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D/3

Disintegrate

Now we're talking! "Disintegrate" is just what it says on the label: point your finger at something (or, ahem, someone) and they take a whopping 50-100 hit points of damage -- enough to kill almost anything, or to destroy anything on the downside of a garbage truck -- and that's if it makes a saving throw. Otherwise, it gets reduced to a tiny smoking heap of dust, like when Marvin the Martian's ray gun gets turned backwards on him. It gets even better at higher levels; it takes a near-miracle (literally) to undo the damage; and it's only a 6th-level spell! This one is real-world platinum, baby. Load up on these and you can take out a small army.

Real-World Rating: 10 (Essential)

Dispel Evil and Good

This one, again, is one that was tenuous at best in early versions (contingent on whether or not you think D&D's arbitrary but unbreakable definitions of good and evil apply to the real world), but in this version, is just a huge dud. Remembering that the whole concept of this blog is that you are the only person on Earth who actually possesses magic, you are never, ever going to run into any undead, fey, or trans-planar entities*, and so this is just a giant waste of a 5th-level spell and a valuable bag of powdered silver that could otherwise be used in dentistry. Hard pass.

Real-World Rating:  1 (Worthless)

Dispel Magic

Almost definitionally why this blog exists. One of the most essential and indispensable spells a wizard can have in Dungeons & Dragons, and an absolute nothing-burger zero in the real world. Not even useful as a party trick.

Real-World Rating: 1 (Worthless)

Dissonant Whispers

I kind of like this one. It's a first-level spell, so it's not hard to do; it has few requirements and a decent range; and it does a potentially fatal amount of psychic damage and can force its target to run from you in horror, but best of all, nobody but you and the target know what's happening, so you can really wreak some havoc without anyone being able to pin it on you. It's kind of like being able to pipe Keiji Haino tracks into someone's earbuds at maximum volume.

Real-World Rating: 7 (Effective)

Divination

First of all, I am annoyed with the name of this. It's a divination spell, and it's called "Divination". The thesaurus-sotted nerds who came up with all this nonsense couldn't think of anything better than that?  This is like Empire all over again.

Second, even if you accept that gods still exist in the world and you alone can contact them, this spell has the usual weasel language that makes it potentially useless. It allows that the deity or its servant that you call upon to answer a question can reply with "a short phrase, a cryptic rhyme, or an omen", and if there's one thing we know about the gods of myth, it's that they love fucking with people. You're way better off asking Siri the question than some immortal version of the Riddler.

Real-World Rating: 5 (Effective But Limited)

Divine Favor

The name makes it sound like you're calling on Thor to give you a ride to the airport, but the prosaic reality is that it just adds a glowing light to your sword that tosses in a very small amount of extra damage. Just shoot them instead.

Real-World Rating: 3 (Pretty Ineffectual)

Divine Word

This is one of those high-level spells that tries to impress you with a wide range of different effects and an awesome-sounding description ("You utter a divine word, imbued with the power that shaped the world at the dawn of creation", my goodness!). In practice, though the power that shaped the world at the dawn of creation allows you to do nothing but kill relatively weak opponents, which you can accomplish much more easily with a rifle, or temporarily blind and deafen stronger opponents, which you can accomplish much more easily with a flash-bang grenade**.  Plus, if your opponents make a save, it does nothing! A bunch of hype for a bunch of nothing, and meanwhile a Disintegrate spell is one level easier and can destroy both a tank and the person operating it. The divine word is "bullshit". 

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

*: The one exception to this rule is if it was a fey, elemental, or extra-planar being that you summoned yourself and then, I don't know, forgot about, and you want to get rid of because it's gunking up the joint with some kind of mythological Celtic spoor or the like. That scenario doesn't seem likely enough for me to bump its rating.

**: The phrase "flash-bang grenade" is such a dumb literalist one that it could only have come from the military. If it weren't for its origins in the U.K., I would have guessed it was coined by a descendent of whoever named Salt Lake City.

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