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B/1

Bane

Insert joke here about Tom Hardy's weird voice work here! Actually, for the low low price of one single drop of blood, this spell makes an enemy of your choice bad at things for up to a minute. The perfect example of an effective buff spell:  simple, basic, tilts the odds just enough in your favor. As good in the real world as in D&D.

Real-World Rating 7 (Effective)

Banishing Smite

Another of those high-level spells that is more flash than function. It can inflict a fuck-ton of damage (up to 50 HP in addition to whatever you normally do with a weapon), but the real heat is if that takes your target to under 50 HP -- which it surely will to all but the most powerful foes -- you banish them to another plane of existence! Spectacular, cool, but...why bother? Why not just kill them, thus totally eliminating the possibility this dangerous enemy will return and be super pissed at you? There's no insult-to-injury scale in the real world, so this just seems like murder with an extra step.

Real-World Rating:  4 (More Trouble Than It's Worth)

Banishment

As above, this seems like you're just going out of your way to heap extra suffering on top of killing someone. They're probably not going to survive being sent to the Elemental Plane of Fire anyway, so you might as well just shoot them, and if they do survive, they are going to be so mad at you, and you just forced them to survive something that will make them far tougher than you ever imagined!  

Real-World Rating: 4 (More Trouble Than It's Worth)

Barkskin

A classic so-we-won't-let-you-use armor spell, this one is fun to think about in the real world less because of the boost it would give your AC than for how I think it would be funny to watch a dude walking around looking like he has an elm tree as a skin condition.

Real-World Rating: 6 (Pretty Okay)

Beacon of Hope

The Barack Obama of spells, and, like the Affordable Care Act, it doesn't really help you get better, it just keeps you from dying a little longer.

Real-World Rating: 5 (Effective But Limited)

Beast Sense

This is the kind of spell I can't quite figure out how to rate. On the one hand, it could be valuable (and comical!) to be able to hear like a cat or smell like a dog*, but these would probably be possible through some kind of technological means, or, you know, just having a trained animal. I think this would actually be a better spell to cast on an opponent, allowing you a chance to flee while they are stunned by how absolutely terribly everything reeks.

Real-World Rating: 3 (Pretty Ineffectual)

Bestow Curse

The nature of the Curse condition in D&D gets expressed in game terms, which means it's slightly abstract, but basically, if you cast this at a high enough level, your enemy gets bad at everything. Your spells (which only you can cast since you're the only wizard in existence!) do extra damage to them, they get bad at fighting, it's hard for them to resist things going wrong, and more often than not, they just stand around with their dick in their hand doing nothing. 

I don't mean to sound like a psychopath when I keep saying stuff like "It's easier just to shoot them", but this would be a pretty fun spell for when you want to seriously fuck around with someone without them knowing about it. Way better than typical fairy-tale 'you get a wart on your nose' curses.

Real-World Rating: 6 (Pretty Okay)

Bigby's Hand

Once broken into five or six different spells at various levels, this D&D classic is now one spell that can be cast for different effects at different levels. This one would be, in practical terms, like being a fairly powerful telekinetic in the real world, as well as giving you some pretty handy plausibly deniable murder opportunities. Some classics never go out of style.

Real-World Rating: 7 (Effective)

Blade Barrier

In pure vivid gory evil-wizard terms, Blade Barrier (only a 6th-level spell) is a shitload of bang for your buck. Imagine the horror show that would result from dropping a five-foot thick, twenty-foot tall, hundred-foot long wall of "whirling, razor-sharp blades" between you and your pursuers, or, for that matter, in the middle of the Mall of America!  For ten minutes! So fucking metal. Even if this didn't wipe out all your enemies (it's theoretically possible that it would only cause 3HP of damage), it would make anyone think twice about going after you again.

Real-World Rating: 8 (Very Effective)

*: Awful!

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