Schools of Magic (for specialist Wizards)

[User3]

I have no idea what the hell WotC thinks is supposed to happen to you when you take a level of Red Wizard or Incantatrix, but the basic answer is essentially "nothing".

Even at the harshest possible reading of that particular restriction, it has no effect on spells you've already put into your spellbook when you take a level of Incantatrix, which in turn don't even have to be of levels you can cast - so properly forewarned there's nothing stopping you from just going on a mad scribing campaign just before becoming an Incantatrix. A Mardi Gras just before Lent if you will.

But regardless, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from just happening to know some Transmutations when Incantatrix becomes available. And since no power on Earth can make Incantatrix available before 3rd level spells come online you can jolly well have secret page and shrink item when you get a level of Incantatrix. And then Transmutation can go fvck itself.

That being said, if I only had Illusion and Conjuration I'd be happy. So with your slim options, I'd take Conjuration as your fourth allowed school - with Necromancy, Enchantment, and Evocation as my initial banned schools and Transmutation as my bonus banned school.

-Username17

[User3]

Conjuration is good for a whole lot more than just Teleport. You have pretty much all the best battlefield control, plus a lot of solid utility.

[NineInchNall]

Drop Conjuration like a bad habit. You'll get teleport back when you pick up shades. Your shadow illusions will make up for the rest of the school's functionality, what with them being >100% quasireal.

[Username17]

1173130079[/unixtime]]Drop Conjuration like a bad habit. You'll get teleport back when you pick up shades. Your shadow illusions will make up for the rest of the school's functionality, what with them being >100% quasireal.

I can buy that argument for Evocation, but the shadow conjuration line of spells only works for [Summoning] and [Creation] spells. It won't work for [Teleportation] or [Calling] effects.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

Except for shades, which doesn't limit its effects to creation/summoning.

Shadow Conjuration, Greater
Illusion (Shadow)
Level: Sor/Wiz 7

This spell functions like shadow conjuration, except that it can duplicate any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning) or conjuration (creation) spell of 6th level or lower. The illusory conjurations created deal three-fifths (60%) damage to nonbelievers, and nondamaging effects are 60% likely to work against nonbelievers.



Shades
Illusion (Shadow)
Level: Sor/Wiz 9

This spell functions like shadow conjuration, except that it mimics sorcerer and wizard conjuration spells of 8th level or lower. The illusory conjurations created deal four-fifths (80%) damage to nonbelievers, and nondamaging effects are 80% likely to work against nonbelievers.

EDIT: Yay! I'm an Apprentice!

[User3]

Wow, so you can Shades up Planar Bindings? That's, um, problematic.

[NineInchNall]

Yup. The classic trick was to mimic dragon ally and blackmail things that shouldn't exist into being your (functionally) permanent slaves, but greater planar binding works just as well.

[erik]

Yeah, but who wants to wait until 17th level to finally get the rest of conjuration (and rule the world)? And I sure don't want to use a 9th level spell just to frickin dimension door. I suppose I could have already done that with a limited wish.

[Cielingcat]

Yeah, Shades totally rapes the game (like all 9th level spells) but it also comes at level 17. Most games don't even get to level 17.

[NineInchNall]

1173171178[/unixtime]]Yeah, but who wants to wait until 17th level to finally get the rest of conjuration (and rule the world)? And I sure don't want to use a 9th level spell just to frickin dimension door. I suppose I could have already done that with a limited wish.

Why would you use a 9th level spell to mimic dimension door when you could mimic greater teleport ordimension jumper and do so without sacrificing any tactical versatility?

Anyway, with a well made Shadowcraft Mage, real ultimate power comes in at the moment you can use shadow illusion to mimic miracle.

[User3]

Yeah, it's a mystery why Miracle is still Evocation, and not Universal.

[Crissa]

Who wants to Shades a teleport and only have 4/5ths of themselves arrive?

-Crissa

[NineInchNall]

? Whuh? That's not how shades works. Especially not for Shadowcraft Mages, but not even for normal Wizards.

[shau]

Speaking of how shades works, what happens when you put your foe in a forcecage that is eighty percent real?

[User3]

He can escape 20% of the time?

[Catharz]

According to the SRD...

Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and she can’t even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands. She may not change either her specialization or her prohibited schools later.

So I'm going to stay on the safe side and just not try to use 'prohibited' spells (even though Incantatrix is a contradiction to 'may not change prohibited schools later').


The loss of transmutation will hurt, although it will still probably be cheaper to hire a transmuter to fill up my spellbook that to scribe it myself at cost. I almost always use a Blessed Book (or better yet, Aureon's Spellshard) anyway.

And I don't want to wait until 17th level & Shades to be able to get teleportation, so conjuration will probably be the other school.
Would it be a good idea grab a cohort? I'm thinking that a Master Specialist Conjurer might be nice to have around (dropping Abjuration, Illusion, & Evocation) to get full school coverage. However, if I'm going to get a cohort there are plenty of other (probably more useful) options out there.

[User3]

You should look at the text for Incantatrix specifically.

[Catharz]

1173248749[/unixtime]]You should look at the text for Incantatrix specifically.

Focused Studies (Ex): At 1st level, the Incantatrix gives up a school of magic so as to focus on the remaining schools. She must choose a school of magic other than abjuration or divination as a prohibited school. This prohibited school is in addition to any others for school specialization. Thus, a specialized wizard taking this prestige class has three prohibited schools instead of two.

That's the text.

Oh, and thanks for the advice

[User3]

I guess it got changed from 3.0 (where it said "The incantatrix can never again learn spells from that prohibited school or schools. She can still use the prohibited spells she knew prior to becoming an incantatrix, including using items that are activated by spell completion or spell trigger.")

Hmm, the 3.5 Red Wizard still has "He can still use the prohibited spells he knew prior to becoming a Red Wizard, including using items that are activated by spell completion or spell trigger." in the description of the same ability. You'll have to decide whether the Incantatrix was meant to work differently, or whether they did a bad job reprinting it.

[Iaimeki]

Abjuration: This school is useful early, but the reason to take is its high-level spells. Basically, for 1st through 3rd levels, you have the protection from and magic circle spells, resist energy, and dispel magic. The problem is that divine casters get these too, and they're useful but not encounter-winning. It doesn't improve much outside the core, either. However, it also contains a number of spells that range from essential to just very helpful for high-level caster combat: antimagic field (shape this so it doesn't affect you), spell turning, mind blank, dimensional lock and anchor, imprisonment, Mordenkainen's disjunction, and the prismatic spells. Basically, if you don't expect to make it to high levels, you can safely drop abjuration; if you drop it at high levels, you're a fool.

Conjuration: This school is so powerful it's not even funny. It has most of the best disabling spells (grease, glitterdust, web, maze, and many others), the best killing spells (cloudkill, many damage spells outside the core), and the best spells that do both (acid fog, Evard's black tentacles). Almost all conjurations are no-SR, and some of them don't even offer a save. As if that by itself wasn't enough, it also has both crazy utility spells (major and minor creation), the essential and powerful teleportation spells, and raw brokenness in the form of planar binding et al. and gate. Playing a wizard without conjuration is like playing with your hands tied behind your back: wizards are awesome, so you can make it work, but it's a definite handicap.

Divination: While divination has a number of powerful utility spells (scry), it doesn't have any spells that win encounters by themselves; and some of its spells tend to be of the adventure-solving kind, and thus subject to DM-fiat nerfing. It's not bad, but it's not good either. You can't drop it, and it might be worth specializing in some circumstances, since often one does want to have some divinations prepared.

Enchantment: Enchantment has some of the most powerful save-or-dies, and some plain just-dies, in the game: they convert enemies into allies, and besides that, allow you to build your own private army. The flip side of this is that enchantment is subject to more DM-fiat nerfing and faces more blanket immunities and specialized protections than any other school. DMs often don't play charmed, dominated, or otherwise controlled NPCs as the spells specify for plot or ego reasons. Meanwhile, the low-level protection from and magic circle spells block many enchantment effects outright; there are countless small racial abilities, class abilities, and spells that defend against enchantment, such as immunities to specific effects or bonuses to saves against some or all enchantment effects; constructs, oozes, plants, undead, and vermin are immune to all enchantments; and finally, at high levels, mind blank provides a perfect defense against the school. While enchantment can be quite powerful, it has many exploitable weaknesses and works better in the early part of the game, when it's harder to stack defenses against it.

Evocation: This school has about two good spells, wall of force and contingency. All the rest do damage. With appropriate feat selection and tactics, it's possible to make evocation's damage significant. However, the fundamental problem in D&D is that even significant amounts of damage pale in comparison to abilities that are all but guaranteed to remove one or more enemies from combat or that have a chance to kill or convert an enemy outright. Meanwhile, shadow evocation and its variants allow a wizard without evocation to imitate every aspect of the school. The basic truth is that evocation is the least valuable school in 3.5e, even more so than divination.

Illusion: Illusion is awesome: while it doesn't have the out-of-combat utility of conjuration or transmutation, it's the most flexible combat school bar none. Basic image illusions lend themselves to many potent uses with appropriate creativity, the shadow spells imitate all of evocation and much of conjuration, it has some powerful save-or-dies such as color spray, and selection of other amazing combat spells both offensive (invisibility) and defensive (mirror image) in nature. Illusion, however, does have two significant weaknesses: many of its spells offer a Will save, and some (phantasmal killer, the shadow spells when duplicating spells with saves) offer multiple saves; and true seeing negates many of the school's spells outright. You can work around these liabilities to some extent, but illusion is more vulnerable to countermeasures than conjuration or transmutation.

Necromancy: Necromancy is more or less a random grab-bag of effects. For combat spells, it has the standard death-effect save-or-dies, save-or-be-crippleds, and debuffs with and without saves (ray of enfeeblement, enervation, bestow curse). These range in quality from good to worthless. Necromancy also has both undead creation and manipulation spells; however, wizards are unfortunately just not as good at creating or manipulating undead as clerics are. Finally, necromancy gets a lot of other random spells, which range from standard-issue good buffs like false life to weird and powerful to broken spells like magic jar clone. In general, necromancy is a powerful combat school offering some interesting side-benefits. However, it doesn't have anything vital, unlike some of the other schools.

Transmutation: Transmutation remains the largest school in D&D, especially outside the core, and also one of the most diverse. Transmutation's staple combat spells are buffs, which range from broken (polymorph) to good (fly) to useless (Tenser's transformation). However, it also contains some good save-or-die equivalents, and transmutation is perhaps the hardest school to get resistance or immunity to. Meanwhile, transmutation also contains a lot of powerful utility spells, possibly the best selection of any of the schools. Like illusions, many transmutation spells have great flexibility: for instance, polymorph offers both combat firepower and movement, while disintegrate is a save-or-die that doubles as a door-opener.

In Summation: On the whole, the big three schools are conjuration, illusion, and transmutation. Dropping any of these if you don't have to is usually a bad idea, but because wizards are flexible anyways, with enough sourcebooks, it probably won't hurt you that much. If you're going to specialize, one of the big three or divination is usually the best option: divination only requires one dropped school, and if you expect to prepare at least one divination per level, it benefits you as much as specializing in anything else. If you're intending to go with any of the classes, feats, options, or what-not that enhance specialization, one of the big three is usually a better choice, since divination doesn't benefit as much from those options. Enchantment and necromancy are both secondary schools: while they offer some powerful effects, neither of them have the breath or depth of the three major schools. Abjuration's value is very level-dependent: at low levels, particularly if you have a competent divine caster in your party (or a cohort), it's as weak or weaker than evocation; but at high levels, it's the most important combat school. Evocation is the weakest school, in general. Usually if you're specializing, evocation is the logical choice to drop, paired with abjuration, enchantment, or necromancy, depending on what levels you expect the campaign to reach, what opponents you expect to face, party composition, and what flavor you envision for your character.

[Catharz]

Is there any way to meaningfully sacrifice yet another school of magic, leaving me with just Illusion, Divination, and Abjuration? Something on the order of a feat would be enough compensation.

Otherwise I'll never get up the gumption to try shadow walk ambushes.

[Cielingcat]

You can double specialize in a school to get an extra spell each level. Check Complete Mage.

[Catharz]

1173548604[/unixtime]]You can double specialize in a school to get an extra spell each level. Check Complete Mage.

Heh, already doing that.
Specialist (illusion): !Enchantement, !Evocation.
Focused specialist [CM]: !Necromancy.
Incantatrix [PGtF]: !Transmutation.

Now I want to drop conjuration too, just for the hell of it. I'd loose a lot of out of combat versatility, but it would also be entertaining.


Oh, and I just realized that rope trick is transmutation. WTF? Maybe I'll keep transmutation nominally and just take the spells which should be Universal.

[Iaimeki]

Well, the obvious one is Red Wizard of Thay, though how that works with a gnomish incantatrix is not something I want to think about. The only other way I can think of to drop schools are the racial subs in Races of Eberron, but they also have obvious problems given the rest of what you're doing.

EDIT: Actually, there is a really bizarre build that sort of does what you're looking for, though I'm not sure if all the details work and I'm pretty certain it isn't good.

Be a changeling and take Racial Emulation. That feat opens up all the gnome-specific feats and classes, so you can take shadowcraft mage, Earth Power, and such if you can find the feats. Use the double-specialization racial sub, pick up transmutation/illusion as your double specialization, drop necromancy, enchantment, and evocation. Focused specialist will drop another school, so drop conjuration. The problem that you face now is that if you pick up incantatrix, you have to drop transmutation, so the changeling stuff didn't actually get you anything.