I know that as a Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple, I have a very limited selection of spells known. On top of that, the majority of my class levels will actually be Fighter. That makes matters worse. I do want my character to retain some usefulness with spells, but since I haven't even ever used half of them, I don't know which ones will be useful and stay useful. Her dragon type is black, so that means acid spells are a given. Also, spells without a DC save might be better until I can get something to increase her Charisma score. I chose the Magical Knack trait to help out a bit, too.
Here is a list of all the spells that interest me, or are a part of her bloodline. Feel free to make suggestions about these spells, or even suggest other spells and why I should learn them. She will only ever learn up to 4th-level spells, though. =(
1st-level (Max known: 5)
Color Spray
Corrosive Touch
Enlarge Person
Grease (could be wand)
Mage Armor (bloodline spell, and pretty much useless to her)
Magic Missile
Ray of Enfeeblement
Shield (could be wand/potion)
Vanish (could be wand/potion)
2nd-level (Max known: 4)
Acid Arrow
Blindness/Deafness
Bull's Strength (could be wand/potion)
Eagle's Splendor (could be wand/potion)
Elemental Touch
Glitterdust
Resist Energy (bloodline spell)
3rd-level (Max known: 3)
Acid Pit
Detonate
Dispel Magic
Elemental Aura
Eruptive Pustules
Fly (bloodline spell)
Haste (could be wand/potion)
Hold Person
Slow
Stinking Cloud
4th-level (Max known: 2)
Bestow Curse
Black Tentacles
Contagion
Crushing Despair
Fear (bloodline spell)
Solid Fog
Touch of Slime
Vitriolic Mist
You're trying to run the DD like a sorcerer. Those are good spells for a sorcerer casting them at the appropriate level with a high cha score, but they will be lower level spells (low dc) and there's no point in running a DD if you're not going to take advantage of the strength score.
1st
Enlarge person: giving yourself reach and a good damage boost is an amazing spell. You'll usually get back the round you waste casting this in the form of an attack of opportunity with the reach.
Truestrike: You can cast it in full armor with no asf. It synergies well with your blind sense. Sense an invisible foe? Cast truestrike, walk over, and grab them.
Expeditious retreat: 7 feet of angry dragon disciple is bad. 7 feet of angry dragon disciple that moves faster than you do is worse.
Vanish: I'm out of hitpoints *wink* later
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See invisibility: Hey, blindsense tingling... i sense something.. DING... hello mr assassin.
Blur: the enemy is in range. So are you. Getting hit less often would be nice.
Mirror image: ditto.
False life: free hitpoints!
Spiderclimb: You're melee. Some of them aren't.
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Protection from energy -because sometimes they're not expecting the dragon
Heroism: Look! Ima bard!
Fly- Your foes will, you'll need to reach them
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Stoneskin: less damage is good.
Dimension door: Still good after all these levels.
Fireshield: Normally wizards shouldn't be getting hit by things. You should be.
BigNorseWolf has the idea...
There´s probably other spells if you use Ultimate Magic / Combat, but the point is the focus of them.
You will want very few spells that directly target enemies, ESPECIALLY those that don´t do anything if the target Saves.
You should probably have another full Caster in the party to handle those types of tasks, so you shouldn´t worry about playing the ´god caster´ role. You CAN cover some buffs like Haste or Heroism that another Caster would otherwise cover... And eventually you WILL have alot of low-level slots, and having ´utility´ spells to keep yourself useful isn´t a bad idea either. I always pick Shield like you did. There are SOME enemy-targetting (ideally multi-target) spells that don´t require a Save, or still have signifigant effect on a passed Save, and those ARE workable with your Caster-lite DD build, but mostly those also aren´t going to be a MAJOR part of your repoirtoire vs. buffs and the like. At high levels you have more flexibility, and you can play ´under-study´ for some of that stuff, but it shoudn´t be 1st on your list as you level up.
Also, re: Fly: Fly spell is nice because it´s not subject to some of the same diruption/drop you out of the sky stuff that Wings are, and I believe not even some of the maneuvering restrictions. Of course, it IS subject to Dispel, but there´s no reason you can´t use both at the same time: Enemies may see you flying with wings and think they can drop you easily, but your magical flight kicks in. Or they can think they can dispel your Fly spell, but your normal flight kicks in.
A Rod of Quicken Metamagic will be your best friend, since NOT fighting so that you can cast mid-combat will not be playing to your strengths. Quicken Rod lets you do both.
Lose any thing that is Save based DC spell. That a good start. Basicly you are fighter that cast spell to make you a better fighter. You use spells like most fighter use feats. They use Lunge... You use Enlarge person.... ect.
A lot of good suggestions have already been made and I second them. Just for completeness sake I want to add that you might want to consider two other options:
1) Gain only a few power-up spells but use the rest for utility spells. You become more useful this way out-of-combat, and a secure shelter, alarm or ropetrick might make your comrades like you more.
2) Don't look at sorcerer spells, look at the bard spells. You could gain healing, buffs (many of those mentioned above) and nice utility. Choosing an archetype such as arcane duelist might net you even more interesting abilities.
Just some ideas :-)
Mage armor is far from useless. As a sorceror, you are subject to arcane spell failiure. Stack with shield for a +8 ac and no failure chance. and mage armor can be cast at the start of the day and a rod of extend spell is cheap.
Mage armor is far from useless. As a sorceror, you are subject to arcane spell failiure. Stack with shield for a +8 ac and no failure chance. and mage armor can be cast at the start of the day and a rod of extend spell is cheap.
Ah, wanted to write it but forgot: If you go the bard route, you can use light armor since there's no ASF for them. And an elven chain beats mage armor every day - especially with ghost touch ;-)
@BigNorseWolf: I'm not trying to do anything yet. This is just a list of spells that I find interesting and/or thematic, but not necessary. If anything, I am guilty of playing a Sorcerer like a Fighter (as I'm only level 4 right now).
I forgot about Truestrike. Good call. I'm just afraid that a couple of these spells might be situational, especially with a Cleric who has nothing better to do than cast and channel (in our party, at least). I'm not ruling them out, though. I do see the value in them, and I thank you for your advice. You're one of the better messageboard advice-givers that I've noticed, so I do take what you say to heart. =)
@Quandary: Unfortunately, besides the aforementioned Cleric, there is no actual full caster in my party. I think people forgot that I wasn't going to continue on as a Sorcerer because they've been relying on my spells (mostly Color Spray) up until now. And I have no choice in the matter of learning Fly since it's a bonus spell, so that's good. I guess I'll have to invest some ranks in the Fly skill as well before I do. And a rod of Quickened Metamagic it is... Though I'll admit I'm a bit confused about metamagic feats and casting time, so I tend to ignore them to save me the trouble. (And you're a good advice-giver, too. Don't think I haven't noticed that!)
Mage armor is far from useless. As a sorceror, you are subject to arcane spell failiure. Stack with shield for a +8 ac and no failure chance. and mage armor can be cast at the start of the day and a rod of extend spell is cheap.
It is useless to her since she'll be wearing armor with at most 0-10% spell failure (which hasn't screwed me over much at all so far), and it doesn't stack with other armor bonuses. It is good for her unarmored Monk ally, though!
Mage armor is far from useless. As a sorceror, you are subject to arcane spell failiure. Stack with shield for a +8 ac and no failure chance. and mage armor can be cast at the start of the day and a rod of extend spell is cheap.Ah, wanted to write it but forgot: If you go the bard route, you can use light armor since there's no ASF for them. And an elven chain beats mage armor every day - especially with ghost touch ;-)
She already has a mithral chain shirt. Even without proficiency in armor, it hasn't had much of a negative effect on her (I think I failed all of two times out of the two levels that I've had it). Unfortunately, no bard levels for her since 1) the campaign has already been going on for a while, and 2) it doesn't fit her intimidating, b!tchy personality as well. I did actually consider Bard at one point, though. Sorcerer just synergizes so much better.