Need recommendations for Preferred / Perfected Spell

[Ankiseth Vanir]

I'm currently playing in my first Pathfinder campaign and was hoping to hear opinions on good spells to use for the Preferred Spell and Spell Perfection feats. I won't qualify for the latter for some time but I like to plan ahead.

My character is currently a level 3 human wizard (foresight school) which necromancy and enchantment as opposition schools. (Since this is our first time playing, there is leniency with regards to fine tuning the character's feats, skills, opposition schools, etc. for a few more levels.) Additionally, I plan on being a golem constructor (craft sculpture skill and craft wondrous item, craft magic arms and armor, and craft construct feats). Since I plan on picking up a lot of crafting feats, I will need to be somewhat selective with meta magic feats.

Any thoughts on good wizard spells to focus on? (They don't need to be related to golem construction in any way).

Thanks for your thoughts.

[MattR1986]

Well, since you didn't plan your build around a specific preferred spell my advice is to wait until late 4th level when you're close to 5th to consider this. You are 2 levels away and don't know what spells you are going to come across (assuming you don't have Wal-Mart access) and don't know what challenges you are going to be facing. You also didn't give your character sheet/stats for someone to get a better idea of what would work best for you.

[Ankiseth Vanir]

I have what I think is a fairly standard stat spread (10/14/14/20/12/7). I should have access to any spell upon level ups per the core rulebook.

I was hoping to see some lists of commonly chosen spells and why people like those particular spells.

[Corlindale]

I picked Glitterdust for preferred spell with my own Foresight wizard.

It's 2nd level so you can convert to it from most spell slots, it scales meaningfully with Heighten so you can use higher slots efficiently too, it works on most things, it bypasses SR and it cause a debuff that is crippling in most cases (with some extra utility for defeating concealment when that applies).

Drawbacks are a small area and the fact that they get a new save each round. But even with those drawbacks it's still a highly useful spells that can be applied in most combat situations if you are out of other options.

[andreww]

Preferred Spell and Perfect Spell have very different considerations. If you are picking up Preferred at level 5 then you are looking at level 2-3. Strong recommendations include the various powerful battlefield control options:

Glitterdust - negate invisibility and stealth, blind enemies, this is probably my favourite.

Create Pit - extremely powerful but loses out as you go up in level as enemies can fly or teleport more commonly.

Stinking Cloud - incredibly potent area control, nauseated is an extremely powerful debuff but it only works on living enemies and a number of living enemies are immune to poison.

Acid Arrow/Ice Spears - on their own these are not really very good BUT with the addition of Dazing Spell they become extremely potent control, especially as they ignore SR

Emergency Force Sphere - it is level 4 so you wont be taking it until 7th but as a Diviner always able to act in the surprise round this will make you virtually unkillable.

For Spell Perfection the considerations are very different. You generally want your perfected spell to be 5th level so you can get a free quickened one every round, 6th works if you also have Magical Lineage. You also ideally want to have Greater Spell Focus in the school of your perfected spell. Personally I prefer multi target spells but there are some potent single target options. Good choices include:

Single Target:

Baleful Polymorph
Stone to Flesh
Hold Monster
Plane Shift (you cant Quicken it but Persistent Plane Shift is very powerful)
Dominate Monster (no quicken or persistent but a large DC boost)
Enervation (not bad but no Split Ray from 3e limits it)

Multi Target:

Chain Lightning/Fire Snake (incredible with Dazing Spell applied)
Mass Suggestion
Dragons Breath (great for Dazing and a choice of elemental damage)
Ball Lightning (actually great single or multi target with Dazing)
Mass Hold Monster (mostly for the DC boost)

Finally a note on the impact of Spell Perfection on Shadow Conjuration/Evocation. These can duplicate many spells but often offer two saves. Perfection gives a great boost to making sure these spells will actually stick.

[Gregory Connolly]

I don't tend to use Preferred Spell. Clerics, Druids and Witches tend to not run out of useful things to do and my Wizards tend to pick up every craft feat under the sun and ignore it anyway. Spell Perfection on the other hand is crazy good and I never build a Sorcerer or Wizard without it being the focus of the build at high level. If you have enough metamagic feats and/or took magical lineage/metamagic master you want a low level spell like Fireball or Pellet Blast for Spell Perfection, otherwise you want something level 5 for free Quicken Spell.

[andreww]

Personally I think Chain Lightning is possibly the best option, especially if you take Magical Lineage with it. That allows you to throw quickened and dazing versions each round with a level 6 spell slot. Reflex is generally a fairly low save to target and with Elemental Spell (acid) you can pretty much avoid any immunity either. 40d6 damage and a mid 30's DC or lose six rounds of actions is utterly lethal to the vast majority of opponents.

[Gregory Connolly]

I think it depends on class. Sorcerers usually have things like Maximize, Empower and Intensified so perfecting Fireball or Pellet Blast makes sense. Wizards usually go more for item creation feats and will want something higher level like Fire Snake, Chain Lightning (Magical Lineage) or Cloudkill (Mythic). Either way you are gonna need Quicken Spell and something else big like Dazing Spell, Heighten Spell or Maximize Spell to get real use out of Spell Perfection.

[andreww]

For me the big three are probably Dazing, Quicken and Persistent.

[PSusac]

If you read the preferred spell rules closely, you will notice that it is limited to "a spell you can cast" and that you change one spell slot to that spell.

This means that you can apply preferred spell to spells that are in your opposition school and it only costs one spell slot to cast (since it meets this criteria).

Cheesy? Yes, but legal.

So you might consider enervation as an option. This lets you maximize and quicken it at no cost (using spell perfection), so you can fire off 2 rays at 4 negative levels per round each if you add in the traits that let you reduce the number of levels a metamagic spell costs (magical lineage?)

The disadvantage is that you are now a ray specialist, so you probably want to take point blank shot and precise shot as well so you can fire into combat.

There are several good enchantment/necromancy spells out there:

blindness/deafness
Charm Monster
Dominate Person
Confusion
Suffocation

etc.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Keep in mind, you'll be casting this spell a LOT. So, it's got to be something you consider fun.

I went with fireball, and I know it's not the MOST optimal choice, but I'm optimizing toward having more fun these days.

Worked like...magic.

[andreww]

You cannot maximise and quicken enervation with spell perfection. Perfection doesn't allow you to create effects which would be higher than level 9. Maximised Quickened Enervation is level 11. You could throw Empowered Quickened Enervation if you had Magical Lineage and it would only use up a level 5 spell slot. 2d4*1.5 negative levels isn't bad. Frankly I think you are better off going either the Dazing route or using a save or lose like Flesh to Stone.

[PSusac]

andreww wrote:

You cannot maximise and quicken enervation with spell perfection. Perfection doesn't allow you to create effects which would be higher than level 9. Maximised Quickened Enervation is level 11. You could throw Empowered Quickened Enervation if you had Magical Lineage and it would only use up a level 5 spell slot. 2d4*1.5 negative levels isn't bad. Frankly I think you are better off going either the Dazing route or using a save or lose like Flesh to Stone.

Magical Lineage takes the level off of EACH metamagic feat (I think), so it should work ok: Level 4 + (4+3-2) = 9

[edit] Oops. Just re-read the trait. You are correct sir! My bad.