Schools of Magic (for specialist Wizards)

[Essence]

The former -- I know that the Creation line is broken.

[Cielingcat]

Alright then.

Arc of Lightning is a 5th level spell with no SR, reflex half, 1d6/level max 15d6. It hits two creatures and everything between them. It's pretty much completely better than Cone of Cold. It still isn't worth casting, but you can't have everything.

Blast of Flame is a 4th level spell that has a cone effect, no SR, and reflex for half. Does 1d6/level, max 10d6. It's not much better than Fireball, but it's a level higher. So this one isn't better.

The Lesser Orb spells do 1d8/2 levels (max 5d8), no save or SR, ranged touch attack, as 1st level spells. They do more damage than Magic Missile, and might kill something at first level, as long as that something has a d4 HD.

The normal Orb spells do 1d8/level, ranged touch, no save, no SR. Well, there is a save, but that's for the secondary effect-the damage always gets through. Single target, by the way. Many idiots on WotC consider them to be broken, but I can't imagine why that is because they still suck despite being better than conventional Evocation spells. There's also a Sonic version that does 1d6 instead.

Sphere of Ultimate Destruction is a 9th level spell that basically summons a Living Disintegrate. The Sphere affects anyone it touches with a Disintegrate spell, basically.

Summon Elemental Monolith brings you a CR 17 beastie for Concentration (up to 1 round/level). It's not direct damage, but I mentioned it because if you can figure out how to not have to concentrate on it you basically get another melee brute.

Transmute Rock to Lava is a Transmutation spell, but it's still better than Evocation in that it does exactly what the name suggests. It does this for 2d6 hours, by the way. 9th level.

Vitriolic Sphere is a 5th level spell that does 1d4/level, max 15d4. SR no, Reflex save to not take damage in the next two rounds. If you fail, you take 6d4 next round and 3d4 the next; if you succeed on the save in the second round, you don't take damage in the third. It sucks, but it can do more than the Evocation spells.

Overall, almost none of these spells are worth casting, but they are better than the crap you already have, such as Cone of Cold.

[Endovior]

Regarding the wand; it was a lucky roll, mostly... the guy running the shop was a 4th-level Wizard of the sort that makes a living casting Identify a lot. However, I generated treasure using the tables in the DMG; I determined that he mostly had a bunch of Minor magic items, although he did have 3 Moderates. Of the moderates, one of them was a Wand of Fireball (5th level)... the others were a potion of Cure Serious Wounds (auto-claimed by the Barbarian, as with all healing potions) and a Scroll containing a number of mid-level spells (which the True Fiend in the party intends to UMD at an appropriate time).

Incidentally, the Barbarian mentioned STILL manages to kill more people then the Warmage, despite the stream of Fireballs... he's using the Races of War rules, and they're working well for him.

[Judging__Eagle]

Eww, your Barb is a moron by taking all of the healing stuff for himself.

No, seriously.

He should use the cash to buy wands of Lesser Vigour for the Claric/Druid/Archivist/Artificer/Warlock to use on him at the start of a fight. As well as scrolls of higher level healing spells for in combat "oh shit" healing.

Also, I think that the "not being able to activate magical items" restriction part of a Barbarian's Rage includes potions.

Of course, you can take a full round action to end your rage, but then your fast healing kicks in, so... I dunno, potions seem useless to a Barbarian imo.

Tell him to buy an Adamantine breastplate and read the new rules for Adamantine armours in RoW.

[User3]

If you want to diss Evocation based on its PHB spells, that’s fine. I completely understand, and even approve. Even with metamagic, its not as effective as say…..Web + Stinking Cloud.

But if you are going to cherry-pick supplements, I’m afraid that Evocation can be quite good.

Lets take the killer app for 2nd level, which is Frost Breath from the Spell Compendium. Its an AoE damaging spell that dazes people on a failed Reflex save. Group Tekken juggle anyone?

If you don’t want an AoE or would like to target a different save, you can use the a lesser 2nd level spell called Darkbolt from Lords of Madness, which does smallish amounts of damage to only one target, but also stuns a dude on a failed Fort save and allows a one-man Tekken juggle.

Heck, if you just want to be weird you can use a 2nd level Numbing Sphere from Frostburn and do 1d4 Dex damage to people as a move action each turn while casting other spells. Small amounts of Dex damage add up to kills wh

How about the 3rd level? You have some weird battlefield control spells like Flashburst and Great Thunderclap which do things like blindness and stunning/deafing respectively to a very large area for a small duration, but you also get weird spells like the Blade of Fear and Pain that forces a Will save or be Frightened for 1d4 rounds at the cost of being a touch attack you can do every round the whole battle.

At 4th level you get spells like Parboil out of Sandstorm, a spell exactly like Fireball except you also do Int damage and can autokill a large number of DnD monsters.

I mean, you can do these things on top of being the guy who metamagics your stuff. You can just be a 1st level human Wizard who has Fire Heritage and Primitive Caster and throws down 3d4 Burning Hands spells and is effective for most of his very early career before he can metamagic. Its not as easy as a normal wizard who throws his feats to the wind and just is awesome with basic PHB spells, but it can be done.

[User3]

And don't forget that if you take your 8th level of Master Specialist: Evocation at character level 17 or higher, you can add Miracle to your spell book. Yeah.

[Cielingcat]

You can do that normally at level 17, by getting yourself a scroll of Miracle.

[RandomCasualty]

1170183055[/unixtime]]
I mean, you can do these things on top of being the guy who metamagics your stuff. You can just be a 1st level human Wizard who has Fire Heritage and Primitive Caster and throws down 3d4 Burning Hands spells and is effective for most of his very early career before he can metamagic. Its not as easy as a normal wizard who throws his feats to the wind and just is awesome with basic PHB spells, but it can be done.

Honestly a 3d4 burning hands is still garbage. You average 7.5 damage and your targets get a reflex save for half. You still really can't kill much other than a bunch of kobolds or dire rats. If you spent that many feats on it, you should at least be able to toast a bunch of orcs at close range.

I'll still take color spray over that anyday.

[Judging__Eagle]

1170264404[/unixtime]]

1170183055[/unixtime]]
I mean, you can do these things on top of being the guy who metamagics your stuff. You can just be a 1st level human Wizard who has Fire Heritage and Primitive Caster and throws down 3d4 Burning Hands spells and is effective for most of his very early career before he can metamagic. Its not as easy as a normal wizard who throws his feats to the wind and just is awesome with basic PHB spells, but it can be done.

Honestly a 3d4 burning hands is still garbage. You average 7.5 damage and your targets get a reflex save for half. You still really can't kill much other than a bunch of kobolds or dire rats. If you spent that many feats on it, you should at least be able to toast a bunch of orcs at close range.

I'll still take color spray over that anyday.

Pick ups spell focus (illusion) and greater spell focus (illusion).

Then you'll count as if your casting stat is.... 4 points higher.

A DC 15-17 (10 + 1 spell lvl + 2 assume a 15 w/ elite array + 2 spell foc + greater spell foc) at lvl 1 isn't too bad.

Which will bite you in the ass in a few levels, until you get some more powerful illusion spells at lvl 7+ like the Shadow Evocation/Conjuration/Shades line of spells.

Personally, I think that those spells were custom made for sorcerers and their limited spells known list.

Of course, they take a level longet to get access to those spells however.


On the other hand; I've had the wizards and bard in my homebrew game assasult enemy positions before the rest of the party could reach the enemy.

They had Expeditious retreat and would charge in; drop Coloursprays like mad while the bard tanked those that remained; then the barbarians would arrive 1-3 turns later to kill those that still stood; the rest of the party would then show up to start CdG'ing the pretty much helpless enemies that remained and heal the bard and wizards that were left.

[shau]

My thoughts on the spell schools.

Conjuration

The "I can do everything school." Offers a wide selection of crowd control, direct damage, save or suck, save or suck but you still suck even if you make that save, and don't bother saving, just suck spells. Also the school with all the summons in it and the school that has the best chance of countering antimagic or spell resistance: infinity. Plus it has some really nice out of combat spells like teleport. You pretty much have to take this.

My thoughts: Don't drop it.

Transmutation

The other school that seems to be devoted to doing everything, transmutation spells can do buffing, crowd control, save or die, utility, etc. The best buffing school. The big draw of transmutation is the broken spells however. The existence of almost anything in the polymorph chain radically changes the game, even alter self. Rope trick can also be used to break out of the X number of encounters before rest system, and is really low level.

My thoughts: Don't drop it.

Illusion

My favorite school. Mostly made up of will save or else spells, image spells, unique buffs, and shadow spells. The will save spells are potent, most notably color spray, which owns the first few levels. The image spells allow a lot of creativity in their use, and are very powerful. Silent image at level one can fill up five 10 foot cubes. It is a will save spell that still effects things immune to the mind affecting tag, such as undead and vermin, and costs an action of some sort to disbelieve even if the enemy does make their save. The buffs include great things that have in combat and out of combat use, like invisibility. I have heard that many people have had good experiences with the shadow line, though in my game it has only led to arguments as to what exactly it means to be sitting in a sixty percent real solid fog for example.

Unfortunately, illusion seems to peter out after awhile. The image series sort of runs out of things to do. True seeing appears, and pretty much screws your whole school, and some creatures have it innately.

My thoughts: Illusion is my favorite school because of the image line. If it take it, which I usually do, I usually drop illusion because they have similar roles (will saves and a super first level spell). I do not think I would ever drop illusion and enchantment, if for no other reason than because first level wizarding is bad enough without sleep or colorspray.

Enchantment

The other will save school. Probably the most focused school in the game and it suffers from that. Almost every spell has a will save, so if you are going against clerics for example, this school will not help you much. Even more common is the mind affecting tag, which means that this school rolls over to the undead, etc. Several spells shut you down as well, such as mindblank and protection from x spells. If all those restrictions were not enough, several spells have additional ones, such as language dependent or humanoid only.

On the other hand, when the spells work they are extremely effective. When the balor succumbs to dominate monster, you are in a better place than you would have been if he had just died. Sleep is the other OMG low levels spell, although it goes obsolete in ways color spray does not. You can get around the problems of lacking a proper spell target by using spells like suggestion and dominate to have your own army which does all the fighting for you. Watch out for dispels though.

My thoughts: I usually take this or illusion as my first level kill spell and will saves school, but I never take both of them. I almost always take illusion over this for the image line, but I think this school might have more value at high level.

Evocation

The I blow things up school. It would be a lot better if blowing things up were more viable as a wizard. Evocation is surprisingly good when combed for spells that don't involve throwing buckets of d6s at people. All the wall spells are good, especially wall of force and force cage. Contingency is good. I have had a lot of success with wind wall and tiny hut as well.

My thoughts: Droppable, but don't drop it just because fireball is no good. Read wall of force carefully and decide whether or not you want to give that up.

Necromancy

The fort save or die school. Blindness/deafness is for the most part a second level ranged save or die. If your target can't fight. Very convenient in that most foes will attempt to protect against death effects but probably won't protect against blindness. Necromancy also has a lot of neat effects that you cannot get any where else, such as raising your hp or raising the dead. Also has great weakening spells like enervation and ray of exhaustion. Fear is a very nice will save or suck spell that effects an area even does something when the save is made.

My thoughts: Necromancy has a wide range of useful abilities. I would miss things like false life and blindness if I dropped it, but it can be safely done.

Abjuration

Known as the defensive school, abjuration has a lot of spells that really hurt when they are missing. Lacking a dispel, dimensional anchor, break enchantment, or mindblank when you really need one hurts and hurts badly. On other hand, most of these are on the cleric list. A lot of people swear by using dispel as their first move, though I disagree. The school also gains some spells that are very effective versus evil outsiders, and the upper levels have prismatic walls which are amazing. The protection spells give an amazing amount of benefits for their level. For some reason, this schools seems to get prestige classes that are flat out better than those of the other schools.

My thoughts: Probably safe to drop if you have a cleric. Do not drop if you don't have a cleric.

Divination

...There's a reason that you can't drop divination you know. This school is rarely effective and rarely seems to do what I expect a diviner to do. Identify and detect magic are useful. Scry is good but can be game breaking. True sight is there if you want to make illusionists cry. See invisibility is good. Foresight has a nice effect but is way over priced.

My thoughts: If only you could drop this.

Overall: I usually take illusion and drop enchantment, and then drop abjuration or evocation. If I do not have a cleric I make sure to take abjuration. Every so often I will decide I want evo's walls and drop necromancy.

[Fwib]

1170101136[/unixtime]]
Also, I think that the "not being able to activate magical items" restriction part of a Barbarian's Rage includes potions.

...nor can he cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function.

So a raging barbarian can use potions and other similar items.

[Judging__Eagle]

1170429037[/unixtime]]

1170101136[/unixtime]]
Also, I think that the "not being able to activate magical items" restriction part of a Barbarian's Rage includes potions.

...nor can he cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function.

So a raging barbarian can use potions and other similar items.

Yeah, but he's using the RoW Barb, so you have to use that Barb's rules for Rage:

Rage (Ex): When doing melee damage to a foe or being struck by a foe, a Barbarian may choose to enter a Rage as an immediate action. While Raging, a Barbarian gains a +2 morale bonus to hit and damage in melee combat and may apply any Rage Dice he has to his melee damage rolls. He also gains a +2 to saves, a -2 to AC, and he gains DR X/- with “X” being equal to half his Barbarian level +2 (rounded down). For example, a 1st level Barbarian has DR 2/- while Raging and a 10th level Barbarian has DR 7/- while Raging.
While Raging, a Barbarian may not cast spells, activate magic items, use spell-like abilities, or drop his weapons or shield. Rage lasts until he has neither struck an enemy for three consecutive rounds nor suffered damage from an enemy for three consecutive rounds. He may voluntarily end a Rage as a full-round action.

So, yeah, Endovior; your parties Barb can not use Pots at all while raging and when not he has Fast Healing 1, 5, 10, 15 or 20. Make sure he fvcking knows that before he starts 'claiming' all of the parties potions.

Your Figther and Knight and Sammy need those pots. Your Barb has DR which he can beef up with an adamantine breast plate and Great Fortitude as well as Fast Healing.

Fast healing 5/5 levels is good between fights and
DR X + Y + 5/ Adamantine (X = BaB), - ((Barb lvl/2 + 2) + 5) is pretty decent while raging.

So, at lvl.... 4 that's DR 8/Adamantine (4), - (4). Which will give you 3 points of DR every 3 levels; and then at BaB +11 will jump it up an other 5 more points if he picks up Great Fort. Which frankly, is fvcking awesome for a Barbarian since you can have all of your saves = your Fort Save while raging.

He might even pick up a great sheild and 3 levels of Knight to get their changable anytime you want to Energy Resistance (Knight level + Sheild Bonus). Although you can just get some Energy Resitance 5 or 10 rings and use them when you want, you don't want to actually delay the class abilities too much they're really hawtsome.

[Endovior]

Really, all the fast healing and regeneration in the world are irrelevant for this guy; he's both the most effective slayer and the most injured character. Despite his healing, he spends a lot of time sitting at single-digit hit points, and there's no cleric in the party, so yeah, potions are handy. In any event, I don't really see potions as magic items that require effort to activate; it's a bottle, you drink it. Since according to those rules, you can throw acid at people while raging, I have no problem with being able to drink potions while raging.

(Also, aside from the Monk and the Shadow, he's the only Melee-centric character in the group... the Monk tends to avoid damage due to her much better AC, and the Shadow isn't hurt by many effects, but is actually *damaged* by normal healing potions)

[Judging__Eagle]

1170537974[/unixtime]]Really, all the fast healing and regeneration in the world are irrelevant for this guy; he's both the most effective slayer and the most injured character. Despite his healing, he spends a lot of time sitting at single-digit hit points, and there's no cleric in the party, so yeah, potions are handy. In any event, I don't really see potions as magic items that require effort to activate; it's a bottle, you drink it. Since according to those rules, you can throw acid at people while raging, I have no problem with being able to drink potions while raging.

(Also, aside from the Monk and the Shadow, he's the only Melee-centric character in the group... the Monk tends to avoid damage due to her much better AC, and the Shadow isn't hurt by many effects, but is actually *damaged* by normal healing potions)

As for the Barb always being at death's door.

Yes, I know how that is intimately. I've taken a Barb from lvl 4-6 via a lot of soloing.

While, the Barb can lay lots of enemies to waste, if he gets mobbed he goes down pretty fast.

As for drinking potions; I'd still tell him no.

Potions are really spells whose caster and target are the same person (says so in the Potion description). So, I'd tell him no.

Really, get a hireling with a wand of lesser vigour to keep him from dying and tell him to get an Adamantine breastplate to pull his DR up.

[Username17]

Given access to sufficiently large bodies of spells, all schools of magic are interhangeable and thus the correct answer is to simply give up access to as many of them as you can for whatever benefits you can get.

Evocations can cause status effects or ability damage. Enchantments can remove opponents without using the [Mind Affecting] tag (see freezing glance from It's Cold Outside). Really, you can do anything with any of them.

Using just the Player's Handbook, you can win D&D by level 9 if you have access to Conjuration, Illusion, or Enchantment. It doesn't actually matter if a Flesh golem is immune to charm monster if you've already used it on two Umber Hulks. Honorable mention should be given to Transmutation which can give you unlimited resources and Divination which can bypass any plot device. But you don't really need anything past Enchantment, Illusion, or Conjuration.

And in the weird world of using all the sourcebooks, there is now enough magic to cherry pick out of that you can move forward regardless of the magic you happen to be using.

Once Abjuration was given the ability to protect you from "your opponents moving" it was basically all over - there isn't a single school of Magic that can't make you win in the proper hands.

---

where things get screwy of course, is magic items. Most games involve placing wholely arbitrary spellcasting items in your path that are way better than anything you could make or purchase. That's fine, but the schools of magic on these things are as arbitrary as the items. With a bunch of dropped schools, you may be forced to give all your scrolls and wands to the Rogue.

Which is fine, actually. But it feels weird.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Problem with enchantment is that magic circle spells utterly fuck you. Even if you've charmed some bad beast, if it steps into a magic circle it instantly becomes free of your control. So any battle involving a 5th level caster can easily turn into a TPK if you rely on charmed or dominated monsters.

[Username17]

1170717752[/unixtime]]Problem with enchantment is that magic circle spells utterly fvck you. Even if you've charmed some bad beast, if it steps into a magic circle it instantly becomes free of your control. So any battle involving a 5th level caster can easily turn into a TPK if you rely on charmed or dominated monsters.

That's the core point of Enchantment that gets it raped in its rape hole by many DMs. The fact is that a Magic Circle only suppresses an effect, which means that it only suppresses an ongoing effect. So technically anything you generate out of Enchantment that is Instantaneous is impervious to suppression - there's no ongoing effect so it can't be suppressed.

And while holding out for mind rape, the 9th level spell from BoVD that is in most ways more game shattering than shapechange, is perhaps a bit much to ask for - recall that charm monster generates as many Instantaneous effects as you want. Unfortunately, the manner in which it does this is so hidden in page references that many DMs won't let you do it or even sit down long enough for you to explain how it works.

Here's how it works: charm monster sets your target to "Friendly" which is a specific base stance of NPC reaction and it further causes the subject to regard everything you say favorably, with a page reference to the Diplomacy skill. Here's the fun part - an NPC that is already friendly and is favorably disposed to the words coming out of your mouth is actually extremely easy to convert into a follower with a Diplomacy check. And that is a non-magical instantaneous effect.

So while I freely grant that dominate [whatever] is a a shitty line of spells that is made out of shit, charm monster is so crazy good in no small part because it is resistant to the magic circle shut-down that plagues most of the school.

A modest investiture in Social Skills + Charm Monster = You Win D&D. That is one of the primary points that make us wash our hands every time we remember how unwashed we are when we aren't Beguilers.

---

Of course, it's in many ways an extremely boring way to play. An Enchantment focused character really only has two things he does: the level-appropriate version of sleep that he's packing, and the level appropriate version of charm. Seriously, just about everything else in the entire school is crap, and entire sourcebooks come out that don't even have a spell for Enchantment at any level.

Its two killer apps are indeed killers. They are sufficient to propel you on rocket skates through to 20th level - but there really are only two of them. At first level they hand you the ability to save-or-die groups of enemies and permanently add level appropriate enemies as followers of your team. Both those effects are fvcking ridiculous, and really everything you ever get out to 17th level is basically just updating the targetting limitations on those two effects to match the enemies you're supposedly running into later on.

Is that boring? Depends upon the campaign, but probably yeah it is. But it works.

-Username17

[Essence]

Wait...so because Diplomacy is an Instantaneous effect, Charm X doesn't fail when confronted with Magic Circle?

I'm afraid I don't follow you, Frank.

In fact, a brief search through the SRD revealed exactly zero core Enchantment spells that are Instantaneous. And if the Charm X never gets it's mojo started, then the Diplomacy checks you're making don't get to be at the stoopid-easy DCs you're used to, and your Diplomancy doesn't work like you think it does.

[User3]

His point is that you can Charm someone, then Diplomacy them to Helpful (or even Fanatic), and they'll stay that way even when the Charm expires/is suppressed by a Magic Circle.

The non-magical, instantaneous effect he is talking about is the Diplomacy check itself.

Granted, this won't work on someone who already has a Magic Circle up, but those are the people your new buddies are busy killing.

[Crissa]

However, don't try to ask them to do something new involving another Diplomacy check, or they may realize that you connec them into it in the first place...

...Of course, most DMs play it as any time the Charm fades, the target suddenly knows they've been conned. (Another instaneous effect)

-Crissa

[Catharz]

1170887354[/unixtime]]However, don't try to ask them to do something new involving another Diplomacy check, or they may realize that you connec them into it in the first place...

Actually, the DC to make somebody who is already "helpful" more "helpful" is 1, making success trivially easy even after the Charm (which lets you make a DC 20 check to make them Helpful) expires.

Even if you can't make someone helpful, it's only a DC 1 to make them friendly (forever) after Charming them.

1170887354[/unixtime]]...Of course, most DMs play it as any time the Charm fades, the target suddenly knows they've been conned. (Another instaneous effect)

-Crissa

That is a situation of 'Huh, I suddenly find myself wondering why I thought I liked that person so much. I wonder why? Oh, they must have Charmed me.'
If the person never suddently goes from friendly to un-, there's never a reason to suspect.

[shau]

Isn't doing anything with the diplomacy rules just broken already? First of all there are those weird builds that can make a DC 100 diplomacy check to turn your worst enemy into your bestest buddy. If you don't want to take it that far, the DC to make a character move from hostile to unfriendly is only 20, 30 if you have to rush. Make that check and the enemy goes from trying to kill you to being generally unhelpful and making nasty remarks.

[User3]

Okay, so what if you were a sorcerer who got complete access to two, and only two schools? IE, your "spells known" consist of, say, "all conjuration and illusions spells on the sor/wiz list, except possibly some cantrips".

Is Conjuration/Illusion the way to go? Conjuration/Transmutation? Assume the game will end at level 12-15, if not sooner.

[josephbt]

Go Conj/Illusion FTW.
Ench gets shafted by massive Will saves and critters with immunities. Illusion's got some nice spells that can be useful well into high level, and basically loses mostly against bad stuff with True seeing. So, that's when those other Conj spells get to be used.

[Catharz]

So, playing a Focused Specialist [CM] Illusionist/Shadow Adept/Shadowcraft Mage/Incantatrix...

What should the fourth retained school be? Divination, Abjuration, and Illusion are required. Conjuration for Teleport? Transmutation for buffs? Necromancy for coolness & Shadow Adept bonuses?