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D/2

Destructive Wave

Aside from sounding like a pretty cool metal sub-genre, this is the classic thing that Thor did in the old comics: you whack the ground and a big blast of thunder emanates out from the spot, knocking everyone in sight flat on their asses.  Good damage potential on this (up to 60 HP) and half damage even with the save, but the best part is that the damage is selective -- unlike the blunt instrument that is a Fireball, you can pick and choose who gets teakettled by it. I think you should get an extra 2d6 damage if you holler "KABLAMMO!" or something as you cast it*, but it's a good solid spell just the same.

Real-World Rating: 8 (Very Ineffectual)

Detect Evil and Good

I don't want to get into a big thing here, but the utility of this spell (as well as a lot of the corridor of Detects that we're about to enter) is entirely contingent on the fact that in the D&D universe, good and evil are quantifiable characteristics like height or nationality. In reality, you can usually detect good or evil -- please put scare quotes around all three of those words -- by action or intention, but in the fantasy world of this game, you've got a spell that lets you find out if the thing buried under a pile of debris fifteen feet away is going to eat you because of its indelible moral configuration, or just because it's hungry. For that reason, it's pretty hard to make a determination about how useful it is, but let's go low just for the sake of being pissy.

Real-World Rating:  2 (Mostly Pointless)

Detect Magic

Since this spell detects the existence of magic, and the premise of this blog is that you're the only magic-user in the real world, this one gets the big goose-egg.

Real-World Rating: 1 (Worthless)

Detect Poison and Disease

The first actually useful spell in the Detect Corridor. The poison part would be pretty good for hiring yourself out to paranoid aristocrats, but the disease part, which allows you to sense both the presence and nature of a disease, would make you an instant multi-millionaire if you happened to live in a country with a for-profit health care system.

Real-World Rating: 8 (Very Effective)

Detect Thoughts

The material component for this one is a copper piece.  A penny! For your thoughts! Get it? Blar har har, oh, Gary Gygax, you literalist clown. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with having a little telepathy in your pocket, even though the spell has a lot of restrictions and limitations, and the subject knows that you're doing it. It can last up to a full minute, so it's one where you really have to hope that the target is intensely focused on something useful, and not, say, writing a dumb blog.

Real-World Rating: 6 (Pretty Okay)

Dimension Door

Essentially a limited-use teleportation spell, where you, your stuff, and up to one willing companion can instantly zap up to 500 feet away in any direction. Not as useful as it might seem, especially compared to a really useful one like Blink, but probably handy to have in your pocket for a quick getaway.

It's obviously not ideal to only be able to teleport a distance away that's still within range of both eyesight and a rifle shot, and you'd better be sure you can see where you're going because otherwise your innards turn to jelly. Bonne chance!

Real-World Rating: 5 (Effective But Limited)

Disguise Self

For a first-level spell, this one seems pretty effective; you can make yourself look like any other person of your same basic species, along with clothes, gear, etc. There's no resistance unless someone suspects you and takes a moment to inspect your appearance, in which case they still have to make a saving throw. It's not perfect; the clothes are illusory, the gear doesn't work, and the whole thing falls apart on the right roll, but in a situation with a bunch of people with no reason to suspect, you could get away with a lot for cheap.

Real-World Rating: 7 (Effective)

*: Until Hasbro settles the matter by releasing a definitive and almost certainly lame list of the verbal components of every D&D spell, I'm going to insist that they all sound like Don Martin sound effects. Lightning Bolt, for example, goes "HssssssszzzzzZZZZZZzzzzappp! Pshwhooooooosht zaggow zaggow zaggow".

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