# Your Favorite Spells And Their Creative Uses



## Diamond Cross (Jun 7, 2011)

As a Wizard, it's always best to find creative ways to use your spells.

Take for example, the spell _Mending_. It says you can use it to completely repair one object.

However, it doesn't place any other limitations on it, except that it doesn't restore magical abilities. So even though it doesn't ahve any offensive capabilities, it is actually one of the most useful and creatively used spell in the game.

For example, it doesn't matter how large the object is, it's just one object. While you probably wouldn't be able to fully repair a ship, you could conceivably repair a sail or some boards to stop a leak.

In playing DDO, one of my new favorite spells has become _Mass Charm Monster._ I especially like to cast it in large groups where there's enemy casters. The enemy caster usually makes his save, but then he's facing three to five additional enemies to fight including the party. So he's going to be hurt really good or be taken down. But After the fight you pretty much have to break the charm on one monster at a time, but it's fun to watch those monster turn on their former friend.

So, what other creative uses for your spells have you come up with?


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## Jimlock (Jun 7, 2011)

My best spell BY FAR is none other than the 1st lvl:

*SILENT IMAGE*

you can create an illusion of ANYTHING that comes to mind......


-Distract the guards.

-Scare someone away.

-Make someone follow a direction you wish.

-Make yourself or another stand in the midst of a dangerous situation and see how it turns out (perhaps it was a good idea you did not enter yourself!)

-Hide inside/behind the illusion

-Create false evidence (tricky one... but possible if there is a good excuse for the item not being there again... or when one cannot reach it)

-Create an illusion of yourself standing guard, while you are perched hidden upon a tree.

-Dazzle the crowd.

-Bring back the dead (tricky one too... _"but i swear i saw her among the mercenaries!_")

-Cover a trap/hole

-Make a trap appear and stop them from approaching

....


just a BRILLIANT spell...


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## Bullgrit (Jun 7, 2011)

When I was DMing a game:

The party sorcerer was always using _mending_ on the party gear. It was just a role-playing part he took up.

Seeing this pattern, I thought it would be neat if his _mending_ spell could be used for some actual, real in-game benefit. In one dungeon they were investigating, there was a small ceramic statue that had been shattered on the stone floor. If the statue was intact, it was a clue to a moderately dangerous trap later in the dungeon.

The sorcerer never even considered using _mending_ on the statue. In fact, the whole thing was dismissed as just worthless debris by the whole party.

<sigh>

Bullgrit


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## Pinotage (Jun 7, 2011)

I once has a rogue/wizard that was interogating another thief that was believed to be lying. She used the _dancing lights_ spell to create 4 lights which she called 'truth' balls. She then proceeded to ask the thief questions, winking one of the lights out everytime he answered a question and she believed he was lying. She rolled good on her Bluff check, the thief believed the balls where what she said they were, and she got the information she was after.

Pinotage


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## AeroDm (Jun 7, 2011)

In 3e the reduce spell wouldn't reverse if doing so would cause damage. I once had an evil villain capture and hold hostage a player (while he was away for several sessions) and use reduce and a collar with spikes pointing inwards to make it permanent. 

I also played a duskblade in a group for which dancing lights just wasn't going to be useful very often given their playstyle. I decided that each combat he finished by shooting dancing lights into the air while chanting the Final Fantasy victory chimes. About three sessions in, it became symbolic of the group's victory and it was sort of fun to see four guys trying to sing the FF chimes with poor rhythm.


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## nedjer (Jun 7, 2011)

Transmute Rock to Mud


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## Living Legend (Jun 7, 2011)

Enlarge/Shrink from 2e (or the name was close to that)

My favorite thing to do was cast reduce on a tree branch or step a bad guy was standing on, or shrink his sword or make his armor too big.  I remember in a high level campaign and evil wizard rolled some boulders down a mountain at us.  I shrunk it down to the size of fieldstone and we moved on, much to the chagrin of the DM, who thought that would screw us up a bit.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jun 7, 2011)

Yeah, Silent Image is grotesquely powerful, given a creative illusionist. (And I suspect players not interested in working out creative uses of illusions don't tend to play illusionists.)

A cantrip that can give effective mass invisibility -- everyone hugs the wall and the illusionist creates an identical wall right in front of them -- is amazing, and that's one of the least exciting uses of it.


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## Bleys Icefalcon (Jun 7, 2011)

My elven wizardress likes to polymorph opponants into lamp oil, throw a torch on the oil, count to ten, then cast dispell magic.

I've had many different adjudications as to what happens.  From severe 3rd degree burns head to toe, to the person coming back 1 size category smaller...

She likes to be cruel about her spells, she started out as a Neutral character, and has shifted to Neutral Evil.

She has written several spells in regards to partial disitegration, organ summoning, and versions of baleful teleport - where not the entire person teleports...


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## Ravilah (Jun 8, 2011)

Recently, in the game I'm running, the party needed an upstart lord to sign over his (supposed) right to his inheritance. They had vowed not to physically harm him, so the fighter had to use his rather mediocre Intimidate skill.

To give the fighter a situation bonus, the wizard _disguised self_ into a small, creepy child, then cast _mirror image_, and then had all these creepy children dance around the man, chanting.

I gave them a major bonus, because that would certainly creep _me_ out!


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## steeldragons (Jun 8, 2011)

Back in the day, I had a DM who was rather flexible when it came to spell descriptions. Preferring us to get creative and using more "cool" visuals than was sometimes portrayed in the actual description.

For example, remember the Jeff Dee picture on White Plume Mountain? The m-u is casting, what we all presumed to be, a "shield" spell to block the spikes of a manticore. It is (as was commonly seen in cartoons or comics) a visible circular barrier of, in this case, blue light.

If you'll remember, the shield spell in the original PH was simply an invisible barrier that stopped non-magical projectiles (and canceled out a magic missle spell IIRC.) But the "blue shield" coming out of the mage's hand was so much COOLER!

So, for us young teen comic/cartoon fans, that was what a shield spell looked like.  Spells more often had visual effects than not.

The one I recall best (and recall using the most) was Dimension Door.

In this game, it was not the instantaneous "ping" or "bamf" that took you from one place to another, but an actual visible round (or oval) doorway of light (or a swirling vortex, or whatever) that appeared and you could move through.

Now, you could just use it on/next to yourself and thus, effectively, jump from one place to another instantaneously. But it wasn't the only use.

My particular favorite (or at least the dusty memory that I still have) was casting it in the air, above the party, in front of an incoming giant-thrown boulder. Naturally, the "out" door was positioned for the boulder to hurtle back at the giants.

 heh heh. Yeah. That was a good one.

--SD


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## Wednesday Boy (Jun 8, 2011)

We played in a 2nd Ed. module with a scene in a fortress made entirely of ice.  At one point the hallway we needed to travel through sloped down steeply then up steeply and at the bottom of the dip was a pit full of ice spikes waiting to impale anyone who slipped into the pit.

My brother was playing a cleric and used Create Water to fill up the pit.  We waited until the water froze, then strolled across and avoided the spikes!


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## TarionzCousin (Jun 8, 2011)

Grease.

Many DM's take this spell as a personal challenge to create slapstick comedy as the monsters fall all over each other.


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## Starfox (Jun 9, 2011)

TarionzCousin said:


> Grease.
> 
> Many DM's take this spell as a personal challenge to create slapstick comedy as the monsters fall all over each other.




My first thought also. Useful for opening doors silently, lubricating mechanisms, and pulling heavy loads.


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## Bedrockgames (Jun 9, 2011)

Unseen servant has always been a great one for out of combat encounters. The possibilities with it are endless.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Jun 9, 2011)

steeldragons said:


> My particular favorite (or at least the dusty memory that I still have) was casting it in the air, above the party, in front of an incoming giant-thrown boulder. Naturally, the "out" door was positioned for the boulder to hurtle back at the giants.




Now you're thinking with portals.

Also ...



Spoiler



The pie is a lie.


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## Wednesday Boy (Jun 10, 2011)

Back when we were playing 2nd Ed., as a fun thought exercise our GM let our 8th-9th level characters face off against the tarrasque.  It was immune to our most powerful spells but we noticed that even though Badberries does only 1 damage for each 2d4 badberries you create, the tarraque would get no saving thrown from eating them.  Since the tarrasque "eats everything for miles around, including all animals and vegetation" we commissioned an expertly roasted cow, stuffed it with loads of badberries, and hid.  The tarrasque enjoyed the delicious meal we set before it and instantly dropped dead.

Then came dealing with the tarrasque's regeneration and fire immunity with only Melf's Acid Arrow available.  But that's another story altogether....

(Actually it's the same story but this post is getting too long.)


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## DMH (Jun 10, 2011)

Plant growth. Fungi are considered plants in 3.X and there are fungal spores everywhere. Plant growth plus entangle, animate plants, control plants, etc. means a druid in never far from armies of "vegetables".


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## Tuft (Jun 10, 2011)

I absolutely love the various polymorph and shapeshift spells; from "alter self" and upwards. I like how they can enable you to explore situations in new and interesting ways, and even better is if they are a bit tricky to get out of, so that you can explore new interesting _drawbacks_ tied to the new shape as well. ("Ok, now that you are a dog, how *do* you tell your friends about the advancing orcs?" - "Ok, you wanted to be a slime to get under the door - now, how do you climb the ladder?".) 

Unfortunately, they tend to be quick and easy with few drawbacks, and everybody and their mother can list a long litany of abuses and misuses... which is sad, because to me they are the epitome of magic and the pinnacle of sense of wonder.


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## Kaodi (Jun 10, 2011)

My favourite spell is possibly _Fabricate_. While it might be "creative" more often in an artistic sense, I bet you could use it to improvise in plenty of situations. Some might stretch the rules a bit, but I am sure you could find many great ones that do not. Imagine, for instance, the villain is escaping by climbing up a rope. While it may be strictly easier to sever the rope somehow above him, it would be much more interesting to fabricate a noose around his neck. Or, a boulder from a catapult could be turned into an anti-personnel weapon by fabricating it mid-air into a ton of fist-sized stone balls. Perhaps even a descending hail of arrows into a defensive shelter.


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## Enkhidu (Jun 10, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Unseen servant has always been a great one for out of combat encounters. The possibilities with it are endless.




Recently I used Unseen Servant to create a bunch of white noise on a burrowing creature with using tremorsense (by pounding on the ground away from our actual position). Saved my (and at least one other PC's) butt.


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## Bullgrit (Jun 10, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
			
		

> Now you're thinking with portals.



I can't give you xp again, but that is hilarious.

Bullgrit


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## Evilhalfling (Jun 12, 2011)

Best spell bar none ? _Mount_

... trap detector 
... cover 
... instant door blockage 
... distraction 
... a friend to talk (monolog) to. 
... quick cash (cast again to leave town before duration expires) 
... adding confusion to any social situation. 
... ladder 
... shark bait. 

if all else fails you can actually ride it. 

I played a sorcerer who would cast this spell multiple times per day. He used all but one of these.
He wanted to develop a variation "Rain of Horses" but never got around to it.


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## megamania (Jun 12, 2011)

Most creative use of "Animate Rope" I've ever seen......

Depanted a giant and his bag of rocks.

The distraction was enough for us to run for our lives.


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## megamania (Jun 12, 2011)

Evilhalfling said:


> Best spell bar none ? _Mount_
> 
> ... trap detector
> ... cover
> ...




....Shark Bait?!?     you are eeeeeeee-vil.


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## Evilhalfling (Jun 12, 2011)

megamania said:


> ....Shark Bait?!?     you are eeeeeeee-vil.




oh yeah baby, one small nick and the sharks are guaranteed to ignore you and go after the madly thrashing & bleeding horse.


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