Underrated spells

[Nephil Thief]

Now that I'm revisiting BoE because lockdown yay.

IMO...

Sanctuary. And Mass Sanctuary, but especially the level 1 version if you habitually play singletons.
- It's pretty useless against casters, but prevents a lot of melee and archery attacks from hitting at all
- IDK about original BoE, but in CBoE spellcasting only breaks it for attack spells
- With a few levels and a little spending on INT, it can last several turns...
- Allowing your fighters (or singleton) to close the distance to enemy spellcasters more easily
- Also allows singletons a bit of extra time to buff in surprise combat situations

So overall it's actually a really impressive asset, esp. at low levels.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Yeah, Mass Sanctuary has saved me a few times. Irritatingly, in legacy BoE, the Dust of Hiding does not work. The Sanctuary item ability does nothing. But BoE spells are fun, because you can usually find a use for any spell at some point or another on your adventures.

 

EDIT: Looking over the spell lists, the mage spell Spray Fields looks like an interesting one. I might try to use that at some point and see if it's useful for anything.

Edited February 7, 2021 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[Fireball Fodder]

Sleep Cloud. Extremely good vs. non-magic resistant monsters. Often much more useful than Fireball when you're low level.

 

Web. Thick webs (I think they need to be two tiles, maybe three) actually block line-of-sight. This can be a life saver before you get anti-magic fields, as it allows you to block enemy spellcasters.

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, Web is nice, yes, especially when you know that a bunch of monsters are about to emerge from a certain area (normally by playing the thing more than once, though, which is a bit cheaty) and you can prepare the area first.