Talk:Sleep/@comment-81.240.31.14-20161218140841/@comment-8506165-20200204224623

The Wand of Sleep isn't as good as the spell because it has no save penalty, and saves vs. wands tend to be marginally easier than saves vs. spells anyway. Plus you only get 20 charges then you have to pay to recharge it, Sorc with Ring of Wizardry can have a potential 6/rest at level 1 so you can be way more liberal with it.

As the poster above said the only real "must-have" for BG2 in the level 1s is Magic Missile. Chromatic Orb and Spook do scale with level, but Chromatic Orb is unreliable with its massive +6 save bonus so I don't rate it, and Spook is useful for its massive save penalty but also has a short duration, plus a number of nastier enemies are fear-immune.

My personal default level 1 spell picks for Sorc for a full trilogy playthrough would be Blindness, Sleep, Shield, Magic Missile and Spook. Might change a bit depending on who I'm planning to bring along in a party but in general I've never found myself noticing that I'm "missing" a spell from having taken sleep for BG, given that in SOA/TOB I'm mostly just using level 1 slots on Magic Missile anyway.