Hi all,
If you could have the ability to use a first level wizard spell in real life at will, what would you take? How would you use it?
Level 1 Spells:
Animate Rope: Makes a rope move at your command.
Burning Hands: 1d4/level fire damage (max 5d4).
Cause Fear: One creature of 5 HD or less flees for 1d4 rounds.
Charm Person: Makes one person your friend.
Chill Touch: One touch/level deals 1d6 damage and possibly 1 Str damage.
Color Spray: Knocks unconscious, blinds, and/or stuns weak creatures.
Comprehend Languages: You understand all spoken and written languages.
Detect Secret Doors: Reveals hidden doors within 60 ft.
Detect Undead: Reveals undead within 60 ft.
Disguise Self: Changes your appearance.
Endure Elements: Exist comfortably in hot or cold regions.
Enlarge Person: Humanoid creature doubles in size.
Erase: Mundane or magical writing vanishes.
Expeditious Retreat: Your base speed increases by 30 ft.
Feather Fall: Objects or creatures fall slowly.
Floating Disk: Creates 3-ft.-diameter horizontal disk that holds 100 lbs./level.
Grease: Makes 10-ft. square or one object slippery.
Hold Portal: Holds door shut.
Hypnotism: Fascinates 2d4 HD of creatures.
Identify: Gives +10 bonus to identify magic items.
Jump: Subject gets bonus on Acrobatics checks.
Mage Armor: Gives subject +4 armor bonus.
Magic Aura: Alters object's magic aura.
Magic Missile: 1d4+1 damage; +1 missile per two levels above 1st (max 5).
Magic Weapon: Weapon gains +1 bonus.
Mount: Summons riding horse for 2 hours/level.
Obscuring Mist: Fog surrounds you.
Protection from Chaos: +2 to AC and saves, plus additional protection against selected alignment.
Protection from Evil: +2 to AC and saves, plus additional protection against selected alignment.
Protection from Good: +2 to AC and saves, plus additional protection against selected alignment.
Protection from Law: +2 to AC and saves, plus additional protection against selected alignment.
Ray of Enfeeblement: Ray causes 1d6 Str penalty + 1 per 2 levels.
Reduce Person: Humanoid creature halves in size.
Shield: Invisible disc gives +4 to AC, blocks magic missiles.
Shocking Grasp: Touch delivers 1d6/level electricity damage (max 5d6).
Silent Image: Creates minor illusion of your design.
Sleep: Puts 4 HD of creatures into magical slumber.
Summon Monster I: Summons extraplanar creature to fight for you.
True Strike: +20 on your next attack roll.
Unseen Servant: Invisible force obeys your commands.
Ventriloquism: Throws voice for 1 min./level.
I'd probably go with Unseen Servant. It could do my laundry and clean the house while I prepped for gaming.
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Assuming I've 4HD or less, Sleep.
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I'd rather have the 0 level prestidigitation! So many tricks and so much fun plus my clothes would always look nice.
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Unseen Servant would be perfect. Although I'd be sorely tempted by Silent Image. Disguise Self would be tempting, but I don't think I could be that evil.
Color Spray!
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charm person..... so many applications...."Hiya Mr. Gates its your new bestie....so how bout you give me a bizzilion dollars huh?"
Tough choice between Comprehend Languages, Unseen Servant, and Ventriloquism.
If I got to pick two, though, definitely Silent Image + Ventriloquism.
I can definitely get behind casting Sleep on myself, though, too. Maybe someone can make potions.
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I can definitely get behind casting Sleep on myself, though, too. Maybe someone can make potions.
I'd rather have keep watch. Sleep has been a major waste of time in my life. I could swear I've spent like... 1/4th of it asleep, give or take.
So many choices... I really want grease just to fool around, but color spray would be awesome, prestidigitation is a go to cantrip that anyone would love, mage armor might make me the most awesome commoner ever, comprehend languages might make the study of speech language and anthropology 100x more amazing, and AGH! Overloaded with choices.
There are many good choices to make progress in many favourite occupations and I would love that I would put sleep myself or those who irritates me.
But Endure Elements is my choice. I don't need never ever anymore dress like michelin man or drink gallons of water when I go out.
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I assume prestidigitation is out because you specified 1st level. I'd probably have to go with polypurpose panacea, just because it can do multiple useful things. Silent image is a second choice.
If this were about cantrips, Prestidigitation would have my vote, but otherwise, I think my decision would have to be based upon what I feel I least have the ability to change or overcome without the aid of magic...
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- Polypurpose Panacea
- Comprehend Languages
- Unseen Servant
- Endure Elements
From a quality-of-life standpoint, I have a difficult time getting a good night's sleep, so Polypurpose Panacea would see use at least once a day. The other benefits of this spell are just gravy. Given the nasty side-effects of various pharmaceutical remedies, I'd say modern science and personal willpower are incapable of replacing this spell.
Comprehend Languages would be invaluable when traveling or assisting computer users who have a poor grasp of English . While it's true that you wouldn't be able to speak or write said language back to them, it would still allow you to double-check that the Google Translate app on your phone is, in fact, going to say what you intend. As noted, Google can already do a lot of the heavy-lifting here, but it still requires focused effort to use — no overhearing what someone else is saying behind your back.
Unseen Servant would be great for cleaning up the dishes, doing laundry, vacuuming the floors, making coffee, etc. Essentially, it would allow a person or a couple to focus on that which they are passionate about instead of committing precious time on evenings and weekends to such drudgery. This is about as close as one can get to buying more time, although it would be easily to duplicate if one had sufficient financial means to give a maid or butler a living.
Lastly, Endure Elements would be great for getting to dress however I see fit without having to worry over being too hot or too cold. Still, with seat heaters in cars, AC indoors, etc. there's not as dramatic a justification for this as some of the other spells.
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Comprehend languages. Because I want the subtitles on ALL THE TIME.
Forced quiet and/or Memory loss
both are from Ultimate magic.
I imagine I could use forced quiet on people talking loudly on cell phones when I am out to dinner. Memory loss would be perfect for when I say the wrong thing to my wife or when I watch an episode of Tosh.0.
-MD
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I'm kinda lazy, so Unseen Servant it is.
Magic missile.
I could pretty much kill any human being around here in a few seconds :-)))
Seeing as we are all level 1 or so in NPC classes ;-)
That's harsh. Maybe we can get one of the guys that picked sleep as their spell to take care of you :P
Comprehend languages is tempting, but the duration is too short.
Silent image is tempting as well, but I'd have to go with Charm Person. Even if we assume caster level 1 (duration: 1 hr), that's plenty of time to be long gone in many cases.
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The temptation to abuse it would be too great if I chose charm person, so I'd cut my bad self off at the pass and go with comprehend languages. You can make decent money as a translator, and being a one-person rosetta stone for translating 'dead' languages could be cool.
I would stay away from bad rip-offs of Dr. Moreau waving pistols around, 'though.
For non-Sor/Wiz spells, cure light wounds (Clr 1, Drd 1), charm animal (Drd 1, Rgr 1) and lesser restoration (Pal 1) are all amazing options that could change your life (or countless other lives).
Comprehend languages is tempting, but the duration is too short.
Silent image is tempting as well, but I'd have to go with Charm Person. Even if we assume caster level 1 (duration: 1 hr), that's plenty of time to be long gone in many cases.
Note that the OP said usable at will, so the duration would be meaningless, as you could cast comprehend languages or charm person all day long. (Or create dozens of horses, with the mount spell, or keep expeditious retreat up all day long, etc.)
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That's harsh. Maybe we can get one of the guys that picked sleep as their spell to take care of you :PMagic missile.
I could pretty much kill any human being around here in a few seconds :-)))
Seeing as we are all level 1 or so in NPC classes ;-)
If I have good saves, he will be dead soon enough ;-)
Hmmmmm. I can't decide between Enlarge Person, Expeditious Retreat and True Strike (who needs Magic Missile when I can't miss with a weapon). I think True Strike and then I would own in every darts tournament ever.
This is a tough question. I'm torn equally between Magic Missile and Unseen Servant.
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Hmmmmm. I can't decide between Enlarge Person, Expeditious Retreat and True Strike (who needs Magic Missile when I can't miss with a weapon). I think True Strike and then I would own in every darts tournament ever.
Also archery competitions, marksmen competitions, etc.
True strike and expeditious retreat would be great for cheating at various sports.
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Charm Person seems like a pretty good deal, considering that unless you work with animals a lot, humanoid is the most common creature type you will be encountering. I can't even keep track of the number of ways that "target person instantly likes you and considers you a good friend" could be used. The possibilities are endless.
Silent Image would be cool, though less so if I couldn't cast it with the Silent Spell feat.
Unseen Servant would make life very convenient. I'm afraid I might become very, very lazy.
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Unseen Servant would make life very convenient. I'm afraid I might become very, very lazy.
The trick is to work out now and then. Unseen servant, do my 100 pushups for me! See? I feel fit already.
The real world? Now? Today?
Summon monster I. I like animals, and porpoises, and scorpions.
Suddenly a medium sized centipede!
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Suddenly a medium sized centipede!
[tangent]
Various insect and arthropods have been shown to be able to grow to extreme sizes by keeping them in high oxygen environments.One of the many reasons why the universe will never let me become filthy rich is because I would raise an assortment of scorpions and centipedes in giant plexiglass terrariums kept over-oxygenated, so that they'd grow to giant prehistoric sizes.
After watching their insane host feed some live rats to a twelve foot long centipede as big around as a human arm that he calls 'Tiamat,' I'm pretty sure any unwanted houseguests would beat a hasty retreat.
Surely nothing could go (terribly, horribly, sci-fi movie-of-the-week) wrong with this plan... :)
[/tangent]
"See" being from the sky.
comprehend languages is pretty tempting
Agreed: So many important jokes I'm missing because I don't speak anything from the Indo-Iranian family of languges, let alone New World languages...
I'm personally in the camp of rather having prestidigitation, but as far as 1st levels...
I think Identify would have interesting uses if we accept Clark's Third Law and it's converse, since it would effectively let you identify any piece of technology, and possibly give insight to it's operation.
However, given that my shtick in ttrpgs with my collage group is playing silly characters that tend to be magical girls, silent image would have to be my pick. While disguise self would be better for actually making an image of the outfit, it doesn't have the ability to make all the background special effects and it's duration of only 10 minutes is too short if I need to have the anime sparkly gown of doom for a 30+ minute battle. Not to mention silent image can be use for a number of other mischievous things ;P
Silent Image. It's probably the most all-around useful.
Use it for entertainment! For sabotage! For a quick getaway! For business presentation! For making it look like you're doing anything any of the other spells can do!
If I have good saves, he will be dead soon enough ;-)That's harsh. Maybe we can get one of the guys that picked sleep as their spell to take care of you :PMagic missile.
I could pretty much kill any human being around here in a few seconds :-)))
Seeing as we are all level 1 or so in NPC classes ;-)
You still lose to bullet.
I... must think on this.
You still lose to bullet.If I have good saves, he will be dead soon enough ;-)That's harsh. Maybe we can get one of the guys that picked sleep as their spell to take care of you :PMagic missile.
I could pretty much kill any human being around here in a few seconds :-)))
Seeing as we are all level 1 or so in NPC classes ;-)
If you've only got one spell, why make it one that's only useful in one of the east common events in a modern human's lifetime (that is, needing to deal with a life or death situation where fighting is the only option)? sure, sleep and MM can pretty much guarantee a kill at level 1, but a cleverly placed trap covered by a silent image can to the same thing... or perhaps make cover for your rogue buddy for an easy sneak attack! Life is just as much a team sport as dnd!
Tough choice for sure... I've narrowed it down a bit
Enlarge person would be fun and useful but attract too much attention...
Reduce person would also be fun and useful but also a little too 'visceral'
Charm person. Just make people treat you nice...
Featherfall... could get a job as a windmill repair dude... base jumping....
Magic missile... for the soldier types
Comprehend languages... get a job as an accurate translator... could be fun. English teacher in foreign countries...
Truestrike... wonder if you can make good money in bowling or darts...
See alignment... Just *know* who the better people are ahead of time...
Prestidigitate as a way to make all the cantrip effects from 1e unearthed arcana is better than all of those other choices though... Just between shave and color and hairy you've become pretty useful at a salon... Freshen and flavor for food service/chef types...
If prestidigitate worked the way I use it in my campaigns I'd go for it for sure
If not then I'd go with comprehend languages.
True Strike, for those fierce laser tag sessions.
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Color Spray all the way. You modern types with your low wisdom score wouldn't stand a chance. :P
Actually, I'm pretty sure that charm person would be far and away the most useful first level spell for modern life. After all, it's not what you know, but who, that matters.
Be a politician, never have to work again.