NightFantom

I have the opposite experience, went to London a while ago and kept noticing most people keep left instead of right like I’m used to.

Saying people shouldn’t get kidnapped shouldn’t be a political statement either but here we are.

Oh yeah definitely, game systems are rarely a good implementation outside of the combat. Many DnD games are definitely good (I’ve played neverwinter nights series, baldur’s gate series, dungeons and dragons online), but the real charm in DnD is playing with your friends and having a good time (as well as hyperoptimising your character at the same time, if you like that) (honestly I believe that’s one of the realisations WotC made with 3.5e that led them to make 4e, and subsequently 5e, a lot simpler: making it easier to get your friends into it was more important than having myriads of options for breaking the game)

So for reference:

• https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Spell_Focus
• https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Illusion_School

Spell focus gives +1 to save DC for the chosen school, in this case illusion. Looking at the spells listed under illusion school and filtering on those useful in combat we have:

• lv 1: color spray: unconscious, blinded and stunned, will save negates (similarly hypnotic pattern and their higher level variants are all great crowd control spells)
• lv 4: phantasmal killer: will disbelief, then fortitude or die (3d6 on successfull save)
• the series of https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Shadow_Evocation and shadow conjuration and all similar spells are pretty good too, they allow you to cast any other evocation/conjuration spell of lower level, at the cost of an extra potential will save to disbelieve (but also at the DC of the shadow spell, which is higher level) (insert “mom says we have heighten spell at home” meme)

And that’s just at first sight a couple good ones.

Sure, you won’t be throwing around +1 save dc fireballs with this (except shadow evocation gives you heightened fireballs, at the cost of an extra will save), but CC is often more useful than direct damage. Especially out of combat (depends on what you mean with “roleplaying aside”), there’s lots of good options: hiding behind a silent image is a cheap mass invisibility spell, or distracting guards with ghost sound for sneaky infiltration.

Good luck!