By platinumCheesecake
Edited by Punslinger, Fkeyes
Introduction
Hello! I am platinumCheesecake, also known as /u/eeveerulz55 or Platty. I have been playing Pathfinder for almost 7 years now. I have plenty of experience with this system and in my time playing the game, I have published a guide to counterspelling, made numerous resources for the community, and later accepted a position moderating the /r/Pathfinder_RPG subreddit.
In this time, a number of daily community projects have come forth with the task of cataloguing various aspects of the game, from monsters to magic items to spells. However, these projects take a very long time to conclude, and aren’t always organized in the most accessible of formats. Since I began to browse guides for the various classes, I have always wanted to see a comprehensive, all-encompassing guide for every spell my future character would have access to. But due to the ever-evolving nature of the game, any guides people wrote would be obsolete within a matter of months. In that case, this guide is meant to serve as a guide to the totality of all ~1130 spells from the Cleric, Oracle, and Warpriest spell lists. I have put off making this guide until the release of Pathfinder 2nd Edition to ensure every spell was accounted for, so that this guide will remain in perpetuity the definitive solution to the question, “what spell should I take this level?”
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Each class has a slightly different metric for what constitutes a viable spell. Warpriests will undoubtedly value spells they can quicken with Fervor more and mid-to-high level spells that require saving throws less, making this guide the least useful for them. Oracles will need to be pickier with their spell selections, as they are more pressed to pick strong, versatile spells due to their limited spells known. This guide tries to judge each spell in a vacuum, a philosophy which favors the Cleric and Warpriest due to their ability to prepare their spells based on situational necessity. Thanks to the sheer volume of spells included in this guide, I will not be tailoring each individual spell to what suits each divine class. I encourage you to read one of the many guides out there on your class to get a better feel for what suits you. I will occasionally make references that are ill-suited to your class, often from the perspective of Cleric players. Forgive me for this, as it seems really silly to go back through this guide making minor modifications for Orcales and Warpriests.
With that said, the Cleric/Oracle list features what is widely considered to be the second-best spell list in the game. You miss out on some of the showstopper meta-defining spells that Sorcerers and Wizards have access to in exchange for a wide array of ways to support your team.
To better paint a picture of the bounds of your spell list, I went to the Advanced Spell Search and searched this spell list by school. Note that this search is obsolete and only accounts for about two thirds of the full ~1130. Nonetheless, the ratio among the schools should remain approximately the same with a sample size this large. Here is the breakdown by school of all 757 spells surveyed.
Abjuration- 109; (14.3%)
Conjuration- 129; (17.0%)
Divination- 72; (9.5%)
Enchantment- 60; (7.9%)
Evocation- 88; (11.6%)
Illusion- 16; (2.1%)
Necromancy- 113; (14.9%)
Transmutation- 170; (22.4%)
As you can see, the Cleric/Oracle list excels at providing buff spells, as indicated by the large amount of Abjuration and Transmutation present. Much of the Conjuration list comes from the (healing) subschool, which should be expected from the list of a class often called the “party band-aid.” Naturally, this means the Cleric/Oracle list’s second major strength is in being the premiere list for status removal. A distant third focus of the list concerns itself with the world of debuffs. At practically every spell level you have your fair share of save-or-suck spells, from the lowly cause fear to the frightening massacre. Finally, no class spell list performs better when faced with a clear and defined target than this one. If you need to really mess up some devils or undead, you’ve got spells for that. Chaotic outsiders? You’ve got spells for that. Preparation is in the Cleric’s blood, and a Cleric who exercises mastery over his spells lists will strike fear into the hearts of heretics everywhere. Sorry Oracles, you really are missing out in this regard.
On the other hand, your list sorely suffers when it comes to blasting, as indicated by the relatively low number of Evocation spells. You shouldn’t really play one of these classes and expect to be turning tides with an avalanche of d6. If you want that, play something Arcane. Additionally, you’ll note the staggeringly low number of Illusion spells on this list. As a big fan of illusions myself, this comes as a pretty big blow since illusions offer a lot of much-needed versatility.
Thankfully, the flaws in your list aren’t definitive. Both Clerics and Oracles are afforded bonus spells through Domains, Mysteries, and Curses that can afford you spells to shore up whatever holes you might feel are lacking for your given playstyle. Good examples of this are the Blackened curse and the Charm domain.
This guide answers the question “How useful will a given spell be on a given adventuring day?” Clerics and Warpriests using this guide can afford to look at the Orange and Red spells, but Oracles and any other spontaneous divine caster will need to carefully consider whether taking those options is something worth sticking with until they have the chance to swap spells again. When reviewing the spells, I tended to look at them from a Cleric’s perspective due to the sheer volume of situational spells that nobody would ever choose if they were forced to play spontaneous casters. Keep that in mind when assessing how the rating affects your particular class.
Much to my chagrin, typical guides I see fail to live up to the standard I believe such a resource should achieve. Oftentimes I’ll read a guide on spells and the author will reference the spell in one to two sentences without actually telling you what it does. I have tried my best to balance readability and entertainment value with comprehension. In doing so, I have significantly longer and more detailed descriptions than most guides offer. For most spells, I’ve tried to include a snippet of how the spell functions unless the spell is either obvious in function, super common, or just so terrible I need to let off some steam by making fun of it.
Since I notice often with guides such as these that I really want to be able to quickly jump to the spell in question without having to type it in, I have included hyperlinks for (hopefully) every spell for your convenience. Because it is now the official Pathfinder legacy document and is therefore the most updated, I have decided to send all hyperlinks to the Archives of Nethys. It’s a great site anyway and is more than deserving of your patronage.
Throughout this guide, I occasionally reference certain benchmarks that monsters tend to have by a certain level. If you’d like to know where I got my data and wish to review it yourself, I direct you to the Pathfinder Bestiary with Statistics spreadsheet. It lists a lot of important information that can help you determine what spells are good for each level based on the likelihood the average monster will be affected.
Lastly, I have included a simplified list that only includes spells ranked Green or above in any capacity. Pathfinder is an intensely intimidating game to newer players. I’ve found myself several times in a position where a newer player experiences choice anxiety over the massive list of options available. And even personally, when choosing daily spells in my games I get annoyed having to sift through the hundreds of spells way too situational for any person to reasonably pick. Having a list with fewer options makes for a more visually digestible experience.
As is convention, I am coloring spells by usefulness in accordance with community standards.
Purple- Either you will regret not preparing this spell, or it is so good you are actively hindering yourself by not preparing it. Purple spells are usually meta-defining options that are practically required for play, but in a few cases they are just simply gamebreakingly strong. A Purple spell will always see use if it is prepared.
Blue- This spell is always useful. It does many things well, or serves a role no other spell can match. Blue spells will usually be your first spells considered in a given day of adventuring.
Green- This spell is usually useful, or performs very well at a narrow role. Green spells are never something you feel bad for taking, though sometimes you might go to bed without casting all of them.
Orange- This spell is situationally useful. Orange spells often fit a narrow, situational niche that they can do better than any other spell, but one that might not be needed all the time.
Red- This spell is too situational to prepare with any regularity. Spells that are red are not necessarily useless, but usually they’re the type of spell that you will know in advance if you’ll need.
Black- Spells I rate Black are impossible for me to judge. These spells are usually poorly worded, mechanically broken, reliant on niche rules systems I’m not familiar with, or too dependent on GM fiat for me to give an accurate assessment of.
Split Color- I’ve seen this convention a few times in other guides and have grown rather attached to it. Spells with a split color generally have one notable situation in which they perform better than they might otherwise. These spells usually are highly beneficial to specific campaigns, playstyles, or builds. Sometimes, I’ll use Split Color spells to indicate my inability to decide between two ratings.
This image is moreso a remnant of my copy/paste from the Archives of Nethys database than anything. If you’re still playing 1st Edition PFS this signifies the spell is legal for play.
Restricted (R)- A superscript R indicates religion or racial requirement. Without satisfying the requirement, you might not be able to cast the spell. Make sure to check the sourcebook and consult with your GM if you want to take one of these spells without meeting the requirement.
Scroll Utility (SU)- A superscript SU indicates that the spell is significantly more useful in scroll format (and rarely, potion or wand format). Spells that are as useful as normal or worse in scroll format will not be included, as well as spells that are bad no matter the format.
Oracle Only (O)- A superscript O indicates this spell can only be cast as an oracle.
Cleric Only (C)- A superscript C indicates this spell can only be cast as a cleric.
Hyperlinks- For your convenience, I’ve ensured every spell herein links to its associated page on the Archives of Nethys.
1. Opinions- This guide is my opinion. You will not agree with me on everything, nor will The Super Good Cleric Guide That One Guy MadeTM. That’s kind of the point-- I encourage you to compare my guide to the others to form a more complete opinion on what you should be taking. I have deliberately minimized my exposure to other spell guides in the writing of this one. I do not want to be unduly influenced by anybody’s opinions so that you, the reader, can get the widest range of viewpoints possible. After all, what would be the point of making my own guide if I only regurgitated the thoughts of another? I did occasionally browse FAQ and forum posts when I did not understand a spell, but beyond that the words below are almost entirely my opinions. In addition to a general proofreader, I did employ an editor (without pay!) specifically to help out with catching rules mistakes. He also took the role of alerting me to any rating oversights I might have made along the way, particularly with spells that Warpriests can use Fervor on to cast as a swift action. I will always note whenever I am expressing my editor’s view. Thanks for your help, Punslinger!
2. Mistakes- Considering the amount of work I’ve put myself through, there is a near-certainty I’ve made mistakes that my poor editors could not catch. I encourage you to message me on Reddit or Discord to tell me why I’m so wrong for ranking your favorite spell orange or for using the wrong “there” on page 71. No mistake is too small to address!
3. Summons- I am not going to be going into the amount of detail the summon monster line of spells truly deserve, and for a couple of reasons. Firstly, that’s a lot of extra effort. Odd as it may seem from a guy writing a 140 page guide, I have limits to the amount of time I'm willing to spend. Secondly and most importantly, I am by no means an expert on summons. Since they are such a flagstone feature of the lists that get them, I feel it disingenuous to pretend I have a credible viewpoint on something I know I don’t. See, I generally tend to discourage summon monster at my tables due to the sheer amount that these spells slow down the game. Even the most skilled of players can spend longer than desired choosing what to summon, and the more bodies on the battlefield the more turns and bookkeeping that has to be done. For this reason, I am not as versed as I should be on what is or is not a good option to summon.
This isn’t to say my opinion is not credible. I still know my way around a statblock, but if you are looking for users who have put the time in to learn the ins and outs of the spell, I encourage you to check out the Practical Guide to Summon Monster and Why Work. I have deliberately limited my exposure to the advice guides like these provide because I value your ability to decide whose opinions to follow, and don’t wish to unintentionally expose you to any sort of bandwagon mindset. My ratings of the summon monster spells will still be my own assessments, but I will not be doing the job of ranking each and every summonable option available. Do note that like most guides out there, these guides I’ve linked are unfortunately not quite complete. Remember that depending on your GM and campaign, additional alternate summoning options can be taken. Among these are the unique summoning options that many mainstream deities grant access to, which are usually on par with or stronger than other summons of their level.
4. Minutiae- I refer to “orisons” by their real name, cantrips. There is no reason they should have a different name. You cannot stop me, this is my guide and I do what I want, muahahaha haha ha, etc. If that sort of thing bugs you, feel free to read somebody else’s comprehensive guide to all 1100+ spells if these factors are that much of a problem. Oh, what’s that? Yeah, I thought so.
5. References- In my quest to give you the best, most comprehensive guide I possibly can, I have referenced several other community guides and resources that I believe to be worthwhile. Every external source I’ve referenced throughout the guide I’ve also included here. This ain't no English class, so nobody better make fun of me for not making a proper Works Cited page.
Advanced Spell Search- dxContent.com
Alternate Curse Ideas- compiled by Igneel
Counter Savant: A Guide to Building Pathfinder’s Only* Counterspeller- platinumCheesecake
Curse Spells- archivesofnethys.com
The Master Summon List- archivesofnethys.com
The Mini Guide to Paragon Surge- andreww
Pathfinder Bestiary with Statistics- Alan Jacobson
Practical Guide to Summon Monster- rpgbot.net
Why Work when Others can Do it For You- Neonchameleon
Bleed- Our first spell is bad. There is almost no reason you’d want to prepare this spell. A stable creature is still unconscious and poses no threat to you. After the battle is over, if you really want the creature dead, you have plenty of non-cantrip ways you can do that.
Create Water- A very good survival spell. I’m sure creative players can find more situational uses for this one too. Dumping water over people’s heads has been a favorite of my groups since the dawn of time, and it’s never once failed to be amusing.
Detect Fiendish PresenceSU- It’s a cantrip detect evil that only works for evil outsiders. If you’ve got the cantrip slots to burn (you don’t) and know outsiders are in your future, this is not a horrible call. Definitely better in games where such enemies are common. At least a scroll for a cantrip is dirt cheap.
Detect Magic- Someone in your party needs to know this spell, it may as well be you. The game practically assumes you always have detect magic, and I frequently see parties where every caster has this prepared. At low levels, this can serve as a rudimentary scouting spell as there is no reason not to cast this on anything and everything. A trick I like to use is to cast it through doors to tell if a creature might be in the other room. This works especially well at higher levels when magical equipment and long-duration buff spells become ubiquities.
Detect Poison- A cantrip for the paranoid gourmand. Good for fancy dinner parties and clerics who don’t put ranks in Heal.
Enhanced Diplomacy- This is a very solid spell. Competence bonus stacks with everything, and a +2 is nothing to scoff at. Sure, it means you have to make your check within a minute’s casting, but that should be easy enough.
Grasp- I can’t think of many situations in which you prepare your spells anticipating climbing things without preparing a better tool to ensure your success.
Guidance- A very strong cantrip. There is no reason not to throw this out before an anticipated fight at low levels. And of course, a spammable bonus to skill checks has many uses as well.
Light- I usually prefer letting the Wizard prepare dancing lights, but there’s nothing you shouldn't like about this spell. It lasts much longer and is good for throwing on rocks and dropping into holes. Green even if your party doesn’t have anyone who can see in the dark. (Aside: I love dancing lights. Your party can coordinate signals with it really easily, and I’ve even designed a nonverbal language based on how the lights are manipulated.)
MendingSU- Generally a spell reserved for a key few situations away from the battlefield. If you have a sunder build in your party, I can see you making this a daily prep. Otherwise, repairing things isn’t useful enough to justify one of your precious spell slots.
Purify Food and Drink- I have yet to know a GM who enforces meals and hunger restrictions. Take trail rations at character creation, and only prepare this spell if you have become lost in the wild and expect to be longer than a day.
Read Magic- You’re pressed for cantrip spell slots, and read magic is a tough spell to decide whether it is worth it. Deciphering scrolls and magic writing is absolutely useful, but it’s hard to know in advance when this sort of thing pops up. Some GMs I know just waive over this spell entirely and arbitrate everything on Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana). Your mileage may vary.
Resistance- You could do worse. A bonus to saves never hurt, and it’s spammable. Ditch this once everyone gets their first cloak of resistance.
Scrivener's Chant- Transcribes writing. How often do you need to actually do that though? Never prepare this unless you’re certain you’re going to need it.
Sign of the DawnflowerR- You subtly show people you’re a Sarenite. Why would you ever need this?
Sotto Voce- Honestly not terrible. At low levels when you’re out of spells, spamming enemies with Shaken is not the worst action you could be doing. I’d still rather be stabbing people with my starknife, but some clerics can definitely find use here.
Spark- Light something flammable on fire. No, this spell does not ignite grease. No it does not let you do extra damage with a club. A flint and steel is dirt cheap. Buy one.
Stabilize- Now here’s a cantrip. Particularly useful at low levels, stabilize is good for when you don’t have any more healing and your fighter is at -13 hp, or for when you want answers out of the lackey and don’t feel he deserves your precious 1st level spell slots.
Vigor- Guidance, but for damage. Spammable and effective, vigor sees use on clerics who don’t expect to be hitting much with allies that very frequently do. This cantrip quickly falls off beyond level 2 or so, as 1 hp of damage stops meaning so much. You might be asking me here, “Why is a spell that does only 1 point of damage rated so highly?” It’s because it’s 1 point of true damage decided not at the attack roll, but the damage roll. When enemies have anywhere from 6-13 hp, a functionally save-less, roll-less, repeatable, 1 damage spell starts to look really good.
Virtue- 1 hp means a decent amount when you have such a low maximum. However, unlike vigor, damage prevention is best done through killing enemies rather than buffering expected incoming damage. It’s still a spammable spell that will last a fight, so I can’t rate it too low, but 1 minute is only so long, and I’d rather my allies be buffed with guidance or vigor before a fight instead.
Abadar's TruthtellingR- A better zone of truth at a lower level no less. This spell is very good at what it does, and only costs a first level slot, so you could spam it until an enemy fails their save if needed. Early level intrigue games can get a lot of good use from this spell. Late-game, you’re probably better off using other methods to gain info, though you could Heighten this spell if you really needed to. Just be cognizant of all the limitations a zone of truth imparts.
AbstemiousnessR- Buy trail rations.
Abundant Ammunition- Ammo can be expensive. If someone is using firearms or masterwork ammo, early-game this can be a big buff to your thin pockets. This spell sucks once magical weapons become affordable. Editor’s note: Green on ranged warpriests, since you can immediately full-round attack if you use Fervor.
Advanced ScurvyR- This is a funny spell. The Dex and Strength check penalties will rarely come up, though instantaneous duration Fatigue is solid. If you worship Besmara and want to take a flavorful spell, you could do worse.
Air Bubble- Good old air bubble. Useful for breathing when it might otherwise be challenging. This is one of those spells that is likely better at mid levels due to the relative rarity of gas-based effects early game. If you’re in an aquatic campaign, take this and don’t look back.
Alleviate Addiction- Don’t do drugs, kids, and you’ll never need this spell.
Ant HaulSU- When you need to carry stuff, ant haul is the spell for you. Otherwise, forget it.
Aspect of the NightingaleR- Generally in Pathfinder, spells that do a bunch of small things are worse than spells that do one big thing. This spell is one of those bad niche spells. Bonuses to Perform are near-useless, and while rerolling charms is decent, that implies you started the day expecting to get charmed and didn’t take protection from evil. Pass.
Authenticating Gaze- This spell should just be called detect forgery. I have no idea why you’d want to use it for anything else. Very situational.
Bane- A mediocre debuff with a generous AoE. It’s only a -1 to attacks and fear effect saves, but the area of effect makes this spell passable. Enemies still get a save to negate, so I’d only recommend using this spell if you’re also planning on coupling it with fear effects. Otherwise your spell slot is relegated to a “save or be mildly inconvenienced.”
Barbed Chains- A very cool, if not somewhat sinister spell. Even better, it’s a 1st level spell that actually scales with level. The bonus to trip is based on BAB instead of caster level (boo), but when you’re rolling 4 dice odds are you’re going to do something. At high levels you’re not gonna see much use from the trip, but even still, a potential for 4d6 damage off a 1st level slot isn’t bad at all. The Shaken effect is just icing on the cake. The only thing that should stop you from considering this spell is that maybe the [evil] descriptor was meant to go on this one.
Bestow Planar Infusion I- Who uses planar infusions? I sure as hell don’t. In skimming the list of infusions for this spell, I see a lot of small, forgettable buffs. And considering few parties are traversing planes when 1st level slots are relevant, it seems like a spell you can pretty safely pass up. At high levels I can see this line of spells coming back around to usefulness for those sweet hours/level buffs, provided you’re travelling the planes of course.
Bleeding StrikeR- I forgot to change the color after the end of my description for bestow planar infusion and elected to keep typing in dark red. And after reviewing this spell, that decision stands. Bleed is not very good, and while 1 damage per round was ok for a cantrip, it is not as a 1st.
Blend with Surroundings- The Cleric’s tree shape. Which, if you know how much I love to meme about that spell, is a pretty high bar to set. Realistically, if you need to stake out a location, this spell is fantastic at doing that. It might even be better than tree shape.
Bless- Tied with divine favor for the best 1st level buff spell on your list. +1 on attack rolls for all allies is probably better than the +1 to attack and damage if you can affect 3 or more characters that will be making attack rolls. The AoE is huge, and the bonus to saves vs. fear is never unappreciated. Do take note that this is a morale bonus, whereas divine favor is a luck bonus.
Bless Water- Turn regular water holy. You know temples sell that stuff at-cost, right?
Blessed Fist- Magic weapon for monks. On creatures without Improved Unarmed Strike, this lets them make AoOs with unarmed strikes, which really isn’t anything impressive. Since an amulet of mighty fists is so expensive, your unarmed fighter will appreciate this spell for your first three or four levels.
Blessing of the WatchR- Technically better than bless if you know your mission will be under the guard’s jurisdiction thanks to the long duration. Otherwise, worthless. Abadar clerics need something, I guess.
Brightest Night- Grant sight in low-light to your party. Shame it isn’t darkvision, but in a party lacking sight in darkness, this can become a very sought-after tool. And at 1 hour per level from a 1st level slot, you could reasonably see this become a “cast and forget” at high levels.
Burning Disarm- Fun spell. 1d4 fire damage isn’t great, but it does scale up to 5d4 at least (12.5 damage average). The nice part here is that the Reflex save is entirely voluntary, and if the opponent chooses to save, they drop their (presumably) best weapon and still might take half. And unlike other blast spells, this one isn’t really affected by a low saving throw DC.
Carrion Compass- Use entrails to point to an undead’s controller. Yuck. As much as I want to hate this spell on both grossness and gameplay grounds, I can actually see this spell being fairly useful in the right game. It can completely circumvent the GM’s story by sending you on a direct course to the necromancer boss battle, skipping all those boring intrigue or mystery encounters. After all, why are you playing Pathfinder if you don’t play for the combat? Be nice to your GM and skip this.
Cause Fear- Your staple full-caster 1st level encounter winner. Enjoy ending fights this easily while you can, because this spell falls off real fast. Even on a failed save, Shaken is a good enough debuff that you can just throw another one of these out again and probably make it the second time around.
Celestial Healing- A worse infernal healing. For the record, that spell, despite being better, is still not very worth your slot.
Ceremony- A cute, exclusively RP-focused spell that lets you conduct a ceremony. I will find you and beat you up if you try to cheese the benefits by throwing parties for mechanical reasons.
Clarion Call- It’s a neat spell, but throwing your voice long distances is rarely something you need to do.
Cloak of Secrets- There’s a bunch of interesting intrigue applications for this spell. I particularly like the verbal spell component masking, as sometimes it can be tricky to cast spells on the sly. There’s enough here a creative party in an intrigue encounter could get some mileage out of.
Command- A multipurpose mind-affecting enchantment spell. The 1 round duration is what really stops this spell from being great. It’s more versatile and relevant longer than cause fear, but lacks the sheer encounter-ending power of the aforementioned spell. Generally when you see a spell that’s fully negated on a save, you want the impact of a fail to be more-or-less game over.
Compel Hostility- I generally prefer damage prevention to damage redirection, but if you’re playing a Oradin or one of the few viable tanking builds this game has to offer, go nuts.
Comprehend LanguagesSU- You will need this spell at some point. Understanding language is too crucial to pass up, and a scroll of this is not expensive at all. As far as making this spell a daily prep, your usage will depend on what kind of game you’re playing and on your party.
Coward's Cowl- A genuinely useful buff for casters and a small subset of martial builds. +1 DC is never bad on spellcasters, but you do need to be careful of the rules regarding readied actions. AoO fishing and Overwatch Style martial characters will appreciate this spell, while other martials will probably just waste the bonus after a turn or two. The negative tradeoffs in exchange for these buffs are noticeable, and should not be taken lightly. Being unable to approach enemies is rough, so choose your timing carefully.
Cultural Adaptation- You adapt to fit the culture of your current area, letting you seem like a local and granting a bonus to Diplomacy and Disguise. This spell would be lower if it didn’t provide you a bonus to the DCs of your enchantment spells. Any time you’re in a city you can arguably be benefiting from this spell, which accounts for a not-insignificant portion of average gameplay.
Cure Light WoundsSU- I never recommend this spell. There are three classes of characters that gain benefit from reading this guide, and all three of them get cure spells for free in some way or another. Even if you chose to channel negative energy at character creation, or if for some reason you don’t get cure spells due to an archetype or something, it’s probably still not worth taking generic heal spells just on the account of how bad in-combat healing is in this game. For everyone who doesn’t get significant buffs to your healing spells (cough cough, life oracles), you should just buy a wand of cure light wounds and heal out of combat. While boring and kind of stupid, the clw wand is cheap and saves you from wasting your time and spell slots, making it one of the most necessary items in the game. Scrolls and potions are also incredibly useful, but less cost-efficient.
Curse Water- As far as I know, evil temples don’t give this stuff out the way good temples do holy water, so there’s actually a point to this spell. That said, you still shouldn’t be taking it, since it isn’t generally worth your spell slots to fabricate something you could just buy anyway.
Dancing Lantern- Keeping light on at all times is useful, but this spell doesn’t really have too much benefit over light unless you spend the 2500gp to permanency it.
Deadeye's Lore- A +4 to Survival and moving at full speed in the wilderness seems like a passable reason for a spell to exist at first glance. Unfortunately, this spell doesn’t give any bonuses to your allies. All of the benefits are exclusive to you. You’ll know in advance if you’re going to need this spell.
Deathwatch- Deathwatch confuses me. It’s not a divination spell, but it seems to behave like one with its 10 minutes/level duration. One thing I don’t understand about this spell is if you know the status of all creatures initially subjected for 10 minutes/level, or if you have a cone of sight like you do with true seeing. I’m inclined to believe the latter is the intended way, which means that this spell functions as a mediocre lifesense that cannot penetrate barriers. According to an FAQ, deathwatch cannot pinpoint anything you cannot normally perceive. Which means its main use is only really to discern whether a creature is undead or not. Skip.
Decompose Corpse- For the burgeoning necromancer. Works decently if you want to mess up existing undead, but nothing too impressive to warrant preparing regularly. I vaguely remember hearing skeletons being better than zombies.
Desperate Weapon- Creates an improvised weapon. Here’s a cool trick when using this spell: use your free action to drop the improvised weapon, and your move action to retrieve the 10 gp weapon you bought at character creation.
Detect [Alignment]- If you don’t have a Paladin, these are decent picks. And by that, I mean detect evil is a good pick, and everything else is super duper situational. The spells are good for casting through doors and probing for any baddies. Too bad these spells are limited by aura strength, which makes them relatively situational at low levels. Probably better on an Oracle than a cleric since I find these spells benefit from being spammable.
Detect Charm- If you’re a Cleric or Warpriest, you can just use your sky-high Sense Motive skill in place of this spell. If you’re an Oracle, you have even less of a reason to believe that you’ll be casting this spell enough to warrant it.
Detect Demon- There’s a cantrip that does this just as well.
Detect Radiation- Entirely dependent on your campaign.
Detect the FaithfulC- Why is this necessary? Furthermore, how do you expect to find people within 1 minute/level? You do realize how little a minute is worth in the city, right?
Detect Undead- Undead are almost always evil, just prepare detect evil for its wider applications.
Diagnose Disease- If you suspect a creature is Diseased, roll a Heal check and figure it out. If you don’t suspect anything, then you would never cast this spell on them in the first place. And if you wanted this for the creature-scanning, you have better things to be doing in combat than wasting a turn identifying whether a creature carries disease.
Divine Favor- Finally we get back to a good spell. Divine favor is your other contender for best 1st level buff spell. Scales fantastically well, and as a luck bonus it can synergize with Fate’s Favored if you so choose. I have known many mid-level Clerics who prepare nothing but divine favor for their 1st level slots. Warpriests treat this spell as Aroden’s gift to mankind and with good reason. You will never regret having this spell prepared.
Doom- Meh. You could do worse. Doom causes a creature to be Shaken for the encounter. I generally don’t like spells that carry a save: negates tag unless their failed save result is truly impressive. Shaken is alright, but when you could be casting command or cause fear, doom just comes up as a bland afterthought.
Dream FeastR- A single-target, 1st level create food and water spell. If you happen to worship Desna and find yourself without food, you may as well use this. Generally it takes a few days for food scarcity to matter, so you’ll likely never need to prepare this unless you know it will be needed.
Ears of the City- I read this spell as “The GM gives you everything on their rumors table.” Not bad for a 1st level divination spell. Note that the spell text says you “can” substitute your Perception for Diplomacy. This means Clerics can use their high Perception while Oracles can rely on their high Diplomacy.
Egorian Diplomacy- Useful for anyone who frequently uses Intimidate. You probably won’t know whether or not the target failed their save, so be careful who you try this on. A good candidate for Heighten Spell to keep the DC relevant.
Embrace DestinyO- Roll a d20 and elect to use its result at any point during the spell’s duration. I guess you could use this spell multiple times to fish for a good result for a skill check. But honestly, you have basically the same odds of this spell being useful as you do from not using it at all. With Maximize Spell however...
Endure ElementsSU- Setting-specific environmental protection spell. Oracles treat this spell as red. But preparing niche stuff based on circumstances basically the cleric’s whole job, so it’s orange for them. If your setting is focused on exceptionally hot or cold climates, bump this spell up by one color. Buy scrolls of this only if you somehow can’t afford the communal version.
Enhance WaterR- Lets go, Cayden! Free beer, anybody?
Entropic Shield- You don’t get access to blur or mirror image, and this only costs a 1st level slot. At higher levels when your first level slots mean a lot less, I could see a 20% miss chance vs. ranged attacks being pretty valuable. It works against all ranged attacks too, putting this spell leagues ahead of protection from arrows in my eyes. It’s underwhelming at level 1, but I would not fault you for taking one of these beyond level 7 or so.
Face of the DevourerR- Rovagug does not kid around; this spell is awesome. You get a +4 circumstance bonus to Intimidate (stacks with everything!) and a beefy 1d6/1d4 damage bite attack. This spell is great for Intimidators and all melee attackers, and should not be passed up for those willing to worship the Great Destroyer.
FairnessR- Forces humanoids to trade fairly. Unless your GM routinely likes to screw you over with their merchants, you can probably pass this one up. Assuming of course, you decided to worship Abadar in the first place.
Fallback StrategyR- One reroll on an attack or skill check isn’t bad. I wish this spell gave you the chance to reroll a save, but I guess that wouldn’t fit with the theme. Not as good as bless or divine favor in combat, but this is a buff Torag worshippers should give consideration.
FastidiousnessSU- Only really good for firearm wielders and those without waterproof equipment. Buy a waterproof scroll case and you’ll hopefully never need this.
Ferment- Ask your wizard to prestidigitate the flavor of a potion if it really matters to you. I can only see this spell being useful if you plan on abusing beguiling gift.
FirebellyR- Oh man, 1d4 damage with a save for half! If the fire resistance 5 is enticing you, it shouldn’t be.
Forbid Action- Is it just me, or is this spell just a strictly worse command? I mean, forcing an enemy to do anything outlined in the command spell by default necessitates that it does nothing else. If you want the enemy to not attack, just order it to flee with command. These two spells both have the same descriptors, components, and casting time. On its own merits, this isn’t a horrible spell, but I’m still confused why anyone would ever take it over its better twin.
Funereal Weapon- Ignoring DR is nice, but this is a bit too situational for me to recommend. It only bypasses 5 points of DR, and only affects one creature type. Plus, most undead have easily exploitable DR bypasses anyway. Just prepare a backup weapon or take Weapon Versatility and you’ll do fine.
Gorum's Armor- Curiously not a religion-locked spell, this niche pick grants you a decently long set of armor spikes. Anyone who cares about armor spikes will have already bought them at character creation, so the only boons here are the level 5+ bonuses to shield spikes attack and damage. If you use shields as a core part of your build, go nuts. Most of you will never care about this spell.
Grasping Corpse- You animate a corpse to make a single grapple or trip. This requires you actually have a corpse nearby, so already the applications for this spell are narrow. And the benefits you get in exchange aren’t really that incredible. Plenty of other, better spells in this game emulate combat maneuvers-- spells like barbed chains. Why don’t you just use that one?
Guardian Armor- Any ally who wears armor is already wearing the kind they want. Even with an immediate action, the best hope for this spell is protecting the unarmored arcane casters from a single attack, after which they’ll be just as useless with their spell failure, and you’ll be finding yourself left high and dry.
Hairline FracturesR, SU- This spell helps you break through walls, which is at least somewhat useful. I don’t know about preparing this every day, but I wouldn’t sell a scroll of this if I acquired one.
Haze of DreamsR- A save: negates that cuts one enemy’s movement speed in half. I wish this spell removed the ability for affected enemies to 5-foot step. Still, I suppose you could combo this with other movement-impairing spells to grind any progress to a halt. Personally, though, I’d just rather prepare obscuring mist or shadow trap.
Hedging Weapons- Force weapons defend you that you can choose to throw. The deflection bonus and damage are both fairly low for what you get, but because this spell deals force damage and scales with level, you could do a lot worse. I recommend this spell more on worshippers of deities whose favored weapons have 18-20 threat ranges or x3 crit multipliers.
Hidden Spring- Magically discover a hidden spring. Just create water instead.
Hide from Undead- Undead are common enough that if you prepare this spell enough you’ll find a good use for it eventually. In zombie-horror games, this spell will save your life.
Ice ArmorR- This spell conjures up some frosty mail for you to don. Armor is expensive, and at low levels most players cannot afford to spend beyond a hundred gp or so. Use this spell only until you can find yourself some real protection.
Infernal HealingSU- On average, a level 1 cure light wounds heals 5.5 hit points. Infernal Healing always heals 10. Out of combat, this spell is, barring some crazy tea of transference nonsense, the most efficient healing in the game. At level 5, your cure light wounds heals 9.5 hit points on average, and this spell ceases to be relevant. I still don’t recommend preparing healing spells.
Inflict Light WoundsSU- I rank the inflict spells similar to the cures, but with these you do “some” damage instead of healing it. These spells do require a melee touch attack and afford a save for half, which means your damage output will be minimal. Negative energy divine casters get these spells spontaneously and will only use them in rare circumstances. Necromancers and those with negative energy affinity should exercise the same caution I gave for cure light wounds with regards healing in-combat and preparing redundant spells you can swap anyway. Useful in potion or scroll format if you have someone in the party who thought it would be fun to have negative energy affinity.
Instant Clot- Stops bleeding. You know what else stops bleed? A healing spell. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on stopping bleed effects in combat for the most part anyway.
Instant Portrait- So this spell is meant to synergize with enter image. If you plan on ever casting that spell, it would probably be at a point where you are afforded the luxury of time. I see no reason why you couldn’t prepare this as well under those circumstances. For your day-to-day adventuring, though, keep this spell off of your list.
IronbeardR- +1 to AC is practically nothing, and most creatures you’d cast this on probably wouldn’t appreciate spell failure chances. Additionally, most builds that want armor spikes will have already bought them. I guess your party monk wouldn’t mind this?
Ironbloom SproutsR- Straight upgrade to goodberry for Torag worshippers, and it’s actually on your list now. The 1 day/level duration means that if you have a day of downtime, no reason not to cast a couple of these. Certainly lighter and more useful than trail rations.
Karmic BlessingR- My only gripe with this spell is the small amount of metagaming you need to get the fullest use of it. You need to know the target doesn’t have the given skill as a class skill and has a rank in it, which might be a problem when you cast this spell on anybody but yourself. If that’s not a problem for you, take this spell for a versatile +3 to specific skill checks.
Keyhole- Make a keyhole on a door to look through or to enable locking/unlocking. These three effects provide enough benefit that I wouldn’t say this spell can be totally written off if you’ve got someone with a good Disable Device. Not something I’d prepare every day, but would consider if I know I’m going into a dungeon or an enemy keep.
Know the Enemy- Isn’t it better to have the knowledge on your enemy before you fight them?
Kreighton's Perusal- Tap a book to skim its contents. Way too situational to justify your slots. My editor tells me its good in conjunction with Skim if you ever need it; and that this spell maximizes the effects of spells like comprehend languages.
Liberating Command- Immediate action anti-grapple measure. It’s worth noting the singular component of this spell being Verbal. When you have the spell slots at high levels, this is a good spell to have in your arsenal.
Lighten ObjectR- Decrease an object’s weight by half or reduce an armor’s ACP by 1. The ACP reduction is done better by reinforce armaments, and item mobility is usually done better by ant haul.
Lucky NumberSU- Roll a d20 and one time during the next day when you roll that result, you can get a +2 or a reroll. The statistical odds of this ever being actually impactful are slim, though if you’ve got spell slots left open at the end of a day there’s no reason why you shouldn’t fill them with this for the next one. I’d never seek out a scroll or wand of this, but if you’ve got one it’s a worthy cast to start your adventuring day.
Magic Stone- Bad, but not unusable. 3 bullets for 1d6+1 is a pretty bad draw for a 1st level spell, made better if you expect to fight a lot of undead. The only true saving grace for this spell is that whoever throws the stones gets to add their Strength modifier to damage. Don’t prepare this once you get real +1 weapons.
Magic Weapon- A divine favor you can give to your fighter. Better than divine favor at low levels, weaker when you have masterwork weapons, and useless once +1 weapons come online.
Marid's MasteryR- Aquatic campaigns aren’t common enough to recommend this. Divine favor doesn’t penalize you for stepping on land, just take that instead.
Mighty Fist of the EarthR- Only good for high level oread monks who elected to take a single level in cleric instead of taking this as a qinggong power at 4th level. AKA: nobody.
Mirror Mantis- A cool flavor spell your GM might use against you. Really, really terrible though.
Moment of Greatness- This spell was designed to be used with bless. If that’s your only synergy, you’ll find this spell lacking. If you’ve got a bard, barbarian, or someone to cast heroism, (Charm domain, anybody?), get ready to become everybody’s friend real fast.
Murderous Command- Take one creature out of the fight for a round and potentially do some damage to another. Very respectable, but fails out when you’re fighting only one baddie.
Murderous CrowR- There exists no statblock for a crow, which is what this spell apparently summons. Which is honestly a shame, because this seems like a genuinely solid spell once you get a few more rounds on that duration. Ravens don’t have 2 claw attacks, so it’s very likely this spell was intended to summon an Eagle (which is already the best monster on the summon monster I list). Giving an eagle eye rake and Improved Steal would make this spell Green beyond level 1, but you’ll have to talk to your GM.
Obscure Poison- Poison kinda sucks in Pathfinder, and it’s even rarer that you need to hide your ownership of it. If you plan on carrying out an assassination or something, by all means use this.
Obscuring Mist- Somebody tell me why this spell is always ranked Blue. It’s clearly got a multitude of uses, but I never think any of them are truly spectacular. It’s good at blocking line of sight, but without significant investment this spell is going to hurt your team in a fight just as much as it’ll help you. It’s good for sneaking around within the spell, but you’re still putting up a rather obvious bank of fog. It’s good for retreating, except for the fact that you move at half speed through it. It’s a good spell, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth the rating everyone else gives. Someone feel free to tell me what’s so good about obscuring mist and I’ll gladly update my ranking.
Opportunistic Loyalty- I don’t think banking on the opponent to buff themselves is all that great a strategy. Still, this spell is an immediate action cast, so it’s not terrible…
Peace Bond- You select 5-ft. cubes to ward against your hostile low-level AoE spells. I’m absolutely certain that there are some really creative uses for this spell, I just can’t think of any of them.
Peasant ArmamentsR- This spell is very good at making weapons out of random items. Too bad it requires a Divine Focus so you can’t use it when all your items are taken from you. Just kidding, of course; you’d never prepare this spell because you actually elected to buy a weapon.
Pesh Vigor- This might just be my new favorite spell. Taking nonlethal damage to increase your Strength is just about the most metal thing I can think of. For a spell that gives an enhancement bonus, this actually scales phenomenally well with level. The material component is relatively cheap, but does require you to have a reliable supplier of pesh. My editor reminds me that you can always drink coffee to ease the Fatigued burden and that this spell is quite solid when cast with Fervor.
Pick Your PoisonR, SU- I was all set to rank this spell as incredible, effectively beating out neutralize poison on account of being 3 spell levels lower. Then I read the last sentence and my hopes were shattered. Take this only if you know you’re fighting enemies that poison.
Pierce Facade- It’s hard to predict when someone is going to be in a disguise outside of maybe a masquerade scene or something. Take this spell if you’re in that situation, I guess.
Planar Orientation- Hopefully by the time you’re spelunking in the Abyss you have more than 1st level divinations to help you navigate.
Poisoned EggR- Can I offer you a meme in these trying times? On a serious note, this spell is weak and bad. DC 11 save for 1 Dex damage is terrible even by level 1 standards.
Positive Pulse- It’s like a weaker death ward that deals minimal damage. Still, I value the bonuses this spell offers higher than I usually would value situational bonuses just because of how nasty these effects can be. This spell is Orange if your GM really likes to utilize haunts.
Preserve- You’ll find this spell useful when the local butcher has run out of curing salt. Happens in my games all the time.
Protection from [Alignment]SU- These spells are absolutely ridiculous. At low levels, the bonuses to AC and saves are fantastic, and at all levels the outright immunity to mental control and summon contact are even more so. This is the commonly cited example of a 1st level spell outright beating a 9th. The only downside is you can only ward against the given alignment, but scrolls are cheap when it means you won't be getting dominated. Because this is only a 1st level spell, it’s not necessarily required you have it prepared, but it is all but required that you have it in some capacity at your disposal, be it in wand, scroll, or spell format. Easily a Top 5 spell, period.
Ray of Sickening- I dislike that you have to bank on both hitting a ray and the target failing a Fort save, all for a -2 penalty. Aside from the -2 to damage rolls that Sickened provides, this is basically just a worse doom.
Read WeatherR- Every time I GM I try to incorporate daily weather. And inevitably, I end up giving up 5-10 sessions in because it’s too much effort for something that basically never matters and nobody enjoys anyway. Most games you’re going to be experiencing sunny, 70 degree weather every day for the entire campaign. Heck, I’d wager you attempting to use this spell will result in more negative weather than you’d get by just ignoring it.
“Hey GM, what’s the weather tomorrow?” “Oh yeah, let me just generate that real quick.”
Recharge Innate MagicR- Core gnomes won’t take this. However, there are about 3-4 gnome alternate racial traits with very solid SLA lists I would happily refresh. Re-cast an extra grease and silent image by sacrificing one spell slot? Heck yeah! Charm person and entangle? Yes please! Outside of the Utilitarian Magic trait, these SLAs are cast off Charisma, which is amazing for Oracles and okay for clerics.
Refine Improvised Weapon- Yet another “make improvised weapons okay” spell, and probably the best one of the list. Even then, all you’re doing is getting a masterwork weapon for an hour. For the third time, just buy a real weapon! If you really need a prison shank, refine the one you inexplicably decided to make with desperate weapon.
Reinforce Armaments- I don’t really see why you should care about an ACP reduction of 1, but at the very least a +1 to attack rolls is okay at level 1. I still don’t think it’s better than bless or divine favor, since by the time this spell is 20 minutes per level you should have a masterwork weapon of your own. Past that, not a chance this spell sees any use.
Remove FearSU- Absolutely, without a doubt, you need to get yourself a scroll of this spell ASAP. The average dragon can take you out of the fight for 5d6 rounds as a free action. Fear is a nasty debuff, and when you can remove it for just 25 gp, why would you not? You probably shouldn’t prepare this, though.
Remove SicknessSU- This spell is a lot less necessary than the above. A -2 to everything isn’t bad enough you need to prepare a contingency for it, but if you have the money I see no reason why you can’t have a scroll of one of these laying around too.
Resist Starvation- If you’re somehow caught without food, you have better options at your disposal. You did buy trail rations, right?
Restore Corpse- I don’t play horde necromancers, but I think skeletons are generally more useful than zombies. Either way, at least decompose corpse has an effect beyond dressing remains. Don’t prepare this routinely.
Rite of Bodily PurityC- This spell could be a mediocre cast-and-forget if it didn’t have an exorbitantly expensive 100 gp price tag. +2 to poisons, drugs, and diseases? Pass!
Rite of Centered MindC- Same thing. Slightly better, but you really should just prepare protection from evil.
Rune Trace- You discern information about a rune or symbol. Awfully situational to prepare on a daily basis, but I can see a few situations in which you might want this.
Sanctify Corpse- You will only need this spell if you are certain someone is going to attempt to zombify your target. Which, as it turns out, is pretty rare.
Sanctuary- If you are playing a support cleric, this spell is for you. Use your body to take up space, summon some mooks, and throw out buffs all while staying perfectly safe. A good candidate for Heighten Spell, as this spell only gets better when you get more rounds out of it.
Scarify- This spell is pretty metal and definitely flavorful spell for worshippers of Zon-Kuthon. Alas, preparing spells just for healing is just generally not a good gameplan. Especially when your healing spell doesn’t actually take you any further from unconsciousness and is only 2.5 points more efficient than cure light wounds. Can combo with Infernal Healing for some extra mileage if you really need it.
Shadow Trap- This is a fun spell. Entangle is a solid debuff already, and being able to mess up flying creatures at level 1 is a huge deal. Add on the opponent being unable to move away from its square and you’ve got a spell that’s very much worth being a save: negates. Shadow domain builds will appreciate this spell’s school and subschool.
Shield of Faith- Deflection AC is hard to come by, and getting a 1st level spell that provides scaling bonuses to it will never be bad. Shield of faith isn’t a spell that will ever wow you, but it’s also never a spell you’re upset that you prepared. Good with Fervor until your ring of protection catches up.
Shield Speech- If I’m reading this right, this spell entirely blocks any attempts to listen in, read lips, scry, or otherwise magically listen into a conversation between you and someone else. Period. Say what you want about the situationality of this spell, but that’s one hell of a guarantee if you ever needed one. It’s so rare to get a blanket immunity to anything in this game (probably since this was ported over from 3.5), much less from a 1st level spell, that I can’t help but rank this spell a little bit higher than its niche probably deserves.
Shield the Banner- Unless you live in perpetual fear of your GM sundering the flag you use for your Flagbearer feat, I deem it safe enough a risk to never consider this spell for anything ever.
Skim- Oh boy, another “get information from a book quickly” spell. Just as useful as kreighton’s perusal.
Songbird- You’d think a spell called songbird would be Shelyn-exclusive. The only real benefit here is the option that allows you to boost a spell with the sonic descriptor. While possibly an extremely useful option on a bard, the cleric/oracle has a whopping 10 spells with the sonic descriptor that require a save. By the time your 1st level slots are worthless enough to warrant burning them on a +1 to a DC, the only plausibly viable spells to supplement this are the level 7 holy word alignment spells. Too bad songbird has the [good] descriptor so you can’t use it with the best “alignment word” spell, blasphemy. If you wanna use this spell, be a bard.
Speak Local LanguageSU- The closest thing you can get to tongues at level 1. The usage of this depends on your campaign, but theoretically in a game where regional languages matter, you could be seeing a lot of use here.
Speechreader’s Sight- If any Oracles out there take the Deaf curse and don’t put a rank in Linguistics to read lips, this is the spell for you. Other than that, I can’t see too many reasons why a 1st level party would have no other way to eavesdrop a conversation at a distance.
Spirit Share- I initially read this spell to be way more powerful than it is, so I’ll clarify how it actually works. For the duration of the spell, spirit share lets you distribute potions and elixirs as a standard action touch instead of force-feeding or forcing somebody else to spend an action. The potion or elixir is still consumed as if it had been drunk. I suppose the main benefit here is if you have a bunch of potions on your person easily accessible. Still seems like a bit of a waste to me, but hey, it technically does streamline your action economy. Interestingly, this spell could also be used to test if an object is poisoned or otherwise harmful.
StarsightSU- While this spell was designed for nighttime navigation, something which it honestly does terribly, it is far more useful as a gimmick. Heavens oracles can use their Guiding Star revelation and starsight whenever the GM tries to squash your fun by arbitrarily deciding it’s a cloudy evening. Just watch the smile melt from their face next time you tell them you actually prepared starsight of all spells.
...But really, nobody else should even consider this garbage and I probably shouldn't have made this Green in the first place.
Stone ShieldR- I really do enjoy these immediate action defense spells, even if many of them are mechanically weak. Stone shield, however, stands above the rest of the 1st level cleric/oracle ones. Once you get to the point where you can burn your 1st level slots, a +4 untyped bonus to AC and +2 on reflex as an immediate action is absolutely worth your time.
Strand of the Tangled Knot- Man, I have a hard time rating this spell Orange. On one hand, if you know you’re about to be hit with something, logic would dictate that you try and do something to prevent yourself from being a target in the first place. On the other hand, once BAB gets to the point where your AC ceases to matter, a -10 to one attack in a round (which will likely be the creature’s best attack) could very well prove impactful. I’d say give this spell another chance once you hit 8th level or so. A possible candidate for Quicken spell. A definite candidate for Fervor at all levels.
Stunning Barrier- The AC and bonus to saves are bad. Stun as a debuff isn’t. You probably have better uses for first level slots, but don’t forget about stunning barrier cause in a few levels this spell becomes awesome.
Summon Minor Monster- Don’t bother with summon monster I, this is a summoner cleric’s go-to first level summon spell. The duration is still gonna suck, but with this spell you get 1d3 attack sponges, and a much wider list of summons to choose from. I recommend using the Advanced Monster Search as you decide what to summon. Some solid options include owls, porcupine, hagfish, podokesaurus, rhamphorhynchus, skunks, and anything that can poison. Particularly skunks.
Summon Monster I- Next to summon minor monster, this spell looks like a joke. Picking summon monster I is like deliberately using Mapquest because you want to stick with what you’ve been using for years. Sure you could, but why would you when there’s clearly a better option?
Sun Metal- Another spell you’d think for sure would be deity-specific. Extra damage on melee attacks will never be bad, and this damage stacks with most other buffs you could be putting out. As is the case with a lot of these 1st level cleric buffs, the only downside is that at most of the levels this spell remains relevant you’re not getting enough duration from this spell to really make it worth it.
Sure Casting- Of all the spells I wish would be swift actions, sure casting is far and away the one I want the most. You’ve heard me say it a ton by now; ignore this spell until high level when you have the slots to burn. I think on an oracle with Quicken Spell this could be a pretty powerful option to make sure your absolute best spells can land.
(My editor has since reminded me Warpriests can do this with Fervor! They won’t be using offensive spells as much, but it sure helps beat SR when they do)
Suspend DrowningSU- And we’re back to garbage spells. Way too situational to consider as a daily prep. Buy a scroll of it if you’re really concerned.
Swallow your FearSU, R- I’d rather just have remove fear than have to bank on this spell.
Tap Inner BeautyR- One of your few true low-level social buffs. Shelyn loves to help people be the party face. A +2 isn’t super impressive, but Charisma governs a whopping 7 skills, so you bet I’m gonna recommend giving anyone a supremely stackable bonus to all of ‘em.
Theft WardR- I can see a wizard getting paranoid about his spellbook getting stolen, but this spell has very little reason to be something you prepare. It protects a single item from being stolen for a day. How often are items stolen from PCs anyway? Use this on your campaign’s MacGuffin if you really have to.
Touch of Blindness- For a touch-save-negate, touch of blindness has a leg up on the others by affording multiple touch attack attempts. Blindness is a good debuff, but 1 round leaves much to be desired.
Touch of BloodlettingR- Bleed damage is pretty negligible, but Exhaustion is an absolute pain in the butt. I’m kind of surprised this is a Will save, but we can live with it. I still dislike having to connect with a touch attack only for the enemy to get a save to negate, but you could do a lot worse than this spell.
Tracking MarkR- From my experience, tracking is something that never seems to come up as much as the CRB seems to think it does. I don’t think this spell is bad, but I do think it’s too situational to justify preparing without advance notice.
True Appraisal- The buff to end all buffs to the game’s worst skill. Everything about this spell would be awesome if it weren’t affixed to the skill everyone ignores once the novelty of haggling wears off. If your party judiciously uses any sort of bargaining rules (like from Ultimate Combat), take this spell every single time you spend a day at the market for literal free money. Be careful with stuff like this, though. I guarantee after a few times of unloading all your Appraise buffs on a shopping spree your GM will get wise to your tricks and either try to counter you or elect to stop using that subsystem altogether.
Unbreakable Heart- Give one creature a +4 on saves against negative emotion effects. Too situational and too short a duration to get a better recommendation. Still, 1st level scrolls are cheap, and if you can’t afford a scroll of calm emotions and you’re really concerned about such effects, this spell can serve in a pinch.
Unhallowed Blows- A strong buff for necromancers. +1 to attack and damage, 1 minute/level, and 1 creature/ level puts this spell solidly above any other damage buff spell of this level, assuming you have enough creatures to cast it on.
Unwelcome HaloR- As far as I can tell, this seems like a pretty good spell. It looks like it straight-up beats magical darkness regardless of level. In addition, the spell has a line stating that it “makes it impossible for the creature to gain concealment in nonmagical darkness.” You can choose to read this one of two ways: the first being that this spell negates any concealment the target might have as long as they are within nonmagical darkness. That alone would make this spell worthwhile, allowing it to act as a cleric’s faerie fire. The second interpretation, the one I suspect this spell was meant to read as, would exclusively prevent the creature from gaining concealment from being in darkness and from nothing more. Either way, a 1st level spell that can beat darkness wins out in my book.
Watchful EyeR- I’m not personally a fan of shield other, but getting it a level early doesn’t sound horrible by my account. Solid for Oradins.
WaterproofSU- Very similar to fastidiousness for most, if not all relevant purposes.
Weapons Against EvilR- At low to mid levels, bypassing the DR of any evil creature is straight up awesome. Made even awesomer by affecting the weapons of your allies as well. Depending on the campaign, this spell could easily be one of your strongest picks, at least until DR scales past it.
Weaponwand- This spell seeks to emulate the Magus’s Spellstrike ability, only it uses the spell effects from a wand and does not add the damage of the two together. Wands typically are the least sought-after magic item thanks to their low DCs and high cost, so you’re probably going to be taking this spell only if you’ve found a good one across your adventuring. Depending on what you find, this spell could find its way onto your daily lists until you’ve spent all your charges.
Winter FeathersR- A racial spell with one of the oddest Target requirements out there. It may as well read “personal,” as you shouldn’t honestly expect to be in a party with a second bird. As it stands, this spell is literally just an endure elements spell that gives you a bonus to Stealth in the snow and only works in cold environments. These are the benefits you get from playing a Tengu.
Abeyance- If you really need a curse removed and you don’t have 3rd level spells, you can suppress it with this. It’s rare you’ll need it but you’ll be glad this is on your list if you deal with your curse for a day.
Aboleth’s LungR- Your first true save-or-die comes in the form of the gillman’s aboleth’s lung. You can also use it to breathe water, but who actually uses it for that? If you do actually plan on cheesing the suffocation here, be sure your group can afford to run away while you wait a few minutes for your victim to die.
Admonishing Ray- A nonlethal equivalent to scorching ray. This spell scales nicely, hits reliably, and is a very rare damage type: force. Fire is a common resistance, so honestly the inability to damage constructs and undead as compared to scorching ray isn’t too bad of a trade-off. Plus, it’s a good amount of damage for a caster starved for blasts. If you plan on taking Toppling Spell, this spell could be a very nice addition to your toolkit.
Aid- A single-target bless spell that gives a paltry few temporary hit points. No thanks. Even with Warpriest’s fervor it's not amazing.
Air Step- A weak version of air walk. The inability to rise more than a foot from the ground really inhibits this spell from being a worthwhile option. Still, if you really rely on charge lanes, the ability to ignore difficult terrain might be worth considering. Orange if you can somehow get the requisite ranks in Fly.
Alchemical TinkeringR- Talk about versatile. There’s dozens of useful alchemical items, and being able to swap them around based on the situation seems pretty darn useful if you know what to look for. Just be aware that this spell is a total action-economy sink; to do anything with the item you want takes at least a full round plus a standard action. I recommend using this spell primarily as a panacea. Buy a bunch of alchemical items of common price points, and whip out the perfect remedy to whatever ails you.
My editor has done a fantastic job of reviewing the many items you can substitute with this spell. Rather than list them all, I will highlight some of the more impressive ones for your convenience. Air Crystals, Antiplague, Antitoxin, Troll Oil, Blackfinger Paste, Cardice Oil, Duskeye, and Mithralbane Sap.
Align WeaponSU- Bypass alignment-based DR. Depending on your game, this spell could be very necessary. I’d personally opt to buy scrolls of this, but it’s your call.
Ally Across Time- The closest thing Pathfinder has to Pun-Pun revolves around abusing this spell, the Coven hex, and/or the Allied Spellcaster feat. For those of you who don’t play at infinite CL, it’s really just a +2 bonus per 4 levels beyond 3rd that you can use to flank with. It’s never unappreciated, but probably not worth the slot.
Alter Summon Monster- Just like with the above, a cheese option exists with this spell and a heightened version of the wizard’s Mount spell. If that kind of stuff flies at your table, have fun. For the rest of us, this spell provides a small amount of utility to our rounds/level summons. Only take this if you are playing a summoning build at levels where summons get SLAs worth talking about, or if you managed to convince your GM to let you cast this on a flaming steed or summon accuser.
Amplify Stench- There is a singular PC race even capable of using this spell. If you are somehow playing a Locathah with the Powerful Smell alternate racial trait, knock yourself out. And yes, I had to actually look up “stench” in the Archives of Nethys search just for this spell.
Ancestral Communion- Gain a +4 on Knowledge checks, or reroll failed Knowledge checks for the spell’s duration. Really, really good for fact-finding if you find yourself placed in the role of the party librarian.
Ancestral RegressionR- If your GM allowed you to play a drow and is committed to making your life difficult for it, this spell is for you.
Angelic Aspect, Lesser- I love the flavor on these spells. With its benefits all over the place, the lesser spell in the angelic aspect line leaves a lot to be desired mechanically. Just wait until 5th level when these spells become the kick-ass holy implement you always wished they could be.
Animate Dead, Lesser- It may just be one zombie or skeleton, but any effect that permanently puts another controllable body on the field rules.
Ant Haul, CommunalSU- For when you need to carry the dragon horde back to town.
Arrow of Law- Law and Chaos have never been as compelling narratively than Good and Evil. You’ll see this mindset reflected a lot in my alignment-based spells, where I rank these alignments as worse paths to pursue. I’d recommend this spell only if you anticipate fighting Chaotic outsiders, in which case it’s a very nice spell.
Ashen Path- Now this is a buff! Remember when I said wizards usually have the showstopper meta-defining spells? This is a rare time you get included in that. Abusing fog effects has always been a strong option to parties with the tools to exploit them, and ashen path makes this a terrifying reality. Everything about this spell is awesome, from the bonuses against magical contaminants (notably stinking cloud) to the ability to divide the duration (10 minutes per level!) among creatures touched. If you’ve got a party rogue, get ready to be new best friends on the bus to sneak attack city.
Augury- I happen to like augury, but I understand why it’s not traditionally seen as amazing. The data you get from the spell isn’t incredibly reliable, but sometimes being able to sort options into a binary can be useful.
Bear's Endurance- Of the animal stat spells, bear’s endurance is the one I see use the most at high levels if only because Constitution seems to never be the belt of choice and everyone can benefit from having more of it regardless of class. Unfortunately, extra Con is a lot more "hidden" as a stat, since you don't get any flashy bonuses save for your Fortitude. I also dislike the fact that when this spell goes away your hit points actually drop and you can die outright.
Beloved of the Forge- What a strange spell. You constantly know the direction to your home and get a bonus on repairing and creating items and to your items’ saving throws. Seems pretty worthless for everyone but crafters.
Bestow Weapon Proficiency- There’s a fine line between proficient and effective. You could give the commoner militia access to elven curve blades, but that doesn’t make them any more likely to hit. Unless you have a really sweet weapon nobody can use, this spell is very bad.
Blessing of Courage and Life- Gain weaksauce morale bonuses against fear and death. But wait, you can end the spell prematurely for like 8 hit points!
Blessing of Luck and ResolveR- About as good as the previous spell. At least this time, you can make a halfling temporarily immune to fear.
Blinding RayR- A dhampir-specific scorching ray that Blinds targets and also damages light-sensitive creatures. Unfortunately, 1 round of Blinded isn’t great, and when you’re only firing one ray you’d really rather be doing something else. It is pretty cool how you can direct all rays at the same target and force them to roll multiple saves. I recommend against taking this spell before 7th level.
Blood BlazeR- This spell is beyond horrible. First you have to touch an ally, which implies that either you two are in the fray together, or there aren’t any enemies around. Then you need to have your ally wade into the fray and have a creature take at least 5 damage with an attack while adjacent to another enemy. Then you roll a d8 to determine which square the burning blood sprays into, all to deal 1d6 points of fire damage and 1 point of splash, the splash which will usually damage the recipient of the spell. And just in case this spell was getting to be too strong, any creature can only make a spray of blood once per round. This spell fails on so many levels. It’s a buff spell that requires you to take damage and proceeds to damage you for using it. It’s an attack spell that requires so much randomness to hit, and then only hits for 1d6 damage. It’s a spell designed for a horde of enemies, when a horde of enemies are more likely to die in a single hit anyway. Even though there are technically worse spells out there, I’ve gone ahead and colored this spell even darker red just to prove how much I detest everything about this.
Blood in the Water- Cause yourself to bleed to send all sharks into a rage. How useful.
Blood of the Martyr- “You cause the target to bleed from every orifice, and her organs and blood become suffused with positive energy.” Who wrote this spell? The crazy thing is, this spell actually does a very respectable amount of bleed damage. I just wish the spell told me why someone would make this.
Bloodbath- Take 1d6 bleed so a bunch of other creatures can also take 1d6 bleed. Fortitude: negates makes a bad spell even worse.
Bloody Tears and Jagged SmileR- There is one reason and one reason alone you’d choose to worship Szuriel, and that’s to abuse the hell out of this spell. +4 to spell DCs is simply unheard of, and on top of that you get a strong bonus to Intimidate and a free deathwatch. Unlike spells like bestow curse and mind fog, you don’t have to force a save to make your spells harder to resist, you just get it for free, and for ten minutes per level. Because fear effects are usually encounter-enders, anyone who takes this spell will dictate the flow of combat for your group. This is a busted spell that absolutely should not exist. Your GM would be well within their means to ban this crap.
Boiling Blood- Give a +2 morale bonus to a number of orcs. Morale bonuses are nice, but a +2 for such a short duration leave a lot to be desired. Even with moment of greatness, this spell is really only worth it if you have at least a second orc to cast it on.
Bone Fists- +2 on damage for natural weapons would be a decent pick around levels 3-6 for a single-target spell. Bone Fists goes beyond that and affects multiple targets. If you’ve got a druid and her companion, 4-6 natural attacks per round will really start to really show off how much damage this spell can do. Or you can just spam the crap out of summons and cast this on the round your new minions arrive. Plus, the +1 natural armor bonus means even the wizard can get something out of this. This spell’s usefulness is definitely going to be based on your party composition.
Boneshaker- Control a skeleton like a puppet. Does reasonable (uncapped!) damage and allows you to slightly reposition living targets. Against undead, you force them to spend an immediate action to move or attack. At levels 3-6, the damage from this spell is very good for a 2nd level spell, but as you grow the CL scaling eventually drops off. Versatile and moderately impactful means you won’t ever have a situation in combat where this spell is unappreciated.
Book Ward- The only real benefit here worth noting is a days/level single-target waterproofing option.
Brittle PortalR- I don’t know why you would want to reduce hardness of items if you didn’t want to break them entirely. Pairs alright with Hairline Fractures if you really need to sunder walls, but you still have a lot of hit points to burn through. Just use shatter.
Build Trust- Cast this on a target to gain bonuses on Charisma-based checks. I’m of the belief that any creature with a reasonable chance of failing your save is probably one you could convince without the buff anyway. Regardless, I’d rather spend time buffing myself and not risk my spell be wasted due to an unlucky saving throw.
Bull's Strength- Here’s a buff your Big Dumb Fighter will appreciate every time. Or at least until he gets himself a belt in a level or two. Then this spell just becomes okay.
Burst of Radiance- Much better than blinding ray in just about every regard. I love debuffs with partial saves, and the failed save effect here is very enticing. A 10-ft. radius Blindness effect usually can snag 2 or 3 bodies within. Add in 1d4/level true damage against evil creatures and you’ve got a no-brainer spell.
Calm Emotions- For the goody-two-shoes clerics, calm emotions is the spell that makes Diplomacy with Hostile creatures possible. The ability to stop negative emotion effects rarely comes up (save for maybe confusion), but it’s nice to be able to stop when they do. Combos well with peacemaker’s parley.
Calm Spirit- A copy-paste of calm emotions except now it only affects spirits and haunts.
Cleromancy- This spell is a bit confusing and does not seem particularly good unless you build for it. At low levels, you’re likely to get only one or two rounds of a bonus, and the bonus isn’t necessarily going to be all that impressive. At high levels, this spell might be worth it to gain a few +4 bonuses you can add to anything, though with the rounds/level duration it becomes tough to justify casting in the middle of a fight. If you’ve got a lesser rod of maximize spell this spell shoots from good to great.
Cloud of SeasicknessR- Sickened is nowhere close to being as good as the nauseation stinking cloud offers, but then again this is only a level 2 spell. In all regards save for its duration, this spell beats out the wizard’s fog cloud by a mile. Much, much better than obscuring mist, and a solid addition to any control cleric's kit.
Compassionate Ally- Remember how I said healing in combat is a waste of an action? Well turns out, when you make your enemies do it, it’s not the best either. You have better tools for neutralizing threats, so this spell ends up looking pretty meh. Basically just treat this spell as a longer duration command and only use it for the purposes of temporarily removing an enemy from combat.
Compel TongueSU- A solid language option while you wait for tongues to come online. As long as your target isn’t going to get offended or anything...
Conditional Favor- Provide a spell to others with the understanding that if they renege on the agreement the spell immediately ends. Maybe if you’re making agreements with devils this could be useful…?
Consecrate- Ward an area against undead. You’ll rarely need to prepare this without foresight. Even then, the benefits really are not amazing.
Contact Entity I- Contact eldritch entities in a 100 mile radius to potentially come to your location. I can’t really rate this line of spells, as it’s entirely GM fiat how the entities respond or if they even do at all.
Cure Moderate WoundsSU- See cure light wounds.
Curse ItemR- You touch an item to give it a magical or mundane flaw. You can’t even use it in combat, making this spell absolutely useless for almost any practical purpose.
Curse Terrain, Lesser- What are the odds you’ll ever need to use this? The hazards aren’t even guaranteed to be in a place convenient to you. This is a GM spell.
Dark WhispersSU- This spell is basically a multi-target message spell that lasts 10 minutes per level. You don’t need to have line of effect once the spell has been cast, which is a very attractive quality in a communication spell. If for some gods-forsaken reason you need to split the party, this spell helps diminish that risk.
Darkness- Your mileage here is going to be entirely based around the visibility of your party and your enemies. A lot of enemies, especially at high levels, tend to have darkvision so you’ll need to utilize deeper darkness if you want to have any reliable impact.
Deadeye's ArrowR- This spell was bad for a 1st level spell, and is worthless for classes that get it as a 2nd.
Death CandleR- Kill a dying creature to summon a fire elemental. Since this spell has the same casting time as summon monster II, the only possible benefit to this spell would be if you killed a creature with higher HD than your CL. There’s no way this benefit would outweigh the versatility of just preparing summon monster II like a normal person.
Death Knell- Honestly not a bad spell. The bonuses are solid, last a good amount of time, and shouldn’t be that hard to farm if you just make a habit of reminding your GM to not take tokens off the board once a creature drops below 0.
Deathwine- You suffuse a potion with necromancy, and when you drink it you gain a bonus to your CL on the next necromancy spell you cast within a minute equal to the level of the potion consumed. The bonus here is solid, but the issue is that you’re burning money rather quickly if you intend on using this spell often. This could be useful if you really need a buff to CL for something crucial, but use it sparingly else your whole WBL will be wasted on potions. Green for horde necromancers who need every HD they can get.
Defending BoneR- Pharasmins get this beauty of a spell. You grant yourself DR 5/bludgeoning for hours per level. No material component, no long casting time, nothing. I don’t see how this spell is anything but a complete win.
Delay DiseaseR- Exactly what it says on the tin, you suppress a disease for a day. Too bad you still have to succeed on a CL check for this to mean anything. Also, your race gets alchemical tinkering anyway and you can easily just pick up some antiplague.
Delay PainSU- Pain effects are pretty rare in pathfinder, and usually involve taking nonlethal damage as opposed to imparting debuffs. Too situational to be worth taking. If you really are concerned, buy a scroll, but I don’t really think that’s honestly necessary either.
Delay PoisonSU- Poison rarely kills in Pathfinder, and usually the ones that do have laughably easy save DCs. You can pretty safely pass this up. Get a scroll if you’re unduly concerned.
Desecrate- Oddly, I think this spell is better than consecrate. If you need a situation to defend and you have the horde of undead at your command, you’ve essentially overcome the issues with consecrate, being that you know you’re going to get a good amount of benefit from it.
Detect Magic, GreaterSU- Detect magic is already a great spell, but that’s primarily on virtue of it being a spammable cantrip. I have never encountered a situation where lingering auras are an important enough plot point where I’d need this spell. The only really useful thing this spell brings to the table is the ability to identify a caster’s magical flourish by looking at the spell. Is it worth a 2nd level slot? Probably not.
Detect Relations- The Paternity Test spell. I find the focus component amusing, at least.
Diminish Resistance- You’re not a blaster, so reducing resistances is only really useful if you have an elemental specialist in your party. And even then, Fort: negates makes this spell less desirable.
Disfiguring Touch- Oh boy! Melee touch attacks with a save to negate! If you can wait out until 3rd level spells, bestow curse is everything you wanted this spell to be.
Display Aversion- Even if you’re expecting to fight vampires this spell is still worse than terrible. Buy actual garlic and use the holy symbol you are required by your class to possess.
Dread Bolt- An arrow of law for evil characters. Sickened 1d4 rounds is arguably worse than 1 round of Daze, although in an evil campaign your odds of fighting good characters is reasonably higher than fighting chaotic creatures in a law-based game.
Dress Corpse- If you’re trying to doctor the evidence of a corpse, why not just not leave evidence in the first place? There’s plenty of ways to feasibly do that without wasting a spell.
Drunkard's BreathR- A stinking cloud that doesn’t impair vision. Depending on your party, that might just be an upgrade. A very good reason to worship Cayden.
Dwarven VeilR- Firstly, who worships Bolka? Secondly, how often are you going to need a spell to influence dwarves? The bonus here isn’t even all that impressive. Shelyn has a spell like this at 1st level that works for all creatures, why does this one have to be so bad? Literally just read the next spell on this list if you want a +2 to social checks.
Eagle's Splendor- Depending on your party this could be a solid buff before you get headbands. Paladins, Oracles, Sorcerers, Bards, all appreciate a +2 to their class features and DCs, and even out of combat a +2 to Charisma checks is pretty darn nice for really important social encounters. This spell tapers off fast once everyone gets a headband of it though.
Early JudgmentR- Another thematically cool Pharasmin spell. The debuffs are decent, but the short duration and specific targeting requirements are a real bummer. If you choose to interpret it where a NE creature gains the debuffs from being N and E, I can see this spell being Green. That’s pretty clearly not what the author was going for, though.
Effortless ArmorSU- If this spell were a longer duration I could see this as a cast-and-forget. But 1 minute/level? Pass this up except for the one scroll you’ll buy in case you get into a chase scene.
Enchantment Sight- Just detect magic.
Endure Elements, CommunalSU- I much prefer this spell to casting endure elements multiple times. Unless you’re in a 2-person party, one 2nd level slot is usually less valuable than all of your 1sts.
Enemy's HeartR- A minor buff to death knell that works on any helpless target without save, offers a profane bonus to Strength, and gives a few extra hit points. Still not good enough to be Blue, but the improvements are significant enough to matter. My editor says the saveless aspect makes this decent as a scroll, though I still wouldn’t call it good enough to warrant a higher rating for the SU.
Enthrall- Fascinated is quite the debuff. I always find it tricky to use though, since the condition requires no hostile action to be taken and usually demands your attention somehow. Even this spell doesn’t have the most practical application in combat, as 4 HD creatures tend to fall off the map really fast upon gaining access to this spell. This spell is one of your best options at drawing a crowd, and in some games that can be a very valuable asset.
Eroding Ray- A scorching ray variant that trades 2d6 damage per ray for full DR and hardness reduction. I see this spell less as a combat option and more as a utility option for breaking items and walls. Shatter usually will win out in these cases, but sometimes it's nice to have a spell that can also double as a level of damage if you need it.
Fear the Sun- Impose light blindness on your enemies. There are spells out there that are effective against light blind foes, although allocating your spell list exclusively for this strategy leans toward the dubious rating me. Still, assuming you’re casting this in daylight, it is a 1 round multi-target Blindness spell. I’d rather have burst of radiance, but if you have a solid follow-up give this spell consideration.
Find TrapsSU- Gain the trap sense rogue talent for minutes/level. I dislike the short duration, as it means a dungeon will require multiple castings of this spell to actually have any use. Why don’t you just summon some “trapfinders” instead?
First World RevisionsR- See ancestral regression.
Flickering Lights- Any battlefield effect that you have no control over is a bad effect.
Gentle ReposeSU- The only use I’ve ever seen come out of this spell is when you’re asked to bring someone a head or for whatever reason can’t get a raise dead right away.
Ghost Whip- Create a whip with ghost touch for rounds/level. Even if this spell offered some sort of scaling enhancement bonus, it would still be too situational to use.
Ghostbane Dirge- Also too situational. Incorporeal creatures are a pain, but uncommon enough that you need advance knowledge to ever consider this spell. I’d be more inclined to recommend this spell if it wasn’t Will: negates.
Ghoul HungerR- Force a creature to consume the flesh of a helpless creature. If you want a humanoid out of the fight that badly, just use hold person.
Gird Ally- Give a small deflection bonus to all summoned creatures you control. I really can’t recommend this spell. The bonus is too low, and to get enough creatures on the field to make this impactful requires quite a bit of effort.
Gozreh's TridentR- A Gozreh-exclusive flame blade that functions as a trident and deals electricity damage instead. Barely worthwhile.
Grace- You don’t provoke AoOs for a round due to movement. The casting time here is what really sells it; you generally don’t have much need for your swift actions unless you’re a Warpriest. Pass this spell up at 2nd level spells, and revisit it when your higher level slots are the only things you regularly use.
GroundswellR- Touch a creature and give the ability to raise the ground above them as a swift action. The only benefits this imparts are the ability to ignore flanking, and a potential +1 for attacking from high ground. This would be okay at 1st level, but definitely not worth a 2nd.
Halfling Vengeance- Super-specific spell that provides a strong buff to small-sized creatures that wield daggers or slings. Adding multiple extra d6 as sneak attack on all attack rolls is no joke, and to top it off you give the character the flexibility to impart one of four not-inconsequential saveless debuffs when they inflict precision damage. For reference of just how absurd this spell is, a prototypical TWF dagger rogue at level 8 could very well be looking at an extra 8d6 per round. Or they could do 6d6 and ensure next round they can continue the onslaught regardless of battlefield positioning by forcing the target flat-footed. If you’ve somehow got the party composition for this, prepare it multiple times and never look back.
Hanspur's Flotsam Vessel- It is rare that you’ll ever need to conjure up a raft.
Healing Token- This spell was so close to being good. The biggest issue with healing is the fact that you’re not doing anything with your turn besides laying down the heals. Immediate action heals on-demand would be so good if it didn’t require a standard action to plea for help. Sadly, it does, and this spell goes straight into the garbage bin.
Heroic Fortune- I personally use hero points in my games. And while they are super duper powerful, the 100 gp material component here is a major turn-off. This spell is much better on arcane casters that can False Focus it.
Hold Fey- If you’re fighting fey, I see no reason to pass by this spell. Fey are much rarer than humanoids, so this shouldn’t be an every-day cast. You also need to be careful of SR with fey.
Hold Person- The most ubiquitous 2nd level save-or-die. All it takes is one failed save and a party member’s coup-de-grace and that humanoid is donezo. Rated green instead of blue for the creature restriction, the ability to make additional saves, and the save: negates aspect. Pairs nicely with Persistent Spell.
Holy Ice Weapon- Make a masterwork weapon out of ice that deals cold damage and holy water damage. Could be worse, but also could be much better. The spell shines when you can fight undead since the damage buff stacks decently with level. Rated Green if you’ve built yourself for melee and you’ve got undead or evil outsiders in your future.
Imbue with Aura- Almost entirely useless. Only good if you’re throwing around alignment-based AoEs. Funnily enough, Oracles can take this spell despite not having an aura.
Imbue with Elemental Might- Transfer your suli Elemental Assault to another creature. Bad unless you’ve taken Incremental Assault, in which case it’s marginally worth consideration for its ability to let someone circumvent defenses on an as-needed basis.
Inflict Moderate WoundsSU- See inflict light wounds.
Influence Wild Magic- I have never played with primal magic and don’t know anyone else who has.
Inheritor's SmiteR- Gain a +5 sacred bonus on an attack, with the same bonus applied to a bull rush attempt. A swift action cast makes this spell solid for the battle-minded Iomedaeans who get it. As with many swift action spells, I recommend passing it up until you’ve got the slots to spare.
Inner Focus- Oh look, a spell that makes it so you’re not screwed if you lose your holy symbol. Oh wait, nevermind; it takes a holy symbol to cast it in the first place. You get so few illusions and this is what they’re wasted on?
Instant Armor- Shouldn’t you be wearing the armor you need by now? At least this spell can give you enhancement bonuses to it I guess. I’d rather magic vestment at the level where that becomes relevant, though.
Instant WeaponSU- Can you summon exotic weapons and still be proficient in them? Either way, a mwk weapon very quickly loses all charm unless you’re fighting incorporeals. You’ve likely got better spells to be preparing.
Instrument of Agony- Transmute a weapon to be more terrifying. The +2 bonus on Intimidate checks is pretty forgettable at this level. No, the real benefit is the potential 1d4+1 rounds of Nauseation on a failed save when the wielder discharges this effect. Basically just treat this spell as a single-target nauseate effect that has the very respectable plus side of Sickening for a round on a successful save.
Intensify Psyche- A +1 bonus to the DC of your emotion and pain spells, and a +2 to some Charisma checks. Didn’t we see a spell like this before…? Either way, boosts to our DCs are always much appreciated, especially when your 2nd level slots stop meaning as much.
Invigorating Poison- Theoretically if you’re willing to spend the effort or the money on weak self-poisons, this spell is a way to get a +4 alchemical bonus on whatever ability score you want. I wouldn’t ever use this spell banking on getting poisoned, I’d just use it and deliberately poison myself using a summoned monster or something. Too bad the duration will only ever be a few minutes long.
Ironskin- Shorter duration personal barkskin that gives more AC and can be discharged to negate a crit or sneak attack. Very nice for anybody.
Know Peerage- One creature uses your Knowledge (nobility) ranks. But watch out, this spell would have been too strong so the designer made sure to cap it at only 5 ranks. We all know how often a high Knowledge (nobility) tends to break campaigns.
Lay of the Land- Is the first part of this spell’s description an instantaneous effect, or is that too a 1 day duration? If it’s the former, I see no reason why you couldn’t plop this spell down whenever you find yourself in a new location and don’t expect any immediate trouble. If it’s the latter, forget this spell ever existed.
Lead PlatingSU- This spell encloses a person or object in lead to eschew divinations. Rarely if ever will you want an item to be protected from divinations for mere minutes. Creatures, on the other hand, definitely can benefit from this spell, even despite the relative rarity of hostile divinations out there. If nondetection is financially or magically out of reach, this spell can work in a pinch. Has good synergy with invisibility.
Life ChannelR- Technically, converting healing into temporary hit points is more along the lines of buffing yourself than healing. If you’re willing to burn the extra spell slots (I wouldn’t be), you can gain a solid amount of temporary hit points from this spell. The duration unfortunately is worse than the comparable false life, and if you really needed healing you should’ve just bought a wand of inflict light wounds.
Life Pact- You’d probably cast this spell on all your party members before a battle. So do you really think 3-5 hit points will buffer the difference between unconsciousness and death often enough to be useful? Spend your 2nd level slots on something that prevents someone from going down in the first place.
Light PrisonR- Enclose a creature per 2 levels in a cage of light. Except instead of actually trapping them, it forces them to stand still or else take 1d6 points of damage and 1 round of Blindness. Single target, this is mediocre at best. AoE, it’s worth your slot.
Locate Portal- The one time my players were actually trying to find a portal to Hell they didn’t use this spell once. I think they just forgot about its existence like everyone else does. What was I talking about again?
Magic Boulder- Giants and siege engineers will love this spell. Are you playing a giant or a siege engineer?
Magic Siege Engine- Let me ask you again, are you playing a siege engineer?
Make WholeSU- Getting your items destroyed really sucks. It doesn’t tend to happen often enough to justify making this spell one you routinely prepare, but a scroll of it will save you from the embarrassing situation where you forgot to buy a backup sword. A scroll of this heals a respectable 3d6 hp and is still at the level where it’s cheap enough to consider buying. Just don’t expect your scroll to restore magical properties.
Marching Chant- If you can remember the last time you’ve had to roll for exhaustion after overland movement, you’re in the minority.
Martyr's Bargain- After being attacked by a damaging spell, you can delay the damage and rider effects for a few rounds, but the damage is Maximized when it affects you. There are better immediate action spells that don’t come with such a high price.
Masterwork Transformation- If you have a normal weapon you use for flavor, this spell can make it masterwork. If you’re away from a town and need a tool or have money to upgrade, it’s not a horrible idea to take this spell on a day of downtime. Plus it might be able to get you some masterwork tools your GM might otherwise not allow. Not a spell to plan on using often.
Mortal Terror- Start off making one enemy Shaken, and every turn they take damage they have to roll a save or have their fear increase by one step. I like that enemies are Shaken for at least one round regardless of save. The thing keeping this spell from being better is the fact that the enemy has to fail 2 saves and take damage for the debuff to actually mean much until they’re actually frightened.
Muffle SoundSU- Minutes/level party buff to Stealth at the cost of verbal component spell failure. Situational, but not horrible.
Necromantic Burden- One undead creature is harder to control. Way too situational, and not even all that strong, since most undead are going to attack you whether or not they’re under something’s control.
Necrostasis- Stagger an undead for rounds/level, anything already Staggered is Dazed for 1 round. Good single-target debuff if you know you’re fighting undead. Oddly enough, I’d rather take multiple rounds of Staggered than just one of Dazed, but it’s usually only weak undead that come already Staggered.
Night Blindness- Putting aside its effects for a second, this spell has so many odd contradictions I feel compelled to point them out. It’s a necromancy [curse] spell with SR: no and the (harmless) tag but isn’t actually harmless. Also it’s a days/level buff that for some reason needed to have the ability to be cast at medium range. Now onto the actual spell, you get a +4 bonus on saves to very situational effects in exchange for drastically impairing your vision. This spell is a better debuff than it is a buff, though that doesn’t mean I’d ever consider it for any of my daily preps.
Oracle's BurdenO- Some of these effects are absolutely brutal, and others are laughably useless. I’m including some of the notable curses as how good I think the effect is. Blackened, Clouded Vision (worse at 5th), Deaf, Lich and possibly Site-Bound Oracles (assuming anybody ever took it) might consider this spell.
Outbreak- Diseases in Pathfinder suck. I truly have no idea what anyone mechanically has to gain from them. If you’re all about Urgathoa and that stuff, sure do what you want. I’m telling you though, diseasing people very rarely will ever help whatever sinister schemes you’re planning.
Overstimulate- You really shouldn’t prepare spells that bank on people going unconscious to work (with one 5th-level exception…) since that spell slot could just be used to prevent the situation entirely with better planning. Even cure moderate wounds is a better option in-combat than this junk. My editor reminds me this could be Orange with Fervor. Even then, though...
Owl's Wisdom- Getting a +2 to Cleric, Inquisitor, Druid, and Warpriest DCs, a number of important skills (you know the one), and Will saves is awesome. Seeing as most of a Cleric’s offensive spells are based on saving throws you really shouldn’t pass up what is effectively a 10% increase in potency. Once you get a headband this spell drops off, but not as hard as some of the other animal stat spells. No matter who you play with, there will always be somebody in the party without a headband that would appreciate a +2 to their most important save.
Page-Bound Epiphany- Essentially just a fancy way to gain a bonus on a Knowledge check equal to your caster level. Cast this in downtime instead of making it a regular prep.
Path of Glory- A glorified magic trick of a spell. Carpet the battlefield with dozens of 5 ft. squares that heal allies 1 hp per round and cast dim illumination. A cool yet ultimately weak effect.
Peacemaker's ParleyR- Does this spell allow you to make Diplomacy checks in combat? I doubt it, but it might be worth taking if your GM rules it does. Otherwise, just cast enhanced diplomacy.
Pilfering Hand- Perform a disarm or sunder maneuver, or attempt a Sleight of Hand or Disable Device check at a distance. The value from this spell comes from the versatility, which is still admittedly narrow. Nonetheless, disarming and retrieving a weapon at range isn’t bad by any metric. You can usually bet whatever the baddy is carrying will be their best weapon, if not their only weapon of that type. How often do you actually see NPCs carrying a backup to their +5 super evil artifact bastard sword? Rated split color because I was really torn on this one.
Planetarium- A concentration duration starsight spell that projects to everyone nearby. Another fantastic addition to our repertoire of illusion spells.
Preserve Grace- Target a fellow good-aligned creature to remind them what being good is all about. This spell exists purely for RP.
Protection from [Alignment], Communal- A more efficient buff when you’re in a scrap with an enemy of a certain alignment. The bonuses to AC and saves should be lower by now, but the immunity to mind control is still ever relevant. The cool thing about the communal version of these spells is you can ward your full party from domination at once. Scrolls of this communal version are still fantastic, but by default they only affect 3 creatures, and are pricier enough to justify the SU staying blue.
Protection from OutsidersSU- A stronger, more situational protection from [alignment]. With good preparation this spell will treat you very well. Feel free to take this if you’re in a campaign dominated by a certain outsider type, but don’t rely on it exclusively as it cannot prevent mind control from anything not the designated outsider.
Protection from Spores- Plants and oozes are relatively rare enemies. I don’t recommend expecting this to come up often enough to make a habit of preparing. Take it if you know what you’re up against will use spores.
Protection from Technology- You will never need this spell unless you’re playing Iron Gods. I don’t know what qualifies as a technological effect, but I can only assume this spell was meant to be analog to the ubiquitous level 1 class of spells and extend that umbrella of mind protection to the special effects of robots.
Protective Penumbra- Few parties will ever care about light blindness or sunlight vulnerability. Light sensitivity, on the other hand, is a complete joke and is not worth your spell slots. If your GM was foolish enough to let you become a vampire, you’ll likely need this.
Radiation Ward- Entirely campaign specific.
Recentering Drone- As long as you concentrate, allied conditions are lowered by one step. It’s pretty rare for multiple allies to have severe status effects, and forcing you to sacrifice your standard actions to merely mitigate the severity doesn’t sound like any sort of advantage to me. Buy a scroll of soothing word if you’re really concerned about status effects.
Reinforce Armaments, Communal- By the time you can cast 2nd level spells you absolutely should not be needing this garbage.
Remove ParalysisSU- You will need a scroll of this. Period. Paralysis is so incredibly deadly I don’t believe any party should go without having some method with which to defend against it.
Resist Energy- The quintessential energy resistance spell (go figure). It’s never a bad idea to have somebody in your party with this spell prepared at all times. The only thing stopping this from being blue is that this spell is very hit-or-miss based on whatever the GM throws at you. Scrolls are less valuable thanks to poor scaling and the requirement that you designate which element the scroll wards against.
Restful Cloak- Turn your cloak into a tent that heals creatures within 1 point per hour. Generally you should be expending all of your healing spells before bed to top your party off, so really this spell is just a bad entry into the line of shelter-making spells.
Restoration, LesserSU- One way or another, this spell needs to be somewhere in your party. Restoring ability damage is just that important. In the case of this spell, the SU actually does not refer to scrolls exclusively. Lesser restoration is the only spell on the entire list I actually advocate getting in potion form if you can afford it. Turning a 3 round casting time into a standard action is very useful in the case of poison damage. Plus, anybody can activate them and almost all GMs interpret the spell to allow the imbiber to decide what ability score is healed instead of the caster (thanks to years of PFS loot tables establishing this precedent). Another option is seeing if you can buy it as a wand from a paladin, which is considerably cheaper per casting and will last you a very long time, with the caveat being you must be conscious and capable of standing still for 3 rounds.
Returning Weapon- Grants a weapon the returning special weapon quality for a shamefully low amount of time. Most thrown weapon builds don’t even want returning as it cuts down on the number of attacks they can make. Pass.
Reveal True Shape- It’s pretty rare you’ll encounter a disguised or transformed creature, realize they’re disguised in the first place, and then want to know their true identity. This spell is further hurt by a material component and granting the target a save to negate.
Revealing Light- This spell acts as light while also granting a number of very specific minor buffs. Not worth a 2nd level slot.
Rock Whip- For whatever reason Paizo really likes making spells that summon whips made from various types of matter. The gimmick with this one is that you can ignore cover as if the whip had earth glide. Nowhere close to useful enough to warrant your slots.
Rotgut- If you really wanted to be able to transmute water to wine, play a cleric of Cayden and take enhance water.
Rovagug's FuryR- Basically a cone-shaped greater thunderstomp on your spell list. A 30 ft. cone is pretty impressive, though you do need to use your actual CMB for the attack, which is likely to be too low to reliably trip multiple foes. Save this for the Warpriests, I guess.
Sacred SpaceR- A kick-ass buffed version of consecrate that works only against evil outsiders. Evil outsiders are a pretty wide-ranging category of enemies, and getting a +2 on good spell DCs as well as imparting a -1 to all of their rolls can not be underestimated. Unlike spells like songbird, you have actually a good number of spells to buff with this spell.
Savage MawR- A mediocre half-orc spell that gives a bite attack with 1 point of bleed. You can end the spell to perform a Dazzling Display as a swift action, which is pretty neat. The bite attack kinda sucks (especially if you took the bite attack racial trait), but I can see Intimidate Oracles considering this spell.
Secret SpeechR- For most purposes, this spell will just be worse than shield speech. The benefit here is being able to actively choose what the obfuscated messages to your speech sound like. I guess if your GM is picky about speaking in combat you could consider this spell, but it only affects a single target, so...
Semblance of FleshR- A disguise other that only works on constructs and makes them look organic. I promise, the next illusion will be actually worth your time.
Sense Fear- The only vaguely useful part of this spell is the ability to detect fearful creatures within 5 feet as blindsense. And that’s pretty darn situational.
Sense Madness- I don’t play with sanity rules, but I can’t imagine you’d often want to probe for creatures under mental duress. At least you can use this spell to get a +1 on a dispel check to remove confusion effects I guess.
Sentry SkullR- If you’ve got a base that needs defending, you could do worse than this spell. I like the permanent duration, low material cost, and that you can set triggering conditions with this, which ups its viability for use in traps if you’re creative enough.
Shackle- The essence of a touch-save-negate. This spell has a lot of utility in and after combat, and imparts upon your target a very nasty debuff if it hits regardless of the option you select. A very useful spell for messing up spellcasters, and a solid candidate for Reach Spell. Also if you want to be a jerk to any shopkeepers, you could try and make money from the masterwork manacles produced by this spell.
Shard of Chaos- An arrow of law for chaotic creatures. Unlike dread bolt, 1d6 rounds of slow is very enticing a debuff. Like the two before this, this spell varies in usefulness based on what you’re fighting.
Share LanguageSU- A perfectly good spell to communicate with friendly NPCs before you get tongues. It’s also generally a nice thing to give your friends so nobody is left out of a fun RP encounter.
Shared SacrificeR- You evenly share the damage you take with an enemy. Truly not a horrible effect, but be careful about the 1 round casting time and save to negate. Obviously if you plan to stand in the back all the time you shouldn’t consider this.
Shatter- Breaking stuff the easy way. Windows, doors, and obstacles are good candidates for the environmental aspect of the spell. At low levels, sundering weapons usually results in a crippled enemy, though you need to be careful about continuously sundering away your WBL. And of course, possibly the best use of the spell is sundering holy symbols or spell component pouches. Be very, very careful when using this tactic though. This is one of those “technically works but you really shouldn’t” tactics in Pathfinder, else you provoke the GM’s retaliatory ire.
Shield of Fortification- Give a creature light fortification for minutes per level. Not bad, not great.
Shield Of Shards- Trade your shield bonus to AC for the ability to make a not-insignificant number of melee dagger attacks as a move action. Two problems here: One, if you’re attacking anything in melee, beyond level 7 you’ll probably elect to use your full round attack or you’ll need your move action to enter melee range at all. Two, if you’re casting a spell, you’re willingly inviting a defensive cast, which to me is just begging for trouble. At low levels, you can only expect a few d4 to actually come out of this spell, and at high levels you shouldn’t be putting yourself in a position to make the fullest use of all the attacks you get. It’s a shame such a cool spell is too impractical.
Shield Other- I don’t really like shield other, but I get why people take it. To me, your party is still taking the damage anyway and you’re just wasting a perfectly good spell slot. Good on an Oradin, meh on anybody else.
Silence- My favorite spell on this list and the best illusion you have access to bar none. Cast on a pebble and literally invalidate any caster with no save. Because this effect is so busted, it’s a pretty common houserule that gives any creature entering the radius a save, so ask your GM how they plan to interpret the rules. In exchange for awe-inspiring anti-magic abilities, silence comes with the very real drawback of affecting all allies as well, so be careful. Thanks to having an option to not allow a saving throw, this spell scales with level amazingly, so it’s a fine candidate for metamagic feats (and consequently Magical Lineage). Quicken Spell lets you ready action counterspell (a counterspell that’s actually good), and even Widen Spell can be taken if you want to flood the battlefield with your magic-hurting juice.
Silent Table- Muffliato! Basically this spell works as an inverse-silence effect. Nobody outside of your bubble can hear your conversation, and you functionally gain a +2 on saves vs sonic (and presumably language-dependent) effects. This doesn’t come up often enough to really matter, though.
Snow Shape- What’s the hardness of packed snow? Even if you’re in a snowy environment, the touch range and low amount of snow you can actually affect prevent this spell from being useful at all.
Solidify Earth- Inhibits burrowing creatures and doubles the earth mastery ability of earth elementals. Too situational.
Soothing WordSU- Lessen the severity of a target’s conditions. I don’t think this is something you should regularly bring, but I guarantee if you do prepare it you’ll often find an applicable time to cast it. Even if its effect is minimal, I can’t fault you for considering this. Scrolls of soothing word are fairly useful, since they’re still relatively cheap and can save your life, particularly in the case of someone being Nauseated or Frightened.
Sound Burst- Nobody takes sound burst for the damage. A 10 ft. radius burst Stun is very attractive. Remember that a Stunned creature not only loses their entire turn, but also has to drop whatever they’re holding. A good follow up to sound burst is spending your move action to retrieve or kick away an item you really don’t want your foe to have. My editor wishes to tell you that this spell is very nice for allowing your allies to position themselves better too.
Spear of Purity- The arrow of law spell for good creatures. 1 round of Blind is nice, but not quite as good as the 1d6 rounds of slow or 1 round of Daze the other spells in this category deliver.
Spell GaugeR- Reveal one creature’s spells known or prepared. A very cool concept, except for the fact that the lowest level spells get revealed first and you can only learn about a number of spells equal to your caster level, and only up to 3rd level ones at that. Basically you’ll never be gaining any useful information relevant to the level of play you’ll be at.
Spindrift Spritz- An immediate action spell that gives a target a second roll against any effect that would cause Fatigued, Shaken, Sickened, or Staggered. That’s a lot of monsters and a lot of spells you could be giving bonuses against. I don’t recommend this at low levels, but it is decent at high levels. The cool thing here is you aren’t just giving second roll against the condition, but against the entire effect. So spells like blasphemy or slow that have one of these conditions as only part of the effect still let you roll twice against the whole thing.
Spiral Descent- Teleport straight downwards. Very rarely will you ever want this. I suppose it could be good for dungeon delving but that’s about it. I’d rather take the stairs.
Spiritual Squire- You create an ally of force to aid you in combat. This is a very cool spell that can be used in a number of different ways. By far the most useful applications of this spell are the retrieval of a stored item and the ability for it to aid another on AC or attack rolls. Check with your GM to see if the “carry an object” means the ally can pick up a dropped item. If it can, any effect that disarms foes works nicely with spiritual squire. Due to the solid duration and flexible versatility, this spell gets the A-OK from me.
Spiritual Weapon- You create a weapon of force to aid you in combat. This spell is simply amazing. Despite not being a blaster, spiritual weapon is the attack spell you’ve always wanted. At lower levels this spell will only amount to a d8 or two, but at higher levels you get to apply your iterative attack bonus onto the weapon How cool is that!? If you worship a deity with a favored weapon that has a nice crit range (Cayden, Sarenrae, Lamashtu, Urgathoa, etc), this spell is Blue for you, otherwise its Green. Ask your GM if you can apply Dazing Spell to this bad boy.
Stabilize Pressure- If your GM has you in a high-pressure environment, this spell is your only protection until the 3rd level pressure adaptation. I really hope you are never put in a situation where you’d ever need this, but it’s here if you do.
Staggering Fall- An immediate action 1d6 damage coupled with a solid rounds/level Staggered condition and a forced standard action waste, marred by being contingent upon cast on a falling target and allowing another save as a free action. At least the casting time means you can combo this off of a barbed chains for a one-two punch. I’ll admit, I’ve never played around with this spell, so I can only guess that it doesn’t necessarily seem all that terrible if you’ve got the right setup. If you have someone who excels at tripping or plan on allying with creatures that Overrun (Editor’s addition), I can see this spell becoming your party’s new favorite tactic.
Stalwart Resolve- Ignore penalties and damage to 1 ability score for mere rounds/level. I’d rather a single lesser restoration, even if it happens that I roll a 1.
Status- Don’t split the party and you won’t need this spell.
Stave Off Corruption- Gain a +2 circumstance bonus against corruptions. Too situational even if your group does use those rules.
Stoke the Inner FireR- A spell made for fire giants, not for PCs. Each round you have this spell active, you burn a swift action to make your weapon flaming and deal a whole point of fire damage to melee attackers. Considering sun metal at 1st level and flame arrow at 3rd as benchmarks, stoke the inner fire is not worth a 2nd level spell slot (unless you’re somehow of the fire subtype and even then, it’s not great).
Stone Throwing- Gain the ever-impressive rock throwing and rock catching abilities. Boy do I love having a 2nd level spell that allows me to deal 1d8 damage on a ranged attack. It’s not like there’s anything else in the game that can do that!
Storm Sight- You can detect the approximate locations of creatures within 400 feet so long as you are all presently in a storm. The only truly useful thing here is if you can stand concentrating for 13 rounds you can get half your caster level on your next initiative check before the minutes/level spell duration ends. Good luck finding a GM that actually rolls for the daily weather.
Summon Cacodaemon- Cacodaemons are way ahead of the curve for level 2 summons, sporting a number of prototypical evil outsider SLAs, telepathy, and very respectable defenses. It’s a little cheesy and might impact your relationship with NPCs, but you can relay short conversations through these daemon in lieu of tongues. An all-around useful summon you can and will regularly rely on.
Summon Monster II- We’re getting there. Summon monster I was bad because it was crippled by short duration, but now you can actually summon something and have it stick around for a bit. I remember the celestial wolf and lightning elemental being solid choices at this level.
Editor’s note: Earth elementals are strong creatures at this level for their Power Attack, spiders let you get crowd-controlling webs out in the battlefield, and the Summon Evil Monster option Pugwampis are straight-up busted with their aura of unluck and shatter.
Sun's Disdain- A terrible excuse for a touch-save-negate. Granting someone permanent light blindness is total weaksauce for a PC to use.
Suppress Charms and Compulsions- If you’re really worried about that upcoming succubus dungeon and for whatever reason you didn’t elect to prepare communal protection from evil… Actually, why don’t you just cast that instead?
Surmount Affliction- Suppress one harmful condition affecting yourself. This is deceptively bad-- any affliction worth spending an action to suppress is one that prevents you from casting this spell at all.
Sympathetic WoundsR- Very similar to shared sacrifice, except the duration is hours/level, costs 250 gp, has a HD limit, and is usable by Kuthites instead of Asmodeans.
Tears to Wine- Grant any creature that drinks the alcohol you make a significant, scaling enhancement bonus on Wisdom and Intelligence checks for 10 minutes/level. The real boon here is that this is a respectable duration party buff to over half the skills in the game.
Touch of Mercy- A touch-save-negate that forces a creature to deal only nonlethal damage with its weapons. Too weak an effect for what you have to do to impart this debuff. My editor reminds me that you can Fervor this to take prisoners without massive penalties, allowing you to convert all damage types to nonlethal.
Track Ship- Only useful if you need to confirm coordinates so your wizard’s teleport spell doesn’t send you to somebody else’s vessel.
Trail of the RoseR- A Shelyn-exclusive Hansel and Gretel illusion. It is at least a little bit cool that you can give the rose to someone you know well so you can follow them later. Maybe you could plant this into your nemesis’s backpack?
Transmute Wine to Blood- One of the most useless spells in the game. I love wasting money!
Twisted Futures- Creatures close to you must save or be incapable of rolling multiple dice and taking higher results or choosing the result manually. Sounds like the spell your GM will use one they’re tired of people spamming maximized threefold sight.
Undeath Sense- A strict buff to detect undead, if you ever needed that sort of thing.
Undetectable Alignment- If you’re playing an evil character in a town of paladins, you might be forced to take this. If you’re playing an evil character and want to conceal it from your fellow party members, you should probably reconsider that decision entirely. It rarely turns out well.
Unholy Ice Weapon- The evil analog to holy ice weapon. I can stomach the material component cost for 1d4+CL bonus weapon damage for the alternative, but this is strictly useful on good outsiders, a rather narrow range of enemies. It does about 5.5 extra damage at level 3 if you can get the right enemy, but it’s otherwise unimpressive.
Unliving Rage- An AoE rage spell that only affects your undead thralls. A fantastic buff for the horde necromancer.
Urgathoa's Beacon- Place a haunt somewhere that grants nearby undead awareness of the unsuspecting target. That’s one way to guard your base, I suppose.
Vexing Miscalculation- On a failed save, prevent the target from scoring its next critical hit. Or, alternatively, cast a spell that forces an actual drawback on a failed save that prevents your allies from getting hit in the first place.
Violent Accident- This is admittedly a pretty funny spell. You put a curse on somebody that dooms them to take damage in an accident in the near future. The obvious use here is to cast it on a low-level NPC you need to kill without drawing suspicion. And thanks to the long range, you can pretty reliably ensure the death of anything you want-- provided they’ve got only a couple of HD.
Water Walk, CommunalSU- Usually a communal spell is a level higher, but not in this case. The communal water walk is a strict downgrade over its cousin, though that doesn’t make this spell useless. Especially if you wear heavy armor, this spell is a great answer to the one time every twenty sessions you’ll be asked to roll a Swim check.
Weapon of Awe- A flat +2 to damage on any weapon, with the bonus of imparting 1 round of free Shaken on a crit. Even better on weapons with large crit ranges.
Web Shelter- The earliest shelter-type spell you have access to. Really, this is hardly an improvement over a tent at all. I highly doubt you are incapable of carrying a tent with you.
Whispering LoreR- An elf-only spell that gives a +4 insight bonus to a Knowledge check based on your terrain. Really not anything spectacular, and definitely not worth your daily preparations.
Zone of Truth- While useful in theory, there are two glaring problems with this spell. Firstly, anything you wish to target needs to make a save to actually be affected. Unless your GM rules you are privy to the result of the enemy’s save, you have no way of knowing any of the information you’re getting from them is accurate. Secondly, anything that would want to lie to you can and likely would simply choose to not answer your question. Your success with this spell then is entirely dependent on whether or not the GM wants to rule your target slips up with their words somewhere.
Accept Affliction- Touch an ally to gain their afflictions instead. Really a poor use of an action and a 3rd level spell.
Aggravate Affliction- If for some ungodly reason you find yourself poisoning or diseasing people in this game, you can use this spell to force the trigger without an onset time. Poisons and diseases categorically suck, though, and as a result this spell does too.
Agonize- Torture an outsider that you’ve conjured via planar ally into serving you better. I don’t like the idea of making an enemy out of anybody, but if you really need a way to control an outsider there’s nothing really stopping you from imprisoning them in a magic circle spell and repeatedly casting agonize until they fail.
Agonizing RebukeR- Create a phantasm targeting one creature that makes them take 2d6 damage whenever they would make an action that harms you. I guess this spell is an illusion that actually does something. The something it does is just horribly weak for its level.
Air Breathing- Does what it says on the tin. How many times have you needed to bring a fish to land again?
Align Weapon, CommunalSU- As with the lesser version, the usefulness of this spell will be entirely contingent upon your game. I no longer recommend buying scrolls of this as much, though, as we’re starting to get to the point where they just get too expensive for what they do.
Animate Dead- This is why people say clerics make the best necromancers. You get access to the quintessential zombification spell two levels earlier than the wizard does, coupled with your incredible ability to pump out buff spells to your subjects. Make sure to confirm with your GM whether or not you can make variant zombies and skeletons to fill your ranks.
Appearance of Life- A disguise other that makes undead appear living. Useful if you need to get your zombies through a populated area, which happens enough I suppose this spell isn’t a complete wash. Non-necromancers need not apply.
Archon's Aura- Send out a 20 ft. aura that penalizes enemies’ attack rolls, saves, and AC and stacks with other similar debuffs like Shaken. This spell could be worse, but it certainly isn’t useless. My main problem here is that a successful attack against you ends the effect for any given creature. Thankfully, sanctuary is on your list too, and by the time you get 3rd level spells dropping a 1st level to supplement your action isn’t the worst idea in the world. Especially if it means imparting an AoE penalty to three very important battlefield attributes. Rated Split Color for indecision.
Aura of Cannibalism- Imagine a vampiric touch that was inexplicably an aura attack and only siphoned 1d4 points of damage each round a creature remained nearby. Now imagine that spell only worked on creatures with the same creature type and subtype as you. Who genuinely thought this would be a solid strategy for anything?
Aura of Inviolate Ownership- You abjure your items against being stolen. For rounds/level. How often have you seen enemies perform Steal maneuvers again?
Aura Sight- All alignment auras become visible to you. This is a severely underrated spell in my opinion. 120 ft. vision is nothing to sneeze at when you consider how often a typical dungeon throws you into a 20’ x 20’ room. Use this spell to highlight when a fight is coming, track high level enemies, pinpoint concealed creatures in a pinch, and identify the presence of aligned spells and magic items. An excellent candidate for permanency, which makes this spell Blue.
Badger's Ferocity- Making weapons keen is very nice at this level. You’re not likely to have a keen scimitar yet, something which critfishing builds can only dream of. The problem here is this spell lists “concentration” under its duration line. Making 1 or 2 weapons keen is a hilariously bad use of your standard actions.
Beacon of LuckR- Allies gain a +2 sacred bonus on saves within 30 ft. and can end the effect by rolling twice on any one save. I will never condemn a spell that gives free bonuses to saves, but this seems a bit weak for 3rd level. I’d be scared to use the roll twice on anything I wasn’t sure was going to be bad, so make sure you’re rolling Spellcraft on every spell that comes your way to better inform when you want to drop the effect. This spell is Red for oracles, thanks to the dumb 24 hour mechanic.
Bestow Curse- One of the best debuff spells in the game and exactly what you want to see in a touch-save-negate. This spell is the benchmark by which all of your touch-save-negate spells will be compared to. A creative player with a lenient GM can take this spell very far thanks to its power and versatility. The 50% action effect is absolutely killer, and is honestly more in line with a 6th level spell in my opinion. Lowering Con or Wis by 6 can really put a dent in your enemy’s defenses too (-3 hp per hit die is brutal). A good candidate for Reach Spell, as is it a great candidate to specialize a build around; and Persistent Spell, as its effects will often make or break a battle. Plus, unlike the Wizard, you get this spell as a level 3, meaning it is a valid candidate for any other lesser metamagic rod you might find. Here is a good resource from published (3.5) sources to assist you in making your own effects, and here is one from Horror Adventures (PF) with a few more to consider.
Bestow InsightR- A Human racial spell that’s inexplicably 3rd level for you. You give one creature a small insight bonus and a roll twice effect on a single check you have a rank in (similar to beacon of luck). Useful, but not worth a 3rd level spell at all.
Black Sword of WarR- One weapon you touch imparts bleed on a hit. The amount the enemies bleed is too low to ever really matter.
Bleed Glory- A spell for mythic campaigns to be used by the GM, not you. Let’s face it: every boss enemy ever is presumed to have all of their spells and abilities remaining, sitting at full hit points at the final room of the dungeon, twiddling their thumbs 24/7 until your party accosts them. Forcing them to spend twice the mythic power cost is almost never going to get them to exhaust their pool from max capacity.
Blessing of the Mole- Grant your party darkvision and +2 to Stealth. Boring, but might be useful if you need darkvision and don’t have someone to prepare it communally. Be wary of the short duration.
Blindness/Deafness- A save-or-suck that the wizard got two levels ago. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it, but it’s not the Blue spell for you as it was for him. With 3rd level spells, you’re much more likely to run into creatures that can dispel magic your permanent duration spells.
Blood BiographySU- A speak with dead clone that can work on a living or undead creature provided you somehow have access to their blood. I don’t think the ability to affect creatures over corpses is honestly worth it in exchange for the incredibly limited questions you can ask. Realistically, 90% of the time you’d be using this is after killing somebody anyway.
Blood Rage- A variant of the arcane rage spell that doesn’t increase Constitution or saves but allows the targets to gain additional Strength based on damage taken. According to the Monster Creation rules, the average damage of a CR 5 creature is between 15 and 20, so after just a single attack you’ve essentially given your ally a +8 to Strength in exchange for a -4 to AC. At high levels, AC stops mattering as much, so you really don’t care too much about the penalty. Plus, unlike rage, this spell doesn’t affect your ability to cast spells. All-around insane buff. Editor’s note: pairs well with ablative barrier since blood rage still triggers upon taking nonlethal damage.
Oh, did I forget to mention your bonus can be doubled with moment of greatness?
Blood ScentR- Give scent and a bonus on melee attack and damage against bloodied foes to your allies. I guess if you need scent this spell is good, and at least it gives a not-insignificant combat buff. This spell is exceptionally okay.
Blot- Destroy writing and magical symbols with your gobliny shenanigans. Extremely situational.
Bone Flense- Firstly, gross. Secondly, this spell is basically useless unless you’ve got a red mantis assassin in your team. If you do, its...okay? It’s a stronger-than-average single-target blast spell with a save to negate instead of half and no CL cap. Theoretically, at level 20 you’d be doing 20d6+10d4 with a 3rd level spell if everything goes perfectly, but I honestly cannot see many parties ever seeing that.
Borrow FortuneO- Spend this spell as an immediate action to roll twice and take the highest on a check, at the cost of rolling twice and taking lowest for all rolls on the next two rounds. There are 2nd level effects that can do something very similar without wasting your next two rounds. Pass this one up.
Calculated Luck- A short duration buff spell that you have minimal control over. The point of your spells should be to minimize the luck needed to win an encounter, not increase it.
Catatonia- Catatonia is the potion Friar gave to Juliet at the end of the play, but in spell form. This spell is more likely to get you (and your lover) killed than it is to ever help your families make amends.
Chain of Perdition- You summon a chain with reach that can perform a number of maneuvers per turn, most notably dirty tricks and trips. The bonuses to the maneuvers scale with level and should work with reasonable efficacy until levels 12-14 or so when everything starts to get asinine CMD. I love the fact that the chain doesn’t suffer miss chance too, making it a solid anti-caster spell. Chain of perdition is the phony summoning spell you never knew you needed.
Champion's BoutR- A compulsion that prevents anyone else from interfering with your mano-a-mano duel. Considering the game is based around party support, I humbly request you refrain from getting yourself in such a duel in the first place.
My editor informed me that this spell actually never specifies that the creatures ever have to fight. It’s blatantly against the spirit of the spell, but you theoretically could target your ally and ward both of you against all attacks as sanctuary. This is the cheesiest of cheese, but you can do it and it would be good.
Channel the GiftR, SU- The very essence of a “team player” spell, exclusive to Nethys worshippers. The general idea is you touch a spellcaster and they don’t use up their next spell slot of 3rd or lower. In combat, this will often be a waste of a standard action, but it’s fantastic the round before you kick in the door and want strong party buffs from someone else’s list. I recommend considering this only if you are playing an oracle (or other 9th level spontaneous caster) and have a prepared caster ally. Because you get more spells per day than your wizard buddy, you can open them up to their arguably stronger selection of 3rd level spells without forcing them to prepare haste or fly multiple times. Oracles might consider swapping this spell out for something else at level 10 or 12 once your party’s 3rd level slots have stopped meaning as much, but hey, that’s what your class does!
Note that you can abuse this spell on your partial caster allies, too. Generally they’ll have more access to powerful 3rd level spells than you will, and this spell doesn’t exclude these classes from qualifying. Even though it’s still using up your standard action, no ranger is going to complain about getting extra castings of instant enemy.
No matter your class, you will always have a use for scrolls of these. They’re basically single-use 3rd level pearls of power.
Channel VigorR- A personal-range blessing of fervor predecessor exclusive to worshippers of Irori. All four of the options you can choose from have their time and place. You will never regret taking this spell, and it’s probably the single reason any cleric actually worships the guy.
Charitable Impulse- Force the target to perform a number of charitable acts. This spell isn’t alignment-locked, which is fantastic because you can use this spell to completely rob people blind. In combat, this spell is passable as a save-or-suck. More important than anything else on the list is the fact that whatever your opponent is doing, they aren’t fighting you. Consider Extend Spell for this to get more time that your target spends doing nice things for you. I couldn’t choose what to rank this spell so I made it Split Color.
Collaborative Thaumaturgy- Give an ally their choice of metamagic feats as long as the level adjustment is castable. This is a decent effect made usable by the immediate action casting time. Go ahead and forget about the idea that two people will be casting this spell on the same turn and just stick with Enlarge, Extend, Silent, or Still. Forget about this spell when your 3rd level slots are precious and revisit it once you reach 5th or 6th level spells.
Contact Entity II- See contact entity I.
Contact High- There’s really not a drug in this game whose downsides are minor enough to warrant taking for yourself that has upsides worthy enough to give to your friends.
Contagion- I. Hate. Contagion. Let’s go over why this spell sucks so much I’ve also decided to slap the “worse than red” tag on this. Firstly, it’s a touch-save-negate. Already a bad start, right? Secondly, you can’t increase the DC beyond what the disease in question naturally has. For reference, by the way, the average Fort save of a CR 5 monsters is a whopping +7. And that won’t change either; from 5th level onto the rest of the game, Fort on average is going to be your enemies’ strongest save. Your DC 12 diseases are about as likely to affect the enemy as your wizard trying his hand at making grapple checks. Thirdly and most-most importantly, why the hell do you want to debuff someone with something it takes full days to get the fullest effect from!? I don’t care if you’re a worshipper of Urgathoa. I don’t care if you are the physical embodiment of Chaotic Evil. There’s absolutely no benefit to giving somebody a disease! Never, ever, EVER take this pathetic excuse for a spell.
Contagious Zeal- One creature gets melee buffs and can select a new creature to gain them per round. Compare this to the 3rd level buffing benchmark heroism and you’ll find that it has noticeably worse bonuses for noticeably less time, in exchange for its ability to buff multiple allies. Green for warpriests since they can Fervor and actually affect other people with it.
Contest of Skill- Cause a creature to be unable to crit, except they can select anyone they want to also be affected. Way too weak for a 3rd level spell.
Continual Flame- For most purposes, this spell should not find its way on your daily preparations. A popular trick I’ve seen people do with it is to Heighten it so it cannot be dispelled by darkness effects, so you can cast it once and then never again.
Control Vermin- Initially, this spell makes you think it’s a dominate person but keyed to vermin. Which you naturally think is not terrible in the unlikely event you encounter some spiders or something. Then you see control vermin is explicitly for the purposes of riding them. No thanks.
Create Food and Water- Buy trail rations.
Create Soul Gem- I’ve never played around with soul gems, but the costly focus component, impermanent duration, and all-around lack of utility makes me pretty confident this spell isn’t something to regularly prepare, if ever. A quick search of the source material seems to indicate that if you can find the right buyer, at high levels you can easily make thousands of GP per day through soul gems. That’s a GM call, though.
My editor has told me that even in cases where soul gem making is allowed, summon cacodaemon just simply outclasses this spell since their soul gems are just strictly better.
Curative Distillation- Holy hell this spell is awful. You touch someone and give a healing item to them, allowing them to gain its effects in addition to 1d8+CL points of healing. The item is still consumed; and the spell targets the creature, not the item. Literally just take this next spell instead.
Cure Serious WoundsSU- See cure light wounds.
Curse of Befouled FortuneR- This spell is basically a catfolk bestow curse for GMs that get annoyed with players abusing Fate’s Favored, and the only bad catfolk spell on the list. The benefit to this spell, in theory, is forcing the target to reroll their first successful die roll per round, with the addition to preventing them from gaining luck bonuses. Unfortunately, a “reroll a successful check” effect amounts to an average penalty of approximately -3.75. Bestow curse already has an effect that grants a -4 to all saves, attack rolls, and skill checks; and not just the first one in a round. It’s an interesting spell, don’t get me wrong, but it’s significantly inferior to an already great spell you could be taking instead.
Cursed Treasure- This spell is too vague for my tastes. If you’ve got a lenient GM, you might be able to cheese this spell into letting you put bestow curse on doorknobs to your base, or comboing with beguiling gift somehow. Don’t take it without consulting what the GM is comfortable with allowing it to do.
Daggermark's Exchange- Poisons suck. This spell isn’t going to change that.
Damnation- A terrible blast spell that punishes creatures for preparing or receiving spells with the [evil] descriptor. The damage is low and way too situational.
Dark-Light- Very respectable AoE Blind spell technically designed for kobolds. In most ways, this spell is a buff over blindness/deafness. It has a save for partial and affects a 20 ft. radius burst in exchange for not working on the few number of creatures with light sensitivity. Yes, the duration is rounds/level instead of permanent, but how often does a Blinded enemy usually last anyway? If anything, the instantaneous duration should be seen as a buff, since this spell can not be dispelled. A workhorse debuff to add to your collection for sure.
Daybreak Arrow- Embolden your ammo or shuriken to deal more damage against the light sensitive and undead. 1d6 per unit is decent since almost every ranged build ever is based on rolling as many attacks as possible. The problem is you have to know you’re fighting undead to take this spell and have it be any bit useful.
DaylightSU- I know in PFS they like throwing darkness effects around all the time. Personally, I don’t see them enough to warrant judicious use of this spell. Keep a scroll of it if you’re really concerned.
Deadly Juggernaut- The more you kill, the better your melee buffs. Usually you won’t be fighting hordes of enemies, but when you do you’ll appreciate the benefits you get from this spell. Combo with Fate’s Favored for a truly terrifying spell. Green for battle-oriented casters and Warpriests.
Deeper Darkness- Control the battlefield by making sure nobody is allowed to see anything. It’s an incredibly scary spell if you can find a way to keep your party safe from it, something that’s easier said than done. Touch range and reliance on other magical solutions to make it viable leave what is undoubtedly a powerful spell squarely in the Orange category.
Delay Poison, CommunalSU- How often will you ever need this? To not cure, but temporarily delay multiple poison effects? 80% of the time you can just wait for the poison to take its course and pop a lesser restoration or two and be fine. Orange if you know you’re fighting enemies with actually scary poison and have time to pre-buff.
Detect Anxieties- An offshoot detect thoughts that you have access to. Learning what a creature is anxious about has its uses, but is nowhere near as useful as learning its surface thoughts or desires. As with all “detect” spells, I advocate using this spell through doors to make your job of buffing easier.
Detect Desires- An offshoot detect thoughts that you have access to. Learning what a creature wants is a heck of a lot more useful in-game than learning its anxieties. Most major NPCs are in some way a vessel for the story. Use this spell to get on their good side or uncover their evil motives. Still not as powerful as detect thoughts, but we take what we can get.
Detoxify- Remove a creature's ability to poison. I’d rather prepare something that makes my party resistant to all poisons than hope for a failed Fort save.
Discharge- I don’t play with technology rules, but if you’re going against robots I guess this is okay?
Discovery TorchSU- A buffed light that gives a +2 to Perception, Sense Motive, and Knowledge checks against monsters. Don’t get me wrong, this is a cool spell in every regard. It just comes one or two levels too late.
Edit: As I sit here a few months after publishing this guide, I am drawn to the fact that this spell being 3rd level for you is actually a good thing if you need to dispel darkness. You have a shorter range than daylight but you get some decent bonuses as a trade-off. Updated to Orange SU.
Dispel Magic- Alright, so here’s the deal here. I love dispel magic a little more than is probably warranted. If you’ve read my counterspelling guide you probably know that I am of the insane belief that dispelling and counterspelling is not only just a ton of fun, but also an actually viable thing to build around. I am a firm believer that every party needs somebody with this spell at all times; it’s just too useful not to carry. Selectively removing buffs, debuffs, or negative battlefield effects can often swing the tide of battle, and it’s generally useful outside of it as well. But even I must also acknowledge that dispel magic is not a perfect spell. To succeed on a dispel check requires you to roll an 11 against a caster of equal CL. That’s only a 50% chance, not something you want to find yourself always relying upon.
The problem is there’s really no alternative to what this spell does, and scrolls of this don’t mean anything when they’re all at CL 5, so you have to suck it up and take this spell even if you don’t want to. Now, feats do exist like Dispel Focus, Dispel Synergy, and Destructive Dispel that make dispel magic more worthwhile, but odds are you’re going to be very strapped for feats. With that all said, remember that I’m biased here. This spell is Purple because I think you need it, not because it’s necessarily broken. In terms of actual power, this spell is Green, and you can afford to skip it if your party has some other solution to dispelling stuff.
Disrupt Silence- Even though silence is a terrifying spell to go up against, it doesn’t happen often enough to prepare this.
Draconic Malice- If you or a party member has built themselves around Intimidate or fear effects, look no further than draconic malice. This spell strips away fear immunities in a 10 ft. radius without saving throw. Unfortunately, many creatures immune to fear don’t qualify as “living,” so constructs and undead will still be unaffected.
Dragon Turtle Shell- Tanking doesn’t really exist in Pathfinder outside of the Oradin, so you have to be leery of effects that rely on you taking damage at all. That said, treating attacks as 5 size categories smaller can functionally give you something like DR 12/-- on a 4d6 Colossal attack. Too bad this spell applies only to natural weapons, putting it on the more situational side of the buffing pool. Revisit this when you start regularly encountering larger creatures at high levels.
Drain Poison- I don’t understand this spell. It might be a straight-up better detoxify with no saving throw for all I know. RAW, your material components don’t actually matter, but here it seems to indicate that you can’t cast this spell unless you physically have the creature’s fang at your disposal. Granted, a better detoxify still has the problem of being worth absolutely nothing.
Elemental Speech- Oh, come on. You have so many better options for communicating; why would you ever consider this?
Enter Image- Shift your consciousness to something that bears your image. Depending on interpretation, you could use this spell under a polymorph effect to affect some other creature’s image. This spell rewards creative players, but will never be something you’ll need out of the blue.
Fair is Foul- A debuff you can’t control is not worth relying on. Definitely a GM-only spell.
False AlibiR- A contingent memory erasure for any one creature. You get to set the triggering condition, and they lose their last 5 minutes of their memories. Note that you can use this as a super-beefed up memory lapse if you just set the triggering condition to be “when you hear someone say ‘fuzzy pickles.’” Definitely a spell to hang onto if you worship Norgorber, even if it takes a bit of creative play to make work.
Final Sacrifice- A save-or-die for summoned monsters that inflicts a mediocre amount of burst damage in an admittedly impressive radius. If summons are common enough that this might seem enticing, take it for the save-or-die aspect exclusively. It’s not that great of an action if you’re the one conjuring up summons to die; 1d4 per spell level is terrible, even if it’s in a 20 ft. radius.
Find FaultO- It beats me why clerics don’t get access to this spell. You are able to get a bonus on monster Knowledge checks and a juicy one-time +5 insight bonus on your first attack roll against one enemy. You really should have a person with all the Knowledges in your party, so this spell isn’t great. If you like being able to throw out nasty debuff touch attacks turn 1, use a better spell. I could see you taking this if it were a 2nd, but not as a 3rd.
Flesh Puppet- A sister to animate dead that locks you into a single zombie that you can disguise and control like a puppet but doesn’t get to attack or cast spells. So basically, a level 3 version of unseen servant. I’m really not sure what other use a generic zombie has outside of combat, so this spell is a kind of a failure in my book.
Forced Mutation- A rounds/level touch-save-negate with a rounds/level duration. You do get some flexibility in what you impart, which is nice, and the debuff is rather significant. I’m not sure I’d ever take this over bestow curse, but if for some reason this spell speaks to you have at it.
Fortune's Path- Gain a glimpse of the future. Entirely uncontrollable, potentially inaccurate, and totally at the whims of the GM. I do enjoy predictive divinations, but not when they’re this unreliable.
Fractions of Heal and HarmR- The best defense is a good offense. Reducing your killing power to heal a fraction of your hp is not a sound strategy. You might take this at high levels if for some reason you locked yourself into a divine blaster role for the versatility, but that’s so unorthodox I still won’t change my rating. It’s not like you have any worthwhile blasting spells anyway.
Free Spirit- The absolute epitome of a Cayden Caliean spell that anyone can take. Gain the ever-powerful freedom of movement at the cost of a -2 to all rolls thanks to your drunkenness. Absolutely hilarious in practice. I just imagine a cleric drunk out of his mind accidentally slipping his way out of grapples and manacles. If you’re primarily a buffer or debuffer who rarely makes attack rolls, I can see this spell being as good as Blue.
Free Swim- A freedom of movement explicitly for negating underwater penalties. If you’re in a heavily underwater game, you should already have other water contingencies by now.
FrosthammerR- A pitiful single-target damaging spell that can trip at a range. Even though you can trip at range, this is not worth a 3rd level spell.
Glyph of Warding- The cornerstone base defense spell until guards and wards. I’ve always wondered why this spell wasn’t on the wizard list, since it’s the truest essence of the abjuration school in my mind. It’s not often that you need to defend stuff, even less so when you’re willing to spend 200 gp to do it. But when you do, good ol glyph of warding has got you covered.
Guarding Knowledge- Hyper-specific buff to a single type of creature’s special attack. Even if you know what you’re up against, I really don’t think a 3rd level spell is worth a personal +4 to a very situational saving throw.
Guiding Star- You know the approximate distance from where you cast this spell. Theoretically, if you know you’re not going to get random encounter’d and you have a downtime day you could cast this spell before heading on an adventure. But why would you? It’s such a minor, insignificant buff.
Healing Leak- Garbage. Absolutely, unequivocally garbage. A rounds per level touch-save-negate that stymies the enemy’s ability to heal is just beyond terrible.
Helping Hand- The most impressive thing about helping hand is that it’s actually a Core spell. Which is news to me, because I’ve never heard anybody talk about it.
Hide from Undead, Greater- The upgrade from hide from undead is small unless you’re still dealing with mindless undead at this level. And if you’re committed to hiding from undead that actually pose a threat, why would you try and do the one thing that breaks the spell? Why risk the save at all?
Holy Javelin- Throw a javelin as a ranged touch attack to deal 1d6 damage for like 3 turns, and impart a -2 on attack rolls and saves. Nothing impressive here.
Homeward BoundSU- The 1 minute casting time is the only thing that stands between this spell and greatness. Sadly, thats 9 rounds too many. If you’re really paranoid about getting plane shifted, buy a scroll of this.
Horrifying Visage- Force a number of creatures to gain a phobia. In combat, this functionally results in 1d6 rounds of the Frightened condition. Out of combat, you can use this spell to defend a base or a campsite. Not super impressive for a 3rd level spell, but it’s the best fear spell you’ve got by now with no HD cap. Green if you’re built for scaring people or combo with bloody tears and jagged smile.
Hydrophobia- Absolutely hilarious against enemies purely dependent on water. Green for aquatic campaigns, since a failed save basically forces such enemies out of the fight for the full duration. Otherwise, kinda bad.
Infernal Challenger- The idea of this spell was to be used only for Hellknight initiations, but it can also be used as an offshoot summon monster with a number of glaring restrictions. If you can work around them, then congrats, because a bearded devil is leaps and bounds better than anything else you can summon at this level. Note that once the spell is cast, other creatures may move into the battleground; and that since this is a [calling] spell, the devil will likely try summoning backup of his own that are probably exempt from the spell’s restriction.
Inflict Serious WoundsSU- See inflict light wounds.
Invisibility Purge- I’d much rather the wizard cast glitterdust, but Invisibility is a strategy that will never go away. Your party likely has a few answers to invisible creatures by now, but none of them will ever be as effective as this. Green when your 3rds are a precious commodity, Blue when you’re at higher levels.
Iron Stake- A bad ranged touch attack that can kind of mess up creatures with DR/cold iron. Only take it if such enemies are common and you’re stumped for anything else.
Irradiate- This spell is no joke. It scales nicely with level, has a sizeable AoE, provides battlefield control, cannot be dispelled, and drains Constitution. Pass this up until 7th level, and once you get to 10th level you’ll be vaporizing people left and right. The two big downsides are that you’ll be getting the most benefit here at high levels when Fort saves are highest, and that accidentally draining your allies’ Con quickly becomes a very difficult thing not to do. Ask your GM if you can combo this with lead plating for your allies.
Irregular Size- A very bad bestow curse analog. Still a permanent touch-save-negate, but with debuffs rivaling 1st level spells.
Kalistocrat's Nightmare- Super useless spell only usable by the GM to troll you.
Ki Leech- Add to your ki pool when you critically hit. You should not be this far along in a spellcasting class with a ki pool. I’m sure there’s some Warpriest multiclass you could do that ends up being almost as good as the base class, but even then this spell wouldn’t do much for you.
Life Current- Horrible 1 round AoE healing spell built for underwater campaigns. Don’t heal in combat!
Life Shield- Mediocre damaging spell. Whenever undead attack, they take half the damage they inflicted in return. Again, I don’t like spells that require you to take damage to activate. There’s nothing stopping intelligent undead from just picking a different target.
Light of Iomedae- Another bad anti-undead spell. All undead in a 10 ft. radius spread are functionally affected by faerie fire except it does not stop invisibility. Oh, and all undead that fail a will save take a penalty on saves against positive energy. Big whoop.
Lightning Lash- I thought by 3rd level we’d be done with these bad “makes a special weapon you can wield” spells. Evidently not.
Lissalan Snake SigilR- Ward a work of writing based on what school you use you cast the spell. Cool effect, but rarely ever useful, especially with that 500gp component.
Locate Object- A useful divination, depending on how lenient your GM lets you be. RAW you cannot find creatures with this spell, but what about the clothes or weapon of a creature you’ve observed extensively? Personally, I think that should be allowed. No harm in picking up a scroll of this for emergencies.
Lover's Vengeance- You really have to have a lover to make this spell passable. And even then, rage is too risky a spell to set up so far in advance.
Magic Circle against [Alignment]- Still good, but unlike communal protection from evil, this version has a longer duration that in exchange basically forces your party to huddle together, which can open you up for nasty AoE attacks. Plus, by now the bonuses to saves and AC should be largely irrelevant. It’s still good, but vastly overshadowed IMO.
Magic Vestment- Everything you’ve ever wanted in an AC buff spell. Hours per level? Check. Scaling bonus? Check. Not personal? Check. Magic vestment is kind of weak at 3rd level but quickly grows in usage as the bonus grows and your 3rd level spells fall off. Just be aware that it doesn’t stack with existing armor enhancements.
Mantle of Calm- Willingly take horrible debuffs just to give creatures attacking you a Will save to end their rage effects. Absolutely terrible. One of the worst spells in the game.
Mark of Buoyancy- A levitate spell analog that only affects items. Can you combo this with lighten object? I’m sure there are plenty of innovative and creative uses for this spell, but I’m not seeing many.
Mark of Obvious Ethics- Why would it ever help you to make it clear to others the alignment of one creature?
Martyr's Last BlessingR- Oh boy! Use one of your 3rd level spells to heal a paltry 1d8+CL damage to your allies when you drop unconscious. It wouldn’t actually be too horrible if this spell included yourself in the effects, but sadly that’s just too much to ask, now isn’t it?
Mathematical Curse- A calculated luck spell that curses one creature instead of buffing. A debuff you have no control over is not a worthwhile use of your slots. Especially bad for a touch-save-negate.
Meld into Stone- Conform to a body of stone. Very useful in combat, and situationally useful for scouting. Note that nothing says you cannot make attacks or threaten flanks while in the stone, and I’d even imagine summoning earth elementals wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Consider this spell if you have a lenient GM or if you love making use of spells that allow for crazy shenanigans.
Mind Maze- I read “blah blah blah blah, the target can’t make attacks or cast spells, blah blah blah.” Potentially your best save-or-suck at this level, as a failed save basically erases a creature from the fight.
Minor Reversion- A cast-and-forget day-long buff that lets you immediate action cast cure light wounds on yourself when your hp drops below half. Whoopee. I guess this is worthy if you’re a prepared caster with open slots remaining at the end of the day, but it should never be a spell you choose for your list at the start of a day.
Monstrous ExtremitiesR- A Lamashtu spell that lets you swap out any limb for a tentacle, hoof, or wing. Even though the duration is long, all you’re getting from this spell are weak secondary natural attacks, so you better make sure the person you’re casting this on has the melee attack bonus to make them work. The cool thing is, there’s not many ways to get these types of natural attacks on most characters, so the odds of this spell ever becoming obsolete with your natural attacking friend are low. I’m hesitantly putting this spell Green because there’s really no martial who wouldn’t appreciate free hoof attacks.
Moonrise Arrow- Make your ammunition do an extra 1d8 damage against incorporeal undead and shapechangers. Very situational, useful only if you’re fighting such creatures.
Nap Stack- A unique spell that lets your party sleep for only 2 hours and still get the full effects. You can also sleep beyond that to speed along recovery, but that shouldn’t really be too much of a concern by now. If for some reason you need to survive on little sleep, this is the spell for you.
Numerological Resistance- I hate these Path of Numbers spells. For the third time, a spell you can’t control is not a spell worth preparing at all.
Oath of JusticeR- Mark creatures who break an oath as oath-breakers who gain a -4 to Diplomacy vs. dwarves. Incredibly useless.
Obscure Object- Tap your macguffin and ward it against scrying. Except if you really want to be absolutely sure your item won’t be scried on, you need three of these spells each and every day. Just buy a box of lead or let the bard cast this if you’re that concerned.
Paragon SurgeR, SU- There have been guides to this spell already, but the long and short of it is that it’s absolutely busted. Oracles can take Expanded Arcana for 1/day free spells, or can elect to gain an Extra Revelation. A bonus feat is still incredible for Clerics and Warpriests, though not having the insane versatility Oracles do is a bit of a bummer. Still a fantastic spell.
Planar Inquiry- Spend an exorbitant amount of money just to ask an outsider a few questions. The stronger the monster, the better your odds of getting an appropriate answer, which means you’ll be spending hundreds of gp trying to use this spell. Hard pass.
Planned AssaultR- If your group judiciously uses divinations, scouting, and surprise rounds, this is the spell for you. Oh, what’s that? It only affects the first round of combat? Yeah, no thanks.
Plant Voice- Give plant creatures the ability to speak back to you. Alternatively, you could do what I do and take Vegepygmy on literally every character. My plan is funnier AND saves you a spell slot.
Prayer- Give every ally a +1 luck bonus on most rolls, and every enemy a -1 penalty to most rolls. It’s a pretty bland spell at this level and should only be used if you’ve got multiple PCs with Fate’s Favored or you’re expecting a horde battle.
Pressure Adaptation- Make it easier to adapt to pressure changes. Few games will ever encounter pressure rules, but if you really need it go right ahead.
Project WeaknessR- By the time your GM should ever consider allowing you to become a vampire, this spell should be obsolete by at least 3 spell levels. I’m sure you could just bestow curse and replicate these effects instead.
Protection from Energy- Personally, I tend to prefer resist energy over protection from energy, but there are a few instances where having temporary immunity to an element is nice. Also resist energy, communal is this level, which is a lot more enticing a spell in my opinion.
Raging RubbleR- The wizard got summon swarm last level, you get this rather unimpressive variant. The swarm’s stats are pretty bad; the only noteworthy feature being they get hardness 5. Plus, unlike summon swarm, you have to spend a move action if you want your swarm to move. There’s really not much here to write home about. If you’re looking for a thematic spell for your oread you could do worse.
Reaper's Coterie- A strictly worse deadly juggernaut whose singular benefit is being able to affect ranged weapons.
Recharge- I do not know anything about Technology rules. What I do know is that this spell costs 500 gp and has a chance of blowing up your precious items.
Remove Blindness/DeafnessSU- There are a number of effects that inflict permanent Blindness and Deafness that you’ll want this for eventually. Scrolls are nice since Blinded is just so crippling a condition. You should never prepare this spell unless somebody is already affected.
Remove Curse- Curses are rare but deadly. Unlike the previous spell, you can’t keep scrolls of remove curse since you need to succeed on a caster level check. Oracles might want to consider taking this when your 3rds stop meaning much. Clerics and Warpriests can stand to prepare this on an as-needed basis.
Remove Disease- It is stupendously rare that a disease will ever be more than a minor irritation. Buy a vial or two of antiplague.
Resist Energy, Communal- Very respectable. This spell is a dead draw many days, but a complete lifesaver often enough you’ll want it around. More necessary than its 2nd level cousin for prepared casters who don’t have the luxury of a zillion 2nd level spells like the Oracle does.
Restore Mythic Power- Very bad use of your mythic power and your spell slots. If you really want to give people mythic power, play a Marshal.
Returning Weapon, Communal- Just as bad as the singular version.
Reveal Mirage- A foil to terrain illusions. There are very few situations where you’ll be blindsided by a mirage arcana spell.
Revelation- If your GM loves puzzles, this spell is a fantastic way to ruin everybody’s fun.
Righteous Condemnation- A rounds/level debuff that punishes creatures for being Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil. Unfortunately, it only affects mental skill checks. The only use I can think of for a spell of this nature is to make it tough for people to identify your spells. Likely not worth your slots.
Riversight- Become one with a river and see anything along its banks for a mile or so. Too bad it only extends 15 feet from the shore.
Sacred Bond- A 10 minutes/level shield other-esque spell that lets you freely make your touch healing spells close range. Really only useful for breath of life, since that’s the only healing spell you’d honestly want to use in battle. Certainly a cool niche, but I’d rather have a more impactful 3rd level spell to hopefully prevent needing to heal in the first place.
SadomasochismR- God, everything about Zon-Kuthon really just serves to make people uncomfortable, doesn’t it? You choose to take extra damage from all attacks, but force targets attacking you to make Will saves or be demoralized. You also get to roll twice on damage rolls against such demoralized targets too. I don’t like the fact that you a) need to take damage for this to work, b) force a save every time you do so, and c) demoralize for a mere 1 round. Ironically enough, the part of this spell I have the least issue with is the fact that you take more incoming damage. Whether you’re getting hit for 1d8+5 or 11d6, the law of averages means you really aren’t taking more than a handful of extra hit points of damage. This spell is better if you have a weapon with a high-variance damage die like a greataxe.
Sand Whirlwind- Man, what a spell! You create a whirlwind of sand around someone that Blinds them on a failed save, and forces them to make concentration checks with a DC equal to the DC of this spell + the spell level regardless of save. Bypassing SR is just icing on the cake.
Sands of Time- Advance the target an age category without the bonuses or deal damage bypassing hardness to constructs, objects, or undead. A saveless penalty to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution is pretty cool. The fact that most creatures will be considered middle aged holds this spell back a ton. Two questions for your GM: How does this spell work on dragons, and if you cast this on a Venerable person do they straight up die?
Screaming Flames- My absolute favorite spell so far that I’ve discovered from writing this list. Just read this description:
A sheer wall of flame appears and rushes away from you. Tendrils of fire reach out of it, shaped into skulls screaming in agony.
Holy crap, how badass is that?! The damage from this spell is merely okay, but any creature that takes even a single point of fire damage has to make a Will save or take 1d3 Wisdom damage. Anybody more south of Good should take this spell if for no other reason than to be the coolest caster on the battlefield.
Searing Light- Mediocre ray spell that does more damage to undead. Yawn.
Sebaceous TwinR- A very disturbing debuff that acts as a quasi-touch-save-negate but requires a Fort save every round. Fort is arguably the worst save to regularly target, though I like that this spell slowly weakens your target’s ability to succeed as their Constitution gets progressively lower. A big problem with the spell is that you’d ideally want to cast this against a strong boss-type enemy, which is also the exact type of enemy your party would want to whittle down the hp of as fast as possible.
Second Wind- As much as I dislike healing in combat, second wind is admittedly halfway decent. The fact that this spell doesn’t waste a standard action goes a very long way for keeping it relevant, and the healing you get from it is respectable. You’re likely your party’s primary divine caster, and reviving you of all people takes the most effort. It might well be situational, but it’s strong enough to warrant consideration since it can keep you conscious.
See BeyondC- 300 gp is a lot to pay for your spells, though unlike some of the other meditative spells we’ve seen before, we have a spell that actually is somewhat worth the money you put into it. You get a very nice +5 circumstance to Perception and an additional +5 to identify ethereal or invisible subjects, as well as 5 rounds of x-ray vision. Definitely a buff to consider if you’re patrolling a dungeon that day.
Severed Fate- Prevent the target from using hero points. The whole point of hero points is that only the PCs get them. This is a spell for your GM, not you.
Shadowmind- A modest illusion that makes affected creatures believe the world is one step darker than it is. I like that you can affect multiple enemies with this, though the actual written effect is rather weak. Probably a spell you should pass on unless light effects are a big thing for your party.
Share Glory- Even in a mythic game this spell is too minute to ever really matter.
Share Language, CommunalSU- If you need to negotiate with foreign emissaries and don’t have tongues yet this is your spell. It’s a lot less worth it occupying your higher level slot in the communal form and probably never really needed over the singular.
Shared Training- Share your teamwork feats with allies. This scales with level nicely, letting you give more teamwork feats every 4 levels beyond 5th. Seems kinda risky to spend your feats on something that you anticipate needing a spell to ever use effectively, though. My editor mentioned a build you can pull off with this spell using the Bonded Mind and Share Spells feats that lets you share personal-range spells with your party. Seems like fun if you want to entirely build around it.
Sharesister- Take a negative level to grant another creature of the same gender a bonus on their casting ability. Bonuses to DCs are always nice, though you really have to consider whether taking six negative levels will ever honestly be worth a +3 to DCs and CL. I suppose you can use this if you have a save-or-die caster and you want to willingly neuter yourself?
Shield of Darkness- Give yourself 50% miss chance for a round per level. Overall comparable to displacement and a very solid spell.
Shield of WingsR- Gain a 50 ft. fly speed that diminishes by 10 every time you get hit by fire. You also gain fire resistance 30 when you do so, and once your fly speed goes away you gain fire immunity for a minute. Considering how few options you have for flight at this level, Ragathiel worshippers should definitely consider this one.
Silverlight- Similar to light, only 1 minute/level and the aura forces a Fort save against Sickened against any creatures weak to silver. Even if you’re up against werewolves or something, the effect is merely okay. If you’re not against such creatures, don’t take this at all.
Skeleton Crew- Make a crew out of skeletons. Useful for when your GM gives you an airship and you have no time for the humorous recruitment montage General Tarquin suggests.
Sky SwimR- A very weird “flight” spell that allows you to use your Swim checks to move through the air. I’m not sure how combat works with this, but I suppose it’s better than not being able to fly at all.
Skyshroud- Skyshroud gives you an unobstructed view of the sky from underground. We have lower-level effects that perform similarly already; the only boon here is the long duration and the chance to damage the light-susceptible. Pair with spiral ascent, I guess.
Slave to Sin- A mediocre save-or-suck that would be thematic in one of the Runelords trilogy campaigns. Basically a creature that fails its save is Sickened for the spell’s duration and has to make a Will save each round or be Staggered. Kind of weak in my opinion.
Soul VaultSU- Protect someone from soul manipulation and undead effects. These are rather rare and you probably don’t need to be too concerned about them.
Speak with DeadSU- Like zone of truth, the big issue here is that you don’t know if the body you’re messing with has made their Will save and is actively trying to deceive you. Unlike zone of truth, at least you get a Sense Motive to realize any potential Bluff. Still a good option for when parley can’t happen before a fight and you need some info.
Spellcurse- “At the start of each day, BigBad McWizardface casts mage armor, false life, mind blank, spell immunity, overland flight, and stoneskin.” Spellcurse aims to punish these tactics, something which I fully condone, but unfortunately fails horribly. 1d6 damage per active spell is pretty bad. Couple this with being a single-target Will-for-half spell and the BigBad McWizardface you so wanted to mess up is gonna take like 10 damage if you’re lucky.
Spiral Ascent- Marginally better than spiral descent.
Spirit BondsC- A meditative spell that functions as status but can also affect objects too. You also get to send a single 25 word message. Not really worth the 300 gp it takes to cast in my book.
Spotlight- Put a spotlight on a target, illuminating them and forcibly lowering their Stealth. The effects of this spell come a level or two too late, as the wizard has already gotten access to spells that work similarly a spell level ago.
Steal Years- Steal up to 5d4 years from a creature you touch for 1 day. Useless.
Stone Shape- Sculpt 10 ft3 + 1 ft3 per level into whatever you want. Dungeons, cities, and buildings are all typically made of stone, so you have plenty of places where this spell comes in handy. It can shape the battlefield, create passageways, manufacture crude tools, and more. The best part has got to be the instantaneous duration-- whatever changes you make to your environment stay.
Storm of Blades- Sacrifice a sword of some type and fling them at the target. Slightly cheesy option: It’s worth asking your GM if weapon size matters for this spell. If you’ve got a wizard willing to give you a number of Gargantuan swords under Shrink Object, you can dish out some serious damage.
Stunning Barrier, Greater- I told you this spell was going to be awesome. +2 to AC and saves will barely matter by now, but the ability to stun a boatload of melee attacks is absolutely incredible.
Summon Ancestral Guardian- Conjure two dwarves wielding their signature weapons to attack like spiritual weapon. Curiously, this spell isn’t explicitly locked to Dwarf characters even though it probably should be. A worthy successor to spiritual weapon that anybody would be happy to add to their repertoire. Ask your GM if you can add Dazing Spell to this.
Summon Monster III- Summons are officially online; I repeat, summons are online. Leopards are combat machines and the crocodile is a scary effective grappler. 1d3 wolves can triplock anything with a modest CMD and the dretch has enough staying power to put in some serious work.
Summon Totem Creature- A narrow summon monster II analog with an impressive 1 hour duration. You won’t ever be able to refresh your summon in combat, but that’s a small price to pay for having a lasting meatshield. I don’t recommend this spell past 7th level or so, as it really falls off once your summons routinely end up dead in a single hit.
Symbol of Exsanguination- Our first of many “symbol” spells. I’m gonna take a page out of the CRB and force you to keep scrolling back to the entry for symbol of death since I don’t want to keep repeating myself. Plus it’s good practice for what your life is going to be like if you actually want to divest resources towards these terrible spells.
Anyway, symbol of exsanguination is bad. The effect would be okay if the Sickened wasn’t tied to the bleed damage. If I’m gonna spend my hard-earned gp to ward something, I’m not going to cheap out on dinky annoyances like this.
Symbol of Healing- Also bad. Healing nearby creatures sort of defeats the point of casting symbol spells if you’re expecting to always be around the thing you’re guarding. See symbol of death.
Tactical FormationR- The only good thing about this spell is the duration. But a +2 to AC is laughably weak for a 3rd level spell.
Teratoid Caress- A touch-save-partial for evil casters who want to corrupt good ones. The penalties are kind of weak and I’d rather have bestow curse, but the spell itself isn’t unusable by any means.
Titanic AnchoringSU- Become anchored to the ground and immune to most combat maneuvers. It’s pretty situational and doesn’t have the upside tree shape gives you of turning you into a tree (an obvious win), but it’s vaguely useful as a scroll.
Toxic Blood- A version of blood blaze that doesn’t suck outright. Anytime a creature affected by this spell takes piercing or slashing damage, a stream of poison jets out in the direction of the attacker. Poison effects are generally bad, but toxic blood is straight-up nasty with its ability to repeatedly dish out sweet, sweet Constitution damage.
Oh, and what’s this? You can permanency this spell? Whaaaaaaaatttttttt?
Transfer Regeneration- How often will you ever get to benefit from regeneration?
Trial by Fire- This spell would be a pretty badass way to test someone’s alignment… if it actually did any real damage.
Trial of Fire and Acid- Generally “slow burn” effects aren’t all that great in this game. A creature at 1 hit point is just as competent in combat as a creature with 200. That’s why you ideally want to dish out burst damage. You could argue this spell is meant to deliver damage over time to stymie spellcasters, but you’re only dealing an average of 7 damage per turn (and even less if they have energy resistances). Pass this one up.
Unhallowed Blows, Greater- Man, this spell is strong. Hours per level duration, scaling enhancement bonus to attack and damage, creatures per level, and can be permanencied. There’s not a horde necromancer out there who shouldn’t take this.
Unlife Current- Just as bad as life current.
Unravel Destiny- A GM spell for those of you in hero point campaigns.
Unspoken Name- Put a taboo on a word, name, or phrase and unilaterally learn of any creature within a mile who uses that name. Note that this is a divination completely without saving throw and is perfect for creative players in intrigue settings. Orange because it probably shouldn’t be a daily prep but is incredibly effective at its job.
Vampiric Hunger- Give a target the ability to drain blood on a successful pin. Constitution damage is always awesome. My problem with this is that if you have the enemy pinned somehow the fight is basically over at that point regardless.
Vision of Hell- An AoE spell that makes a point you designate look like a hellscape. Creatures caught within are Shaken and take a -2 on fear effects. Pretty lackluster for a 3rd level spell in my opinion, but not irredeemably so. If you plan on stacking fear go ahead and enjoy.
Voluminous VocabularySU- An upgrade to share language. The duration is 8 hours instead of 24, but you don’t have to have the language in question to impart a creature, can target yourself, and affected creatures gain the ability to speak the language even if they don’t have oral functionality to do so.
Wall of Split Illumination- Create a wall of illumination with darkness and light on opposite sides. This is honestly a pretty cool spell. None of its effects independently are anything unduly impressive by this level, though it does offer loads of versatility. It blocks line of sight for all creatures and can serve as both a daylight and a darkness spell if the situation demands it. If you don’t want one of these two light effects, you can always throw this spell right up next to a solid wall.
Water BreathingSU- Chances are you’ll need this spell at some point in your game. If your game is aquatic themed, obviously this is a no-brainer pick.
Water WalkSU- For those of you who really took Medium Armor Proficiency to heart. Similar deal with the spell above.
Waters of Lamashtu- This spell is straight up-nasty. The natural combo to it is beguiling gift, nearly guaranteeing the opponent is beset by all manner of nasty debuffs. The problem I’m running into in rating this spell is the vague interpretation of the term “anoint.” Does this spell let you huck splash weapons of the stuff for holy water damage plus the actual effects, or does it take a special action to perform on someone? Additionally, how on-board is your GM with you transforming yourself into a beast? Why is this spell not restricted to Lamashtu or categorized by the [evil] descriptor? These are questions I do not have the answers to.
Wind Wall- I used to love preparing this spell, until I found it to be a wholly unimpressive waste of my slot more often than not. Ranged enemies just don’t seem to be all that common for some reason and I’m not entirely sure why. Being able to hamper flying enemies is cool too, but the size limitation means you’re not really going to see this being useful on higher CR (and therefore bigger) enemies. It’s a fine spell sometimes, but sometimes just isn’t often enough.
Wrathful Mantle- Give a target a poorly-scaling resistance bonus to saves and the ability to end the effect for a measly 2d8 damage to adjacent enemies. There are far better buffs you can be delivering by now.
AbsolutionSU- I think my least favorite thing about this spell is that it implies culpability for creatures acting under hostile enchantments. On its own, the ability to end all charms and compulsions is nice, if not a bit weak for a spell of this level. The atonement effects are only there if your GM for some reason decides you deserve to fall for failing a Will save.
Absorb Rune I- You can transfer a 3rd level or lower spell effect affixed to a surface to another surface. It’s probably a bit of a stretch, but do people count as surfaces? You could probably make shields work with little argument. If so, that seems like a viable method for transferring personal-range spells to others. This is a weird spell series I’d love to see some clarification on. As of right now, whether or not your GM lets you lift spells off of people or not is the real determiner of how good this spell is. Otherwise, situational.
Abyssal VerminR- Give a vermin the fiendish template. Despite the fact that this is a strictly beneficial spell for the vermin, they will make saves against the spell unless they’re directly under your command (why?!). There aren’t many creatures types worse to put smite evil on too. Most vermin sport Charisma scores of 1 or 2.
Air Walk- An absolutely necessary spell, and one of the meta-defining options the Sorcerer/Wizard list is sorely lacking in. When compared to fly, air walk has a longer duration, doesn’t force Fly checks, and affords its targets full mobility. Take it, use it, love it.
Alter River- You can change the course of a river. Not really terribly useful.
Ancestral Gift- Summon a +1 weapon with a +1 weapon property that lasts 10 minutes per level. The level you get this spell is about the level you should have a +2 equivalent weapon already. There are a few interesting situational weapon abilities you can call with this spell, like limning, quenching, or glamered, but the real money here comes from bane weapons. You’ll never get anything better than a +1 bane weapon so this spell won’t scale very well, but as of the level you get this it’s a worthy pick.
Anti-Incorporeal ShellSU- A potential saveless auto-win spell against incorporeal creatures. Such enemies are rare, and you shouldn’t have this spell without knowing full well you’re against them.
Ardor's Onslaught- A holy smite analog for Neutral creatures. Besides the fact this spell is a poor alignment blast, it is further marred by only having full effect against a singular alignment instead of three.
Aura of Doom- A respectable duration buff that puts a 20 ft. radius around you that makes enemies who fail their saves Shaken. Save-or-negate spells, especially ones with such a mediocre effect, rarely get the pass in my book. Still, affecting every enemy you come into contact with is nice, and if you’ve got some fear-stacking capabilities in your party I can see you enjoying the benefits here. My editor wants you to know that if you’re going to be playing around with aura spells, this technically stacks with archon’s aura.
Baphomet's Blessing- You touch a creature and drop its Int to 2 in exchange for giving it a gore attack. Gore attacks are rare, and by now your martials should be in a position where a gore attack should really tack on some serious damage. Plus it’s a touch-save-negate that basically autowins against Wizards-- there’s no way they should be making a Fortitude save easily. Situational offensively, and passable as a buff.
Battle TranceR- NO. I don’t care who you are, a few extra hit points are NOT worth your spellcasting ability. Absolute garbage; worse than red.
Bereave- Force all creatures in a burst that fail their saves to stop treating their allies as such. There aren’t many situations where this will be worthy of your spell slots, much less your 4ths. I wouldn’t take this spell at 1st level.
Bestow Planar Infusion II- Just as situational as the last time.
Bit of LuckR- Ultra-strong Catfolk-exclusive spell. Spend points from a pool of luck points to gain +1d8 luck bonus to any attack roll or skill check you make. If that wasn’t good enough, you can add even more d8s at once at higher levels. Combo with Fate’s Favored or Magical Lineage (plus Empower or Maximize) to routinely become the party’s solution to any skill imaginable.
Black Spot- Any debuff spell that primarily functions on a timeframe beyond a single encounter is a wasted spell.
Blade of Light- Make a weapon shine with daylight and function stronger against undead. We’ve seen a lot of spells like this already, none of which have been anything special. Even against Undead it’s not all that good.
Blessing of Fervor- The best 4th level spell on your list, and one you should open almost every encounter with (unless you’re a Warpriest…). Everybody in your party will appreciate this spell. The benefits are simply fantastic, and the ability to change them out on an as-needed basis is simply too good to pass up.
Bloatbomb- A horrible spell. 3d6 damage with a Reflex save for half wouldn’t even be good as a 2nd.
Blood Crow Strike- You can make unarmed strikes against a target out of your normal melee range. 1 round casting time, horrible damage type, and only affects a single full attack. This would be a cool spell if it didn’t mean you had to put so many resources into unarmed strikes to get it to work. Don’t listen to Irori, monk/cleric is a terrible multiclass.
Borrow Corruption- Don’t take this spell even if your GM actually does use the corruption rules. Willingly accepting Wisdom drain is moronic, especially for a spell you aren’t even sure what effect you’ll be getting in exchange.
Bountiful Banquet- A buffed create food and water that is “more elegant.” Really, the mechanical benefits here are negligible. I guess if you need to host a dinner party this spell can take care of that for you.
Brightest Light- A stronger, longer-duration daylight that not only suppresses darkness effects, but allows a single chance to dispel them. Not really what I want to be using my 4ths on. Heightened communal flame completely obsoletes this.
Burst with Light- Cause a creature to be filled with light and take damage each round. Adjacent allies must make saves or be Blinded for a round, and the target creature gets a save each round to end the effect prematurely. Overall, a weak effect.
Calamitous Flailing- When you compare this spell to confusion, you’ll wonder why it’s ranked as a spell of this level at all. Don’t get me wrong, the debuff isn’t terrible, but considering how close you’re getting to rocket-tag levels, most fights are going to start resolving rather quickly. It takes you on average 4 rounds to get 1 round of benefit from this spell, something I can’t recommend much.
Celestial Healing, Greater- Still terrible. Your cure spells are considerably better, as is greater infernal healing.
Chaos Hammer- A chaotic holy smite. 1d6 rounds of slow is considerable, even if the damage is mediocre at best. Green if you regularly fight devils or something.
Charon's Dispensation- Protects your party from the River Styx and memory effects. I don’t need to tell you how situational this is.
Concealed BreathSU- A buffed water breathing that also gives circumstantial protections against inhaled poisons and inhaled gas attacks, both of which are too rare for me to recommend taking this spell. Funnily enough, this spell lets you divide the duration among touched creatures, yet inexplicably has a singular target.
Conditional Curse- A bestow curse that lets you set a condition in which the curse is broken. In addition, the DC to remove it by remove curse or break enchantment goes up by 5. A natural pick for bad touch clerics who hate it when their GM keeps throwing status removers on the enemy team. Green because the level bump doesn’t really match up well with the buff you get over bestow curse.
Control Summoned Creature- Control a summoned monster as if you had summoned it. Unfortunately, there are so many problems here I cannot recommend this spell at all. Firstly, most summoned creatures are going to be too weak to justify this crapshoot of a spell in the first place. Then you have to breach the SR of the summon (something that’s going to be increasingly common from here on out) and the summon has to fail a Will save. And even then, the opposing summoner can still beat you out with an opposed Spellcraft roll.
Control Water- An awe-inspiring spell that establishes your supreme dominion over the seas. In an average campaign, you won’t have too many times where you’ll be close enough to a body of water to routinely benefit from this spell. Any GM worth their sea salt will understand that this spell will turn the tide in any naval battle. In aquatic campaigns you’ll be hard-pressed to find reasons not to take this.
Create Drug- Drugs suck in this game. Best you can do is win favor with hippie halflings by getting them stoned on recreational flayleaf.
Crimson Breath- A particularly nasty GM poisoning spell flavored for Red Mantis Assassins. It would be a cool spell if the poison’s frequency wasn’t 1/minute. As it stands, it’s just a variant to rest eternal.
Crusader's Edge- A strong buff against evil outsiders, a common enough enemy type to have spells to prepare for. It’s just a shame that this doesn’t overcome DR by default. This spell is even better on weapons with high crit ranges.
Cure Critical Wounds- See cure light wounds.
Curse of Unexpected DeathR- A touch-save-negate with a 5% chance once per minute to do 8d6+CL damage. The odds of doing anything with this spell are far too improbable.
Curse Terrain- Just as bad for PCs as the lesser version.
Daemon Ward- WHY DOES THIS SPELL EXIST? It is STRICTLY worse than death ward in every single way.
Deadman's Contingency- You shouldn’t be spending a 4th level spell expecting it to trigger when you die.
Death Knell Aura- Not quite as impressive as death knell for its level. Bonuses from the same source don’t stack, so all you’re getting here beyond death knell is an auto-die aura for unconscious creatures and a reset to your temporary hit points when you kill something. Also, if an ally goes unconscious there’s nothing stopping you here from feasting upon their soul too.
Death WardSU- A fantastic buff you hope to never need. This spell used to provide absolute immunity to its listed effects in 3.5, and that got changed to giving only a +4 in Pathfinder. That said, at higher levels, energy drain and save-or-dies are some of the scariest things you can encounter. The sad reality is that you have so many awesome “mandatory” 4th level spells that one of them has to get the axe, and it generally ends up being death ward. Your usage here will be largely determined by what kind of campaign you find yourself in. Either way, I recommend keeping a few scrolls of this on hand if you can spare the cash.
Deathless- You prevent the death of one creature through hit point damage. The effect is pretty irrelevant from what I can tell, since you have to waste an action in combat to cast this and even when it works your target is still going to be unconscious and not an asset to your fight. If you do succeed at staving off death, the short duration means that you’ll quickly find yourself wasting even more turns trying to get those low negatives back into stable range.
Debilitating Portent- Curse a creature to have it deal half damage on its attacks or spells. The saving throw aspect of this spell is horrendously worded, and halving damage is kind of weak for this level anyway.
Devil Snare- Really bad. You must spend a material component and cast as a full-round action in the hopes that an outsider passes through. Even when trapped within, the outsider gets to save every round to escape. Outsiders have high Will saves naturally and SR-- a bad combination for an already situational spell.
Dimensional Anchor- Your best answer against teleportation. You’re now at the level where teleportation is common, and having an answer to it is usually nice to have. I usually don’t see this spell entirely making or breaking encounters, though it is practically unparalleled in its efficacy those times you do need it.
Discern Lies- A useful spell for intrigue games. Like the other truthfulness spells, you’ll rarely be able to be super confident in your assessment of your target, but this time you do have some chance at confidence. If they do read as a liar, you’ll then know for sure they failed. The inverse is not true, and you cannot use this spell to reliably gauge for truthful statements without first witnessing a lie. You can also use this spell as a quasi-polygraph test by having your subjects open by saying something demonstrably false.
Dismissal- A save-or-die for outsiders. This spell tends to fail more than it succeeds since you need to beat the target’s SR in addition to them failing their saves. Additionally, most of the baddies you’d want to use this on have plane shift and can just come right back. Yet outsiders are common enough and threatening enough that you wouldn’t be wrong for taking this. Good in conjunction with Piercing Spell.
Divination- There’s a reason the entire school of divination shares a name with this spell. For the low, low price of 25 gp you can rest assured you are every bit prepared as you ought to be. There’s a reason I keep saying some spells are useful based on situation, and divination is the perfect spell for outlining to you exactly what that situation is. High level Pathfinder is predicated on two things: intel and initiative. From here on out, it’s your own fault if you don’t know exactly what it is you’re getting yourself into. Even if your GM wants to be coy and give you riddles, this spell is pretty explicit that what you’re given is going to be useful somehow.
Divine Power- The reason the Warpriest didn’t open with blessing of fervor is because she cast this spell instead. Your 3/4 BAB means you’re a perfectly competent fighter by now, so even if you don’t primarily focus on weapon attacks, this gem lets you pretend you always meant to.
Enchantment Foil- A cast-and-forget that makes it really darn tough to hit you with an enchantment. It’s harder to justify a 4th level slot that gives you Wis-based casters a boost to your already sky-high Will save, but the Oracle is sure to appreciate the comfort this spell provides. Definitely revisit this in a few levels.
False Future- A variant of misdirection that affects all divinations regarding what the target will do. How often does your GM even make you aware some NPCs are casting predictive divinations?
Film of Filth- Come on, really? Touch-save-negate targeting Fortitude that you’d have to imagine would affect you too. Sickened is hardly any different from Shaken. If you want an AoE fear effect, take vision of hell instead.
Firewalker's MeditationC- Like the other meditative spells, you have to be willing to spend some cash to get your daily buff. This spell is obviously a hybrid between stoneskin and protection from energy, except it ends up being totally worse in both regards. DR/magic is a crapshoot at this level (usually based on creature type) and 10 points of resistance is merely passable. If you know you’re fighting something with fire damage, why don’t you do your job and ward your entire team instead of just yourself?
Flame Steed- Rapidash, I choose you! Aside from being totally, unquestioningly badass, this spell packs some legitimate firepower (pun obviously intended). People often forget that mounted casting is totally a thing you can do. Getting to retaliate with a cloud of Sickening smoke every time you get attacked is an awesome deterrent.
Flaming Aura- Gain the fire subtype or enhance your fire subtype to gain a weak flaming aura. Just cast protection from energy instead.
Flesh Puppet Horde- See flesh puppet. At least now you can disguise your full horde, I suppose. I don’t know how you’re going to convince people for very long when only one can talk per round.
Fleshworm Infestation- What I like about this spell is it’s got that nice Fortitude partial tag. As long as you succeed on your melee touch attack, your target is Sickened for the entire fight. The failed save effect is also nice, forcing extra saves else take Dex damage and become Staggered. The only poopy part is getting blocked by the common-enough protection from evil.
Forceful Strike- The alluring aspect to forceful strike is the use you’re able to get out of your swift action. You can tack on a passable amount of force damage to a melee attack and have a very slim chance at making a bull rush attempt. I really don’t know why you need to succeed on a CMB check on top of a failed Fort save. That seems way too restrictive for what is already a rather weak rider effect. And even at CL 10 a successful save means you’re only adding an average 12 hp or so. This spell could be a lot better.
Foretell FailureO- Fun fact, the second result on Google for this spell is a Reddit thread titled “What's the most useless spell you know?”
Freedom of Movement- One of the strongest and most ubiquitous 4th level spells in the game, and for once the Wizard can’t cast it. That means the responsibility falls squarely on your celestial shoulders to make sure the battlefield stays exactly how you need it to be. You are the one who decides who gets the privilege of grappling. You decide whose wizard can win the control war. You decide who is allowed to suffer at the hands of paralysis. And when someone dies because they didn’t get spared by your holy touch of freedom, you were the one who decided they didn’t deserve to live.
Freedom of movement is not a choice. Freedom of movement is an obligation.
Frigid Souls- Place a haunt in some squares that strips away cold resistance. Talk about circumstantial.
Frosty Aura- See flaming aura.
Giant Vermin- For this spell to even work, you need to have some vermin on hand in the first place. Just purely by way of CR, this spell loses out to summon monster VI until you’re a high enough level that a single attack will kill your vermin outright (assuming that’s not already the case).
Gift of the Deep- Transmute an army of sahuagin into mutants. Cool, but useless 99% of the time.
Gilded Whispers- A really cool divination spell wherein you put a tracking mark on a coin that you can use to scry on its holder. I like that divinations that don’t afford a save still retain their saveless property. Getting a coin on someone’s person shouldn’t be too hard, and I’m sure a creative caster can find ways to make this spell really shine.
Glimpse of Truth- Spoiler alert: true seeing is a busted spell. Even getting just 1 round of it can have its uses; from spotting hidden doors, to foiling illusions, to ensuring your bag of flour hits the invisible target. Definitely doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing, but certainly not a spell to be overlooked. At least until you get 5ths, anyway…
Globe of Tranquil WaterSU- Quite the curious little abjuration, this spell is. You grant yourself (and presumably your party too) protection against precipitation, fog, and water effects, and ensure your Swim checks are made only against calm water. Only issue is that I don’t actually know if by “bubble” of water the spell means the interior is made of air or water. Regardless of the ruling, there’s such a weird combination of abilities that still could somehow combine to be a situationally appropriate choice.
Guardian of Faith- Grant the target protection from [alignment] and shield of faith. The target can touch someone to grant them the bonus instead. The bonus to AC is passable (assuming you somehow don’t already have deflection bonuses), but I’d rather just cast protection from [alignment] four times than have to waste a 4th.
Hallucinogenic Smoke- A weird but useful spell. Targeting Fort now sucks, but the AoE save for partial more than makes up for it. Nauseated is a nasty debuff, and Sickened for 1d4 rounds is nothing to sneeze at either. The buff to augury won’t come up much, but is nice to have if you don’t want to cast divination for some reason. A solid spell thanks to its ability to hamper a respectable number of enemies.
Healing Flames- The argument that healing is bad in this game comes from the belief that when you’re healing, you’re wasting an action you could be using to do something else. This spell tries to make combat healing viable by allowing you to heal and deal simultaneously, as it were, but fails due to its low numerical benefit to both. You’ll rarely heal more than a fifth of your allies’ hp, and your enemies won’t be taking much damage at all thanks to the Reflex save they get to halve. It’s a fun spell for Sarenites, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t live up to the standards a 4th level spell should be.
Healing WarmthR- If you want protection from fire attacks, take protection from energy or its communal version instead. If you need a good healing spell out of combat, you could actually do much worse. At 10th level, healing warmth heals 45 damage on average, where a cure critical wounds would only heal 28. The two obvious downsides are that 1) you need 10 rounds to do it, and 2) you for some reason decided to spend your 4th level spell slot on a healing spell. Only reason I’m giving this orange is for the negative energy ifrits who have to elect to take any healing spells they might want anyway. But at that point, you may as well just cast greater infernal healing.
Heavy Water- Useless if you aren’t fighting in water. Stupidly good if you are. Because of the wording here, you basically eliminate all standard actions (sans spellcasting) within the radius without affording a save at all. If your GM loves aquatic combat, you’ll very quickly wear them thin by perpetually invalidating their encounters.
Holy Smite- Damages and possibly Blinds evil outsiders. The Blind effect is a measly 1 round and the damage isn’t anything incredible. However, purely as a point of convention, thanks to the popularity of the good vs. evil trope in fantasy games you will pretty much always have baddies to smite.
Hunger for Flesh- Man, I really don’t understand the point of this spell. Part of me wants to believe the writer for this spell left it open for a psychotic PC to use as a party buff instead of a debuff. At the very least, this spell is a save: negate that imparts the Staggered condition and a 25% inaction chance. Which is… okay?
Imbue with Spell Ability- Man, I really dislike this spell. In no way is a 4th level spell worth what your target is going to get out of it. Sure, I guarantee there’s some cool stuff you can do with a little creativity, but basically any spell of 2nd level that can even qualify within these parameters you’d probably be better off casting on your target outright.
Infernal Healing, Greater- The main benefit to the lesser version was that it gave more healing at such a low cost. While probably worse than greater path of glory, this is still a passable option. See my thoughts on healing warmth as well.
Inflict Critical Wounds- See inflict light wounds.
Infuse Effigy- A whole lot of text here that basically amounts to “too situational to consider bringing.” Basically you kill something and curse all creatures of that type who come near the effigy. It seems like you shouldn’t be allowed to take the effigy with you, but there’s no text explicitly stating that either. Either way, it sure looks like you can do some fun stuff with it, but it takes up your 4th level slots and requires a lot of time and effort. You won’t be preparing this often, if ever.
Instant Restoration- An immediate action healing spell that’s almost as good as cure critical wounds, but only affects summons. If you find yourself summoning a lot this spell is a fantastic way to hedge out longevity from your meatshields.
Iron Spine- A cool spell that royally messes up fey and moderately messes up everything else. In exchange for not doing much against certain types of DR, this spell only requires a ranged attack to hit and doesn’t grant a saving throw. Note that unless your target has Still Spell, almost all spellcasting will still constitute some form of movement. Any fey creature struck by this spell is basically dead meat as long as you beat their SR. If you know your enemies will have DR/cold iron this is solidly Blue.
Janni's Jaunt- A much weaker plane shift that only works for a couple of planes. Never prepare this unless your plotline demands it.
Magic Circle Against Technology- See protection from technology.
Magic Weapon, Greater- When you initially gain access to greater magic weapon, the spell is likely rather unimpressive thanks to your low CL. As you grow, the enchantment bonus becomes nicer and nicer. The cast-and-forget duration is just the icing on the cake.
Majestic Image- I guess if you plan on using enter image this spell is a straight upgrade. For whatever the heck that’s worth.
Make Whole, GreaterSU- An upgraded make whole that makes it easier to repair damaged magical items. Beyond that, you have no reason to prepare this spell.
Malediction- Rest eternal, but with an evil damning bent. I’d imagine your GM seeing more value here than you do.
Mark of the Reptile God- Unlike most curses up until this point, this spell is a ranged touch instead of a melee touch. The penalty, unfortunately, is pretty weak, as most of the curse takes effect on the order of days. If your GM really likes their recurring villains, you could try tagging them with this spell I suppose.
Master's Escape- This spell really reminds me of Gloomhaven, and anything that does that is automatically a good thing. You establish a link with a summoned monster that lets the two of you swap places as a swift action without burning your next standard like dimension door does. A much more narrow teleportation spell for sure, but getting to traipse around the battlefield as a swift action opens up a lot of options without clogging your action economy.
Mighty StrengthR- Dwarven pantheon worshippers will appreciate this spell. It works as bull’s strength, except it grants an impressive +8 enhancement to Strength and is purely personal range only. Blue for Warpriests, or at least until the stacking with your belt gets too redundant.
Mythic Severance- This spell gives the slim chance to potentially invalidate your target’s mythic abilities. I just don’t like that your target has to fail two Will saves for you to feel any effect. Plus, any reasonably threatening opponent should have plenty of other non-mythic ways to make your life miserable.
Nature's Ravages- A failure of a spell. This tries to be a hybrid between rest eternal and decompose corpse that really only works to prevent raise dead. You know what also stops raise dead and doesn’t take several minutes to cast? Destroying the body using mundane means.
Neutralize Poison- Poison is rarely so threatening that you need to prepare this spell. Too bad you can’t take a scroll of this either, since any poison that you should realistically be concerned about stanching will have a DC much too high to reliably be overcome by a CL check at +7.
Oracle's VesselO- Target gains the benefits of your oracle's curse. I’ve colored each viable curse with how good I think this spell is for them. Generally any curse that offers spells to a creature won’t be too useful since you already have access to them. A Split Color rating below indicates that the spell gets better as your curse gets better.
Aboleth (gives Bluff or Intimidate as class skills), Clouded Vision, Cold-Blooded, Deaf, Deep One (in aquatic games), Hellbound, Hunger, Lame (if you’ve got a barbarian), Legalistic, Powerless Prophecy, Putrid, Reclusive, Shattered Psyche.
Order's Wrath- Similar to arrow of law, Daze is incredibly strong. This spell is arguably the best variant of the 4th level alignment blasts, at a solid Green if you’re against enemies of the appropriate alignment.
Path of Glory, Greater- One of the most efficient healing spells in the game. Weak (but not useless!) in combat, but amazing as a mass-heal outside of it. 50 hp per party member is honestly insane, making this spell a worthy exception to the no-healing-spells rule. If you have the swift actions to burn, there’s no reason not to carpet the battlefield in squares. The healing only goes to people you designate allies, after all!
Persistent Vigor- Gain a small number of minor immunities and buffs for a chronically short duration. Pass.
Plague Carrier- Target's attacks carry filth fever. Straight horrible.
Planar AdaptationSU- Necessary for the burgeoning planeswalker. Good scroll to have on hand at high levels due to the unpredictability of planes and the sheer threat plane shift poses to you and your party.
Planar Ally, Lesser- Strong, expensive, and entirely up to the GM. Not a chance I can give this spell an adequate rating.
Planetary Adaptation- Planar adaptation for those of us who want to remain in the solar system. As a point of convention, while it serves functionally the same important utility as planar adaptation, I rate this spell less useful than its sister spell purely due to the frequency with which the average game encounters planar travel relative to space travel.
Poison- A touch-save-negate poison effect. All the creature needs is a single save to end the effect, but fortunately this is a decent Con poison, so repeated failed saves only make it more impactful. Merely adequate.
Poisonous Balm- A cure serious wounds that leaves behind a Strength damage poison otherwise identical to poison. These betrayal-style spells never really seemed useful to PCs in my opinion.
Positive Pulse, Greater- As positive pulse, but now with a bit more damage and a sizeable bonus on saves. Honestly not a horrible spell, even if the buffs are only for a round. I’d rate this spell higher for oracles if I could without making it green (something way too generous for this spell) as the spell practically begs to be spammed every round against certain encounters.
Probe HistoryR- I’m not really sure what the point of this spell is. Is it just a one-time +5 to a Knowledge check that inexplicably affords a Will save? Couldn’t you just charm person or detect thoughts? Why can you only try this once per creature? I have so many questions.
Protection from Energy, CommunalSU- See communal resist energy and protection from energy. The 4th level slot really is starting to hurt, and it’s pretty rare that you'll need this over communal resist energy.
Purify Body- An incredibly useful panacea spell. You heal damage as cure serious wounds which can overheal allies against one attack, you remove all ability damage from physical scores, and you can cure the target of a very respectable variety of conditions. The first healing spell on this list that has genuinely impressed me, and a very worthy choice for your daily preparations for its status removal versatility.
Quieting WeaponsSU- Basically a silence spell but only localized on a weapon. Very useful for stealth missions and for when said spell would be too inconvenient to play around.
Rags to Riches- Enhance a tool, weapon, armor, or skill kit per 5 levels. The key here is not in the power of your bonus, but in the variety of things you can apply it to. I might give this spell a better rating if you got it, like, two spell levels earlier.
Red Hand of the Killer- Stain the hand of a creature's killer red. Cast this to completely ruin your GM’s murder masquerade one-shot. This spell never specifies how fresh the corpse in question must be, though good luck keeping your killer around while you conduct your investigation. Spells like this are why you leave slots open.
Remove Radioactivity- Remove radiation effects from a target. I could maybe see you taking this if you’ve been going trigger-happy on that irradiate spell...
Repel Vermin- Hedge out vermin. One of the least represented creature types at this level; rarely will you encounter enough vermin to make this worth it.
Replenish KiR- Irori continues to offer his wisdom by broadening the slew of abilities that benefit the ever-popular monk/cleric multiclass.
Rest Eternal- Keeps the recurring villain dead. Until the GM decides her henchmen succeeded on a CL check, that is…
RestorationSU- You will need this spell. Should you prepare it on a daily basis? Probably not. The casting time really cuts any immediate value out from this spell, resigning it to be a spell you cast when you have the time to catch a breather. Scrolls are good to have but tough to stomach buying, as they make the whole resurrection process even more expensive than it already is.
Revenant Armor- Enchant armor to go all Weekend at Bernies with the wearer’s unconscious body. The days/level duration basically means if you have time before heading out on a mission there’s really no reason not to cast this. It is for this reason, and this reason alone I’m rating this partially Orange. It’s otherwise a very forgettable spell.
Ride The Waves- A single-target spell that gives water breathing and a swim speed. I’m wagering that there will be few cases where only one creature in your party will need to know how to swim. I’d rather take water breathing so I’m not wasting all my higher level slots just getting the party in the water.
Rigor Mortis- Wow, a damaging spell that does an uncapped 1d6 damage per level. We haven’t seen one of those yet. Sure, its nonlethal, but aside from a few creature immunities who cares? Unconscious still wins you fights. The rider effects here are decent, too. Split Color because while I don’t think single target blasts are altogether the best use of your spells, I can’t discount that this spell actually contributes to a fight.
Sacrifice- Give something up to aid in your planar binding request. You have to give up quite a lot to get any benefit from this spell, but then again, you wouldn’t be casting planar binding if you weren’t already prepared to take that risk. Ultimately the act of binding outsiders should be discussed with your GM, and while this spell can help tremendously in doing so, is therefore too subject to GM fiat for me to rate.
SendingSU- Deliver a 25 word message to anyone, even across planes. Definitely useful if your campaign requires long distance communication with important NPCs.
Shadow Barbs- Give yourself a spiked chain that creates darkness and scales well with level. Ironically enough, this spell punishes you for having a high casting stat.
Shield of Fortification, Greater- Give the target medium fortification for a minute per level. The short duration in addition with the unpredictability of critical hits makes it tough to ever really justify taking this spell. Save it for the Thieves' Guild.
Shield of the DawnflowerR- A worse version of fire shield. Its short duration is the nail in the coffin on this one.
Shield Speech, Greater- A much-deserved buff to shield speech. Now you can have secret conversations with multiple people entirely safe from eavesdropping.
Soothe Construct- Reduce the berserk chance of a construct. Terrible.
Speak with Haunt- This spell tries to get you to actually resolve haunts the correct way instead of blasting them with your spontaneous cures for once. Except in doing so it gives the targeted haunt a Will save with a really good bonus, effectively chalking your spell up to a 50-50. And if it works? The haunt still can be as vindictive and as cryptic as the GM wants it to be.
Speak with Plane- Same damn problem as the spell we just did! Why in all the Nine Hells does a plane need to have a +20 on its Will save?!
Spell ImmunitySU- I see this spell more as a GM tool than a PC tool. You get immunity to a number of 4th level or lower spells of your choosing. You have to know what you’re up against, which might not be too much of a downside if you can nail your Knowledge checks on SLAs. But the real downside here is that this only affects one of your party members. Good if you know what the boss enemy is planning and you have enough money to buy scrolls for the whole party.
Spellcrash, Lesser- Punish enemy casters for letting fights drag out by stripping them of their 3rd level slots, followed by their 2nds. Even if the target only fails their save 50% of the time, you’re still vastly cutting into their options.
Spindrift Spritz, Mass- See spindrift spritz. There are very few AoE effects that cause these effects. I’d recommend the regular version over this.
Spiritual Ally- This spell functions as spiritual weapon except it can be moved by a swift action, threatens squares, and has the ability to fly. There is not a combat situation where this spell is useless. Ask your GM if Dazing Spell applies here.
Spit Venom- Spit black adder venom at your target. I love the Fort: partial here; it more than makes up for doing less Con damage than poison. Also worth noting are the SR: no tag and the only component being Verbal.
Summon Accuser- One of the best summon spells in the game for its level. Accuser devils are designed for scouting (something they do excellent at), which means this spell got hit with an unprecedented ten minute per level duration. I don’t care how bad they might be in combat, you can amass an army of these things to do your bidding. And yes, they really are quite good as scouts.
This spell falls off once a single AoE can reliably take your army out, around 10th level or so. Enjoy it while you can!
Summon Barghest I- The Barghest is a combat summon with a number of potent SLAs. It stacks up nicely with the options from summon monster IV, trading some of the raw damage for survivability and a few enchantment SLAs. The lack of versatility from summon monster obviously is a downside, too. Lastly, don’t forget that you have your beast change shape if you need the wolf’s trip attack.
Summon Cacodaemon, Greater- By this point, 1d4+1 of these things won’t get you very far.
Summon Monster IV- One of the best levels for the summon monster line. The Deinonychus makes for a quick striker thanks to pounce and 4 attacks; the grizzly bear puts in work grappling, as do 1d3 crocodiles; the rhinoceros is excellent at getting in the fray and taking up space; and earth elementals hit hard with Power Attack.
Summon Ship- Spend a pretty penny to get a ship for a few days. I can think of few scenarios where you desperately need a ship and aren’t able to pay the few gp to secure passage.
Summoner Conduit- Make the target take the damage you inflict on their summons. Will save negates; why don’t you just attack the target normally?
Suppress Primal Magic- Who plays with primal magic?
Sword to Snake- Change an object into a venomous creature that bites and tries to poison the holder. The obvious target here would be enemy weapons, especially those with magical properties. The damage here is rather low; the real star is the repeated chances to poison the target. Too bad a lot has to happen for this spell to deliver its envenomed payload.
Symbol of Revelation- See symbol of death. Actually one of the cheaper symbols, and possibly worth getting made permanent on your armor or something to thwart glamers you yourself won’t be using.
Symbol of Slowing- See symbol of death. Slow is nice, but the duration makes this suck for base defense.
Tail Current- Like tailwind below, you make a current in the water you can change the direction of every hour. Doesn’t even affect ships; very bad.
Tailwind- You can make a tailwind to enhance your group’s flying speeds for overland flight. If wind walk or overland flight aren’t fast enough, you can always teleport...
Terrible Remorse- Target a creature to hurt itself. Every round it makes a Will save or inflict damage upon itself, and on the round it finally makes its save it gets minor debuffs. Meh.
Thaumaturgic Circle- A more pointed magic circle that you designate against a specific subtype or outsider race. By now, any defensive bonuses are essentially worthless; making this spell less enticing than the others before it.
TonguesSU- Understand and communicate in any language. I prefer this in scroll form.
Torpid Reanimation- A contingent animate dead that must be cast on a pre-existing corpse. I can’t think of many reasons you’d ever want this.
Transplant Visage- A very funny take on the “multiple masks” sight gag where you steal the identity of a dead creature and wear their face over yours. This spell sounds like something you’d build a character around. More useful for GMs for sure.
Traveling DreamR- This spell checks all the boxes for me. It’s useful but not overpowered, oozes with flavor, and gives both the GM and the player a lot to work with beyond the mechanical aspect of the spell. Yes, it’s pretty much a straight downgrade to the wizard’s arcane eye, but dang it if it’s not interesting as all hell!
Umbral Infusion- Grant a mindless undead the Advanced template. I was all set to give this spell the green light until it said attempts to control the creature now have a 50% chance to fail outright. No thank you!
Undeath Inversion- Invert an undead’s positive and negative energy characteristics. While it’s cool that you could change a ghoul cleric’s class features outright, I don’t know why this spell actually helps you in a fight.
Unholy Blight- The last of our 4th level alignment blasts. 1d4 rounds of Sicken isn’t worth all that much, sadly. This is just mediocre.
Unholy WardSU- How ironic that what was once a surefire way to deal damage in spells like flame strike now have their own set of resistances. I reject this spell on principle for that reason. Also for the reason that these sources are not a common enough concern. Talk about unnecessary.
Virulence- Force all creatures on the battlefield to immediate make saves against their contracted diseases. If you thought this spell made spells like contagion any more viable I’m going to physically go to your home and smack you.
Wall of Bone- A variant of wall of stone that comes a level early but has less hardness, isn’t shapeable, and tries to grapple adjacent creatures. Two points of concern with the whole grabby bit: the bonus to CMB is downright terrible, and you must be careful your allies aren’t affected. Those concerns addressed, wall of bone is still a very viable way to control the battlefield.
Ward of the SeasonR- A cast-and-forget touch buff for our tree-hugger elf players that you actually shouldn’t forget about entirely. None of the effects individually are anything impressive; the spell is designed to be swapped from effect to effect on an as-needed basis. Winter is about the only one I’d consider to be remotely worth the spell slot; Fall and Summer are just okay.
Ward Shield- Give a shield the ability to interpose itself between the wielder and spell effects. It’s a cool concept, and definitely one I’d love to play around with. As it stands, though, the duration and the single target qualifier once again drag a cool idea into the grave.
Warp Metal- A simply fantastic spell. In addition to all of the stuff you can do with this spell out of combat, you can completely ruin all of your enemies’ melee weapons with one fell swoop. Not even magic items are safe from this effect, but don’t worry about destroying your precious loot: you can just unwarp your spoils of war back in the safety of your home base.
Water Shield- Fire shield, but with an acidic bent. Loads better than shield of the dawnflower, but still not all that good.
Wave Form- Another insanely cool spell that I never knew about until writing this guide. Turn yourself into a Huge sized wave of water and surge forward at twice your movement speed, knocking over literally everything in your path. This spell is really good for maneuvering around the battlefield. Plus, at higher levels Reflex becomes the go-to save to target, and since this spell doesn’t specify otherwise you can topple creatures of any size with the resulting wave.
Wrathful Weapon- Enhance a weapon with one of the alignment special qualities. Super useful for overcoming DR while adding on a boatload of damage. Blue for Warpriests and parties with Neutral-aligned melee fighters.
Air Walk, Communal- Solid party buff. The Wizard’s mass fly is still a ways off so we take this and use it and love it.
Ancestral Memory- Petition the GM your ancestors to give you the solution to your current problem. Cast this whenever you’re stuck and pray the dice and the GM take pity on you.
Angelic Aspect- Hell yes. You are now a literal friggin angel. In addition to flight, you get a number of nifty resistances and even some DR. Works for me!
Appearance of Life, Greater- Unlike the lesser version you can no longer target multiple creatures, but the disguise now lasts for hours/level and is an all-around stronger illusion. I’d only recommend this if you’ve become a vampire or something.
Army Across Time- Have you become Pun-Pun yet? No? Then pass on this.
Astral Projection, Lesser- You and your party now instantly revive upon being slain. At the cost of just 1,000 gp you have successfully idiot-proofed your party with a cheaper, better, 5th level version of clone. There is an argument to be made that you only get to forge a new body on a separate plane, but you could always just cast this spell already from the Astral Plane or a mage’s magnificent mansion. The one downside here, as I lay out more extensively in astral projection, is that you don’t get the chance to breath of life a fallen teammate. But at this level, costless death immunity is generally more valuable than an ally being out of the fight for awhile. Just be careful of dispel magic.
Atonement- You should never need this.
Awaken the Devoured- An AoE blast spell that only works against daemons. It’s actually pretty good damage and comes with a rider effect nobody would complain about. Entirely dependent on how often you find yourself against daemons.
Ban Corruption- Firstly, who plays with corruption rules? Secondly, if you’re going to go through the trouble of getting your foe to fail a Will save, why are you just stripping them of some of their powers instead of just casting something that ends the fight outright? You’ve got 5th level spells; that’s a thing you can do now.
Blood Tentacles- Ew. You create a number of tentacles from your chest that you have to spend actions to direct. The damage is pitiful and you can’t target the same creature more than once per turn. The temporary hit points you get are not worth your utter uselessness trying to get them in the first place.
Blood Ties- Basically you murder a hostage in order to transfer all the damage to a specific related member of that family. Requires two failed Will saves and your BBEG to have family worth exploiting.
Boneshatter- Absolutely brutal spell. This is a single-target blast spell that has a primary upside of inflicting Fatigue whether your enemy saves or not.
Break Enchantment- Your panacea spell against some of the worst effects in the game. Flesh to stone, feeblemind, dominate person, bestow curse all crumble before this spell. The minute long casting time really sucks, and prevents this spell from true greatness.
Breath of Life- Director James Jacobs has cited this as a “spell tax,” and I’m inclined to agree. Death is expensive in Pathfinder and sometimes despite your best preparation someone is going to get crit and straight up crumple. You need this spell somewhere on your party to prevent the ordeal that is character death. If the idea of this spell bores you and you don’t want to take it, I don’t blame you; in that case look into picking up some first-aid gloves for your party. Preferably more than one set so you aren’t screwed when the guy with the gloves goes down. It’s well worth the cost.
This spell would be a good candidate for Reach Spell if the 6th level inspiring recovery didn’t do all of that but better.
Burst of Glory- What’s this third level spell doing in your list of 5ths?
Call Spirit- You can call any one spirit that ever lived to converse with. Unwilling spirits are difficult to deal with, as there’s nothing in the spell text that forces them into any cooperation. Still, I can’t deny the possible utility this spell offers, even if I don’t think it’s particularly good.
Caustic Blood- Most rounds/level buff spells are bad. Most “effect activates when you get hit” spells are bad. Most “costs an expensive material component” spells are bad. Somehow this spell manages to be all three and still worthy of your attention. Black adder venom is 120gp a pop, so you have to be careful not to blow your whole budget casting this spell. If you find yourself frontlining a lot, you can quickly find yourself wading knee-deep in puddles of acid damage. Cast this before the scary white dragon attacks and watch as he tries to full-round you and dies halfway through his first turn.
A hilarious candidate for Empower Spell.
Charnel House- What is the actual point here? You have to spend 10 minutes casting this spell to make an illusion of gore for 10/minutes per level. Mechanically, the only penalties you’re imposing on creatures are 1d6 rounds of Sickened and a facsimile of a grease spell. Absolutely terrible spell.
Cleanse- This spell would be good if it wasn’t personal. Generally, most super-debilitating effects are the ones that prevent you from casting at all. Still, if you’re the party status-remover you need to care for yourself so you can help your team.
Cleansing Fire- A wall of fire analog with no shapeability that does minimal damage, with the upside of attempting to dispel spells with the [evil] descriptor within the radius once per round. Which is neat, I suppose.
Cold Iron Fetters- Attempt to shackle a creature to halve its movement speeds. Creatures with DR/cold iron also can’t use any mode of magical movement. This spell is way too weak for its level.
Command, Greater- Yesssss! The biggest issue with command was the crappy duration. Now, not only is it rounds/level, but you also get to target multiple enemies at one time! Simply awesome.
CommuneSU- I think this is a very powerful spell in the right hands, guarded behind a costly material component fee. As such, it’s kind of hard to justify someone regularly taking it, knowing full well that doing so cuts into your party funds. I wouldn’t say a scroll of this spell is strictly necessary, but there do come situations where it’s really nice to get some clear-cut answers from the man in the clouds.
Commune with PlaneSU- Learn about local planar terrain. You really should only need this once per plane. You shouldn’t seek out scrolls of this unless you know you’re heading somewhere extraplanar.
Compel Tongue, MassSU- If you’ve got a language you know and need to share it with everyone, here you go.
Compelling Rant- ...What’s the point of this spell, exactly? You can force your beliefs onto a crowd so long as you accept Wis drain or sanity damage for you and your subjects. I haven’t played with sanity rules, but I’d wager this spell isn’t all that good.
Constricting CoilsR- Hold Monster isn’t on your list. Normally I’d just say to take that spell instead, as the bludgeoning damage here is not worth the spell level increase. But since you don’t, and it’s still a save-or-die without any frilly restrictions, I can’t say it’s a bad spell.
Contact Entity III- See contact entity I.
Contagion, Greater- Making diseases impossible to cure without magic doesn’t solve the issue that contagion is a) useless in combat and b) useless out of combat. I still hate this spell.
Cure Light Wounds, Mass- Instead of healing one person significantly, you can heal the entire party just a little! These “mass” cure spells are not good. In combat, the healing is horrible, and out of combat you should never waste these spell slots.
Curse of Magic Negation- A targeted spellcaster gains the negated spellblight, giving it roughly 50% odds to fail to cast any spell as they try to beat their own SR. A reach bestow curse basically can do most of this already without the material cost. I do like that this spell is incredibly difficult to remove, though. This quality has put this spell into the vaulted annals of the ever-coveted “usable” tier.
Curse, Major- No longer a touch spell! And anyone you tag is going to have a very difficult time getting cured. I don’t know if it’s necessarily worth being two slots higher than bestow curse, though the save DC does scale where a reach bestow curse wouldn’t.
Darkvault- Protect a given area against illumination effects. I don’t think this is a 5th level spell, nor do I think it’s particularly effective at what it tries to do.
Daywalker- Basically just a different take on greater appearance of life. The tradeoff is a bit longer a duration and the target isn’t guised behind an illusion, but rather an actual physiological change that takes away some abilities and weaknesses.
Decollate- A cast-and-forget “buff” that involves safely severing a creature’s head. Would be cool if you didn’t then need to guard the head at all costs. I wish this spell would tell you how speaking works, as that’s a pretty big deal for someone who’s entire schtick is casting spells.
Dispel [Alignment]- This spell benefits immensely from having a wide utility. You gain a +4 deflection bonus to AC against the associated alignment, which is mediocre at this level. You also get to either attempt to banish a creature (like dismissal) or dispel any spell of the associated alignment descriptor or enchantment cast by such a creature without needing to worry about succeeding on a dispel check. Hugely useful abilities, if you ask me.
Dispel Balance- Basically just read the previous entry. This spell affects True Neutral creatures marginally more, and creatures with Neutral alignment components marginally less.
Disrupting Weapon- Enchant a melee weapon to instakill weak undead on a successful hit. Chances are, anything you’d affect with this is going to die in one or two hits anyway. I’d probably look to AoE blast spells before I turned to this.
Dungeonsight- You gain information on the nearby dungeon layout. Honestly, this spell is pretty weaksauce for its level. You only get 60 feet of knowledge, have to spend 150 gp, and don’t get any information on creatures or unique dungeon features. Compare to the wizard’s prying eyes, insect scouts/spies, and arcane eye.
Fickle WindsSU- Entirely invalidate an encounter with a party buff that makes arrows, swarms, gas effects, Small flying creatures, fog effects, and (creation) subschool ranged attacks useless. Arrows tend to be less common than melee attacks, but this is still a wide range of blanket immunities that you should think twice about passing up fickle winds.
Flame Strike- The “quintessential” cleric blast. Does reasonable damage only because half of the damage can’t be overcome with fire resistance. Unfortunately, in every other respect this spell is so vastly behind the curve for a blast spell of its level that it’s not packing any real upside.
Flexile Curse- Curse a creature to have its armor and enhancement bonus to AC decrease by 1 every hour. This is so far beyond terrible I can’t say much more.
Forbid Action, Greater- A bit harder to use than greater command but with much higher potential payoff. It’s pretty debilitating telling every enemy at once they aren’t allowed to take any more attack rolls for the fight. Oh, and unlike greater command, your targets don’t get saves beyond the initial round.
Freedom's ToastR- Teleport a target within range 15 feet and out of grapples or other nonmagical bindings. Liberating command is a very viable 1st level spell that doesn’t eat your 5th level slot. If you’re really really scared of grapples, prepare a reach freedom of movement.
Geniekind- Oh hey, we get a polymorph spell! You make yourself significantly more resilient and gain either a new movement speed or +1d6 fire damage on melee attacks. None of the effects individually are all that impressive, but the versatility is quite nice. If you don’t have a belt of mighty constitution already and you want some elemental themed ability go right ahead.
Ghostbane Dirge, Mass- Ugh. As annoying as incorporeal creatures are, you’re going to be repeatedly wasting your slots if you take to relying on this spell and its predecessor. I still don’t like that it requires a failed save, and one that’s likely your target’s best one. I resign myself to making this Green only in the circumstance your campaign sees a lot of ghosts and stuff. I’d still hope you regularly bring other contingencies instead of this...
Greater Reversion- See minor reversion. At least this time the healing is decent. If you take to casting this before going to bed the spell is basically a free at-will cure serious wounds. Is that worth a 5th level slot? Uhhhhhh, maybe?
Half-Blood ExtractionR- Transform a willing half-orc into a full-blooded orc. I don’t really need to say why you shouldn’t prepare this, right?
Hallow- Base defense done to the extreme. You ward a site with a magic circle, add a suped-up analog to consecrate, and carpet the whole area with a specific spell of your choosing. Oracles should never take this, and clerics and warpriests only should when they’ve got something worth spending a few thousand gps defending. If you’re willing to go this far, you may as well set up some nasty traps with permanency too.
Hasten Judgement- A days/level curse that reduces the time the creature can be affected by resurrection magic upon its death. Really bad.
Heretic's TongueR- A brutally blasphemous spell courtesy of the Archdevil of Heresy, Geryon. This is a single target debuff that upon a failed save restricts the target from casting spells or SLAs. If restricting spellcasting wasn’t already incredibly powerful, this spell has a second effect on certain divine classes. It’s downright nasty on Paladins, Clerics, and Warpriests; you can guess their alignment to potentially strip away entire class features for the spell’s duration. This shouldn’t be that hard, since the target’s going to have their holy symbol visible the whole time. The target can willingly end this effect by paralyzing themselves and basically blaspheming their own god; but that’s a win-win for a worshipper of Geryon like you!
Heroic Fortune, Mass- Ehhhh, 1 hero point per person is really not worth 1,000 gp.
Holy Ice- An analog to wall of ice that splits damage between cold and holy water. You can also unleash a salvo of frozen javelins all at once for a few d6 of damage if you really need it, but that’s way below the power for a 5th level spell. You don’t get many control spells, so we take this spell even at the expense of a dose of holy water for the wide range of applications it can be used for. Really good with Rime Spell if you don’t mind having like zero other decent spells to use it on.
Hunter's BlessingR- A cast-and-forget party buff that rewards clerics of Erastil for doing their homework and utilizing divinations by letting you give one favored enemy and terrain to your party. At the bare minimum, you should have zero issue pinpointing what terrain you’re going to be traversing, and the resultant +2 to initiative and Perception to everyone in the party alone would make this spell a worthy contender. Add in the favored enemy and you’ve got yourself one heck of a spell. This spell is good and you should prepare it often.
Hymn of Mercy- Still too weak for its level and a complete waste of an action. You’re going unconscious at the same hp regardless.
Inflict Light Wounds, Mass- Well, at least you’re no longer entering touch range to do next to no damage. Now you can spread your miniscule damage across a number of targets. Stone call is more impressive than this garbage.
Insect Plague- For once, a summoning spell that’s actually not all that good. You still have the 1 round casting, but you have zero control of the wasps after they’re summoned and you can’t have them move at all. And for what? A DC 13 distraction and poison effect riding on 2d6 points of damage? Hard pass.
Invigorating ReposeR- I’m dubious on the efficacy on this spell. You have an hour after casting it wherein you can revive a creature with extra potency. That’s a lot of spell slots you’re now devoting to something that shouldn’t ideally happen all that often...
Jungle MindO- A commune with nature that only works for animal populations. You can establish a mental link with animals in the area too and use their Perception, for whatever that’s worth. Takes away a lot of the use from an already use-impaired spell. That, and this being inexplicably oracle-only, forcing you to commit a 5th to this garbage as a spontaneous caster.
Khain's Army- Call forth 1d4+1 ghouls and 1 ghast. These things will just die from a single fireball.
Lend Path- With lend path, you can temporarily give your mythic path abilities to another creature. Ideally you’re giving this to an already mythic creature, otherwise the benefits are going to be largely wasted. There’s so many good mythic abilities and I’m not anywhere near familiar with them that I can’t give this spell a fair rating. I’m absolutely certain there’s some super-specific combos you can perform here that would further break the game (y’know, more than you’re already breaking it by playing Mythic).
Life BubbleSU- A beefed-up endure elements that applies to gases, vapors, pressure, and allows for breathable air. You won’t need this often, but you’ll need it eventually.
Lighten Object, MassR- For most purposes, ant haul or the singular version of this spell will do just fine. It’s incredibly rare that you need to transport numerous heavy objects that can’t fit in your bag of holding.
Locate Gate- Find a nearby magical portal. Very niche.
Magic Siege Engine, Greater- See magic siege engine.
Mark of Justice- The 10 minute casting time means this spell will only get cast when you have already beaten your enemy or when you are standing above your sleeping party member you don’t quite agree with. It’s a fun flavor spell, especially if you love converting people to your side. I can’t rate it well since it’s usually a burden on your slots, but it sure is fun when you get to use it.
Pillar of Life- Make a 5 ft. square into a pillar that heals creatures stupid enough to waste their standard actions for 2d8+CL hit points. It also has a terrible undead blast ability that’s not worth mentioning. Only good at healing outside of combat, and you should probably just be spamming your wand then.
Plane Shift- Touch-save-negate that ends encounters outright that also doubles as a preventative measure against itself. You’re getting up there in levels where planar travel is common so it’s only a matter of time before you need this.
Planeslayer's Call- I think this spell is a bit too weak for a 5th, but it’s effect is solid if you have a blasty caster ally. +2 on SR checks and energy resistance bypassing are respectable, but not anything ultra-impressive.
Profane Nimbus- A fire shield-esque buff that also gives you a version of improved evasion against good-aligned spells. Pretty weak for a 5th.
Raise DeadSU- I don’t think this spell needs to be a daily prep. Breath of life ideally is your anti-death measure, but there are times where it won’t be applicable and having this will be a relief. I recommend always having on hand a scroll of this for such emergencies.
Cheese alert: dead bodies are objects. You can make whole on your broken fighter...
Rapid Repair- Give a construct fast healing 5 for a 1 round/level. Just make whole a few times out of combat instead.
Reboot- Temporarily “resurrect” a construct for a few short rounds to do your bidding. I suppose if you found a particularly strong destroyed construct you could take it around with you and use this spell when you need a beatstick. The spell doesn’t specify how much of the construct needs to exist either, so potentially you could just carry around a mechanical femur or something. Entirely dependent on what your GM throws at you and how they rule the destroyed state must be.
Reprobation- Mark a target to be shunned by fellow faithful. I really do like the flavor of this spell, especially the part that turns it against you if you misuse it. It’s a terrible spell to add to your list, obviously, but dang does it open a lot of cool avenues as a GM.
Respectful QuietR- A silence that only affects targets and not the empty space between them. Sneaking about using this spell is even easier than it was with silence and you are no longer in jeopardy of hurting your allies in a scrap. A worthy buff to silence, though I do feel it came a level or two too late. Plus you no longer get the ability to throw a silent pebble around to deny saving throws.
Righteous Might- Turn on butt-kicking mode and wade into battle as a literal titan of war. My favorite part about this spell is how it stacks so beautifully with other buffs; size bonuses are quite rare. Blue for warpriests thanks to fervor-ability and general propensity for melee destruction.
Sacred Nimbus- See profane nimbus.
Sanctify Weapons- Pick a specific evil outsider subtype for which everyone within a 20 foot radius can bypass all DR. Why is this a 5th level spell when align weapon, communal is a 3rd and lasts ten times as long*?
*kind of
Sand Whirlwind, Greater- The only improvement from sand whirlwind is that the spell now affects a 10 ft. radius spread instead of a single target. Honestly a pretty pathetic buff for what was a really fun spell two levels ago. Split Color for indecision.
Sawtooth Terrain- A red mantis assassin-flavored spell that does a meager amount of AoE damage and control. I dislike that the save negates entirely and that after the spell has been cast the squares are a pitiful deterrent (1d8 damage and difficult terrain? Come on…). Add in an unnecessarily long casting time and you’ve got yourself a real loser of a spell.
Scrying- Ubiquitous in its ability to find people, scrying is one of those spells just about any party will appreciate having. It’s because of this spell that any bad guy worth anything should have mind blank active at every waking moment. Target fails their save? Too bad, guess I’ll just cast it again tomorrow!
Seek Shelter- This spell lets you save the populous of a city and direct them to safety if a disaster is on its way. Pretty situational, but I like that it exists.
Serenity- A pretty weak deterrent for making hostile actions offset somewhat by the spell’s nice range and targeting. 3d6 damage per turn would be decent for a few more levels if not for the fact that most creatures can probably still hit you while fighting defensively anyway, which completely invalidates the damage.
Sessile Spirit- Suppress a spirit occupying a creature or object. Even if your campaign does utilize a lot of occult stuff, this doesn’t seem particularly amazing.
Shroud of Darkness- A darkness analog that only affects specific creatures. Which unfortunately means it requires a save whereas its predecessor doesn’t. Thankfully, the range and targeting restrictions are pretty generous, so even if the spell doesn’t do all that much, you’re likely going to get something with it.
Siphon Magic- Steal a beneficial magic effect from a target and transfer it to yourself. Dispel magic is still as unreliable as ever, though it only takes a Knowledge (arcana) check to identify active spell manifestations. If you’ve somehow got the ranks to spend on it, or your party wizard is a nice team player, you can likely snag some pretty useful spells this way. By this level, spellcasting enemies are all but assumed to enter fights pre-buffed with goodies like stoneskin, mirror image, and overland flight (or maybe even contingency…). This spell is situational, but has the potential to pay off big.
Slay Living- Touch-save-partial damage spell that starts off a bit ahead of the curve for single-target damage only to quickly lag behind. You’ll never be doing the damage per round of a dedicated evoker or blaster sorcerer. At 9th and 10th levels 12d6+CL is passable at best. Don’t worry; next level you’ll get the bad touch blast you’ve always wanted.
Slough- Brutal save: negates debuff that throws the target into a world of Con damage and further adds a few passable penalties for you to potentially combo off of. Combos nicely with spells like poison, spit venom, snake staff, and summons that poison.
Smite AbominationR- A Pharasma spell that lets you smite undead just like a paladin does. To quote the Flex Tape guy, “That’s a lot of damage!” Blue if your campaign has a lot of undead, though you’ll always have some undead to kill no matter what you’re playing.
Snake Staff- Transforms wood into snakes to fight for you. Ask the wizard nicely if he’ll cast shrink item on some felled logs for you, otherwise just fill a bag of holding or something. As long as you put in the effort, there’s no reason this spell shouldn’t result in a few well-suited bodies on the battlefield whenever you need it.
Soulswitch- Swap souls and bodies with your familiar. Great, now you’ve severely limited if not entirely removed your spellcasting ability! What was so crucial for you to do that you couldn’t just ask your familiar in the first place?
Spawn WardR, SU- A more situational death ward that has a chance to negate draining effects made by undead and lasts ten times as long. I’d probably just rather have death ward.
Spell Immunity, Communal- Yes, you have the same issues as before where you need to know what you’re up against, but the fact that you can affect your party significantly improves the viability of this spell. This often means allowing you to functionally remove two or three 4th level or lower SLAs from an outsider. Make sure you remind your GM that the monster isn’t likely to know you have this spell up and could waste an action or two trying to affect you. Not a bad spell at all to prep before boss fights.
Spell Resistance- SR really isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Yeah, it’s been super annoying these past levels for you to deal with, but remember that even your beneficial spells on allies may be inhibited unless they spend a standard action to lower their SR. Having SR on your party can make it difficult to deliver battlefield buffs and healing spells, most importantly breath of life since a dead creature can’t voluntarily lower its spell resistance. Do be careful.
Spellcasting Contract, LesserR- A beefier imbue with spell ability that is actually totally worth it. Trade a 5th level slot for what could easily become a permanent +2 bonus to attacks, saves, and checks that’s likely to stack with everything. Plus you have every spell on your 1st and 2nd list available for delivery. Clearly the best use here is relinquishing personal-only buffs or saveless control spells to your party members, like grace, ironskin, divine favor, silence, and spiritual weapon. Overall a very worthy upgrade to a previously terrible spell.
Spellsteal- Deprive the target of a singular spell slot and potentially get to cast it on the next turn yourself if you are capable of it. Really situational, low chance of actual benefit, and generally not worth your 5th level slot at all.
Sphere of WardingSU- Hedge out incorporeal creatures and creatures possessing another’s body. Situational, though very useful in the few cases it actually comes up.
Steal Power- Deplete the target’s mythic power by 1d4 and restore your own on a 1:1 basis. Seems pretty weak to me.
Steal Years, Greater- A greater version of a spell that didn’t need it in the first place. See steal years.
Summon Ceustodaemon- These things hit pretty hard with Power Attack and have a respectable list of special attacks, SLAs, and defenses. It’s rare you’ll see one of these guys die outright before their summoning time ends, during which they’ll be putting in some serious work on the battlefield. Constant see invisibility is especially nice, and its breath weapon is just viable enough to ensure even on a failed save it’ll deal a dozen hit points of damage or so.
Summon Genie- While not outstanding combatants, Djinni have a number of excellent uses for the party that summon monster V can’t come close to replicating. While they can affect 3 creatures with wind walk, create anything with major creation, and put up a persistent image, do note that these abilities all end when the summon disappears. In combat, they are good at dishing out a number of small hits thanks to reasonable attack bonuses, Combat Reflexes and invisibility. Their whirlwind is rather low DC for this level, but could be useful in certain situations. You could also summon 1d3 janni, but in that case I’d say summon monster V is the superior choice.
Summon Infernal Host- Magaav are kind of unimpressive by now. Summon monster V has better combat options.
Summon Lesser Demon- You get a whole slew of demons to summon, each an incredibly viable choice in its own right. This spell features a number of useful spell-like abilities, as well as a number of very respectable beatstick monsters (brimoraks and thoxel). Nothing in here is quite as impressive as summon monster V, but the sheer volume of SLAs you get makes it more than worth it (thanks, incubus!). Without going too much into the list of useful spells, you can replicate spider climb, tongues, detect thoughts, suggestion, crushing despair, air walk, dispel magic, and fireball.
Summon Lesser Psychopomp- Psychopomp are poor fighters and don’t carry many interesting SLAs. The esobok’s paralyzing grapple Wrench Spirit ability is cool but a DC of 14 means it’ll basically never happen.
Summon Monster V- The best summon spell for its level. Ankylosaurus are simply no joke with their DC 23 stun effect whenever they hit an attack. Dire lions are incredible strikers and woolly rhinoceros are good at charging in and eating damage. Earth elementals are okay and the Bralani is good at distributing blur to the party.
Sun's Disdain, Mass- The original spell was bad enough. Now we need a version 3 spell levels higher just to affect multiple targets? Pass. See sun’s disdain.
Symbol of Pain- See symbol of death. Anything you’re putting a symbol on ought to be something important, and a -4 to everything is not all that great a deterrent. If you’re banking on a failed save, may as well make the effect actually something good.
Symbol of Scrying- See symbol of death. Symbol of scrying is actually one of, if not the best symbol spells, for whatever that’s worth. If I’m bothering to ward something, I want to know what it is that’s now got access to my stuff. This spell lets you do that, making it the only symbol to actually do something to let you know your defenses have been breached. Saving throw: none is awesome here, and makes this spell well worth the 1,000 gp cost of whatever you elect to slap it on. Even better permanent.
Symbol of Sleep- See symbol of death. Forcing targets to sleep is nice, especially for at minimum 30 minutes. Plenty of time for you to have your other traps activate and alert allies of the intruder. Too bad it only works on weak enemies. And can’t be made permanent. And is a symbol spell.
Symbol of Striking- See symbol of death. Instead of paying 1,000 gp, you only have to pay about 300 gp here. You must spend 10 minutes carefully drawing a symbol into a place you expect a battle to take place, only to stop halfway through because you’ve realized you’re doing all of this just to make a 5 ft. square that can make AoOs for like 10 damage max. Maybe useful if you stick this in a castle’s staircase?
Talisman of ReprieveC- Y’know, I don’t know about you, but my mental skill checks aren’t really the most of my concerns when I find myself plane-hopping. I’m usually more concerned with the small things, like wading through an atmosphere of eternal suffering or a complete lack of oxygen. What spell level is this again?
Tongues, CommunalSU- Eh. Honestly you have so many other “let the party communicate” spells by this point you really do not need this. It’s so rare that you even need more than 1 person able to speak a language at all. I don’t think your precious 5ths should be going to something as trivial as solving a simple language barrier.
Touch of Slumber- A touch-save-negate that ends encounters as long as you don’t have other mooks around to wake the enemy up. Oh wait, what’s this? The target must be non-hostile? Why??
Treasure Stitching- A pretty cool way to store your stuff. Basically you heap any number of items on a cloth and cast the spell, rendering all affected items inert and sewn into the fabric, waiting to be retrieved at some time in the future. The duration here really sells this for me, allowing you to carry a lot of stuff you’d normally never get to. As a huge fan of shrink item, I can attest that there’s bound to be fun shenanigans you can do with this. I am cautiously making this spell Green for prepared casters just because I think there’s the potential to do cool stuff and it only takes up a slot once every week or so.
True Seeing- A busted, stupid, absolute gamebreaking spell. This dumb spell is the mother of all “detect” spells. It straight-up beats an entire school of magic. It trivializes darkness. It sees the Ethereal. It locates secret doors. And it even slices bagels! The only thing stopping this spell from the coveted Purple rating is the hefty 250 gp cost that a spell like this ought to have, making you really consider if the situation in question calls for some perfect sight.
Undeath Ward- An analog to antilife shell that likely won’t save you from anything remotely threatening. Still technically a save-or-suck against undead, so it’s got that going for it. Your class has so many options to deal with undead, I’m not sure this spell should be your only line of defense.
Unhallow- See hallow. Only prepare if you’ve got a base to defend.
Unholy Ice- See holy ice. Works on fewer creatures, so it’s technically worse, but not enough so to worth changing its rating. Turns out, wall of ice is good even if doesn’t deal damage.
Unleash Pandemonium- Finally, a good spell for the forces of chaos! And what a spell it is, let me tell you. Windstorm-speed winds are already an incredible debuff, and this spell adds not only a saveless Deafened onto that, but also a side helping of Shaken on a failed save. You don’t get many control spells that function this strong without granting a saving throw. You completely invalidate ranged attacks in the massive 30 ft. radius. Enjoy having access to this spell, it’s going to become a favorite of yours real fast.
Untold Wonder- Kind of a weird buff, untold wonder makes the target treat emotion effect debuffs as minor buffs. Emotion effects unfortunately aren’t very common. Usually the ones that are super-debilitating and you’d want to ward against aren’t tied to static penalties, instead outright removing people from the fight.
Vile Dog Transformation- Dumb. You get to turn regular dogs into hellhounds for the duration of the spell. Which happens to be hours/level. Hellhounds kind of suck, but you have little to lose by just spamming dogs. Entirely dependent on how much money you’re willing to spend buying dogs to supplement your army, how much patience your GM has for your antics, and how you can possibly get the dogs all together at the time of casting. I almost don’t want to mention that Extend Spell exists.
To make it clear, I think this is a terrible spell. Hellhounds die so quickly it’s hardly worth making them at all unless you plan on going absolute dog-crazy. I can’t find an adequate rating because at a certain point, an army of a few dozen monsters always with you becomes a GM abstraction rather than a numerical assessment I can rate, no matter how weak they are.
Village VeilR- You make an area appear to have been struck by a calamity and therefore worthless. Basically a much weaker mirage arcana that you can give certain creatures immunity to, and only works for very specific reasons. Pass.
WaftR- Target a group of creatures to be lighter for the purposes of wind effects. You can also use to to impart the same stacking debuffs for attacking as levitate. It’s not really anything impressive as a buff or debuff.
Wall of Blindness/Deafness- Battlefield control that makes creatures seriously consider walking through your wall. Good for surrounding melee creatures, since this particular wall doesn’t block line of sight.
Wall of Clockwork- A cross between wall of stone and blade barrier. It grants cover and does a low amount of damage to anything that tries to move through it, similar to blade barrier, and is a completely shapeable (creation) school effect like wall of stone. A good control spell.
Wall of Ectoplasm- A wall spell that hedges out incorporeal and ethereal creatures. It also has a chance to make creatures approaching one side of it Shaken, but who really cares about that by now? Too situational for normal play, though very nice if you find yourself fighting a lot of incorporeal creatures.
Wall of Stone- The quintessential wall spell. Maybe not as frustrating to play around as wall of thorns, maybe not as unstoppable as wall of force, but wall of stone is unquestioningly not bereft of utility. In and out of combat, wall of stone reigns supreme as the paragon of all that magic is capable of. Shapeable, durable, and permanent, this is a spell just begging to be taken by a creative caster. Obviously a good spell to combine with stone shape.
Absorb Rune II- See absorb rune I. Same deal.
Alaznist's Jinx- Touch-save-negate that imparts the target with the Spell Burn spellblight. A creature casting a spell makes a concentration check or is Staggered for a round. Really not that stellar for how hard it is to apply.
Alleviate Corruption- Entirely dependent on if you’re using the corruption rules. This looks like the best way to remove them, and even then I don’t like the looks of this spell. Failing CL checks by 5 or more puts you at risk of gaining the corruption yourself. Even regardless of its actual efficacy, you still shouldn’t take it on a daily basis, as you will rarely need to reduce corruption stages at all.
Animate Objects- Excellent. Simply excellent. This spell works as a blanket solution to any number of mundane problems only restricted by your creativity. Thanks to the Construction Points you can have your constructed minions do all sorts of interesting things, kind of like a polymorph any object spell. You can turn a table into a flying carpet, a bookshelf into a raft, a piece of straw into a sewing needle, you get the idea. The minions are passable in combat, made better by, again, the ability to customize them to fit your needs. Making this spell permanent is fun, though do make sure you prepare a few make whole spells to offset your general inability to heal your beatsticks.
I recommend using d20pfsrd’s spell entry for this one, as it has a nice, convenient link to the statblocks and construction requirements.
Antilife Shell- This is my personal space bubble. Do not cross my personal space bubble. Antilife shell is a fantastic spell that works like sanctuary on steroids. Completely hedging out most creature types allows you to ward anyone in the center of the bubble with a high degree of safety. Magical ranged options are clearly still going to pose issues (particularly AoEs if you’ve got everyone in your party within the sphere), though this doesn’t prevent you from also abusing ranged attacks. Pairs nicely with fickle winds and spells that ward against energy types, as well as if you plan on commanding constructs, undead, or summoned outsiders.
Balance of Suffering- Basically an improved version of vampiric touch. Unlike slay living, you don’t need to hit on a ranged attack, and you can choose one creature to restore a very reasonable number of hit points. Or, you can damage an undead for a very reasonable amount instead. Even on a successful save, you’re still throwing around a good 21 hp or so to the initial target.
Banishment- A welcome improvement to dismissal. Target even more creatures of stronger strength, and potentially utilize additional components to better ensure success. This is a good choice for the level. Good in conjunction with Piercing Spell.
Bear's Endurance, Mass- Remember when I said at higher levels bear’s endurance tends to be more reliable at giving your party enhancement bonuses? That still remains true. The squishy casters might have a belt of mighty constitution +2, but for the most part any martial is going to focus their money on the relevant attacking score that gives them bigger plusses, leaving their Constitution hanging around where it was at character creation (which always somehow seems to be exactly 14…). By now because of that tacit neglect, I think this now has become one of the better “mass animal stat” spells because of this. Everyone in the party can benefit from extra hit points no matter the combat. The possibility of death when the spell expires is considerably lower now that you have a decent duration and plenty of means with which to heal off damage.
Besmara's Grasping Depths- Manifest a haunt on a number of water squares that drags affected targets to the bottom. This spell has a chance to kill creatures through drowning (something you don’t see all that often) and does a decent job of taking creatures out of the fight. It’s not good to take if you’re not in an aquatic campaign, obviously, but it has a lot of potential if you regularly spend time swimming.
Betraying Sting- A complete insult of a spell. Calistria should be ashamed that this is how she thinks betrayal works. You get to deal 1d8 damage per 2 caster levels to 1 creature with a positive attitude towards you at a long range. If that wasn’t bad enough, they get a save to halve the damage. You could zap a 1st level fighter and they might not even drop unconscious from this if they make their save-- no joke. I suppose it’s decent if you need to assassinate someone, but there’s still so many better long-range spells you could be employing.
Blade Barrier- Evoke a barrier of whirling blades that make enemies think twice about passing through. Cool tip: if you need to wall off a small enough corridor, you can use the ringed wall effect to functionally force two Reflex saves. Excellent for controlling the battlefield, just be aware that it's not shapeable like wall of stone.
Bless Army- How often do you plan on fighting wars? From what I gather on the mass combat rules a +1 to OM and Morale is pretty significant, so if you are going to war I guess this becomes really good? But how often are you actually going to war, though?
Blessing of Luck and Resolve, MassR- Oh boy! A 6th level slot that gives a +2 on saves against fear!
Bloodsworn RetributionR- Sacrifice up to 25 maximum hp and gain a +1 for every 5 hp you forfeit on all attacks, saves, and checks related to the completion of a specific task. Could be entirely broken depending on your GM. But that’s just it: it’s entirely based on how much rope your GM wants to give you.
Bull's Strength, Mass- By this point, any player that wants to use Strength already has a belt of it, and the meta has dictated that anyone that wants to use Dexterity has found some way to add it to damage. Decent if you plan on summoning a ton of beatsticks.
Chains of Light- This spell is functionally a hold monster spell that targets Reflex and prevents any sort of extra dimensional travel. Already a good effect, this spell is made better by the SR: no tag and not being limited by creature type. Plus, by now, Reflex is statistically the best save to target with your debuffs since monsters are larger on average at high levels. Pairs nicely with Persistent Spell.
Edit: Be careful with this spell. There’s a lot of vague rules inconsistencies with the way it affects those that are immune to paralysis. Can the creature cast spells with Somatic components? Can they leave their square? Ask these questions to your GM before using this.
Cold Ice Strike- A blast spell that would be on par with some 3rd level wizard spells if not for the fact that this spell takes a mere swift action to cast. Super nice to keep around to finish off threatening enemies at low hp.
Commune with Texts- A powerful fact-finding spell to use when you gain access to any library, basically allowing you to prune every text present for whatever topics you want. Good in intrigue and lovecraftian games, as long as 250 gp isn’t too big a price to pay.
Contact Nalfeshnee- Contact a nalfeshnee demon to gain answers to a particular type of Knowledge check. Not only do you need to pay quite a bit to use this spell, but you’ll need to pay even more if you want to remove the eventual ability drain you’ll take from probing in this way. There are better ways to gain info by now.
Create Undead- Create much more powerful undead than you could with animate dead. This spell is the next logical step up for the necromancer, and one you’ll rely on heavily.
Cruel Jaunt- While not technically strictly a downgrade, I still see this spell as “dimension door, but worse.” You gain a rounds/level buff where you can teleport to any creature suffering from a fear effect nearby. Talk about situational.
Cure Moderate Wounds, Mass- See mass cure light wounds.
Curse of the Outcast- Curse someone to be utterly horrible at social skills by having to reroll and take the lower result. Fun fact: a reach bestow curse can do the exact same thing but to all skills using a slot two spell levels lower. Rerolling results in on average a -3.75 to a check, and bestow curse can impart a -4 to all attacks, saves, and checks. The only difference between these spells is that the target creature suffers an intrinsic attitude loss with everyone for this spell. This spell is weak for its level.
Curse Terrain, Greater- Same problems as curse terrain.
Death Knell Aura, Greater- We’ve now completely eclipsed the period where a +1 to CL is worth your spell slots. Everything else about the spell may as well be moot, the additional possession-targeting effects don’t change one bit about this spell’s viability.
Demon Dream- You can target an enemy as nightmare or a Lamashtu worshipper as dream. You also get the chance to inflict some Wisdom drain on the target too. I only recommend this spell if you’ve got an arcane caster you know and need to kill and want to disrupt their casting for when you fight them.
Dimensional Blade- A swift action cast that lets your weapon ignore all material armor for the round. You aren’t good enough a fighter to make this spell really do the work a 6th level slot ought to, so it remains rather situational in my book. Green for warpriests or particularly offensive melee builds.
Discharge, Greater- Probably a worthy buff to discharge that lets it mirror some of the effects of greater dispel magic. If you found yourself relying on discharge six levels ago this is an excellent step up. I wouldn’t know enough to say exactly how good it truly is for those of you in such a situation.
Dispel Magic, Greater- Solves most of the problems the regular dispel magic had. Your CL is still going to be just as (in)consistent (unless you really found yourself counterspelling a lot…) but now you can target multiple effects at once. Making three or four dispel checks per round means you’ve got a good chance to remove a couple buffs per turn. This vastly improves the viability of this spell, especially when the boss spellcaster walks into the fight with 6 spells already cast on himself. If you know me, you know how much I enjoy this spell.
Dream Reality- Cause a creature to not be able to remember anything for the duration of the spell. I’m sure there’s creative stuff you can do here, but the minutes/level duration makes it tough. Like zone of truth, I’d rate this better if there were a reliable way to know your target fails their save.
Dust Form- Gaseous form’s big daddy. Incorporeal is a very rare buff, and this spell lets you still use all your fancy magic at zero downside. Absolutely consider this spell, there are very few things that can truly scare you while you’re affected by it. The personal range and short duration does make it a bit underwhelming at times, so save it for the most crucial combats only.
Dust Ward- Cast this spell on a magic item and if someone else tries to use it for an hour or more, the item disintegrates. Incredibly situational.
Eagle's Splendor, Mass- Unlikely to be all that impressive. Most characters that appreciate Charisma will have a headband of it by now.
Eaglesoul- An hours/level buff that gives a +2 on initiative, detect evil constantly, and a +2 on Perception. Already this would be rather decent, but then you get the ability to shorten the spell’s duration and go full beatdown-mode against evil. Very strong on any good-aligned character, better for particularly melee-focused characters.
Elemental Assessor- Don’t get me wrong, this spell is cool as heck. 2d6 points of each type of damage is fun, and no saving throw makes it actually start to look like good damage. Add on 4d6 damage for the next 1d4 rounds and what you have is a mediocre blast that is decent if you want to make enemy casting difficult. You should be making your Knowledge checks on your enemies, and energy resistances are very common at this level, so I can’t tell you this is going to be all that impressive. Dazing Spell might be fun with this spell, though it comes at the cost of a high-profile spell slot.
Emblem of Greed- Become the runelord of greed and turn into a combat machine with your trusty flaming mace--er, I mean glaive. This spell scales well and gives you BAB equal to your hit dice, so it’s not going to be bad on anybody.
Epidemic- Sigh. All the problems with contagion as usual except now you can cause people to be carriers of your disease. Useful if you’re in a war and want to mimic the Siege of Caffa.
Find the Path- Potentially circumvent your GM’s entire plotline by finding the most direct route to a prominent location. Kind of a fun-killer if you ask me, but it does have a place outside of the realm of fun-killing. I don’t feel like I should rate this because of its ability to seriously ruin the game if you and the GM aren’t careful.
Flesh Wall- A bit of an odd wall spell, the benefit here is that you get to emulate some of the features that make wall of thorns so dangerous. Namely, the ability to ensnare creatures who try to break through. It’s a shame you can’t create this spell in an enemy’s square, but it is shapeable so you can very easily just enclose them instead. Each section of the wall can make attacks and provide flanking, which is very cool despite the relative ease with which it can be breached. It’s pretty hard to be bad for a wall spell so this one gets the green light. Just don’t expect it to last all that long.
Forbiddance- Permanently ward your base against all teleportation spells with the option to allow for passwords to bypass. You can also do damage with this, but by this point even 12d6 won’t slow any real threat down. The casting time and material component make this no spell to prepare on a daily basis.
Geas/Quest- If you can somehow get the target still for 10 minutes, you can all but force them to play by your rules. Good if you want to mess around with planar binding since it doesn’t have a HD or allow a saving throw, and if you’re doing that then you don’t care about the casting time anyway. Obviously that build-up makes this a situational pick otherwise.
Genius Avaricious- Imbue a coin with one of three powerful month-long effects so long as you’ve got the dough to burn. The best one of the three by far is one where you spend 3,000 gp for a days/level untyped bonus to Charisma and a few immunities. Good for oracles if you’ve got a boss fight coming up and don’t mind burning the gold, though it does mean you’ve wasted a high level slot on an otherwise situational spell. Pairs well with Extend Spell.
Glyph of Warding, Greater- See glyph of warding. Still good at defending when you need to.
Hammer of MendingR- An AoE greater make whole. Thematically cool, mechanically not.
Harm- The principal spell in the “bad touch” category, and boy oh boy is this one fun. It deals at minimum 5 * your CL in damage, and at maximum it frequently drops enemies straight to 1. Pairs beautifully with a Quickened inflict wounds spell, especially if you can cast them spontaneously. Even on a successful save, a harm spell typically shaves off a quarter of the enemy’s health. Is good with Reach Spell, though destruction largely outclasses that niche. You can also spontaneously apply Reach to your quickened inflicts as well if you want to burn your high-level slots on a one-two death punch.
Heal- The antithesis of harm, heal acts instead by healing the target of 10 hp per caster level. In addition to affording an absolute ton of healing, it also has the amazing benefit of curing nearly every condition in the game. Whoever you tap with this spell will instantly be fighting at 100%, making this well deserving of being the spell to champion the idea of healing. Nothing really is going to reduce your healing, so this spell tends to win out slightly over harm in my book. Pairs well with Quickened cure spells against undead, and is good with Reach Spell to save allies from afar. Scrolls of this are a bit too expensive for me to claim to be mandatory, but they’re very nice to have and shouldn’t be sold if ever found as loot.
Hellfire Ray- A scorching ray analog that does up to 15d6 per ray and gives you another ray at 15th and 19th. If that wasn’t already enticing enough, this spell has the flame strike “half unholy” effect too. The “damning to Hell” effect is flavorful but rarely all that useful. This spell is underwhelming when you get it, but quickly becomes a fine use of a 6th level spell slot once you get your second and third ray. Good with Intensify Spell, decent with Empower Spell.
Addendum: The source book where this spell originates states that the unholy damage from “hellfire” doesn’t affect evil creatures and deals double damage to good creatures; ask your GM if that applies to this spell too.
Heroes' Feast- Feed a number of creatures and give them a number of minor combat buffs that last them 12 hours. Nothing stellar, but any long-term attack buff is worth considering in my book.
Impart Mind- Touch a magic item, spend a boatload of gp, make it intelligent, and give it an entirely random set of powers for mere hours/level. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a spell whose effects you can’t control is a spell you don’t want.
Inflict Moderate Wounds, Mass- See mass inflict light wounds.
Inspiring Recovery- An improved version of breath of life that comes packed with goodies. While the healing may be weaker overall, you are able to cast it at a very generous range and give all allies who see the resurrection the effects of heroism for 1 minute. Strictly better than a reach breath of life, so this spell gets the coveted Purple rating just as its predecessor did. Note that it is not mandatory to have both of these spells prepared at once; you can usually do just fine with one.
Invoke Deity- A 10 min/level buff that’s entirely dependent on who you worship. You can select one set of themed powers for each domain offered by your deity, and you can spend 10 minutes of duration to switch to a different one. In essence, this means that this spell is better the more good domains your deity possesses. Watch out, though. The 1,000 gp material component and 2,500 gp focus component make this not something you want to get in the habit of casting.
Joyful Rapture- An AoE calm emotions that only negates harmful effects and heals a small amount of mental ability score damage. Pretty weak for this level, unfortunately.
Knock, Mass- Talk about “mass” spells that didn’t need to exist. And at 6th level too?? What a joke.
Lash of the Astradaemon- Enhance one hand to grow into a fearsome claw that inflicts negative levels with each hit. You can cast this spell at the start of the day and it lets you make claw attacks at your leisure thereafter. The problem here is twofold. One, the target gets a Fortitude save against your attack and you can only make it once per round. Second, the target can’t be affected by the negative level once they succeed on a single Fortitude save. So basically, you might end up with 1 or 2 negative levels per cast of this spell total. Definitely not amazing.
Mage's Decree- Really cool utility spell that I’m not quite sure is worth the spell slot. You unwaveringly deliver a message to all intelligent creatures within an incredibly large radius. You have some flexibility in who you can target with this, thankfully. It’s definitely got some use, I just don’t recommend preparing it regularly. The rating on this spell is therefore more a formality than anything; I have no experience using this spell but I can only guess that you can do some fun stuff with it.
Metabolic MoltingR, SU- Spend a boatload of money to put a willing creature in suspended animation for a week to heal it to full. Or you could use it for its actually good effect. It is far more useful as a raise dead that’s only 250 gp more expensive and only bestows 1 negative level, functionally saving you 750 gp after restorations. Worthwhile if you happen to have this spell available when a creature dies and happen to also have a week where you didn’t need that party member anyway. Normally the 1 hour death requirement makes this a hard sell to prep, but I can see this being Orange if you can spare to keep a 6th level slot open.
Minor Reversion, Mass- Back to being bad. Nowhere near enough hit points restored to make this worth it. See minor reversion.
Music of the Spheres- While cool thematically, this spell is very bad. Energy resistance 10 to all types is mediocre, and while fast healing 5 is nice, it comes pretty late in the game to be anything spectacular. The worst part about this spell isn’t even the fact that enemies can benefit from it (which is already bad); it’s the horrendous duration. You have to spend every round concentrating to get the benefit. No lingering effects, no acting while the spell is up, nothing. If you have chosen to cast this spell, you have elected to throw away all of your standard actions for the next however many rounds it takes until you realize the spell sucks.
Neutralize Poison, GreaterSU- Neutralize poison, but now useful as a scroll. No caster level check means this is a viable, albeit expensive, scroll to bring as a contingency. Again, it’s pretty rare poisons actually pose a serious threat in this game. Generally unless it’s a Con poison you can just shrug it off until the fight is over and cast a few lesser restorations. Save this for the rare time when poison is actually scary...
Oasis- Create an oasis somewhere. Useful.
Open the Dead Roads- Take your party to a particular designated location on the Boneyard, Material, Shadow, Ethereal or Astral planes. The ability to travel across planes is a nice improvement over wind walk, and keeps this marginally relevant despite its hefty drawback of requiring your party to have someone who knows your destination. You do also miss the opportunity to cut your journey short if you need to. In a vacuum, this spell is Green, but you really should just take wind walk instead for most purposes.
Overwhelming Poison- Poison is generally not all that viable a strategy in Pathfinder. Overwhelming poison seeks to rectify that with a very enticing DC buff to whatever it is you’re summoning or smearing on your weapon. Now you can bring a bunch of cheap poisons (Flaying Spider Venom and Fire Jackal Saliva) or a particularly nasty outsider and turn them into legitimate battlefield threats.
...Or you could go the route of an absolute madman and play around with drow poison, i.e., “the rare time when poison is actually scary.” Drow poison is an absolute bastard in conjunction with this spell. Overwhelming poison would be a solid Green if drow poison didn’t exist, but unfortunately it does, and boy is it stupid. Call now and for the low, low cost of 75 gp, a successful attack roll, and a failed Fortitude save you too can have your very own instant-onset unconsciousness poison. Normally, I’d say something about Fortitude saves being high and poison immunities being common (~50% of all monsters from here on out). However, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from preparing a Manyshot salvo for the boss and forcing three functional save-or-dies in one turn (six if you’re sadistic enough to use Persistent spell). For the record, there is almost nothing in the game that cures “unconsciousness.” Unconsciousness as a condition is almost always directly tied to hit point loss. But drow poison circumvents actual hit points entirely, sending one creature of your choosing straight out of the fight. Your GM would be well justified to ban this spell in conjunction with drow poison outright.
Oh, and if drow poison isn’t your speed, remember that you can still employ the Manyshot strategy to stack doses of Con poison for a sweet, sweet +2 DC.
Owl's Wisdom, Mass- Nobody would turn down a free bonus to Perception and Will saves. This isn’t a common headband people buy, you’d be within the bounds of what is reasonable if you picked this spell up as a party buff.
Percieve Betrayal- Impressively situational spell. Designate somebody and you learn when a creature of traitorous intent moves within said target. It has a use, but that use is so niche I don’t think a single person has actively considered this spell for more than a one-off casting.
Plague BearerR- One creature becomes a carrier for diseases, which function as contagion. You should already know my thoughts on that horrible excuse for a spell by now.
Plague Storm- Unbelievable. A contagion-variant spell that doesn’t sap the limits of my own sanity every time it gets used. There are three big things going for this spell that make it only “normal” bad, unlike its actually worthless younger brother(s). First, this spell gives concealment like fog cloud. Second, you get a fairly wide variety of diseases to inflict and can choose the one most suited to your situation on a whim. Thirdly, and this is big, there is no onset time. That means in the unlikely event your opponents fail against the diseases pitifully low DC (even with a +2 it’s bad) you actually get some immediate benefit out of this!
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a horrible spell since it targets Fort, only affects creatures with a few points of ability damage in a fight, and doesn’t scale with level. But at least it’s not as bad as it could be!
Planar Adaptation, MassSU- 100% necessary for planeswalkers. Getting your allies included is a BIG deal with this sort of thing, especially when your high-level spell slots are so valuable. See planar adaptation.
Planar Ally- Strong, expensive, and entirely up to the GM. Not a chance I can give this spell an adequate rating.
Planetary Adaptation, Mass- If you really need planetary adaptation and have 7th level spells, there’s little reason to cast the previous level’s version multiple times instead of this.
Prognostication- Honestly, for most purposes I see this spell as a downgrade from divination. Long-term predictions are generally a lot less useful to adventurers than short term ones, the extra material component, and the fact that this is even more cryptic than divination makes me hesitant to call it anything extraordinary. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a phenomenal spell when divination’s relatively short 1-week range isn’t acceptable.
Sarzari Shadow MemorySU- Spend 1,500 gp to get one of three useful bonuses against a creature you plan on slaying. Particularly useful is the “Character” benefit, imparting a +10 to gather information on the target, a +4 on checks to beat SR, and imparting upon them a -2 to saves against mind-affecting effects. This spell is an expensive but worthwhile cast-and-forget for your campaign arc’s BBEG, and one any adventurer on the Lawful and Evil sides of the alignment chart should consider. Green for prepared casters who don’t need to commit a valuable spell slot to something they’ll cast once a month at most.
Seer's BaneR- A nondetection spell analog that you actually gain access to and doesn’t require a material component. Remember that nondetection RAW fools all divinations, even the mighty true seeing. Given how common it is at this level for monsters to have constant divination spells active, this spell seems like a VERY enticing option. I love the ability to key in different harmful spell effects to this as well; it keeps the spell relevant and thematic. Pairs beautifully with spells that grant Invisibility.
Shield of the Dawnflower, GreaterR- Same as shield of the dawnflower, but now half the damage is divine and it sheds light as daylight. Oh, and undead and the light-sensitive take an extra 1d6. What a stellar upgrade this turned out to be.
Sign of Wrath- An impressive and visually kickass blast spell that damages enemies within 25 feet of you and pushes them away with the ever-coveted force damage. You even get to automatically exclude allies from this effect, potentially keeping melee attackers away from their deadly full-round attacks. Just know that enemy CMD is typically high at this level, especially for those monsters that you do want to keep away from you. I don’t normally rate blast spells this high, but the ability to mess up incorporeals pushed this spell over the edge.
Source Severance- An analog to antimagic field that doesn’t leave you entirely bereft of magic. You can only select arcane or divine magic to impede, though regardless you must make a difficult Concentration check if you want your own spells to go off. This can be pretty good for certain parties. It is a shame you can’t stop most SLAs, though, which at this level tend to be on pretty much any monster worth being scared of.
Speak with SoulSU- You can communicate with a soul much more effectively than speak with dead. Excellent for communicating with dead creatures that you weren’t directly responsible for killing.
Spellcrash- Each round the target must make a save or lose a 5th level spell slot. Once they’re out of 5ths they start to lose their 4ths, and so on. Obviously, as you pass by the relevance of 5th level slots this spell also drops off in effectiveness. But if you’re fighting an extended fight with a spellcaster enemy, you can effectively put a timer on their worthwhile spells. Decent if for some godforsaken reason you want to counterspell since this spell is good at pressuring casters into using their slots before they’re sucked dry. Just keep in mind that all casters have good Will saves and will likely only be failing a third of their saves or so.
Summon Barghest II- Barghests are no longer anything truly special in combat. The greater ones you can now summon have a few nice SLAs like mass enlarge person and mass bull strength, which are about the only reason you’d want to use this spell. After that, these aren’t going to put up much of a fight. Thankfully, that’s more than enough of a niche, since you’re getting a useful party buff spell you couldn’t cast otherwise in mass enlarge person. Plus, since the original spell is a 1 round cast but all SLAs are standards, you’re basically not losing any considerable time for casting this. Green because it’s still a fine spell, though it’s heavily outclassed by other summons of this level. Such as...
Summon Genie, Greater- YES! These spells just went from good to absolutely bonkers. Shaitan have a show-stopper list of spell-like abilities and you get to abuse all of them. There is not a single spell on here that I would turn away-- quickened glitterdust? Hell yes! Wall of stone three times per fight? We take those. On top of all of that, these things are surprisingly competent attackers; sporting excellent bull rushes, Power Attack, Earth Mastery, and Stone Curse. Stone Glide gives them stellar mobility, Tremorsense lets them probe for invisible creatures, and to round out their kit Metalmorph lets your fighter bypass exotic DR for the entire day. Just remember that any non-instantaneous spells do go away when the shaitan goes away, which shouldn’t be a problem since almost their entire list is instantaneous.
It seems there is nothing you can’t solve by summoning a shaitan.
Summon Laborers- Summon helpful souls from any plane to help you with downtime activities. Good for kingdom-building, especially when your GM tells you that you get a month of downtime to do with as you wish. Useless on adventuring days.
Summon Monster VI- 1d3 Ankylosaurus are still relevant threats and likely your bread-and-butter at this point, alongside the powerful striker that is the dire tiger. Shadow demons get multiple uses of the “shadow” spells for your flexibility option, and Invisible Stalkers make for passable scouts. Erinyes are fearsome ranged attackers, and giant octopi are grapple machines. Lillends can throw out bardic performances and 3rd-level bard spells, though they tend not to be all that impactful. Another good level for summon monster, though this one is more combat-focused and less SLA-focused.
Summon Stampede- Super funny spell. You summon a stampede of aurochs that charge in a straight line. My favorite part is when you cast this in an enclosed space, anytime the stampede hits a wall it changes direction and charges again like a bouncy ball. The damage is low and after the initial charge rather unreliable. Skip this one.
Summon Vanth- Call the grim reaper and let him do some reaping. Unfortunately for that plan, vanth have fairly “meh” abilities. They’re okay but not excellent at melee, and they have good but not stellar SLAs. Locate creature is about the only terribly useful thing that sets this spell apart from any other summon.
Sustaining Legend- A rounds/level buff that lets a mythic creature heal themselves of a minor amount of HP and a minor condition every time they use their mythic power. Not all that spectacular in my book.
Symbol of Distraction- Arguably a worse symbol of sleep if cast on a static location, this spell makes creatures who fail their saves Fascinated and has no HD limit. It’s a symbol spell, so it’s bad. See symbol of death.
Symbol of Fear- Bad for even symbol spells, this one Frightens creatures for 1 round per level. There are other spells that don’t cost 1,000 gp that can do that. See symbol of death.
Symbol of Persuasion- Turn Jehovas’ Witnesses into your allies when they come a-knocking on your base’s door. See symbol of death.
Symbol of Sealing- An expensive symbol spell that guarantees the warded door cannot be breached. Still too pricey for what it does. See symbol of death.
Symbol of Storms- This spell activates a hurricane centered on the symbol when activated. Strong winds and lightning deter people from moving closer. What I really want to know, though, is why does Archives of Nethys have this spell on the same page as symbol of death? Either way, this spell is cool but ultimately bad, just like the rest. See symbol of death.
TruespeakR, SU- An aasimar spell that once-and-for-all solves any possible language-related issue you might have. We’re far beyond the levels where generic language concerns really should be our primary focus, but this spell goes the extra step and lets you speak with almost anything. As long as it physically has an Intelligence score, you can speak to it. That alone makes this worthy to keep around.
Undeath to Death- Destroy 1d4/level HD worth of undead in a 40 ft. radius. Situational save-or-die that targets undead’s best save. Anything you can reliably destroy with this you could probably kill easily enough anyway. Not really super impressive by my estimate.
Vengeful StingerR- Melee attackers targeting you provoke AoOs from a tail you grow that does a pittance for most casters and forces a Fort save for 1d4 points of Dex damage. This is usable if you’re playing a high-dex Combat Reflexes build (which, let’s be honest, you’re playing a Calistrain so you probably are), letting you punish anything that dares make a full attack against you. One Fortitude save generally indicates a bad spell, but 3-4 in a round is much more enticing.
Vermicious Assumption- This spell gets a +1 from me just for the use of the word ‘vermicious.’ It also gets a -5 for being a weak calling spell that you don’t get much control over.
Wall of Silver- Create a transparent field of energy that damages evil creatures and potentially Blinds them. You also get to completely hedge out anything with the [evil] descriptor from passing through. Against devils, lycanthropes, and other silver-weak foes, the damage grows and has a chance to Blind and stagger. Personally, I’d just prefer a wall of stone, but this is a worthy pick if such enemies are common in your games.
What Grows WithinR- Looks pretty bad to me, but there’s just enough that’s questionable here that makes me say this is a spell to go over with your GM. Namely, the fact that by casting this you’ve just opened yourself up to being plagued with nightmares you cannot hope to save against from an immortal eldritch abomination. Even if that weren’t a GM-fiat issue, I don’t think you really need to care all that much about further subjecting those that already failed against your mind-affecting spells. By this level, something failing one of those should be out of the encounter anyway. No reason to further drain their Constitution thereafter.
Wind Walk- The staple divine overland travel spell. Since it functions as gaseous form, this can also serve as a slight buff to psychic casters if they don’t mind reducing their speed to a 10 ft. fly. If you don’t have any other expedient travel solution, this spell will service you well.
Wither Limb- A touch-save-negate that completely destroys a working limb from a bipedal creature. I’d rather use one of many other debuffs you get instead than this.
Word of Recall- The “get-out-of-jail-free” card spell, especially since it can be cast with only verbal components. You can even carry party members with you if things have really gotten hairy. Rather than needing to prepare this spell, I would much rather either the wizard teleport the party to safety or just have my plans work the way I want them to in the first place.
Arbitrament- Probably the worst of the “alignment word” spells, arbitrament only affects creatures at the extreme corners of the alignment chart. You do get one more alignment to affect over the other spells of this type, but in practice you’re realistically going to be only fighting all good or all evil enemies. I don’t like that these spells have a HD limit, especially when anything 5 levels lower than you is highly unlikely to be worth your 7th level spell slots. Even despite the HD requirement still applying, I do like that the banishing effect at imposes a -4 penalty on Will saves.
Archon's Trumpet- If you’ve played around with paralysis before, then you know just how good this spell is. As long as you have the ability to get you or an ally in for a coup-de-grace, this spell functionally becomes a terrifying AoE save-or-die. Unlike most AoE spells, this one encourages you to get right up in an enemy’s face so if they fail their save they’re just a 5’ step away and you can bash their skull in before they recover. This spell is only held back by the Fortitude save and the danger of getting allies involved.
Artificer's Curse- Temporarily suppress the effects of any magic item in range. You can already do this for 1d4 rounds with a dispel magic; I don’t know if the improvement to minutes/level really warrants an increase of 4 spell levels.
Awaken Construct- Remember all the reasons you elected to get a construct? Now imagine you want to throw all those benefits away and make it susceptible to mind-affecting effects and no longer under your control. Congrats, you’ve wasted 20,000 gp!
Bestow Curse, Greater- Just like bestow curse, the greater version is a touch-save-negate that, when landed, basically ends the encounter. -12 to an ability score is simply ludicrous-- that can very easily remove a creature’s entire casting ability or drop it’s Constitution to half. A -8 to saves similarly spells doom for your target, meaning your next save-or-suck is almost guaranteed to land. And the 25% chance to act normally is just stupid. Amazing for all the reasons bestow curse is amazing. Still pairs well with Reach Spell.
Bestow Grace of the Champion- There’s a lot that has to go right for you to gain any benefit from this spell. You have to have a fellow non-paladin LG ally in the party, preferably with a martial bent and with a halfway decent Charisma score. The bonuses are about on par for the level you get it, especially when you view this as a nice +7 to all attacks for its duration. The rounds/level duration also doesn’t do this spell any favors, inhibiting it from being better than Green on most of the targets it’d even be viable on. LG battle oracles are the one exception here, since with Smite Evil they’ll be getting Charisma to AC, attacks, and saves.
Bestow Planar Infusion III- See bestow planar infusion I. Probably just as bad.
Blasphemy- Far and away the best of the “alignment word” spells, imparting any non-evil creature with Dazed, Weakened, Paralyzed, and then Killed. Every single tier of this spell is nothing but hands-down amazingness. Even on a successful save, these effects are brutal. If you’re the truest type of evil, go ahead and twirl your moustache as you walk into a town square and murder every commoner at once without stopping to care about whether or not they made their save.
Bloodstone Mirror- An expensive 500 gp component cast-and-forget that provides one of the best immunities you can possibly acquire: immunity to a single mind-affecting effect. You even get to redirect the enchantment back at any target within range. Green because of the one time use quality, material component, and personal-only target. Make sure you’re making your Spellcraft checks so you don’t end up trying to dispel a charm person you’d make the save against anyway.
Circle of Clarity- Create an aura that tampers with most illusions and concealment. While nice, the effects here are pretty weak for a level 7 spell.
Contact Entity IV- See contact entity I.
Control Weather- I love control weather. I would totally prepare this spell on my own clerics. I also don’t think it’s good. The three big problems are that you can’t control the exact location of certain phenomena like lightning or tornadoes, the casting time makes this useless in combat, and you’re all but guaranteed to be affected by the spell too.
Create Demiplane, Lesser- You create your own demiplane. You don’t get much flexibility with this spell, as compared to the stuff you can do with its later iterations. Honestly just a weak refuge spell that needs a 2h casting time.
Create Variant Mummy- There are very few upsides to these mummies. Just cast create undead instead.
Cure Serious Wounds, Mass- See mass cure light wounds.
Destruction- A close range harm upgrade that still inflicts 10d6 points on a partial save and doesn’t stop at 1 hp. This spell is absolute madness, and the biggest exception to that “you don’t get blast spells” rule.
Dictum- Second worst out of the “alignment word” spells. Deafened is very weak at this level, and Staggered isn’t much better an upgrade. Paralyzed is nice, but not as a -5 CL effect. I’d rather prepare banishment for all the good this spell is going to do for you.
Ethereal Jaunt- Sure, you get to become almost untouchable for a minute or two, but what actually is your plan at that point? You can’t do much of anything in this state besides move through walls and heal up to get back into the fight. I think this spell excels as a short-range reconnaissance spell and little more.
False Resurrection- Resurrect a creature with the soul of a shadow demon instead of its own. A super expensive and kind of stupid way to get a temporary beatstick.
“Hey, what spell should we invent, guys?”
“Ok, wait, I got one. What about one that summons the giant elephant from summon monster VII but made of snow?”
“...”
Grim Stalker- This spell has way too many working layers to be anything but a GM spell. Touch an object to imbue it with a haunt for a week or two, then anyone who touches it makes a save to be affected, and then every night the creature has to make successive Will saves to prevent a haunted dog from coming closer and killing them. I can’t think of a single reason to prepare this spell.
Halfling Vengeance, Mass- See halfling vengeance. The cool thing here is now that you’re giving presumably more than 1 person the effects of the spell, there’s a strong incentive to get everyone flanking with each other. At this level, you’ll be giving 3d6 points of sneak attack, and while the debuffs are still nice, they don’t really stand out much anymore compared to the other stuff you’re doing with your 7ths. This is a niche pick entirely dictated by your party composition. Could be as good as Green if you somehow have 2+ other Small-sized martials or as terrible as Red if your team doesn’t have any.
Holy Word- Middle of the pack for the “alignment word” spells. Deafened on its own is a very weak debuff, but Blinded and Deafened together puts most creatures in a tricky situation. In Good campaigns, you’re likely to be fighting non-good outsiders of your HD or lower enough to take this for the -4 Will save banishment feature alone. As with all the alignment spells, this combos well with anything that can boost your CL.
Hunger for Flesh, Mass- This spell never needed to be made into an AoE. Sure, it’s likely that if you’re storming a keep or lair of something you’ll encounter many creatures of its type, but you’ve long since eclipsed the point where a 25% inaction as an AoE is worth your time. Orange only if you’re storming like a fire giant lair or something.
Hymn of Peace- An AoE centered on you that basically affects creatures with the same hostile restrictions as sanctuary. It’s a nice trick if you can somehow get in the fray and not include your allies (which is really hard to do with that 40 ft. radius). This spell will never completely lock an enemy in place, but it can give you a good 40-60% of rounds where they aren’t trying to murder you. Split Color for indecision.
Inflict Serious Wounds, Mass- See mass inflict light wounds.
Infuse Robot- Temporarily turn a robot into a construct. I don’t understand how that’s such a big advantage it warranted a 7th level spell.
Jolting Portent- This is a cool spell. Medium range rounds/level debuff that doesn’t require an initial save, and inflicts a modicum of damage whenever the target fails a Fort save as it is attacking. The obvious use here is to tack on damage to interrupt spellcasting, especially because most class-based spellcasting creatures won’t have good Fort saves at all. You also get the nice benefit of being able to mulligan a critical confirmation and inflict a saveless Daze for 1 round. Energy resistances are all but common now, and the damage is a bit too low to rank this anything higher, sadly.
Lost Legacy- Curse a target so that everyone around them forgets all their pleasant interactions and remains Indifferent. How useless!
Lunar Veil- Create normal darkness and revert lycanthropes in a 120 ft. radius. Exceptionally bad for this level and a testament to your lack of good illusions.
Maddening OublietteR- A weaker, eviller maze spell featured by clerics of Zon-Kuthon. I don’t like how this spell forces a number of Will saves, but I do like that even despite the short duration the enemy doesn’t return to the fight all rearing to go and will have at least 1 round of confusion. The 1 round casting time, single target restriction, and multiple Will save requirements make me doubt the efficacy of this spell.
Magnetic Field- Pull metallic items and creatures wearing metal towards you. It’s a cool spell that’s made viable if your GM is really good about making detailed environments. It’s not good, though.
Memory of Function- You can restore a broken object, construct, or timeworn item to functionality for the cost of 10,000 gp. Not often useful, certainly not useful as a 7th.
Morning Sun- Spend 500 gp to evoke a miniature sun in a 5 ft. square. It damages anything nearby for a rather unimpressive 10d6 Reflex half, sheds bright light out to 60 feet, and disrupts anything vulnerable to light. Paying a material component for an offensive battlefield spell is bad already, and it's even worse when that spell is a blast.
Particulate FormSU- Cast on your party and become immune to bleed, precision damage and critical hits for 1 round/level. Weak for this level, and not something I’d prepare unless I knew I’d be fighting the thieves’ guild.
Planar Refuge- Spend 500 gp to ensure the plane you’re exploring has a bubble of safe environment that can help you survive the wilderness. Expensive, and worthless unless you know you’ll be needing it. And even if you do find yourself on a different plane, mass planar adaptation is just better.
Plundered Power- You kill a creature and give yourself access to its highest level SLA castable 1/day. It’s an expensive cast at 2500 gp, and entirely dependent on the stuff you can find. Potentially too situational to regularly prepare, and potentially too cheesy to actively seek out.
Poison Breath- Expel a 15 ft. cone of poison as the spell. Would be cooler if it didn’t force a Fort save and if 45% of the monsters at this level weren’t immune. The cone is pretty small too, it’s hardly an upgrade over the previous spell being single target.
Pox of Rumors- Curse one creature at any range to attract negative rumors wherever it goes. Basically this is an intrigue spell that puts all the power in the GM’s hand to execute with as he or she wishes. Which means it’s not something you want to rely on.
Refuge- Imbue some magic in a special object that when broken transports its holder to safety. 1,500 gp is pretty expensive for such a contingency and is unlikely to be one you should ever hope to plan for.
RegenerateSU- The target regrows broken or dismembered limbs and heals a small amount of damage. In Pathfinder, hit points arbitrate most of the wounds your character will accrue over time. There aren’t really many rules that specifically call out permanent disfigurement, leaving this spell one that you seek out a scroll of on an as-needed basis.
Repulsion- Create a barrier around you of a very generous shapeable size that creatures cannot enter without making a Will save. Sometimes the best offense is overwhelming defense. Combos well with spells that mess up ranged attacks like fickle winds.
Restoration, GreaterSU- See restoration. There are very few situations in which you’ll want a greater restoration over two restorations or a bunch of lesser restorations in quick succession. I’d never seek out a scroll of this, but if I got one I’d also never sell it.
ResurrectionSU- See raise dead. By now, you’re probably waist-deep in end-of-the-world plot stuff and rerolling a new character would just be a horrible experience for everyone. Moreover, sometimes it’s just not feasible to wait a day or two to transport whatever tiny fragments of your ally remain, usually due to the fact that whatever was nasty enough to leave the body in such a state was likely encountered in hostile territory. I always recommend parties have a scroll of resurrection on them.
Scrying, Greater- A worthy upgrade to scrying. Better, stronger, longer, faster, and morer reliabler.
Signifer's Rally- This spell lets you teleport your allies to your location. Don’t split the party and you’ll never need this.
Soul Transfer- Transfer a soul from a dead body or incorporeal creature into a receptacle. Extremely expensive and incredibly situational. I’d only recommend this if you want to keep someone dead to resolve the plot arc.
Spell ScourgeR- Create a whip that forces a Will save or completely removes every harmless spell from a creature. Personally, I’d rather use greater dispel magic as it is more widely useful and has the ability to work in degrees of success rather than being an all-or-nothing like this spell is.
Spellcasting ContractR- See lesser spellcasting contract.
Submerge Ship- You can submerge a ship for 10 minutes/level, either allowing it to be maneuvered stealthily below the waves or potentially capsizing it if it does not have a captain. Potentially useful in heavily-nautical games, use-impaired otherwise.
Summon Monster VII- Brachiosaurus are your first noteworthy Gargantuan creature and almost always get to utilize their Cleave feats thanks to their impressive reach. 1d3 Dire tigers are still good and 1d4+1 Ankylosaurus might still pose a threat against less-armored creatures. Dire crocodiles are worthwhile improvements, which isn’t something that can really be said for the elementals. This list is very much so a downgrade from before, sporting mostly melee beatsticks and offering almost no new SLAs to play with. One final note: 1d3 succubi are good if your opponents aren’t immune to mind-affecting effects, since they have a slew of high DC Spell-Like-Abilities that you can spam every round*.
*Note: this is actually more viable a strategy than it seems. The average Will save of a CR 13 enemy is only a +11. If you roll average and summon 2 succubi, you can have them spam dominate person 1/day (DC 23) and suggestion at will (DC 21). Even just looking at suggestion’s DC, that means the average monster has to roll higher than a 11 two times in a row or be out of the fight (20% chance). And on the first round, you could have them dominate instead, making that even more unlikely (12%).
Symbol of Stunning- See symbol of death. 1d6 rounds of stun, while basically an encounter-ender, implies you’ll need to be nearby when this spell goes off to capitalize on such a debilitating debuff. If that’s the case though, you could just as easily attack your target. Also being so close to the symbol at time of activation means you could get people you don’t want to target caught in the effect as well.
Symbol of Weakness- Symbol spell that drops creatures 3d6 strength. Can potentially incapacitate wizards entirely. It is a symbol spell, though.
Terraform- Spend 10 mythic power and 10,000gp to completely terraform a 100 ft. radius around you for a couple of weeks. Badass, and entirely not worth it.
Umbral Strike- A horrible blast spell. Single target, 1d6 per level, and does half cold and half negative energy with a Fort save to halve and prevent Blindness.
Vision of Lamashtu- Allow for a 6th level spell that doesn’t deal hit point damage to ride along a nightmare spell and affect the sleeping creature regardless of range. This isn’t a spell to choose if you’re an Oracle, but if you’re a non-good cleric and have a day where you don’t need your 7ths and 6ths, there’s no reason not to throw these out in the hopes of preemptively messing up whatever villains you’ve got on your kill list. Just be aware that it’s likely anything you do “offscreen” gets completely absolved given enough time.
Waves of Ecstasy- We have a lot of fun names for this spell at my table. The official description of this spell states “pleasure stuns and staggers creatures” so I’ll leave exactly what to your imagination. This spell is a solid AoE debuff with a mediocre partial effect. Staggered is neither amazing nor terrible; be sure to pair this with something that can capitalize on stationary opponents.
Word of Chaos- Second best “alignment word” spell, only slightly ahead of holy word. Like it, Deafened is not particularly exciting, though 1d4 rounds of Stun very much so is. Confusion is a very nice debuff to throw in there as well, as it’s very likely that when you’re fighting anything with so few HD relative to you that there’s going to be a greater number of them. Remember that casting a Confusion effect into a crowd of enemies all but assures they start attacking each other as a Confused creature must attack back.
Angelic Aspect, Greater- As before, you’ve got a kickass grab-bag buff spell that tends to be more cool than it is completely necessary. It’s a shame that protective aura provides bonuses that won’t stack with all the magic equipment you’ve got on. There’s absolutely no ability here that’s unilaterally spectacular; it’s the wide range of defensive applications this spell offers that makes it appealing.
Antimagic Field- Lights out. AMF will completely ruin an encounter provided you know what you’re doing. With one spell, you bring everything down to how well-built your party’s martials are. For those of you who’ve invested heavily in combat prowess, now’s the time to show your stuff and shred some wizards. High level play is almost entirely predicated on magic, and as long as you can bear to make the very real sacrifice of your own spells for awhile, there is simply no greater combat spell to let your fighter shine. Split Color partially for indecision and partially due to its complete reliance on party and build synergy.
Call ConstructSU- Teleport a construct you control to your location, sacrificing either 1,000 gp or 5,000 gp. I don’t know why you’d ever want to part with your construct in the first place, but if for some reason you need it elsewhere, just get a scroll of this for emergencies.
Cloak of Chaos- Our first of the “alignment aura” spells. All of these grant a relatively worthless +4 resistance bonus to saves and a +4 deflection bonus to AC. You should really have at least a +3 in both of these by now. Thankfully, the goodies don’t end there. You also get the mental immunity like protection from law, and SR 25 against lawful effects and creatures. Lastly, you have a chance to Confuse any lawful creature that attacks you for 1 round. The SR, mental immunity, and confusion effects make this spell an all-around solid “can’t touch me” spell for the whole party. An overall strong rounds/level buff that gets better if you’re fighting creatures of the appropriate type.
Counterbalancing Aura- See cloak of chaos. An “alignment aura” spell that works against creatures with a Neutral alignment component. Creatures that attack you are Sickened for 1d6 rounds instead of Confused for 1 round, a much worse draw for you unless they’re Neutral, in which case they’re Nauseated for the same duration. The only real interesting thing this spell brings to the table is a higher SR of 27 if you predict correctly you’ll be fighting true Neutral enemies. As with arbitrament, I feel like the neutral-only component is less reliable than targeting only good or only evil creatures. While I think this is worse than its brethren, it’s still a decent rounds/level buff that gets better if you’re fighting creatures of the appropriate type. Blue only if those creatures are exclusively Neutral.
Create Demiplane- See lesser create demiplane. Now with the customization you can do, this spell becomes largely limited by your creativity and the GM’s willingness to allow your shenanigans. You can largely sculpt your demiplane to your wishes, so what you do with this spell isn’t really bounded by any rules I can draw precedent from. Being a mere 500 gp focus component spell that lasts days/level, it’s entirely reasonable you have this spell perpetually active even with just 1 day of downtime per two weeks.
Create Greater Undead- More options to pad your shambling army. Even the lowest CL option here, the shadow, is incredibly strong.
Cure Critical Wounds, Mass- See mass cure light wounds.
Curse of Night- Basically curse terrain but blots out the sun. Stunt plant growth and cast a mile radius in darkness. Inordinately expensive and of no benefit to you.
Curse Terrain, Supreme- I don’t care how impressive your blight upon the land is; a spell you can’t control is a spell you don’t want. See lesser curse terrain.
Death Clutch- Ostensibly the coolest, most metal spell out there. Go full Temple of Doom and rip out some poor idiot’s still beating heart. It’s not a touch attack surprisingly, and targets Fortitude, but the effects on a failed save basically result in death regardless of if your target meets the 200 hit point threshold or not. If only this didn’t target Fortitude.
Dimensional Lock- Completely hedge out teleportation within a 20 ft. radius. No attack roll. No saving throw. No escape. Absolutely crucial for shutting down what has undoubtedly become a nuisance of a strategy from all the outsiders you’ve been fighting.
Discern Location- While you might not be able to view a creature’s activities like you can with the scrying line of spells, you do get a definitive lead on your target with only one singular defense against your efforts. This spell is for the precocious caster who wants to get the BBEG over and done with.
Divine VesselO- Harness the raw power of your oracular curse and transform into a monolithic manifestation of the end of times. Simply put, there is not an oracle out there who doesn’t think this spell is the coolest thing there is. Like angelic aspect, your defensive and offensive features are all over the place, granting SR, DR, size bonuses, extra attacks, natural armor, and damage reduction, to name just a few. This spell is Blue for particularly martial-focused oracles.
Earthquake- Evoke a tremendous earthquake in an 80-ft. radius. Normally, for a spell of this caliber, the large radius would be a drawback due to the likelihood that you target your allies. But with earthquake you have full ability to shape the spell to your wishes. The uses for this spell are wide-ranging and powerful. The only thing holding this spell back is that most of the Reflex saves are capped at a pitiful DC 15.
Euphoric Tranquility- Busted. The single best touch spell in the game. Make a melee touch attack and take one creature out of the fight entirely. They can’t attack, cast spells, and move at half speed, all without getting to make a saving throw. You can even attack the enemy straight-up, giving them a save to act normally for one round only. This spell is an incredible tool for isolating the strongest member of an encounter and dealing with lesser threats. Plus, it’s even good outside of combat as a saveless, charm monster that lasts for a minute or two. Amazing with Reach Spell.
Fey Gate- Like gate’s planar travel effect, except you can only travel to the First World. And... there’s no accuracy of location? Am I understanding this right, or is this spell like entirely outclassed by plane shift…?
Fire Storm- Oh boy! You get to roll some d6! Except, this spell is like 3 or 4 levels behind some of the stuff the Wizard can do. And it deals the worst damage type. And it’s a blast spell. So it sucks.
Frightful Aspect- Become large sized and more durable, emanating a saveless aura of Shaken. Anything Shaken by you that hits a melee attack is automatically Frightened. Again, no save. Excellent spell to keep creatures at bay, and put yourself in threaten range.
Heart of the Mammoth- Touch a creature to give it a +8 enhancement bonus to Strength and Constitution, fear immunity, and a +4 morale bonus to Will saves. They also get Improved Critical against dragons, which isn’t really a huge selling point. Most of the enhancement bonuses won’t stack with preexisting belts, so this spell remains fairly unimpressive. Orange if you’re fighting dragons, moreso for the fear immunity than the crit range increase.
Holy Aura- See cloak of chaos. This is a solid “alignment aura” spell for good-aligned casters. Permanent Blindness is a nice deterrent against melee attackers that keeps this spell more than relevant.
Inflict Critical Wounds, Mass- See mass inflict light wounds.
Maw of Chaos- A battlefield control effect that manifests a 5 ft. radius spread that attempts to drag creatures nearby every round. Anything adjacent to the spread without a chaotic subtype takes ability damage to all its scores. I like the ability score damage effect here, and I like the teleport redirection. Both are useful abilities. I don’t like that this spell is only concentration duration and will easily shred all of your precious loot. Even more problematic, targeting CMD at this level is near-impossible to do. The average CMD of a CR 15 creature is 42. That means a level 15 caster with a +8 ability score modifier still only succeeds on a 19. This spell has its good and its bad, but that doesn’t mean you should entirely write it off. Green if you’re fighting devils, and that’s probably about the only time.
Nature's Ravages, Greater- Send a creature’s remains so far into the future they need to be true resurrected. Just plane shift the body to the Plane of Fire instead.
Nine LivesR, SU- Catfolk get the best racial spells. This spell makes it ludicrously difficult to die. For a whopping 15 hours minimum, you get to pick and choose 9 times to perform one of six immediate actions that might save you from an otherwise cat-astrophic fate. Most notably among these are the abilities to reroll saving throws and negate critical hits, though you can also use them to avoid going unconscious, escape grapples, and end almost any harmful condition that affects you. Oh wait, my bad. You OR whatever party member you cast this on. That’s right, this spell isn’t even personal range. If you’ve got Scribe Scroll, spam the bejeezus out of this one.
Orb of the Void- A flaming sphere analog that inflicts 1 negative level instead of fire damage. Fort: negates makes this spell horrible.
Phasic Challenge- Target an enemy and an ally and magically lock them into combat. Nothing they can do will affect anyone else directly. Three problems here. One, this spell takes your biggest asset (cooperation) and throws it out the window. Two, this spell is a save: negates that doesn’t have any particularly useful effect attached to it. And three, generally speaking an individual party member is not designed to be strong enough to solo a monster. Challenge Ratings are built around the idea of an entire party working together. Limiting your action economy and forcing your ally into a fight that is very likely out of their league is beyond silly. Don’t ever use this spell.
Planar Ally, Greater- See lesser planar ally. Same chance to be gamebreaking.
Quintessence Mastery- Sculpt the reality of an Outer Plane which you currently inhabit to your mortal whims. Like create demiplane, this spell grants you an extraordinary amount of flexibility so long as you inhabit one of the nine alignment planes. You have a star-studded list of terrain spells to choose from and you can cast multiple effects in the same round. If you’re traversing the Abyss and you need both a wall of thorns and a fog cloud in the same turn you can DO that. One of the only ways in this game to effectively cast more than 2 spells in a single round.
Realm Retribution- Impart upon an ally your alignment for bypassing DR and force Will saves against anything crit by your ally or that attacks your ally or else get plane shifted away. An awful lot of steps just to plane shift an enemy, and by this point a lot of monsters can just teleport back to your plane next round anyway. Orange if your target has an exceptionally large crit range.
Remove Radioactivity, Greater- See remove radioactivity.
Rift of Ruin- This spell acts as a shapeable create pit that sends affected creatures to the Abyss. Anything caught within the spell takes 6d6 points of a random damage type per round, and if it can’t fly must make a DC 25 Climb check to escape. I like that you can end the spell early to summon a demon from summon monster VII; that keeps this spell very relevant and versatile (though I have no idea why this spell has the (calling) descriptor). Rift of ruin is everything you want in a spell: Reflex partial, battlefield control, shapeable, summoning, blast damage, no SR, long range, and enemy action removal. Just fantastic.
Rotting Alliance- Oh boy! You know how much I love disease spells! Read this spell as “one creature per level must make two Fortitude saves or take 1d6 Con and Cha damage once” because that’s about all you’ll ever see this do. Two Fort saves makes this spell all but worthless, but on the slim chance they do actually fail it the effect is passable. It’s that reason alone this spell doesn’t get the usual darker-than-red I reserve for disease spells.
Sacramental Seal- A touch-save-negate that, when successful, results in you capturing the target’s soul in a small object. There’s a bunch of rules here about what happens if you relinquish control of the item, but really you should just use this spell as a temporary solution to transport the creature to whatever deathtrap you’ve got lined up. Cast protection from fire and throw the item in a volcano or something; my point is that this spell is a save-or-die with easily circumventable restrictions. This would be better if it didn’t cost money, wasn’t a long casting time, and didn’t require a touch attack and a save. Save it for boss enemies only.
Shield of Law- See cloak of chaos. This “alignment word” spell affects attackers with slow, which is nothing to scoff at. At the very least, you’ll be unlikely to get full attacked by anything.
Soulreaver- Inflict 1d6 points of damage per level in a 20 ft. radius spread. It targets Fortitude, so it’s not a good start here. The only saving grace for this spell is that it’s a death effect, so your enemies cant breath of life each other. Just cast stormbolts, honestly.
Soulseeker- Soulseeker locates any soul you wish. I don’t know how useful that sort of thing is for you, but if you’ve got a friend’s soul trapped in Hell or something…
Spell Immunity, GreaterSU- See spell immunity. Even at this level, I’d rather a communal spell immunity over this unless I had the ability to ward my whole team. It’s pricey, but if you can get enough scrolls for that, this can be excellent for boss encounters where you have a general idea of what you’re up against.
Spellcrash, Greater- As spellcrash, but affecting 7th level spells. Combat by this point shouldn’t take more than a few rounds. Nowhere near the realm of some of the other 8th level spells you could take.
Spellscar- Curse an area such that every spell cast has a chance to trigger something from the primal magic table. A spell you cannot control is not a spell worth casting.
Stormbolts- Actually a decent blast spell! Deals 1d8 damage per level to anything within 30 feet of you and stuns anything that fails the Fortitude save. Plus it automatically excludes anything you don’t want to zap. What a win!
Summon Erodaemon- Erodaemons are good when you really need somebody’s Charisma drained who doesn’t appear to be capable of flying away. Their Spell-Like Abilities are bad, save for the mediocre enervation and quickened crushing despair and the almighty modify memory. They’re decent summons that don’t necessarily live up to the versatility of summon monster VIII, but they’re respectable in their own right for these talents.
Summon Meladaemon- Meladaemons shine for their ability to reliably drop Fatigued on enemies. That’s about it.
Summon Monster VIII- Barbed devils are terrible and hezrou demons are mediocre thanks to their subar movement and senses. Elder elementals are barely threatening as well, save for when you need a whirlwind or something to move through rock. This spell is only good because of your ability to send out 1d3 beatsticks from the 7th level list or 1d4+1 succubi to spam save-or-sucks*. The enemy has to fail its save eventually!
*Note: this is actually more viable a strategy than it seems. The average Will save of a CR 15 enemy is only a +14. If you roll average and summon 3 succubi, you can have them spam dominate person 1/day (DC 23) and suggestion at will (DC 21). Even just looking at suggestion’s DC, that means the average monster has to roll higher than a 6 three times in a row (34% chance) or be out of the fight. And on the first round, you’ll could have them dominate instead, making that even more unlikely (21%).
Symbol of Death- Hi there. Did you actually make it to 8th level spells, or did you scroll through this entire document intrigued by my opinion on symbol of death after seeing me reference it over and over? Whatever it was that brought you here, I applaud your insistence on hearing my rationale for this garbage.
Symbol spells are the epitome of defensive glyphs. With one or two exceptions, you should never even consider putting a symbol on your daily preparations. They should be reserved exclusively for when you really need to make sure someone doesn’t go where they aren’t welcome. You can, of course, anchor them to equipment such as your armor, but then you need to worry about them triggering when they aren’t supposed to go off and targeting people you really don’t want them to.
Symbols are notorious for three glaring flaws. Firstly, their inability to be cast in combat. Secondly, their reliance on hit point limits, meaning as monsters get stronger and tougher, their effectiveness goes down fast. Thirdly and most notably, their exorbitant material component. It is because of the latter of those two that these spells rarely see use on PCs. If you do end up casting them, I always recommend doing so under as beneficial of circumstances as possible to minimize the chance your precious money is wasted. Stack as many situational CL and DC buffs as you can, and make sure you’re extra judicious with your placement and targeting requirements. Despite being primarily defensive, these spells can be used offensively with a little creativity, like wearing them under a glove or behind a dismissable illusion.
Almost all of these spells will be rated Red purely because I do not believe they should be a part of your daily list. Remember, this doesn’t mean they’re useless, but rather they’re too situational to warrant regularly relying upon.
With all that said, let’s look at symbol of death specifica-- It sucks. Sucks, sucks, completely and utterly suuuuuckkssssssssssss. A cap of 150 hit points ensures that the only stuff you’re killing with this spell are things that couldn’t last a round against your team anyway. 150 HP was the average benchmark for CR 11 creatures; there’s absolutely nothing here for you by 15th level. This is bad even by symbol spell margins.
Symbol of Debauchery- See symbol of death. This is the orgy spell. Not really much more to add.
Symbol of Dispelling- See symbol of death. Dispelling is useful in combat, but unless you have some sort of defense that requires magic to bypass I don’t see you needing this.
Symbol of Insanity- See symbol of death. This is one of the best symbol spells there is, save for possibly symbol of scrying. Creatures affected that fail their saves go permanently insane and with time will start killing each other. It’s really hard to raid someone’s base when you can only act normally a quarter of the time.
Tomb Legion- Summon 1d4+2 advanced mummies. What’s awesome here is that these do not count against your undead HD limit and last for a very long time. No reason not to cast this spell if you’ve got a day before heading out on a mission.
True Prognostication- An “upgrade” to prognostication. Your information gets even more cryptic than before and you can see out 100 years. When has there ever been a campaign that required you to deal with anything on a century timeframe, much less a decade?
Umbral Infusion, Mass- Yes, you do get to seriously buff your mindless undead. But at this level any mindless undead you control are going to get destroyed by a single AoE of any kind regardless of how many magic plusses you slap onto them. Also, as with the regular version, the undead still have a chance to disobey you. Worthless.
Unholy Aura- See cloak of chaos. This “alignment aura” spell deals 1d6 points of Strength damage if a good creature attacks you in melee and fails a Fortitude save. Yet again, Evil wins out of these alignment-based spells. Strength damage is a phenomenal deterrent to attacks, making any concurrent attempts to physically harm you in melee weaker and weaker. Just a fantastic spell; easily the best of its kind.
Vinetrap- An AoE Reflex: negates spell that ensnares creatures with vines that progressively lower their base speeds. This spell is beyond horrible for its level. It can be ended with 20 points of fire damage, it’s far too slow to seriously impact high-level combat, any damage incurred is pitiful, and the Fort save for Blindness is super easy to pass. I wouldn’t take this spell if it were a 6th.
Wandering Weather- A control weather that moves with you. Don’t you generally want the weather to be pleasant for you? How much of a jerk is your GM being with the daily weather rolls that a spell of this sort is necessary?
Absorb Rune III- See absorb rune I. Same deal.
Ascension- One creature per 3 levels ascends to a 1st tier mythic rank for 2 hours per level. Extremely expensive, and will probably only ever see use on final boss battles because of this. You can cast this even without being mythic yourself, and because it basically means reworking large parts of your character sheet; granting feats and class features on an as-needed basis, this spell quickly grinds the game to a halt while everyone figures out exactly what they want to do with it. The flexibility here is outstanding as long as you’re willing to pay for it in money and real-world time.
Astral Projection- Prevent your party from dying. That’s not an overreaction, you literally just give your party better clones that can travel across planes and instantly reanimate and don’t cost a boatload of money. Thankfully, this spell comes with a very big drawback that prevents it from being entirely busted. Whenever a creature under its effects would die, they instantly reanimate back to wherever their material body is. Which means there’s no chance at a breath of life or raise dead; you’re back at your headquarters with 2 brand-new negative levels. If the fighter should go under while you’re out adventuring thousands of miles from home, he’s out until you can stand to go back for him. The ideal Cleric casts this spell one time upon gaining 9th level spells and never prepares it ever again because no party members of hers will ever drop below 0 anyway. In practice, however, this never happens. Welcome to high level; the revolving door of death is thataway.
Canopic Conversion- Single-target Fort half blast spell that animates the target into an advanced mummy if you’re lucky enough to kill it. Which is honestly not going to happen very often.
Create Demiplane, Greater- The 1% of the time you didn’t choose miracle for your 9th level spell was so you could build your greater demiplane and further annihilate whatever shreds of Pathfinder’s rules remained intact. Go ahead and spend 16 quadrillion years Crafting 1cp baskets to sell. You can do that now.
Cursed Earth- The “end of the world” mass blight spell evil villains are always trying to cause. You can unleash a scourge of famine, undead uprisings, or plague in a mile’s radius for the low, low cost of 10,000gp. This spell is everything that’s bad with contagion mixed with everything that’s bad with curse terrain. Where is the actual benefit here? For novelty’s sake, I figure I may as well have at least ONE spell earn the “worse-than-red” rating on the 9th level list.
Energy Drain- Suped-up enervation. Excellent spell, requiring only a ranged touch attack and a lucky roll of the dice. On average, you’re knocking targets down 5 negative levels whenever this spell hits. That’s at minimum two full spell levels gone from a caster’s repertoire, and a huge slew of minuses to the target. Negative levels mean this spell combos with basically everything, making it a solid choice for anyone who gets it.
Etherealness- A mass version of ethereal jaunt. Weaksauce by now.
False Resurrection, Greater- As false resurrection, but summons a belier devil and costs 25,000 gp. Just cast planar ally if you want a devil companion that badly.
Gate- The second strongest spell you have access to, except maybe greater create demiplane. Create an interplanar connection between two planes and call any one outsider to assist you. There’s no spell that lets you cross planes like gate, providing you with complete accuracy of location. Specific outsiders or those called by gate with more HD than you are under no compulsion to assist you, though presumably you can always just call your deity’s herald or denizens from the plane of your alignment for easy allies. The real power here is in your ability to call basically any creature of your choosing to assist you, provided you have 10,000 gp to spare. As long as you have the patience to read through all the monsters at your disposal you can truly do anything you set your mind to.
Heal, Mass- Fully heal the party. All hit points, conditions, and ability damage from your party-- gone. The best healing spell in the game bar none.
Imbue Army Special Ability- I don’t play with mass combat, but from my initial assessment this seems incredibly strong in the few cases you would ever find yourself in mass combat. The list of army special abilities is incredibly broad, allowing you to pick and choose the most beneficial. Most notable to me is the ability to straight up choose to make your army immune to anything the enemy happens to have.
Implosion- A save: negates spell that lets you deal 10 damage per level to any corporeal creature every round. The value here is that while it is a Fort: negates blast spell, you at least get a reasonable number of uses, allowing your 9th level spell to get you more mileage than just a single standard action. In high level play I don’t see you getting more than a few rounds per encounter, but at the very least your high level slot isn’t potentially getting wasted on a one-and-done cast.
Interplanetary Teleport- You don’t really need necessarily the accuracy of location very often. Greater teleport or just regular teleport should be fine enough for your purposes, since often games won’t see too much interstellar transportation. If you’ve somehow gotten this far without having a teleportation option and need one, this is the one you actually have on your list so you could take in in a pinch. It’s just as good a good retreat and mobility tool as the others like it, only several spell levels more expensive.
Judgement Undone- A spell to talk over with your GM; you circumvent Pharasma’s judgement and bring a petitioner back to life outside the bounds of conventional resurrection. The problem with this spell is the ludicrous 50,000 gp material component and the CR 17 psychopomp you are all but guaranteed to fight halfway through the spell.
Massacre- Anything with fewer than 18 HD in a 60 ft. line has to save or instantly die. Fort: negates makes this spell even worse, as it will usually be a tough save for your enemies to fail. Plus, how often is it usually that more than 2 of your enemies will conveniently line themselves up for you?
Miracle- Congrats, you’ve done it. You’ve beaten Pathfinder. It’s taken you hundreds of hours of gameplay to get to this point and now you’ve finally gotten your hands on 9th level spells. You have become completely unstoppable. There is, quite simply, no reason you should prepare any other 9th level spell in place of miracle in 99% of cases. It is the single strongest anything a person can have in this game. You are now in control of 90% of the spells in the game at your fingertips as a standard action. Despite some of the other cool things you can do with your 9ths, miracle beats them all out through sheer versatility. As long as you can win initiative and find the time to look through several thousand pages of spells, every fight is essentially over. And if having all those spells somehow wasn’t good enough for you, you could always just design your own effect to invalidate whatever mundane conflict a recently ascended god like you finds themself in.
Miracle should not exist, but as long as it does you’re taking it and you’re abusing it.
Overwhelming Presence- Take this spell so that the world finally shows you the respect you deserve. Every creature you target sees you as the divine vessel you rightfully are and prostrates themselves before your holy presence. You can just walk up to those affected and coup de grace them systematically like a feckless deity pruning his ungrateful flock. Even after recovering from prostration as a full-round action, the affected target is going to be in a world of hurt thanks to the 1d4 rounds of Staggered and 1d6 points of Wisdom drain.
Parasitic Soul- Force a creature out of a soul gem and into another target’s body, slaying the target instantly if it fails a Will save. This spell requires you to a) have a soul in a gem that you actually wish to relinquish back into the world, and b) want for some reason to make that soul inhabit someone else’s body. This is a GM spell that lets the evil guy do evil ritual things, not for you to take and use with any regularity.
Polar Midnight- One of the coolest spell names out there, with an appropriately cool and unique effect to boot. You exude a 30 ft. aura of cold and darkness, dropping illumination to darkness and affecting creatures with 5d6 cold damage and 1d6 Dexterity damage. If you can somehow prevent creatures within the radius from moving, you entomb them in ice and have a chance to solidify them into permanent wedding fixtures. It’s not as good as some of the other stuff you can do at this level but it will win you awesomeness points, that’s for sure. Combos nicely with waves of ecstacy.
SalvageSU- Target a shipwreck to wrest it from the seas. Considering the cost of a 9th level scroll versus the cost of a sailing ship, you could make some serious money at any level of play by buying scrolls and seeking out shipwrecks to raise. Otherwise, salvage isn’t particularly useful even in aquatic games.
Scourge of the Horsemen- A generous AoE blast spell that inflicts acid damage and negative levels with a Fort save for half. Negative levels are always good and handing them out as an AoE is respectable. It’s a cool spell and will always result in something, but it’s just a little too weak an effect for this level. Fort save for half is less than ideal, so you’ll often end up only really imparting a -1 or -2 to enemies across the board. Green if you’re fighting like a bunch of Arcane spellcasters.
Soul Bind- Trap a soul in a gem to keep it from being resurrected. It’s hard to recommend this spell as one of your routine casts, but it’s also not really something you can ever get a scroll of thanks to it being a save: negates. If you need to keep your soul gem hidden, I recommend putting it in a lead-lined box covered in as many permanent abjurations as you can, followed by throwing the gem in some random point in the outer plane most hostile to anyone most likely to try and free the soul.
Spawn CallingR- Another Evil Bad Guy ritual spell. You must spend a full week casting and doing nothing else in order to summon a CR 20 advanced entropic thunder behemoth that doesn’t listen to you. Again, a spell you do not have control over is not a spell worth casting. I don’t care how much you want to see humanity in ruin, there’s just no mechanical benefit to doing that.
Spell Immunity, Greater CommunalSU- It’s a hard spell spending your best spell on such a risky defense, but when this spell comes through it comes through bigtime. Like, “difference between a TPK or not” big. Not worth an everyday cast, but one of the best buffs you can cast before your final boss fight given you have the proper intel. See greater spell immunity and communal spell immunity.
Spellcasting Contract, GreaterR- See spellcasting contract. This time, I’m rating this spell one tier lower because it’s likely you already get profane bonuses somewhere else in your build, and because it’s really hard justifying giving up a 9th level slot long-term. A +5 to everything is impressive, sure, but when you could be doing some of the other stuff here it sure looks bland by comparison.
Storm of Vengeance- So, so, so bad. The concentration duration sucks for longterm fights, this spell will almost certainly affect your allies, and the damage from this spell is totally weaksauce. Literally, you have to spend an entire round casting the spell only to inflict a singular d6 on your 2nd round of concentration. That’s 1 round plus 1 standard action you’ve spent for the exact same damage as a 10gp flask of acid. I like that this disrupts spellcasting, but come ON; there are far better ways to stop spellcasters than this garbage.
Summon Derghodaemon- Derghodaemon are bad summons. Their whole schtick is flooding the battlefield with insects, something which they are expressly forbidden from doing, being a summon themselves. An aura of feeblemind is cool and all, but at a DC 20 you’ll never be getting anybody with it. They have a fun rend attack that deals 2 points of Con damage, but you’ve got better ways of inflicting that now too.
Summon Greater Demon- Coloxus get the siphon ability and a number of low-DC SLAs, sometimes resulting in a few points of Charisma damage if they get enough bite attacks off. Omox are just bad, being mostly defensive ooze-like creatures that don’t really scare much of anything. And 1d3 Kalavakus are arguably worse than just summoning 1d4+1 succubi and throwing out save-or-suck enchantments at a higher DC, since all you’re doing is hoping for enemy crit fails. All of these demons suffer from having low DCs on their abilities and no especially notable combat abilities worth mentioning. Yes, it’s still a summon spell with a small amount of versatility, but it doesn’t strike the fear of your god like the other 9th level spells do.
Summon Monster IX- Ghaele are strong summons, coming packed with useful SLAs and an always-active holy aura (personal range). Have the Ghaele play the role of the band-aid cleric while you go to town with offensive or control spells. Trumpet archons are basically just Ghaele that have magic circle and aura of menace. Glabrezu are decent if your GM is sane and doesn’t give them wish, allowing you to reverse gravity early in the fight and power word stun to finish off weakened targets. Astral deva and ice devils are generally unimpressive, and nalfeshnee are useful mostly for their constant unholy aura (also personal).
Nothing here screams “combat machine,” and summoning too much from the lower lists will just end up as AoE fodder. I like that Good summoners get the chance to summon an extra spellcaster, but you won’t be using this summon for the kind of damage you used to be summoning for.
Summon Thanadaemon- Another summon sporting low-DC Spell-Like Abilities. As a combat summon, about all you’re getting here is something that can throw out 3 enervations before becoming entirely useless. You can’t even summon this on the Material Plane without being in open water, which indicates to me that this spell was purely meant as a reliable planar travel option. But when you have greater access to plane shifts and teleports, this spell doesn’t really need to exist.
Symbol of Strife- See symbol of death. Basically just a symbol of insanity where every creature is set face-up in attack-the-nearest-creature mode. 15,000 gp is a lot to pay for something that only affects 150 HP of creatures. At this level, that’s basically nothing.
Symbol of Vulnerability- See symbol of death. I like that this spell gives penalties to saving throws. I don’t like that it still has that stupid HP cap on it.
True ResurrectionSU- God, I hope you never need this. I would venture that 90% of the time when someone important dies you could make do with resurrection instead. Total bodily destruction is incredibly rare, and usually you can find enough of a creature’s remains through locate object cast on a skeleton or something. It’s a nice scroll to have if your GM is kind enough to provide one, but you shouldn’t ever feel compelled to drop 28k on a contingency you might never need. Never prepare this and pray you never have to.
Winds of Vengeance- Surround yourself with a sphere of wind that allows flight, grants breathable air, and defends you against winds, ranged attacks, and potentially some melee attacks as well. Winds of vengeance offers a decent slew of abilities, but they’re also abilities that can be replicated with a number of 3rd-5th level spells instead. I’d rather lose all my 5ths buffing up than a single 9th, but that’s just me.
Wooden Phalanx- Conjure up 1d4+2 advanced wood golems. Remember with summon accuser I said I didn’t care how bad the summons were because the duration was so long? Well that was back then, and this is a 9th level slot we’re talking about. I don’t care that the duration is 1 hour/level or if you roll a four; the act of creating 6 CR 7 creatures with zero useful special attacks is not worth your 9th level slot. For reference, rolling max on your d4 grants you the equivalent of a CR 12; which is allegedly on par with some of the greater demons you could’ve summoned instead (which still aren’t good). Except these things can’t be healed easily and can hardly defend themselves.
Yellow SignR- Our last spell is bad. You’ve worshipped Hastur for this long; you know how stupid an idea it is to try and summon the King in Yellow. See symbol of death.
