A couple of notes to get you started:
Magic takes two days of study per level of spell magic to learn a spell.
The price to purchase a spell for study (provided you can find a seller, something which is not guaranteed) is as follows:
Level 1: 5000 credits, Level 2: 10,000 credits, Level 3: 20,000 credits, Level 4: 30,000 Level 5: 40,000 Level 6: 70,000 Level 7: 90,000 Level 8: 120,000 Level 9: 180,000 Level 10-15: 500,000-1,000,000.
The Market Cost* of an Amulet is 30,000-50,000 credits (Rifts Azrno page 61)
The Market Cost*of a Talisman is 30,000 X the level of the spell in the Talisman (Rifts Azrno page 61)
The Market Cost* of a Scroll is 10,000 X the level of the spell in the Scroll (Rifts Azrno page 61) - I question this because the chance of learning a spell from a scroll for a practitioner of magic is 10%+2%/level
* Market cost is not what a Player will get for selling an amulet, talisman or scroll. its what they are expected to pay. If a player wishes to sell amulets, talismans or scrolls he can expect 15-30% of Market Price if he sells magic items (Rifts Main book page 209).
Traditional Spell Magic:
Spoiler:
Level One
Blinding Flash (1) Really really useful to disable an attacker's ability to hit or see you effectively, however it is completely warded by a relatively inexpensive polarized eyewear.
Cloud of Smoke (2) Useful but a 50 credit grenade does the same thing, as a rule if you can do the same thing with something that costs less than an e-clip recharge it cant be that important.
Death Trance (1) Oh look! people think you are dead, for a few minutes! Super not useful except in very specific situations, and then the short duration makes it suffer.
Globe of Daylight (2) Unlike Lantern Light, this spell does something a 2 credit flashlight cannot.
Lantern Light (1) You know what else makes light? The flashlight I got at the dollar store, get globe of daylight instead.
See Aura (6) Also known as "How soiled should my armor be?, the first of several investigative spells you should learn.
See the Invisible (4) While the Amulet is ideal, its always good to spot magically hidden lurkers.
Sense Evil (2) Its stymed slightly by the fact that it only guarantee's detection of supernatural evil but still a very useful spell.
Sense Magic (4) If you can cast this spell then you like magic, so finding magic is always better.
Thunderclap (4) The Horror factor is not high enough to really worry people and they targets have to be very damn close, it does work as an innocuous signaling spell but so does most armor suits speaker systems.
Level Two
Befuddle (6) This spell is in the realm of being too good, the important part to note the important thing to note is that if someone loses their save against spell they lose half of their attacks! Remember that saving throws don't usually get that much better as you gain levels while spell strength only goes up. A fabulous spell by any standard.
Chameleon (6) Not going anywhere? Don't want anyone to see you? Cool, otherwise not helpful.
Cleanse (6) If being clean had an actual in game effect and bathing was more difficult this would mean more.
Climb (3) Really situational and quickly lapped by dozens of mobility spells and abilities.
Cloak of Darkness (6) Honestly a smoke grenade or the first level spell cloud of smoke does basically the same thing, but this does it with shadows for more ppe ooooooooohhh!
Concealment (6) Basically if you need to smuggle something small past a checkpoint, this is your spell. Otherwise don't even.
Detect Concealment (6) Only counters one extremely situational spell, really only an issue for the TSA Wizard and TSA Techno Wizard OCCs
Extinguish Fire (4) MDC Napalm is real and no joke, while not in my top ten spells I Carry a Goblin Grenade of Extinguish flame as a just in case and have for a long time.
Fear(5) Great at low levels because the save is against Horror Factor and it affects an area. Horror Factor is yet another way to rob your opponents of strike bonuses and attacks per round.
Heavy Breathing (5) OK, so nearly half of those who fail their saves will arbitrarily run in fear... Kinda useful but not so much.
Levitation (5) So there is a magic stepladder spell...
Manipulate Objects (2+) I recommend everyone have at least one of the magical telekinesis spells, but I don't recommend this one which is incredibly obvious who is casting things and manipulating objects.
Turn Dead (6) "This magic only affects "animated" dead and skeletons or corpses that are magically animated like marionettes, but will not affect vampires, zombies, mummies, other undead or any corpse or skeleton possessed by a living entity." Nuff Said.
Aura of Power (4) Good for anyone with a manipulation based character, however it makes you the center of attention which is often something you would like to avoid.
Mystic Alarm (5) The only failing of this spell is it has no way of distinguishing friend from foe, so you cannot say designate your friend Jerry as one of the few people allowed to access your freezer.
Shatter (5) How many times has this happened to you? You need to break glass but rocks are sooo dirty! Well now the folks at Mageco™ have the solution for you! The shatter spell, a five PPE wonder that breaks sdc glass at a range of a whole 20 feet! Only one payment of 10,000 credits and we'll even through in a copy of our book "Living clean with the Cleanse Spell"...
Throwing Stones (5) Ironically costs the same as the shatter spell, but will break MDC glass. Good range for a spell as well.
Level Three
Armor of Ithan (10) Always useful if only to lower the damage your actual armor takes.
Breathe Without Air (5) Chances are you have access to dozens of alternatives to this spell that do not take actions to cast.
Energy Bolt (5) There are much better ways to do SDC damage at incredibly short range, only really valuable for techno wizards.
Fingers of the Wind (5) The lack of any articulation makes this less useful than the telekinesis spell.
Float in Air (5) Sure the range is incredibly short but no saving throw to throw some minor penalties and halve an opponent's movement speed is really useful for 5 PPE.
Fuel Flame (5) There are plenty of reasons to want to make fire damage more awesome but safety first, learn Extinguish Fire first.
Ignite Fire (6) 20,000 credits for a zippo you cannot lose! Woooo!
Impervious to Fire (5; self) For five PPE you can take away a lot of creatures signature attacks.
Impervious to Poison (5) See Impervious to Fire.
Invisibility: Simple (6) All invisibility spells are useful but be sure to take the time to understand each one's limitations, for instance you can fight while invisible via this spell but you are not invisible to anyone with multi-optics.
Life Source (2 +Special) Sometimes you have to bleed for your magic, while this spell is circumstantial it can help you cast something big and vital in non optimal situations.
Light Healing (6) Healing spells are always welcome but this one will not help you with the dangers of mega damage combat, jsut minor crap a tube of healing gel will cover.
Magic Shield (6) While it is super great that this can parry energy blasts and gives a bonus to parry, the fact is unless you have someone who is super awesome with a shield in your party then this spell is a nice little buff, otherwise its a waste of time.
Mystic Fulcrum (5) Fascinating for techno wizards, useless for everyone else.
Negate Poison/Toxin (5) In an age of gas masks as a fashion statement and full enviromental armor this spell is not that vital but better to have it and not need it...
Paralysis: Lesser (5) Other than a unique way to prevent someone from pulling a trigger this spell does not have a lot of use.
Resist Fire (6; others) So this is half as effective as Impervious to Fire, but it affects two people... Get Impervious and cast it twice.
Create Wood (10-20) If you can answer yes to the following questions then this spell is vital: Do you have the carpentry skill, do you have the whittling/sculpting skill and do you have the Ironwood spell? If you answered yes to these questions then this spell is for you! otherwise its really circumstantial.
Light Target (6) Its really nice to be able to highlight a person and prevent them from effectively prowling but the range is so terrible that its hard to give this higher ranks.
Orb of Cold (6) Normally I say as a mage you should be reshaping the battlefield and buffing your allies and debuffing your enemies but Orb of Cold is really the first really solid combat spell. Not only do you do damage but your target has to make a save versus magic or lose an attack and some combat effectiveness for minutes. People are on me because I ignore spells that do damage, but its because I am all about the spells that do damage and make your enemy helpless. This spell is a wizards first damage spell and a old friend he can return to even after it becomes obsolete.
Telekinesis (8) Being able to manipulate things you can see but not reach is always going to be one of the tools you are going to want in your toolbox. My advice? While invisible turn on safeties, pull grenade pins and activate fusion blocks.
Wave of Frost (6) So this spell lets you kill flowers by causing frost to form on them... thats it. I have to go apologise to shatter now, I have now found the worst spell ever.
Level Four
Blind (6) Make no mistake, blinding someone is a devastating effect but the range is incredibly short and they get a save.
Carpet of Adhesion (10) Great, you've stuck someone to the ground... You know they can still cast, shoot and dodge without penalty right?
Charismatic Aura (10) Also Known as Aura of Magnificent BS, this spell allows you to talk your way into nearly everything with incredible ease. Great for role players and characters with a performer's bent.
Cure Minor Disorders (10) Magical Aspirin... only this costs 30,000 credits.
Electric Arc (8) For 8 PPE you can have the equivalent of a laser pistol with broken sights for one round -1 action. Complete waste of time.
Energy Field (10) Either cover yourself so you can cast in peace or give a buddy something to duck behind.
Fire Bolt (7) Just get a TW gun, seriously.
Fist of Fury (10 or 50) So you can punch someone like you had supernatural strength? Waste of time.
Fool's Gold (10) Kanye's instant bling is just not that valuable a spell, the best use I can think of for it is to make armor and vehicles look gold for formal occasions, not scamming people.
Ley Line Transmission (30) OK, 30,000 credits for a magical pair of cans connected by a string.
Magic Net (7) Superior in nearly every way to carpet of adhesion, trapped targets are helpless until they cut free. However, the save is a dodge and some creatures are very good at dodging.
Multiple Image (7) A good set of cheap bonuses, but not good enough in terms of action economy.
Repel Animals (7) Great, you spent 30,000 credits to repel sdc animals, that are 30 feet away from you.
Shadow Meld (10) The key here is that See the invisible has no effect, so if you can prowl this means you can prowl much better and its much harder to spot you. Still, watch out for thermal equipped foes or mask your temperature.
Swim as a Fish (6) Show of hands, how many of you have ever had to swim in game? The only saving grace of this spell is that the speed you swim at is inhuman.
Trance (10) Nice for turning people into slow obedient zombies, however the fact that full environmental armor protects fully against the effects of the spell makes it much less effective. Great way to shut down an enemy caster though.
Astral Projection (10) OK, while the scouting abilities this spell gives you are top notch I will warn that it can be really really boring for the rest of the table who has to sit around while the wizard goes on a solo adventure. My advice is write down where you are going and then give your written adventure to your GM.
Chromatic Protection (10) Basically a flash bang that goes off in the event that someone assaults you really close by. The two issues are the range is a ten foot radius and the duration is really really short for a protection against sudden assault spell.
Deflect (10) This spell is great if your PP is up to snuff, probably not a good idea for a primary defense but totally worth it if your agility is high enough.
Fireblast (8) So a line of flame that does a set amount of damage, not bad especially if you are in a cave or other confined space but really not speaking to me either.
Reflection (7) This spell is only valuable in a carnival house of mirrors or a glitter boy warehouse, everywhere else it is pointless.
Ricochet Strike (12) It takes a very specific build to exploit this spell in any meaningful way, basically you can spend an action to enchant a thrown or launched primitive weapon to bounce off of one opponent and hit another two, but there is so much preparation needed to make this a viable strategy that it is often not worth it. Though I should point out that it works fine with the Orb of Cold spell.
Seal (7) Being able to lock a door so others cannot open it can actually be pretty useful, like if you don't want a CS soldier to get into his robot vehicle and smash you into a bloody pulp.
Watchguard (ten) While having a magical set of eyes guarding your camp is useful, the fact that there is a save and that this spell does nothing from stopping your enemies from setting up a gun nest thousands of feet away and blasting you into oblivion means this spell has issues.
Weight of Duty (10) While the penalties are nice there are lesser spells that do the same thing (like Befuddle) that do not need the narrow set of conditions to affect a target.
Level Five
Armor Bizarre (15) Not only is it a good Force Field but it has a steadily growing horror factor that opponents have to save against every round! The fact that the horror factor only effects people who are fighting you is good for your party because it means they don't lose actions being squicked out by your Worm Wraith cosplay.
Calling (8) 40,000 credits to send a one way messages.
Charm (12) Remember Trance? This does not slow your new ally and armor does not protect them.
Circle of Flame (10) OK, so you make a circle of sdc flame... So does a can of gas and a lighter.
Distant Voice (10) Finally a communication spell that is not a complete waste of your time, still why are you not just using a radio?
Domination (10) So Trance with a shorter range and the same limitations? Great.
Energy Disruption (12) If you've ever wanted to stop someone's electric tooth brush this is your spell, but in this hectic MDC world this spell does nothing.
Escape(8) It sounds useless until you realize that the the spell performs the escape artist and lockpicking skills.
Eyes of Thoth (8) Its allways handy to be able to read, and this grants all languages
Featherlight (10) It seems useless until you pair it with any teleport spell which are all based in part on weight.
Fly (15) So you can make an object fly, not as useful as just flying but it can give you decent mobility and make your silver surfer cosplay.
Heal Wounds (10) Same issue as light healing.
House of Glass (12) Decent way to make enemies hurt themselves by hurting you, the important part is that spells that penalize you also effect the people that cast them on you in addition to damage. Just be sure you can take the harm.
Lifeblast (15) More important as a skill buff than a attack, the half hour skill boost is deceptively useful.
Sleep (10) This does not make a enemy sleep, this creates a sleep potion, have you ever
Superhuman Endurance (12) So you can make a person not get tired for two hours... Why is this a fifth level spell?
Superhuman Strength (10) If you have a Melee focused character or ally with the right weapon or just need to be strong then this can be plenty useful. Its also worth noting that this spell grants the subject a 24 Physical Endurance, which is good for a +4 to save versus magic.
Superhuman Speed (10) Forget the modest foot speed, +6 to dodge is a sweet bonus but circumstantial.
Aura of Death (12) This is your companion spell to Invisibility: simple.
Death Curse (Special) Some spells are game breaking, this spell is Meta-Plot breaking. Basically if you are going to die you can curse the guy who you blame for your death with a nearly impossible to remove curse. Not practical for you and considering all the Mages the CS has murdered over the years I cannot fathom how Karl Prosek is not living under the weight of this chastisement.
Horrific Illusion (10) OK the range is short but the area of effect is everyone who can see the illusion, because of that this spell is very useful except that you can easily freak out your allies as well.
Horror (10) Better in nearly every way to Horrific illusion, make a any object extra spoooky with magic, fun at parties.
Implosion Neutralizer (12) Basically a 12 PPE parry of a man portable explosive, very conditional.
Influence the Beast (12) Basically this allows you to have limited control of beasts. Most MDC critters seem to be immune but dinosaurs seem to be vulnerable.
Instill Knowledge (15) Not broadly useful because other classes tend to have more skills but occasionally you need someone to know how to do something you know how to do.
Mend the Broken (10+) Very PPE thirsty but this spell is very useful for after battle armor mending, if you can sit on a ley line and draw PPE from allies and reusable batteries then you can save your party a lot of time and money.
Mental Blast (15) Hurt someone inside their armor, give them cumulative penalties on top of direct to hit point damage and the save is psionic based! Forget Call Lightning, this is where its at!
Sustain (12) Go without food, water and most of your need for sleep with no nasty side effects! Aint nothing wrong with that.
Level Six
Call Lightning (15) Just get a gun.
Compulsion (20) Great way to get someone to do something for you for nothing, just make sure the compulsion is for something difficult to acquire in 24 hours, if you make someone addicted to a canteen of water then they will just hit the faucet instead of being your slave for a day.
Cure Illness (15) OK, you can cure colds or the flu but nothing a person would actually go to the doctor for.
Fire Ball (10) Just get a gun.
Impervious to Energy (20) Also known as "emasculate dead boys". A vitally important spell with a decent duration.
Magic Pigeon (20) Great way to send a covert message or harrass people, remember while the range is effectively phenomenal the length of the message is very short.
Mask of Deceit (15) The fact that every single person who sees the person gets a save versus magic (albeit at a severe penalty) dampens this spell but it still
Reduce Self (20) There are dozens of scenarios where being small is to your advantage, you are easier to hide, many spells have just as much effect no matter your size and spells that allow you to fly have you moving at the same speed. Great for sneaking.
Sheltering Force (20) Long lasting and lowers damage you take slightly, all together useful but not vital.
Teleport: Lesser (15) Great with featherlight, even if your GM bans the whole teleport grenades into vehicles or chi town thing. This spell with a Crystal ball and a passing knowledge of demolitions is game breaking.
Tongues (12) Being able to speak with people is pretty vital, but a cheap language translator usually does the same thing for less.
Words of Truth (15) Great for interrogating people, Keep it handy.
Barrage (15) Minor damage and severe penalties! two great flavors that go together.
Create Water (15) While there is nothing wrong with this spell, it is about 12 ppe and 4 levels too expensive.
Crushing Fist (12) It is the extremely rare wizard that does not have something better to do than run arounf punching people. Not the worst spell but you have much better things to be doing.
Energize Spell (12) Because this spell only affects level 6 or lower spells it is conditional in its use but it still can be a bargain.
Fire Blossom (20) For 20 PPE you can make a portable sdc campfire starter, impressive to look at but not all that practical.
Fortify Against Disease (15) While in this age of full environmental armor this spell has distinctly less practicality but still its duration allows it to be cast hours before entering a hot zone which makes it a useful buff.
Frequency Jamming (15) being able to shut down communications or cameras is pretty damn useful but the fact that almost everyone has a radio these days means this spell can be far too little too late.
Ice (15) Create a wall or make an area slippery or freeze water, very versatile spell.
Illusion Booster (15) Illusions tend to be good, and doubling their duration for 15 PPE is really nice.
Illusiory wall (15) one of the few Illusions not at all worth your time, basically makes a weak wall look strong or creates a fake wall that you can just walk through.
Memory Bank (12) I have yet to come up with a single practical reason you would cast this spell.
Power Bolt (20) Two actions and 20 PPE to do 5d6 M.D. +2 per level? I know you are tired of hearing this but just. get. a. gun.
Targeted Deflection (15) Because the duration is in rounds rather than in actions it is more useful than deflection and if you have the PP and the protection magic you can turn an enemies best weapons on themselves, one of my top 5 Talisman spells.
Time Slip (20) You know how people are often frustrated about the short range of magic? Use this spell to buff yourself and your allies and close the distance between yourself and your opponents. One of my top 3 Talisman spells.
Level Seven
Agony (20) Two actions and 20 PPE shuts someone down for four rounds and penalizes them afterwards. Way better than throwing a fireball.
Animate/Control Dead (20) So you can animate a corpse that basically cannot do anything but swing a sword with no skills backing it up. Not that appealing.
Ballistic Fire (25) A method of doing very small amounts of damage very accurately, Get a gun. Good for taking down missiles though, and the range and the fact that it takes a single action to cast is nice.
Constrain Being (20) Great way to stop a minor creature if your game has a lot of them, but Agony does the same thing and it affects anything that can feel pain.
Dispel Magic Barriers (20) Circumstantial but useful if you face mages a lot.
Fly as the Eagle (25) Good Mobility spell with some nice bonuses to add to the overall package.
Globe of Silence (20) If you get a caster stuck in place this spell is the second step as it renders spell casting nearly impossible, but a mobile or techno wizard equipped opponent is likely not bothered by this spell.
Heal Self (20) The fact that this heals MDC damage is this spells saving grace.
Invisibility: Superior (20) Invisibility is always useful and you can buff your allies and strike opponents with non attack debuffs like befuddlement and affecting non combat spells.
Life Drain (25) Absolutely fantastic combat spell, it hurts people in their armor and penalizes them and after 3rd level it hurts multiple targets.
Lightblade (20) Damage is good and you can parry energy attacks which is nice but frankly without a decent bonus to parry you are unlikely to succeed and doing damage is for the little people.
Metamorphosis: Animal (25) Great way to appear unremarkable for spying or travel, I personally think getting a strong sense of smell is a highly underrated power.
Purification (Food/Water) (20) Just make your own food.
Wind Rush (20) Knocking down rows of opponents is actually really useful if you are playing with a group, and a guy laying on his face or back is a much better target for Carpet of adhesion than a standing person any day of the week.
Fire gout (20) The multiple targets is nice but it takes too long to cast and the range is too short for this to be a worthy addition to your magical library.
Invulnerability (25) While the duration is painfully short you still get to be awesome with this spell, definitely one of my top Talisman spells.
Ley Line Fade (20) Good way to protect yourself while you lick your wounds and charge up, still the requirement that you need a Ley line is burdensome.
Mental Shock (30) Fantastic non lethal take down spell that allows you to greatly hinder fully armored and power armored people.
Negate Mechanics (20) The primary appeal of this spell is you can use it to make a high tech enemy impotent while under the aegis of an improved invisibility the problem is it only lasts a round.
Second Sight (20) On one hand the range is fantastic, allowing you to know what a target is seeing and can be very helpful in tracking a quarry or knowing where a friend is. On the other it only lasts 2 rounds.
See Wards (20) The usefulness of this spell is entirely dependent on how many wards using wizards you encounter.
Sonic Blast (25) like so many of the radius of harm spells, its usefulness depends on how close your opponents are. Generally speaking if you are surrounded by melee close opponents you are pretty boned anyway but better to have it and not need it...
Spinning Blades (20) The awesome of this spell is the fact that it gives you a free energy weapon parry, its locked at a +2 against energy blasts but still there is no mention of a penalty to parry energy blasts so that could be really good.
Sub Particle Acceleration (20) If you want to be the heavy weapons guy, just be the heavy weapons guy. He does not spend two actions to merely do 1d6x10+whatever damage, he just pulls a trigger. And no I am not impressed by the fact that you can charge e-clips with this spell.
Level Eight
Commune with Spirits (25) Useful for searching ruins and discovering the whys behind haunting.
Exorcism (30) Being Possessed sucks, so its nice to kick out a possessing entity.
Expel Demons (35) Specialized but still incredibly useful when fighting demons.
Eyes of the Wolf (25) Would be Blue if it was not for the unnecessary percentage values, and why is it not nose of the wolf?
Forcebonds (25) Pretty much the only way to tie up a supernaturally strong person.
Greater Healing (30) Useful as it heals MDC damage.
Ley Line Tendril Bolts (26) A weak blast spell that only works at certain geographic locations! Where do I not sign up?
Lightning Arc (30) Its like having a pistol! Or, you could you know, get a pistol.
Locate (30) Situational but useful if you need to find a person.
Luck Curse (40) Ruin someone's ability to do anything for 24 hours, fantastic.
Magical-Adrenal Rush (45) Friggin fantastic even with the weariness, often its better to cast this on a more martially bent colleague than on yourself.
Metamorphosis: Human (40) Need to impersonate someone? Pretty much the best choice.
Negate Magic (30) Being able to shut down magic is pretty much one of your jobs, get this as soon as possible.
Power Weapons (35) Good for techno wizards, everyone else is probably better served doing other things for more damage.
Shockwave (45) The radius and knockdown penalties are great but it really has a lot of potential for friendly fire.
Sickness (50) The main appeal of this spell over others is the extreme duration.
Spoil (Water/Food) (30) You can spoil food, whoopdi freaking doo.
Wisps of Confusion (40) Like Befuddle but it effects 2d4 people, duration is pretty awesome.
Fire Globe (40) Between this spell and Orb of Cold every combat leaning mage should consider taking the targeting skill, even better if you GM lets you make booby traps that use these globes.
Hallucination (30) Being able to control everything a person sees is invaluable also can be cast by an invisible caster, so there is that.
Invincible Armor (30) The best of the armor spells, though Armor Bizarre still has its uses after you learn this.
Ley Line Time Capsule (15-30) Very neat way to stash perishables but not very practical for most things.
Lifeward (40) Basically the G.I.Joe rule given plausible life, On of those spells your entire party should pony up for you to learn.
Minor Curse (35) Nasty way to put penalties on a person for a few days, also you can hurt a person's ability to make saving throws with the headache curse which is great for your mind control spells.
Oracle (30) Nice way to get loads of vague information on something that does not make sense until you have experienced it.
Sorcerous Fury (70) Mages are strongest when they have their heads on straight and are making calculated moves on the battlefield, going on a beserker rage just lowers you to the level of the BDFs.
Stone to Flesh (30) OK, so being turned to stone sucks, but really does it come up that often?
Wall of Wind (40) pretty damn good for throwing massive amounts of enemies off their game or leveling buildings, not much good for anything else.
Winged Flight (35) Since the speed of your flight depends entirely on your strength this spell could either be good or it could be a waste of your PPE. It is noted that Fly as the eagle gives you combat bonuses and winged flight does not.
World Bizarre (40) Also known as Eyes of Hunter S. Thompson, honestly lower level spells do similar things much cheaper but it is hard for most people to make the dc 17 horror factor roll.
Level Nine
Desiccate the Supernatural (50) Not really worth the two actions and copious PPE it costs to cast that could be used making an opponent helpless.
Dragon Fire (40) Once again, just get a gun. Its cheaper and takes less time.
Familiar Link (55) Could be really useful depending on the enemy, but it does open you up to huge penalties. I recommend whisker coyotes and Psi-biotes.
Mute (50) globe of silence has no save, has better range and affects multiple people.
Protection Circle: Simple (45) Especially useful when you consider how large the circle can be.
Speed of the Snail (50) Befuddle is better but this affects vehicles and robots, so its pretty nice.
Wall of Defense (55) Pretty great battlefield control/defense spell, you can hide a lot behind this wall.
Water to Wine (40) Congratulations, you spent 180,000 credits to make box wine, what are you going to do for a chaser? Spend 200,000 credits on a gender studies degree in a recession?
Aura of Doom (40) On one hand, the penalties inflicted by this spell are amazing, however Befuddle does basically the same thing and it takes half the time and one 6th the ppe to cast. However the two effects should stack which is nice.
Beat Insurmountable Odds (70) Please note, this is not a combat buff! It allows you or a ally to do something amazing once, but it is terrible for combat use. Hack a vital computer, sure, disarm a bomb, great. Very Conditional.
Create Steel (68) If you have the building skills to back it up this spell can be lots of fun and very useful, great for making bunkers, buildings and primitive gear but less so for high quality portable stuff. If you like Minecraft than this is a great spell for you.
Curse Phobia (40) Phobias can actually be pretty devastating, even if the range is very close and the target gets a saving throw.
D-Step (50) for most of the applications of this spell, Time slip or ley line fade in my opinion are the better choices but as a take a moment catch your breath spell, this is still nice.
Illusion Manipulation (25-60) This spell is for dedicated illusionists and only dedicated illusionists, basically its Photoshop for illusions.
Ley Line Phantom (40) basically become a ley line ghost for a short period of time, you can cast spells and use psionics and generally not be hurt. One of the many reasons the CS avoids Ley lines.
Ley Line Time Flux (80) Basically you can do minor things to alter people's perception of time when you are at a ley line. Not super useful.
Metamorphosis: Insect (60) A bug can go a lot of places you cannot and the prowl ability is frigging fantastic, great for covert missions and getting close to people you want to curse or mind control.
Phantom Mount (45) Not going to argue that having a MDC horse is not useful, but lower level spells allow you to fly for twice as long., so why the horse?
Purge Self (70) Friggin fantastic way to remove all sorts of life ruining implants and influences.
Realm of Chaos (70) really one of the better everyone in my immediate vicinity is screwed spells, still screws your allies but it keeps people busy while you gallivant around gleefully.
Swords to Snakes (50) This spell would be awesome if it did not have that weird 4 lb restriction. As it is its a pretty good way to disarm light pistols.
Tame Beast (60) Ever wanted a pet T-Rex? It takes some doing but this spell is the engine that makes it happen, make the dumb animal of your choice your buddy.
Transferal (50) If you need to appear for all intents an purposes as not magical this is pretty much the only way.
Level Ten
Banishment (65) Good for getting very specific nasties out of town.
Control/Enslave Entity (80) Great when they work for you, terrible when they stop working for you.
Deathword (70) Great way to kill someone in a lot of armor when you have snuck up behind them while invisible.
Giant (80) Casting this spell on an especially fancy armored opponent or a naked strong ally is pretty much the only way to go.
Metamorphosis: Superior (100) Useful in the exact same way Metamorphosis Animal is, not being able to turn into a functional dragon or critter is a definite negative.
Meteor (75) Normally I would say don't even touch the pure direct damage spells but the 40 ft radius officially makes this spell worth your time.
Mystic Portal (60) A short range teleport and trouble bypass spell that cannot kill you. Useful in so many ways.
Plane Skip (65) Planar Lottery, good for getting out of here as fast as possible, but expect four or five castings to get where you want to be.
Speed Weapon (100) Are you a techno wizard? Got a buddy with a psi-sword? Then this spell is good for you, otherwise move on down the road.
Summon/Control Rodents (70) Good for when the Gotham PD is closing in on you, not that great for anything else.
Summon Shadow Beast (140) Magic intelligent disposable minions are always useful.
Super-Healing (70) Basically all you can do is heal mega damage, which is seldom an issue.
Armor Bane (100) for 100 PPE you can mildly erode mundane armor, whoopdy freaking doo.
Enemy Mind (100) Basically trick a guy to fight with you for a couple of minutes, its hard for my to justify most of your average characters ppe and two actions to maybe turn one guy against you.
Havoc (70) Great when paired with Carpet of Adhesion, but when the opponent can move it is considerably less useful. The penalties are also nice.
Illusionary Forest (45-90) Great way to create a battlefield that is in your favor, as the forest will slow an unsuspecting opponent and make it easier for you to sneak around, just make sure your allies are ready for a forest battle.
Ley Line Ghost (80-240) extremely conditional.
Magic Warrior (60) This spell would be so much better if it lasted longer and/or it was specified to have weapon proficiencies, still Summon Mook is not a complete loss as a spell, just not as useful as a real person.
Purge Other (100) Incredibly useful spell because of its ability to cleanse mind control.
Reality Flux (75) Really not that useful compared to swords to snakes or power weapon.
Summon Greater Familiar (80) OK so this is how evil casters get that little imp that keeps giving him bad advice.
Wall of Not (70) For 70 PPE you can make a wall invisible! I have no idea why you would do that!
Wards (90) Protect your stuff with magic! Not a bad spell, a bit conditional but still useful! I'm not going to entertain silliness like warding bullets or weapons for extra damage, I'm just going to point out that keeping your stuff out of other peoples hands is often nice.
Warped Space (90) Basically the rod of wonder from DnD affecting an area, can be devastating or merely annoying.
Level Eleven
Anti-Magic Cloud (140) Great way to shut down enemy supernaturals so your tech enemies can vaporize them.
Create Mummy (160) Skip this, wait for Create Zombie.
Firequake (160) Great for screwing up the day of hundreds of enemies.
Remove Curse (140) Really vital in a game with spells like Luck Curse.
Re-Open Gateway (180) Too Circumstantial to be on anyone's must have list.
Rift Teleportation (200) A really great teleportation spell that allows you to move pretty much everything from point a to point b.
Astral Hole (120) A lot like D-step only you can come out somewhere else, there are a lot of cheaper spells that can do similar stuff cheaper.
Bottomless Pit (100) basically takes someone out of reality for 2 minutes a level while you doe whatever it was you came to do before depositing them unharmed where they where.
Create Magic Scroll (100+) Basically you can allow any literate person to cast a spell you scribe by reading it from a scroll. It should be noted that spell casters can learn spells from scrolls some of the time which can get you in trouble with your guild but still its nice to let your allies cast or have spells with PPE spent up front. A top notch spell.
Curse of the World Bizarre (100) Basically ruin one person's perception for a very long time and probably drive him utterly mad. Devastating.
Energy Sphere (120) once you learn this spell you can gather the PPE to cast any spell no matter how expensive.
Id Alter Ego (130) Need to know something a person knows? Copy him and interrogate his copy.
Illusiory Terrain (55-120) Illusiory forest only better in every possible way.
Ley Line Storm Defense (180) Protects against Ley Line Storms, in case you have to be under one.
Mindshatter (130) If you make the save you are helpless for 12 hours, if you fail it you could be out for weeks. A terrifying one hit kill spell.
Rift to Limbo (160) D-Step for groups.
See in Magic Darkness (125) If you set up a scenario where all is darkness and only you can see in all pervasive darkness this is nice, but otherwise this is expensive fluff.
Summon and Control Animals (125) To me the use of this spell is to get PPE fast when it otherwise is not available but you can find your own use for a suddenly forming herd of buffalo or what have you.
Summon Fog (140) The shear scope of the area this spell covers allows a well prepared group to sneak in, force melee combat or otherwise cover up covert action in a very large area. Nice!
Level Twelve
Amulet (290+) Also known as "Print Money", the ability to protect people with a permanent little token is invaluable and a great source of income.
Calm Storms (200) A magically conjured storm can be pretty devastating but is so rare that its not that useful.
Create Zombie (250) If you don't mind working with corpses then you can get a buddy to do your bidding with almost no consequences. Just keep it in sealed full environmental armor.
Ensorcel (400) If you absolutely positively need someone to be your ***** then this is your spell, but it is expensive and it does not last very long for the level.
Summon & Control Entity (250) Its nice to be able to have a buddy to stuff for you but the buddy is going to get mad at you. Just be ready to toss him back to his reality before you cast this spell.
Heavy Air (200) Great way to catch an enemy army with its armor half off, but not really a day to day spell.
Ironwood (50+) Turn SDC wood to MDC wood. Incredibly valuable.
Metamorphosis Mist (250) and expensive albeit effective way to put yourself beyond harm.
Null Sphere (220) Pretty much the final say in defensive magics.
Soultwist (170) Mental Shock does it better, cheaper.
Summon and Control Rain (200) I had to create a magic evil tree that counters rain to justify Vampires being an empire knowing this spell exists. Also good for fighting droughts.
Summon Ley Line Storm (500) Basically this could be bad if your quarry follows you, a spellcaster under a ley line. So not often.
Swallowing Rift (300) Requires a Nexus Point so not that practical.
Time Hole (210) You no longer need downtime to learn spells, and can most likely spend your time assembling techno wizard doo dads on your own time as well.
Wall of Weird (180) A wall that grapples, kinda useful but only if you have opponents who get up close to the weird wall.
Level Thirteen
Protection Circle: Superior (300) Great spell, you could surround an entire city with one of these, for reals.
Sanctum (390) While magical scrying tends to be expensive and rare but the fact that it wards against the undead and has a duration of Life of the caster really makes this spell pretty nice.
Collapse (70+) Crush a building unless its a super big strong building and then don't collapse it. Not all that useful.
Create Golem (700-1000) Make a servant who is strong as crap without compromising your morals but at great cost. I don't see this is as being that useful in rifts games where you have access to 13th level spells.
Restore Life (275) Resurrect that does not fail but costs the raised person some of his health, not bad all together.
Shadow Wall (400) As a wall its a fine enemy hindering wall good for screwing with enemies, but with the help of see in magic darkness and shadow beasts it can be an absolute nightmare. Planning is everything.
Summon and Control Storm (300) This spells ability to shut down a municipality and ground air travel makes it noteworthy, as a means of covering your movement and delaying official response times its one of the best.
Summon Lesser Being (425) the beings you summon with this spell can typically get revenge, just keep that in mind.
Swap Places (300) The real cherry on top is the lack of a saving throw, so you can disguise yourself as someone, swap with them while they are indisposed and pull of a fairly perfect kidnapping.
Talisman (500) Gives the power of spell casting to anyone, literally one of the most useful if not the most useful spells in the game.
Level Fourteen
Close Rift (200+) Open rifts are often bad but the cost is often too damn high.
Restoration (750) A spell that actually restores lost limbs, vital in this world of mega damage lasers and penalizing cybernetic implants.
Resurrection (650) People die, often they would like to be not dead.
Annihilate (600) Direct damage is crap. Even damage this direct.
ID Barrier (600) honestly for 600 ppe I expect more than an active wall of fear.
Impenetrable Wall of Force (600) Now that's what I'm talking about! for the same price as an annihilate spell you can laugh at 1000 annihilate spells.
Rift Triangular Defense system (840) Basically at two or three locations on earth you can erect a really good force field.
Summon and Control Sea Serpents (300) Good only if you happen to be in a place where sea serpents will be in any way helpful.
Level Fifteen
Dimensional Portal (1000) When you and a small army really need to get to wormwod, or phase world or whatever.
Teleport: Superior (600) My main issue with this spell is the chance of instant death even if you know exactly where you are going. Stick to Ley Line teleportation which it basically superior in every way.
Circle of travel (600) Fantastic way to return to your favorite places in rifts earth. Just an incredibly useful spell for anyone who likes to travel.
Dimensional Teleport (800) OK, because this spell has a 6%/level chance of actually working prepare for wacky Sliders style action as you try to get back home, but if you know of some good dimensions to try out by all means.
Enchant Weapon Minor (400-1000) this spell should be like 4 levels lower, it just does not do enough to be the pinnacle of casty magic. Still, if you need to equip a lot of people cheap and you know this extremely expensive spell, then go to it.
Ley Line Restoration (800) It slices, it dices, it removes the curse that turned you into a eggplant! The end all of Cure spells and the way you collect favors from Tolkeen veterans.
Ley Line Shutdown (3000) a great way to level the playing field with enemy casters, but not that useful for anyone else but useless 99% of the time.
Summon Ally (600) As far as I am concerned this spell is about creating one off adventures where the player characters are summoned by the spell to do something for a poor put upon NPC with vast magical talents. It at least has the charm of summoning someone who is not automatically angry with the caster.
Transformation (2000) An old school evil wizard turns a hostage into a mighty slave spell, and I have to respect that, but this is a plot device not a real player spell.
Void (700) Basically bottomless pit for people who do not fall, very effective at taking an enemy out of combat for a long time while you build a strategy for its return.
Blinding Flash (1) Really really useful to disable an attacker's ability to hit or see you effectively, however it is completely warded by a relatively inexpensive polarized eyewear.
Cloud of Smoke (2) Useful but a 50 credit grenade does the same thing, as a rule if you can do the same thing with something that costs less than an e-clip recharge it cant be that important.
Death Trance (1) Oh look! people think you are dead, for a few minutes! Super not useful except in very specific situations, and then the short duration makes it suffer.
Globe of Daylight (2) Unlike Lantern Light, this spell does something a 2 credit flashlight cannot.
Lantern Light (1) You know what else makes light? The flashlight I got at the dollar store, get globe of daylight instead.
See Aura (6) Also known as "How soiled should my armor be?, the first of several investigative spells you should learn.
See the Invisible (4) While the Amulet is ideal, its always good to spot magically hidden lurkers.
Sense Evil (2) Its stymed slightly by the fact that it only guarantee's detection of supernatural evil but still a very useful spell.
Sense Magic (4) If you can cast this spell then you like magic, so finding magic is always better.
Thunderclap (4) The Horror factor is not high enough to really worry people and they targets have to be very damn close, it does work as an innocuous signaling spell but so does most armor suits speaker systems.
Level Two
Befuddle (6) This spell is in the realm of being too good, the important part to note the important thing to note is that if someone loses their save against spell they lose half of their attacks! Remember that saving throws don't usually get that much better as you gain levels while spell strength only goes up. A fabulous spell by any standard.
Chameleon (6) Not going anywhere? Don't want anyone to see you? Cool, otherwise not helpful.
Cleanse (6) If being clean had an actual in game effect and bathing was more difficult this would mean more.
Climb (3) Really situational and quickly lapped by dozens of mobility spells and abilities.
Cloak of Darkness (6) Honestly a smoke grenade or the first level spell cloud of smoke does basically the same thing, but this does it with shadows for more ppe ooooooooohhh!
Concealment (6) Basically if you need to smuggle something small past a checkpoint, this is your spell. Otherwise don't even.
Detect Concealment (6) Only counters one extremely situational spell, really only an issue for the TSA Wizard and TSA Techno Wizard OCCs
Extinguish Fire (4) MDC Napalm is real and no joke, while not in my top ten spells I Carry a Goblin Grenade of Extinguish flame as a just in case and have for a long time.
Fear(5) Great at low levels because the save is against Horror Factor and it affects an area. Horror Factor is yet another way to rob your opponents of strike bonuses and attacks per round.
Heavy Breathing (5) OK, so nearly half of those who fail their saves will arbitrarily run in fear... Kinda useful but not so much.
Levitation (5) So there is a magic stepladder spell...
Manipulate Objects (2+) I recommend everyone have at least one of the magical telekinesis spells, but I don't recommend this one which is incredibly obvious who is casting things and manipulating objects.
Turn Dead (6) "This magic only affects "animated" dead and skeletons or corpses that are magically animated like marionettes, but will not affect vampires, zombies, mummies, other undead or any corpse or skeleton possessed by a living entity." Nuff Said.
Aura of Power (4) Good for anyone with a manipulation based character, however it makes you the center of attention which is often something you would like to avoid.
Mystic Alarm (5) The only failing of this spell is it has no way of distinguishing friend from foe, so you cannot say designate your friend Jerry as one of the few people allowed to access your freezer.
Shatter (5) How many times has this happened to you? You need to break glass but rocks are sooo dirty! Well now the folks at Mageco™ have the solution for you! The shatter spell, a five PPE wonder that breaks sdc glass at a range of a whole 20 feet! Only one payment of 10,000 credits and we'll even through in a copy of our book "Living clean with the Cleanse Spell"...
Throwing Stones (5) Ironically costs the same as the shatter spell, but will break MDC glass. Good range for a spell as well.
Level Three
Armor of Ithan (10) Always useful if only to lower the damage your actual armor takes.
Breathe Without Air (5) Chances are you have access to dozens of alternatives to this spell that do not take actions to cast.
Energy Bolt (5) There are much better ways to do SDC damage at incredibly short range, only really valuable for techno wizards.
Fingers of the Wind (5) The lack of any articulation makes this less useful than the telekinesis spell.
Float in Air (5) Sure the range is incredibly short but no saving throw to throw some minor penalties and halve an opponent's movement speed is really useful for 5 PPE.
Fuel Flame (5) There are plenty of reasons to want to make fire damage more awesome but safety first, learn Extinguish Fire first.
Ignite Fire (6) 20,000 credits for a zippo you cannot lose! Woooo!
Impervious to Fire (5; self) For five PPE you can take away a lot of creatures signature attacks.
Impervious to Poison (5) See Impervious to Fire.
Invisibility: Simple (6) All invisibility spells are useful but be sure to take the time to understand each one's limitations, for instance you can fight while invisible via this spell but you are not invisible to anyone with multi-optics.
Life Source (2 +Special) Sometimes you have to bleed for your magic, while this spell is circumstantial it can help you cast something big and vital in non optimal situations.
Light Healing (6) Healing spells are always welcome but this one will not help you with the dangers of mega damage combat, jsut minor crap a tube of healing gel will cover.
Magic Shield (6) While it is super great that this can parry energy blasts and gives a bonus to parry, the fact is unless you have someone who is super awesome with a shield in your party then this spell is a nice little buff, otherwise its a waste of time.
Mystic Fulcrum (5) Fascinating for techno wizards, useless for everyone else.
Negate Poison/Toxin (5) In an age of gas masks as a fashion statement and full enviromental armor this spell is not that vital but better to have it and not need it...
Paralysis: Lesser (5) Other than a unique way to prevent someone from pulling a trigger this spell does not have a lot of use.
Resist Fire (6; others) So this is half as effective as Impervious to Fire, but it affects two people... Get Impervious and cast it twice.
Create Wood (10-20) If you can answer yes to the following questions then this spell is vital: Do you have the carpentry skill, do you have the whittling/sculpting skill and do you have the Ironwood spell? If you answered yes to these questions then this spell is for you! otherwise its really circumstantial.
Light Target (6) Its really nice to be able to highlight a person and prevent them from effectively prowling but the range is so terrible that its hard to give this higher ranks.
Orb of Cold (6) Normally I say as a mage you should be reshaping the battlefield and buffing your allies and debuffing your enemies but Orb of Cold is really the first really solid combat spell. Not only do you do damage but your target has to make a save versus magic or lose an attack and some combat effectiveness for minutes. People are on me because I ignore spells that do damage, but its because I am all about the spells that do damage and make your enemy helpless. This spell is a wizards first damage spell and a old friend he can return to even after it becomes obsolete.
Telekinesis (8) Being able to manipulate things you can see but not reach is always going to be one of the tools you are going to want in your toolbox. My advice? While invisible turn on safeties, pull grenade pins and activate fusion blocks.
Wave of Frost (6) So this spell lets you kill flowers by causing frost to form on them... thats it. I have to go apologise to shatter now, I have now found the worst spell ever.
Level Four
Blind (6) Make no mistake, blinding someone is a devastating effect but the range is incredibly short and they get a save.
Carpet of Adhesion (10) Great, you've stuck someone to the ground... You know they can still cast, shoot and dodge without penalty right?
Charismatic Aura (10) Also Known as Aura of Magnificent BS, this spell allows you to talk your way into nearly everything with incredible ease. Great for role players and characters with a performer's bent.
Cure Minor Disorders (10) Magical Aspirin... only this costs 30,000 credits.
Electric Arc (8) For 8 PPE you can have the equivalent of a laser pistol with broken sights for one round -1 action. Complete waste of time.
Energy Field (10) Either cover yourself so you can cast in peace or give a buddy something to duck behind.
Fire Bolt (7) Just get a TW gun, seriously.
Fist of Fury (10 or 50) So you can punch someone like you had supernatural strength? Waste of time.
Fool's Gold (10) Kanye's instant bling is just not that valuable a spell, the best use I can think of for it is to make armor and vehicles look gold for formal occasions, not scamming people.
Ley Line Transmission (30) OK, 30,000 credits for a magical pair of cans connected by a string.
Magic Net (7) Superior in nearly every way to carpet of adhesion, trapped targets are helpless until they cut free. However, the save is a dodge and some creatures are very good at dodging.
Multiple Image (7) A good set of cheap bonuses, but not good enough in terms of action economy.
Repel Animals (7) Great, you spent 30,000 credits to repel sdc animals, that are 30 feet away from you.
Shadow Meld (10) The key here is that See the invisible has no effect, so if you can prowl this means you can prowl much better and its much harder to spot you. Still, watch out for thermal equipped foes or mask your temperature.
Swim as a Fish (6) Show of hands, how many of you have ever had to swim in game? The only saving grace of this spell is that the speed you swim at is inhuman.
Trance (10) Nice for turning people into slow obedient zombies, however the fact that full environmental armor protects fully against the effects of the spell makes it much less effective. Great way to shut down an enemy caster though.
Astral Projection (10) OK, while the scouting abilities this spell gives you are top notch I will warn that it can be really really boring for the rest of the table who has to sit around while the wizard goes on a solo adventure. My advice is write down where you are going and then give your written adventure to your GM.
Chromatic Protection (10) Basically a flash bang that goes off in the event that someone assaults you really close by. The two issues are the range is a ten foot radius and the duration is really really short for a protection against sudden assault spell.
Deflect (10) This spell is great if your PP is up to snuff, probably not a good idea for a primary defense but totally worth it if your agility is high enough.
Fireblast (8) So a line of flame that does a set amount of damage, not bad especially if you are in a cave or other confined space but really not speaking to me either.
Reflection (7) This spell is only valuable in a carnival house of mirrors or a glitter boy warehouse, everywhere else it is pointless.
Ricochet Strike (12) It takes a very specific build to exploit this spell in any meaningful way, basically you can spend an action to enchant a thrown or launched primitive weapon to bounce off of one opponent and hit another two, but there is so much preparation needed to make this a viable strategy that it is often not worth it. Though I should point out that it works fine with the Orb of Cold spell.
Seal (7) Being able to lock a door so others cannot open it can actually be pretty useful, like if you don't want a CS soldier to get into his robot vehicle and smash you into a bloody pulp.
Watchguard (ten) While having a magical set of eyes guarding your camp is useful, the fact that there is a save and that this spell does nothing from stopping your enemies from setting up a gun nest thousands of feet away and blasting you into oblivion means this spell has issues.
Weight of Duty (10) While the penalties are nice there are lesser spells that do the same thing (like Befuddle) that do not need the narrow set of conditions to affect a target.
Level Five
Armor Bizarre (15) Not only is it a good Force Field but it has a steadily growing horror factor that opponents have to save against every round! The fact that the horror factor only effects people who are fighting you is good for your party because it means they don't lose actions being squicked out by your Worm Wraith cosplay.
Calling (8) 40,000 credits to send a one way messages.
Charm (12) Remember Trance? This does not slow your new ally and armor does not protect them.
Circle of Flame (10) OK, so you make a circle of sdc flame... So does a can of gas and a lighter.
Distant Voice (10) Finally a communication spell that is not a complete waste of your time, still why are you not just using a radio?
Domination (10) So Trance with a shorter range and the same limitations? Great.
Energy Disruption (12) If you've ever wanted to stop someone's electric tooth brush this is your spell, but in this hectic MDC world this spell does nothing.
Escape(8) It sounds useless until you realize that the the spell performs the escape artist and lockpicking skills.
Eyes of Thoth (8) Its allways handy to be able to read, and this grants all languages
Featherlight (10) It seems useless until you pair it with any teleport spell which are all based in part on weight.
Fly (15) So you can make an object fly, not as useful as just flying but it can give you decent mobility and make your silver surfer cosplay.
Heal Wounds (10) Same issue as light healing.
House of Glass (12) Decent way to make enemies hurt themselves by hurting you, the important part is that spells that penalize you also effect the people that cast them on you in addition to damage. Just be sure you can take the harm.
Lifeblast (15) More important as a skill buff than a attack, the half hour skill boost is deceptively useful.
Sleep (10) This does not make a enemy sleep, this creates a sleep potion, have you ever
Superhuman Endurance (12) So you can make a person not get tired for two hours... Why is this a fifth level spell?
Superhuman Strength (10) If you have a Melee focused character or ally with the right weapon or just need to be strong then this can be plenty useful. Its also worth noting that this spell grants the subject a 24 Physical Endurance, which is good for a +4 to save versus magic.
Superhuman Speed (10) Forget the modest foot speed, +6 to dodge is a sweet bonus but circumstantial.
Aura of Death (12) This is your companion spell to Invisibility: simple.
Death Curse (Special) Some spells are game breaking, this spell is Meta-Plot breaking. Basically if you are going to die you can curse the guy who you blame for your death with a nearly impossible to remove curse. Not practical for you and considering all the Mages the CS has murdered over the years I cannot fathom how Karl Prosek is not living under the weight of this chastisement.
Horrific Illusion (10) OK the range is short but the area of effect is everyone who can see the illusion, because of that this spell is very useful except that you can easily freak out your allies as well.
Horror (10) Better in nearly every way to Horrific illusion, make a any object extra spoooky with magic, fun at parties.
Implosion Neutralizer (12) Basically a 12 PPE parry of a man portable explosive, very conditional.
Influence the Beast (12) Basically this allows you to have limited control of beasts. Most MDC critters seem to be immune but dinosaurs seem to be vulnerable.
Instill Knowledge (15) Not broadly useful because other classes tend to have more skills but occasionally you need someone to know how to do something you know how to do.
Mend the Broken (10+) Very PPE thirsty but this spell is very useful for after battle armor mending, if you can sit on a ley line and draw PPE from allies and reusable batteries then you can save your party a lot of time and money.
Mental Blast (15) Hurt someone inside their armor, give them cumulative penalties on top of direct to hit point damage and the save is psionic based! Forget Call Lightning, this is where its at!
Sustain (12) Go without food, water and most of your need for sleep with no nasty side effects! Aint nothing wrong with that.
Level Six
Call Lightning (15) Just get a gun.
Compulsion (20) Great way to get someone to do something for you for nothing, just make sure the compulsion is for something difficult to acquire in 24 hours, if you make someone addicted to a canteen of water then they will just hit the faucet instead of being your slave for a day.
Cure Illness (15) OK, you can cure colds or the flu but nothing a person would actually go to the doctor for.
Fire Ball (10) Just get a gun.
Impervious to Energy (20) Also known as "emasculate dead boys". A vitally important spell with a decent duration.
Magic Pigeon (20) Great way to send a covert message or harrass people, remember while the range is effectively phenomenal the length of the message is very short.
Mask of Deceit (15) The fact that every single person who sees the person gets a save versus magic (albeit at a severe penalty) dampens this spell but it still
Reduce Self (20) There are dozens of scenarios where being small is to your advantage, you are easier to hide, many spells have just as much effect no matter your size and spells that allow you to fly have you moving at the same speed. Great for sneaking.
Sheltering Force (20) Long lasting and lowers damage you take slightly, all together useful but not vital.
Teleport: Lesser (15) Great with featherlight, even if your GM bans the whole teleport grenades into vehicles or chi town thing. This spell with a Crystal ball and a passing knowledge of demolitions is game breaking.
Tongues (12) Being able to speak with people is pretty vital, but a cheap language translator usually does the same thing for less.
Words of Truth (15) Great for interrogating people, Keep it handy.
Barrage (15) Minor damage and severe penalties! two great flavors that go together.
Create Water (15) While there is nothing wrong with this spell, it is about 12 ppe and 4 levels too expensive.
Crushing Fist (12) It is the extremely rare wizard that does not have something better to do than run arounf punching people. Not the worst spell but you have much better things to be doing.
Energize Spell (12) Because this spell only affects level 6 or lower spells it is conditional in its use but it still can be a bargain.
Fire Blossom (20) For 20 PPE you can make a portable sdc campfire starter, impressive to look at but not all that practical.
Fortify Against Disease (15) While in this age of full environmental armor this spell has distinctly less practicality but still its duration allows it to be cast hours before entering a hot zone which makes it a useful buff.
Frequency Jamming (15) being able to shut down communications or cameras is pretty damn useful but the fact that almost everyone has a radio these days means this spell can be far too little too late.
Ice (15) Create a wall or make an area slippery or freeze water, very versatile spell.
Illusion Booster (15) Illusions tend to be good, and doubling their duration for 15 PPE is really nice.
Illusiory wall (15) one of the few Illusions not at all worth your time, basically makes a weak wall look strong or creates a fake wall that you can just walk through.
Memory Bank (12) I have yet to come up with a single practical reason you would cast this spell.
Power Bolt (20) Two actions and 20 PPE to do 5d6 M.D. +2 per level? I know you are tired of hearing this but just. get. a. gun.
Targeted Deflection (15) Because the duration is in rounds rather than in actions it is more useful than deflection and if you have the PP and the protection magic you can turn an enemies best weapons on themselves, one of my top 5 Talisman spells.
Time Slip (20) You know how people are often frustrated about the short range of magic? Use this spell to buff yourself and your allies and close the distance between yourself and your opponents. One of my top 3 Talisman spells.
Level Seven
Agony (20) Two actions and 20 PPE shuts someone down for four rounds and penalizes them afterwards. Way better than throwing a fireball.
Animate/Control Dead (20) So you can animate a corpse that basically cannot do anything but swing a sword with no skills backing it up. Not that appealing.
Ballistic Fire (25) A method of doing very small amounts of damage very accurately, Get a gun. Good for taking down missiles though, and the range and the fact that it takes a single action to cast is nice.
Constrain Being (20) Great way to stop a minor creature if your game has a lot of them, but Agony does the same thing and it affects anything that can feel pain.
Dispel Magic Barriers (20) Circumstantial but useful if you face mages a lot.
Fly as the Eagle (25) Good Mobility spell with some nice bonuses to add to the overall package.
Globe of Silence (20) If you get a caster stuck in place this spell is the second step as it renders spell casting nearly impossible, but a mobile or techno wizard equipped opponent is likely not bothered by this spell.
Heal Self (20) The fact that this heals MDC damage is this spells saving grace.
Invisibility: Superior (20) Invisibility is always useful and you can buff your allies and strike opponents with non attack debuffs like befuddlement and affecting non combat spells.
Life Drain (25) Absolutely fantastic combat spell, it hurts people in their armor and penalizes them and after 3rd level it hurts multiple targets.
Lightblade (20) Damage is good and you can parry energy attacks which is nice but frankly without a decent bonus to parry you are unlikely to succeed and doing damage is for the little people.
Metamorphosis: Animal (25) Great way to appear unremarkable for spying or travel, I personally think getting a strong sense of smell is a highly underrated power.
Purification (Food/Water) (20) Just make your own food.
Wind Rush (20) Knocking down rows of opponents is actually really useful if you are playing with a group, and a guy laying on his face or back is a much better target for Carpet of adhesion than a standing person any day of the week.
Fire gout (20) The multiple targets is nice but it takes too long to cast and the range is too short for this to be a worthy addition to your magical library.
Invulnerability (25) While the duration is painfully short you still get to be awesome with this spell, definitely one of my top Talisman spells.
Ley Line Fade (20) Good way to protect yourself while you lick your wounds and charge up, still the requirement that you need a Ley line is burdensome.
Mental Shock (30) Fantastic non lethal take down spell that allows you to greatly hinder fully armored and power armored people.
Negate Mechanics (20) The primary appeal of this spell is you can use it to make a high tech enemy impotent while under the aegis of an improved invisibility the problem is it only lasts a round.
Second Sight (20) On one hand the range is fantastic, allowing you to know what a target is seeing and can be very helpful in tracking a quarry or knowing where a friend is. On the other it only lasts 2 rounds.
See Wards (20) The usefulness of this spell is entirely dependent on how many wards using wizards you encounter.
Sonic Blast (25) like so many of the radius of harm spells, its usefulness depends on how close your opponents are. Generally speaking if you are surrounded by melee close opponents you are pretty boned anyway but better to have it and not need it...
Spinning Blades (20) The awesome of this spell is the fact that it gives you a free energy weapon parry, its locked at a +2 against energy blasts but still there is no mention of a penalty to parry energy blasts so that could be really good.
Sub Particle Acceleration (20) If you want to be the heavy weapons guy, just be the heavy weapons guy. He does not spend two actions to merely do 1d6x10+whatever damage, he just pulls a trigger. And no I am not impressed by the fact that you can charge e-clips with this spell.
Level Eight
Commune with Spirits (25) Useful for searching ruins and discovering the whys behind haunting.
Exorcism (30) Being Possessed sucks, so its nice to kick out a possessing entity.
Expel Demons (35) Specialized but still incredibly useful when fighting demons.
Eyes of the Wolf (25) Would be Blue if it was not for the unnecessary percentage values, and why is it not nose of the wolf?
Forcebonds (25) Pretty much the only way to tie up a supernaturally strong person.
Greater Healing (30) Useful as it heals MDC damage.
Ley Line Tendril Bolts (26) A weak blast spell that only works at certain geographic locations! Where do I not sign up?
Lightning Arc (30) Its like having a pistol! Or, you could you know, get a pistol.
Locate (30) Situational but useful if you need to find a person.
Luck Curse (40) Ruin someone's ability to do anything for 24 hours, fantastic.
Magical-Adrenal Rush (45) Friggin fantastic even with the weariness, often its better to cast this on a more martially bent colleague than on yourself.
Metamorphosis: Human (40) Need to impersonate someone? Pretty much the best choice.
Negate Magic (30) Being able to shut down magic is pretty much one of your jobs, get this as soon as possible.
Power Weapons (35) Good for techno wizards, everyone else is probably better served doing other things for more damage.
Shockwave (45) The radius and knockdown penalties are great but it really has a lot of potential for friendly fire.
Sickness (50) The main appeal of this spell over others is the extreme duration.
Spoil (Water/Food) (30) You can spoil food, whoopdi freaking doo.
Wisps of Confusion (40) Like Befuddle but it effects 2d4 people, duration is pretty awesome.
Fire Globe (40) Between this spell and Orb of Cold every combat leaning mage should consider taking the targeting skill, even better if you GM lets you make booby traps that use these globes.
Hallucination (30) Being able to control everything a person sees is invaluable also can be cast by an invisible caster, so there is that.
Invincible Armor (30) The best of the armor spells, though Armor Bizarre still has its uses after you learn this.
Ley Line Time Capsule (15-30) Very neat way to stash perishables but not very practical for most things.
Lifeward (40) Basically the G.I.Joe rule given plausible life, On of those spells your entire party should pony up for you to learn.
Minor Curse (35) Nasty way to put penalties on a person for a few days, also you can hurt a person's ability to make saving throws with the headache curse which is great for your mind control spells.
Oracle (30) Nice way to get loads of vague information on something that does not make sense until you have experienced it.
Sorcerous Fury (70) Mages are strongest when they have their heads on straight and are making calculated moves on the battlefield, going on a beserker rage just lowers you to the level of the BDFs.
Stone to Flesh (30) OK, so being turned to stone sucks, but really does it come up that often?
Wall of Wind (40) pretty damn good for throwing massive amounts of enemies off their game or leveling buildings, not much good for anything else.
Winged Flight (35) Since the speed of your flight depends entirely on your strength this spell could either be good or it could be a waste of your PPE. It is noted that Fly as the eagle gives you combat bonuses and winged flight does not.
World Bizarre (40) Also known as Eyes of Hunter S. Thompson, honestly lower level spells do similar things much cheaper but it is hard for most people to make the dc 17 horror factor roll.
Level Nine
Desiccate the Supernatural (50) Not really worth the two actions and copious PPE it costs to cast that could be used making an opponent helpless.
Dragon Fire (40) Once again, just get a gun. Its cheaper and takes less time.
Familiar Link (55) Could be really useful depending on the enemy, but it does open you up to huge penalties. I recommend whisker coyotes and Psi-biotes.
Mute (50) globe of silence has no save, has better range and affects multiple people.
Protection Circle: Simple (45) Especially useful when you consider how large the circle can be.
Speed of the Snail (50) Befuddle is better but this affects vehicles and robots, so its pretty nice.
Wall of Defense (55) Pretty great battlefield control/defense spell, you can hide a lot behind this wall.
Water to Wine (40) Congratulations, you spent 180,000 credits to make box wine, what are you going to do for a chaser? Spend 200,000 credits on a gender studies degree in a recession?
Aura of Doom (40) On one hand, the penalties inflicted by this spell are amazing, however Befuddle does basically the same thing and it takes half the time and one 6th the ppe to cast. However the two effects should stack which is nice.
Beat Insurmountable Odds (70) Please note, this is not a combat buff! It allows you or a ally to do something amazing once, but it is terrible for combat use. Hack a vital computer, sure, disarm a bomb, great. Very Conditional.
Create Steel (68) If you have the building skills to back it up this spell can be lots of fun and very useful, great for making bunkers, buildings and primitive gear but less so for high quality portable stuff. If you like Minecraft than this is a great spell for you.
Curse Phobia (40) Phobias can actually be pretty devastating, even if the range is very close and the target gets a saving throw.
D-Step (50) for most of the applications of this spell, Time slip or ley line fade in my opinion are the better choices but as a take a moment catch your breath spell, this is still nice.
Illusion Manipulation (25-60) This spell is for dedicated illusionists and only dedicated illusionists, basically its Photoshop for illusions.
Ley Line Phantom (40) basically become a ley line ghost for a short period of time, you can cast spells and use psionics and generally not be hurt. One of the many reasons the CS avoids Ley lines.
Ley Line Time Flux (80) Basically you can do minor things to alter people's perception of time when you are at a ley line. Not super useful.
Metamorphosis: Insect (60) A bug can go a lot of places you cannot and the prowl ability is frigging fantastic, great for covert missions and getting close to people you want to curse or mind control.
Phantom Mount (45) Not going to argue that having a MDC horse is not useful, but lower level spells allow you to fly for twice as long., so why the horse?
Purge Self (70) Friggin fantastic way to remove all sorts of life ruining implants and influences.
Realm of Chaos (70) really one of the better everyone in my immediate vicinity is screwed spells, still screws your allies but it keeps people busy while you gallivant around gleefully.
Swords to Snakes (50) This spell would be awesome if it did not have that weird 4 lb restriction. As it is its a pretty good way to disarm light pistols.
Tame Beast (60) Ever wanted a pet T-Rex? It takes some doing but this spell is the engine that makes it happen, make the dumb animal of your choice your buddy.
Transferal (50) If you need to appear for all intents an purposes as not magical this is pretty much the only way.
Level Ten
Banishment (65) Good for getting very specific nasties out of town.
Control/Enslave Entity (80) Great when they work for you, terrible when they stop working for you.
Deathword (70) Great way to kill someone in a lot of armor when you have snuck up behind them while invisible.
Giant (80) Casting this spell on an especially fancy armored opponent or a naked strong ally is pretty much the only way to go.
Metamorphosis: Superior (100) Useful in the exact same way Metamorphosis Animal is, not being able to turn into a functional dragon or critter is a definite negative.
Meteor (75) Normally I would say don't even touch the pure direct damage spells but the 40 ft radius officially makes this spell worth your time.
Mystic Portal (60) A short range teleport and trouble bypass spell that cannot kill you. Useful in so many ways.
Plane Skip (65) Planar Lottery, good for getting out of here as fast as possible, but expect four or five castings to get where you want to be.
Speed Weapon (100) Are you a techno wizard? Got a buddy with a psi-sword? Then this spell is good for you, otherwise move on down the road.
Summon/Control Rodents (70) Good for when the Gotham PD is closing in on you, not that great for anything else.
Summon Shadow Beast (140) Magic intelligent disposable minions are always useful.
Super-Healing (70) Basically all you can do is heal mega damage, which is seldom an issue.
Armor Bane (100) for 100 PPE you can mildly erode mundane armor, whoopdy freaking doo.
Enemy Mind (100) Basically trick a guy to fight with you for a couple of minutes, its hard for my to justify most of your average characters ppe and two actions to maybe turn one guy against you.
Havoc (70) Great when paired with Carpet of Adhesion, but when the opponent can move it is considerably less useful. The penalties are also nice.
Illusionary Forest (45-90) Great way to create a battlefield that is in your favor, as the forest will slow an unsuspecting opponent and make it easier for you to sneak around, just make sure your allies are ready for a forest battle.
Ley Line Ghost (80-240) extremely conditional.
Magic Warrior (60) This spell would be so much better if it lasted longer and/or it was specified to have weapon proficiencies, still Summon Mook is not a complete loss as a spell, just not as useful as a real person.
Purge Other (100) Incredibly useful spell because of its ability to cleanse mind control.
Reality Flux (75) Really not that useful compared to swords to snakes or power weapon.
Summon Greater Familiar (80) OK so this is how evil casters get that little imp that keeps giving him bad advice.
Wall of Not (70) For 70 PPE you can make a wall invisible! I have no idea why you would do that!
Wards (90) Protect your stuff with magic! Not a bad spell, a bit conditional but still useful! I'm not going to entertain silliness like warding bullets or weapons for extra damage, I'm just going to point out that keeping your stuff out of other peoples hands is often nice.
Warped Space (90) Basically the rod of wonder from DnD affecting an area, can be devastating or merely annoying.
Level Eleven
Anti-Magic Cloud (140) Great way to shut down enemy supernaturals so your tech enemies can vaporize them.
Create Mummy (160) Skip this, wait for Create Zombie.
Firequake (160) Great for screwing up the day of hundreds of enemies.
Remove Curse (140) Really vital in a game with spells like Luck Curse.
Re-Open Gateway (180) Too Circumstantial to be on anyone's must have list.
Rift Teleportation (200) A really great teleportation spell that allows you to move pretty much everything from point a to point b.
Astral Hole (120) A lot like D-step only you can come out somewhere else, there are a lot of cheaper spells that can do similar stuff cheaper.
Bottomless Pit (100) basically takes someone out of reality for 2 minutes a level while you doe whatever it was you came to do before depositing them unharmed where they where.
Create Magic Scroll (100+) Basically you can allow any literate person to cast a spell you scribe by reading it from a scroll. It should be noted that spell casters can learn spells from scrolls some of the time which can get you in trouble with your guild but still its nice to let your allies cast or have spells with PPE spent up front. A top notch spell.
Curse of the World Bizarre (100) Basically ruin one person's perception for a very long time and probably drive him utterly mad. Devastating.
Energy Sphere (120) once you learn this spell you can gather the PPE to cast any spell no matter how expensive.
Id Alter Ego (130) Need to know something a person knows? Copy him and interrogate his copy.
Illusiory Terrain (55-120) Illusiory forest only better in every possible way.
Ley Line Storm Defense (180) Protects against Ley Line Storms, in case you have to be under one.
Mindshatter (130) If you make the save you are helpless for 12 hours, if you fail it you could be out for weeks. A terrifying one hit kill spell.
Rift to Limbo (160) D-Step for groups.
See in Magic Darkness (125) If you set up a scenario where all is darkness and only you can see in all pervasive darkness this is nice, but otherwise this is expensive fluff.
Summon and Control Animals (125) To me the use of this spell is to get PPE fast when it otherwise is not available but you can find your own use for a suddenly forming herd of buffalo or what have you.
Summon Fog (140) The shear scope of the area this spell covers allows a well prepared group to sneak in, force melee combat or otherwise cover up covert action in a very large area. Nice!
Level Twelve
Amulet (290+) Also known as "Print Money", the ability to protect people with a permanent little token is invaluable and a great source of income.
Calm Storms (200) A magically conjured storm can be pretty devastating but is so rare that its not that useful.
Create Zombie (250) If you don't mind working with corpses then you can get a buddy to do your bidding with almost no consequences. Just keep it in sealed full environmental armor.
Ensorcel (400) If you absolutely positively need someone to be your ***** then this is your spell, but it is expensive and it does not last very long for the level.
Summon & Control Entity (250) Its nice to be able to have a buddy to stuff for you but the buddy is going to get mad at you. Just be ready to toss him back to his reality before you cast this spell.
Heavy Air (200) Great way to catch an enemy army with its armor half off, but not really a day to day spell.
Ironwood (50+) Turn SDC wood to MDC wood. Incredibly valuable.
Metamorphosis Mist (250) and expensive albeit effective way to put yourself beyond harm.
Null Sphere (220) Pretty much the final say in defensive magics.
Soultwist (170) Mental Shock does it better, cheaper.
Summon and Control Rain (200) I had to create a magic evil tree that counters rain to justify Vampires being an empire knowing this spell exists. Also good for fighting droughts.
Summon Ley Line Storm (500) Basically this could be bad if your quarry follows you, a spellcaster under a ley line. So not often.
Swallowing Rift (300) Requires a Nexus Point so not that practical.
Time Hole (210) You no longer need downtime to learn spells, and can most likely spend your time assembling techno wizard doo dads on your own time as well.
Wall of Weird (180) A wall that grapples, kinda useful but only if you have opponents who get up close to the weird wall.
Level Thirteen
Protection Circle: Superior (300) Great spell, you could surround an entire city with one of these, for reals.
Sanctum (390) While magical scrying tends to be expensive and rare but the fact that it wards against the undead and has a duration of Life of the caster really makes this spell pretty nice.
Collapse (70+) Crush a building unless its a super big strong building and then don't collapse it. Not all that useful.
Create Golem (700-1000) Make a servant who is strong as crap without compromising your morals but at great cost. I don't see this is as being that useful in rifts games where you have access to 13th level spells.
Restore Life (275) Resurrect that does not fail but costs the raised person some of his health, not bad all together.
Shadow Wall (400) As a wall its a fine enemy hindering wall good for screwing with enemies, but with the help of see in magic darkness and shadow beasts it can be an absolute nightmare. Planning is everything.
Summon and Control Storm (300) This spells ability to shut down a municipality and ground air travel makes it noteworthy, as a means of covering your movement and delaying official response times its one of the best.
Summon Lesser Being (425) the beings you summon with this spell can typically get revenge, just keep that in mind.
Swap Places (300) The real cherry on top is the lack of a saving throw, so you can disguise yourself as someone, swap with them while they are indisposed and pull of a fairly perfect kidnapping.
Talisman (500) Gives the power of spell casting to anyone, literally one of the most useful if not the most useful spells in the game.
Level Fourteen
Close Rift (200+) Open rifts are often bad but the cost is often too damn high.
Restoration (750) A spell that actually restores lost limbs, vital in this world of mega damage lasers and penalizing cybernetic implants.
Resurrection (650) People die, often they would like to be not dead.
Annihilate (600) Direct damage is crap. Even damage this direct.
ID Barrier (600) honestly for 600 ppe I expect more than an active wall of fear.
Impenetrable Wall of Force (600) Now that's what I'm talking about! for the same price as an annihilate spell you can laugh at 1000 annihilate spells.
Rift Triangular Defense system (840) Basically at two or three locations on earth you can erect a really good force field.
Summon and Control Sea Serpents (300) Good only if you happen to be in a place where sea serpents will be in any way helpful.
Level Fifteen
Dimensional Portal (1000) When you and a small army really need to get to wormwod, or phase world or whatever.
Teleport: Superior (600) My main issue with this spell is the chance of instant death even if you know exactly where you are going. Stick to Ley Line teleportation which it basically superior in every way.
Circle of travel (600) Fantastic way to return to your favorite places in rifts earth. Just an incredibly useful spell for anyone who likes to travel.
Dimensional Teleport (800) OK, because this spell has a 6%/level chance of actually working prepare for wacky Sliders style action as you try to get back home, but if you know of some good dimensions to try out by all means.
Enchant Weapon Minor (400-1000) this spell should be like 4 levels lower, it just does not do enough to be the pinnacle of casty magic. Still, if you need to equip a lot of people cheap and you know this extremely expensive spell, then go to it.
Ley Line Restoration (800) It slices, it dices, it removes the curse that turned you into a eggplant! The end all of Cure spells and the way you collect favors from Tolkeen veterans.
Ley Line Shutdown (3000) a great way to level the playing field with enemy casters, but not that useful for anyone else but useless 99% of the time.
Summon Ally (600) As far as I am concerned this spell is about creating one off adventures where the player characters are summoned by the spell to do something for a poor put upon NPC with vast magical talents. It at least has the charm of summoning someone who is not automatically angry with the caster.
Transformation (2000) An old school evil wizard turns a hostage into a mighty slave spell, and I have to respect that, but this is a plot device not a real player spell.
Void (700) Basically bottomless pit for people who do not fall, very effective at taking an enemy out of combat for a long time while you build a strategy for its return.
Combat Magic Spells:
The Important thing to remember is combat magic is regular spell magic that any normal caster can learn, but don't because its not cool kids magic. No seriously, thats the reason why. So your Ley line Walker can learn these spells but the cool wizards might make fun of them if they do.
Spoiler:
Level 1
Bullet Proof (1) Is an armor spell that provides SDC armor, for most games that is simply suicidal but in some rare cases it might actually be helpful.
Farseeing (3) The reason why I am not saying just get Binoculars is because this boosts the range of visual spells like see the invisible and see aura as well, and that justifies this spell.
Flareburst (2) Light a large area with a parachute flare spell. Not always useful but better than Lantern Light.
Nightvision (4) On one hand you can see in the dark, on the other you are even more vulnerable to light based weapons. You can do the same thing with a very cheap set of goggles.
Stumble (3) A first level spell that steals two actions and initiative from its victims? Sold.
Level 2
Infrared Vision (5) This spell can be really useful, especially with Farseeing and a high powered rifle, but it is fairly easy for mundanes to block it.
Jolt Wand (1-5) A direct damage spell that requires a material component and does almost no damage. No thank you.
Mystic Direction Sense (6) Useful as a oh crap we lost every other means of knowing where we are but not generally useful. At least you get what amounts to a free skill when you cast it.
Mystic Marksmanship (5) For Five PPE you can have what amounts to the sniper skill for one action, or give that to an ally. All things considered, not a terrible deal.
Slam (5) While the damage is SDC Knockdown is actually pretty powerful, useful for non lethal take downs.
TK Bullet Attack (3-6) TK bullets have the perk of being silent making them pretty ideal for sniping. Not the worst use of 6 PPE I can imagine.
Wakefulness (5) Caffeine in magic form, with all the penalties of Caffeine in real form.
Level 3
Flamethrower (2-6) Considering what is already available this spell is terrible.
Haymaker Strike (4) Woo, one level after you get the ability to shoot force bolts that do mega damage you get the ability to do extra sdc damage with a punch. Mages punching things is almost always a bad idea, its even worse when its only sdc.
Laser Blast (5) I would not cast this spell with Killer Cyborg's wand.
Mystic Pitching Throw (6) The truth is Techno Wizard (and mundane) grenades are actually super cool, so this spell is conditionally awesome so long as you took the time to make a mage good at throwing things. A great example of a spell that can be really useful with some pre-planning.
Level 4
Eavesdrop (10) Basically a magic parabolic mic, not sure how that qualifies as "Combat Magic".
Force Bolt (8) Terrible, just terrible. Awful to the point I have to assume this spell was miss printed and will be corrected in an errata.
Quickaction (8) OK so your next initiative, parry or dodge gets a +10.
Quickstrike (10) Your next physical attack is +7 or ranged attack is +3.
Stun baton (7) Basically turns a blunt weapon into a magic Neural Mace for a round, if you are geared towards using a blunt weapon you can hit your opponents with stacking penalties, but otherwise this is not that useful.
Stealthwalk (10) A buff to Prowl, thats it. It allows you to prowl really poorly if you do not have the skill but mainly its a decently long lasting prowl buff.
Starburst (12) A damaging spell that also blinds. Effective.
Level 5
Chocking Blast & Dust Cloud (15) A good solid area effect debuff that affects even those in full environmental armor in an admittedly lessened state.
Erase Trail (16) Exactly what it sounds like, it magically confounds tracking attempts, however as it is a spell psi-stalkers and dog boys can still track it, so not as cool as it could be.
Mega-Damag Haymaker (10) A spell that allows one mega damage strike. One.
Mystic Water Blast (10) Just get a gun with silver bullets.
Sense Traps & Mines (12) Useful and 94% accurate, I'll buy that for a dollar.
Superhuman Agility (15) Just be warned that Unless you already have a high PP autododge will not mean crap against a guy with a gun and is in no way a replacement for armor.
Level 6
Full Throttle (20) For a few fleeting rounds you can push a vehicles speed up 40%.
Freefall (18) Base Jumping without a parachute.
Invisibility to sensors (20) casting this after Invisibility lesser means nobody is going to spot you with thermals.
Magelock (20) basically locks something you want locked for days, useful.
Stunblast (16) A higher level Befuddle that is partially negated by body armor.
Syphon PPE from Object (16) The cool of this spell is you can drain the power out of your enemies techno wizard spells and talismans, the downside is the range is really really short.
Thundermaul (16) Basically a lesser version of Light blade or Frost blade, much lesser.
Level 7
Blast Shield (17) If there was a note in the spell that allowed it to be cast as a single action I would approve, as it is its just a conditional mess.
Fighting Spirit (20) and while most of these spells have been disappointing this is straight up one of the best buffs in the game. Sure Magic Adrenal rush does a little more but this does not leave you exhausted.
Mystic Invisibility (25) Also known as Invisibility to dog boys, or how to sneak into a Coalition base.
Spy Eye (25) Great for scouting ahead in ruins or indoor environments. Really good spell.
Level 8
Electromagnetic Attack (30) Finally a spell that allows you to cheap shot a robot vehicle, awesome stuff. The ability to shoot a ferrous object many times the speed of sound is also quite nice.
Engine Flame Out (35) So basically level 8 combat magic is about screwing over vehicles , This allows you to shut off one's engine without a saving throw. Sure the engine can be started again but that costs actions and momentum.
Shockblade (30) for one round a melee weapon does extra lightning damage, you really have to build for this but it can be effective if you enchant a really really awesome melee combatant's weapon.
Vampire Dance (22) If you are going up against vampires then this spell is worth it for the Saving throw bonuses, but otherwise this spell in not going to help you.
Bullet Proof (1) Is an armor spell that provides SDC armor, for most games that is simply suicidal but in some rare cases it might actually be helpful.
Farseeing (3) The reason why I am not saying just get Binoculars is because this boosts the range of visual spells like see the invisible and see aura as well, and that justifies this spell.
Flareburst (2) Light a large area with a parachute flare spell. Not always useful but better than Lantern Light.
Nightvision (4) On one hand you can see in the dark, on the other you are even more vulnerable to light based weapons. You can do the same thing with a very cheap set of goggles.
Stumble (3) A first level spell that steals two actions and initiative from its victims? Sold.
Level 2
Infrared Vision (5) This spell can be really useful, especially with Farseeing and a high powered rifle, but it is fairly easy for mundanes to block it.
Jolt Wand (1-5) A direct damage spell that requires a material component and does almost no damage. No thank you.
Mystic Direction Sense (6) Useful as a oh crap we lost every other means of knowing where we are but not generally useful. At least you get what amounts to a free skill when you cast it.
Mystic Marksmanship (5) For Five PPE you can have what amounts to the sniper skill for one action, or give that to an ally. All things considered, not a terrible deal.
Slam (5) While the damage is SDC Knockdown is actually pretty powerful, useful for non lethal take downs.
TK Bullet Attack (3-6) TK bullets have the perk of being silent making them pretty ideal for sniping. Not the worst use of 6 PPE I can imagine.
Wakefulness (5) Caffeine in magic form, with all the penalties of Caffeine in real form.
Level 3
Flamethrower (2-6) Considering what is already available this spell is terrible.
Haymaker Strike (4) Woo, one level after you get the ability to shoot force bolts that do mega damage you get the ability to do extra sdc damage with a punch. Mages punching things is almost always a bad idea, its even worse when its only sdc.
Laser Blast (5) I would not cast this spell with Killer Cyborg's wand.
Mystic Pitching Throw (6) The truth is Techno Wizard (and mundane) grenades are actually super cool, so this spell is conditionally awesome so long as you took the time to make a mage good at throwing things. A great example of a spell that can be really useful with some pre-planning.
Level 4
Eavesdrop (10) Basically a magic parabolic mic, not sure how that qualifies as "Combat Magic".
Force Bolt (8) Terrible, just terrible. Awful to the point I have to assume this spell was miss printed and will be corrected in an errata.
Quickaction (8) OK so your next initiative, parry or dodge gets a +10.
Quickstrike (10) Your next physical attack is +7 or ranged attack is +3.
Stun baton (7) Basically turns a blunt weapon into a magic Neural Mace for a round, if you are geared towards using a blunt weapon you can hit your opponents with stacking penalties, but otherwise this is not that useful.
Stealthwalk (10) A buff to Prowl, thats it. It allows you to prowl really poorly if you do not have the skill but mainly its a decently long lasting prowl buff.
Starburst (12) A damaging spell that also blinds. Effective.
Level 5
Chocking Blast & Dust Cloud (15) A good solid area effect debuff that affects even those in full environmental armor in an admittedly lessened state.
Erase Trail (16) Exactly what it sounds like, it magically confounds tracking attempts, however as it is a spell psi-stalkers and dog boys can still track it, so not as cool as it could be.
Mega-Damag Haymaker (10) A spell that allows one mega damage strike. One.
Mystic Water Blast (10) Just get a gun with silver bullets.
Sense Traps & Mines (12) Useful and 94% accurate, I'll buy that for a dollar.
Superhuman Agility (15) Just be warned that Unless you already have a high PP autododge will not mean crap against a guy with a gun and is in no way a replacement for armor.
Level 6
Full Throttle (20) For a few fleeting rounds you can push a vehicles speed up 40%.
Freefall (18) Base Jumping without a parachute.
Invisibility to sensors (20) casting this after Invisibility lesser means nobody is going to spot you with thermals.
Magelock (20) basically locks something you want locked for days, useful.
Stunblast (16) A higher level Befuddle that is partially negated by body armor.
Syphon PPE from Object (16) The cool of this spell is you can drain the power out of your enemies techno wizard spells and talismans, the downside is the range is really really short.
Thundermaul (16) Basically a lesser version of Light blade or Frost blade, much lesser.
Level 7
Blast Shield (17) If there was a note in the spell that allowed it to be cast as a single action I would approve, as it is its just a conditional mess.
Fighting Spirit (20) and while most of these spells have been disappointing this is straight up one of the best buffs in the game. Sure Magic Adrenal rush does a little more but this does not leave you exhausted.
Mystic Invisibility (25) Also known as Invisibility to dog boys, or how to sneak into a Coalition base.
Spy Eye (25) Great for scouting ahead in ruins or indoor environments. Really good spell.
Level 8
Electromagnetic Attack (30) Finally a spell that allows you to cheap shot a robot vehicle, awesome stuff. The ability to shoot a ferrous object many times the speed of sound is also quite nice.
Engine Flame Out (35) So basically level 8 combat magic is about screwing over vehicles , This allows you to shut off one's engine without a saving throw. Sure the engine can be started again but that costs actions and momentum.
Shockblade (30) for one round a melee weapon does extra lightning damage, you really have to build for this but it can be effective if you enchant a really really awesome melee combatant's weapon.
Vampire Dance (22) If you are going up against vampires then this spell is worth it for the Saving throw bonuses, but otherwise this spell in not going to help you.
Air Warlock Spells:
Air Warlock spells strike me as among the most useful for an adventurer. There are plenty of spells to control a battle field, one of the greatest raise dead spells in the game and more than a few good battle spells.
Spoiler:
Level 1
Breathe Without Air (3) Its nice to be able to not breathe even in gas that would make breathing hard, and the penalties tear gas and mace provide are significant, but there are so many devices that effectively do this.
Cloud of Slumber (4) If you read the text of this spell you will note that there is no requirement that the victims have to breathe the cloud, they just have to be inside it. By a strict reading cloud of slumber effects anyone in its area, even those in full environmental systems.
Cloud of Steam (4) Good for SDC creatures without armor and vampires, still a cloud of smoke for everyone else with the added perk that thermal vision is blocked by it.
Create Light (2) Lantern Light by another name.
Create Mild Wind (4) Wind power is a relatively low tech method of generating power, and the only practical use I can find for this spell.
Stop Wind (5) There are multiple very effective wind spells that can knock down dozens of foes, this spell effectively parries them.
Thunder Clap (2) A wide area affecting horror factor spell that can also be used to signal allies. Nice.
Level 2
Change Wind Direction (6) The best use of this spell is to return hostile wind spells back on their casters.
Cloak of Darkness (4) Effectively a more flexible smoke cloud.
Create Air (6) Basically only useful in the rarest of scenarios where you should already have other options.
Distant Voice (5) Still basically the same as a short range radio.
Electric Arc (4) Basically you get a energy pistol with terrible range and minor damage for one round, just get a gun.
Heavy Breathing (5) Save to avoid incredibly minor penalties.
Howling Wind (7) Horror factor is good, chance of straight up fleeing (into your trap) is even better.
Levitate (7) Still a magic stepladder.
Mesmerism (7) The terrible range destroys what would normally be a very effective debuff.
Miasma (7) Cloud of steam does basically the same thing for less PPE and at lower level.
Northwind (7) Oooooh my spoooky magics have cooled you off and cost you a point of initiative.
Orb of Cold (5) Damage plus save or suck, Great battle spell for most casters.
Silence (10) A prowl enhancing spell, not a casting prevention spell and not that useful.
Level 3
Air Bubble (10) A air bubble with an absolutely minute amount of MDC surrounds you, pretty useless.
Call Lightning (10) Unlike the Invocation this spell can explicitly be cast indoors and the range is ultimately better. Still not worthwhile until at least 4th level.
Darkness (10) Darkness that is not dark for you or your conjured friends, the halving of the high tech visual options would mean more if the area of effect was not so small.
Fingers of the Wind (8) Pretty limited in its scope and conjured pals are usually willing to press buttons and grab items for you.
Float In Air (6) No save for a minor debuff that halves the target's speed. Also prevents falling damage, so there's that.
Frequency Jamming (8) The improved range makes this better than the invocation, but remember that radios are everywhere.
Frostblade (8) Good for your off hand so you can Parry attacks including energy blasts.
Northern Lights (12) Causes everyone who fails their saves to stop and stare for minutes and affects a decent sized area. Really powerful even if the range is crap.
Resist Cold (8) Resist spells are always good.
Sheltering Force (10) Lowers all damage you take and shelters you comfortably, nice.
Walk the Wind (10) Quickly lapped by any other fly spell but still its a cheap mobility spell with a low cost.
Wave of Frost (4) Still terrible.
Wind Rush (10) Knocking people on their asses and blowing gasses away is always a good time.
Level 4
Ball Lightning (15) Good multi purpose damage/battlefield control spell
Calm Storms (20) A magically conjured storm can be pretty devastating but is so rare that its not that useful.
Dissipate Gases (15) How many previous wind spells do the same thing?
Freeze Water (10) This is why your parent's spent 20,000 credits a semester at magic college? so you can be an Ice maker?
Invisibility (20) Invisibility is nearly always useful but this spell says it is like the invocation invisibility, well which one? Palladium's editing staff strikes again.
Leaf Rustler (15) Unlike most summon spells this little guy is implicitly your friend, but he's still not good for much.
Lightblade (12) Does everything Frostblade does better.
Lightning Arc (15) A spell that effectively gives you a gun, at least the range is better than the invocation.
Phantom Footman (20) Like Leaf Rustler only useful.
Protection from Lightning (20) Why is this fourth level when Resist cold is third?
Level 5
Breath of life (60) A fifth level Resurrect spell? Score!
Circle of Rain (25) Outside of vampires and firefighting/farming there is no reason to take this spell.
Darken the Sky (25) This spell is so useless I will not even finish...
Detect the Invisible (10) For everyone else, this is a first level spell.
Invisible Wall (30) Really cheap destructible wall spell.
Phantom (30) Cheap invisible minion. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
Phantom Mount (25) Horseback riding is not where you want to be at the casting 5th level spells part of your career.
Sonic Blast (15) like so many of the radius of harm spells, its usefulness depends on how close your opponents are. Generally speaking if you are surrounded by melee close opponents you are pretty boned anyway but better to have it and not need it...
Whirlwind (30) A damage over time spells that makes a target completely helpless with a damn good range, unfortunately it also leaves you helpless as you maneuver the spell but still very effective.
Level 6
Electrical Field (35) No save, huge area and 50% chance to paralyze on top of mega damage!
Electro-Magntism (40) Fantastic Battlefield control
Mist of Death (40) Below average Damage over time spell that does not affect those that are protected from poison gas.
Snow Storm (50) Causes a damaging blizzard in a decent sized area, only worthwhile if your GM agrees that "Damage" refers to SDC or MDC. And applies penalties to people in a blizzard.
Vacuum (40) Because there is almost no definition of what the vacuum does this spell suffers, decent fire extinguisher though.
Wall of Wind (30) While this wall will do nothing to prevent energy weapons from striking you it cannot be destroyed either, good way to divide a battle field and keep melee monkeys away from you.
Whisper of the Wind (30) While the distance is impressive, the fact that the message is one sided and there is no guarantee that the recipient is even aware of it.
Level 7
Atmospheric Manipulation (50) Summon and control storm with editing tools.
Hurricane (60) The fact that this is a body of water dependent spell is problematic, still its potential for mayhem is not to be underestimated.
Rainbow (60) I'm a Brony and even I think this spell is useless.
Tornado (60) when you need a vast area of damage and mayhem, accept no substitutes.
Level 8
Creature of the Wind (70) A transformation spell that allows you to become a spell casting dynamo for a few rounds that has a lot of great mobility options and damage resistance.
Wind Blast (40) Big damage, plus knockdown, plus no saving throw.
Wind Cushion (50) Solid defensive spell that sadly lets energy weapons in unmolested.
Breathe Without Air (3) Its nice to be able to not breathe even in gas that would make breathing hard, and the penalties tear gas and mace provide are significant, but there are so many devices that effectively do this.
Cloud of Slumber (4) If you read the text of this spell you will note that there is no requirement that the victims have to breathe the cloud, they just have to be inside it. By a strict reading cloud of slumber effects anyone in its area, even those in full environmental systems.
Cloud of Steam (4) Good for SDC creatures without armor and vampires, still a cloud of smoke for everyone else with the added perk that thermal vision is blocked by it.
Create Light (2) Lantern Light by another name.
Create Mild Wind (4) Wind power is a relatively low tech method of generating power, and the only practical use I can find for this spell.
Stop Wind (5) There are multiple very effective wind spells that can knock down dozens of foes, this spell effectively parries them.
Thunder Clap (2) A wide area affecting horror factor spell that can also be used to signal allies. Nice.
Level 2
Change Wind Direction (6) The best use of this spell is to return hostile wind spells back on their casters.
Cloak of Darkness (4) Effectively a more flexible smoke cloud.
Create Air (6) Basically only useful in the rarest of scenarios where you should already have other options.
Distant Voice (5) Still basically the same as a short range radio.
Electric Arc (4) Basically you get a energy pistol with terrible range and minor damage for one round, just get a gun.
Heavy Breathing (5) Save to avoid incredibly minor penalties.
Howling Wind (7) Horror factor is good, chance of straight up fleeing (into your trap) is even better.
Levitate (7) Still a magic stepladder.
Mesmerism (7) The terrible range destroys what would normally be a very effective debuff.
Miasma (7) Cloud of steam does basically the same thing for less PPE and at lower level.
Northwind (7) Oooooh my spoooky magics have cooled you off and cost you a point of initiative.
Orb of Cold (5) Damage plus save or suck, Great battle spell for most casters.
Silence (10) A prowl enhancing spell, not a casting prevention spell and not that useful.
Level 3
Air Bubble (10) A air bubble with an absolutely minute amount of MDC surrounds you, pretty useless.
Call Lightning (10) Unlike the Invocation this spell can explicitly be cast indoors and the range is ultimately better. Still not worthwhile until at least 4th level.
Darkness (10) Darkness that is not dark for you or your conjured friends, the halving of the high tech visual options would mean more if the area of effect was not so small.
Fingers of the Wind (8) Pretty limited in its scope and conjured pals are usually willing to press buttons and grab items for you.
Float In Air (6) No save for a minor debuff that halves the target's speed. Also prevents falling damage, so there's that.
Frequency Jamming (8) The improved range makes this better than the invocation, but remember that radios are everywhere.
Frostblade (8) Good for your off hand so you can Parry attacks including energy blasts.
Northern Lights (12) Causes everyone who fails their saves to stop and stare for minutes and affects a decent sized area. Really powerful even if the range is crap.
Resist Cold (8) Resist spells are always good.
Sheltering Force (10) Lowers all damage you take and shelters you comfortably, nice.
Walk the Wind (10) Quickly lapped by any other fly spell but still its a cheap mobility spell with a low cost.
Wave of Frost (4) Still terrible.
Wind Rush (10) Knocking people on their asses and blowing gasses away is always a good time.
Level 4
Ball Lightning (15) Good multi purpose damage/battlefield control spell
Calm Storms (20) A magically conjured storm can be pretty devastating but is so rare that its not that useful.
Dissipate Gases (15) How many previous wind spells do the same thing?
Freeze Water (10) This is why your parent's spent 20,000 credits a semester at magic college? so you can be an Ice maker?
Invisibility (20) Invisibility is nearly always useful but this spell says it is like the invocation invisibility, well which one? Palladium's editing staff strikes again.
Leaf Rustler (15) Unlike most summon spells this little guy is implicitly your friend, but he's still not good for much.
Lightblade (12) Does everything Frostblade does better.
Lightning Arc (15) A spell that effectively gives you a gun, at least the range is better than the invocation.
Phantom Footman (20) Like Leaf Rustler only useful.
Protection from Lightning (20) Why is this fourth level when Resist cold is third?
Level 5
Breath of life (60) A fifth level Resurrect spell? Score!
Circle of Rain (25) Outside of vampires and firefighting/farming there is no reason to take this spell.
Darken the Sky (25) This spell is so useless I will not even finish...
Detect the Invisible (10) For everyone else, this is a first level spell.
Invisible Wall (30) Really cheap destructible wall spell.
Phantom (30) Cheap invisible minion. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
Phantom Mount (25) Horseback riding is not where you want to be at the casting 5th level spells part of your career.
Sonic Blast (15) like so many of the radius of harm spells, its usefulness depends on how close your opponents are. Generally speaking if you are surrounded by melee close opponents you are pretty boned anyway but better to have it and not need it...
Whirlwind (30) A damage over time spells that makes a target completely helpless with a damn good range, unfortunately it also leaves you helpless as you maneuver the spell but still very effective.
Level 6
Electrical Field (35) No save, huge area and 50% chance to paralyze on top of mega damage!
Electro-Magntism (40) Fantastic Battlefield control
Mist of Death (40) Below average Damage over time spell that does not affect those that are protected from poison gas.
Snow Storm (50) Causes a damaging blizzard in a decent sized area, only worthwhile if your GM agrees that "Damage" refers to SDC or MDC. And applies penalties to people in a blizzard.
Vacuum (40) Because there is almost no definition of what the vacuum does this spell suffers, decent fire extinguisher though.
Wall of Wind (30) While this wall will do nothing to prevent energy weapons from striking you it cannot be destroyed either, good way to divide a battle field and keep melee monkeys away from you.
Whisper of the Wind (30) While the distance is impressive, the fact that the message is one sided and there is no guarantee that the recipient is even aware of it.
Level 7
Atmospheric Manipulation (50) Summon and control storm with editing tools.
Hurricane (60) The fact that this is a body of water dependent spell is problematic, still its potential for mayhem is not to be underestimated.
Rainbow (60) I'm a Brony and even I think this spell is useless.
Tornado (60) when you need a vast area of damage and mayhem, accept no substitutes.
Level 8
Creature of the Wind (70) A transformation spell that allows you to become a spell casting dynamo for a few rounds that has a lot of great mobility options and damage resistance.
Wind Blast (40) Big damage, plus knockdown, plus no saving throw.
Wind Cushion (50) Solid defensive spell that sadly lets energy weapons in unmolested.
Earth Warlock Spells:
Earth Warlock spells are for people who love Minecraft. You really have to be the type who willingly invests skills into things like carpentry, whittling/sculpting and masonry to get the most out of this class's spells but if you do the payoff can be fantastic. While the class lacks severely for damaging spells at low levels they see some of the most devastating in the game at higher levels making them a class you would play the long game with.
Spoiler:
Level 1
Chameleon (5) Not going anywhere? Don't want anyone to see you? Cool, otherwise not helpful.
Create Wood (5-10) If you can answer yes to the following questions then this spell is vital: Do you have the carpentry skill, do you have the whittling/sculpting skill and do you have the Ironwood spell? If you answered yes to these questions then this spell is for you! otherwise its really circumstantial.
Dowsing (2) Congratulations, you can find water.
Dust Storm (5) Another smoke and something else spell, which is better than a smoke spell.
Fool's Gold (5) Kanye's instant bling is just not that valuable a spell, the best use I can think of for it is to make armor and vehicles look gold for formal occasions, not scamming people.
Identify Minerals (3) Earth Warlocks get this skill as a class ability at first level.
Identify Plants (3) There are any number of devices and a secondary skill that generally does this, but it could b useful because it can identify the plant ingredients in compounds as well.
Mystic Fulcrum (3) Fascinating for techno wizards, useless for everyone else.
Rock to Mud (6) Very very circumstantial.
Rot Wood (4) Not the most useful of spells but some people have wooden magic items or wooden gun stocks or armor. Very very circumstantial.
Shatter (3) Rocks, sticks, boots, sopranos, sudden temperature change and the ground *opens envelope* Things that break glass and fragile ceramics for free.
Level 2
Create Dirt or Clay (6) If you have skills that make use of dirt or clay then this can be a lot of fun, otherwise this spell is not that helpful.
Dirt to Clay (6) Just create dirt or clay.
Dirt to sand (6) Why would you do that?
Grow plants (8) With the right skills or allies this is a magnificent background spell, but keep in mind it increases crop yield, it does not make a seed grow into a mighty oak before your eyes.
Hopping Stones (6) Wow, you can make rocks throw themselves. Almost as good as freezing water.
Track (6) Basically a spell that replaces several secondary skills.
Throwing Stones (4) Cheaper and more effective than Hopping Stones.
Wall of Clay (8) A quick, cheap MDC wall between you and your enemies that gets stronger as you gain levels.
Wither Plants (10) Very very circumstantial.
Level 3
Animal Plants (10) Are you in a grove full of MDC plants? OK then, if your opponent(s) have MDC weapons or augmented or better strength this spell is only a .minor distraction. If you are in a grove of steeltrees or otherwise MDC plants this spell can be really nasty
Create Mound (8) OK, you made a Mound... Now what?
Crumble Stone (10) Very circumstantial.
Dig (8) The mobility granted by this spell is actually really really useful.
Earth Rumble (10) Area affect Horror Factor spell with a chance of fleeing.
Encase Object in Stone (10) Saving throw free Disarming spell that can turn a sophisticated laser rifle into a stone club.
Locate Minerals (10) Very Circumstantial.
Shrink Plant (10-200) For all those times you just need a banzai oak.
Wall of Stone (15) A solid wall that can get pretty crazy strong.
Level 4
Animate Object (12) Creating a mindless sdc combatant is not that helpful in rifts earth.
Cocoon of Stone (15) Great way to lie low for a while but not generally useful.
Mend Stone (15) Useful for Minecraft style warlocks, not so much for everyone else.
Quicksand (15) Decent battlefield control, particularly for infantry.
Repel Animals (10) The usefulness of this spell depends entirely on your GM's definition of animals.
Rust (15) There really is just not enough vulnerable to this spell for it to be worth your time.
Sand Storm (15) Effectively a smoke+ something else spell, however full environmental armor pretty much blocks this spell's worst effects.
Wall of Thorns (15) Wall of stone does it better.
Level 5
Chasm (25) Good for keeping melee masters out of your hair.
Clay to Lead (20) Do you need lead that badly? OK, here you go.
Clay To Stone (20) Useful for a warlock who can sculpt and conjure clay.
Close Fissures (30) As it does not work with the Chasm spell its a bit hard to make this spell work for you.
Little Mud Mound (30) A strong cheap durable minion! Awesome.
Travel Through Walls (20) too limited in its scope be of much use.
Level 6
Clay or Stone to Iron (40/60) Iron can be pretty cool to have, especially if you could mold it properly same with stone.
Create Steel (34) A resourceful player can do a lot with this spell, but as it is mostly about creating non precious materials.
Mend Metal (30) With the right armor this spell is awesome but it has to be exactly right.
Stone to Flesh (30) Petrification is just not that common.
Travel Through Stone (35) great way to avoid flying enemies or conflicts.
Wood to Stone (30) OK, so your wood is now stone... Now what?
Level 7
Earthquake (50) A devastating spell that can destroy non flyers and enemy buildings with terrifying ease.
Metal to clay (40) Most armor and weapons you run into are ceramic and not generally vulnerable to this spell.
Petrification (40) A save or die spell that only affects one target at a time.
River of Lava (50) So Earth Warlocks get Fire Warlock's most powerful damaging spell, and while it can be deadly it is pretty easy to avoid for most targets.
Sculpt & Animate Clay (40) The stats on a clay critter are just not that impressive.
Wall of Iron (45) Wall of stone does basically the same thing for 1/3rd the PPE and a single action, not good enough even with the option of dropping the wall on an enemy.
Level 8
Cap Volcano (80) Very very Circumstantial.
Create Golem (80) All the bonuses of the Invocation with a significantly reduced penalties! Supernaturally strong mooks for 7000 credits each! This is why you want the Create Clay spell and the Clay to Iron spell! So you can have an army of Iron soldiers to smash things for you.
Firequake (80) Wide area, damage over time and big penalties, good stuff!
Ironwood (50+) The uses for this spell are without number, free MDC material is always useful.
Magnetism (40) Fantastic Battlefield control.
Suspended Animation (80) Honestly cooler if you have a TW buddy to make a TW cryo chamber, this spell has more story uses than practical uses.
Transference of Essence (50) This spell has more story uses than practical uses.
Chameleon (5) Not going anywhere? Don't want anyone to see you? Cool, otherwise not helpful.
Create Wood (5-10) If you can answer yes to the following questions then this spell is vital: Do you have the carpentry skill, do you have the whittling/sculpting skill and do you have the Ironwood spell? If you answered yes to these questions then this spell is for you! otherwise its really circumstantial.
Dowsing (2) Congratulations, you can find water.
Dust Storm (5) Another smoke and something else spell, which is better than a smoke spell.
Fool's Gold (5) Kanye's instant bling is just not that valuable a spell, the best use I can think of for it is to make armor and vehicles look gold for formal occasions, not scamming people.
Identify Minerals (3) Earth Warlocks get this skill as a class ability at first level.
Identify Plants (3) There are any number of devices and a secondary skill that generally does this, but it could b useful because it can identify the plant ingredients in compounds as well.
Mystic Fulcrum (3) Fascinating for techno wizards, useless for everyone else.
Rock to Mud (6) Very very circumstantial.
Rot Wood (4) Not the most useful of spells but some people have wooden magic items or wooden gun stocks or armor. Very very circumstantial.
Shatter (3) Rocks, sticks, boots, sopranos, sudden temperature change and the ground *opens envelope* Things that break glass and fragile ceramics for free.
Level 2
Create Dirt or Clay (6) If you have skills that make use of dirt or clay then this can be a lot of fun, otherwise this spell is not that helpful.
Dirt to Clay (6) Just create dirt or clay.
Dirt to sand (6) Why would you do that?
Grow plants (8) With the right skills or allies this is a magnificent background spell, but keep in mind it increases crop yield, it does not make a seed grow into a mighty oak before your eyes.
Hopping Stones (6) Wow, you can make rocks throw themselves. Almost as good as freezing water.
Track (6) Basically a spell that replaces several secondary skills.
Throwing Stones (4) Cheaper and more effective than Hopping Stones.
Wall of Clay (8) A quick, cheap MDC wall between you and your enemies that gets stronger as you gain levels.
Wither Plants (10) Very very circumstantial.
Level 3
Animal Plants (10) Are you in a grove full of MDC plants? OK then, if your opponent(s) have MDC weapons or augmented or better strength this spell is only a .minor distraction. If you are in a grove of steeltrees or otherwise MDC plants this spell can be really nasty
Create Mound (8) OK, you made a Mound... Now what?
Crumble Stone (10) Very circumstantial.
Dig (8) The mobility granted by this spell is actually really really useful.
Earth Rumble (10) Area affect Horror Factor spell with a chance of fleeing.
Encase Object in Stone (10) Saving throw free Disarming spell that can turn a sophisticated laser rifle into a stone club.
Locate Minerals (10) Very Circumstantial.
Shrink Plant (10-200) For all those times you just need a banzai oak.
Wall of Stone (15) A solid wall that can get pretty crazy strong.
Level 4
Animate Object (12) Creating a mindless sdc combatant is not that helpful in rifts earth.
Cocoon of Stone (15) Great way to lie low for a while but not generally useful.
Mend Stone (15) Useful for Minecraft style warlocks, not so much for everyone else.
Quicksand (15) Decent battlefield control, particularly for infantry.
Repel Animals (10) The usefulness of this spell depends entirely on your GM's definition of animals.
Rust (15) There really is just not enough vulnerable to this spell for it to be worth your time.
Sand Storm (15) Effectively a smoke+ something else spell, however full environmental armor pretty much blocks this spell's worst effects.
Wall of Thorns (15) Wall of stone does it better.
Level 5
Chasm (25) Good for keeping melee masters out of your hair.
Clay to Lead (20) Do you need lead that badly? OK, here you go.
Clay To Stone (20) Useful for a warlock who can sculpt and conjure clay.
Close Fissures (30) As it does not work with the Chasm spell its a bit hard to make this spell work for you.
Little Mud Mound (30) A strong cheap durable minion! Awesome.
Travel Through Walls (20) too limited in its scope be of much use.
Level 6
Clay or Stone to Iron (40/60) Iron can be pretty cool to have, especially if you could mold it properly same with stone.
Create Steel (34) A resourceful player can do a lot with this spell, but as it is mostly about creating non precious materials.
Mend Metal (30) With the right armor this spell is awesome but it has to be exactly right.
Stone to Flesh (30) Petrification is just not that common.
Travel Through Stone (35) great way to avoid flying enemies or conflicts.
Wood to Stone (30) OK, so your wood is now stone... Now what?
Level 7
Earthquake (50) A devastating spell that can destroy non flyers and enemy buildings with terrifying ease.
Metal to clay (40) Most armor and weapons you run into are ceramic and not generally vulnerable to this spell.
Petrification (40) A save or die spell that only affects one target at a time.
River of Lava (50) So Earth Warlocks get Fire Warlock's most powerful damaging spell, and while it can be deadly it is pretty easy to avoid for most targets.
Sculpt & Animate Clay (40) The stats on a clay critter are just not that impressive.
Wall of Iron (45) Wall of stone does basically the same thing for 1/3rd the PPE and a single action, not good enough even with the option of dropping the wall on an enemy.
Level 8
Cap Volcano (80) Very very Circumstantial.
Create Golem (80) All the bonuses of the Invocation with a significantly reduced penalties! Supernaturally strong mooks for 7000 credits each! This is why you want the Create Clay spell and the Clay to Iron spell! So you can have an army of Iron soldiers to smash things for you.
Firequake (80) Wide area, damage over time and big penalties, good stuff!
Ironwood (50+) The uses for this spell are without number, free MDC material is always useful.
Magnetism (40) Fantastic Battlefield control.
Suspended Animation (80) Honestly cooler if you have a TW buddy to make a TW cryo chamber, this spell has more story uses than practical uses.
Transference of Essence (50) This spell has more story uses than practical uses.
Fire Warlock Spells
In my not so humble opinion fire warlocks get the shortest end of any stick in the Warlock game. Nearly every one of their spells just does damage, not incredibly impressive damage, just magical fire damage. There are a few smoke spells of note but a resist fire spell basically neuters a fire warlock. The main reason to have fire elemental spells in your portfolio is if you are really good friends with a burster who can crank your magical shenanigans up to 11 but otherwise every other Warlock is laughing at you.
Spoiler:
Level 1
Blinding Flash (1)
Cloud of Smoke (2)
Create Coal (5)
Fiery Touch (5)
Fire Bolt (4)
Glob of Daylight (2)
Nightvision (4)
Impervious to Fire (5)
Stench of Hades
Level 2
Cloud of Ash (5)
Darkness (8)
Fireblast (5)
Flame Lick (7)
Freeze Water (8)
Heat Object/Boil Water (4)
Resist Cold (5)
Spontaneous Combustion (5)
Swirling Lights (8)
Tongue of Flame (6)
Level 3
Circle of Cold (10)
Circle of Flame (10)
Create Heat (8)
Extinguish Fire (8)
Fire ball (10)
Fire Gout (10)
Lower Temperature (8)
Part Fire (8)
Wall of Flame (15)
Level 4
Cloud of Steam (10)
Fire Blossom (10)
Flame Friend (20)
Fuel Flame (10)
Heal Burns (15)
Mini Fireballs (20)
See Through Smoke (12)
Level 5
Blue Flame (30)
Breath Fire (20)
Eat Fire (20)
Fire Globe (20)
Screaming Wall of Flame (30)
Wall of Ice (30)
Level 6
Dancing Fires (35)
Eternal Flame (75)
Flame of Life (40)
Fire Whip (30)
Level 7
Fire Sponge (50)
Melt Metal (50)
River of Lava (50)
Ten foot Wheel of Fire (40)
Level 8
Burst into Flames (70)
Drought (80)
Plasma Bolt (60)
Blinding Flash (1)
Cloud of Smoke (2)
Create Coal (5)
Fiery Touch (5)
Fire Bolt (4)
Glob of Daylight (2)
Nightvision (4)
Impervious to Fire (5)
Stench of Hades
Level 2
Cloud of Ash (5)
Darkness (8)
Fireblast (5)
Flame Lick (7)
Freeze Water (8)
Heat Object/Boil Water (4)
Resist Cold (5)
Spontaneous Combustion (5)
Swirling Lights (8)
Tongue of Flame (6)
Level 3
Circle of Cold (10)
Circle of Flame (10)
Create Heat (8)
Extinguish Fire (8)
Fire ball (10)
Fire Gout (10)
Lower Temperature (8)
Part Fire (8)
Wall of Flame (15)
Level 4
Cloud of Steam (10)
Fire Blossom (10)
Flame Friend (20)
Fuel Flame (10)
Heal Burns (15)
Mini Fireballs (20)
See Through Smoke (12)
Level 5
Blue Flame (30)
Breath Fire (20)
Eat Fire (20)
Fire Globe (20)
Screaming Wall of Flame (30)
Wall of Ice (30)
Level 6
Dancing Fires (35)
Eternal Flame (75)
Flame of Life (40)
Fire Whip (30)
Level 7
Fire Sponge (50)
Melt Metal (50)
River of Lava (50)
Ten foot Wheel of Fire (40)
Level 8
Burst into Flames (70)
Drought (80)
Plasma Bolt (60)
I actually wanna get this post pinned to the top for ease of reference.
