Icewind Dale Hints

Mage Spells (5th-7th Levels)

• 5TH LEVEL
  
  Cloudkill -- Kills any monster of level 4 or less, and causes most other creatures you'll encounter to save or die. 6th-level monsters or stronger will only take 1-10 poison damage a round. This spell is great for eliminating annoying groups of weaker creatures that you encounter. Just be sure not to get your party members caught in it. It has a fairly large area of effect, so be careful with it.
  
  Cone of Cold -- Sends out a 35-foot long cone of ice, doing 2-5 damage per level of the caster. This is, in a way, like a jacked-up version of Magic Missile. It will do more damage (although a successful save halves that amount), and it can affect any creatures that get caught in the cone, making it great for weakening a large charging group of enemies. Once again, just be careful not to hit your party members.
  
  Conjure Earth/Fire/Water Elemental -- Summons an elemental of the given type. (They're separate spells, in case you didn't know.) It takes a while to cast, so do it before combat, but these elementals are really, really useful in battle. They can take quite a beating, and they deal a LOT of damage out. Overall, one of the more useful summoning spells.
  
  Monster Summoning III -- Same as I and II, just with more powerful monsters.
  
  Shroud of Flame -- Causes a target to burst into flames for a number of rounds equal to the caster's spell level. The target takes 2-12 damage each round, unless they save on any given round. This spell is nice because it affects a large radius of enemies, who all have to make their own saves. Good for taking down large groups of fairly powerful creatures from afar. Be careful, though, since it will hurt your party too.
  
  Summon Shadow -- Summons a shadow for every 3 caster levels. You get a bunch of shadows... they give the enemy annoying status ailments... what could be bad?
  
  
  6TH LEVEL
  
  Chain Lightning -- Shoots a bolt of lightning that forks to all nearby targets, one by one, until it runs out of power. Bzzzzap.This spell is great fun. Cast it at a group and watch them all cringe in pain. In case you didn't read the manual, it deals 1d6 damage per level of the caster up to 12d, with each new target reducing damage by 1d6. Needless to say, this is one devastating spell when cast at large groups. Just don't cast it at small groups, or it will seek out and kill your party.
  
  Death Spell -- Kills...everything. As long as creatures within the radius of effect don't have magic resistance :: Cough Drow Cough :: they will die. No questions asked. It will wipe out groups of 40 or so goblins. It's wonderful. It's so totally unfair, but who cares? Use all your level-6 memorization slots on this, it's the best spell in the game (well, if you want to be cheap at least).
  
  Flesh to Stone -- Changes flesh to stone. This is a nice single-creature effect spell. If the target fails its save, it's dead, no questions asked. Works on anything, pretty much, which is what makes it useful.
  
  Globe of Invulnerability -- Makes the caster immune to level 1-4 spells. This is really, really nice since most annoying damaging spells you'll encounter are found in these levels. Although there's some of higher level that are also annoying, this spell will serve you well until the later portions of Dorn's Deep, where it's pretty much useless.
  
  Monster Summoning IV -- Same as all the others.
  
  Shades -- Summons a few fairly powerful shadow monsters, almost as tough as their real life counterparts. These guys make great cannon fodder. They can take a pretty good beating at this point, and they're are nice to send towards a newly encountered group of enemies to whittle down their ranks a bit.
  
  
  7TH LEVEL (You know, that company that doesn't exist any more? :: Smacks self for terrible joke :: )
  
  Acid Storm -- Dumps acid down in the area of affect, doing a whole bunch of continuous damage. This is probably the best of the area-effect damage spells, not only because it does a good amount of damage, but because the damage won't stop once an effected creature moves out of the radius of effect. This is by far the best spell for killing trolls, and it works great on large groups of them. This is a very handy spell overall, just don't let it hit your party... you'll be sorry.
  
  Finger of Death -- Kills them if they don't save, damages them if they do. You can't lose. What more needs to be said?
  
  Monster Summoning V -- Yeah, same as the rest.
  
  Mordenkainen's Sword -- Summons up a floating sword to fight for you for a while. This is a great spell. The sword will last for a really long time when (if) you become able to cast it, and it can hit anything, AND it deals a whole lot of damage. Yet another of the extremely useful level-7 Mage spells.
  
  Power Word Stun -- Stuns a creature based on their total current HP, with no save. This spell is great, truly great. It will stun most any creature, as long as you've bashed on it a little bit. Any spell that makes it impossible for an enemy to attack you is extremely useful in this game, since there's really no such thing as a weak enemy.
  
  Prismatic Spray -- Shoots out colors, with random effects depending on which color the creature was hit by. Affects a radius. This spell is great if you're feeling lucky. On a good roll, everything anywhere near you will be dead, on a bad roll, not very much will happen. Try it... it's fun!
  
  
  8TH & 9TH LEVEL
  
  You cannot actually get spells of this level without the XP cap remover and special rules modification files (www.teambg.com). If you are smart enough to get that, I'm sure you can figure out which of the 5 remaining spells will best benefit you in a given situation.
  

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