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View Full Version : what schools of magic should i give up 3.5



Half-orc Bard
2010-07-06, 12:55 AM
i'm new to dnd and i'm wondering what schools of magic i should give up for my illusionist? i have already taken out abj (tell me if this is a bad idea), but i can't decide what other school to prohibit. i have given a list of reasons for every school please tell me what one is the worst:

conj: I want teleport

div: you can't

ench: my dm told me there will be a lot of social elements in the campaign.

evo: damage is important

necro: the spells sound cool and fun, and when i get to a high lvl i think an army of mindless warriors sounds fun:smallamused:

trans: disintegrate

Kylarra
2010-07-06, 12:58 AM
i'm new to dnd and i'm wondering what schools of magic i should give up for my illusionist? i have already taken out abj (tell me if this is a bad idea), but i can't decide what other school to prohibit. i have given a list of reasons for every school please tell me what one is the worst:

conj: I want teleport

div: you can't

ench: my dm told me there will be a lot of social elements in the campaign.

evo: damage is important

necro: the spells sound cool and fun, and when i get to a high lvl i think an army of mindless warriors sounds fun:smallamused:

trans: disintegrateI'd honestly drop evocation and necromancy to keep abjuration. The other schools, specifically conjuration, can do blasty if you want it and you do always have shadow evocation.

hotel_papa
2010-07-06, 12:59 AM
This really depends on the books you have access to. If the Spell Compendium is accessible, then don't worry about needing Evocation for damage. There are plenty of top-notch damage dealers in Conjuration.

Frankly, as a wizard, your biggest strengths are your ability to shape and control the battlefield. The damage dealing and killing is something lesser beings (your party members) are left to do, after you've made it easy for them.

There are a bunch of people on these boards WAY more qualified than me to help you learn how to do that.

Sinon
2010-07-06, 01:01 AM
Evocation: you can get direct damage a lot of other ways. Eventually, Shadow Evocation can help make the loss of the school almost irrelevant.

As a note, you lose Dispel Magic with the abjuration school. Some other nice defenses.

Seatbelt
2010-07-06, 01:03 AM
Evocation: you can get direct damage a lot of other ways. Eventually, Shadow Evocation can help make the loss of the school almost irrelevant.

As a note, you lose Dispel Magic with the abjuration school. Some other nice defenses.

If you can cast the party will expect you to be able to cast dispel magic. Then again, having dispel magic prepared is never a bad idea, ever. So you can't blame them...

Half-orc Bard
2010-07-06, 01:03 AM
i can use complete arcane spells also if this helps.

Mastikator
2010-07-06, 01:03 AM
Evocation for damage is pointless since as you pointed out, disintegrate is transmutation. Some damage spells are also conjuration.

Conjuration can also be used for summoming, so if your reason for keeping necromancy is undead minions then conjuration (and even enchantment) can replace that. And clerics get animate dead two levels earlier, so if you want to create and control undead then I'd go with being a cleric instead.
In fact, I'd say that enchantment is superior to necromancy because you can only control a certain number of undead, whereas there is no limit to dominate person.


Necromancy has some powerful de-buffs. So I'd throw out evocation.

Half-orc Bard
2010-07-06, 01:05 AM
If you can cast the party will expect you to be able to cast dispel magic. Then again, having dispel magic prepared is never a bad idea, ever. So you can't blame them...

my friends and i often leave dispel magic to the cleric and we often do alright.

PId6
2010-07-06, 01:09 AM
i can use complete arcane spells also if this helps.
Complete Arcane has the Orb of X spells, which are far superior to most evocation spells for damage purposes. Just dump Evocation and use those instead.

Your other banned school should be either Enchantment or Necromancy, since Abjuration has the Dispel Magic line and other useful defensive tricks. If you've a cleric in the party, you can ban it since clerics get most of the good Abjurations too, but you need someone in the party capable of casting Dispels. Since it's a socially-oriented campaign, Necromancy is the better school to drop than Enchantment, since its debuffs, while nice, are duplicatable through Transmutations and Conjurations.

Edit: Since you've a cleric, just ban Evocation and Abjuration then.

Raistlin1040
2010-07-06, 01:12 AM
Evocation and Enchantment. If by social elements he means "roleplaying", you can do that without Enchantment spells. If he means "Roll Diplomacy", you're going to suck at that no matter what, presuming Charisma is your dump stat and you put no ranks in it. There are other reasons to keep Enchantment, but if you only intend to use it for social purposes, leave that behind and focus on your illusions instead. Creative use of the Image spells (Silent, Minor, Major) can help you out in a lot of social situations, especially if you have a Rogue or a Bard helping you out.

Skorj
2010-07-06, 01:15 AM
Abjuration has a lot of stuff that's situationally good - very useful if you can plan for an encounter ahead of time.

Necromancy tends to offer colorful ways to do stuff in battle that you can do other ways - unless it's important to your character concept, I'd bar Necro and Evocation.

Sinon
2010-07-06, 01:15 AM
I love my necromancy. It isn’t just undead; it’s False Life, Vampire Touch, and Enervation.

I think everyone agrees on Evocation. If you want to stick with Abjuration, it’s doable.

But I’d drop Enchantment.
1) Let someone with better Cha handle the “social situations.”
2) Most illusions target will: so do most enchantments. Be more versatile.
3) More than any other school enchantment is open to DM interpretation (they determine what “sounds reasonable” and what “interpreting words in the most favorable way” means. Sometimes that’s very good for you. Sometimes not.)

All that said: you’re a wizard. It’s hard to not kick butt no matter what you do.
So go with what fits the character and seems cool. And it will be cool.

Draz74
2010-07-06, 01:25 AM
Abjuration is fine to drop depending on who else is in your party. If you have a Cleric or a Psion (or another full manifester), you should be fine. Otherwise, probably not a good idea.

Never drop Conjuration, Transmutation, or (of course) Divination.

Necromancy, Evocation, and Enchantment are all fairly expendable. If you want to keep Enchantment, keep it.

(Disintegrate is not the main reason to keep Transmutation, though. A huge array of various buffs is more important ... especially if you are prepared to deal with the cheese and bookkeeping that is Polymorph. But even without Polymorph ... buffs. Buffs.)

Defiant
2010-07-06, 01:27 AM
i'm new to dnd and i'm wondering what schools of magic i should give up for my illusionist? i have already taken out abj (tell me if this is a bad idea), but i can't decide what other school to prohibit. i have given a list of reasons for every school please tell me what one is the worst:

Generally the most common schools to give up are enchantment and evocation. Necromancy is a third one if necessary (like for Focused Specialist or Incantatrix).

Abjuration contains very useful protections that you shouldn't go without. Things like Dispel Magic are nigh-invaluable.


conj: I want teleport

Conjuration is the absolute best school there is. Specialize in it, don't ever drop it.


div: you can't

A good school. Perfectly useful as regular specialization for a wizard wanting more spell slots but craving generalization.


ench: my dm told me there will be a lot of social elements in the campaign.

1. Perfectly possible to be sociable using just regular skills or roleplaying. If your DM will refuse for the NPCs to take you seriously without a roll or something, then it's not much fun. The name of the game is roleplaying.

2. The enchantment school will usually yield a save. On the off-chance (not that unlikely) that the save is made, then expect trouble. Furthermore, expect the important people you're talking to (you know, the social parts that are actually important) to be very well-protected against enchantment: either through magic items that give them boosts, or through simply having backup to help them out in case they start acting weird (such as, say, handing over the kingdom to the adventurers because they "suggested" it).

3. If you want to plan long-term, enchantment is a poor school, since a lot of things you will be fighting will have immunities against this school of magic. Even if your DM isn't trying to screw you over, too many monsters will be immune regardless.


evo: damage is important

1. Actually it isn't. There are plenty of spells out there that take your opponents out outright, without necessarily doing any damage. Whether the spell directly kills them on a failed save, or the spell renders them helpless against your party. Besides, a wizard is capable of doing more damage through the spells he casts on his teammates.

Not everything is about direct damage. Case in point, a marshal I have in a real-life D&D game I'm in, has a massive damage-boost aura (when flanking). The other players proceeded to mop the floor with the enemy. One player even had the gall to boast about how much damage he did, while I chuckled silently knowing that half of that was only because of me.

You cast haste on your teammates, and all of a sudden you've done "+1 attack action from each teammate" amount of damage on your enemy. You cast grease on your enemy (rendering him immobile and unable to attack for a while), and all of a sudden you just healed a bunch of damage to your teammates that the enemy might have otherwise done.

2. Damage is perfectly attainable through other school, including the orb line of spells from Conjuration, or the disintegrate you mentioned further below.


necro: the spells sound cool and fun, and when i get to a high lvl i think an army of mindless warriors sounds fun:smallamused:

The spells are indeed fun. A good reason to ban necromancy is usually if it doesn't go with your character or something. But there are some gems in there that you'll treasure.


trans: disintegrate

Transmutation is the absolute best school there is. Specialize in it, don't ever drop it.

(yes, I said the same thing about conjuration... hopefully that makes it clear what the good schools are)

DrGonzo
2010-07-06, 01:27 AM
Read this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002)

Become Batman. Or, as Frank Miller put, the goddamn Batman.

Optimystik
2010-07-06, 01:59 AM
If you want an army of anything via necromancy, you're much better off with a cleric or dread necromancer than a wizard.

Personally I would drop necromancy - without Abjuration, the party cleric has to cover for me defensively and risk spreading himself too thin on the dispels, mind blanks, dimensional locks/anchors, etc. that we need to be successful. But enervation and avasculate, while nice to have, are never offensive necessities, and can even be liabilities against the wrong types of foe (e.g. undead and constructs.)

Kylarra
2010-07-06, 08:21 AM
The main reason I hesitate to drop Abj, is because of situations like Saph's where [at least] 3 (or so I forget exact numbers) fullcasters all forgot to pack dispels and made an encounter far more difficult than it needed to be.

AvatarZero
2010-07-06, 08:41 AM
The other casters in your group might help make this decision. If you have a Cleric on your team, then you don't have to worry about abjuration; almost all of them are on the Cleric spell list. If you have a Warmage, Beguiler or Dread Necromancer for a friend, then you can give up spells that they can cover. If there's a sorcerer in the group, you could play a generalist wizard and be able to cast all the spells that are useful only once in a while, the sorts of spells that few Sorcerers would want to use up their spells known on.

molten_dragon
2010-07-06, 09:54 AM
My thoughts on the schools available to you to drop:

Evocation: Definitely droppable (and probably the best choice of a school to drop). The damage aspects of Evocation can be easily replaced by a wide variety of conjuration spells if that's important to you. You also have the option of the shadow evocation spell, or if you want to go that route, the shadowcraft mage and their shadow illusion ability.

Abjuration: In my opinion, this one depends on the makeup of the rest of your party. If you have a cleric who's planning to play a party buffer and doesn't mind preparing a couple dispel magics each day, I'd say go ahead and consider dropping this. If you're without a cleric, or your cleric wants to play a melee-er and use most of his buffs on himself, I'd say keep this one.

Conjuration: This is one of most versatile and useful schools available to you. It has a great variety of buffs, debuffs, battlefield control, direct damage, and non-combat utility. Under no circumstances should you drop conjuration.

Necromancy: Necromancy is a fairly narrow school, focusing mainly on its great debuffs, with little bits of other things thrown in from time to time. You can get by without it, but I think there are better choices of schools to drop.

Transmutation: This is the other of the most versatile and useful schools available to you. Under no circumstances should you drop transmutation.

Enchantment: This contains a lot of battlefield control/debuffs (depending on how you view turning enemies against each other) and non-combat utility. The problem with it is that enchantment is a bit rogue-like, in that there are a ton of things which are immune to mind-affecting spells (which many of yours are). The situational-ness of it makes it a good candidate for dropping.

So, in order, the schools I would drop are:

1. Evocation
2. Enchantment
3. Abjuration
4. Necromancy

If the party doesn't have a cleric (or has a cleric that wants to be a fighter), put necromancy ahead of abjuration on the drop list.