What are some good Fireball-ey AoE spells?

[Secret Wizard]

I don't usually play casters so I'm not too sure about what are my options.

I know I want them to be:
- AoE
- Target agnostic (i.e. hit allies and enemies altogether)
- Can deal different types of damage.
- Across all spells levels (what's a good level 1 spell of this kind, a 2 one, etc.)

Thanks

[havoc xiii]

I feel fireball is a pretty good fireball-ey spell :)

[Secret Wizard]

Well yeah, but what are my options for stuff like that at spell lv. 1/2/4/5 etc.

[Dafydd]

1: Burning Hands, Grease, Entangle

Burning Hands is a 15ft cone with a cap at 5d4 fire. Limited, but it will take out a swarm easil

Grease is more control, as it does no damage, but it is still worth a mention. Allows your meat shields to do the work for you.

Entangle is also more control, but it has a huge area, locks people down better the grease and can deal damage (as long as it uses a thorny bush as it's start)

2: Create Pit

To my knowledge, your second level spells are rather light on AoE. That said, Create pit is great. Cast and open pit underneath the foe, making them fall and take falling damage (which is neither slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, or any elemental, thus bypassing all of those difficulties). Additionally, as long as it does not have a climb speed, you take the foe out of the battle for a few rounds.
The higher level spells just get better and better (Spiked, Acid then Hungry, which crushes the foe as they try to climb out)

[Secret Wizard]

Nice. nice.

Are there any spells that can create a huge crater btw?

[Dafydd]

An actual crater? Not really

We got Move Earth and Stone, that can make a crater, minus anything doing the impact.

There is the pit line I already mentioned, but they are small and deep. Craters tend to be wide and shallow (relatively)

Stone Call would make it look like a meteor hit, but no giant hole in the earth.

Meteor Swarm creates a quartet of meteors, however they come from your hand and act similar to fireball (kinda lame for a lvl 9 spell actually) and so any crater is flavor added by the GM.

[kestral287]

Dragon's Breath is the only spell I'm aware of that can casually swap elements and is realistically usable. Damage is solid for its level, range is fairly short though.

Burning Hands is a pretty solid Baby's First Fireball. Especially if you can toss it level 1 Spell Specialization.

But Fireball itself is the go-to. It's at a sweet spot in its combination of level (low enough to get early and to be easily metamagic'd), damage (solid enough that, with metamagic, it never really falls off), range (fairly long. Long range is good), and area (where Lightning Bolt tends to fall off; it's typically easier to hit groups with a burst than a line).

Yeah, if you really want it, Cone of Cold exists and is sort of Fireballesque, but in practice it's so mediocre that I didn't even take it for my Cold-oriented Sorcerer.

Cold Ice Strike is kind of cool for being self-Quickened? It pays for it horribly in levels though.

[Gregory Connolly]

Glitterdust is pretty good at this despite doing no damage, it is an area blinding effect.

Pellet Blast is a nice alternative to Fireball because you are going against DR not SR.

Dragon's Breath is a cone not a sphere, but it is whatever element you need it to be.

Stinking Cloud is another one without damage, but it gives out the nauseated condition which is awful.

Entangle/Obscuring Mist/Fog Cloud/Web are a related category of spells that pretty much stop everyone from doing much of anything.

Black Tentacles is really good against Humanoids and really ineffective against monsters.

Cone of Cold is not that great, but it is there.

Cloudkill is what you would prefer for indiscriminate death in a 5th level spell.

Sirocco knocks down clumsy filers and gives out some decent debuffs in addition to the damage.

All of these are much nastier when you apply debuff metamagics like Sickening or Dazing.

[CampinCarl9127]

If you want to mix up your energy type, consider going Admixture wizard. For holes, there is a whole bunch of of "pit" type spells in the conjuration school such as Create Pit, Spiked Pit, Acid Pit, and Hungry Pit.

Burning hands is the go-to level 1 AoE blast.

For 2nd leve, Fire Breath is a lot of bang for your buck at low levels. There's also Frost Fall which does a little less damage but can also stagger enemies. Then there's Sonic Scream for that hard to resist sonic damage.

For 3rd, Lightning Bolt, and of course Fireball. Then there's Diamond Spray which is short range but does slashing damage.

4th, Dragon's Breath is just fantastic for dealing whatever kind of effect and damage you want to. Ice Storm for putting some battlefield control with your damage, also has the perk of doing partially bludgeoning damage. Shout for that tasty sonic damage. Volcanic Storm is a slightly different version of Ice Storm.

Things start getting hectic around this level. For 5th, we have the ever so nasty Cloudkill, Cone of Cold, Lightning Arc, and Fire Snake.

6th there is the interesting spell Sirocco, Freezing Sphere, Acid Fog, Chain Lightning, Cold Ice Strike, and the really cool and useful spell Elemental Assessor which is not AoE but it delivers four different kinds of elemental damage!

7th we have Caustic Eruption, Delayed Blast Fireball, the terrifying Hungry Darkness, the unpredictable Prismatic Spray, and Scouring Winds.

Getting close. For 8th, we have Incendiary Cloud, Greater Shout, and Sunburst.

9th there is Tsunami, the favorite MOAR DAKA spell Meteor Swarm, and the spell everybody hates Wail of the Banshee.

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but for strait AoE DPS it satisfied most needs.

[Secret Wizard]

Thanks!!!

[Ragoz]

I'm a huge fan or Burning Arc at 2.

[Nicos]

I would reccomend to stay away of the high level spells, use metamagic instead. Admixture wizard with the two traits that reduce the metamagic level increase can cast empowered fireball with 3rd level slots.

[Magda Luckbender]

@OP: You're looking for Brewer's Guide to the Blockbuster Wizard. The snarky remarks refer to Treantmonk's excellent Guide to the God Wizard.

The 'god' style wizard uses battlefield control to arrange the battlefield so her party is certain to win, eschewing direct damage spells. This approach is generally acknowledged as the most effective, if not always the most fun, way to play a wizard.

The 'blockbuster' style wizard uses more recent splat books (not published when Treantmonk wrote his guide) to accomplish the same thing as the 'god' wizard, while also leaving a big smoking crater.

Your first important purchase should be a Lesser Rod of Selective Metamagic. Get this at 5th level, when you pick up Fireball.

As a side note, a Cleric with the proper archetype (Theologian) and domain (need you ask?) can blast slightly better than a wizard, while also wearing full plate armor and casting powerful healing spells. 90% of the Blockbuster Wizard Guide applies. Lacking the Admixture wizard school they must rely on a lesser rod of Elemental Metamagic

[Cao Phen]

Magda Luckbender wrote:

Lacking the Admixture wizard school they must rely on a lesser rod of Elemental Metamagic

Three separate ones, since the energy type is selected when created/bought.

A nice lockdown Area effect spell is a Rime Winter's Grasp (2nd level spell modified to 3rd). Moving at half speed (Rime Spell) and requiring 2 squares per movement (Winter's Grasp) results in having to use 20 feet for every 5 foot of movement. You can instead get a Rime Metamagic Rod to keep it at 2nd level, or even use a trait.

Another nice one is the 2nd level spell, Burst of Radiance. The base ability is a 10-ft burst. Reflex Save or be Blinded for 1d4 rounds. If the creature is Evil, they take 1d4/CL (5d4 max) of damage. No save on the damage.

[Magda Luckbender]

My newest PFS character is a Cleric-1/Witch-3/Mystic Theurge-X who does a variant of the above Rime Spell blast trick. At 5th level 'Thunderstomp' Ben's routine will be complete. I'll omit the detailed back story. Here's his twice-a-day one-round AoE debuff nova:

Nasty pile of stacked no-saving-throw debuffs result from Ben casting three 'spells' in a round: are you sure you want to peek?:

* take a 5' step to be within 25' of the target(s)
* ['spell' 1] as a Move action, Quick Channel negative variant channel earth (from neutral earth goddess Fandarra) to create 1 minute of difficult terrain within 30', and incidentally inflict about 1D3 HP damage to friend and foe alike. Equip allies with a combination of Featherstep Slippers & Wand of Featherstep. Movement cost is doubled, and the 5' step forbidden, for anyone without Featherstep. Apologize to allies injured by 'incidental' damage.
* [spell 2] as a Standard Action, cast Rimed Ice Slick (2nd level spell via Magical Lineage) near the target. It's mechanically just like Grease, but with the addition of a little [cold] damage and entanglement. It really doesn't matter much whether or not the foe saves. The target is quite likely to provoke an AoO from anyone who threatens it, can only attack someone stupid enough to stand near, and isn't moving far any time soon.
* [spell 3] Swift Action enlarge person, possibly growing 5' toward the target, to threaten the [prone] entangled target stuck in difficult terrain 20' away.
* If the target slipped on the ice it draws a prone, entangled AoO when it stands up. Even a Mystic Theurge can hit a prone, entangled target.
* If the target moves it draws an entangled AoO, since several different effects block the 5' step.
* Ben's AoOs are pretty good for a squishy wannabe Mystic Theurge caster, striking for average 17 HP before buffs at 3rd level. He's hoping others will pile on his AoO bandwagon, but that will vary between tables.

Total effect on each target in overlapping Area of Effects (AoE):

Target takes a little [negative] & a little [Cold] damage, is entangled for 2 rounds, moves at half speed, difficult terrain costs double movement, is on a patch of slippery icy grease that costs double movement (stacks with difficult terrain?), may be prone (only outcome affected by save), and menaced by a giant with a polearm.

[Faelyn]

I would also highly suggest Aqueous Orb as a great battlefield control spell! It's most effective against small targets with low HP totals if you're looking to kill. If you are simply interested in removing targets from the battlefield, it's even better at that!

[Imbicatus]

Also, don't count out an aasimar thundercaller bard. At level 10 you have a 7d8 no save blast of sonic damage that can stun useable a minimum of 15 times per day, but likely 20-25.

[Gregory Connolly]

Faelyn wrote:

I would also highly suggest Aqueous Orb as a great battlefield control spell! It's most effective against small targets with low HP totals if you're looking to kill. If you are simply interested in removing targets from the battlefield, it's even better at that!

Dazing Aqueous Orb is a real killer though, it drowns people who fail one save.

[Symar]

Explosion of Rot at 4th, if you're a Druid.

[Cao Phen]

Imbicatus wrote:

Also, don't count out an aasimar thundercaller bard. At level 10 you have a 7d8 no save blast of sonic damage that can stun useable a minimum of 15 times per day, but likely 20-25.

Unfortunately, it is at 11.

Level 11 - 11 + ((11-2)/2)) = 15

Level 10 - 10 + ((10-2)/2)) = 14

A misconception, similar to how people put ranks into Fly without the means to fly at earlier levels.

Fly wrote:

You cannot take ranks in this skill without a natural means of flight or gliding. Creatures can also take ranks in Fly if they possess a reliable means of flying every day (either through a spell or other special ability).

[Imbicatus]

While I am aware of that ruling, it conflicts with the raw example given For a dwarf rogue in the arg.
The example take 20 levels of a fcb that the rogue doesnt get until 3rd level. If this isn't for pfs, ignore it.