It's worth noting that any attacks aimed at summons are attacks not aimed at your party. Even if an enemy can hit for 300+ damage (are there any enemies *that* strong?), if it hits a summon, it's no big loss; you can just summon another one when you need to, and your regular characters can still continue to attack.

Also, I believe damage to summons is not affected by the difficulty modifier (making them useful on Insane) and they benefit from the Heart of Fury mode bonuses (making them extremely useful for tanking hits).

The problem with having 2 castings of haste is that, if the first one wears off, your entire party will be fatigued, causing you to get worse dice rolls. (It's the opposite of the Tymora's Melody effect.) (I hear that you might be able to avoid the fatigue by using Dispel Magic, but that takes up another 3rd level spell slot and dispels other beneficial effects.)

Also, why do you choose Hope over Courage?

Be aware that Horrid Wilting will hit allies in the area of effect, unlike in Baldur's Gate 2. (Just because a spell exists in both games doesn't mean it works the same. Mordenkainen's Sword works completely differently, as another example.)

Edit: Added note about dispelling haste.

At higher levels, this is a non- issue. The extra attacks usually make up for the worse to hit ratios. The extra casting can help the party push forward if they need (or want) to but whether is use it or not all depends on what happens in the game.

The +5 hit points are negligible and my characters don't have problems hitting anything when these spells come available making the +1 to hit pointless. The only thing Courage has going for it is the +3 to damage rolls. Emotion: Hope has +2 to damage rolls but also has boosts to saving throws too making this spell the better one.

That's why I said Horrid Wilting is a contender. The fact it hits allies and it has a long casting time doesn't make it a favorite of mine. It can be useful but consider bards only get 1 level 8 spell, I would take monster summoning instead.

This has been a problem in many D&D and Wizardry games. If only Cure Serious Wounds were 3rd level instead of 4th...

Here are some examples:

In Pool of Radiance, there aren't really any good 3rd level Cleric spells, and that's the highest spell level Clerics get in that game. (Really, they couldn't have given them *one* spell to make the high levels worth while in that game?) 2nd level at least has Hold Person, though that spell has the downside of being useless in some encounters. (Assuming, of course, that they properly implemented the "Person" part of the spell.)

In Dungeon Hack, there's Spiritual Hammer at 2nd level (which is actually good in that game). After 2 Spiritual Hammers and 1 Aid, however, there isn't anything else left to cast before you rest. 3rd level has Create Food and Water and Prayer, but those again are only needed once per rest. Negative Plane Protection is useful in large quantities, but in my experience level draining undead seem to mainly appear early (when IMO they should have been saved for later).

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands appears to be better. The 2nd level spell Aid can be used as a healing spell in the game (the extra HP don't wear off, and you can stack them until your HP exceeds their maximum). 3rd level has Conjure Lesser Elemental (but note that you are only allowed one summon at a time).

Baldur's Gate 2 has Cure Medium Wounds at 3rd level, which helps. It also has Draw Upon Holy Might at 2nd level, but that spell has a longish casting time and a shortish duration (not as bad a Bless, however).

Wizardry 1-3 has CALFO (identify chests on traps) at 2nd level, but that spell has an annoying 5% chance of being wrong (which can be costly) and is not needed if you have a thief with 16+ agility. (It's useful for parties that take a ninja instead of a thief, but by that point, your party is generally quite powerful.) 3rd level has a couple long duration spells, BAMATU (which, while useful, is generally not needed in most encounters, and it's of no help against magic), and DIALKO (useful, but becomes unimportant once you get MADI (Wizardry equivalent of Heal)).

One similar issue that AD&D based games, but not Wizardry, have, is that 3rd level arcane spells are often superior to those of higher levels. Aren't higher level spells supposed to be stronger?

Edit: Clarified that I mean arcane spells in the last paragraph.

Might as well as Heroes of Might and Magic 3 to that list too. If it wasn't for dimension door and town portal, wisdom would be a pretty mediocre secondary skill. All the best spells in that game were in levels 1 and 2.

A couple other spells worth noting from a bard perspective:

Tenser's Transformation: The THAC0 granted is based on the caster's level. Because bards level up faster than fighters, a bard can get a better THAC0 than a fighter of the same level. Remember that (unlike in BG2) this spell grants an extra attack in addition, which I believe you can stack with Haste. (Just remember that Haste must be cast first or by someone else, as you won't be able to cast it afterwords.) By the way, can you sing while this spell is in effect?

Mordenkainen's Sword: A nice magically created weapon (long-range melee) that give a THAC0 that is, again, based off the caster's level. Try casting this spell and then follow up with Tensor's Transformation; this gives you 2 attacks per round (4 if hasted), each of which has fighter THAC0 (TT overrides MS because it is cast second), each of which has long range, and each of which does nice damage. The downside is that you can't attack while singing. (Note that this spell is completely different from the BG2 version.)

It occured to me that Final Fantasy 1 and 3 have spell levels like this. In FF1, for White Mages 2nd and 4th level spells are useless (except PURE, which can be replaced with a cheap buyable item). For Black/Red Mages, 2nd level spells aren't particularly useful in the original version; status ailment spells aren't that great (especially when affected enemies can still act), and TMPR doesn't work (that was fixed in later versions, making it by far the best spell of the level). Also, Red Wizards are lacking in 7th level spells (they don't even get a healing spell for that level) and are even more lacking in 8th level spells (they get MP, but no actual spells, of that level, so there's nothing to spend the MP on).

In FF3, status ailments are useful in the original, so the problem isn't as bad there. However, the DS remake made status ailments useless, making levels like White Mage level 2/4 rather useless. It doesn't help that attack spells aren't that good later in the game.

By the way, Icewind Dale (non-EE) has one issue similar to FF1 Red Mages: If you are a specialist mage who is denied Conjuration, what do you put in your 9th level slots? (Monster Summoning IX and Power Word, Kill are both Conjuration, and there are no other 9th level spells. Couldn't they have at least put 1 other spell, like Meteor Swarm or Wail of the Banshee, in there? (Considering only spells that wouldn't be too hard to implement in the IWD engine.))

I dunno, Wisdom is nearly always a top pick for me. A number of the higher level spells are actually pretty awesome (though some of them are more situational (I'm looking at you, Armageddon!)). My biggest issue is usually finding the spare resources to build those higher tier mage guilds, but this might just reinforce your point.

I don't know what you're talking about.

WMs get Lamp (useful against Dark abilities), Mute (useful against casting monsters), Alit (useful against lightning), and Invs (keep that WM alive!) at level 2. At level 4, they get Aice (useful against ice users), and Amut (useful against muting monsters).

BMs get Ice at level 2 (damage spell), and Slow and Dark might be useful as well (I don't remember). Even if all of the other spells are completely non-functional, Ice is still useful.

RWs get Ice3 (multi-target damage spell) and Arub (useful against certain kinds of insta-kill) at level 7. They don't really need 8th level spells; they already use a wide selection of weapons and armor, and have a wide selection of good spells (from both sides of magic).

(About Final Fantasy 1)

Of note:

Lamp is only useful if an enemy blinds you, and the status ailment wears off after a battle anyway. If this happens in a random battle, you can run away or just power through with spells, and if you're fighting a boss (Kraken), you should already have items that give you free spells to cast.

Alit might be occasionally useful, but it is situational and depends on the caster going first. The same can be said about Aice.

Invs is not as good as Ruse at raising evasion. The only advantages that Invs has are being able to target allies and using up a less useful spell level's MP.

Amut has 2 problems: It can't be cast if you're already silenced, and silence is extremely rare. Silence is so rare, in fact, that it isn't unlikely that you will complete the entire game without being silenced once. Also, if you do get silence, there is a decent chance that your white mage is affected by the spell and can't cure it. (Also, note that some of the enemies that cast this spell are undead, and a white mage has better spells to use against such enemies.) I remember taking this spell and regretting it.

Edit: More notes on enemies using AMUT:
According to
http://guides.gamercorner.net/ff/spells/mute and
www.gamefaqs.com/ps/582598-final-fantasy/faqs/57009
there are only 4 enemies that use the spell, as follows:
EYE: It's the 6th spell in the rotation, so you are not going to see it, as you will want to kill it quickly because it starts with instant death attacks that you do *not* want to get hit by (and it only has 162 HP)
PHANTOM: It's the 7th spell in the rotation, and by this point most of your party should be immune. Also, the first two spells in the rotation are STOP and ZAP!, which are far more dangerous.
WzVAMP: Second spell in the rotation, but the chance of spell use is only 1/4 (not 1/2 like the ones listed previously). More likely time to encounter this spell, but still easy enough to kill them first.
GrNAGA: Second on the list with 3/4 spell chance, but these enemy does not appear to be that dangerous. Maybe AMUT might be useful here, but is it really worth it, especially when you could just use normal attacks or just run? Also, you might already be finding Ribbons by this point.