Schools of Magic

[Ancient Mage]

Greetings fellow wizards,
I am here to ask several questions regarding wizardry and school specialization.

(1)-obviously a generalist wizard is a bad idea (although if you can come up with a good argument for it, I'm happy to hear it). So which is better, the Complete Mage focused specialist, or the normal specialist. (Focused gives up 3 schools and 1 spell per level, gains 3 spells of his chosen school per spell level as bonus spells)

(2)-which school should a wizard specialize in? Is there one school that stands out as being the true school of power that is good in all situations? Or do you just have a preference for a particular school? (please give a reason why)

(3)-which schools are easy dumps? Which schools of magic should a wizard get rid of quickly in favor of other schools? Why?

This post will help me of course, and other wizards who would like to see a discussion on this. I am sure this thread has been brought up before, but it seems as if it has not been discussed in a while. Please also cite certain spells that contribute to your choices.

-Ancient Mage

[evil-frosty]

Conjuration is usually held as the school that dominates all the rest. And I think you have the focused specialist mixed up a bit. The schools seen as easy dumps are evocation, necromancy(depends) and enchantment. Sometimes abjuration depending on what you want and the focus of the campaign.

[Gavinfoxx]

Conjuration and Transmutation are the two most powerful schools.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394

There you go.

[dextercorvia]

Most of the time, I would advise Focused Specialist Conjurer or Transmuter. Elven Generalist isn't bad if you want to maintain the option of having all schools available. This is especially true if you can add the Domain Wizard variant to it.

My go-to schools for banning are:

Enchantment, Necromancy, Evocation, and Abjuration.

I would only ditch Abjuration if there were someone else in the party who could handle dispelling.

[Devmaar]

Specialising in Divination can be a good idea because you only lose 1 other school.

[Manateee]

Transmutation and Conjuration are typically the best schools to specialize in. They typically contain the most powerful spells, as well as long lists of varied abilities. The general rule of thumb is that Conjuration rules the low levels and Transmutation takes over in the later game, but you won't go wrong with either of them at any point in a character's career. They're powerful enough and diverse enough to go Focused Specialist without a meaningful loss. Illusion may also be worth FS - especially in Shadowcraft builds - but it's less clearly worthwhile.

Abjuration, Divination and Necromancy have enough powerful and varied effects that they can all be worth specializing in (Divination less so, but it only requires one school barred), but Focused specialization would typically be overkill - the added slots probably aren't going to provide as much practical versatility as the lost schools will cost.

Enchantment and Evocation are generally poor specializations, even if you don't want to ban them. They both basically have one trick that's negated by common resistances/immunities.

Generalization isn't always bad either, but you're right that you'd typically want to avoid it unless you're using some specific variants or racial sub levels. The Elf Generalist racial sub from RotW adds an extra spell of your hightest level per day, as well as a lot of extra spellbook entries - something that could be worth consideration in a campaign lacking downtime or spell access. Also, the Domain wizard variant from Unearthed Arcana adds some extra predetermined spells per day at the cost of the ability to specialize. The rigidity of the spells selected by this variant makes me less partial to it than I am general specialization, but it can also be a compelling alternative.

[darksolitaire]

Also, if you have access to Faerun material, you can effectively un-ban one school with three feats. Available at level 10.

I wonder if there are other ways to recover access to banned schools...

Also, Changeling Wizards can double-specialize in transmutation and illusion, and Drow Wizards (yeah, level adjustment, low constitution and low hit dice all combine nicely) can specialize in "Abyssal school", sub set of spells with chaotic, darkness, compulsion, evil or fear descriptor.

[FMArthur]

Generalists can absolutely be their own kind of powerful, but they don't really come into their own with it until mid-levels because of the fewer spell slots. Eventually the fewer spell slots stop being a handicap because you simply don't run out of them in a day anyway. There are a bunch of options that help generalists out, too.

Elven Generalist substitution levels in Races of the Wild improves generalists even more, granting you an extra spell slot of your highest level from any school, giving you another new spell at each level-up, and doubling whatever bonus your familiar gives you - like the hummingbird familiar's +4 initiative.

The Domain Wizard variant is also compatible with Elven Generalist. You get an extra spell slot of each level with a predefined spell in it. Some are stuff you'd want prepared anyway.

You also still have access to one familiar replacement I can think of, if you want to replace it: Eidetic Spellcaster completely removes the need for a spellbook. You just store them in your head and pay for incense to store more, like buying scrolls. It's pretty much the same as normal, but safer. It's for paranoid wizards, obviously.

Things like Uncanny Forethought and Alacritous Cogitation also perform better in the hands of someone who gave up no schools, since their whole benefit is the flexibility to just pull out any spell you have written down at any moment, and generalists extend the scope of that spontaneity.

[Hirax]

Enchantment would be the perfect dump school, the only reason to not dump it is if you can be able to cast charm person through some other means to be able to qualify for mindbender. If you have no intention of grabbing mindbender, though, enchantment is my go-to dump school, closely followed by evocation, then necromancy.

Generalists become better when you bring in domain wizards, grey elf generalists, and incantatrix.

Also, be aware that a stickler DM might not allow an elf wizard's hummingbird to double their initiative bonus.

[Eldan]

That said, all schools have some spells you will miss. Evocation, often called a weak school (and it is, for hte most part) has the very useful Contingency which is one of the most useful spells in core and only suffers a bit when Craft Contingent Spell comes in.

[Feralventas]

I would like to argue in favor of the generalist. The generalist lacks the flavor of the school specialists, and probably isn't getting as many spells per level as the specialists. This requires a bit more effort on behalf of the player to go about seeking other wizards to learn from, trading spells for spells and knowledge for knowledge. Additionally, the generalist requires a bit more effort in information gathering and caution in action; he has only so many spells per day, but this is also where the generalist shines. As long as you're wary of your engagements and take the time to gather information (as a skill check or through liberal divination spell use, or bugging the party bard about anything you don't have a Knowledge skill for) you can prepare any tool you need for the situation you face. Know that you'll be going into battle tomorrow? Load up on combat and control spells, with a couple of utilities to keep you out of the main fight and free to strike at your foes. Gotta make a scene at the political party tomorrow night? Grab those enchantments, illusions, charms and abjurations, then make friends, make fools of enemies, and never give anything away.

The generalist's power is in potentially having the right spell at the right time. It means you'll need to be cautious and deliberate, but it's what makes Wizards one of the most potent classes in the game.


That said, it also takes a lot of the challenge out of the game if you get good at it, so I wouldn't recommend this play style too often.

As far as specialists go, there's really not enough drawback from dropping a few schools in favor of the bonuses of specialization. Illusionists can easily duplicate many other effects (shadow evocation and conjuration) as well as having many great tools in their own right (displacement, invisibility, phantasmal killer). Abjuration specialists are Very difficult to pin down and are good at taking out other 'casters (dispelling effects all day e'ry day). Conjuration can be both the summoner (get other folks and things to do stuff for you) and the shaper (walls, formations, transmutations). Divination specialists tend to lack offensive capacity and take the role of info-gathering on foes, directing the party in how to deal with threats and puzzles. Enchantment can play the party buffer (heroism) crowd control and debuffer (symbols and words of power) or the socialite (charms and dominates). Evocation's the good ole' Nuke, but has utilities like Contingency and most of the lighting effects. Necomancy has options as the corpse-jockey animate spammer, the direct killer, or the pacifist (ray of enfeeblement+grapple= tazer take-down). Transmutation can also play the buffer like Enchantment (bull's strength, bear's endurance, magic weapon) but can also run as a shape-shifter (alter self, polymorph).

Each has its options, and none is lacking for power. Grab a flavor you like, they're all delicious.

[Ancient Mage]

Thanks for the replies, I'll be sure to consider your tips when I go and make my wizard character for my new campaign.

-Ancient Mage

[FMArthur]

Even Evocation has some pretty glorious spells that you might miss sometimes. Resilient Sphere and Wall of Force-based effects in particular are absolute full-stops to a massive variety of combatants and cannot be usefully replicated by Shadow Evocation because those gain the chance to fail (and be tried repeatedly until they do fail) where they would not otherwise. Enchantment doesn't even start being bad at all until later in levels.

Really, being a generalist is great.

[Weezer]

Even Evocation has some pretty glorious spells that you might miss sometimes. Resilient Sphere and Wall of Force-based effects in particular are absolute full-stops to a massive variety of combatants and cannot be usefully replicated by Shadow Evocation because those gain the chance to fail (and be tried repeatedly until they do fail) where they would not otherwise. Enchantment doesn't even start being bad at all until later in levels.

Really, being a generalist is great.

It's for these kinds of spells that I usually lean towards Elven Generalist. I'm a sucker for options and can't stand crossing off tens of spells off of my list of possible casting options. I know most of them suck but there are enough gems in even the "useless" schools for me to want to hold on to them.

[Piggy Knowles]

Other people have pretty much answered all your questions, so I thought I'd chime in on my thoughts of generalist versus specialist.

Being a generalist isn't bad. It's just that being a specialist is often better.

My thought on the subject is this:

1. A wizard's whole deal is casting spells. Therefore, the more of those you can cast, the better. A specialist will cast a few more spells per day than the generalist, making them moderately better.

2. Every school has a few gems that are worth casting. So score one for the generalist. However, a tricky wizard will find ways around this. (Craft Contingent Spell, Shadow Evocation, Extra Spell shenanigans with a lenient DM, Arcane Disciple, UMD, etc.)

3. Most of the time, I'd rather have two pretty good spells for all situations than one spell that's perfect in some niche situations, so I tend to choose specialists. But it's not so overwhelming of a difference that I would have less fun playing a generalist.

Anyhow, I almost always cross-class UMD as a wizard, because even taking the skills cross-class, DC 20 for spell trigger items is pretty easy to hit.

(Regarding specialist versus Focused Specialist, I'd say that at low levels, the Focused Specialist is better, because those extra castings per day really go a long way toward keeping you relevant in every fight. At higher levels, the Focused Specialist is still good, although the extra school missing can start to hurt.)

[Manateee]

One other thing that might be worth mentioning is that it's not always the school whose spells you want to cast the most that's the most useful specialization - the ACFs or other outside benefits of the class will often make it worthwhile.

For example, if you're making a Master of Shrouds focusing on Cleric casting, you might want to go Wizard 1/Cleric 1/MoS X. The spells the Wizard casts aren't important, but a Conjuration specialization lets you take UA's Rapid Summoning ACF, which will improve the summon spells that are the hallmark of the Cleric-side casting.

Or in a Rogue/Wizard I played, despite Unseen Seer's boost to Divination CL and despite Transmutation and Illusion spells consistently filling most of my spell slots, I chose to specialize in Conjurer for Abrupt Jaunt for its remorseless system abuse.

There are a lot of moving parts. It's easiest to figure out which matter once you've worked out what you want in very precise terms.