TBH it is pretty bad spell selection examples indeed, and the whole review is meh. Enchantment is powerful, especially when stacked with items (my Linzi has +7 DC on Laughter just from items), but big part of game monsters are undead and fey who are either immune or very resistant to it on higher difficulties. Spell and other HD-based spells seem to work poorly due to enemies rising quite quick in HD even in prologue and sheer amount of things thrown at you. It is not BG, sadly sleep and color spray do allow saving throw here. Hold Monster etc. are all good if not for high enemy saving throws, Confusion is a bit better due to more saving throws made and it being useful against hordes. Skipping on stuff like Magic Missile which can be reliably spammed against that one single 999 AC thing is a big mistake, and skipping on stuff like Empower/Maximize is also a big mistake. Maximized Hellfire Ray and Polar Ray are some of the most devastating spells in the game. Although you can use metamagic from rods and items, I guess. Heroism, Greater Heroism, and other combinations of buffs to your BAB by stacking
- Morale
- Luck
- Sacred
- Competence
Allow your melees and ranged to easily pass enemy AC even in Hard+, and Heroism works even during text quests and such since it gives +skills bonus.
Necromancy is also surprisingly deadly against main enemies in the game since Fortitude is their actual weakness.
And of course you want your party perma-hasted, if not for the powerful effect but at least for traveling/clearing speed.
For the most fun, I would recommend something like Universalist Scroll Savant. You get incredibly powerful scrolls in game, often you can cast like level 5 spells and get Disintegrate scroll or Horrid Wilting scroll which can easily turn combat in your favor. And you never lose on versatility and can fine tune your spell selection against anything. Pump UMD and your magic battery will never run out due to absurd amount of scrolls and wands you get in this game.
I don't want to throw any extra shit at Pope since he has his plate full with haters already, but unless he also played beta extensively, at this point it feels like he just throws this stuff to get more videos done and should at least try to finish prologue before doing all this. Starting game, cheating yourself level 20 and clicking on feats with commentary does not take that much effort compared to actual useful advice you can give if you know game through and out.
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