Whee... some actual discussion. Nice.

Part 3: Spells

Since so far we mostly had expanded tables, we're only at page 11 yet. There's a lot more spells here than in Basic, but even so the chapter has only 8 pages in total.

There's a few new additions to the magic tules from Basic.

First is a small, but very important change. The rules for casting a spell are pretty much identical, but with the important difference that any player who wants to cast a spell has to declare so before initiative is rolled. Going by Basic, a character who got injured or failed a saving throw during the enemy turn would simply not cast a spell that round at all. Now that he has to declare it first, the spell might actually get wasted and lost for the day when he gets hit. Looking very closely, both the Basic and Expert set had their first printing (from which these pdfs are scanned) in January 1981 (even though the cover says 1980). So I don't believe this is an errata to fix an error in the Basic set, but it had been deliberately left out of the Basic rules. Which would be the very first nice thing I've seen 1st level wizards getting.
However, the change here in the Expert Set is extremely easy to miss if you assume that the paragraph is identical to the one in the Basic Set and I think this is a really important thing that should be made very clear.

Regarding preparation of spells, it also now says explicitly that wizards and elves need to have their spellbook to prepare them. Spellbooks were mentioned in Basic, but there wasn't really any more detail about them.
If a spellbook is lost, it can be replaced, but that requires 1000 gp and 1 week of work for every spell level. Which is a huge undertaking once you get to higher levels, but nothing indicates that you would need the help of another wizard or hunt down scrolls of all your spells to get them into your new book.

The book assumes that all wizards or elves have a master or are members of a guild and every time they gain a new level they have to visit for a week to get trained in new spells. "Either the player or the DM may choose any new spells." as it has been before. But I think there now seems to be much less of an encouragement to have the DM do it. Since the players can be expected to have figured out how the game works, that makes sense.
The number of spells that wizards and elves know is identical to the number of spells they can prepare. Which seems reasonable enough. Once you're no longer 1st level!

The big new thing here are reversed spells. Wizards need to prepare the spell in either regular or reversed. Clerics get a lot more versatility this way, but wizards also benefit since they can essentially get two new spells in their spellbook for the price of one.
Reversed cleric spells are a bit weird. Clerics prepare all their spells normally and can cast them either in regular or reversed order, but the book also says that this is only appropriate for life and death situations. Lawful clerics should always use the regular version and Chaotic clerics always the reversed version. Which I think makes very little sense. Light and darkness are both great spells for any cleric and why wouldn't a Chaotic cleric want to get his allies and minions patched up to be ready for battle again? And also, since when has Chaos become mustache twirling evil? In Basic there was some ambiguity about Law and Chaos being only kind of like good and evil, but here it seems very heavy handed. If you allow clerics to use whatever version of their prepared spells they like, this becomes a really cool ability. Alternativly, a GM could decide to not cast in reverse but instead only prepare in reverse like wizards do.
I can see why Cook did it, but it's a bit too simplistic black and white for me. It doesn't encourage roleplaying, it impedes it. Also, this is the first time I actually saw alignment having an effect on anything in this game.

A short note informs that there is no spell stacking. Two haste spells at once do the same thing as one haste spell. However, spell effects do stack with magic item effects. The example given is an interesting one, being about the +1 to hit rolls from the bless spell and a +1 sword. It's quite important to note that it says "spells that affect the same ability will not combine". They don't have to be the same spell. Even if two different spell both get you +1 to hit, you still get only a +1, not a +2.

Cleric Spells
Cure light wounds can be reversed to cause light wounds. It deals 2-7 damage now and still requires to touch the target with a regular attack roll, which doesn't really sound useful at all for a guy who can use a mace.

Light can be reversed to darkness, which blocks all sight, but not infravision. Which is quite different from the 3rd edition spell.

Remove fear can be reversed to cause fear, which makes a single creature flee for 20 minutes. And that is any creature that does not explicitly have immunity against fear, which I believe none in B/X have. It also can be cast at a range of 120 feet, which is really pretty damn good for a 1st level spell.

Bless can also be reversed to blight, but that makes very little sense as it can only be cast on creatures not in melee combat and affects all enemies within 60 feet of the cleric. I guess you could hit archers and spellcasters in confined rooms, but still...

Snake charm is a new 2nd level spell and I have no idea why anyone would ever prepare it. All this spell does is to make snakes with Hit Dice equal to the clerics level stay in place motionless for 20-50 minutes or 2-5 rounds if in combat. Sure, poison is scary, but how often do you expect to run into snakes?

Continual light can also be reversed to continual darkness, which does just that and also blocks infravision, which makes it pretty cool. There's lots of fun to be had with these in the lair of a Chaotic cleric.

Cure disease is a wonderful spell as it will really heal anything from lycanthropy to mummy rot and even green slime (more on that nasty stuff later). Reversing it to cause disease is quite nasty. The victim heals hit points at only half the normal rate and cure wounds spells won't work at all, and after 2-24 days the person dies. A cure disease spell is the only way to remove it.

Looking at the other 3rd level spells, growth of animal might actually be a spell for clerics to consider. It doubles the size of an animal and also doubles its carrying capacity and damage for 2 hours. Using it to get treasure home seems rather lame though, but it probably something you can have endless fun with if you get the right pet to follow you around.

Striking increases the damage of a weapon by +1d6 for 1 turn. Which in this game is really quite a lot. Two days ago I made a 10th level party to test out some homebrew monsters I made and even with all their nice gear most of them did only 1d8+2 damage or less. Getting another 1d6 to that is no joke.

Create water is what d20 players would call "extremely abusable". It creates a small spring from the ground that creates (quick conversion to sensible units) 189 liters of water per day. And for every cleric level above 8th it produces an additional 189 liters per day. Every day! Because this thing lasts forever until someone casts dispel magic on it. I think this is great. It won't kill anyone instantly, but can lead to very interesting results in the long term. By which I mean "terrible consequences".

At 4th spell level, the cleric also gets cure serious wounds which heals double the amount than cure light wounds does. Which isn't cool at all, but with limited spell slots and no official rule to put spells into higher level slots, you might have to take what you can get. No mention if this one can also remove paralysis, but it would be strange if it didn't.

Neutralize poison is also a really nice spells in this game. If you cast it within 10 rounds after a person was killed by poison, he is fine again with no damage at all. Since almost all poison is instant kill, this is pretty much necessary to make the spell useful at all.

Protection fro Evil 10' radius works just like protection from evil, but now includes everyone within 10 feet of the cleric. +1 to saves and AC against enemies with an alignment opposite to the clerics, which isn't too bad, given that it has a duration of 2 hours. It also can keep "enchanted and summoned" creatures at bay, though the only explicit examples given are elementals and living statues. Undead don't appear to be included in that group. If anyone inside the area attacks one of these creatures with melee attacks, that one creature can get inside the area. Which still leaves a lot of options to rain doom upon those enemies while being pretty safe.

Sticks to snakes turns 2d8 sticks into snakes that obey the clerics commands. Someone had a thing with clerics and snakes here.

Dispel evil seems pretty powerful, but it's 5th level after all. When the spell is cast, all enchanted or undead creatures within 30 feet must make a saving throw or be instantly destroyed or banished. If they make their save, they still have to flee out of the spells area. If the cleric stands still and does nothing else, he can keep the effect going for 10 minutes. If cast on a specific creature, it gets a -2 penalty to its saving throw. This is pretty heavy stuff. This thing can one-shot a vampire.

Not sure what they were thinking with insect plague. It creates a swarm of insects 60 feet in diameter that can move to anywhere within 480 feet of the cleric as long as the cleric concentrates on it and does nothing. The only thing the insects actually do is drive off creatures with 1 or 2 HD. You could probably use it to chase some guards away from their post for a few minutes without raising an alarm, but for a 5th level spell that seems rather underwhelming, and you'd need to know that you'll use it like that in advance to consider preparing it.

And of course, the famous raise dead. The time limit after death is 4 levels for every level above 7th. A raised character has only 1 hp and can not fight and this condition remains for 2 weeks. Cast against undead it's instead death unless a saving throw is made. If reversed to finger of death, it has the same effect on the living. The 120 feet range is probably about these later uses, but there are probably some situation where you might want to raise someone from a good distance away. Since the target is super weak, you can't use it to make a giant trojan dire boar out of an actual dire boar that comes to life once inside the camp, but there's surely other ways to have fun with it.
Unlike other editions, there is nothing like a cost in magic substances or a long casting time or anything like that. You could cast it every day, as long as long as you have fresh corpses. And you can also revive people against their will, which might have interesting applications.

Wizard spells
Haste is wonderful, and as some might say, completely broken. A range of 240 feet doesn't really matter, though it might be useful in some reasons. What it does is to double the movement speed and number of attacks. Of 24 creatures! For 30 minutes!!! You can not cast two spells per round or use two wands, but it's still an extremely powerful support spell. Get yourself 24 archer mercenaries and unleash feathered hell. Yes, their attack rolls are weak, but you get 48 arrows per round and on top of that they also run 60 feet per round, unless they start right next to an enemy. If they do end up next to an enemy somehow, they can then spend a round to get away 180 feet, which almost no enemy can cover in one round.
Dispel magic will easily remove it, but only in a 20x20 feet area so if they spread out after the spell is cast it won't help much. If you have your party fighters going toe to toe with a caster or casting monster, that's a bit more of an issue. But against hordes of relatively small creatures, this spell is wonderful. And available to 5th level wizards.

Invisibility 10' radius works just like invisibility, but the objects and other creatures remain invisible as long as they stay within 10 feet of the target of the spell. If anything moves outside that area, it becomes visible and stays visible. That is still a 6m diameter sphere and you can get a lot of people inside that space. The players would need to get creative with figuring out how to stay together while being unable to see each other.

This version of lightning bolt is the bouncing back kind. It will go for 60 feet and turn into the direction of the caster if it hits a wall, but very interestingly it is not shot from the casters hand. The bolt can originate from anywhere within 180 feet of the caster so it's very easy to not get hit by it, as long as you're not in small and narrow rooms. You need at the very least 30 feet of empty space in any direction from you to cast it safely and inside buildings and dungeons that quite often might not be the case. But there's probably a lot of funny things you could do with being able to pick the point of origin and then somehow using the back bounce to your advantage.

Now you might understand why protection from normal missiles is a thing. Getting shot by normal missiles is the main thing that can interrupt a spellcaster and ruin his spell. With a duration of 2 hours, it's something probably every wizard wants. But at 3rd level, it's going to take a pretty precious spell slot.

Growth of plants makes an area of 3000 square feet (280 mē) of normal brush or woods to become overgrown with vines and briars. The spell lasts until dispelled, and the duration is given as "special", not as permanent. Which I assume means that it is meant to be impossible to cut, it will just grow back. The area covered by the plants becomes impassable to all but the largest creatures. That might sound excessive for vines and briars, but here on the edge of town where I live we have lots of huge brushes of blackberries. These are not like normal berry brushes. The best analog I can think of is a huge ball of very tightly knotted barbed wire. The neat little rows in your grandmothers garden may not look so bad, but when it grows wild it will just spread out like kudzu. Razor wire kudzu. Since it's elastic, you can't really chop a path or rip it out either. This is a good sized patch, now imagine 280 square meters of this.
If someone casts this on area you currently stand in, you probably really wouldn't be able to get out at all.

Hallucinatory terrain creates the issules of a terrain feature or can conceal such a feature from sight. The range is 240 feet, which could be useful to play tricks on enemies, and the illusion lasts until touched by an intelligent creature. You could hide cave entrances like that for a very long time, assuming rabits and deer don't count as intelligent.

Polymorph others can transform a creature into any other creature, as long as it does not have more than twice as many Hit Dice as the original. Hit points do not change, but the target gets all special abilitie. It will start to think and act like a creature of that type so using it on your allies requires some very careful thinking. Turning someone into a stone giant shouldn't be a problem, but turning him into a troll is asking for trouble. The spell lasts until it is dispelled, which potentially makes it a really powerful buff. Of course, you also can turn an enemy into a fish and watch him die where he stands. ...flops.

Polymorph self seems outright inferior in every way, except that it automatically ends after two to three hours without requiring a dispel magic spell and it allows you to assume very exotic forms while keeping your own mind in its normal state. But you don't gain any special abilities. You only gain the appearance and purely normal physical abilities. You can't even use your own spells while in this form. Flying around as a dragon and having huge teeth might be cool, but I would probably cast polymorph others on myself, turn myself into a gold dragon, and have all the fun with its breath and gold dragon spells. I believe there are a lot of assumptions in polymorph others that are not actually explained. Maybe they mean the target gets completely identical stats to the creature and hit points being the only thing that does not change. You can't turn yourself into a stone giant wizard, just an ordinary stone giant with no special powers at all. Which makes sense as a game mechanic, but not when you think of it narratively.

Cloudkill is strange. Any creature with 4 Hit Dice or less must make a save or die. If they make a save they take only 1 point of damage. Anyone with 5 HD or more just takes 1 damage per round and that is it. Which is incovenient for wizards who don't have many hp and can't cast spells, but for fighters, dwarves, and clerics there isn't really any reason to not just walk right in and bash everyone dead who isn't already.

Conjure elemental is fun. It conjures an elemental that stays controlled by the wizard for as long as the wizard concentrates. The spell ends when the wizard sends it back or when it is killed. The wizard can move only at half speed while maintaining control and can neither fight nor cast other spells. And when he gets injured or fails a saving throw, he will also lose control. The elemental will then try to kill the wizard and fight its way through everyone in its path. Summoning one without an active protection from evil spell is quite the risk, especially when summoning it anywhere near enemies. But the payoff is nice. These things are 16 HD behemoths that can seriously wreck everyones day.

Death spell is exactly what it says on the tin! It will kill 4 to 32 HD of creatures with up to 8 HD each. The target area is a 60 feet cube and if you can't select your prefered targets it's not exactly a precision tool. But if you absolutely, positively... you know.

Invisible stalker might even be meaner than conjure elemental. Not nearly as strong as an air elemental, but these guys are completely invisible. You summon one, give it a task, and then it will be on its way and do it, no matter how long it will take. Of course they hate doing that for mortal wizards and so regularly try to find a way to perform their orders will still resulting in major inconvenience for the caster.

Lower water and part water seem like jokes. Lower water has a pretty big area, but all it does is lower the water level by half for 100 minutes. When would you ever want to prepare that if you could prepare disintegrate or conjure elemental instead? Part water lasts for one hour and creates a 10 feet wide path to walk along the bottom of a river or lake. But it only has a length of 120 feet, which is barely enough to cross a lower mid-size river. You can collapse it at will, so you might use it as a trap, but I doubt many enemies would attempt to risk it because it would be pretty obvious that exactly this kind of thing could happen to them.

Even though wizards only get 12 spells for each of their 6 levels and clerics only 6 for their five levels (8 for 1st and 2nd), there's still quite a lot being offered here. The cleric list might look rather underwhelming to anyone who played a CoDzilla as there aren't any self-buffs except bless and striking, but if you think a bit outside the box and approach problem solving in other ways than combat, there still is a decent numbers of options there.
I am not a fan of the D&D magic system and have been using alternative magic systems for years (mostly based on the wonderful Expanded Psionic Handbook for 3rd edition), but as they go, this one looks pretty okay. If you have to play with spell slots, these spells are very nice options to fill them with.