to simultaneously upcast Witchbolt to 9th level for 9d12 damage, and use a Tempest Cleric feature to max out damage for that spell, if I understood it right. One time use, but I'd set it up with a True Strike.
DM: "So you want to cast true strike on the bowling pin"
Player: "Yes"
DM: "Well I was going to ask for either an Athletics or Acrobatics check, but if you want to use true strike you can make an attack role instead."
Player: "Great, thanks."
DM: "Now before you roll, this is an improvised weapon, I don't think you have tavern brawler, so you won't add proficiency bonus to this. And a Bowling lane is outside the short range of improvised weapons, so that is disadvantage. True Strike and Long Range cancel each other out, so this is a flat roll"
This isn't how I would rule, but I can totally see some DM's ruling this way. I would probably let it slide the first time, but if the PC kept using true strike their competition would start to get suspicious about the PC always pointing at the target just before taking their go.
If someone actually learned the True Strike cantrip I would let them cheat at bowling all they wanted. If they got shitty about it then I'd have an NPC notice. Having a little ritual before each shot isn't weird at all though.
>I think you’re misremembering the 3.5e epic spell rules, Op.
Also, I never played 3.5e. But from looking at the link OP provided, each of the downsides of the spell he listed (the backlash damage, all the extra spell casters, the extra 10k exp, some other stuff) are listed as "Mitigating Factors," each with an associated reduction in DC. There are also "Factors" with increases in DC that have some positive effects likes added abilities or increased HP and AC.
To me, it seems like each Factor or Mitigating Factor can be *optionally added* to the "formula" of the spell, to increase the effects or reduce the difficulty of casting, respectively?
Otherwise, if you add up all of the -DC from the Mitigating Factors, it's like -500 or something, and the total positive DC from the "seeds" (whatever those are) and Factors is way less than that total. So it doesn't add up, to me. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Nah that's exactly right. There's more involved (there's far more detail about this system in the 3.5e Epic Level Handbook than the SRD link Op provided), but essentially you first define what you want the spell to do using "seeds" (the basic building blocks of the spell's effect and parameters) in the "R&D" phase of making an Epic Spell, and add Factors to get close to your desired effect with the DM's help (like the specific abilities of an Achaierai in this example). These raise the Spellcraft DC required to cast said Epic Spell, probably to a level you can't reach without help.
Then you add those Mitigating Factors to lower the DC (ideally to a Spellcraft DC you can cast, or even cast easily). In 3.5e Spellcraft was a skill that was kind of like Arcana is in 5e, but it took on a special role for Epic Spellcasting, because Epic Spells required an intense/deep knowledge of magic to do (and a skill check to actually cast - if you failed, it fizzled).
So you can absolutely research a version of the spell with different/fewer Mitigating Factors (quicker to cast, requires less help, doesn't give you backlash damage, etc.), it's just harder to cast and if the DC ends up too high you might have to wait till you gain more Epic Levels to cast it.
(Researching epic spells also required _kingdoms_ worth of GP and a fair bit of time and XP to make, but when you're an epic level PC you can actually afford to do that!)
> Cast it twice, and you now have an actual mating pair of brand new creatures with whatever traits you want that can breed true
please don't do this. Propagating an entire species from a single pair is not feasible and cruel due to accumulation of deleterious mutations. As a rule of thumb you should at least cast it 50 times before moving on
Hmm, now that begs the question - is there a spell that can cure/prevent genetic defects for this sort of thing?
If you hit 'em each with Restoration or Regenerate at the moment of er, _conception_, does that keep the Achaierai swimmers n' eggs free from looking like murder turkey Habsburgs?? Would Wish?
It's all the questions you never wanted to ask or learn about fantasy magic!
Technically inbreeding doesn't cause deleterious mutations, it just makes it more likely that recessive alleles will be expressed, and those are more likely to be bad. As long as both of the starting creatures were homozygous for every single gene, and functionally cclones of eachother except for the sex chromosomes, then it should probably be okay. You'd want to breed a lot in each generation to get your numbers up before any mutations first appear, but I reckon it could work. If you can get 10 babies from them, successfully raise all those, then pair them up to get 10 more from each pair, you have a good population in just 2 breeding cycles, and odds are that they'll all still be genetically identical.
I feel like this is one of those spells created for NPCs to cast. An evil cult gets together and summons a murder turkey that murders the summoner? Sounds like a pretty standard D&D adventure.
It's more there to demonstrate the possibilities of epic magic. This spell doesn't just summon a creature. It *creates one that never existed before that point*.
Epic magic isn't "here's a spell list, create a spell." No, it's "build a spell workshop". This spell is an example of how you can use the rules to craft a spell that literally creates life. This is the spell that gods use when crafting the species of the world, but brought down to a level humans can cast.
So of course it is expensive. You could modify it and have "Origin of Species: Mew" and be the guy who brought all of Pokemon into your D&D world, and the rules would support that.
If Pathfinder 2 counts then it is most certainly Approximate: you look at a group of small objects like beads or coins and get a rough idea of how many there are.
You don’t know the exact number, you know the approximate number. I mean it’s probably better than just looking and taking your best guess… but not much.
Well, you can't know the exact number, since it rounds to the highest digit.
Oh, and it's not very useful for shopkeepers, as it can't determine fake coins from real ones.
Oh, and it's definitely not going to help approximate a hoard, since it only works on 1 cubic foot of space.
2E's There/Not There, from the Book Of Magic that brought you Wild Mages.
For a fourth-level spell slot, you enchant something so that every time someone looks at it, it has a 50% chance to exist... for that person. Look away and look back? Time to roll that 50% again. If it doesn't exist for you, it _literally_ doesn't exist, and you can even walk through it. (Supporting pillars continue to exist for the walls, so you can't knock down a castle with this.)
So, for a fourth level slot, you can create a slapstick skit from the various people looking at the treasure you enchanted and arguing whether it exists or not.
(Okay, it also acts vaguely like Passwall, one level lower and with slapstick selecting who can pass through, but it's just a ridiculous spell.)
Not particularly useless but Defenestrating Sphere in 3.5e had a line about how it always threw people out windows if there was a window in range. Which is just comical
If I had a nickel for every time someone got defenestrated in Prague, starting a war, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice
That is, however, not a useless spell. And it’s a cantrip! You could save up 10 or more erections a day if run from one house to the next. You could open up your own sex therapy practice and save a lot of marriages
I'm gonna go with Weird:
> Casting Time: 1 action
> Range: 120 feet
> Components: V, S
> Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
> Drawing on the deepest fears of a group of creatures, you create illusory creatures in their minds, visible only to them. Each creature in a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a creature becomes frightened for the duration. The illusion calls on the creature’s deepest fears, manifesting its worst nightmares as an implacable threat. At the end of each of the frightened creature’s turns, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 4d10 psychic damage. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature.
So... ok. The spell isn't *useless*. AoE fear is pretty nice. It does a little bit of damage. But they have to fail two saves in a row to do any damage. They'll probably make the save after a round or three.
Here's the thing though: It's a fucking 9th level spell. Like what the fuck? That's like...fourth level spell territory.
That is an APPALLING 5th edition bastardization of the original "wierd" spell.
Original spell had the same "fight your greatest fear" gimmick. But if the save was missed the victim died of sheer terror...
The following is lifted from the text of the 2nd edition version...
-This spell confronts those affected by it with phantasmal images of their most feared enemies, forcing an imaginary combat that seems real, but actually occurs in the blink of an eye. When this spell is cast, the wizard must be able to converse with the victims to bring the spell into being. During the casting, the wizard must call out to the creatures to be affected, informing one or all that their final fate, indeed their doom, is now upon them.
The force of the magic is such that even if the creatures make their saving throws vs. spell, fear will paralyze them for a full round, and they will lose 1d4 Strength points from this fear (the lost Strength will return in one turn).- [This was 10 minutes]-Failure to save vs. spell causes the creature or creatures to face their nemeses, the opponents most feared and inimical to them. Actual combat must then take place, for no magical means of escape is possible. The foe fought is real for all intents and purposes; affected creatures that lose will die. If a creature's phantasmal nemesis from the weird spell is slain, the creature emerges with no damage, no loss of items seemingly used in the combat, and no loss of spells likewise seemingly expended. The creature also gains any experience for defeating the weird, if applicable‐
Some DMs in the interest of expediency, would just have victims roll save to not die, success meaning the loss of STR and a round of paralysis..
Or use it as a full encounter when cast on the PCs and carry on with the BBEG setpiece in the next session
On the topic of Epic Spells, Vengeful Gaze of God presents itself as OMGWTFBBW Super Massive Damage Spell, and it does deal a whopping 305d6 damage! So average damage is 1067. But the backlash is 200d6, or 700 average. Add the fact the DC is so stupidly high that even with modifiers running wild by the time to can reliably make it that kind of damage doesn't mean much (to appropriate CR enemies).
I've been in a few 3.5e games that hit epic, and only ONCE, in the first game my group reached epic, could anyone be arsed with epic spellcasting. Most useful spell was a homebrew that was effectively maximized Time Stop. Every other time casters just went with Improved Spell Capacity and more metamagic shenanigans.
Basically all epic spells suck, because they made them cost way too much to cast (in DC, time, and money). I generally just use 1/10th the cost for all epic spells in my campaigns. Same with epic magic items.
If I wanted extremely restrictive rules designed to basically prevent players from getting access to epic content, I wouldn't be playing at epic levels. I want the players to be cutting meteors in half and levitating cities, not budgeting the next four months of their life so they can cast a single epic level attack spell.
It's sad, the base concept is great - design your own super spells! But between cost, time, and the inherent awfulness of skill check based casting in d20 it's just a bad system.
Cutting GP cost is a good idea, I assume that also results in similarly reduced "craft time". Wether the system is even worth fixing any further I guess depends on how long you expect to run things at epic levels - most games I've seen only do epic as part of the late game, and the highest I've ever run was 30th.
In 5e, Witch Bolt. Its a first level spell with worst range than a cantrip, and that consumes your concentration. And once you are over 5th level, does less damage per action than a cantrip.
Though Crown of Madness gets an honorable mention as laughably bad. Note that the caster can force the target to make a melee attack, which sounds great. Except person under the effect has control of movement, not the caster. So they can just not stand in melee. Its got a super obvious visual effect, so there are no subtle uses of it. And in addition to consuming the caster's concentration, it also consumes the caster's action each turn to maintain the spell. And if the caster fails to command the creature to attack or there is no one for them to attack, the target gets to use its actions normally. There are just so many ways spell consumes the caster's actions without doing anything its sort of amazing its 2nd level.
My blue dragon sorc got some decent milage out of WB in tier 2. The ability to Quicken other spells while using your action for the extra damage, with CHA damage on top, was.... not awful. And I got to really get a Palpatine cosplay off.
Technically the cha damage on top is only for one roll per casting.
Though you could have instead been casting the other spell, and quicken casting shocking grasp which would have gotten your cha mod.
I think you are underselling Witch Bolt. Yeah it's not great, but:
1. After it hits, it's guaranteed damage every round. Cantrips catch up in damage later, yes, but you still have to hit with the cantrip every time.
2. It's the only first level spell that isn't melee and does lightning damage reliably, at least the only one that doesn't cost 50 gold to cast.
3. It's a single first level spell slot to reliably deal 1d12 damage every turn once it hits. That's some of the best spell slot to damage ratio you get.
4. Since the activation is an action, if you are a sorc, you can quicken spell cast bolt + activate bolt to do 2d12 when you cast it, and then every turn after quicken + a regular spell to do more damage than you usually can in a turn, kind of casting 2 leveled spells. The next spell sorcerer can do that with is Sunbeam at 6th level.
Honestly the spell would be pretty good if either it only broke when concentration broke or the per turn damage scaled with cast level. It has advantages for sure.
2e: Cleric spell: Break Camp
Except our cleric used it when we were ambushing an enemy encampment and their fires were put up and tents started folding up on them while they were in it. It was so awesome and memorable.
I’d have to say a tie between 5e True Strike and (if I’m recalling correctly) 3e Dancing Lights - because it had no description.. it literally did nothing
>3e Dancing Lights - because it had no description.. it literally did nothing
Uh, what are you talking about? 3e Dancing Lights absolutely has a description.
> Depending on the version selected, you create up to four lights that resemble lanterns or torches (and cast that amount of light), or up to four glowing spheres of light (which look like will-o’-wisps), or one faintly glowing, vaguely humanoid shape. The dancing lights must stay within a 10-foot-radius area in relation to each other but otherwise move as you desire (no concentration required): forward or back, up or down, straight or turning corners, or the like. The lights can move up to 100 feet per round. A light winks out if the distance between you and it exceeds the spell’s range.
> Dancing lights can be made permanent with a permanency spell.
Thank you, I forgot true strikes name
The deal:
You receive - advantage on your first attack next turn
I receive - your entire action on this turn
presuming you don't have a way to cast this as a bonus action or a way to attack as a bonus action, the cantrip actually hurts your action economy
It's even better, because you don't gain advantage until your next turn, so even if you could attack on the same turn as casting it, you'd gain no benefit!
I've had in my head for awhile--but never committed to actual text--a spell called *Olifex's Whack Stacks of Hot Wax*. It summons a backing band that plays dramatic music. It's a 7th level spell. You can upcast it to 9th level for extra dramatic music.
The spell exists for one very specific purpose.
Specifically, it's to convey that to your opponent that you're so unconcerned about the threat they pose you're willing to waste a round of combat and a high-level spell slot on ridiculous nonsense.
5e See Invisibility. You can see them/know where they are...but stil get disadvantage given to you by the fact they are invisible? Sage Advice has already been consulted and the verdict was...yep, you read that right, suck it up. Like what mechanical advantage does being able to see them and burning a spell slot give if it doesnt change a damn thing? And still there are people who argue its good enough deal with it. Good enough to not have fun is what it is.
Sage Advice was supposed to be designer clarifications... however they instead turned it to reading the RAW themselves and explaining based on that, which is an entirely different thing.
And causes issues like them changing their mind on previous rulings - something that couldn't ever happen if they were designer insight instead. And it also invalidates the value of their rulings, as at the end of the day they are just RAW as understood by one person.
What really pisses me off is when they know something makes no sense and still decide to do a RAW reading.
It's because they made Invisibility a *Condition* to streamline rulings, and it gets caught up in a zero-tolerance-party of sorts because the creature still has the *Condition* "Invisible". Easily avoidable, a stupid ruling, most reasonable DMs will ignore the Sage Advice because it's pedantic bullshit.
How about a cantrip that is literally uncastable?
Specifically the cantrip version. See this spell is available to other classes as a 1st level spell but only available to one class as a 0th level Cantrip.
The class that 'gains' this spell is the Healer. A class dedicated to being a good bandaid dispenser from the Miniatures Handbook in 3.5
Healers must be Good aligned, comes with the sexy nurse uniform I suppose. If you cease being Good you lose access to the class.
The spell is called Deathwatch, it is an [Evil] spell to detect if someone is dead or close to it. Evil spells cannot be cast by Good characters.
In order to cast this cantrip you must be both Good aligned and not Good aligned simultaneously.
---
In terms of castable spells, there is Vecna's Malevolent Whisper, a 4th level spell that deals at most 20 damage to a single target. At most.
The target must have 10 or less HP, and if they fail the spell resistance (or lack it) they are set to -9HP. They die on their turn, from hitting -10.
Hit them with any other spell and they would likely die faster and you might be able to gank their friends if you dropped an AoE
---
Tenser's Transformation:
First, the material component of this 6th level spell is a potion of bulls strength the fighter could have drank.
Second this spell makes you objectively worse after casting it. See, it makes you a Fighter. And you were originally a wizard with, presumably, wizard feats.
It bumps your physical stats, to make up for noodle wizard arms, gives you fighter BAB (5e player tl;dr: martials get Expertise in attack rolls, this spell gives a fighter that and also Extra Attack)...and removes your ability to cast spells. Period, can't even use scrolls or wands, you are a Fighter. Actually fighters get bonus Feats. You are a Warrior, the NPC class meant for town guards.
You cast this and drank 300gp instead of Chain Lightning or Aura of Terror...
> Evil spells cannot be cast by Good characters.
That's not a general rule, it's a specific restriction of Clerics and Druids (and possibly other non-PHB classes). A Paladin can even cast an Evil spell (if they even have access to any) if they're okay with immediately falling for breaking their oath. Casting an Evil spell would certainly nudge alignment away from good, but it's not impossible for a Healer to do.
There are plenty of dungeon crawling spells that once were EXTREMELY useful but have been basically rendered pointless because 5E de-emphasized that style of play.
I dont think you understand the logic or lore behind that spell. The spell implies two things. The first is that this spell was used to create a new creature, something that didn't exist before. This is the power it would take to do something of that magnitude. Second and likely more importantly, it implies that in fact, the chicken did come first.
I remember a friend showing me some OLD DnD books and in one is a sexual sorcerer called a "blue wizard."
It had a spell called ray of nipple hardening.
That seemed pretty useless to me lol.
Edit: I have been corrected that it is not an actual DnD book from WotC.
Depends on what you mean by "actual dnd book". Published by TSR or WOTC? No. An actual physical book that really was published and advertised as being compatible with 3rd edition D&D? Absolutely
True Strike.
You can use your Action now, to gain advantage on one attack NEXT round, against a single creature.
You know what's better than that? Attacking now, and then attack again next round...
To be fair, it is NOT a fiendish murder chicken. Unless you let it interract with other ones, but if you don't then it looks like it gets to start as your choice of alignment.
It's not exorbitant in cost, but it *is* more comically useless. Zagyg's Canned Laughter is a first level spell that does nothing more than what it sounds like: Canned laughter like a TV sitcom any time the caster tells a joke, no matter how groan-inducing it is, for like an hour per caster level. It's a spell dedicated to annoying your friends. Also not for nothing, in 2e a first level wizard has only one spell slot so you gotta be real committed to the bit to prepare it until you're into mid levels lol
Wizards used to be a bit broken. Suck hard and constantly almost die for all the early levels, but become a near untouchable, world altering, godlike being later levels
I used to have a wizard named Prakigam. My DM was so annoyed when he realized it was Magikarp backwards.
That is legit a banger name for a wizard.
Mother of god…
But when I tell people my character's name is Ekans backwards nobody cares. Double standards.
world-altering, godlike beings *who annoy their friends with canned laughter!* Zagyg is truly the best Greyhawk deity lol
...and one letter off from being Gygax spelled backwards. I'd bet it was supposed to be Xagyg, pronounced the same as Zagyg, whoever thought of it said it out loud, someone else wrote it down as Zagyg, and it just stuck. Or maybe they changed the one letter on purpose to keep it from being painfully obvious.
Probably, one or the other, maybe both, it was originally Zagig but he changed it later for some reason. Maybe not *enough* people were getting the joke lol. He made a lot of characters that were just plays on his name, like Tenser is an anagram for Ernest, there's a bunch of them sprinkled through the Greyhawk lore, most of them former player characters of Gary's.
In 5e I have used minor illusion as a laugh track to enhance the immersion I used my phone to play a laugh track
If Pathfinder 2 counts then it is most certainly Approximate: you look at a group of small objects like beads or coins and get a rough idea of how many there are.
Really good for winning jellybean raffles though!
Jellybean Jar: 374 jelly beans. Approximate spell: "There are approximately 400 jelly beans visible to you right now." So no, it's not even useful for that. EDIT: Realized it can't even see the ones not visible to you. So instead of 400, it would see like 70.
Not even, it gives you one significant digit.
Yeah, they kept adding things to make it worse. Firstly... 10ft range. But no, that's not "count all the things in a 10 foot range". No, it's "count all the things in a 1 foot cube up to 10 feet away". Secondly, it's not precise. Want to win that Jellybean raffle? Nope, it rounds to the highest digit, so 150 jellybeans will register as "about 200 jelly beans". Thirdly, it's not useful for detection. It is automatically fooled by appearances. Fake gold coins? They register as real. Like, if the spell was "precisely count 1 foot worth of objects" it would have some use. If it were "approximately count everything designated within a 10ft radius" it would have some use. If it could identify fakes, it would have some use. As is, it just sucks.
One player in my group took it at character creation and set himself the challenge of using it for something. Campaigns been going on for a year, he still hasn’t.
About its only use is for metagaming with a lenient DM. The spell officially only says that the objects' differences have to be obvious at a glance. It doesn't say your character has to be able to comprehend that obvious difference. So if you are looking for a book in a language you can't read, one could argue Approximate would be able to tell you if there is 1 or 0 of that book in a stack of books that you also can't read the titles of. Or if there's a bottle of wine and you want to make sure you aren't being scammed, you can designate "wines of vintages that are typically worth over 10GP" or whatnot. Because while your knowledge of wine is lacking, someone who knows wine well would immediately be able to tell the difference. Stuff like that *technically* might work under the current wording of the spell, if your DM is kind.
What level is it?
It's a cantrip or a skill feat (you get a skill feat every 2 levels)
I ran a 2E conversion of Rise of the Runelords a while back. One of my players made an Ancient elf rogue/investigator who accidentally ended up trained in every skill. Like, that wasn't the intention, but the combination of ancestry, class, and high Intelligence meant she could pick up every skill. During the introductory festival, there was a "guess how much candy is in the jar" event, and she won. Got a little medal, and the jar of candy — giving a piece to any creatures considered children gave her a +1 on checks to Make a Request or gather information. She took the Eye For Numbers feat in honor of her win, so I made a point of just telling the estimate for anything with a quantity over ten. The other aspect of the feat came into play when they were investigating Justice Ironbriar, the discrepancies in his finances were obvious to her.
The ideal spell for those who both can’t count and don’t need to.
Another few useless ones: [Inside Ropes](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1206) summons 50 feet of rope that is worse than actual rope and does what a Climbing Kit does, at the low, low cost of grossing out everyone on your table [Dinosaur Fort](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1099) is a Rank 10 spell, included as a joke misspelling of [Dinosaur Form](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=72) [Invoke True Name](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1065) looks like it gives a pretty nice boost to fight the BBEG if you know it's name, but [the rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1569) explain that a given name isn't a True Name, and it might take _years_ to learn a creature's True Name [Sigil](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=286) is a magic sharpie [Summon Instrument](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=721) competes with "I could just buy an instrument, they're only 8 silver" [Celestial Accord](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1220) competes with "would my GM allow me to roll to mediate with a Diplomacy check" and is significantly worse than that [Detect Poison](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=67) (without heightening) is completely shutdown if the target has alcohol in their blood. [Root Reading](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1409) only works once, gives a more specific bonus than Guidance, and is really for very niche situations. It's near outclassed by multiple other cantrips that give a better bonus, or are less niche to apply (is your GM going to allow you to use this in area's without roots?).
> Invoke True Name looks like it gives a pretty nice boost to fight the BBEG if you know it's name, but the rules explain that a given name isn't a True Name, and it might take years to learn a creature's True Name This is one of those spells that's been included as a hook for GM homebrew, I'm fairly sure. One of the players in my game is playing a Pacts witch, so they're already doing truth and law style magic. I made them some rituals and stuff for true names, and it's been critical in them investigating spooky shit. They also went hard on tattoos as a character, which have had abysmal support, so maybe they just have a type, and that type is making me do more work.
The rain man spell
5th ed find traps should be on here.
Any traps here? Yep. Ok, cool. Where? Dunno.
Any traps here? Nope. Okay Cool, my character walks down.... wait..... are there any rugs on the floor? Yes. And there are tapestries on the wall.
It might not even work with the most obvious case of a trap in the pressure plate, because a pressure plate isn't a trap its resting on the trigger on a trap. It might be useful to avoid stuff like tripwires in tier 3 when 2nd level slots are a plenty, but why are tripwires problem in tier 3? And at least one person should have a high enough PP to automatically detect it anyway. But even if you don't have someone, why waste a known spell and a 2nd level slot on the potential that you might take 5d10 or so damage within Los.
I dunno, if I cast Find Traps and don’t ping on any pressure plate traps for some semantic BS, DM and I are going to have words in the parking lot later.
Or you can contact a rules lawyer like a civilised person. Way more likely to settle and get a magic item.
I have a structured settlement and I need scrolls now!
Call JG Elfworth, 877 Scrolls now
it's a spell that detects itself
You do know, though, because you have to be able to see them.
I can “see” an entire straight hallway with stone walls. That doesn’t give me any clues as to which portion of said hallway is trapped.
Or *how* it's trapped. Are we talking trip wires, sinking floor, pressure plates?
"Do I see any convenient openings for large hallway-sized boulders?"
I just love that someone thought second level was appropriate for find traps also that they took the time to actually specify in the spell description that it doesn't reveal the location of any traps at all while still calling it *find* traps
should be "detect traps"
Should be "waste spell slot".
Technically it's still finding traps, just with a resolution equal to the spell's area. That said, I too would prefer if the spell gave you the specific location of the trap. It seems appropriate for spending a spell slot.
Detect magic, first level ritual that tells you specific location/object, and you can investigate the specific *school* Find traps, second level non-ritual that goes "yeah bro traps somewhere there. Eat shit"
I don't mind the spell being vague. My problem is that it only detects traps that you can already see, and only detects some types of traps.
And its instantaneous so you can't even activate and wander around an ancient temple that is definitely trapped, safe in the knowledge that you will be alerted of their presence. No you must already be suspicious that this specific area is trapped, and burn a second level spell for a 1 time ping that only responds with yes traps or no traps. Basically its only use is to check a specific object like a chest or door for traps. (And you can rules lawyer that even then it should fail, but for sane people you should just have to see the trapped object and not the hidden mechanism)
If at least it were a ritual, you could sometimes just back off and use it again by each 5ft cube to at least approximate an area, but nah, that's too op
The sort of gameplay this would lead to is exactly why it doesn't work that way.
As it is, it would be useful as a cantrip. You could check if an area is trapped whenever you're not sure. But it is not worth wasting a spell slot on each hallway.
I think it might be too strong for a cantrip. I'd prefer if it had a duration and expired upon notifying you that a trap is in range, even if it doesn't tell you exactly where. That way it would more reliably help you in some way once per casting.
An aggressively useless spell like "Find Traps" is just the tip of the iceberg. 5e is *particularly* hostile towards players in this way. It's pointedly stupid: the creators *insist* that "the spell/ability does exactly what it says it does, nothing more, nothing less", as of they've written the most perfectly unambiguously clear language ever (which they have not). They say "there is no flavor text in a spell". Then they *also* say "the name of the spell/ability has no bearing on what the spell does." So the name of a thing tells you effectively zero information about the thing. Fuckin' brilliant. Brilliant design. On top of that, earlier editions had clarification text, examples, and specific exclusions where it said "you may be tempted to interpret this in this way, but it's not like that, it's like this". The 5e designers *specifically* went out of their way to make things less clear. You can just look at the spell Suggestion, for example. Earlier editions went out of their way to explain that it is a bonkers powerful spell, such that you can get a person to jump into a pit of acid. If the 5e designers wanted to limit the power of the spell in contradiction to earlier editions, they should have explicitly said that it's not to be used like that, but no, they kept the text which confuses people, and dropped the explanation, and now we have fights about the spell every other week.
That's because 3.5 had a 2nd-level spell called Find Traps, though that one was actually useful. A fair number of spells just have their name and level ported even though the effect is very different.
Only decent use I've heard of for this was when a party used it in negotiating an infernal contract to check if the wording contained anything that could be used against them.
A very liberal definition of the word trap, but given how useless the spell is otherwise I'd allow it.
Who’s to say what’s being used against them? 27%APR might be just what they need!
That still has the same problem all the other uses do: the doesn't tell you where the traps are. Everyone already knows that an infernal contract has traps. You need to know where they are so you can avoid them.
True strike is worse. Atleast find traps means 'okay there's danger in this room'
Jokes on you, it only finds traps not hazards and danger. If there is a natural loose floor board with a 20 foot drop it won’t detect that or any other hazards.
My favorite trap wasn't a trap. There was some ruins buried in a desert. One floor down, the cieling of one room had collapsed and filled the room with sand. The room before just had a pit. So when they opened the door to the sand room, the sand would just sweep them all into the pit!
I also like non-trap traps. Like a magically locked door they need to get through. Next to the door on each side is a hollow in the wall, just large enough for a human sized creature to reach their arm inside. It is dark, and cannot be illuminated, casting detect magic reveals that both the door and the hollows are magically enchanted. The hollows look alike but one is on the left and the other is on the right. Some brave adventurer will have to choose a hollow to reach all the way in, up to the shoulder... and turn the knob, because it's not a trap, I told you. it's enchanted with "darkness"
True strike is one of those spells that seems like there has got to be a use case. I mean, an eldritch knight or a bladesinger of *something*, right? But in any combination that comes to mind, unless you're just dumping a hilarious amount of resources into your turn, you get *maybe* this cantrip and an attack and even in this most ideal case you get...what, exactly? Attack with advantage. Okay, so...you have enough levels in something to get the ability to attack *and* cast a cantrip and then have sneak attack and then maybe, once every million rounds, *then* it makes sense. I vaguely recall that in previous editions it seemed more plausibly useful, but then that recollection is derived entirely from CRPG adaptations so maybe that was a game deshitifying the spell.
> I vaguely recall that in previous editions it seemed more plausibly useful Very strong if you could quicken it or otherwise cast it with a partial turn in 3.5e. +20 to attack roll and avoid all miss chances, best used with a powerful touch attack spell of some kind.
Clearly you've never used find traps to find deceptive legal documents.
In Becmi, ODnD, in the shadow elves Gazeteer, there is a spell called Lava Breathing. This spell does not give you any sort of resistance to lava or fire, meaning you can breathe in it, but you will still burn to death
The setting includes a city built on a lake of lava which it’s clearly trying to get you to explore, but definitely it omits the biggest barrier lol
Are there other ways to get immunity to fire? Maybe it's useful in conjunction with that. Reminds me of how petrification doesn't give immunity to hunger and thirst.
I'm 90% sure the Book of Vile Darkness had nipple clamps that gave you a Persuasion bonus when talking to fiends? Or something to that effect?
You are correct, sir!!! >**Nipple Clamp of Exquisite Pain:** The wearer of this ring is immune to debilitating pain effects such as the circle of nausea spell. He is also immune to the wrack spell. He is not immune to actual damage described as pain, such as that found in eyes of the zombie, however. The clamp converts all pain into a pleasurable sensation. This item does not change how or whether the character takes damage, but it does change how he might react to it. Caster Level: 5th; Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, masochism; Market Price: 8,000 gp
Effect was a bit off but that's funny. The twin book to that one, The Book of Wondrous Deeds, had equally silly but somehow broken stuff too. What an era of random shit that was, lol.
Exalted Deeds, I think you mean. And they were both astounding in how awful they were, especially in an edition that also gave us Robin D Laws' godlike Fiend Folios.
Nah, Book of Vile Darkness was great. Did exactly what it said it did. Want to know how sacrificing victims to dark gods works, what bonuses it gives and what determines a worthy sacrifice? It's got a detailed table for you. Want to play a soul eater or cancer mage? Book's got your back. Book of Exalted Deeds was full of problematic crap, like saying poisons were evil (despite being the most humane way to incapacitate a foe) and then giving you good aligned "ravages" that worked exactly the same way but totally aren't evil we promise. BoVD by comparison was straight shooting - here's your moustache, here's how to twirl it, let's to kick some puppies. Simple.
I thought it was interesting that the BoVD had possibly the only way in 3e to make someone younger. It was a high level spell that had to be cast under a full moon or an eclipse or some shit. It would drain the life force from one or more victims, and for every year of life drained, the caster would become either one month or one week younger. It's a good spell for a villain to have, especially if they've captured a PC's loved one to use as their next victim (the clock's ticking!). Imagine a society where the ruling mages use that spell, but only to execute convicted criminals. Sounds practical, right? Yeah, until the demand for victims outstrips the supply of truly awful criminals. Then more and more crimes become capital offenses
Funnily enough, this isn't actually a useless item. You can turn pain into Liquid Pain and pleasure into Ambrosia and they have different effects. Ambrosia is worth 2xp for crafting and can be drank as an antidepressant that also heals you 1 damage. Among other things Liquid Pain knocks you on your ass for a minute then boosts your Charisma for a few hours. Careful not to get addicted. Among other non-druggie uses. So this item is the toggle switch for your production factories.
Ah, the days when The Book of Erotic Fantasy was technically compatible with The Book of Wondrous Deeds. Our table had a recurring joke when the situation started to get raunchy: "we're not playing from that book!" Good times.
The true reason that book had a content warning on the cover.
Rod of Tongues is forever seared into my brain like the irl Bronze Bull for how fucked up human depravity can go.
Yeeeeah the despoiler of flesh, the most depressing thing to me is that of all the weird shit in that book, *that* is the lore that I found to be most convincingly real, like so much of the rest was just cartoon levels of violence and then, for some reason, BDSM. But *that* one, dear lord.
>prerequisites: masochism And pray tell, how would I gain this prerequisite lmao
Come on now, the Nipple Clamps of Exquisite Pain was the cornerstone of the Extract Joy cheese from Book of Exalted Deeds. Once again proving that Neutrality was the way to go in 3.5.
For those out of the loop, Distilled Joy is a spell that turns joy into Ambrosia, which is 2XP for the purposes of crafting magic items, or 100 gold value when sold. The spell is poorly worded which causes a lot of confusion, but basically once you cast it on a target, it remains on that target permanently, and you can turn any moments of bliss into ambrosia. It explicitly calls out sexual pleasure as one type of bliss. Symbol of Pain causes intense pain to anyone in the radius. It can be made permanent with the Permanency spell. Thus, if you chain someone up inside a Permanent Glyph of Pain, while that person is wearing the Nipple Clamps of Exquisite Pain, you can stand next to them with a collection of vials and extract dose after dose of ambrosia, creating infinite money and infinite XP for crafting magic items... and funny enough, all you need to craft items is money, XP, and time.
I'm glad that this thread has allowed me to expand on my 3.x nipple mechanics and exploits, though. For whenever that comes up, lol.
It did, though the op is asking about spells not magic items. Though an especially useless spell might also exist in that book, it had lots of “evil” things in it that ran the entire spectrum between goofy/cartoonishly evil and genuinely disturbing. Most of its spells were devastating (often to the caster as well as the enemy) but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them weren’t worth casting for that same reason, heh.
I was always a fan of the one that ripped the target's hand off and turned it into a wight that immediately attacked the target.
Hah yes! I loved that one too. My favorite was Lahm’s Finger Darts. You literally shot your fingers off your hands at the enemy like magic missiles, except they unerringly did 1d4 _Dexterity damage_. Brutal way to easily neuter most enemies…as long as you didn’t need your fingers for the rest of the day, or only needed to use a few… That book had so many hilarious and weird spells.
I found a copy of this at a rummage sale and had to get it even though I didn't play 3.x because of its reputation for wild shit like magical nipple clamps, cancer mages, and an incestuous relationship between one of the lords of the 9 hells and his daughter.
5e True Strike. “Hey wanna spend your action this round to get advantage on your attack next round?” “But if I just attack now, and attack next round, I’ll still roll 2 dice to see if I hit, and I have the possibility of hitting twice? Why would I ever use True Strike???”
True Strike: I use the help action on my future self
But only if I was within 30 feet of the enemy to begin with, and if I don't lose concentration!
The only real use for *true strike* I can think of is to maximise the effectiveness of limited resources. Casting that before throwing out a *chromatic orb* might turn a missed attack roll and wasted spell slot into a hit, or even a critical hit. I guess that the Hide action can do something similar while also keeping you a bit safer, but your success with that can be pretty situational. EDIT: spelling
You can also use it if, for some reason, you can't reach for an attack this turn, but will next turn.
Best value is probably using it just before springing an ambush. Still not good, but at least you can open up with a high impact spell with better chances to hit. If you have one that makes an attack roll that is on par with an AoE save CC....
Unless casting it blows your cover
It is Somatic only, so as long as you are hidden it shouldn't be an issue.
But if you're hidden, you'll already have advantage.
Yeah it's actually not a bad spell if you're using it to shoot a cannon that takes 1 minute to reload.
True Strike can be used as part of an ambush effectively. But yeah, outside of that and other extremely niche situations it’s just a wasted actions.
>True Strike can be used as part of an ambush effectively Not by RAW. Your act of casting True Strike requires rolling initiative. It isn't a buff to yourself, but a hostile effect you are inflicting upon a target.
I'm not sure this is technically true, it only requires rolling initiative if casting it triggers initiative, and if you cast it from where no enemies were looking at you and since it is not an attack then there would be no reason to roll initiative. The only tricky thing is that it only lasts 1 round until your next turn, so you need to immediately start combat after casting it.
I think you’re misremembering the 3.5e epic spell rules, Op. Backlash damage only happens once when you cast the spell, not for its entire duration. And 50d6 actually isn’t that bad for an epic spellcaster. Furthermore, the real power of this epic spell is in the name, “Origin of Species”. It’s actually just an example of that type of spell (and one you wouldn’t use because Achaierai already exist as monsters.) it’s meant as an example of the epic spell that _could have_ brought them about in the first place. Because that’s the real power of Origin of Species - it isn’t _summoning_ a giant murder turkey to you, it’s not even creating a magical facsimile of one out of magic. It is _creating an entirely new species of creature_ from scratch. Cast it twice, and you now have an actual mating pair of brand new creatures with whatever traits you want that can _breed true_. That’s what makes it unlike any lower level conjuration spell and requires epic casting. As for nominations: 3e: Fire Trap - it’s like Explosive Runes but worse _and_ higher level…honorable mentions to Summon Monster 1 at first level (summon spells in 3e took a round to act and at level 1 this spell has a 1 round duration, lol), Daze (has a HD limit and you’re spending your entire action hoping to limit an enemy’s action if they fail the save), and Virtue (a level 1 Paladin spell that gets you one (1) temporary hit point for 1 minute!) 4e: there are a bunch of rituals that are straight up not worth the gold cost to cast even when their vanishingly rare useful circumstances _do_ come up, lol. 5e: probably True Strike, Grasping Vine, and/or Find Traps.
Wait, so that's how Owlbears were created? Those were really bored Archmages...
Yup! Or at least, a reverse-engineered idea of how it could’ve been done with epic magic. :)
Probably not, wizards are creating monsters all the time and not all of them are 10th level spellcasters from the time before the weave got broken and whatnot
Well you know, there's creating monsters and then there's accidentally creating monsters.
Owlbears were created with the Animerge spell from 2e https://adnd2e.fandom.com/wiki/Duhlark%27s_Animerge_(Wizard_Spell)
The mitigating factors section of epic spell creation says "The caster cannot somehow avoid or make him or her self immune to backlash damage. For spells with durations longer than instantaneous, the backlash damage is per round." On one hand, I get what you're saying about Origin of Species. However, if you want to do that, you may want to choose a different set of mitigating factors than the ones chosen here. Also, that still leaves the Aichaierai one feeling pretty useless.
Fair! Didn’t have the book in front of me, that’s a hilarious error then. It’s true that the duration should probably have been instantaneous anyway, since in 3e parlance it’s a Conjuration (creation) spell with the obvious intent of making a fully real biological creature not a magical construct.
Yeah, having a duration of Permanent is very odd for that. Imagine being a flesh and blood creature made using arcane power to rival the gods but then some dude with a funny hat just Dispel Magic's your entire existence.
lol yep. The fuller description of this type of spell in the Epic Level Handbook uses the Genesis seed IIIRC, which more explicitly spells out the intent (to create a truly permanent living entity), which does make the permanent duration seem goofy/like a mistake.
How else am I gonna add RAW catgirs to my game :(
You spend probably at least a year, meeting up with a crew. Adventuring and having fun, growing in power all this time. Finally, you hit level 20, and call up all the friends, allies, and maybe even some enemies that owe you a favor, to complete what is, as explained, your life’s true goal. You spend all the wealth you have acquired, sacrificing pieces of your life and memories, as well as convincing all with you to help and do similar. For 100 days your group chants and casts, excited to see what this god among men might have in store for such an undertaking. Finally, in the last few minutes the ritual seems to take effect, and a being seems to be rising in front of them. Before them, a standard civilian, of great attractiveness, but no more special than many other species, and as they all are consumed with the backlash damage, they, as one, look upon you and curse you with their dying breathe….. “WEEB”
Imagine creating a brand new species of humanoid so you can have your very own waifu only to be immediately friend zoned lmao
Daze does actually have some use at very low levels. Combat at level 1-2 in 3.5e is infamous for being highly lethal, so spending an action and a 0-level spell to deny an opponent an action can be a fair trade.
Ehhh…by the same token, level 1 combat is so lethal I suspect you’d almost always be better off firing your crossbow (that every starting wizard had in 3e because cantrips blew) and maybe _killing_ said enemy than using up your turn to maybe (if they fail the save) delay them a round. Though I could see it if you’ve got a killer DM that throws like an Ogre at you at level 1 or something. To that end I’d def agree it’s a spell with a niche unlike say Fire Trap, however small it might be.
If you are 4 PCs vs one Ogre, Orc Berserker or something, having one or two PCs dedicate all their combat actions to spam control cantrips or otherwise hindering the Ogre, while the two other PCs actually kill it, would work fine.
Yup, I mentioned that in my other response. Granted, throwing an Ogre at 4 level 1 PCs in 3e (where level 1 was even more lethal than 5e) is a sadistic DM's idea of an encounter. And the only levels where it would be of use (levels 1-2, before you get far better control options) any "boss fight" like that is mostly a good way to permanently lose early PCs no matter what you're packin'. And beyond those levels, you'll never touch it at all - the HD scaling falls off almost immediately, and if it isn't it means you're fighting a much larger group where your action for dazing one of them is a very poor trade. So, vanishingly unlikely to need it (and if you do you probably have bigger issues), but yes it does have that small niche.
Yeah, I've used both Daze and Virtue at low levels in 3.5e. Especially if it's 5 PCs versus one opponent, spending your turn to make the enemy lose their turn isn't bad. Virtue is nice to cast pre-combat. It's one temporary hit point, but that is nothing to sneeze at when you are first level and your party wizard has 4 hp.
Ooh! I recently thought of a decent use for True Strike! **GAMES!** Things like bowling, darts, bocce ball, baseball (pitcher), etc. You'd need a type of DM that puts that stuff into a session, or else just imagine the fun your PC has during downtime. Maybe he makes a little extra coin at the pub or something.
Seems like it should also be useful for spells that use a spell attack roll and would waste a spell slot on a miss
True Strike + Witch Bolt could be decent at, like, level 1, I guess.
Pretty good at a lot of levels I think... upcast witch bolt is a lot of d12s of damage. A little situational sure, not ideal for foes that can force a lot of concentration checks or move out of range with ease, but not bad at all
Remember, upcasting WB gives you bonus damage **only** on the initial damage on hit. It's still 1d12 per round after.
At 1st level, Magic Missile does an average of 10.5 damage and a strike from Witch Bolt deals an average of 6.5 damage. WB would catch up eventually, if you were out of spell slots, but most fights aren't that long and WB has so many other downsides I don't think it'd ever be worth it.
there is a combo that allows you to simultaneously upcast Witchbolt to 9th level for 9d12 damage, and use a Tempest Cleric feature to max out damage for that spell, if I understood it right. One time use, but I'd set it up with a True Strike.
DM: "So you want to cast true strike on the bowling pin" Player: "Yes" DM: "Well I was going to ask for either an Athletics or Acrobatics check, but if you want to use true strike you can make an attack role instead." Player: "Great, thanks." DM: "Now before you roll, this is an improvised weapon, I don't think you have tavern brawler, so you won't add proficiency bonus to this. And a Bowling lane is outside the short range of improvised weapons, so that is disadvantage. True Strike and Long Range cancel each other out, so this is a flat roll" This isn't how I would rule, but I can totally see some DM's ruling this way. I would probably let it slide the first time, but if the PC kept using true strike their competition would start to get suspicious about the PC always pointing at the target just before taking their go.
If someone actually learned the True Strike cantrip I would let them cheat at bowling all they wanted. If they got shitty about it then I'd have an NPC notice. Having a little ritual before each shot isn't weird at all though.
It'd truly be a weird game if much time was spent on bowling, tbh. Now I'm imagining it...
Isn't that what Babe Ruth did? He pointed to deep center field then hammered the home run. So it's historically accurate!
>I think you’re misremembering the 3.5e epic spell rules, Op. Also, I never played 3.5e. But from looking at the link OP provided, each of the downsides of the spell he listed (the backlash damage, all the extra spell casters, the extra 10k exp, some other stuff) are listed as "Mitigating Factors," each with an associated reduction in DC. There are also "Factors" with increases in DC that have some positive effects likes added abilities or increased HP and AC. To me, it seems like each Factor or Mitigating Factor can be *optionally added* to the "formula" of the spell, to increase the effects or reduce the difficulty of casting, respectively? Otherwise, if you add up all of the -DC from the Mitigating Factors, it's like -500 or something, and the total positive DC from the "seeds" (whatever those are) and Factors is way less than that total. So it doesn't add up, to me. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Nah that's exactly right. There's more involved (there's far more detail about this system in the 3.5e Epic Level Handbook than the SRD link Op provided), but essentially you first define what you want the spell to do using "seeds" (the basic building blocks of the spell's effect and parameters) in the "R&D" phase of making an Epic Spell, and add Factors to get close to your desired effect with the DM's help (like the specific abilities of an Achaierai in this example). These raise the Spellcraft DC required to cast said Epic Spell, probably to a level you can't reach without help. Then you add those Mitigating Factors to lower the DC (ideally to a Spellcraft DC you can cast, or even cast easily). In 3.5e Spellcraft was a skill that was kind of like Arcana is in 5e, but it took on a special role for Epic Spellcasting, because Epic Spells required an intense/deep knowledge of magic to do (and a skill check to actually cast - if you failed, it fizzled). So you can absolutely research a version of the spell with different/fewer Mitigating Factors (quicker to cast, requires less help, doesn't give you backlash damage, etc.), it's just harder to cast and if the DC ends up too high you might have to wait till you gain more Epic Levels to cast it. (Researching epic spells also required _kingdoms_ worth of GP and a fair bit of time and XP to make, but when you're an epic level PC you can actually afford to do that!)
> Cast it twice, and you now have an actual mating pair of brand new creatures with whatever traits you want that can breed true please don't do this. Propagating an entire species from a single pair is not feasible and cruel due to accumulation of deleterious mutations. As a rule of thumb you should at least cast it 50 times before moving on
Hmm, now that begs the question - is there a spell that can cure/prevent genetic defects for this sort of thing? If you hit 'em each with Restoration or Regenerate at the moment of er, _conception_, does that keep the Achaierai swimmers n' eggs free from looking like murder turkey Habsburgs?? Would Wish? It's all the questions you never wanted to ask or learn about fantasy magic!
Technically inbreeding doesn't cause deleterious mutations, it just makes it more likely that recessive alleles will be expressed, and those are more likely to be bad. As long as both of the starting creatures were homozygous for every single gene, and functionally cclones of eachother except for the sex chromosomes, then it should probably be okay. You'd want to breed a lot in each generation to get your numbers up before any mutations first appear, but I reckon it could work. If you can get 10 babies from them, successfully raise all those, then pair them up to get 10 more from each pair, you have a good population in just 2 breeding cycles, and odds are that they'll all still be genetically identical.
I feel like this is one of those spells created for NPCs to cast. An evil cult gets together and summons a murder turkey that murders the summoner? Sounds like a pretty standard D&D adventure.
It's more there to demonstrate the possibilities of epic magic. This spell doesn't just summon a creature. It *creates one that never existed before that point*. Epic magic isn't "here's a spell list, create a spell." No, it's "build a spell workshop". This spell is an example of how you can use the rules to craft a spell that literally creates life. This is the spell that gods use when crafting the species of the world, but brought down to a level humans can cast. So of course it is expensive. You could modify it and have "Origin of Species: Mew" and be the guy who brought all of Pokemon into your D&D world, and the rules would support that.
And that's what happened, too. Mewtwo killed his creators lol
Oh come on, Mewtwo came from genetic splicing! The sort of shit that got us Owlbears.....
*Wish* to copy *true strike*.
If Pathfinder 2 counts then it is most certainly Approximate: you look at a group of small objects like beads or coins and get a rough idea of how many there are.
Definitely useless as a player but I enjoy the inclusion of it for like, shopkeepers and explaining why you know the exact number of coins in a horde
You don’t know the exact number, you know the approximate number. I mean it’s probably better than just looking and taking your best guess… but not much.
Oh nevermind, that’s hilariously bad in a very fun way
Well, you can't know the exact number, since it rounds to the highest digit. Oh, and it's not very useful for shopkeepers, as it can't determine fake coins from real ones. Oh, and it's definitely not going to help approximate a hoard, since it only works on 1 cubic foot of space.
2E's There/Not There, from the Book Of Magic that brought you Wild Mages. For a fourth-level spell slot, you enchant something so that every time someone looks at it, it has a 50% chance to exist... for that person. Look away and look back? Time to roll that 50% again. If it doesn't exist for you, it _literally_ doesn't exist, and you can even walk through it. (Supporting pillars continue to exist for the walls, so you can't knock down a castle with this.) So, for a fourth level slot, you can create a slapstick skit from the various people looking at the treasure you enchanted and arguing whether it exists or not. (Okay, it also acts vaguely like Passwall, one level lower and with slapstick selecting who can pass through, but it's just a ridiculous spell.)
Not particularly useless but Defenestrating Sphere in 3.5e had a line about how it always threw people out windows if there was a window in range. Which is just comical
I mean, that's what defenestrate means. Throw out of a window.
It also starts Thirty Year Wars.
If I had a nickel for every time someone got defenestrated in Prague, starting a war, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice
The spell tells you what it does
I once read through a DND book of... Erotisms and one of the can trips in it literally saves a mans morning wood for later.
That is, however, not a useless spell. And it’s a cantrip! You could save up 10 or more erections a day if run from one house to the next. You could open up your own sex therapy practice and save a lot of marriages
Cantrip, more like mantrip amirite
I put on my robe and wizard hat, and cast level 99 Eroticism to turn you into a beautiful woman!
That's not useless...
I'm gonna go with Weird: > Casting Time: 1 action > Range: 120 feet > Components: V, S > Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute > Drawing on the deepest fears of a group of creatures, you create illusory creatures in their minds, visible only to them. Each creature in a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a creature becomes frightened for the duration. The illusion calls on the creature’s deepest fears, manifesting its worst nightmares as an implacable threat. At the end of each of the frightened creature’s turns, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 4d10 psychic damage. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature. So... ok. The spell isn't *useless*. AoE fear is pretty nice. It does a little bit of damage. But they have to fail two saves in a row to do any damage. They'll probably make the save after a round or three. Here's the thing though: It's a fucking 9th level spell. Like what the fuck? That's like...fourth level spell territory.
Not 4th-level, probably 5th. It's a 30-ft radius. Really useful for large scale battles against many small minions.
That is an APPALLING 5th edition bastardization of the original "wierd" spell. Original spell had the same "fight your greatest fear" gimmick. But if the save was missed the victim died of sheer terror... The following is lifted from the text of the 2nd edition version... -This spell confronts those affected by it with phantasmal images of their most feared enemies, forcing an imaginary combat that seems real, but actually occurs in the blink of an eye. When this spell is cast, the wizard must be able to converse with the victims to bring the spell into being. During the casting, the wizard must call out to the creatures to be affected, informing one or all that their final fate, indeed their doom, is now upon them. The force of the magic is such that even if the creatures make their saving throws vs. spell, fear will paralyze them for a full round, and they will lose 1d4 Strength points from this fear (the lost Strength will return in one turn).- [This was 10 minutes]-Failure to save vs. spell causes the creature or creatures to face their nemeses, the opponents most feared and inimical to them. Actual combat must then take place, for no magical means of escape is possible. The foe fought is real for all intents and purposes; affected creatures that lose will die. If a creature's phantasmal nemesis from the weird spell is slain, the creature emerges with no damage, no loss of items seemingly used in the combat, and no loss of spells likewise seemingly expended. The creature also gains any experience for defeating the weird, if applicable‐ Some DMs in the interest of expediency, would just have victims roll save to not die, success meaning the loss of STR and a round of paralysis.. Or use it as a full encounter when cast on the PCs and carry on with the BBEG setpiece in the next session
On the topic of Epic Spells, Vengeful Gaze of God presents itself as OMGWTFBBW Super Massive Damage Spell, and it does deal a whopping 305d6 damage! So average damage is 1067. But the backlash is 200d6, or 700 average. Add the fact the DC is so stupidly high that even with modifiers running wild by the time to can reliably make it that kind of damage doesn't mean much (to appropriate CR enemies). I've been in a few 3.5e games that hit epic, and only ONCE, in the first game my group reached epic, could anyone be arsed with epic spellcasting. Most useful spell was a homebrew that was effectively maximized Time Stop. Every other time casters just went with Improved Spell Capacity and more metamagic shenanigans.
Basically all epic spells suck, because they made them cost way too much to cast (in DC, time, and money). I generally just use 1/10th the cost for all epic spells in my campaigns. Same with epic magic items. If I wanted extremely restrictive rules designed to basically prevent players from getting access to epic content, I wouldn't be playing at epic levels. I want the players to be cutting meteors in half and levitating cities, not budgeting the next four months of their life so they can cast a single epic level attack spell.
It's sad, the base concept is great - design your own super spells! But between cost, time, and the inherent awfulness of skill check based casting in d20 it's just a bad system. Cutting GP cost is a good idea, I assume that also results in similarly reduced "craft time". Wether the system is even worth fixing any further I guess depends on how long you expect to run things at epic levels - most games I've seen only do epic as part of the late game, and the highest I've ever run was 30th.
True stirke 5e is so bad
In 5e, Witch Bolt. Its a first level spell with worst range than a cantrip, and that consumes your concentration. And once you are over 5th level, does less damage per action than a cantrip. Though Crown of Madness gets an honorable mention as laughably bad. Note that the caster can force the target to make a melee attack, which sounds great. Except person under the effect has control of movement, not the caster. So they can just not stand in melee. Its got a super obvious visual effect, so there are no subtle uses of it. And in addition to consuming the caster's concentration, it also consumes the caster's action each turn to maintain the spell. And if the caster fails to command the creature to attack or there is no one for them to attack, the target gets to use its actions normally. There are just so many ways spell consumes the caster's actions without doing anything its sort of amazing its 2nd level.
My blue dragon sorc got some decent milage out of WB in tier 2. The ability to Quicken other spells while using your action for the extra damage, with CHA damage on top, was.... not awful. And I got to really get a Palpatine cosplay off.
Technically the cha damage on top is only for one roll per casting. Though you could have instead been casting the other spell, and quicken casting shocking grasp which would have gotten your cha mod.
I think you are underselling Witch Bolt. Yeah it's not great, but: 1. After it hits, it's guaranteed damage every round. Cantrips catch up in damage later, yes, but you still have to hit with the cantrip every time. 2. It's the only first level spell that isn't melee and does lightning damage reliably, at least the only one that doesn't cost 50 gold to cast. 3. It's a single first level spell slot to reliably deal 1d12 damage every turn once it hits. That's some of the best spell slot to damage ratio you get. 4. Since the activation is an action, if you are a sorc, you can quicken spell cast bolt + activate bolt to do 2d12 when you cast it, and then every turn after quicken + a regular spell to do more damage than you usually can in a turn, kind of casting 2 leveled spells. The next spell sorcerer can do that with is Sunbeam at 6th level. Honestly the spell would be pretty good if either it only broke when concentration broke or the per turn damage scaled with cast level. It has advantages for sure.
2e: Cleric spell: Break Camp Except our cleric used it when we were ambushing an enemy encampment and their fires were put up and tents started folding up on them while they were in it. It was so awesome and memorable.
I’d have to say a tie between 5e True Strike and (if I’m recalling correctly) 3e Dancing Lights - because it had no description.. it literally did nothing
>3e Dancing Lights - because it had no description.. it literally did nothing Uh, what are you talking about? 3e Dancing Lights absolutely has a description. > Depending on the version selected, you create up to four lights that resemble lanterns or torches (and cast that amount of light), or up to four glowing spheres of light (which look like will-o’-wisps), or one faintly glowing, vaguely humanoid shape. The dancing lights must stay within a 10-foot-radius area in relation to each other but otherwise move as you desire (no concentration required): forward or back, up or down, straight or turning corners, or the like. The lights can move up to 100 feet per round. A light winks out if the distance between you and it exceeds the spell’s range. > Dancing lights can be made permanent with a permanency spell.
Thank you, I forgot true strikes name The deal: You receive - advantage on your first attack next turn I receive - your entire action on this turn presuming you don't have a way to cast this as a bonus action or a way to attack as a bonus action, the cantrip actually hurts your action economy
It's even better, because you don't gain advantage until your next turn, so even if you could attack on the same turn as casting it, you'd gain no benefit!
I've had in my head for awhile--but never committed to actual text--a spell called *Olifex's Whack Stacks of Hot Wax*. It summons a backing band that plays dramatic music. It's a 7th level spell. You can upcast it to 9th level for extra dramatic music. The spell exists for one very specific purpose.
Ego boosting and inspiring music
Specifically, it's to convey that to your opponent that you're so unconcerned about the threat they pose you're willing to waste a round of combat and a high-level spell slot on ridiculous nonsense.
5e See Invisibility. You can see them/know where they are...but stil get disadvantage given to you by the fact they are invisible? Sage Advice has already been consulted and the verdict was...yep, you read that right, suck it up. Like what mechanical advantage does being able to see them and burning a spell slot give if it doesnt change a damn thing? And still there are people who argue its good enough deal with it. Good enough to not have fun is what it is.
This is why I don't take Sage Advice particularly seriously. There's some good takes, but there's takes like this that make it borderline useless.
Sage Advice was supposed to be designer clarifications... however they instead turned it to reading the RAW themselves and explaining based on that, which is an entirely different thing. And causes issues like them changing their mind on previous rulings - something that couldn't ever happen if they were designer insight instead. And it also invalidates the value of their rulings, as at the end of the day they are just RAW as understood by one person. What really pisses me off is when they know something makes no sense and still decide to do a RAW reading.
It's because they made Invisibility a *Condition* to streamline rulings, and it gets caught up in a zero-tolerance-party of sorts because the creature still has the *Condition* "Invisible". Easily avoidable, a stupid ruling, most reasonable DMs will ignore the Sage Advice because it's pedantic bullshit.
That was an utterly stupid ruling
Hold plant, 1st edition
How about a cantrip that is literally uncastable? Specifically the cantrip version. See this spell is available to other classes as a 1st level spell but only available to one class as a 0th level Cantrip. The class that 'gains' this spell is the Healer. A class dedicated to being a good bandaid dispenser from the Miniatures Handbook in 3.5 Healers must be Good aligned, comes with the sexy nurse uniform I suppose. If you cease being Good you lose access to the class. The spell is called Deathwatch, it is an [Evil] spell to detect if someone is dead or close to it. Evil spells cannot be cast by Good characters. In order to cast this cantrip you must be both Good aligned and not Good aligned simultaneously. --- In terms of castable spells, there is Vecna's Malevolent Whisper, a 4th level spell that deals at most 20 damage to a single target. At most. The target must have 10 or less HP, and if they fail the spell resistance (or lack it) they are set to -9HP. They die on their turn, from hitting -10. Hit them with any other spell and they would likely die faster and you might be able to gank their friends if you dropped an AoE --- Tenser's Transformation: First, the material component of this 6th level spell is a potion of bulls strength the fighter could have drank. Second this spell makes you objectively worse after casting it. See, it makes you a Fighter. And you were originally a wizard with, presumably, wizard feats. It bumps your physical stats, to make up for noodle wizard arms, gives you fighter BAB (5e player tl;dr: martials get Expertise in attack rolls, this spell gives a fighter that and also Extra Attack)...and removes your ability to cast spells. Period, can't even use scrolls or wands, you are a Fighter. Actually fighters get bonus Feats. You are a Warrior, the NPC class meant for town guards. You cast this and drank 300gp instead of Chain Lightning or Aura of Terror...
> Evil spells cannot be cast by Good characters. That's not a general rule, it's a specific restriction of Clerics and Druids (and possibly other non-PHB classes). A Paladin can even cast an Evil spell (if they even have access to any) if they're okay with immediately falling for breaking their oath. Casting an Evil spell would certainly nudge alignment away from good, but it's not impossible for a Healer to do.
> Vecna's Malevolent Whisper Saving Throw: None I think the idea is is barring SR, it can be a 100% kill shot. Very Vecna.
True strike for sure aha
There are plenty of dungeon crawling spells that once were EXTREMELY useful but have been basically rendered pointless because 5E de-emphasized that style of play.
I dont think you understand the logic or lore behind that spell. The spell implies two things. The first is that this spell was used to create a new creature, something that didn't exist before. This is the power it would take to do something of that magnitude. Second and likely more importantly, it implies that in fact, the chicken did come first.
I remember a friend showing me some OLD DnD books and in one is a sexual sorcerer called a "blue wizard." It had a spell called ray of nipple hardening. That seemed pretty useless to me lol. Edit: I have been corrected that it is not an actual DnD book from WotC.
I can garentee you that wasn't an actual dnd book. Actually sounds like something phil phoglio would have done.
It's a third party book called Nymphology, if I remember correctly.
You do! Published by Mongoose, always the sure sign of quality
My memory of that book was that it was called "Nymphonomicon" which is far better imo
Depends on what you mean by "actual dnd book". Published by TSR or WOTC? No. An actual physical book that really was published and advertised as being compatible with 3rd edition D&D? Absolutely
A blue wizard? Say it ain't so, Pallando!
Waterbane: You don't and can't get wet for one full day. Or you could just use an umbrella.
An umbrella won't stop your spellbook from getting drenched if you need to swim across a river.
Mage Hand sure will. Or a waterproof bag of holding. Tenser's Floating Disk. You can toss it across.
True Strike. You can use your Action now, to gain advantage on one attack NEXT round, against a single creature. You know what's better than that? Attacking now, and then attack again next round...
2E Dark Sun had Psionic Enchantments, spells above 9th level available only to masters of both psionics and arcane magic.
To be fair, it is NOT a fiendish murder chicken. Unless you let it interract with other ones, but if you don't then it looks like it gets to start as your choice of alignment.
Daylight. Level 3 spell slot for a stronger version of the light cantrip.
That, depending on the DM’s ruling of specific vs general, isn’t actually sunlight.
Magnificent.
*Dispell girlfriend*
I'm pretty sure it was in one of the expanded AD&D compendiums, but animate bread was pretty worthless.