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View Full Version : Is Evocation really so bad?



sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 11:16 AM
Floating Disk
Shatter
Tiny Hut
Ice Storm
Resilient Sphere
Wall of Force
Contingency
Delayed Blast Fireball
Forcecage
Bigby’s Significant Digit Interposing/Forceful/Grasping/etc Hand


Discuss. =P

Dogmantra
2009-09-26, 11:18 AM
It's not that it's bad, it's that other stuff does it better. Like Shadow Evocation.

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 11:18 AM
Most of it is emulated by a line of spells in an otherwise more useful school. In other instances, the ones you listed aren't ones I use, even when I'm a generalist (I've never understood people's infatuation with force cage.) I can get the effects just as well from other schools of magic. Usually conjuration in this case.

Temet Nosce
2009-09-26, 11:22 AM
It's already been stated, but it's less that Evocation is bad and more that it has little unique about it to recommend it. There are a few spells which would be nice to have, but it's easy to drop Evocation.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 11:23 AM
It's not that it's bad, it's that other stuff does it better. Like Shadow Evocation.
Shadow Evocation means you're casting lower level spells, don't scale nearly as well, offer enemies twice the saves, and are basically hosed against things that are immune to mind-affecting. Unless you're using SCM quasi-real shenanigans, I wouldn't consider Shadow Evocation that strong an argument.


Most of it is emulated by a line of spells in an otherwise more useful school. In other instances, the ones you listed aren't ones I use, even when I'm a generalist (I've never understood people's infatuation with force cage.) I can get the effects just as well from other schools of magic. Usually conjuration in this case.
You don't use Wall of Force? Really?

Nerd-o-rama
2009-09-26, 11:23 AM
Would you rather do the same thing everyone else is doing better than them (damage), or do stuff that they can never possibly do (every other Wizard school)?

Now, the non-damage Evocation spells are good, but there's only a handful of them, all of which can be replicated by a couple of Illusion spells.

Siosilvar
2009-09-26, 11:24 AM
Shadow Evocation
Shadow Evocation, Greater

Mount
Orb of Force (or Acid), Lesser
Rope Trick
Solid Fog
Shadow Evocation
Again, Solid Fog
Craft Contingent Spell feat
... is fire damage.
... costs 1500 gp. Also, Greater Shadow Evocation.
Solid Fog for a third time. Orb of Force (or Acid), Irresistable Dance...

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 11:25 AM
You don't use Wall of Force? Really?

What for? :smallconfused:

I fail to understand the utility of casting a spell that makes it harder for me to get at my soon to be victims. I suppose I could use it to cut off their escape routes, but frankly, I enjoy the thrill of the chase.

Morty
2009-09-26, 11:25 AM
Evocation isn't bad. It's less useful than other wizard schools, but it doesn't mean it's weak. It's not Evocation's fault that a) Someone decided to make a spell that replicates an entire school and b) Conjuration is way too strong and walks onto Evocation's turf.

Jergmo
2009-09-26, 11:26 AM
Shadow Evocation means you're casting lower level spells, don't scale nearly as well, offer enemies twice the saves, and are basically hosed against things that are immune to mind-affecting. Unless you're using SCM quasi-real shenanigans, I wouldn't consider Shadow Evocation that strong an argument.


You don't use Wall of Force? Really?

My players in a villain campaign were trying to use Wall of Force to kill a silver dragon that was strafing their Legions of Terror™. It was a bit annoying, but intelligent, I suppose. :smallannoyed:

Anyway, the way I see it, Evokers have their place - it's just not as the party's main arcane spellcaster.

Keld Denar
2009-09-26, 11:27 AM
Derived from the Latin de (from; out of) and fenestra (window or opening).

Thus, we are given the greatest Evocation ever....Defenestrating Sphere.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 11:28 AM
It's already been stated, but it's less that Evocation is bad and more that it has little unique about it to recommend it. There are a few spells which would be nice to have, but it's easy to drop Evocation.
People see Evocation as the school for direct damage. I don't think that's fair; the thing it seems based around most strongly is force effects. Virtually all the Force spells ever printed (and there's quite a lot, often very good ones) are in the Evocation school. It seems to me that that alone is a pretty reasonable recommendation of the school; they may not be the most game-shattering (with a few exceptions, like Forcecage + Dimensional Anchor), but they're often the hardest to resist/bypass, and the ones that work most consistently against virtually every monster you'll run into.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 11:29 AM
It's great against large groups of enemies, and not much else. But when your attacking entire armies of hundreds, thousands, or even millions, nothing beats evocation.

woodenbandman
2009-09-26, 11:30 AM
I would ban it, something I can't say about many other schools.

aje8
2009-09-26, 11:31 AM
People see Evocation as the school for direct damage. I don't think that's fair; the thing it seems based around most strongly is force effects. Virtually all the Force spells ever printed (and there's quite a lot, often very good ones) are in the Evocation school. It seems to me that that alone is a pretty reasonable recommendation of the school; they may not be the most game-shattering (with a few exceptions, like Forcecage + Dimensional Anchor), but they're often the hardest to resist/bypass, and the ones that work most consistently against virtually every monster you'll run into.

You know what Byasses everything? Solid Fog.

Unforuntatley for game balance, force effects, while good, aren't enough to not ban the school.

Wall of Force is a fine spell, but Wall of Stone is almost as good and comes with a huge versatile school instead of a quite limited one.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 11:33 AM
Evocation is meant for ghost-busting, and blowing up large groups and the occasional type of energy vulnerability exploitation. Anyone who uses it differently is using it wrong.

ZeroNumerous
2009-09-26, 11:35 AM
It's great against large groups of enemies, and not much else. But when your attacking entire armies of hundreds, thousands, or even millions, nothing beats evocation.

Gate.

Evocation: The only spells worthwhile in Evocation can be replicated with Shadow Evocation/Greater(IE: Wall of Force, Forcecage, etc), and sometimes to your benefit(ignoring the material component of Forcecage, for example). Otherwise, the cost-vs-benefit is in favor of specialization.

Temet Nosce
2009-09-26, 11:38 AM
People see Evocation as the school for direct damage. I don't think that's fair; the thing it seems based around most strongly is force effects. Virtually all the Force spells ever printed (and there's quite a lot, often very good ones) are in the Evocation school. It seems to me that that alone is a pretty reasonable recommendation of the school; they may not be the most game-shattering (with a few exceptions, like Forcecage + Dimensional Anchor), but they're often the hardest to resist/bypass, and the ones that work most consistently against virtually every monster you'll run into.

Sure, I agree that the force spells are great (like you mention, the traditional "caster screw you now" method relies on Forcecage/Dimensional Anchor/Timestop/Celerity/Maw of Chaos which means you have to have Evocation) however, Forcecage isn't much of a staple unless you're doing that due to costs... So it's less of something you have to have than something it's nice to have. Wall of Force is also definitely excellent, but is extremely situational and more importantly can be mostly duplicated by other wall spells (I don't deny it's one of the best but... Really, you could just replace it with Prismatic Wall pretty easily)

Other than that though? I mean really, what about the school is truly irreplaceable? Stuff you can't get elsewhere?

Indon
2009-09-26, 11:39 AM
Evocation is a good spell school. It just doesn't have an array of absurdly abusable spells like most of the other schools have.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 11:40 AM
You know what Byasses everything? Solid Fog.
Incorporeal/ethereal creatures laugh at you.


The point I'm trying to make is that, even inside Core, Evocation has some pretty respectable Battlefield Control power that seems to be pretty much ignored in all discussions of it. I virtually never hear people talk about Force Effects in the context of Evocation, just direct damage (which, admittedly, is rather poor and can be handled by other schools). I'm not saying it's the best school, or even that it can compete with Conjuration or Transmutation. Still,
I don't see why it's always first on the chopping block, as Illusion/Enchantment/Divination/Abjuration all have their own weaknesses too. I suppose the only major failing of the school is that it tries to compete with one of the Big Two. On its own merits, I think it's surprisingly decent and rather underrated.

Keld Denar
2009-09-26, 11:47 AM
Evocation's new campaign slogan:

EVOCATION! At least its not as bad as Enchantment!

Yora
2009-09-26, 11:48 AM
Then I research a spell "immunity against all types of energy".

Now it is. :smallbiggrin:

ZeroNumerous
2009-09-26, 11:49 AM
EVOCATION! At least its not as bad as Enchantment!

But when you're specializing in anything other than Divination, what do you chuck? Evocation/Enchantment. :smalltongue:

Temet Nosce
2009-09-26, 11:52 AM
But when you're specializing in anything other than Divination, what do you chuck? Evocation/Enchantment. :smalltongue:

Actually, I disagree about Enchantment. True, unless you use the Nightmare Spinner variant it's not that great at high levels (and even with it, the Will save issue is a problem) but it DOES offer access to spells you are not going to get elsewhere. I tend not to drop Enchantment unless I feel I really need to, my default second drop is Necromancy. You lose some debuffs, and ability damage spells but you can get most of that stuff elsewhere.

Yora
2009-09-26, 11:54 AM
Well, in all fairness, I would say that 95% of all D&D players don't know that Conjuration is a powerful school and get kicks out of Evocation and Enchantment. :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 12:00 PM
Floating Disk
Tiny Hut
Bigby’s Significant Digit Interposing/Forceful/Grasping/etc Hand


Discuss. =P

Huh? Im not gonna get into all of those, but floating disk is pretty much a non-combat utility spell for carrying stuff. Not really all that important once you get bags of holding, flight, etc. Usefulness gone in a flash.

Why bother with Tiny Hut when you have a Rope trick?

The various bigby's spells are kinda weak.

If it's not a force spell and it's in evocation, it's not worth messing with.

Eldariel
2009-09-26, 12:01 PM
Actually, I disagree about Enchantment. True, unless you use the Nightmare Spinner variant it's not that great at high levels (and even with it, the Will save issue is a problem) but it DOES offer access to spells you are not going to get elsewhere. I tend not to drop Enchantment unless I feel I really need to, my default second drop is Necromancy. You lose some debuffs, and ability damage spells but you can get most of that stuff elsewhere.

The school isn't weak, but has the most redundant stuff unless you're making a social beast Charming folk left and right. It also has nice buffs, but Transmutation and Illusion are much better in that regard. I'd always ban Enchantment first unless I was making a very socially focused character.

Keld Denar
2009-09-26, 12:01 PM
This is true. Just because its not the most mechanically strong thing EVAR, doesn't mean everyone does it that way.

Otherwise everyone would only play Wizards and Druids and Clerics...and maybe Artificers and Archivists.

But people play melee characters. They play rogues. They play a lot of stuff that is "sub-optimial". Just because its weaker mechanically, doesn't mean its less fun.

Of course, this doesn't make it any LESS weak, mechanically speaking, just more forgivable.

Myrmex
2009-09-26, 12:07 PM
Flashburst, a 3rd level Evocation in FRCS, is a long range spell that blinds all creatures in a 140' area (will negates).

[edit]
Evocation is a really great school, but most of the really great stuff is on divine lists.

Temet Nosce
2009-09-26, 12:08 PM
The school isn't weak, but has the most redundant stuff unless you're making a social beast Charming folk left and right. It also has nice buffs, but Transmutation and Illusion are much better in that regard. I'd always ban Enchantment first unless I was making a very socially focused character.

I wouldn't recommend it for buffs alone really, but honestly I get a lot of mileage out of Enchantment in comparison with other schools, particularly if you start at low levels. Sure, if you're starting at level 20 and you don't have high DCs the school isn't going to offer you much, but charm person can be more effective alone used carefully at low levels than some other entire schools and then there's Sleep (everyone's favorite low level save or die!), Heroism, Hideous Laughter...

Berserk Monk
2009-09-26, 12:09 PM
No, evocation rocks! It let's you nuke stuff.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 12:11 PM
Please tell me that's sarcasm...there are plenty of nukes in other schools. Like...Conjuration.

I am actually playing an evoker currently in one campaign...it can be fun, sure. Definitely not a terribly powerful school, though.

Myrmex
2009-09-26, 12:14 PM
Please tell me that's sarcasm...there are plenty of nukes in other schools. Like...Conjuration.

I am actually playing an evoker currently in one campaign...it can be fun, sure. Definitely not a terribly powerful school, though.

Conjuration is largely limited to single target nukes, that require a touch attack to make.

Nohwl
2009-09-26, 12:16 PM
evocation is not bad. when you compare it to other schools, it looks worse than it is.

evocation does have useful spells. shatter and contingency are two very fun spells. the problem i have with evocation is there is not a spell from it i want every level. with conjuration or transmutation, it is much easier to find something i want.

i can use rope trick to get a place to sleep at night, instead of tiny hut. and it comes a level earlier.

delayed blast fireball is alright, but i would rather have limited wish, greater teleport, or finger of death. force cage is a bit expensive, so i do not want to cast it every day. the experience cost from limited wish isn't horrible, and even if i did cast it a lot and fell a level behind the group, i would get more xp to help catch up again.

KellKheraptis
2009-09-26, 12:20 PM
Generally the two spells I miss from Evocation I can get with other things, like Craft Contingent Spell for Contingency (or my Ultimate Mage build, who uses a legacy item for it), and Howling Chain I use my cohort warblade (though it exists also as Transmutation, along with every other spell, inside a ToAL, so really I don't miss anything).

Keld Denar
2009-09-26, 12:23 PM
Lim Wish isn't Evocation. Its Universal. I think it may have been Evocation in previous editions, but not any more.

Catch
2009-09-26, 12:23 PM
An evoker is an excellent addition to a party.

That is, an Artificer with Craft Wand.

Faulty
2009-09-26, 12:30 PM
What do you guys think would make evocation better? I was thinking of rewriting the Warmage.

sofawall
2009-09-26, 12:33 PM
Nuclear Dan Says:

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:WYzT4vVnEt9s1M:http://rlv.zcache.com/i_cast_fireball_card-p137436216116665357q0yk_400.jpg

Darkfire
2009-09-26, 12:38 PM
Shadow Evocation means you're:
1. casting lower level spells,
2. don't scale nearly as well,
3. offer enemies twice the saves,
4. and are basically hosed against things that are immune to mind-affecting. Unless you're using SCM quasi-real shenanigans, I wouldn't consider Shadow Evocation that strong an argument.
Your first and third objections are valid however the spells scale just as well as they're still based on your actual caster level and it's an Illusion (Shadow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#shadow)) spell which means it isn't mind-affecting so can be used on mindless/mind-blanked creatures with impunity.

Unless your target has evasion (where applicable), your spell will still cause damage (again, where applicable) even when your target makes both saves which is about as much as you can hope for an evocation. In fact, the second save will be a little harder to make than normal as it'll be based on the DC of a 5th level spell plus any bonuses you get to the illusion school through Spell Focus or being a gnome.

The beauty of Shadow Evocation is that by preparing a single spell you can access a whole chunk of the evocation school (four damage types (cold, fire, sonic and force), some battlefield control plus a couple of utility spells and that's just in core). This can greatly add to your versatility during the day.

For those casters with a limited number of known spells, it's a reasonable choice as it's effectively 20-odd extra spells known for the price of one. For those specialist wizards, it means that if you keep Illusion you can ban Evocation without really worrying about whether you're missing out on something.

Cieyrin
2009-09-26, 12:38 PM
Nuclear Dan Says:

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:WYzT4vVnEt9s1M:http://rlv.zcache.com/i_cast_fireball_card-p137436216116665357q0yk_400.jpg

Probably has nothing to do with it but that reminds me of Dan Ninja and the old saying "Ninjas can't catch you if you're on fire."

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 12:42 PM
I don't see why it's always first on the chopping block, as Illusion/Enchantment/Divination/Abjuration all have their own weaknesses too. I suppose the only major failing of the school is that it tries to compete with one of the Big Two. On its own merits, I think it's surprisingly decent and rather underrated.

I see illusion on the chopping block, but usually roll my eyes when it is. It emulates 2 other schools, and can cover the basics of a third. It's got the strongest defenses in the game, and the limits of some of the abilities are only limited by the players imagination, unlike others which have hard mechanisms for effects.

Enchantment is also usually on the chopping block with evocation sure. However, given a single school to drop, I'll keep enchantment. Why? Because many of their affects are harder to replicate by other schools, and unlike most other schools, enchantments are a win now that will make me more powerful later.

Divination is never dropped for obvious reasons. You aren't allowed to.

I'd never drop abjuration. Prismatic walls and spheres as well as the dispel line come in to play far too often to completely ignore it. Dispel in particular is something I use to open up an enemy's defenses to allow say my enchantments in. Besides, abjuration has the games most powerful force effect. Explosive runes.

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 12:47 PM
What do you guys think would make evocation better? I was thinking of rewriting the Warmage.

Drop the save off of some of their utility effects, such as telekinetic sphere (though not resilient, because that comes in too low to counter) change shadow evocation such that it only emulates damage spells instead of the entire damn school, move the orbs and explosive runes to evocation and keep them SR: no, drop the cost from force cage and ban maw of chaos.

Then use a lot of ghosts.

Edit: Of course, you may wind up with tons of necromancy instead, but oh well.

taltamir
2009-09-26, 12:52 PM
What for? :smallconfused:

I fail to understand the utility of casting a spell that makes it harder for me to get at my soon to be victims. I suppose I could use it to cut off their escape routes, but frankly, I enjoy the thrill of the chase.

most of us face opponents tougher then ourselves, not victims...

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 12:56 PM
most of us face opponents tougher then ourselves, not victims...

If a level 18 cleric isn't tougher than my level 9 wizard, I don't know what is.

The thing is, in most combats, a reputation for extreme competence, an excellent bluff score and an intimidate to back it up can lead incredibly powerful people into trying to escape your supposedly weaker one. Once they have thrown all their assets into not dying instead of trying to kill you, paradoxically, it becomes a good deal easier to kill them. Once his actions changed from posturing to running while buffing, he was the hunted and I was the hunter.

This is, by the way, why I play illusionists. It doesn't matter how powerful I *am*. What matters is how powerful they think I am.

Edit: It's important to note, this sort of thing has to extend out of game. When the DM doesn't want to hand out the EXP and gear of an 18th level cleric to my level 9 ass, it's important that I make him think I can do it. He'll play less agressively that way, make more mistakes in my favour, and ultimately lose an NPC, or at the very least, fail to kill me. I've been accused of OOC mind games, but it's something I take in stride.

Myrmex
2009-09-26, 01:13 PM
Shadow Evocations don't work on other planes. Unless you spend your entire high level adventuring career on the Prime, anytime you venture to an Outer Plane, you're high & dry. Unless you use a Collar of Umbral Darkness & Planar Bubble.

But how often do you see that set up?
Only on Killer Gnomes.

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 01:14 PM
Shadow Evocations don't work on other planes. Unless you spend your entire high level adventuring career on the Prime, anytime you venture to an Outer Plane, you're high & dry. Unless you use a Collar of Umbral Darkness & Planar Bubble.


Where's it say that? :smallconfused:

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 01:24 PM
Conjuration is largely limited to single target nukes, that require a touch attack to make.

Conjuration does tend heavily torward single target, but there are a number of non-evocation means of defeating groups of targets. Still, there are exceptions. Cloudkill is conjuration. You don't get an obvious fireball equivalent, true, but a coupla levels later, you start getting a variety of solid aoe nukes.

And conjuration is not all touch focused. Where it is, plenty of them are ranged touches, which are far superior to plain ol' touch attacks, and which tend not to allow saves.

And that's not even considering the use of metamagic such as twin spell, twin ray, or chain. Just because something isn't an aoe doesn't prevent it from being used on multiple targets.

Signmaker
2009-09-26, 01:29 PM
It's great against large groups of enemies, and not much else. But when your attacking entire armies of hundreds, thousands, or even millions, nothing beats evocation.

A certain set of Transmutation spells do. =P
They be core as well.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-26, 01:31 PM
Doing well with Evocation is possible, if not easy. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116095)

daggaz
2009-09-26, 01:36 PM
Evocation isn't bad. It's less useful than other wizard schools, but it doesn't mean it's weak. It's not Evocation's fault that a) Someone decided to make a spell that replicates an entire school and b) Conjuration is way too strong and walks onto Evocation's turf.

This, pretty much. I ban shadow evocation anyhow in my games. Wanna play batman? Fine, but its going to be a lot harder to choose which school to ban, the way it was meant to be in the first place.

Logalmier
2009-09-26, 01:36 PM
Doing well with Evocation is possible, if not easy. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116095)

evocation suxx!!!

(Not really)

:smalltongue:

Ormur
2009-09-26, 01:38 PM
The first character I made was an evoker and I'm still playing him. In retrospect he's pretty underpowered but that's still relative to wizards. Plus I like blowing stuff up. For the first 7 levels we were also just two in the campaign and I had to be able to do some damage.
But I do admit that once I got to fifth and sixth level spells being specialized in evocation did hurt a little. Mostly from having to pick one of the two new spells from evocation so I could use the extra slot.

I don't think I'd make my next wizard an evoker but I still don't think I'd ban it, but that's just a preference. It's not the optimal pick but if you're having fun or if it fits with the roleplay than it doesn't matter.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-26, 01:43 PM
No, evocation rocks! It let's you nuke stuff.

Psst! The best Nuke in the game is either Abjuration (Maw of Chaos) or Divination (Locate City).

Vangor
2009-09-26, 01:50 PM
Do realize, when we are discussing Evocation being bad we are speaking in the context of specialization and the necessity to lose two schools. Being a Wizard, versatility is significant, and Evocation simply lacks the addition of many more tools than other schools we will be keeping.

I would prefer to see Prismatic Wall and Prismatic Sphere on the Evocation list as Spray is. Telekinesis and Repulsion seem easily capable of being force effects. Perhaps ignore Bigby's Interposing Hand and shift the line down. Further, create Retribution, a spell which mimics the effects of the Retributive Spell feat from CMage. Suddenly, we are progressing towards an attractive list.

taltamir
2009-09-26, 01:58 PM
If a level 18 cleric isn't tougher than my level 9 wizard, I don't know what is.

Your 9th level party defeated an 18th level cleric? really? he can cast level 9 spells...

Anyways, force cage is immune to dispels... effectively, the best way out of it is disintegrate or teleport.
This is very useful in running away, or in divide and conquer.

Scenario 1:
you bit off more than you can chew, you are fighting a dragon or a golem or something way too strong, you now see that unless you leg it, its TPK... forcecage holds it while you run.

Scenario 2:
You get surprised by golems, you can take down one, not two... forcecage one of them, take your time killing the other. Then when the cage goes down, take down the second golem.

etc.

Soras Teva Gee
2009-09-26, 02:12 PM
Once you ditch the idea that Evocation is a school of direct damage I think it holds up decently. People arguing shadow evocation seemingly forget about True Seeing, which will slashes any effect to a fifth of its power or only going to occur one out of five times, on top of any saves allowed to begin with. Course True Seeing does kinda nullify the whole Illusion school to begin with.

Personally I consider Evocation less ditchable for school selection then Enchantment or Illusion. (Necromancy two but more for style/roleplay reasons)

Starbuck_II
2009-09-26, 02:49 PM
Psst! The best Nuke in the game is either Abjuration (Maw of Chaos) or Divination (Locate City).

You do realize nuke two is a MAD (Mutually assured Destruction) bomb, right?

Nothing saves the caster from Locate City Bomb. Even by shaping it so it doesn't affect you still kills you from the other creatures smashing into you.

Set
2009-09-26, 03:16 PM
The problem with Evocation is that most of it's spell were introduced in 1st edition, when a Great Wyrm Red Dragon had 88 hit points and a 10th level 18/00 Str Fighter would do something like 1d8+8 damage with one of his 3 attacks every 2 rounds.

A 10d6 Fireball was *awesome,* back in those days. (And could be used creatively to fill 33,000 cubic feet, backblasting down tunnels to scorch many times more critters than normal.)

It's 3.X now, and Great Wyrm Red Dragons have 660 hit points. (Ten times as many hit points as *Lolth,* Demon Queen of Spiders, had in 1st edition!) The Fireball? Still does 10d6. Whoopty-craptity-do.

Hit points can range up to ten times what they used to be. Energy Resistance is vastly more accessible. And fireball's damage caps even sooner than it used to.

Evocation is like the coelacanth of D&D, a doddering foul-tasting relic of a previous glorious age, that swims around lazily, surrounded by faster, shinier, smarter fish.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 03:24 PM
Huh? Im not gonna get into all of those, but floating disk is pretty much a non-combat utility spell for carrying stuff. Not really all that important once you get bags of holding, flight, etc. Usefulness gone in a flash.

Why bother with Tiny Hut when you have a Rope trick?

The various bigby's spells are kinda weak.

If it's not a force spell and it's in evocation, it's not worth messing with.
Floating Disk is utility, yes, but it's good utility. Sometimes things don't fit in bags of holding, sometimes you don't have enough flight for the whole party, sometimes a convenient flat stable surface is a really good thing to have around. It's been said before - if you can't solve your problem with Floating Disk, you're probably not trying hard enough. =P (okay, that's an exaggeration, but it is a sentiment I've heard tossed around)

Tiny Hut is not competing with Rope Trick. Don't think of it as a place to hide out overnight, think of it as an Obscuring Mist that you and your friends can all see through and provides 100% hiding from all enemies. Cast it, use any number of effects to keep the enemy at distance (Bigby's, or Wall of Force), and use your move action to change your position within it after every spell. Or, if you've used that tactic before, cast it and hide somewhere else while they nuke it from orbit, and jump them from behind. Tiny Hut is not a hideout, it's a brilliant tactical foil and BC spell. Rope Trick doesn't fill that role nearly as well.

As to the Bigby's line.... how is Grasping Hand (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/graspingHand.htm) not awesome? Attack bonus is CL + Int + 9, Grapple bonus is CL + Int + 14, doesn't require any action on your part to continue the grapple (and only a move to redirect), and can Bull Rush at +16 or interpose (as Interposing Hand (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/interposingHand.htm)). It can out-grapple anything a Conjurer of that level could summon in core, arrives on the battlefield faster, moves (as far as I can tell) infinitely fast, and isn't negated by etherealness, invisibility, or anything short of Freedom of Movement (for which the Interposing and Bull Rush functions should still work fine).

olentu
2009-09-26, 03:33 PM
You do realize nuke two is a MAD (Mutually assured Destruction) bomb, right?

Nothing saves the caster from Locate City Bomb. Even by shaping it so it doesn't affect you still kills you from the other creatures smashing into you.

Just having protections so that one take no damage from the spell works just fine as depending on what one can get away with I remember that fell drain and born of the three thunders only activate on creatures that take damage from the spell.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 03:34 PM
Gate.

Evocation: The only spells worthwhile in Evocation can be replicated with Shadow Evocation/Greater(IE: Wall of Force, Forcecage, etc), and sometimes to your benefit(ignoring the material component of Forcecage, for example). Otherwise, the cost-vs-benefit is in favor of specialization.

You won't be able to hold a gate open long enough to provide a numerical advantage against millions of enemies. Typically, the only thing that kills a big enough chunk of themis a storm of vengeance.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 03:50 PM
Sure, there are things you can do with floating disk, but it's generally mostly replaceable.

Rope trick can *definitely* be used in combat. It's an escape mechanism, a means for gaining concealment, as well as a suddenly appearing ladder. It competes pretty well with Tiny Hut, it's far better as a place of safety, and it's lower level to boot. Sure, they aren't identical....but we don't need them to be. Evocation gets dropped not because it is useless, but because it's effects are replaceable or suboptimal in comparison.

Yes, the grapple modifiers are impressive, but it's very common for monsters to also have sick grapple modifiers. At least, the dangerous monsters. The thing is, it's a level 7 spell that, if successful, grapples a single target. Conjuration offers goodies such as greater teleport and plane shift at this level, necro offers Finger of Death, transmutation offers etherial jaunt and reverse gravity, illusion offers mass invisibility.

Again, it's not that any school is completely worthless, it's that it's less valuable in comparison, and thus, easier to drop.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-26, 03:56 PM
You do realize nuke two is a MAD (Mutually assured Destruction) bomb, right?

Nothing saves the caster from Locate City Bomb. Even by shaping it so it doesn't affect you still kills you from the other creatures smashing into you.

There's a spell in Heroes of Horror that acts like a Contingent Rez, but is Arcane, IIRC.

You won't be able to hold a gate open long enough to provide a numerical advantage against millions of enemies. Typically, the only thing that kills a big enough chunk of themis a storm of vengeance.

Gate in a Solar. Have him do the work. Gate in a Pit Fiend, have him cast Meteor Swarm and spam Fireball for the duration (and pop a Wish off while you're at it).

Generally speaking, summoning creatures with SLAs is more cost-efficient than casting the spells yourself. Also, Action Economy advantage goes to Summoning, not Blasting.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 04:15 PM
Sure, there are things you can do with floating disk, but it's generally mostly replaceable.

Rope trick can *definitely* be used in combat. It's an escape mechanism, a means for gaining concealment, as well as a suddenly appearing ladder. It competes pretty well with Tiny Hut, it's far better as a place of safety, and it's lower level to boot. Sure, they aren't identical....but we don't need them to be. Evocation gets dropped not because it is useless, but because it's effects are replaceable or suboptimal in comparison.

Yes, the grapple modifiers are impressive, but it's very common for monsters to also have sick grapple modifiers. At least, the dangerous monsters. The thing is, it's a level 7 spell that, if successful, grapples a single target. Conjuration offers goodies such as greater teleport and plane shift at this level, necro offers Finger of Death, transmutation offers etherial jaunt and reverse gravity, illusion offers mass invisibility.

Again, it's not that any school is completely worthless, it's that it's less valuable in comparison, and thus, easier to drop.
Nobody's arguing Evocation challenges the Big Two. I just think it's underrated, and deserves a bit more love than it's been traditionally getting.

Abjuration has some great tricks against magic, but it's really only good for countering magic (and "countering magic" is usually best done by Celerity, a Trans spell, anyway). Enchantment's basically entirely shut down by Mindblank; Illusion's basically entirely shut down by True Seeing. Necromancy is powerful, but rather narrow, and has its own weaknesses. Evocation seems reasonably on-par with this company. If you're specializing in Conjuration, yeah Evoc is probably the first you should drop (followed by one of Ench or Illus, as both are mostly Will-save-or-lose schools). Otherwise though, I think it's worth thinking about keeping. I'd certainly recommend keeping it if you're banning Conjuration for whatever reason, or if you expect to see a lot of Incorporeal/Ethereal enemies.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 04:20 PM
There's a spell in Heroes of Horror that acts like a Contingent Rez, but is Arcane, IIRC.


Gate in a Solar. Have him do the work. Gate in a Pit Fiend, have him cast Meteor Swarm and spam Fireball for the duration (and pop a Wish off while you're at it).

Generally speaking, summoning creatures with SLAs is more cost-efficient than casting the spells yourself. Also, Action Economy advantage goes to Summoning, not Blasting.

Does that work against armies of millions of paragon pseudonatural black slaads? Yes my old DM was a sadistic son of a *****.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-26, 04:22 PM
Does that work against armies of millions of paragon pseudonatural black slaads? Yes my old DM was a sadistic son of a *****.

That would be when you start casting "Throw Book" and target the DM.

olentu
2009-09-26, 04:24 PM
Does that work against armies of millions of paragon pseudonatural black slaads? Yes my old DM was a sadistic son of a *****.

I don't really see how storm of vengeance would be better.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 04:27 PM
I don't really see how storm of vengeance would be better.

It slowed them down....I'm just wondering what would have been the better spell/power for the party ultralithid psion to have used on the army. Holding off those slaads, who were fricken max hit dice slaads on top of it, was really hard for my half dragon black scale lizard folk fighter.

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 04:31 PM
Your 9th level party defeated an 18th level cleric? really? he can cast level 9 spells...


In a word, yes. When you don't run out of ghoul glyphs, the sky is the limit. That and the importance of using illusions from 130+ feet as bait/distraction/etc.

olentu
2009-09-26, 04:35 PM
It slowed them down....I'm just wondering what would have been the better spell/power for the party ultralithid psion to have used on the army. Holding off those slaads, who were fricken max hit dice slaads on top of it, was really hard for my half dragon black scale lizard folk fighter.

Well if one is dealing with a limited selection of abilities I guess one does with what they have. So I can not give an applicable answer without knowing what your party had available.

Stormthorn
2009-09-26, 04:43 PM
I feel like you need the opinion of "Average Joe" here. It is not bad. If your like me and use only core (PH1, DMG, MM) spells/feats 95% of the time and the most you ever optomize a spell is to use metamagic on it, then it isnt bad.


Shadow Evocation
Shadow Evocation, Greater
Which are weaker and can be disbelieved.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 04:50 PM
Well if one is dealing with a limited selection of abilities I guess one does with what they have. So I can not give an applicable answer without knowing what your party had available.

EAPL 60, Ultralithid psion, Half Red Dragon Blackscale Lizard Folk Fighter, Human Lich Cleric, Half Green dragon Poison Dusk Scale Lizard folk rogue, Half Blue Dragon Lizard Folk Ranger, Black Ethergaunt Conjurer with Evocation and Enchantment as his banned schools, And a Khaasta Barbarian. The Psion was a generalist, which was a houserule by the DM.

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 04:52 PM
I'm going to go into a bit of detail here on the utility of each of these schools, and what they have going for them.


Abjuration has some great tricks against magic, but it's really only good for countering magic (and "countering magic" is usually best done by Celerity, a Trans spell, anyway).

Abjuration also has explosive runes, the spell I abused to "beat" the gauntlet on the wizard's webpage. The other effects, such as the prismatics also make the most definitive defenses in the game, well above and beyond walls of force or resilient spheres. Dimensional locks or anchors are pretty much a requirement when trying to defeat casters or outsiders, whose effect can't really be emulated by any other school. That last part alone makes this a "no drop" school.


Enchantment's basically entirely shut down by Mindblank;

Enchantments are easier to counter (in fact, most are shut down at 1 by protection from alignment) but that's partly because the dominate or suggestion line is SoD+. When the big bad is immune to your domination, pick his strongest flunky and gain an advantage. Or knock out the big bad, remove all his buffs when he's unconcious, and keep him perpetually dominated.


Illusion's basically entirely shut down by True Seeing.

Shadow conjurations and simulacrums are made vastly more powerful by someone using true seeing on an illusionist. As well, when determining which schools to drop, illusions cover for enchantments (by covering will) most of conjuration and all of evocation, reducing any lack you'd get from specializing.


Necromancy is powerful, but rather narrow, and has its own weaknesses.

Necromancy has strong kill spells (enervate) strong debuffs, (waves of exhaustion) and strong utility, as well as some decent buff spells. It's actually fairly broad. It's considered the next one below transmutation, from what I recall.


Evocation seems reasonably on-par with this company. If you're specializing in Conjuration, yeah Evoc is probably the first you should drop (followed by one of Ench or Illus, as both are mostly Will-save-or-lose schools). Otherwise though, I think it's worth thinking about keeping. I'd certainly recommend keeping it if you're banning Conjuration for whatever reason, or if you expect to see a lot of Incorporeal/Ethereal enemies.

Actually, vs. incorporeals, the best school is abjuration. An abjurer doesn't need to keep a big list of force based, situationally useful blasty spells ready all the time. It's like having those backup scrolls, but for free. They just need a fist full of explosive runes, and they're good to go. Alternatively, necromancy, which can simply dominate a good portion of those undead.

Starbuck_II
2009-09-26, 05:00 PM
Illusion's basically entirely shut down by True Seeing.

If they try that: I would use Invisible Metamagic on them.
Fog Cloud only hurts those with True Seeing with Invisible Metamagic.

olentu
2009-09-26, 05:01 PM
EAPL 60, Ultralithid psion, Half Red Dragon Blackscale Lizard Folk Fighter, Human Lich Cleric, Half Green dragon Poison Dusk Scale Lizard folk rogue, Half Blue Dragon Lizard Folk Ranger, Black Ethergaunt Conjurer with Evocation and Enchantment as his banned schools, And a Khaasta Barbarian. The Psion was a generalist, which was a houserule by the DM.

I am not familiar with what EAPL stands for. I could guess but I might be wrong.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 05:23 PM
Yeah, I generally drop enchant before evocation. It really doesnt have a lot to begin with, and what it does is frequently mind affecting.

I would probably drop necromancy much more if not for enervation. However....it's just too good to pass up.

GreatWyrmGold
2009-09-26, 05:53 PM
Derived from the Latin de (from; out of) and fenestra (window or opening).

Thus, we are given the greatest Evocation ever....Defenestrating Sphere.

Sadly, it does not do what its name suggests.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 05:53 PM
I'm going to go into a bit of detail here on the utility of each of these schools, and what they have going for them.



Abjuration also has explosive runes, the spell I abused to "beat" the gauntlet on the wizard's webpage. The other effects, such as the prismatics also make the most definitive defenses in the game, well above and beyond walls of force or resilient spheres. Dimensional locks or anchors are pretty much a requirement when trying to defeat casters or outsiders, whose effect can't really be emulated by any other school. That last part alone makes this a "no drop" school.



Enchantments are easier to counter (in fact, most are shut down at 1 by protection from alignment) but that's partly because the dominate or suggestion line is SoD+. When the big bad is immune to your domination, pick his strongest flunky and gain an advantage. Or knock out the big bad, remove all his buffs when he's unconcious, and keep him perpetually dominated.



Shadow conjurations and simulacrums are made vastly more powerful by someone using true seeing on an illusionist. As well, when determining which schools to drop, illusions cover for enchantments (by covering will) most of conjuration and all of evocation, reducing any lack you'd get from specializing.



Necromancy has strong kill spells (enervate) strong debuffs, (waves of exhaustion) and strong utility, as well as some decent buff spells. It's actually fairly broad. It's considered the next one below transmutation, from what I recall.



Actually, vs. incorporeals, the best school is abjuration. An abjurer doesn't need to keep a big list of force based, situationally useful blasty spells ready all the time. It's like having those backup scrolls, but for free. They just need a fist full of explosive runes, and they're good to go. Alternatively, necromancy, which can simply dominate a good portion of those undead.
Are you playing with the whole "dispel a pile of Explosive Runes for TEH BIG KABOOM" thing? I got that banned pretty fast in my gaming group, when my Artificer made himself an Eternal Wand of Explosive Runes and kept a book of it for a month. It certainly makes Abjuration far more powerful, but it does rather smell of cheese and I supported my DM in banning it (after I got my one moment of glory, of course).

The problem I have with Abjuration is not that it isn't useful; it is, and gets loads of things that can help make the party almost immune to enemy spellcasters. The problem is that, at least in Core, you need to be tossing out 8th level spells before you get much of anything that helps them against physical threats, and even then it's not much help to the Warblade or Totemist who wants to be close to the enemy. It's supposed to be the school of magic for protection, but it really only protects against magic. Granted that's still thoroughly useful, and not something I'd like to drop, but... Celerity is Transmutation, and Silence is Illusion, and on the whole I've been kind of disappointed with Abjuration as a school.

Invisible Obscuring Mist is overrated; it's not much of a hinderance at that level, can be countered in any number of ways (a classy one is casting regular old visible Obscuring Mist, or Solid Fog if you prefer, to level the playing field), and generally isn't worth your time to set up anyway. And unless you're pulling SCM 110% quasi-real figment shenanigans, True Seeing still screws up Illusionists.

Necromancy has some great spells in it, yeah, and is the go-to school for no-save debuffs. You've incorrectly listed Enervation as a kill-spell; at 1d4 per cast it only claims that title if you're twinned/splitting/quickening it, at which point just about any spell can be lethal; I'd prefer Ray of Stupidity here, as it scales better, nukes them sooner, and is a lower level spell. Point is - no-save debuffs are awesome, but can be outsourced to Enchantment, Conjuration, or Abjuration as needed.

Oh, and remember that there's a lot of creatures out there that are Incorporeal without being undead (or gained incorporeality through spells/abilities), and that aren't stupid enough to try to dispel your book of Explosive Runes (and remember that you auto-succeed on your own dispel checks).

Every school of magic has its downsides. Conjuration or Transmutation are the only ones I think you could get by with only using spells from that school; everything else has angles it needs to cover, and can leave you floundering in search of a relevant spell even with a full list up. Evocation may not be the most gamebreaking one, but I do think it fills a reasonable niche. Whether a particular Wizard needs that niche filled, eh, that's a fair call. I just don't think it should be an auto-ban.

Philaenas
2009-09-26, 05:55 PM
Yeah, I generally drop enchant before evocation. It really doesnt have a lot to begin with, and what it does is frequently mind affecting.

I would probably drop necromancy much more if not for enervation. However....it's just too good to pass up.

Lol, definitely in the campaign I was in last time, almost all the enemies were undead or constructs and I was an enchanter....

Anyhoo, if I would have to choose between necr and evoc based on single spells I'd go for contingency vs. enervation. :smallsmile:

And I like the force effects from evocation as well actually. They are just so freaking reliable.

Volkov
2009-09-26, 06:00 PM
I am not familiar with what EAPL stands for. I could guess but I might be wrong.

Effective Average Party level.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 06:06 PM
I do like the force effects. Using magic missile, and tacking on various fell metamagics. It's a pretty reliable means of debuffing with a relatively low level spell.

However, if I could keep magic missile, contingency, and force cage, I would throw away the school without a second thought every time. Force cage is negotiable.

Keld Denar
2009-09-26, 06:12 PM
I'd actually miss Ray of Enfeeblement more than I would miss Enervation. I mean, both have their strengths and weaknessess, but I think that all in all, RoE is more universally applicable and when applied has a more profound effect than a single casting of Enervation. The biggest boon on Enervation is that it stacks. Still, an Empowered RoE (3rd level slot) screws most melee things in ways Enervation just can't touch as a 4th level slot, and when you start really MMing up Enervation, its either consuming a ton of resources (in feats) or super high level, at which point you'd be better off doing other stuff. RoE is effective at level 1, and stays effective throughout most of your early career til maybe level 11 or so with just Empower Spell and maybe Split Ray for multitargetting.

ALMOST NOTHING is immune to RoE unless its immune to ALL rays, doesn't have a Str score (incorps) or has Magic Immunity. Its a PENALTY, so it even works on corporial undead! If you drop your foes Str score down below 13, no more Power Attack, and with it, no more Shock Trooper, no more Leap Attack, no more Knockback, etc.

Also, Conjouration beat up Evocation and stole a bunch of its stuff. Orb of Force is Conjouration, and a [Force] effect. I think its the only one, but still....

olentu
2009-09-26, 06:13 PM
Effective Average Party level.

You could have just given the effective character level of the various members of the party unless they are the same and then could have given a general effective character level for members of the party.

Well in any case here is what I could come up with from spells that I remember. Storm of vengeance would hit only about 429 slaads. I would expect that one would want defenses that are centered around and move with the party while not limiting the party much. Black slaads can teleport so any thing that stays in place such as storm of vengeance would be easily teleported around by the slaads that were not hit. So to avoid them teleporting up to the party as they are killed perhaps an anticipate teleportation greater so that they can not replace themselves as they are killed. Now then perhaps a casting of obscuring snow as that would break line of sight for them but with some castings of snowsight would presumably allow the party to see through it and thus cast or attack at them with no penalty. Also both these spells last for 1 hour per level with no concentration unlike storm of vengeance which only lasts for 10 rounds, requires concentration obscures the party vision as well as the slaad vision, and only obscures vision on rounds 5 through 10. One could probably do better but these are just the spells I happened to remember. Also some offensive spells could be useful.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-26, 06:16 PM
I'd far rather have an IoT7V with. Defences focused on party? Check.

Yukitsu
2009-09-26, 09:23 PM
Are you playing with the whole "dispel a pile of Explosive Runes for TEH BIG KABOOM" thing? I got that banned pretty fast in my gaming group, when my Artificer made himself an Eternal Wand of Explosive Runes and kept a book of it for a month. It certainly makes Abjuration far more powerful, but it does rather smell of cheese and I supported my DM in banning it (after I got my one moment of glory, of course).

Actually, I made myself immune to them, then went around reading them.


The problem I have with Abjuration is not that it isn't useful; it is, and gets loads of things that can help make the party almost immune to enemy spellcasters. The problem is that, at least in Core, you need to be tossing out 8th level spells before you get much of anything that helps them against physical threats, and even then it's not much help to the Warblade or Totemist who wants to be close to the enemy. It's supposed to be the school of magic for protection, but it really only protects against magic. Granted that's still thoroughly useful, and not something I'd like to drop, but... Celerity is Transmutation, and Silence is Illusion, and on the whole I've been kind of disappointed with Abjuration as a school.

I never mentioned counter magic, and silence is actually a bard/divine spell. I mentioned dimensional anchor, which is pretty much essential. I play agressive, and abjurations are only used to prevent people from getting awat from me (the most extreme is melee range prismatic spheres.) As well, dispel magic proves to be worthwhile against those bosses the DM buffed up, which is common in the games I play. It gives the DM a legit excuse to provide cranked up monsters without increasing the loot.


Invisible Obscuring Mist is overrated; it's not much of a hinderance at that level, can be countered in any number of ways (a classy one is casting regular old visible Obscuring Mist, or Solid Fog if you prefer, to level the playing field), and generally isn't worth your time to set up anyway. And unless you're pulling SCM 110% quasi-real figment shenanigans, True Seeing still screws up Illusionists.

I mentioned both shadow conjurations and simulacrums, which hose true sight users.


Necromancy has some great spells in it, yeah, and is the go-to school for no-save debuffs. You've incorrectly listed Enervation as a kill-spell; at 1d4 per cast it only claims that title if you're twinned/splitting/quickening it, at which point just about any spell can be lethal; I'd prefer Ray of Stupidity here, as it scales better, nukes them sooner, and is a lower level spell. Point is - no-save debuffs are awesome, but can be outsourced to Enchantment, Conjuration, or Abjuration as needed.

What no save debuffs are in enchantment, conjuration or abjuration, other than LoS blockers or movement inhibitors? The enchantments that I can recall allow will saves, other than ray of stupidity, which doesn't work on most high level wizards on account of it being mind affecting, and is less likely to reduce combat effectiveness against most encounters (unless you roll enough to incapacitate the enemy) Enervate over a few rounds will not only rapidly diminish the threat, but will also fairly quickly kill your target.


Oh, and remember that there's a lot of creatures out there that are Incorporeal without being undead (or gained incorporeality through spells/abilities), and that aren't stupid enough to try to dispel your book of Explosive Runes (and remember that you auto-succeed on your own dispel checks).

No you don't. You can chose to automatically succeed, you are not forced to. As well, I mentioned the use of simply becoming immune (abjuration) and reading them off.


Every school of magic has its downsides. Conjuration or Transmutation are the only ones I think you could get by with only using spells from that school; everything else has angles it needs to cover, and can leave you floundering in search of a relevant spell even with a full list up. Evocation may not be the most gamebreaking one, but I do think it fills a reasonable niche. Whether a particular Wizard needs that niche filled, eh, that's a fair call. I just don't think it should be an auto-ban.

The question now is, what niche?

Diamondeye
2009-09-26, 09:26 PM
Basically to me there are two types of schools:

Those you absolutely MUST have (in no order):
Divination (well, duh)
Abjuration
Conjuration
Transmutation

Those tht you can think about banning 1 or 2 of (in no order):
Enchantment
Necromancy
Evocation
Illusion

You can argue all day about which are better or worse, but I have found that most ratings that try to place them in a precise 1-8 order tend to gloss over aspects of several schools. It's not unlike the 9 martial disciplines; I divide them into "good" and "really good"

Personally, I would most likely ban necromancy and/or enchantment before evocation, although not necessarily. I could really even stand to ban conjuration and necromancy for certain RP purposes. I can see why people would ban evocation though; it gets its toes stepped on bad by conjuration and illusion. In fact, this thread has me thinking shadow evocation may get banned and the orb spells moved to evocation in my houserules.

deuxhero
2009-09-26, 09:47 PM
What do you guys think would make evocation better? I was thinking of rewriting the Warmage.

I liked the direct damage spells gaining extra effects, like fireball makeing you save/catch on fire or cone of cold freazeing the ground in the area it hits.

quick_comment
2009-09-26, 09:52 PM
Merge Evocation and Abjuration. It is now the school relating to control of raw magical energy. Make specialized abvokers get a bonus on damage and dispel checks, and a bonus to saves vs arcane spells.

The Glyphstone
2009-09-26, 10:06 PM
Sadly, it does not do what its name suggests.

Throw people out of a window? Yeah it does.:smallcool:



If a window is within range,the subject is automatically thrown in
that direction.

sonofzeal
2009-09-26, 10:34 PM
What do you guys think would make evocation better? I was thinking of rewriting the Warmage.
Give them the entire Evocation school, and allow the variant from PHB2 to pick up occasional non-Evocation spells. Seriously, even just that would make them far more reasonable. Still maybe Tier 3, but a solid Tier 3 that can actually justify its own existence.



Actually, I made myself immune to them, then went around reading them.
Clever! How did you do that, btw?



I never mentioned counter magic, and silence is actually a bard/divine spell. I mentioned dimensional anchor, which is pretty much essential. I play agressive, and abjurations are only used to prevent people from getting awat from me (the most extreme is melee range prismatic spheres.) As well, dispel magic proves to be worthwhile against those bosses the DM buffed up, which is common in the games I play. It gives the DM a legit excuse to provide cranked up monsters without increasing the loot.
I wasn't talking about counter magic, I just meant that most of the good Core Abjuration spells are for countering things other mages can do... like buff themselves up or teleport away. Anyway, both Dimensional Anchor and Dispel Magic can be handled just as well by the party Cleric. Easier, actually, as he doesn't have to go to the trouble of learning them. It's been said before - Clerics get way better fixings (BAB/HD/Saves), so any round where the Wizard is doing something a Cleric could do, for that round the Wizard is a sap.


I mentioned both shadow conjurations and simulacrums, which hose true sight users.
Please explain? Because it seems to me that, barring bannable SCM 110% quasireal shenanigans, that those spells don't particularly "hose" True Sight users in any way I can see.


What no save debuffs are in enchantment, conjuration or abjuration, other than LoS blockers or movement inhibitors? The enchantments that I can recall allow will saves, other than ray of stupidity, which doesn't work on most high level wizards on account of it being mind affecting, and is less likely to reduce combat effectiveness against most encounters (unless you roll enough to incapacitate the enemy) Enervate over a few rounds will not only rapidly diminish the threat, but will also fairly quickly kill your target.
Enchantment - Ray of Stupidity
Conjuration - Solid Fog
Abjuration - Antimagic Field

Yeah, Enervate over a few rounds is awesome. Any stackable debuff over a few rounds is awesome. Heck, Fireball over a few rounds will rapidly diminish the threat via the threat dying, and has the added bonus of synergizing with all your other party damage dealers. Not that I'm particularly advocating Fireball as a combat style... but pretty much anything that can make Enervation a serious threat also works for your classic damage spells too. Neither are particularly stunning out of the box though.


No you don't. You can chose to automatically succeed, you are not forced to. As well, I mentioned the use of simply becoming immune (abjuration) and reading them off.
I wouldn't generally consider becoming immune to a whole spell school "simple", but I may be missing something. Anyway, from Dispel Magic: "You automatically succeed on your dispel check against any spell that you cast yourself." Not "you may choose to". Allowing the possibility of failure may be a reasonable houserule, but it's not RAW.


The question now is, what niche?
Direct Damage and Battlefield Control, with an emphasis on Force effects to accomplish each. The advantage of Force effects is reliability; almost nothing avoids/resists the damage portion, and almost nothing can bypass the BC portion. It also excels against Incorporeal opponents that laugh at the vast majority of Conjuration spells.

See? Niche. Some Wizards might want that niche filled, and find Evocation a good way to do that. It's a niche that can be more or less covered in other ways, and it's certainly not Big Two territory, but at least it's a valid choice, and that's all I'm arguing.

tyckspoon
2009-09-26, 11:01 PM
It slowed them down....I'm just wondering what would have been the better spell/power for the party ultralithid psion to have used on the army. Holding off those slaads, who were fricken max hit dice slaads on top of it, was really hard for my half dragon black scale lizard folk fighter.

I would have gone for summoning the biggest Air Elementals you could, if available. Air elementals in Whirlwind form are the next best thing to being a Druid and being able to create tornadoes and hurricanes yourself. That said, at effective level 60, Gate is pretty much the most potent thing you could do short of Epic Magic, because it lets you summon and control a creature of up to twice your caster level.. which means Epic Monsters. (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicMonstersAndObstacles.htm) That army of Slaad certainly would notice if you dropped a Primal Elemental or an Elder Titan on them (especially if you could convince said Elder Titan to start Gate-chaining in more titans to help out.) That's really the only non-Epic magic I can think of that would be of much use against that kind of creature.. except maybe buffing the crap out of your save DC and spamming Dictum to send them all back home.

Starbuck_II
2009-09-26, 11:02 PM
Actually, I made myself immune to them, then went around reading them.


Immune to Force?

quick_comment
2009-09-26, 11:12 PM
Immune to Force?

Shapechange into a force dragon.

olentu
2009-09-26, 11:17 PM
Perhaps purify spell. I recall that being a tactic for allowing someone to take the pile of explosive runes into battle and yet not be killed by them when they go off.

Also I remember that the area version of dispel magic was missing the requirement of automatic success.

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 01:26 AM
Perhaps purify spell. I recall that being a tactic for allowing someone to take the pile of explosive runes into battle and yet not be killed by them when they go off.

Also I remember that the area version of dispel magic was missing the requirement of automatic success.

Yes on both. In fact, I ran the former on the gauntlet on the wizos board, getting the least expensive win, using the least time, and the smallest HP loss. (excluding those that bought spell service polymorph any object and earthglided to victory)

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 01:53 AM
Clever! How did you do that, btw?

Mentioned below. It's also something one can manage with spell immunity, since it's an SR: yes spell.


I wasn't talking about counter magic, I just meant that most of the good Core Abjuration spells are for countering things other mages can do... like buff themselves up or teleport away. Anyway, both Dimensional Anchor and Dispel Magic can be handled just as well by the party Cleric. Easier, actually, as he doesn't have to go to the trouble of learning them. It's been said before - Clerics get way better fixings (BAB/HD/Saves), so any round where the Wizard is doing something a Cleric could do, for that round the Wizard is a sap.

That isn't strictly speaking true. The clerical spell list does contain several gems that overlap with a wizards spell list. Inclusion into the clerical spell list doesn't automatically make a spell trash. Animate undead is a prime example.


Please explain? Because it seems to me that, barring bannable SCM 110% quasireal shenanigans, that those spells don't particularly "hose" True Sight users in any way I can see.

True sight doesn't give you some option to see those things, so they are forced to fight "invisible" summons or clones of things equal to your level, as he sees through them. While you wonder off, he gets gibbed because he can't fight back against what he can't see.


Enchantment - Ray of Stupidity
Conjuration - Solid Fog
Abjuration - Antimagic Field

The top doesn't reduce most things combat readiness until it drops them, which makes them a good HP damage spell attacking a much smaller HP stack, using much smaller numbers (though I do use these sorts of things vs. animals as well.) The second, is as I said, movement or block LoS, and the last is pretty useless to cast as a wizard.


Yeah, Enervate over a few rounds is awesome. Any stackable debuff over a few rounds is awesome. Heck, Fireball over a few rounds will rapidly diminish the threat via the threat dying, and has the added bonus of synergizing with all your other party damage dealers. Not that I'm particularly advocating Fireball as a combat style... but pretty much anything that can make Enervation a serious threat also works for your classic damage spells too. Neither are particularly stunning out of the box though.

The -5 to 20% to all rolls is actually far, far better than the no penalty fire ball.


I wouldn't generally consider becoming immune to a whole spell school "simple", but I may be missing something. Anyway, from Dispel Magic: "You automatically succeed on your dispel check against any spell that you cast yourself." Not "you may choose to". Allowing the possibility of failure may be a reasonable houserule, but it's not RAW.

Adressed below. Area dispels don't automatically force success.


Direct Damage and Battlefield Control, with an emphasis on Force effects to accomplish each. The advantage of Force effects is reliability; almost nothing avoids/resists the damage portion, and almost nothing can bypass the BC portion. It also excels against Incorporeal opponents that laugh at the vast majority of Conjuration spells.

For force damage, abjuration has won out, as has conjuration. Force missiles are a little behind orbs. Force walls, as I've mentioned earlier, are basically for pansies. As well, shadow evocations do enough damage through fake force, or work often enough that the real thing isn't actually all that much stronger.


See? Niche. Some Wizards might want that niche filled, and find Evocation a good way to do that. It's a niche that can be more or less covered in other ways, and it's certainly not Big Two territory, but at least it's a valid choice, and that's all I'm arguing.

The problem is, each of the other schools have a niche that can't be fulfilled at all by other ones. Abjurations have those anchor spells that can be essential, and of course the ability to dispel magic. Underwhelming in flash, but when you run the numbers, it actually means a lot. Conjuration has teleports and calling, enchantment has the ability to gain an ally from an enemy that can grant you all their powers and knowledge, necromancy can get you cheap mook hordes, and can do debuffs that actually reduce competence across the board, transmutation has all sorts of zany crap and illusion can do pretty much anything you want with just 2 sets of spells, making it a more versatile spell slot than any other.

olentu
2009-09-27, 01:56 AM
Well I would argue that just because one can see through something does not mean that one can not also see the thing.

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 02:04 AM
Well I would argue that just because one can see through something does not mean that one can not also see the thing.

I view that by thinking that "It's a spell that counters an entire school, but these ones that have real effects. It is not arbitrated clearly either way. I view that it should not counter an entire school by itself." Incidently, mindblank has generally irked me, were it not for the fact that it also should counter any positive mind influencing effects.

Myrmex
2009-09-27, 02:44 AM
Where's it say that? :smallconfused:

One of the Planar books. Shadow spells won't work, since the Plane of Shadow is only Coterminous with the Prime and a handful of inner planes.


Conjuration does tend heavily torward single target, but there are a number of non-evocation means of defeating groups of targets. Still, there are exceptions. Cloudkill is conjuration. You don't get an obvious fireball equivalent, true, but a coupla levels later, you start getting a variety of solid aoe nukes.

And conjuration is not all touch focused. Where it is, plenty of them are ranged touches, which are far superior to plain ol' touch attacks, and which tend not to allow saves.

And that's not even considering the use of metamagic such as twin spell, twin ray, or chain. Just because something isn't an aoe doesn't prevent it from being used on multiple targets.

Cloudkill moves away from you; most of the other AoE effects are more or less battlefield control. It forces units to move out or take damage. Against an abrupt jaunter or fiend with Quicken SLA, you're just trading actions with most AoE conjurations. AoE damage is largely confined to Evocation. If you want to do instantaneous dX/CL in an area, you're largely confined to Evocation.


Psst! The best Nuke in the game is either Abjuration (Maw of Chaos) or Divination (Locate City).

The Locate City Bomb is a little controversial. It working is contingent on you having a lenient DM.

Also note that the Reflex Save to negate the damage is quite low, as it's only a 1st level spell they're saving against. So you can murder a lot of commoners with absolutely no benefit. Good work!!!


You won't be able to hold a gate open long enough to provide a numerical advantage against millions of enemies. Typically, the only thing that kills a big enough chunk of themis a storm of vengeance.

The idea is to call something with fireball as an at-will SLA.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 02:51 AM
Cloudkill moves away from you; most of the other AoE effects are more or less battlefield control. It forces units to move out or take damage. Against an abrupt jaunter or fiend with Quicken SLA, you're just trading actions with most AoE conjurations. AoE damage is largely confined to Evocation. If you want to do instantaneous dX/CL in an area, you're largely confined to Evocation.

And if you're against an abrupt jaunter or fiend with quicken SLA, why bother AOEing? AOEs are for clearing out large quantities of mooks, for taking down single, specialized targets, conjuration has excellent single target spells.

Myrmex
2009-09-27, 02:56 AM
And if you're against an abrupt jaunter or fiend with quicken SLA, why bother AOEing? AOEs are for clearing out large quantities of mooks, for taking down single, specialized targets, conjuration has excellent single target spells.

Abrupt Jaunt you get int bonus times/day with a dip in wizard. Virtually any enemy with a positive int bonus benefits from that, including 25 dragonwrought kobolds or whatever.

And a swarm of rebuilt devils with quicken SLA can harry a high level party. Web & glitterdust just won't do them justice, esp. if they have a few levels in paladin of tyranny, crusader or hexblade.

sonofzeal
2009-09-27, 03:12 AM
That isn't strictly speaking true. The clerical spell list does contain several gems that overlap with a wizards spell list. Inclusion into the clerical spell list doesn't automatically make a spell trash. Animate undead is a prime example.
Animate Undead is best left to the Cleric anyway. Wizards don't get Turning for easy control of minions, and don't get Desecrate to boost their maximums. I mean, yes, there's some awesome spells that are on both lists, like Gate or Astral Projection. Still, my argument stands - a Wizard is much better off outsourcing his Abjuration to his Cleric buddy if he has one, and focusing on the things he's actually better at. The Cleric gets to Czilla just fine without those slots, doesn't waste resources learning the spells, and can burn them for healing if needed. Wizards... need their slots, and they need to be doing effective things with their spells or they're profoundly useless.


True sight doesn't give you some option to see those things, so they are forced to fight "invisible" summons or clones of things equal to your level, as he sees through them. While you wonder off, he gets gibbed because he can't fight back against what he can't see.
True Seeing doesn't work that way. It's been cleared up several times in various rulings in various places (FAQ certainly, and I wish I had Rules Compendium on hand to check there too) that I'm far too lazy to chase down. Someone with True Seeing knows the thing's there, and can still sort of see it, but recognize it for what it really is too. He can tell that invisible things are invisible, and he can tell where an illusion is even if he's not "affected" by it. Think of it as like a double-exposure of the real world against the illusion'd one, where the True Seer knows instinctively which is which.


The top doesn't reduce most things combat readiness until it drops them, which makes them a good HP damage spell attacking a much smaller HP stack, using much smaller numbers (though I do use these sorts of things vs. animals as well.) The second, is as I said, movement or block LoS, and the last is pretty useless to cast as a wizard.
Reducing Int can slaughter a Lockdown build (who needs Int 13 for Improved Trip), any animals, anyone who uses Int-based class features, and pretty much anyone who actually, y'know, makes some sort of attempt to roleplay their stats. Which, granted, is less than one would hope, but still. Anyway, four hits from a lvl2 spell and most characters of any level are either down or close to it, or are in serious trouble because Int is important to them. Enervation takes an average of twice as many hits to take down a lvl 20 character, and is two spell levels higher.

And AMF is honestly pretty useful. Cast it past the Big Stupid Fighter to catch his enemy, cast it on the enemy caster to neutralize them temporarily, cast it on the magical trap to pass with impunity. Granted it's as dangerous to you as it is to the enemy, but you're the one who chooses where it goes, so you can definitely use it to your advantage.


The -5 to 20% to all rolls is actually far, far better than the no penalty fire ball.
If it's a bruiser, that's a -1/4 on attack rolls (he can still probably hit you), for a caster that's -1/4 higher level spells (he probably still has a lot of dangerous ones), for an SLA-er they don't really care much, and whichever way it's -1/4 to saving throws (this is actually fairly nice, but not critical). It's a debuff, yes, but not really a massive one. Exhaustion's better, and yes I know Necromancy has some great options for this too.



For force damage, abjuration has won out, as has conjuration. Force missiles are a little behind orbs. Force walls, as I've mentioned earlier, are basically for pansies. As well, shadow evocations do enough damage through fake force, or work often enough that the real thing isn't actually all that much stronger.
Eh, I still think using Explosive Runes offensively is cheesy to the point where I wouldn't use it in an actual game. It's too easy, too powerful, and the sort of thing that'd cause a mutiny if the DM used it against the players. "Okay, Mialee and Lidda, you take 342d6 damage, no save. Tordek and Jozan, you're a bit further away, you get to make 57 Reflex saves and if you pass them all then you only have to take 171d6 damage."

As for Orbs... I thought we were staying within Core for now? If we're out of Core, there's a lot more useful Evoc spells out there, but you're right that the Orb series is very oddly placed and kind of steals some of Evocation's little thunder.


The problem is, each of the other schools have a niche that can't be fulfilled at all by other ones. Abjurations have those anchor spells that can be essential, and of course the ability to dispel magic. Underwhelming in flash, but when you run the numbers, it actually means a lot. Conjuration has teleports and calling, enchantment has the ability to gain an ally from an enemy that can grant you all their powers and knowledge, necromancy can get you cheap mook hordes, and can do debuffs that actually reduce competence across the board, transmutation has all sorts of zany crap and illusion can do pretty much anything you want with just 2 sets of spells, making it a more versatile spell slot than any other.
Abjur is better handled by Clerics in almost every way, as is the minion aspect of Necromancy. If there's a competent evil Cleric in the party, I would have absolutely no qualms about dropping both those two schools. Enough has been said about the limits of Illusion and Enchantment; both are powerful, both have a lot of odd Will-Save-or-Lose, both can be fairly easily negated but will still work against a lot of enemies. If you're in a position where a Will-Save-or-Lose is a good thing, you'll probably do just fine with either and not miss the other. Enchantment is better within the niche, Illusion has more flexibility outside of the niche, either is acceptable. And Conj/Trans are king, we all freely admit that, though they have their own weaknesses - Conj to Incorporeal enemies, and Trans to Dispel Magic - but are strong enough, and flexible enough, and the weaknesses rare enough, that they can entirely manage.

Darkfire
2009-09-27, 07:09 AM
What no save debuffs are in enchantment, conjuration or abjuration, other than LoS blockers or movement inhibitors?
Enchantment - Ray of Stupidity
Conjuration - Solid Fog
Abjuration - Antimagic Field
Can we add Touch of Idiocy to the enchantment list there: It's enchantment's equivalent to Ray of Enfeeblement but hits all three mental stats. Not bad for a 2nd level spell but it's still mind-affecting...

Power Word Blind should also be included (but again it's mind-affecting).

Volkov
2009-09-27, 07:24 AM
I would have gone for summoning the biggest Air Elementals you could, if available. Air elementals in Whirlwind form are the next best thing to being a Druid and being able to create tornadoes and hurricanes yourself. That said, at effective level 60, Gate is pretty much the most potent thing you could do short of Epic Magic, because it lets you summon and control a creature of up to twice your caster level.. which means Epic Monsters. (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicMonstersAndObstacles.htm) That army of Slaad certainly would notice if you dropped a Primal Elemental or an Elder Titan on them (especially if you could convince said Elder Titan to start Gate-chaining in more titans to help out.) That's really the only non-Epic magic I can think of that would be of much use against that kind of creature.. except maybe buffing the crap out of your save DC and spamming Dictum to send them all back home.
Damn, If I only knew that a few years prior. We wouldn't have had to flee and regroup with our tails tucked in to think of another scheme to rid the universe of the humanoids.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 07:31 AM
Abrupt Jaunt you get int bonus times/day with a dip in wizard. Virtually any enemy with a positive int bonus benefits from that, including 25 dragonwrought kobolds or whatever.

And a swarm of rebuilt devils with quicken SLA can harry a high level party. Web & glitterdust just won't do them justice, esp. if they have a few levels in paladin of tyranny, crusader or hexblade.

How often do you seriously run across groups of 25+ mooks with class levels? All with an alternate class feature of conjurer, no less?

If anything, I would posit that said nifty conjurer ability is another (albeit small) place where other schools are more preferable than evocation, who gets a crappy single target damage ability instead.

Volkov
2009-09-27, 07:32 AM
How often do you seriously run across groups of 25+ mooks with class levels? All with an alternate class feature of conjurer, no less?

If anything, I would posit that said nifty conjurer ability is another (albeit small) place where other schools are more preferable than evocation, who gets a crappy single target damage ability instead.

I used to meet them, several times per session.

Gnaeus
2009-09-27, 07:36 AM
Abjur is better handled by Clerics in almost every way, as is the minion aspect of Necromancy. If there's a competent evil Cleric in the party, I would have absolutely no qualms about dropping both those two schools.

Great! Then we drop the useless evocation as well, and we can make a focused specialist!

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 07:38 AM
As for Orbs... I thought we were staying within Core for now? If we're out of Core, there's a lot more useful Evoc spells out there, but you're right that the Orb series is very oddly placed and kind of steals some of Evocation's little thunder.

Tome and Blood had orbs earlier...and they were evocation. Crappier orbs, mind you, still subject to SR. If the SpC orbs were evocation, it'd probably make a significant difference for the school.

Volkov
2009-09-27, 07:39 AM
Great! Then we drop the useless evocation as well, and we can make a focused specialist!

Try fighting 300 level 12 human fighters at level 15, then try talking.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 07:44 AM
I used to meet them, several times per session.

Well, Abrupt Jaunt is still only 10feet, and cloudkill has a 20ft radius. Also, depending on area, there may not be room for everyone to conveniently jump to safety. It may not be perfect, but even in that situation, cloudkill still is useful.

Once they get out of it, they can stay out of it, sure, but unless they come out on the side closer to you, they're temporarily out of the fight due to lack of LoS. Possibly for a couple rounds, depending on terrain.

Again, it doesn't exactly replicate standard evoc aoes, but it does provide a useful substitute in most situations, and that's the important bit.

Kylarra
2009-09-27, 09:53 AM
Try fighting 300 level 12 human fighters at level 15, then try talking.
Overland flight + cloudkill?

Gnaeus
2009-09-27, 09:55 AM
Try fighting 300 level 12 human fighters at level 15, then try talking.

That is fairly ridiculous. Vastly over CR, and no one but a full caster has a prayer.

But.

That is just as easy without evocation as with it. It does of course depend on the exact equipment load out of the fighters, but transmutation + conjuration can do it.

My first thought is superior invisibility or screen, followed by control weather. Meld with the earth or become ethereal, and see who is still standing after the tornado or hurricane (or fimbulwinter) is over.

Or dominate their leader into making them go away, or drive him insane. Or use conjured walls, illusions, or summons to box them in, then burn them to death with incendiary cloud or the like. Teleport past them and ignore them. With Limited Wish at your disposal, there are probably 100 different ways to do it.

quick_comment
2009-09-27, 10:02 AM
That is fairly ridiculous. Vastly over CR, and no one but a full caster has a prayer.


A warblade or crusader might be able to do it, with the right maneuvers. Warblade wants a reach weapon, adamantine hurricane, pearl of black doubt Crusader wants a reach weapon, combat reflexes, thicket of blades, improved trip, and one of those area blast strikes.

Johel
2009-09-27, 10:04 AM
It's great against large groups of enemies, and not much else. But when your attacking entire armies of hundreds, thousands, or even millions, nothing beats evocation.

Symbol of Insanity does marvel against armies.
If you're low in funds, Symbol of Sleep is good, too.
The trick is to make it mobile.

On your staff ?
On a griffon ?
On a rubber ball ?

Yeah... :smallamused:

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 10:05 AM
Overland flight + cloudkill?

Exactly. Once you have protection from arrows and flight, they no longer pose a credible threat. Any number of fighters is simply more targets, assuming you bother with killing them at all.

quick_comment
2009-09-27, 10:07 AM
Exactly. Once you have protection from arrows and flight, they no longer pose a credible threat. Any number of fighters is simply more targets, assuming you bother with killing them at all.

The best way to get this is one of the sky domain spells in Races of the Wild. Gives you immunity to all projectiles.

Gnaeus
2009-09-27, 10:14 AM
Honestly, for the 300 fighters problem, I would rather have abjuration than evocation. Some prismatic walls or a scroll of prismatic sphere would be a benefit.

Volkov
2009-09-27, 10:21 AM
Overland flight + cloudkill?
Too many people are going to make their saving throws, and once the fog clears, I would have been a pin coushin from arrows. Plus, My half dragon black scale lizard folk fighter could already fly.

Kylarra
2009-09-27, 10:23 AM
Too many people are going to make their saving throws, and once the fog clears, I would have been a pin coushin from arrows. Plus, My half dragon black scale lizard folk fighter could already fly.
Yes, I'm sure your half dragon lizardfolk is a perfect representation of the average human fighter.

Volkov
2009-09-27, 10:24 AM
Yes, I'm sure your half dragon lizardfolk is a perfect representation of the average human fighter.

I had to hold 300 fighters away from the party black ethergaunt, who at that point had no class levels, and was being a smug pain in the ***.

Flickerdart
2009-09-27, 10:28 AM
I had to hold 300 fighters away from the party black ethergaunt, who at that point had no class levels, and was being a smug pain in the ***.
So why wasn't he flying, with his innate Wizard casting? And why did he have no levels by ECL60?

Kylarra
2009-09-27, 10:30 AM
I had to hold 300 fighters away from the party black ethergaunt, who at that point had no class levels, and was being a smug pain in the ***.That's not really relevant. Our hypothetical wizard could just use mislead and GTFO in the few rounds. Or go invis and port without error.

It we're assuming they had to delay, we've got Acid Fog/Solid Fog which work just fine for delaying people that are trying to follow you. Combine it with Cloudkill behind and they move from slowed and damage to concealed and CON damage. It's not really that hard.

If they didn't drop necromancy, Symbol of Fear with programmed image (or mislead) to make them look at it.

Volkov
2009-09-27, 10:42 AM
So why wasn't he flying, with his innate Wizard casting? And why did he have no levels by ECL60?
This was earlier in the campaign, ECL60 came later. At about the end-game section of the Destroy all humanoids campaign by old DM had.

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 11:15 AM
Animate Undead is best left to the Cleric anyway. Wizards don't get Turning for easy control of minions, and don't get Desecrate to boost their maximums. I mean, yes, there's some awesome spells that are on both lists, like Gate or Astral Projection. Still, my argument stands - a Wizard is much better off outsourcing his Abjuration to his Cleric buddy if he has one, and focusing on the things he's actually better at. The Cleric gets to Czilla just fine without those slots, doesn't waste resources learning the spells, and can burn them for healing if needed. Wizards... need their slots, and they need to be doing effective things with their spells or they're profoundly useless.

The ones I bring up are either non-clerical (prismatics, explosive runes) or are low level (dispel, dimensional anchor). As well, anchor is an initiative sensitive attack that can come up on any part of the initiative spectrum, so having more than person who can use one is always useful.


True Seeing doesn't work that way. It's been cleared up several times in various rulings in various places (FAQ certainly, and I wish I had Rules Compendium on hand to check there too) that I'm far too lazy to chase down. Someone with True Seeing knows the thing's there, and can still sort of see it, but recognize it for what it really is too. He can tell that invisible things are invisible, and he can tell where an illusion is even if he's not "affected" by it. Think of it as like a double-exposure of the real world against the illusion'd one, where the True Seer knows instinctively which is which.

I'd have to see where that actually is, because that's a pretty blatant contradiction to RAW, and I've never heard anyone say that that is in the rules.


Reducing Int can slaughter a Lockdown build (who needs Int 13 for Improved Trip), any animals, anyone who uses Int-based class features, and pretty much anyone who actually, y'know, makes some sort of attempt to roleplay their stats. Which, granted, is less than one would hope, but still. Anyway, four hits from a lvl2 spell and most characters of any level are either down or close to it, or are in serious trouble because Int is important to them. Enervation takes an average of twice as many hits to take down a lvl 20 character, and is two spell levels higher.

Roleplaying stats actually during a battle is kind of odd, since for a fighter, it simply degenerates into being pointed in the right direction, and swinging in the way he always does. At later levels, I've found that reducing int doesn't work as fast as you'd like, even on enemies that don't use it. Dragons and outsiders come quickly to mind, as they all have more int than HD. Fey work that way as well. The only time this is inverted is when it's some dumb animal. As well, you say it takes 4 hits to take someone down, which is 10 levels. Even if that isn't a kill, that's -50% on checks (saves included) and pretty much everything. A dumbed down balor compared to a 10 HD balor is a pretty obvious comparison as to which is safer. Though by then you should be using maximized energy drains.


And AMF is honestly pretty useful. Cast it past the Big Stupid Fighter to catch his enemy, cast it on the enemy caster to neutralize them temporarily, cast it on the magical trap to pass with impunity. Granted it's as dangerous to you as it is to the enemy, but you're the one who chooses where it goes, so you can definitely use it to your advantage.

"Target: 10 foot emanation, centered on you."


If it's a bruiser, that's a -1/4 on attack rolls (he can still probably hit you), for a caster that's -1/4 higher level spells (he probably still has a lot of dangerous ones), for an SLA-er they don't really care much, and whichever way it's -1/4 to saving throws (this is actually fairly nice, but not critical). It's a debuff, yes, but not really a massive one. Exhaustion's better, and yes I know Necromancy has some great options for this too.

Exhaustion doesn't really reduce saves, which is IMO the more important thing. All it really stops is useless melee bruisers. It doesn't set me up to do anything else more easily, which enervation does. It doesn't weaken casters. It helps, but only against things you should be able to beat anyway.


Eh, I still think using Explosive Runes offensively is cheesy to the point where I wouldn't use it in an actual game. It's too easy, too powerful, and the sort of thing that'd cause a mutiny if the DM used it against the players. "Okay, Mialee and Lidda, you take 342d6 damage, no save. Tordek and Jozan, you're a bit further away, you get to make 57 Reflex saves and if you pass them all then you only have to take 171d6 damage."

I never advocated that, technically.


As for Orbs... I thought we were staying within Core for now? If we're out of Core, there's a lot more useful Evoc spells out there, but you're right that the Orb series is very oddly placed and kind of steals some of Evocation's little thunder.

I've never seen a core only game, and the ones I've heard of are usually horror stories of DM power trips.


Abjur is better handled by Clerics in almost every way, as is the minion aspect of Necromancy. If there's a competent evil Cleric in the party, I would have absolutely no qualms about dropping both those two schools. Enough has been said about the limits of Illusion and Enchantment; both are powerful, both have a lot of odd Will-Save-or-Lose, both can be fairly easily negated but will still work against a lot of enemies. If you're in a position where a Will-Save-or-Lose is a good thing, you'll probably do just fine with either and not miss the other. Enchantment is better within the niche, Illusion has more flexibility outside of the niche, either is acceptable. And Conj/Trans are king, we all freely admit that, though they have their own weaknesses - Conj to Incorporeal enemies, and Trans to Dispel Magic - but are strong enough, and flexible enough, and the weaknesses rare enough, that they can entirely manage.

You're confusing the point of illusion. Illusion doesn't really have any save or lose spells that target will. Patterns sure, though they aren't really so much lose as they are "delay battle until more convenient moment if every enemy fails their saves." Illusion is for pure versatility, or for defense. In fact, I'd pick illusion over abjuration for keeping myself safe.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 11:20 AM
I'd probably pick abjuration over illusion, if only because prismatic wall is so useful. Now granted, it's a terribly tough choice, and several other schools would hit the chopping block first, but illusion is easier to negate than some other schools. Terribly powerful when not negated, of course.

sonofzeal
2009-09-27, 02:45 PM
I'd have to see where that actually is, because that's a pretty blatant contradiction to RAW, and I've never heard anyone say that that is in the rules.
Mmm.... little bit of research, now that I'm free...


From Shadow Conjuration: "A creature that succeeds on its save sees the shadow conjurations as transparent images superimposed on vague, shadowy forms." - a good indication of what beating an illusion should mean. There's a discussion of that with reference to True Seeing here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=115018). Simulacrum, as well, "is partially real and formed from ice or snow". A True Seer can still function perfectly against both of those effects.



As well, out of PHB pg 174: "A successful saving throw against an illusion reveals it to be false, but a figment or phantasm remains as a translucent outline. For example, a character making a successful saving throw against a figment of an illusory section of floor knows the "floor" isn't safe to walk on and can see what lies below (light permitting), but he or she can still note where the figment lies." Shadows are explicitly quasi-real, and the quasi-real component would certainly be seen (and Shadow Conjuration implies that the image portion would also be semi-visible). The only things left unspecified from that little excerpt are Glamours and Patterns, but I'm not worried too much at the moment.

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 02:48 PM
You haven't said anything about true seeing. It does not say "automatically pass the save vs. an illusion". It merely says "see through." None of the text you quoted actually applies to true sight, but rather, to those who have high will saves. I already knew the effects of passing a save.

sonofzeal
2009-09-27, 02:52 PM
You haven't said anything about true seeing. It does not say "automatically pass the save vs. an illusion". It merely says "see through." None of the text you quoted actually applies to true sight, but rather, to those who have high will saves. I already knew the effects of passing a save.
It's still a very good indication of what's "supposed" to happen, and RAI if not strictly RAW (which is unspecified). Also, the two examples you mentioned very certainly don't work by RAW, as there's a non-illusion component to both spells that the True Seer could track. He might be a bit confused about the shambling mound of snow or vague shadowy blots, but he can see them just fine.

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 02:57 PM
It's still a very good indication of what's "supposed" to happen, and RAI if not strictly RAW (which is unspecified). Also, the two examples you mentioned very certainly don't work by RAW, as there's a non-illusion component to both spells that the True Seer could track. He might be a bit confused about the shambling mound of snow or vague shadowy blots, but he can see them just fine.

I do doubt the validity of that. A person who passes their saves vs. illusory affects are given very explicit text, whereas one who uses true sight completely ignores the visual component of all illusions without any regards to the reality of a specific component.

At any rate, you're basically arguing "true sight negates all of illusion" simply due to fiat on your part, and stating that evocation is stronger due to it. If that's how you play it in your games, I'd still not use evocation.

So again, I ask. Is there anything in the rules that does directly and irrefutably contradict that you see through illusions with true sight, even when they have a part real component?

quick_comment
2009-09-27, 03:00 PM
You haven't said anything about true seeing. It does not say "automatically pass the save vs. an illusion". It merely says "see through." None of the text you quoted actually applies to true sight, but rather, to those who have high will saves. I already knew the effects of passing a save.

I can see through a window, that doesnt mean I cant see the window.

Vangor
2009-09-27, 03:08 PM
It merely says "see through."

This is a rather awkward wording for illusions being absolutely invisible to those with True Seeing considering if a person "sees through" a disguise or facade means to know those to be false, and this is a rather common usage. The description for Disguise seems to agree, "Usually, an individual makes a Spot check to see through your disguise". Obviously the disguise does not become utterly transparent.

Had the description said "illusions are see through", you would be absolutely correct to assume total transparency without any further indication. Lending credence to what you say, however, is the remainder of the description with, "sees through normal and magical darkness," along with, "sees invisible creatures or objects normally," and, "sees the true form of polymorphed..."

Still, "sees through" is a different phrase for darkness and illusions (stage magic, not d&d), which is where the real problem exists. RAW does not appear to support either more strongly.

sonofzeal
2009-09-27, 03:10 PM
I can see through a window, that doesnt mean I cant see the window.
Indeed. I can "see through" (the relevant phrase in question from True Seeing) a stained glass window, without negating the window.


I do doubt the validity of that. A person who passes their saves vs. illusory affects are given very explicit text, whereas one who uses true sight completely ignores the visual component of all illusions without any regards to the reality of a specific component.

At any rate, you're basically arguing "true sight negates all of illusion" simply due to fiat on your part, and stating that evocation is stronger due to it. If that's how you play it in your games, I'd still not use evocation.

So again, I ask. Is there anything in the rules that does directly and irrefutably contradict that you see through illusions with true sight, even when they have a part real component?
Gah. I've already quoted you three different relevant rules, as well as some obvious common sense (TRUE SEEING DOES NOT MAKE REAL VISIBLE THINGS LIKE SHADOWSTUFF AND SNOW MAGICALLY TURN INVISIBLE). I'm not going to argue this any more with you, as you clearly aren't going to listen to anything I say. I could probably quote one of the design themselves clearly spelling it out, and you'd deny it because it's not actually in the book. Discussion's over, I'm not going to reply to you on this topic any more.

Yukitsu
2009-09-27, 03:24 PM
Actually, if you can get the development team members to say that true sight actually works as though you had automatically passed the save vs. an illusion, I would believe it. Note a development team member, and not one of those sages who had nothing to do with rules development. Or if you can find a relevant passage in the FAQ or Eratta. Even finding it in an article on illusions from the wizards page would be sufficient.

Skip Williams seems to allude to a questionable affect working a percent of the time equal to the odds indicated, though questionably in reverse in this article: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20060228a One can assume then, that something a % real will be visible via true sight a % of the time, not as it were, part visible all the time.

And of course, I keep forgetting phantasmal affects are not countered by true seeing, as most all are save or suck affects, unrelated to actually seeing the display.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-27, 04:01 PM
I can see through a window, that doesnt mean I cant see the window.

I've walked into some rather clear windows and glass doors before...

CockroachTeaParty
2009-09-27, 04:28 PM
It's great against large groups of enemies, and not much else. But when your attacking entire armies of hundreds, thousands, or even millions, nothing beats evocation.

What about Horrid Wilting? Necromancy, and affects a massive area. Now that's an army killer.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 04:43 PM
Wail of the Banshee, Mass charm, Incendiary Cloud, Cloudkill, Prismatic Wall, Mass suggestion, Acid Fog, Rainbow Pattern....there's a near endless list of non-evocation spells for dealing with massed enemies, especially those lower than you, and thus, with weaker saves. Horrid Wilting would also be useful.

Simply blasting your way through them with fireballs and meteor swarms is probably one of the less efficient ways to fight them all, honestly. One prismatic wall in a bottleneck is going to be more efficient than a coupla meteor swarms against an army of melee types.

Starbuck_II
2009-09-27, 04:45 PM
I've walked into some rather clear windows and glass doors before...

You and me both. Ow. That is all. They hurt.

sonofzeal
2009-09-27, 04:50 PM
Wail of the Banshee, Mass charm, Incendiary Cloud, Cloudkill, Prismatic Wall, Mass suggestion, Acid Fog, Rainbow Pattern....there's a near endless list of non-evocation spells for dealing with massed enemies, especially those lower than you, and thus, with weaker saves. Horrid Wilting would also be useful.

Simply blasting your way through them with fireballs and meteor swarms is probably one of the less efficient ways to fight them all, honestly. One prismatic wall in a bottleneck is going to be more efficient than a coupla meteor swarms against an army of melee types.
I didn't actually list "massed armies" as one of the niches for Evocation for a reason. =P

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-27, 08:42 PM
The Locate City Bomb is a little controversial. It working is contingent on you having a lenient DM.

Also note that the Reflex Save to negate the damage is quite low, as it's only a 1st level spell they're saving against. So you can murder a lot of commoners with absolutely no benefit. Good work!!!

I've seen 24th level characters fail saves against 2nd level spells without Nat 1's being involved (multiclassing and Dump stats are a different story). It really just depends on the army.

Either way, I'd rather Maw of Chaos+Sudden Widen. 30ft radius of Death.

Myrmex
2009-09-27, 08:54 PM
How often do you seriously run across groups of 25+ mooks with class levels? All with an alternate class feature of conjurer, no less?

Quite frequently, actually. I like using low level clerics & crusaders, as well, since all those small damage & hit bonuses really start adding up.


If anything, I would posit that said nifty conjurer ability is another (albeit small) place where other schools are more preferable than evocation, who gets a crappy single target damage ability instead.

Absolutely. Evocation routinely gets shafted.


Tome and Blood had orbs earlier...and they were evocation. Crappier orbs, mind you, still subject to SR. If the SpC orbs were evocation, it'd probably make a significant difference for the school.

Weren't they also Reflex for half, too?


Try fighting 300 level 12 human fighters at level 15, then try talking.

I ran something similar, but with 100 undead archers (basically applied skeleton tempate to level 10 fighters, but they kept mental scores) against 3 gestalt characters. The HiPS rogue-ish build was undetectable, but could do virtually no damage. The wizard could only stay out of range and use Evard's to some degree of success. The party cleric/warblade used pearl of black doubt, so he only got hit a couple times/round. He was by far the most useful
party member, in that he could actually kill things.

Using undead meant that virtually all the favorite go to spells were useless. I also had the skeletons constructed by a corpsecrafting ACF necro specialist on desecrated ground, for something like +4 HP/level.

Kylarra
2009-09-27, 09:02 PM
Weren't they also Reflex for half, too?
Worse, fort. :p

Of course they did have the bonus of being able to split up damage if you so chose.

Myrmex
2009-09-27, 09:05 PM
In my experience, I find well constructed encounters with a mob of cleverly leveled melee opponents can cause a lot of headache for a Batman or GOD wizard build, especially pre-level 8 spells, while being a walk in the park for the melee characters.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 09:08 PM
Yeah...the old orbs had some true problems.

Im tempted to agree in that God/batman wizards have a much easier time of it simply because Dms often don't take the time to carefully craft opposing mobs, but there's also the factor that the wizard generally has an escape route or three. He's most likely only hanging around for the melee types.

Faulty
2009-09-27, 09:09 PM
If Evocation spells weren't subject to SR, and could, say, light people on fire (fire damage) or slow them (cold damage) or something, would that do much to improve Evocation?

Myrmex
2009-09-27, 09:14 PM
If Evocation spells weren't subject to SR, and could, say, light people on fire (fire damage) or slow them (cold damage) or something, would that do much to improve Evocation?

It would do TONS. It would likely make Evocation a pretty OP school, actually.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-27, 09:15 PM
If Evocation spells weren't subject to SR, and could, say, light people on fire (fire damage) or slow them (cold damage) or something, would that do much to improve Evocation?

It depends on how you handle it.

Adding status effects to each spell, automatic Metamagic effects, and even lowering the levels of spells that deal HP damage only are all good ways to boost Evocation.

For the Status effects:

Fire: Burned (ala Pokemon). Damage dealt is decreased, HP damage every turn until healed (and a duration of 1 minute/spell level).

Cold: Slowed for 1 round. Possibly Paralyzed for higher level spells like Polar Ray.

Dessication (Sandstorm): Acts as its own status effect, similar to Fatigue.

Acid: Because it is all ready one of the best energy types (behind Sonic, Force, and Untyped), having this act as Pokemon's Poisoned or Badly Poisoned status effect, or even lowering AC/Damage Reduction/Regeneration and similar effects should be enough. Some Acid spells all ready apply a status effect (Acid Arrow is technically Poison). For the Badly Poisoned status, have it start at 1d4 HP damage, then either increase in damage die size or number of dice every time they take a Move, Standard, or Full Round action.

Electricity: Fatigue, oddly, seems appropriate here. Why? Electricity flows through our Central Nervous System. Overloading a system can cause a blackout or brownout. Having electricity cause a pseudo-organic brownout is really interesting, and deviates from the standard stereotype.

Force: Stunning at the lower levels (because Stunning is easy to avoid), Dazing at the higher levels.

Sonic: Despite what you may think, Deafening is a decent status affliction in 3.5. It lowers their Init count.

Kylarra
2009-09-27, 09:16 PM
More riders ala the orb secondaries would distinguish blasting spells from more than just "hmm what has the most resistances?" and "do I feel like a burst, line or cone?, but it still wouldn't really change the fact that you're still "just" blasting and part of the reason the other schools are "better" is that they have utility spells in addition to being able to affect combat.

Myrmex
2009-09-27, 09:17 PM
there's also the factor that the wizard generally has an escape route or three. He's most likely only hanging around for the melee types.

Gandalf should have totally teleported out when that Balrog attacked.:smallwink:

The whole idea of an adventuring party is that they use their abilities together. It's not impossible to make encounters that stymie a wizard from walking all over it and making the rest of the party useful. It takes more work, but it is quite doable.

quick_comment
2009-09-27, 09:18 PM
It would be neat to tie effects to almost evocation spells.

Fire: lingering damage
Cold: slow effect
Sonic: Deafness, maybe daze
Acid: lingering damage, maybe poison
Electrical: Daze, maybe stun
Force: Bull Rush (but something that is designed to work at the proper levels, instead of 6 levels before you can cast the spell)

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 09:51 PM
Gandalf should have totally teleported out when that Balrog attacked.:smallwink:

The whole idea of an adventuring party is that they use their abilities together. It's not impossible to make encounters that stymie a wizard from walking all over it and making the rest of the party useful. It takes more work, but it is quite doable.

Nope, Gandalf did the correct god wizard move. Do something complete unexpected and thought to be impossible, and defeat the encounter without even bothering the rest of the party.

Kylarra
2009-09-27, 09:52 PM
Nope, Gandalf did the correct god wizard move. Do something complete unexpected and thought to be impossible, and defeat the encounter without even bothering the rest of the party.He also "leveled up" afterwards without the rest of the party.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-27, 09:56 PM
"Hey guys. Check out my new gear. You'll notice it's glowing with pure, raw magical power. Hows the trek?"

Ozymandias9
2009-09-27, 10:40 PM
He also "leveled up" afterwards without the rest of the party.

Yeah, but he also ended up naked and had to ask some elves for clothes.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-27, 10:57 PM
Putting his Rod of Wonder on full display, no doubt.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-27, 11:17 PM
Putting his Rod of Wonder on full display, no doubt.

You mean the Wand of Blindness, right?