Schools of Magic (for specialist Wizards)

[User3]

I basically just want to make sure that I'm not totally off-base here.

The Reall Good Schools:
Conjuration
Divination
Illusion OR Enchantment

The Cool if You Have Time to Bother Schools:
Necromancy
Transmutation
Illusion OR Enchantment (whichever you don't already have)

The Worthless Schools:
Abjuration
Evocation

It just looks like Conjuration has awesome spells like whoa, Divination is great and you can't drop it anyway, and Illusion/Enchantment are how you trump people (especially at low levels).

Transmutation and Necromancy have nice spells that you'll miss (False Life, Fly, etc), but that you don't need, ditto the second Will Save school.

Abjuration has Dispel Magic and nothing, Evocation has Contingency and nothing. Bleh.

[Cielingcat]

Yeah, pretty much.

[dbb]

Abjuration has Mind Blank. Unimportant unless you're playing at very high level, but it's something to keep in mind.

I would rank Transmutation and Necromancy somewhere above the second school of the Illusion/Enchantment axis, mainly because they tend to have good spells that target Ref and Fort, and I place a strong premium on being able to target any of the three weak saves. People who have a different style will tell you differently.

--d.

[User3]

Transmutation also gets some good spells at 9th level (Shapechange, Time Stop), but if you're a Wizard casting 8th/9th level spells, you're going to do fine.

In general, you'll be fine dropping Evocation and Abjuration, but if you need to drop a third school, you lose basically nothing if it is Illusion/Enchantment. Focused Specialist for the win?

[Endovior]

Drop Evocation? That's unusual advice... it's got most of the hurty spells, after all. Here's my analysis.

Abjuration, as you pointed out, doesn't have much. A few neat buffs, all the dispels, and some cool things like Prismatic Wall and Mordenkainen's Disjunction. You could drop it, and save for a few nasty side cases, you'd not be that bad off.

Conjuration has lots of cool stuff. Attack spells, buffs, foe-juggling, teleportation... and, of course, summoning. Definitely something you'll miss if you drop it.

Divination is pretty much useless in combat, but it's rather cool outside it. You need it to identify items, and can obviate many adventures with it... but with a very few exceptions, it won't win your battles for you. You can't drop it anyways, though, so it's not an issue.

Enchantment is the first trickery school. It's got spells that control your enemies, which is objectively better then killing them; instead of just having one less enemy, you have one less enemy AND one more ally. It's also got save-or-dies, buffs, debuffs, and foe-juggling. Definitely a valid choice... but there are other ways of fighting, and a lot of things are flat out immune to every spell in the school.

Evocation is the combat school. Most things here are blast-its doing damage, with the exception of a few utility spells and the Bigby's Xing Hand series. Now, there are ways to fight other then doing damage... but doing damage is the standard way, and works against almost everything (whereas sneaky ways won't necessarily), so think twice before dropping Evocation.

Illusion is the other trickery school. It's got a number of good save-or-dies, starting right from first level with Color Spray. It's also got Invisibility (the improved version of which stops your fragile Wizard from being a big fat target). You can also shadow-mimic Evocations and Conjurations, which almost gives you most spells on those lists. It's certainly a valid choice... but there are other options, so you could drop it.

Necromancy has ability damage, status effects, and save-or-dies. It's got animation of corpses too, but Clerics do that better. As with Illusion, a valid way of fighting, but if you aren't pursuing it, you could safely drop it.

Transmutation has buffs, debuffs, non-teleport movement, loads of utility spells, and polymorph. It's fairly useful, in general... but if you're not a team player, and don't plan on (ab)using polymorph, it doesn't have much to offer you.

[Catharz]

1169792470[/unixtime]]Drop Evocation? That's unusual advice... it's got most of the hurty spells, after all.

Um, no. You're probably thinking of Conjuration.

[Endovior]

Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Cone of Cold... any of this ring any bells?

[Catharz]

1169792774[/unixtime]]Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Cone of Cold... any of this ring any bells?

Right. I didn't realize you meant spells it hurts to know.

[josephbt]

Seriously, you cast those spells? Mate, this isn't AD&D.

I've been playing 3rd edition since it came out, mostly wizzards, and the only time I saw a Fireball or other evo spell was when the opposition did it. And i can say I was relieved. Imagine what would happen if something nasty, like Fear or Confusion, was cast at the party?

Now, when conj hits the fan, well, the gloves are off. Acid Fog can by itself devastate most of opposition, throw in a couple of orby spells, maybe a Mestils Acid Breath and a Blast Of Flame and you're in for a good time. Except, you're still throwing damage spells around when you should be throwing save-or-dies.

And, yes, i always lose Abjuration and Evocation. Other shcools actually do something.

[Neeek]

1169792470[/unixtime]]Drop Evocation? That's unusual advice... it's got most of the hurty spells, after all. Here's my analysis.

You're new around here, aren't you?

[Cielingcat]

1169792470[/unixtime]]Drop Evocation? That's unusual advice... it's got most of the hurty spells, after all.

I'm not following you. It doesn't have Sleep, Color Spray, Glitterdust, Web, Stinking Cloud...

[dbb]

Endovior, let me try and explain briefly why, around here, spells that do actual damage are viewed as being inefficient:

In short, opponent hit points in 3.x have increased radically, and spell damage has not. The common example here is the Troll. In AD&D a Troll was a 6+6 HD monster who had an average of (4.5 * 6) + 6 = 33 hit points. In 3.x, a Troll has an average of 63 hit points -- almost twice that. Constitution bonuses have made almost every monster in the game, at almost every level, significantly tougher.

Since Fireball still does Nd6 damage, this means that in relative terms, Fireball has actually gotten weaker -- which means it takes more time to kill an enemy with it. Since the Troll of our example has also gotten a bigger offense -- thanks to Strength bonuses and so forth -- Fireball is relatively even worse off, since not only do Fireballs not kill things as quickly, but the enemy is much more likely to kill you thanks to the added time that gives him.

Consider a Fireball cast by a level 5 Wizard. In AD&D this was almost a reasonable thing to do against a Troll: it would do 18 points of damage if it failed its save, which was half its hit points. What's more, there was a 65% chance (14 needed to save) that it would fail, meaning that two fireballs had roughly a 42% chance of downing a Troll if no one in your party did anything else at all. But in 3.x, you need to cast four fireballs that do full damage in order to knock down a Troll, and since the Troll is actually more likely to successfully save (16 Int Wizard + level 3 spell = DC 16, Ref +4 = 12 or better to save), your chances of successfully doing full damage four times in a row are approximately 1 in 10.

On the other hand, casting something as basic as Deep Slumber on a Troll will take it out of the fight, no questions asked, if it fails its save. Since the Troll has only a +3 Will save and only needs to fail once, this means you have a 60% chance of knocking it down with one spell, 84% with two, and so forth.

In other words, despite the "all or nothing" nature of save-or-die spells, you are, in general, actually more likely to disable your opponents faster using them than you are using damage-dealing spells (provided that you don't use spells they save well against). While mass damage-dealing spells can still be very useful against hordes of lower-level opponents, the encounter balancing mechanics in 3.x are such that these are much, much rarer encounters -- meaning that you can probably be expected to face a lot of small groups of enemies, exactly the situation in which area damage spells are least desirable.

That's why people here tend to consider Evocation as a trash school. It doesn't do a lot other than direct damage. There are other reasons, too, such as the profusion of direct damage spells in Conjuration and Transmutation in non-core products, but for the most part it's just effectiveness. The last wizard character I played, up to ECL 9, never once cast a spell that actually did damage to the enemy at all.

--d.

[User3]

Evocation is not a worthless school, but it does require dedication. As long as you are willing to blow all your feats on metamagic and feats that improve metamagic, spend all your treasure on metamagic rods and the like, and shape your character in such a way to maximize damage output, you can do interesting things like drop a balor from damage in one round at 10th level.

If you've decided to do anything else, then you can lose it and only cry that you've lost Wall of Force and its other completely kicktastistic permutations.

------
Illusion has some of the best spells in the game, period. Color Spray is useful from level 1 to level 20 and Invisibility is awesome even in games where the DM tries to nerf it. Thats not even mentioning basic illusion spells that can be used in so many ways by creative players that I"d almost call it broken.

The Shadow Conjuration spells are also on par with a small, but free, Limited Wish, so not having this option is kind of a game killer.
----

Transmutation is also accepted as one of the rockstar schools, so I'm not even sure where people are going on this one. Not only do a bunch of Transmutations mimic Evocations (for those times when you absolutely need x elemental damage), but shapechanging spells are also wildly useful when you need some random ability and so you go dumpster diving in the Monster Manuals.

Add in the best abilities in the game like flying from Polymorph or Fly, awesome defense and walking through walls with Blink or Greater Blink, and the crazy utility of Shrink Item or the party buffing potential of of Greater Magic Weapon, and you realize that just the 3rd through 5th levels of this school justify it as a choice.

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Divination as a strong school? Put down the crack pipe guys, because the drugs are obviosly going to your head. Divination is such a weak school in terms of everything it does that its not even allowed as an option as a "school to lose".

I'd go even as far as saying that there is nothing useful that it does that can't be replicated by Planar Binding or other Conjuration spells.

----

If you held a gun to my head and told me to drop two schools, I'd drop Enchantment and Necromancy.

Enchantment tends to get nerfed by DMs a lot, so even the best things it does are often marginally useful (and most PCs don't want to be a spellcaster that upsets NPCs by mind controlling them).

Necromancy has two spells in it, period. Animate Dead is really nice, but you can use a scroll of it with UMD and just move on with your life. Magic Jar is also crazy powerful, but I could see a player not wanting to get into it as its dangerous to the caster and most players don't want to play monsters.

[dbb]

Blindness is quite nice at low levels, mostly because it's one of the earliest ranged spells that targets Fort; c.f. my comment above about wanting to have spells that can hit any save. In general, though, Necromancy is one of the schools that benefits the most from having the ability to do research or bring in non-core stuff. If I were starting at relatively high level in a core-only game, I'd be more inclined to overlook it.

I got enormous mileage out of Suggestion, but as K notes, if your DM is the sort to heavily nerf effects like getting your enemies to turn on each other, this spell and Enchantment in general are going to feel it the worst. Heavy use of Enchantment can also make other people in the party nervous, if they're the sort to get up to intra-party conflict.

A lot depends on what's legal in your game and where you want to go with the character. Just about any combination of schools can make for an effective Wizard, because the class is just that good -- even if for some unfathomable reason you decide to specialize in Evocation and drop Conjuration and Illusion, you're still probably going to outshine whatever people bring to the table in an average pickup game as long as you play smart.

--d.

[User3]

With all respect to K - a lot of what he said i agree with, but there's also some room to quibble.

Evocation: This has one good spell - Wall of Force. If I had to lose a school, this is it.

Transmutation: Its got Timestop and Shapechange - thats 2 of the holy trinity of spellcasting. Its also got all the good mobility and buff spells. And it has disintegrate, fabricate, and a bunch of other goodies. No brainer, you keep this. Dropping this school is like wearing a big sign on your chest saying "I'm stupid".

Enchantment: Generally runs into problems with DMs. Also generally not what players were thinking of when planning their mage. Be aware that Mindblank castrates this school with a grapefruit spoon, so if you're intending to play at high levels you probably want to ditch this, and if i was going to specialize in something, I'd probably dump this too.

Necromancy: I honestly love this school. In addition to Magic Jar and Animate Dead (both of which do rock), it has a number of other awesome spells. If you can get away with it, Simulacrum is stupidly broken. Enervation is also a great softening up spell for save or dies, and remains decent through 20th level. It also has a lot of fort-targetting effects. And for low levels there's fear effects - fulfilling the nerf the opposition role.

Conjuration: As if Planar Binding wasn't enough, it has all the damage dealing you'll ever need. And web, glitterdust, blind, grease, bunch of walls, and lots of other random utility. Sign me up.

Illusion: Not my favorite school, but you really can't argue with Colorspray. Invisibility also rocks, and shadow X spells are awesome. Standard illusions vary markedly in effectiveness depending on the DM and your creativity - but the other spells in this school place it far above Enchantment because the whole school doesn't get whacked by DM style-nerf.

Abjuration: It has mindblank. What more do you want? Wizards who don't cast mindblank as soon as they can, and don't cast it every day, die. Seriously. Immunity to every mind-affecting effect, which includes the entire Enchantment school, a bunch of illusions, fear effects (even ex ones), and who knows what else. That spell alone makes the school worthwhile. (And its got some other uses - including Protection from X and Magic Circle Against X which will prevent a lot of enchantment-type effects out of the box!)

Divination: I do love my divination - except most of the divination i love are cleric spells... But you can't drop this school, so whatever. Hey, you do need Scry for scry and die tactics, and we all know that's a winning strategy.

Squirrelloid

[Catharz]

The best reason to drop Evocation is that you can (eventually) still cast every evocation below 8th level so long as you didn't drop Illusion. That includes Contingency and Wall of Force.

I'd go so far as to say that the best evokers are Shadowcraft Mages.

[Endovior]

I see your point about Evocation, but in play, all the effective Wizards I've seen are Evokers. Not to mention the Warmage in a game I'm currently running that happened to acquire a Wand of Fireball at 2nd level (the party knocked over a magic item shop).

[User3]

1169869703[/unixtime]]I see your point about Evocation, but in play, all the effective Wizards I've seen are Evokers. Not to mention the Warmage in a game I'm currently running that happened to acquire a Wand of Fireball at 2nd level (the party knocked over a magic item shop).

....

You just aren't playing with the right people.

Seriously, a fighter can out-damage an evoker. Its not even hard. Wizards dominate games by doing stuff no one else can do, not by being a subpar source of damage. One web or glitterdust will do more for the party than a string of fireballs.

Ok, I'm playing a sorceror who specifically didn't take Polymorph because i'm trying to maintain sanity in the game. We come across a bunch of devils in this chamber - so i first drop an evards, which ties down enough of them that the fighters only have to deal with the few on the edge, and half of them are grappled as well. Then I drop a web, which while they can burn it off pretty easy, they can only burn 1 square/round, and that'll keep them in the Evard's (and thus more chances to grapple) and away from the fighters. I finally get up close enough to drop a Leomund's Tiny Hut for the Rogue (Yay ranged sneak attack). And then I glitterdust the nastier ones, blinding most of them. Shortly thereafter i drop the Evard's because the near ones are dead and the fighters are ready to go after the other ones. Instead of the 12 monsters at once, we fought them 2-3 at a time. And a bunch of the weaker ones succumbed to Evard's outright (+Firestorm dropped by the Druid just before I layed down Evard's). The only damage-dealing spell i cast all combat was Evard's, and that's just a secondary effect. We thrashed these monsters, and it was an EL +4-5 encounter. (Slightly mitigated by us having a large party, but we're also way under-treasured - we're 9th level with 3rd-4th level wealth; so the largeness of the party is probably outweighed by the crappiness of our equipment)

So rather than try to be a damage-whore, I set up the monsters for the others to finish. This is a superior way to play. (Also known as divide and conquer - the mage does the dividing to let everyone else do the conquering).

[MrWaeseL]

I see your point about Evocation, but in play, all the effective Wizards I've seen are Evokers. Not to mention the Warmage in a game I'm currently running that happened to acquire a Wand of Fireball at 2nd level (the party knocked over a magic item shop).

It's pretty bad to put anecdotal evidence up against hard proof, dude. Spend more time reading and less time posting.

[Crissa]

I'd say not to pick on the new guy, but...

I don't see how nd6 damage matches up to the n*X damage of the fighter.

-Crissa

[dbb]

1169869703[/unixtime]]I see your point about Evocation, but in play, all the effective Wizards I've seen are Evokers. Not to mention the Warmage in a game I'm currently running that happened to acquire a Wand of Fireball at 2nd level (the party knocked over a magic item shop).

In fairness, this is one of those situations where damage-dealing spells can be good. 18 points of damage on average is actually really effective against EL 2 encounters.

Bear in mind, however, that a Wand of Fireball is an item substantially more powerful than a 2nd level character -- or for that matter a 5th level character -- would normally have under the wealth guidelines. Any time you have a situation where someone has an item that's out of proportion to his level, it's likely to distort the picture of effectiveness.

"Battlefield control" Wizards -- the generic term for characters who use encounter-shaping, rather than damage-dealing spells -- do require different tactics than Evokers, and, especially if you have a lot of experience with previous editions, it can be difficult to adjust. (It was for me -- that was why I eventually resorted to a character without any damage-dealing spells.) Particularly since the main effect of playing one well is to make everyone else in the party look like a rock star. And it helps a great deal if the other players in the group understand how to maximize the benefits of having one around.

--d.

[Cielingcat]

It also has the added benefit of making people who are weaker than you still have fun.

[Judging__Eagle]

1169869703[/unixtime]]I see your point about Evocation, but in play, all the effective Wizards I've seen are Evokers. Not to mention the Warmage in a game I'm currently running that happened to acquire a Wand of Fireball at 2nd level (the party knocked over a magic item shop).

Yes, it would be.

Mostly b/c it's valued at 11,250 gp; and not say... 750, like a wand of Burning Hands (which is what you should have picked up if your DM had his head on straight).

By the way, how about the other party members? Did they get items worth roughly 10k gp?

Did the fighter pick up a +1 Flaming Adamantine Greatsword in that same run or a +1 Medium fortification mithral Breastplate?

Did the cleric pick up a Phylactery of Turning or a Nightstick and a +1 Heavy mace?

If I was in your group, I'd really hope so.


If you were the only person to get a magic wand; then your other party members got ripped off royally.

Hang on to the wand and kill stuff with loot; make sure that gets distributed evenly.





Also, you've probably never seen Wizards who spam Web on enemy hordes to be shot with arrows at your parties leisure (or... by a flying power attacking melee type).

I'm also betting that you've never seen a wiz drop Enlarge Person on a melee brute (in large parties with more than one wizard and several melee brutes; the "wizards" effectively end the combat for peanuts by enlarging two or more melee brutes). In our gaming group it's almost an accepted fact that those who can cast Enlarge Person will do so; so, when we did this at our local Living Greyhawk games, everyone thought we were nuts b/c we could demolish 'challenging' encounters at the drop of a hat (for mook fights I just pulled out my light xbow, it was all lvl 1-3 after all).

Cast Fly on a rogue so that they can keep pace over the party and flank people the same round that the tanks charge said enemy.

Or cast... Obscuring Mist to screw enemies who outnumber you want want to shoot you up. I've tripped more than one DM in my gaming group (all of whom have seen me do this in the past, and they still think it's a new idea) and now everyone knows it's just a great spell.

A worse spell is something like Wall of Thorns or Briarweb; those are damaging spells that last multiple rounds and control the flow of a battlefield.

Really, evocation is for mouthbreathers, it only looks good on paper. However, it's actually bad for party effectiveness and will result in less overall damage done than throwing out a decent de-buff or buff spell (which, unlike damage spells almost always work).

As soon as they meet a real challenge they wish they could summon mobs or help uber-buff the whole party or god-mode one PC.

Damage spells are better for dealing with sub-par enemies; or enemies with high challenge but low survivability; since let's be honest, damage spells never do more than 1/4 to 1/3 of their potential damage on average.

Plus, the best damage spells are Conjurations.

[Essence]

Plus, the best damage spells are Conjurations.

Can you elaborate?

[Cielingcat]

Would you prefer actual damage spells, or spells that just do more damage?