Can't Decide... Gah!

[Mongoose87]

So, I'm definitely running my first-ever Wizard in a friend's upcoming campaign. It starts at 1st level, takes place in Eberron. However, I cannot, for the life of me, decide if I should make him a Conjurer or an Elven Generalist. If I was specializing, I'd give up Enchantment and Evocation, for suckitude-related reasons, however, both of those schools can be fun to play around with, if you ignore the aforementioned suck, and that extra highest-level spell slot looks pretty shiny. Opinions, advice, insults?

[Jalor]

Conjurer. If it's a short campaign, go Focused Specialist.

[Mongoose87]

Conjurer. If it's a short campaign, go Focused Specialist.

Quite the opposite, it will be a very long campaign.

[RelentlessImp]

Gnome Illusionist (with 1st level Racial Substitution from Races of Stone) slipping into Shadowcrafter and Shadowcraft Mage. Grab hold of Signature Spell to spontaneously convert any of your spells into your Signature Spell (Minor Image or Silent Image) and load up on utility/battlefield control, using the converted spells to fuel your offensive capabilities. (Google 'Killer Gnome', it'll explain the entire thing in detail if you're unfamiliar with SCM.)

Other than that, I've always really liked Elven Generalists, though I stay away from Wizards myself. Specializing without specializing - it doesn't get better than that, if you ask me.

EDIT: Just to add another option; go Diviner. You only have to sacrifice one school, and if you really want your first time Wizard to specialize, it's the easiest choice. Dropping Evocation is a no-brainer then.

[Kylarra]

For a first timer, I'd go elven generalist.

[Kurald Galain]

Don't let the people fool you, focused specialist is awesome. You get so much more spells per day that it's simply amazing.

Sure, you won't get That One Uber-spell from every school. But you'll still have literally thousands of spells to pick from anyway; it's just an optimization fallacy that you Really Do Need school X only because it contains one spell that's so good.

Schools to drop? Evocation, of course. Either illusion or enchantment, because of the big overlap, but probably not both. Necromancy, it's a solid school but many characters aren't "into that". And Abjuration is a safe drop as long as your party contains any other kind of caster.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

(Focused) Conjurer is good if you decide to go Malconvoker later on. Otherwise, it does start to drop off a little bit past 5th level spells.

EDIT: The schools I usually drop, in order are: Evocation, Enchantment, Necromancy.

[Kylarra]

Don't let the people fool you, focused specialist is awesome. You get so much more spells per day that it's simply amazing.

Sure, you won't get That One Uber-spell from every school. But you'll still have literally thousands of spells to pick from anyway; it's just an optimization fallacy that you Really Do Need school X only because it contains one spell that's so good.

Schools to drop? Evocation, of course. Either illusion or enchantment, because of the big overlap, but probably not both. Necromancy, it's a solid school but many characters aren't "into that". And Abjuration is a safe drop as long as your party contains any other kind of caster.I'm mostly recommending it since this is his first wizard, and as such, Elven Generalist offers the most possibilities for him to explore the various flavors of spells so he can get a feel of what he wants/likes to do and then he can make the [generally reasonable] choice to be a focused specialist on a later char. :smalltongue:

Also LOL at C&P'd posts.