Web, Wall of Stone/Iron, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Reverse Gravity, Forcecage. Orbs simply don't do anything core hasn't done already. Just about all that can be said of 'em is that they work in an AMF, but that's a good thing. The orbs are just so trivial as to be irrelevant. And even when a Wizard does want to deal damage, summons are generally better at it. They are all better at dealing damage than the Wizard. The Druid is a bear-summoning bear with a bear companion. The Fighter can Power Attack until her hit points are all gone.

The Rogue can dish out gobs of damage with Sneak Attack all day. It may be a secondary task at times, but rarely more on a well-played mage, simply because Wizards aren't very good at dealing damage. The orbs are bad spells, for much the same reason Fireball is a bad spell. These are all the foundation of a Wizard's power, these are all core spells, yet they all ignore spell resistance. While you could argue Assay Resistance, the orbs simply don't do anything core hasn't done already. Assay Spell Resistance is another one too that makes SR virtually irrelevant. Pathos wrote: The thing about the orb line of spells is how they make SR irrelevant. I LOVE the transposition and slide spells, nothing quite like being the chessmaster of the battlefield, and there really isnt anything like it in the phb, as well as entice gift has made for some amazing moments in games. I think its still silly to eliminate all the good spells that were in that book because of a few bad ones. Somehow doing fireball damage to a single target didnt seem all that powerful anymore. He changed his mind about the orbs after that, though grew a distaste for ray spells for some reason (sarcasm). I once had a dm who said that it was only the orbs he didnt like, and i said really? OK i'll take ray of stupidity instead and one shot all your animals and magical beasts. Like someone said there are much more powerful spells in the phb. Hell I personally think a mage should have SOME kind of option if someone throws up antimagic, i have never been a fan of the 'you dont get to play' methods as I believe you should ALWAYS try to include everyone in a combat. I really dont know why people got hung up on the orb spells either. There's some messed up stuff in the Spell Compendium, but to harp on the orbs and Guided Shot just seems to be silly and lack any sort of perspective on what power really is in the system. It's just a big, glowing sign that says to the mage, 'Screw you, you're not allowed to play.' It's a bad idea from the outset, and that a mage might have a crappy spell that can still do something when faced with that bad idea is, if anything, a good thing.

The AMF is not a game-balancer in any capacity. I really don't see why you keep going off on the orbs. 1st level divination spells that emulated high level feats, irresistible medium range damage spells that work through anti-magic, and more cheese then you'll find on a dairy farm. Morgen wrote: No, the most powerful spells that came out of 3.5 were in that book.

Pathfinder spell compendium