[3.5] Artifact Level Wand

[Thurbane]

So, hypothetical question: say I was introducing a new artifact to my campaign. It once belonged to an ancient arch-mage.

The wand's primary power, is that it can cast eight 9th spells per day: one from each major school of magic (excluding Universal; so Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy and Transmutation). It doesn't follow the normal wand rules, it is a wand in form only. It can activate each individual spell once per day.

If you were to pick one 9th level spell from each of these schools, what would you pick as the spell that best embodies that particular school? As Wish is a Universal spell, it will not be counted as any other school for this exercise, obviously.

Here's what I'm leaning to so far, from core only:

Abj: Prismatic Sphere
Con: Gate
Div: Foresight
Enc: Dominate Monster
Evo: Meteor Swarm
Ill: Shades
Nec: Energy Drain
Trn: Shapechange

...but I'm thinking there are probably better spells out there from splat books that embody each school.

What would your picks be? [edit] Sorry, didn't make it clear, they must be Sor/Wiz spells. [/edit]

Obviously this is a theoretical McGuffin at this point, and the party wouldn't have a chance to get their hands on it until near the end of the game.

Like most artifacts, it would also come with some serious drawbacks when it was used.

Cheers - T

[Efrate]

As nice as prismatic sphere is I'm a fan of maw of chaos. 1d6 per cl, no cap, untyped damage, 15 ft rd. Of effect at medium range, lasts for 1 round a level, very fun to fluff what it actually looks like, will or be dazed, not mind effecting despite the dazed condition, and any concentration needing effect needs a dc 25 plus spell lvl to work.

It's not much reprensenative of the school of abjuration, it's very atypical but fun. Check treantmonks spell lists for the other schools, I know there are better evocations. Shapechange shades and gate are about as good as it gets but you do have other options.

[Nifft]

Abj: Prismatic Sphere
Con: Gate
Div: Foresight
Evo: Meteor Swarm
Ill: Shades
Nec: Energy Drain
Trn: Shapechange

I expect Shapechange to remain unchallenged.

Gate is pretty great if you get to ignore the XP component.

For the others, my candidates would be:

Abj: Absorption, Disjunction, and Reaving Dispel

Div: there are two other 9th level choices: Hindsight and Eye of Power, so Foresight is probably your best bet.

Evo: Chain Contingency from Tome & Blood? Crushing Fist of Spite from the Book of Vile Darkness? Hmm. The best 3.5e spell might be Reality Maelstrom.

Ill: Ice Assassin ought to be banned, so Superior Invisibility.

Nec: Astral Projection is also core -- and is amazing -- and frankly I can't see anything better in the splats. So Astral Projection.

[Thurbane]

Those are good suggestions, but I should point out that as well as raw power, I'm also looking for a spell that showcases the "feel" of the school, hence why I'd favor Energy Drain over Astral Projection.

[Falontani]

Abj: Prismatic Sphere
Con: Gate
Div: Foresight
Evo: Meteor Swarm
Ill: Shades
Nec: Energy Drain
Trn: Shapechange

Reaving Dispel
Black Blade of Disaster or Elemental monolith
Eye of Power
Programmed Amnesia (or mindrape if you'd prefer)
Bigby's Crushing Hand (although meteor swarm is great)
Shades is good
Plague of Undead sounds cooler
Frostfell is a good alternative to shapechange if you dont want him abusing polymorph

Every time you use it, it slowly uses programmed amnesia (or mindrape) on you to turn you into a copy/slave of the powerful mage that created it

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think you have a good set there. Dominate monster is a good Enchantment spell. Meteor swarm is a bit boring, maybe pick prismatic deluge (modify Abjuration to effulgent epuration if two prismatic effects is too much). Astral projection for Necromancy? More powerful, but less negative energy.

[Thurbane]

I think you have a good set there. Dominate monster is a good Enchantment spell. Meteor swarm is a bit boring, maybe pick prismatic deluge (modify Abjuration to effulgent epuration if two prismatic effects is too much). Astral projection for Necromancy? More powerful, but less negative energy.

Cool.

And thanks for mentioning Enchantment (you as well Falontani), can't believe I forgot it in the OP!

[Nifft]

Those are good suggestions, but I should point out that as well as raw power, I'm also looking for a spell that showcases the "feel" of the school, hence why I'd favor Energy Drain over Astral Projection.

Astral Projection gives you a disposable body, while your real body rests helplessly somewhere else.

That means Astral Projection is kinda like an advanced version of Magic Jar, much in the same manner that Energy Drain is an advanced version of Enervation.

The feel of Necromancy is unfortunately a number of distinct and separate things.
- Negative energy themed debuffs (chill touch, waves of exhaustion, enervation)
- Body swapping & copying (magic jar, clone, astral projection)
- [Death] effects (finger of death, wail of the banshee)
- Making & handling the undead (animate dead, create undead, command undead, halt undead)

-- -- --

Anyway, for Evocation, how about Invoke Magic (from Lords of Madness).

[Kelb_Panthera]

@Nifft

Simulacrum is illusion, not necro.

[Efrate]

Detonate is a great flavorful evocation. It's not awful but it's the kind of thing you expect an evoker to do.

Soulbind is a thematic necromancer spell, use on the target you detonate.

Reaving dispell and absorption are great abjurations that fit the school theme.

Choose destiny from the destiny domain is a great divination though you need to pick up the domain somehow, though it's not hard. You can get foresight with shapechanging into an air elemental weird.

[Nifft]

@Nifft

Simulacrum is illusion, not necro.

Thanks, I'll edit.

[Bohandas]

Programmed Amnesia for enchantment, definitely

[Thurbane]

OK, so based on feedback here, and some additional searching myself, these are the options I'm considering:

Abj: Absorption / Disjunction / Prismatic Sphere / Reaving Dispel
Con: Gate / Greater Dragon Ally / Summon Elemental Monolith
Div: Eye of Power / Foresight / Hindsight
Enc: Dominate Monster / Programmed Amnesia
Evo: Crushing Fist of Spite / Detonate / Invoke Magic / Meteor Swarm
Ill: Shades / Weird
Nec: Astral Projection / Energy Drain / Plague of Undead
Trn: Shapechange / Timestop

...I'm considering ruling out spells with an XP cost or expensive focus.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Some of those are very decidedly more powerful than others. I agree that it might be best to just outright discard the ones with XP components out of hand. They're so much more obviously potent than other spells that even WotC devs saw a need to put a major restriction on their use. You should probably also drop crushing fist of spite over its disease component.

That out of the way, I'd probably go with these;

Abjuration; absorption fits the school's generally defensive nature better than the other options, IMO.

Conjuration; conjuration is hard to encapsulate in a single spell but I'd go with black blade of disaster; it's a creation made of fluctuating planar forces.

Divination; foresight really is hard to argue with.

Enchantment; programmed amnesia is the ultimate expression of mental manipulation. (Mindrape is slightly better mechanically but is also slightly off because of having fewer options for change.)

Evocation; while there are better spells from a mechanical standpoint, meteor swarm is just too iconic to ignore.

Illusion; shades stands alone here. It perfectly encapsulates the idea of bending reality through perception.

Necromancy; astral projection is probably the most useful option and it -does- capture the essence of manipulating life-force that is a major aspect of the school. Plague of undead flat out nails the association between the school and its affect on the world in the minds of most people though. I'd go steal protection but this one is really tough to call.

Transmutation; shapechange fits the bill to a tee but it'll also break your game over its knee. Timestop is good but have you considered undermaster or dragonshape?

[Afgncaap5]

Coming at this from another direction, do you know if a character other than the players will be using the wand before hand? Like, would there be some sort of notable story beats you could use to help you make the wand?

Like, it's not a 9th level spell, but the spell Binding is super flavorful and notable among the upper-level Enchantment spells. Shrinking something to fit into a bottle or creating a hedge of mazes might not, on the surface, scream Enchantment, but the ethereal, dream-like quality of it suggests a kind of powerful fairy magic. (And if nothing else, hey, putting someone to sleep for one year per caster level or making it impossible to leave a hedge maze by one's own power are the kind of enchantments you get from the big bads in fairy tales. If you want a villain to do something showy like that, there's a few lower-level spells you might want to consider (or even homebrew if you want an effect that doesn't currently have a spell.)

[Jormengand]

The spells which I most readily associate as emblematic of their schools are disjunction, gate, foresight, dominate monster, meteor swarm, weird, energy drain and shapechange. I think also that some of the others might be mistaken for being in another school to those who aren't familiar with them - it would be easy to mistakenly think prismatic sphere was an evocation or an illusion, or that astral projection was an illusion and, well, is copying conjurations really archetypally illusion? Certainly, when I think ninth-level abjuration, I think disjunction. When I think 9th-level evocation, I think meteor swarm. And so on for the other schools as I've already listed.

[noob]

So, hypothetical question: say I was introducing a new artifact to my campaign. It once belonged to an ancient arch-mage.

The wand's primary power, is that it can cast eight 9th spells per day: one from each major school of magic (excluding Universal; so Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy and Transmutation). It doesn't follow the normal wand rules, it is a wand in form only. It can activate each individual spell once per day.

If you were to pick one 9th level spell from each of these schools, what would you pick as the spell that best embodies that particular school? As Wish is a Universal spell, it will not be counted as any other school for this exercise, obviously.

Here's what I'm leaning to so far, from core only:

Abj: Prismatic Sphere
Con: Gate
Div: Foresight
Enc: Dominate Monster
Evo: Meteor Swarm
Ill: Shades
Nec: Energy Drain
Trn: Shapechange

...but I'm thinking there are probably better spells out there from splat books that embody each school.

What would your picks be? [edit] Sorry, didn't make it clear, they must be Sor/Wiz spells. [/edit]

Obviously this is a theoretical McGuffin at this point, and the party wouldn't have a chance to get their hands on it until near the end of the game.

Like most artifacts, it would also come with some serious drawbacks when it was used.

Cheers - T

According to the rules of item creation it is comparable to an epic item with each of those ninth level spell as an unlimited use spell restrained to one use per day(according to the weird pricing rules of dmg).
So that artifact is somehow not that much artifact-y (the coolest artifacts are characterized by having unique effects such as the sphere of annihilation who makes stuff stop existing or the deck of campaign annihilation who is more reliable at killing campaigns than ninth level spells(because somehow when a player have ninth level spells he will use them to its advantage and the gm will ban the overpowered uses of those spells or ban them depending on the situation))

[Nifft]

The spells which I most readily associate as emblematic of their schools are disjunction, gate, foresight, dominate monster, meteor swarm, weird, energy drain and shapechange. I think also that some of the others might be mistaken for being in another school to those who aren't familiar with them - it would be easy to mistakenly think prismatic sphere was an evocation or an illusion, or that astral projection was an illusion and, well, is copying conjurations really archetypally illusion? Certainly, when I think ninth-level abjuration, I think disjunction. When I think 9th-level evocation, I think meteor swarm. And so on for the other schools as I've already listed.

I think you're largely correct.

Just to torpedo my own idea... another illusion spell that's quite similar to Astral Projection is Project Image, and frankly Project Image is way more iconic than Astral Projection.