F/2

Find Familiar

Let's start this week's installment off with a joke: If it's that familiar, why do you have to find it?

Hilarious. Now we move on to the assessment portion of the program: Maybe this says more about me and the people I play D&D with than it does the spell itself, but I have never, in forty years of playing this dumb game, been in a situation where a wizard having a familiar has contributed in a positive way to the game. I've had plenty of players who tried to use their familiar as a sort of shortcut to omniscience* ("I'll send my hawk into the dungeon to find all the traps!"), and I've had plenty who had jolly fun with their familiar as a pet, but I've never seen, as a player or as a dungeon master, a game session where it contributed in a practical way that justified wasting a 1st-level spell that could otherwise have been spent on Magic Missile. If you want a cat, get a cat, but don't pretend it's high magic.

Incidentally, the new version of Find Familiar adds a fish to your options, which I find hilarious. Imagine traipsing around an abandoned wizard's tower, constantly under attack by ghouls and mind flayers, and having to make sure nobody breaks your fishbowl.

Real-World Rating: 2 (Mostly Pointless)

Find Steed

Another way to say this would be "buy horse", and another would be "call cab" or "book ride". This has been completely superseded by technology, and the one thing they throw in to goose it -- that you can communicate telepathically with your horse -- is pretty much a wash if you know the kinds of things horses usually think about**. A classic JUYP***.

Real-World Rating:  2 (Mostly Pointless)

Find the Path

Speaking of just using your phone, this is the magical equivalent of using Google Maps, if it was a sixth-level spell and cost a hundred bucks every time you used it. It also takes a whole minute to access whatever the sorcerous-energy equivalent of a database is. Hard pass -- you can get any number of great 6th-level spells for something that takes 15 seconds to do on your iPhone.

Real-World Rating: 1 (Worthless)

Find Traps

Hey, sometimes your thief gets unexpectedly murdered. These things happen. Theoretically, this is a half-decent substitute for having a skilled rogue in your company****, but the description is pretty confusing about what it actually accomplishes: "You sense the presence of any trap within range that is within line of sight", but also "this spell merely reveals that a trap is present. You don't learn the location of each trap". So, it's kind of...a danger sense, but just for traps? It's unclear how you sense the presence of a trap that's in your line of sight if you don't know the trap's location. Whatever the case, it's proof that nothing beats good ol' human (or elven, etc.) know-how.

Real-World Rating: 5 (Effective But Limited) if you can actually tell where the traps are, 3 (Pretty Ineffectual) if you can't

Finger of Death

This slightly gross-sounding spell really should be called Finger of Potential Death, since it doesn't guarantee fatality and could do a minimum of 37 hit points of damage, which is substantial but not a sure-fire kill. The fun part is that if you do kill your opponent with it, they immediately rise again as a zombie you command! That's win-win.

Real-World Rating: 7 (Effective) 

Fireball

Here we go, folks. This is the money spell. The one every wizard picks up the second they get their 3rd-level certification papers on the mailbox. It's one of the most potent offensive weapons in the repertoire of a low-level spellcaster, it does gobs of damage even with a saving throw, and, let's face it, it's just cool as hell.

Of course, objectively, it's not that great a spell, especially given the context under which it is usually deployed: a small, cramped dungeon cell where it's almost certainly as likely to injure your teammates as it is your enemies. Tossing a hand grenade in an enclosed area isn't always the best tactical move. But, well, it's always the most awesome, and that counts for something, even for this blog. You're not always going to need an exploding blast of flame, but it never hurts to have one.

Real-World Rating: 7 (Effective)

Fire Bolt

As noted in previous installments, F is for Fire, and as fire spells go, this one is actually pretty good! It's got decent damage for a low-level spell and gets better at higher levels, it's got good range, and while it's based on a ranged attack, it's also a cantrip, which means you can cast it over and over again. One might even argue, since it does not involve a massive and uncontrollable explosion in an enclosed area, it's even preferable to Fireball, but I am not here to litigate such matters. 

Real-World Rating: 8 (Very Effective) 

*: It's clear from the new version of the spell that the D&D creators are hip to this and are trying to get rid of it: now, when you're using your familiar's sensory apparatus, you're both blind and deaf for the duration. So it's not even like having a magic pet; it's like having a service animal.

**:  Hay and fucking, mostly.

***: Just Use Your Phone.

****: Although it doesn't help you disable the traps, so it's really less about keeping you from getting fucked than it is telling you exactly how fucked you are.