Least Useful Spells

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

I saw a category about most useful adventuring spells and it made me think: Which are the spells do you find least useful and why. Then you may get replies of uses for these spells that you never thought of. Let me start this off.

Slow Movement: This spell being a thrown spell means you need to be close to your foe to cast. To put it simply: once you are engaged, slowing your foe is a bit late to be helpful. I find Trip or Sleep much better.

Avert: Sounds useful but given the maintenance cost (1 per turn) I'd rather have a summoned wolf. Also, often the first turn does nothing for you since after movement phase.

Magic Fist: Damage is too low.

Confusion: this is only useful against Wizards, and still the wizard foe can still cast his lower IQ spells or hit you with his staff (since you will be close enough to cast a Thrown spell on him). Instead a Clumsiness spell could help prevent both cast and attacks from hitting, AND it is useful against more than just Wizards. Does anyone use this to prevent disbelieving of their illusion?

Dazzle: only really intended for solo wizards. If you are in a group, you just dazzled your friends in addition to the foes. It would have been nice if the wizard could control direction of dazzle or something. So, has anyone found this useful in groups and how?

Interesting, you've chosen 3 of my favourite spells!!!!

AVERT. Simply brilliant. The target gets no saving throw and it can affect anything, no matter how big or powerful it might be. Giants? Bah, go away you big lunk. 14 hex-Dragons.? Begone you overgrown snake! A summoned wolf wouldn't help you much there, would it. It's only weakness is against attacks from a distance, but you have reverse missiles for that.

MAGIC FIST. Another essential spell. The genius of this spell isn't that it's much good as an actual missile (it isn't) but in this: "...can also trigger traps or carry out other unsubtle manipulations within line of sight.." so it's like a clumsy retainer you can send ahead to check out dodgy areas. And it can do this for 1ST!

DAZZLE. A low level Wizard's mass attack spell. The scout reports a chamber ahead full of orcs, too many for the party to take on in a straight fight. The Wizard declares, "stand well back lads, I got this." He approaches the door, throws it open, casting Dazzle as he does so. The party then change in and clean up. The only thing that stops it being absolute kryptonite is the short duration of 3 turns so the players may only get a couple of turns of advantage. My favourite combo was Dazzle Wizard and Blind Warrior.

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

AVERT. Simply brilliant. The target gets no saving throw and it can affect anything, no matter how big or powerful it might be. Giants? Bah, go away you big lunk. 14 hex-Dragons.? Begone you overgrown snake! A summoned wolf wouldn't help you much there, would it. It's only weakness is against attacks from a distance, but you have reverse missiles for that.

I was looking for a spell some beginning characters might use when wish farming lesser wishes, and avert seemed perfect. It even works the first turn as the target has to take disengage option to move farther away. If the GM rules that it works on demons (not totally sure of this) and if you only have to hold it off for 12 turns (it seems implied in several places that their time here is limited) then this is the cheapest and surest way to dispose of it should things go wrong.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by MikMod

I was looking for a spell some beginning characters might use when wish farming lesser wishes, and avert seemed perfect. It even works the first turn as the target has to take disengage option to move farther away. If the GM rules that it works on demons (not totally sure of this) and if you only have to hold it off for 12 turns (it seems implied in several places that their time here is limited) then this is the cheapest and surest way to dispose of it should things go wrong.

...."beginning characters.....wish farming lesser wishes..."

I'd like to think that's a joke, but I have a bad feeling you're serious 😂😂

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

...."beginning characters.....wish farming lesser wishes..."

I'd like to think that's a joke, but I have a bad feeling you're serious ����

IQ 14 seems perfectly reasonable if there are some apprentices with aid for hire somewhere - and why wouldn't there be? Or just persuade the rest of the party that Aid is worth learning since they'll be getting a steady stream of lesser wishes in return. Bearing in mind that one lesser wish makes a thrown dagger to the head practically lethal to most enemies, even heavily armoured dodging ones, and you don't even need knife talent! And Avert is very low level. I wasn't even going to bother with a pentagram since I envision it has to be 'broken' to wrestle a wish in any case. The only real issue, apart from gathering 30ST, is disposing of an angry demon without it teleporting straight into HTH when it wins initiative (and maybe even when it doesn't). That would be enough to mess everything up, but a swift Avert and a bit more aid and Bob's your uncle! :)

Thank goodness I'm GMing and not playing eh?

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by MikMod

IQ 14 seems perfectly reasonable if there are some apprentices with aid for hire somewhere - and why wouldn't there be? Or just persuade the rest of the party that Aid is worth learning since they'll be getting a steady stream of lesser wishes in return. Bearing in mind that one lesser wish makes a thrown dagger to the head practically lethal to most enemies, even heavily armoured dodging ones, and you don't even need knife talent! And Avert is very low level. I wasn't even going to bother with a pentagram since I envision it has to be 'broken' to wrestle a wish in any case. The only real issue, apart from gathering 30ST, is disposing of an angry demon without it teleporting straight into HTH when it wins initiative (and maybe even when it doesn't). That would be enough to mess everything up, but a swift Avert and a bit more aid and Bob's your uncle! :)

Thank goodness I'm GMing and not playing eh?

I still can't tell if you're serious or not 😂😂😂

I've always considered Wizards to be a fair bit rarer than the proportions mentioned in the rules. But even if they are as common as that, why would a Wizard lend you their apprentices to help you farm wishes? Surely they be doing it themselves. So what you say doesn't make sense.

Plus I think it may have been a mistake to reduce the IQ of Demons in the new edition, though I understand why it was done.

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

why would a Wizard lend you their apprentices to help you farm wishes? Surely they be doing it themselves. So what you say doesn't make sense.

The party arrive in a new city. Lead wizard is Glamoured (IQ14) to look very impressive and his 'retinue' (the party) defer to him and spread rumours of this amazing wizard. Then the party let it be known on the grapevine that this reknowned wizard MAY be willing to take on an apprentice (or two).

I think it's pretty easy to see the party leaving town with a couple of extra beginner wizards/apprentices...

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Surely they be doing it themselves.

Well, quite. I was really thinking about how practical it would be to farm wishes and it turned out - depending on the GM - pretty easy.

I think in my campaign 'will not suffer magic to be cast upon them' means that magic will not work on demons - it just makes them mad. At least the mind control type stuff (in which I include Avert).

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I've always considered Wizards to be a fair bit rarer than the proportions mentioned in the rules. But even if they are as common as that, why would a Wizard lend you their apprentices to help you farm wishes? Surely they be doing it themselves. So what you say doesn't make sense.

That's something the Wizards' Guild (if it exists as described in your campaign) specifically offers as a service - hiring apprentices for their time and fatigue for a reasonable cost.

Of course, if the GM has realized how easy the new RAW makes wish farming, he may have adjusted it to be more dangerous, in which case the guild might not permit hiring apprentices for that, or at least not without paying the super-dangerous-service rate.

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Plus I think it may have been a mistake to reduce the IQ of Demons in the new edition, though I understand why it was done.

Yeah it's intended to make it possible, but the other changes make it possible to make wish farming rather safe & easy. i.e. In the original rules, it wasn't just an "attack" by a demon who the rules now don't make clear can't be kept away from the wizard asking for a wish by a pentagram. It was a battle of wills (3 dice vs IQ -20) where failure meant death (5 attributes lost even if you get Revived) or complete annihilation (no Revive) on a critical failure, with no pentagram protection allowed. (And yet still people talked about how to abuse it - but at least it required an extremely-high-IQ wizard and a Charm item.)

[Chris Rice]

The problem of moulding your world too much around any set of rules is that you can end up with a world which is nothing like anything in your favourite fiction and may not actually be that much fun to play in.

If you design a world strictly around the rules of TFT, then for a start, all major travel will be by gate, there will be Wizards round every corner, everyone will be wish farming like crazy, etc. I don't want a world like that.

To me, the purpose of a set of rules shouldn't be to restrict the GM or players in creating their own world, but just to give a basic mechanical structure to certain aspects of play.

[Skarg]

Magic Fist can be absolutely brilliant if used cleverly. Can be used to knock people into pits, but mainly it's the missile-ranged ability to touch (or hit) things at a distance.

Avert is also great for evasion, if you've only got one person to get away from - Avert them and then run away. Various battlefield position can also offer amazing opportunities. Or other situations - just ask the guy who got Averted into the path of a speeding wagon...

Dazzle can also be amazing in the right circumstances, especially because of how many people it affects. And because of the way the 3-die bell curve works, if your fighters have somewhat higher DX than your opponents, a Dazzle on everyone may likely mean your fighters can still possibly hit things, while theirs are now very unlikely to do so. Blanket DX penalties tend to favor the higher-DX side (or the side which has a reason to take actions that don't require DX rolls, and want to be able to survive attacks while they do that - e.g. the side that wants to run, close distance past missile fire, ready weapons, untie people, get a door open, climb, swim, mount horses, explain that the fight is all a mistake, gain time for reinforcements or the city guard to arrive, etc).

When people think a spell is bad, often they're only thinking of one or two ways it could be used, and not thinking about details of situations. When someone finds other ways and situations where such spells shine, it can catch people by surprise and be very fun and interesting.