a 3rd level sorcerer only knows 3 spells! They can cast them 6 times, but they only know 3.
Well damn. Plus, I couldn't choose anything that had a saving throw. My charisma was so low, any enemy would probably just roll a saving throw right away. What I needed were spells that boosted my combat stats and helped me melee better.
The obvious 1st choice:
Mage Armor. +4 AC. Bam, it's up. For three hours.
Well, that's cool! However, I gave it some thought. Most dungeon forays don't last 3 hours, really. I should just get that on scroll. That's only 25 gp. I could get it on scroll x4 easily and have another spell. So I
So my idea is, "get something else".
The 2nd choice is True Strike. That's a spell that I could have Brekke cast to get a +20 to hit on her next melee roll. Well, that would be cool to be the character that can cast that, rage, charge into battle, and then lay a mutha out. And cast it at will? Yeah.
So I picked that one.
Then I started perusing the books and I turned up 'Fist of Stone' in Complete Arcane. This spell has a duration of 1 minute, and gives +6 strength enhancement bonus to strength (and a natural slam attack). Well, barbarian rage is a morale bonus, so they stack.
I could conceivably cast fist of stone, and rage, and have +10 strength. Doing two handed damage, I would be hitting at +8 and doing 1d10+9 damage. And if I raged the next round, it would go up to +10 to hit, 1d10+12 damage.
Pretty tough! I'll take that spell.
So far True Strike and Fist of Stone.
That's my first expansion slot. The third spell was one I picked because it just looked too good to be true: Power Word: Pain (Races of the Dragon). I won't go into the details, except to say, ity's a spell I could cast, and then wade into battle as it continues to damage my opponent for several rounds.
That leaves me with two free expansion slots, by the way.
Then I took a bunch of 0-level crap spells. Ok, last up is gear!