Best Use of Spells Ever

[Mithral88]

Everyone who plays D&D has probably seen some creative uses of spells, either as the DM or a player, or was the one who thought it up. I'm curious to know, what are your stories?

On another note, what spells are your favorite and/or which ones do you think the best and most useful?

[Redshirt Army]

I'll hold off on talking about Prestidigitation because everyone loves that spell.

I really like how versatile Grease can be - beyond the standard use, there's all kinds of stuff making surfaces slippery can do (oiling a hinge, setting up a trap, quieting clockwork).

I once used Mage Hand to help load cannonballs in a naval setting...

[Alleran]

I really like how versatile Grease can be - beyond the standard use, there's all kinds of stuff making surfaces slippery can do (oiling a hinge, setting up a trap, quieting clockwork).

Or quieting armour that would otherwise be preventing the party from moving quietly.

The female paladin didn't really appreciate being dunked in grease/oil/whatever, though. The rest of us found the mental image hilarious.

[BlueInc]

I'm playing in a game as a LN hobgoblin cleric. There was a dwarf NPC who was trying to get a tax passed on all funds acquire through adventuring. I fought tooth and nail against it.

The day before the town took a vote on the tax, two of our party members distracted and charmed the poor dwarf in a bar while there was a big town meeting to argue the tax. He finally stumbled into, drunk, distraught, a half hour late, barely comprehensible.

I cast Command on him. The DM let me choose my one-word phrase to be "Vomit."

That poor dwarf.

[Vangor]

Cover a target in ferrous dust and fabricate a multi-pointed object inside of them. Stumbled upon the idea when successive rereads of fabricate lead us to the fact Magneto could not draw the iron out of a guardsman via this spell. Our use in no way transmutes a creature, only shifts things around.

[blazingshadow]

i have read before that some have used chained amanuencis to copy all the popular and important books and documents in many libraries, put the copies into a few bags of holding and moved from city to city to start a borders-like chain of bookstores around the world. all this to retire the wizard from adventuring and make a fortune to fund his research

[Necroticplague]

A book full of explosives runes+ a rune on the cover that activates scholars touch when touched. You touch the cover, you are forced to read all of the explosive runes inside, you get blown sky-high.

[QuidEst]

A book full of explosives runes+ a rune on the cover that activates scholars touch when touched. You touch the cover, you are forced to read all of the explosive runes inside, you get blown sky-high.

Scholar's Touch is a personal spell, though, isn't it? Anyways, a DM have a problem with the "magical book" exception.

If there's a way to get around the range of personal, though (I don't know, pretty new to this- I'd love to hear it if there is), and depending on the DM's sense of humor, you could use the compiled "Twilight" series and get a 1st level touch-activated Symbol of Insanity on the cheap. XP

[hisnamehere]

Alleran: :nitpick: While grease would quiet the scraping of the metal pieces of armor against one another, a lot of armor noise comes from the approximation/clanking of two or more pieces of metal against one another, which would not be reduced through use of grease.

Redshirt Army: That said, I love grease, too, and will always be looking for new ways to use it.

[Alleran]

Alleran: :nitpick: While grease would quiet the scraping of the metal pieces of armor against one another, a lot of armor noise comes from the approximation/clanking of two or more pieces of metal against one another, which would not be reduced through use of grease.

Realism? In oil-covered D&D?!

[Yuki Akuma]

Flesh to Stone > Rock to Mud > Purify Water > Desicate.

Try recovering from that.

[Malimar]

Stone to Flesh > Rock to Mud > Purify Water > Desication.

Try recovering from that.

That sequence would have very little effect on a living creature, aside from the effects of desiccate. If you started it out with flesh to stone, on the other hand...

[Yuki Akuma]

That sequence would have very little effect on a living creature, aside from the effects of desiccate. If you started it out with flesh to stone, on the other hand...

I have no idea why you're misquoting me.

>.>

<.<

[HalfDragonCube]

Spymaster's Coin has a variety of uses.

How deep is that dark pit and what is one the bottom? *Light* *Pings coin down*

And Blockade.

Oh no! Some kind of monster devours anything that steps on the sand? *Makes stepping stones*

[mikeygoround]

The stone to flesh/rock to mud/purify water/dessication thing sound good, but won't work per RAW. Rock to mud only works on natural, unworked stone and purify water only purifies water, not mud. That said, if you DM goes for it, you have a winner there!

[blackjack217]

wall of force in front of a flying dragon.

[Veyr]

At some point mud becomes dirty water, though. You just keep diluting it until your DM says it qualifies. He has to allow it at some point since otherwise Purify Water has no purpose.

Less sure about Rock to Mud though.

[Delcor]

I once used Mage Hand to help load cannonballs in a naval setting...

I believe mage hand can only lift 5lbs. and I'm no sailor, but I believe cannonballs weigh more than that.

Also (credit of this one goes to my dad but I thought it was cool) him and his party were on a floating chesssboard in the abyss, and in the edition they were playing (it may have been 3.0 or 3.5) they cast create water on the death knight they were facing, who happened to have a freezing aura, thus freezing the death knight in a solid block of ice, and then sliding him off the chessboard, high level mob, killed by cantrip

[Macloud]

heat metal + metal shield

now you can cook your food and have a handy heat source for when its too dangerous to have an open fire.

[Anxe]

Some cannonballs are around 5 pounds. It would be a pretty small cannon though.

I have, unfortunately, never had any good creative uses of spells in my days of D&D. At least ones that I remember...

[Cruiser1]

The spell Acorn of Far Travel has many interesting (ab)uses. My favorite: (Greater) Plane Shift to Ysgard, cast the spell there, put the magic acorn in your pocket, then return to whatever plane you were adventuring upon. Because of the acorn, you're considered to be under its tree, and hence on Ysgard. If you die, you'll automatically receive True Resurrection within 24 hours. It's a way to guarantee you'll always come back from the dead (without having to cough up 5K, 10K or 25K in diamonds) and also never lose XP if you die.

[jguy]

Stone Shape + Shrink Object. Given enough downtime and a mountain side, carve out stone cubes weighing tons and shrink them down to a pebble. Fly above enemies, drop the pebble, and let it grow back again. My DM stopped this tactic after two shots. One squished a bunch of frost wolves, the next a bunch of Hill Giants.

For those of the forums with really good math skills, what is the kinetic force of 80,000 pounds of stone hitting the earth at terminal velocity?

[Yuki Akuma]

For those of the forums with really good math skills, what is the kinetic force of 80,000 pounds of stone hitting the earth at terminal velocity?

About 20d6 points of damage.

[Veyr]

It's 20d6 to the falling object, but a lot more than that to the Earth.

[Yuki Akuma]

It's 20d6 to the falling object, but a lot more than that to the Earth.

Nope, falling objects deal a maximum of 20d6 damage too.

Plus, the Earth gets a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid it.

[jguy]

It's 20d6 to the falling object, but a lot more than that to the Earth.

Actually if you go by complete warrior, its 5d6 for the first 400 pounds and another 1d6 per 200 pounds after, not just capping at 20d6. I can't remember what it ended up at, but it was over 400d6. Also, I meant in real world physics, how much energy something of that size would release.

[Aron Times]

It's 20d6 to the falling object, but a lot more than that to the Earth.

A dozen catgirls just died.

[Stix]

may not have been useful but i played a bard with a habit of casting percussin, fog, ghost lights and mage hand (rapidly open and close a bullseye lantern for strobe effect) to turn taverns into raves then charging for admission.

gnome wizard dimension doored over an entire invading drow army to be sitting on top of their general. says hi manages to not buy it in his first round in the middle of the enemy. next round puts a wand of scorching ray under the generals chin and pulls the trigger. general dies. shortly followed by death of wizard. (he always left his left pinky with the party cleric before he did this sort of thing so he could be resurrected when they burned his body)

set afloat on the astral plane: using a hastily modified pipe and a burning hands spell to create a crude rocket like propulsion device.

[marcielle]

Nope, falling objects deal a maximum of 20d6 damage too.

Plus, the Earth gets a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid it.

That's from falling DISTANCE. Weight is calculated seperately and has no limit.
Distance limit is because once you reach a certain velocity you simply will not have time to further accelerate any significant amount before you hit the ground. It would make no sense to limit damage due to weight.

Earth has a reflex save of -20 for being OH MAH GAWD SOOOOO MUCH BIGGER than gargantuan. However, if Earth rolls a natural 20, object misses the ground and learns to fly (anyone who knows where that came from gets a telegraph)

[Yuki Akuma]

...Anyone who doesn't know that's from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy needs to go read that. Now.

(Specifically, I think it's from So Long and Thanks For All The Fish.)