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View Full Version : Conjuration, Necromancy and Healing question.



CheshireCatAW
2011-02-09, 03:48 PM
Really quick question that really has no mechanical effect.

Just reading the Spell School descriptions; Shouldn't healing spells be in the Necromancy section? It seems to make sense that the "Life Force" school should be the healing one. I understand that Necromancy has a negative connotation, but aside from that assumption that Necromancy=Evil and that Healing=Good, is there something I'm missing that makes the way they are make more sense?

Kobold-Bard
2011-02-09, 03:52 PM
You have missed nothing. This has been discussed plenty of times and it generally comes down to "it should be, but WotC wanted to push the Necromancy = eeeeevil angle". It usually then devolves into "Is Negative Energy/the use of Negative Energy inherently Evil?" and vice versa for Positive Energy being Good.

Personally I think they should be (and in my games they are), except Cure X Wounds & Inflict X Wounds, which should be Evocation since they deal with channeling energy from an Elemental Plane rather than manipulating life force (and thus are closer in nature to a Fireball spell than a Restoration spell).

CheshireCatAW
2011-02-09, 03:58 PM
Hmm... that makes sense.

Have you found many problems with that approach concerning feats/prestige classes. I'm thinking Cleric's particularly.

grarrrg
2011-02-09, 04:22 PM
Just reading the Spell School descriptions; Shouldn't healing spells be in the Necromancy section? It seems to make sense that the "Life Force" school should be the healing one.

In 2ed Healing/Cure type spells WERE in the Necromancy school.
As stated, WotC wanted to push "Necromancy = Evil" and "Healing = Good", so healing 'magically' changed schools between editions.
You might even say...

:smallcool:A Wizard(s) did it:smallcool:

YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

Grelna the Blue
2011-02-09, 04:33 PM
In 2nd Edition, it was possible to be a good necromancer. Not easy, but possible. There were a number of spells outside the PH that were necromantic and either healing aligned or useful vs. undead. In 3.5, even spells such as False Life are given a negative spin. "You harness the power of unlife to grant yourself a limited ability to avoid death" makes zero sense. The spell gives you actual positive hit points, which negative energy simply cannot do to living beings. But that's 3.5 for you, in which the only way to reconcile a good alignment with necromancy is to say that your character is a necromancer because that is what he or she was taught, but never actually uses the combat effective necromancer spells.

archon_huskie
2011-02-09, 04:41 PM
Always remember rule #1 of Gamemastering. If you don't like it, you can change it.

Bam! By your ruling, Healing spells are necromancy and necromancy is not automatically evil.

Combat Reflexes
2011-02-09, 05:22 PM
Personally I think they should be (and in my games they are), except Cure X Wounds & Inflict X Wounds, which should be Evocation since they deal with channeling energy from an Elemental Plane rather than manipulating life force (and thus are closer in nature to a Fireball spell than a Restoration spell).

Seconded. In my game, healing is Evocation because a) it gets some of the stuff from the overpowered Conjuration school and b) because that's what Evocation is: drawing raw energy from the universe.

Kobold-Bard
2011-02-09, 05:28 PM
Seconded. In my game, healing is Evocation because a) it gets some of the stuff from the overpowered Conjuration school and b) because that's what Evocation is: drawing raw energy from the universe.

Ahh, it's only Cure X Wounds = Evocation for me. All other [Healing] spells (Restoration, Raise Dead etc.) are Necromancy because they're manipulating life energy, not just shooting them with a sort of healing laserbeam.

Eldan
2011-02-09, 05:32 PM
Actually, from all the schools, either Evocation or Necromancy are the ones that could probably most easily be dropped entirely. Both of them have half their thunder stolen by conjuration, kind off, and the rest could be moved to the other.

Thurbane
2011-02-09, 08:35 PM
In 3.5, even spells such as False Life are given a negative spin. "You harness the power of unlife to grant yourself a limited ability to avoid death" makes zero sense.
Another of the more idiotic ones is Deathwatch. It even has the [Evil] tag. Basically, it let's you see the life force of creatures around you...so why the heck isn't it Divination? Also, the spell Status does much the same thing (only with more versatility), yet is is a non Evil Divination.

Although I suppose you could spin just about any spell as Evil if you wanted to - Mending, for example. "Harnessing the efforts of tiny, invisible demons, you repair an object."

LibraryOgre
2011-02-09, 11:14 PM
Another of the more idiotic ones is Deathwatch. It even has the [Evil] tag. Basically, it let's you see the life force of creatures around you...so why the heck isn't it Divination? Also, the spell Status does much the same thing (only with more versatility), yet is is a non Evil Divination.

Although I suppose you could spin just about any spell as Evil if you wanted to - Mending, for example. "Harnessing the efforts of tiny, invisible demons, you repair an object."

That would be Conjuration, too.

Really, conjuration seems to have wound up as 3e's "Alteration". In 2e, it seemed that every useful spell was Alteration, to the point where you simply didn't consider it as an opposition school. It was too useful. In 3e, they let conjuration be blasting, protection... anything it wanted to be.