Priest Quest Spells - Good or Bad?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I never liked the Tome of Magic. It introduced things I thought were silly, like new sphere or schools of magic like "numbers" or "time". The new spells were mainly tedious, useless or silly. So many of them (like dilation) simple extended the area of effect or duration of original PHB spells. I really was disappointed with the book - till they got to the chapter on quest spells!

Quest spells are higher-than-7th-level spells that priests get for special purposes and they are much more powerful than most 7th level priest spells. I've always thought priests needed some better spells. I get it that they're supposed to play a supporting and nurturing role, but still...they ARE representatives of and gain their power from the GODS, so they shouldn't be so magically weak compared to wizards.

Now granted, you do have to limit the magical abilities of priests somewhat, because wizards cast spells - that's all they do. They use magic. Priests can fight as well. So yes, we have to be careful not to allow the priest to supplant the wizard.

But again, Id' argue that priests/clerics/druids kinda got the shaft when it comes to cool spells. Very few of their spells are ass-kicking, and those few that are, you need to be very high level to get them. Put another way - a priest who can't fight (for sake of argument) and who was ONLY able to cast his spells, compared to a wizard, would be a very, very minor and weak character.

So priests' quest spells were very potent spells that really raised the power of the priest so that when he needed to invoke some serious ass-kicking power beyond just his support role, he could.

The quest spells were quite powerful. However, they were limited. You had to be at least 9th level, and generally didn't get them unless you were 12th level, with exceptions. You also had to be exemplary in your faith, not having any major transgressions, etc. You had to have a minimum WIS of 17. The priest needs to pray and mediate for 24-48 hrs before receiving the quest spell. And he only got it when there was a major threat to a major interest of the god he worshiped. So, for example, a druid might get a quest spell if there was a small swarm of giant red dragons threatening to burn down an entire forest, reducing a huge swath of nature to burnt cinders. Or perhaps to fight the tarrasque. He would not get it for a mere orc invasion or because a king was clearing some forest land.

I liked a good number of quest spells, though some were a bit weird. I think we used them just ONCE in all the years we played since the book came out, and that was in the battle where Orcus ended up being summoned to the Prime Material Plane and a huge war broke out where all the PCs and all their followers were on the battlefield.

Has anyone else used quest spells? What do you think about them?