Besides the automatic choices, i.e. magic missle, fireball, wail of the banshee, does anyone use a rarely talked about spell to good advantage.
Also, what spells do you use frequently in HOF, that you rarely use in normal mode.

Well I can tell you that Powerwords are fun to use in normal, but absolutely useless in HoF due to massive HPs of the monsters.

Almost any summoning spell becomes much much useful in HoF, as summonings take HoF boost in HP and levels. It is quite impossible to finish HoF without any kind of summon at all!

Fireball does not hurt much in HoF, Horrid Wilting is MUCH better! So, are effect spell is Fireball in normal, HW in HoF.

i think chromatic orb is much better than magic missile, something many disagree with.

Chromatic Orb can be classified better than a magic missle solely because of the reason that it gains alot more power when levels increase compared to a magic missle. But if someone makes a save a chromatic is worthless, however no one gets to save against a magic missle.

Thats what Spell Focus: Evocation x2 is important ;)

Personally, I favor the good old classic Magic Missile because I hate enemy spellcasters, especially those with Mirror Image protecting them.

When I first played IWDII I was looking through the spells and it was looking pretty good ... untill i saw Mordekainen's Missles. I went crazy! I like how you can get a lot (7 i think?) and how they do large damage and even splash damage!!! It's too bad that there's a save factor :(

I always thought Mordenkainen's misiles are very weak and useless. Why do you love them so much?

M.'s Missiles looks good because the added concussive damage increases geometrically instead of linearly like Flame Arrow. The problem is:

- Only hits one target.
- Number of missiles capped at level 25; after that damage only grows linearly.
- Still not good enough by level 30
- The concussive damage can be reflex saved against to negate it.

At level 30 you'll get 210 (save to take zero) + 14d4 (no save for this part) against a single target. Since the enemy usually makes the save, its worse than Flame Arrow for 28d6 (save for half). And Flame Arrow only uses a level three slot.

But if M's. Missiles were uncapped and could go to level 40 and there was no save, that would be 440 + 22d4 damage (average about 500) to one target.

Note: I'm playnig regular, not HoF.

My current favourite spell is Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (lvl4), because it seems to be really versatile, and lends itself to all sorts of strategy options.

I've used it to temporarily remove opponents from battle, which comes in handy if several real badasses attack you at once.

I've used it to protect a character who was getting the beejeezus pounded out of him, when the beastlords warbears cornered my archer/thief.

I've used it on a drone/summons who I ran in the middle of the opponents, and the AI causes all of them to lock on him, clawing at the sphere, then I pump area effect spells and missiles at them at a leisurely pace.

I'm not all that impressed with the selection available at Lvl4 anyhow, so it was a fluke I chose it, and I'm having a lot of fun with it!

The problem with ORS is the third use, which makes the game non-fun. That's why I don't take it.

Too bad the AI is so awful.

Whoa the Mordenkainen's force misiles do 210+ damage on a single target if they fail the save? :eek: I didn't know that, I always thought it was weaaaak even with 28 INT and SF:EvocationX2

In HOF, I find that the most useful spells are those with Will saves. In HOF, all monsters have enormously high Fort saves, but normal (and usually low) Will saves. Thus, spells like Symbol of Hopelessness and Mass Dominate or even the rather humble level 1 Charm Person spell can be very, very effective in HOF. And because they do not cause any damage, they're often overlooked by many people.

But a nice Mass Dominate can cut the number of enemies you face in half or more in a second. In fact, you'll suddenly have many fewer enemies and a lot of allies to fight those remaining enemies. Even a simple Charm Person can be a powerful spell in the Goblin Warrens when there are archers and spellcasters hiding behind the mobs of enemy tanks. Simply Charm one enemy archer and all of the sudden, you've distracted all of the nearby enemy archers and spellcasters.


Other spells that I think get overlooked in HOF are the multi-round damaging spells like cloudkill, acid fog, and incendiary cloud. Combine these spells with immobilizing spells like Symbol of Hopelessness, entangle, web, and grease and you can create a kill zone that will kill a whole bunch of HOF monsters all at once, while your tanks are peppering those monsters with ranged fire.

And if you really want to get sneaky, add in a summoned monster that is immune to the specific fog spell, like putting a Fire Elemental into the middle of an incendiary cloud. The summoned monster will act as an anchor to keep the enemy's interest and will be immune to the damage of your cloud, if you choose to only use the elemental damage to which they're immune. (Fire for a fire elemental and cloudkill with undead monsters)


Also, don't overlook meager level 2 and 3 summoned monsters and animals in HOF. Remember that like the enemy monsters, even these humble spells will summon some very useful cannon fodder. Admittedly, you probably don't want to bother summoning a level 2 or 3 monster against something a lot tougher. But against monsters of a fairly similar level, there's nothing wrong with a little ol' summon monster 2 or 3.