[PF] Best oppposition schools for a conjurer

[haplessvictim]

I'm building my first Pathfinder Wizard (Conjurer with a teleportation focus from the APG), and am wondering what the forum's advice is for opposition schools. I've read Treantmonk's guide (https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcNyxDTKvAmqZGRtZzhzdjZfMTFmNXdwM2ZjeA&hl=en#), of course, but he doesn't really give any advice about this.

Looking at the spell lists, my first thoughts were evocation and necromancy: I'm not interested in dealing battlefield damage (that's what we have the meatheads for), and the necromancy school doesn't seem to have a lot of "must-haves" for the first few levels. Am i totally off base? Are there any spells in these two schools which look unappealing but are absolutely necessary? (I know I'll still be able to cast spells from my opposing schools.) Any advice would be appreciated.

I'll be building a 6th level pure wizard for this campaign, if that makes a difference, and am mostly interesting in summoning and battlefield control. (I'm even toying with the idea of a wizard who is morally opposed to directly dealing damage with spells.)

[CheshireCatAW]

Evocation is almost always listed as THE school to oppose.

Illusion and Enchantment tend to take the next tier of barring. I usually drop Enchantment as I find Illusion to be wonderfully flexible, though much of it's utility will depend on the DM.

Necromancy is usually placed in the third tier.

[Curious]

Depending on your campaign type, Divination might be a good target for banning, since their power largely depends on the DM's tractability. Seconding Evocation as well.

[Answerer]

Enchantment and Evocation are the choices. There's really no if's, and's, or but's about it. I suppose if your DM is the sort to fiat Divinations into uselessness, and PF allows you to ban them, that could be an option, but really Diviniations are massively better than Encahntments or Evocations.

Abjuration, Illusion, or Necromancy is the next "tier" of choices. Illusion's the best of them, but all three have things you don't really want to lose. Abjuration is the easiest to lose if you have another caster around (particularly a Cleric), since there aren't a lot of stellar Sor/Wiz-only Abjurations (you mostly want the school for Dispel, but a Cleric can do that as well as a Wizard). Illusion has a ton of useful defenses that you want to keep. Necromancy's got a lot of powerful save-or-sucks or no-save-just-sucks, but they aren't unique to the school, so if you need to be Dispelling, it gets my vote.

Then there are Conjuration and Transmutation. These you simply do not ban if you're going for anything resembling optimization.

[ngilop]

I went with Necromancy and Enchantment.

I looked thorught eh schools and relaized that there are literally only 3 spells out of allof those schools I would ever think about casting.

I know most poeple say ' evo=fail don't do it its a tarp!!!!!' there are actually spells there I will be using, most notabel magic missle, and wall of force as well as other spells that it has

look up treantmonks guide to evocation ( or something titled along those lines) you relaize that evocation isn' the most worthless of schools after all.

I did not pick necromancy manily becuase im not evil, and mesing with peoples soul/life essences to em at least is very evil

and enchantment, well I am going tobe summoning and controlling thing not mentlaly enslaving them, while the biggest drawbakcx tome is most fo the spells that look awesome stop being close to effective 2 or 3 levels after you get teh spell.

[haplessvictim]

Thanks for all the advice! I had been shying away from using Enchantment as an opposed school, since it contains the "mind control" spells (Hold Person, Daze Monster, Confusion, etc.). Are these spells (which all have saves and respect SR) not that effective in practice? Similarly, Necromancy has undead control spells and a bunch of debuffing spells, but many of these latter spells seem (at 1-3rd level at least) touch based, which seems like a bad strategy for a wizard.

[Answerer]

I know most poeple say ' evo=fail don't do it its a tarp!!!!!' there are actually spells there I will be using, most notabel magic missle, and wall of force as well as other spells that it has

look up treantmonks guide to evocation ( or something titled along those lines) you relaize that evocation isn' the most worthless of schools after all.
It's not the most worthless of schools (that's Enchantment, thanks to the extreme over-abundance of things outright immune to everything in the school), but it is probably the one school that offers the least irreplaceable stuff. Even Enchantment has Mind Control, which is solid if you can find a good target for it. Evocation just has damage, for the most part, and the few things it does have that are important can be easily replaced with other spells, or Shadow Evocation if necessary.

Add in the fact that PF doesn't even really ban the school, and there's just no reason to keep it around. You can get the damage spells elsewhere (Magic Missile is not that important a spell) if you really need them, and for the really important Evocation (Contingency), you can get it through Shadow Evocation or just by casting it through the PF penalties.


Thanks for all the advice! I had been shying away from using Enchantment as an opposed school, since it contains the "mind control" spells (Hold Person, Daze Monster, Confusion, etc.). Are these spells (which all have saves and respect SR) not that effective in practice?
The problem is that an enormous number of things have immunity to [Mind-Affecting] spells, which all Enchantments are. That means a huge swath of enemies are "don't even bother" for the school.

Furthermore, a great many of the spells are blocked by a single common 1st-level spell (any of the Protection Against alignment spells prevents controlling the target), even on targets otherwise susceptible to [Mind-Control].

All of this means that the school is just too easily ignored by the people you really want to use it on. See Useless Useful Spell (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UselessUsefulSpell).

There is a major exception to this: if you are playing a mostly urban game, with an emphasis on subterfuge, social skills, and subtlety, and most of the inhabitants of said city are low in level (i.e. Mind Blank isn't on everything of interest), you can do a lot with Enchantment. Cities are typically filled with a lot of things vulnerable to [Mind-Affecting] spells and that you want something from, rather than just want dead. These are where Enchantment shines.


Similarly, Necromancy has undead control spells and a bunch of debuffing spells, but many of these latter spells seem (at 1-3rd level at least) touch based, which seems like a bad strategy for a wizard.
There are quite a few touch spells that are dangerous to use, but it also has enough ranged gems to be amazing. Like Ray of Enfeeblement, False Life, Ray of Exhaustion, Enervation.