What Makes A Spell Or Power Useful In An RPG?
I’ve had an article on the site for more than a year called The Best Wizard Spells in Dungeons and Dragons. On Saturday, I found this comment on the article:
ANY spell is useful. You just have to use your imagination and get creative. Just because DMs only know to to do adventures that involve killing the orc for the pie doesn’t make spells useless. A real DM knows how to tailor a game for multiple scenarios, only 30% of which should involve actual combat.
All the useful spells you picked were spells that involved simple-minded “dungeon bashing”. Just the type of dumb mentality that created stupid 4th Edition. Thanks you 4rons
I deleted the comment, of course, as I don’t particularly like to be randomly insulted on my blog.
Now, insults and creative punctuation aside, this comment got me thinking about something:
What makes a spell or power useful in Dungeons and Dragons?
There are, in my mind, a few possible criteria:
- It should have opportunity for frequent use. Decipher script is limited in its use, Charm Person is not.
- It should be useful to overcome a challenge. That challenge doesn’t have to be combat; it can be social, or it can be plot-related.
- It should be something that can’t be done with mundane means. Light isn’t nearly as useful when you have a lantern around.
I’m sure there are other things that can make a spell or power useful in Dungeons and Dragons. What do you think? What makes an ability useful, and what makes it worth choosing over another spell or ability in your roleplaying game?
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