Diviner vs. Focused Diviner

[Lactantius]

Okay, I'm planning my next wizard a bit sage-like, inspired by all those flavorful loremasters, oracles and bookkeepers of Faerûn :)

Our group agreed to a houserule which allows a bit more versatility for specialists of the smaller magic schools.
In other words, enchanters, diviners and abjurers must not prepare 3 spells of their specialty school per slot, they memorize the usual 1 spell/slot, as a normal specialist does it.

This approach has been made to even focused transmuters and focused conjurers with focused specialists of the smaller schools.

Well, if you would have this option, which specialization would you choose?

1.) normal Diviner, banning only one school (probably necromancy because I want to play the diviner like a "white mage" who does not deal with the dark arts

2.) focused diviner, banning necromancy and enchantment.

I know that you can substitute stuff, that enchantment can be countered and so on.
But the the flavor's sake that would fit with the theme of a sage, I would keep a broad selection of spells available.

So, what would you choose?

[Slipperychicken]

I don't know, but if you're taking 5 or more levels of Wizard and like Divination, Spontaneous Divination is a wonderful ACF that costs your level 5 bonus feat, but lets you cast divinations spontaneously. Learn every Divination in the books, fill your memorizations with something else, and gain that much more versatility.

Since I always take Spontaneous Divination on my wizards anyway, forcing myself to prepare them every day is kind of silly. So I'd say either Generalist, or focused specialist whatever school you know you need 2-3 of every day (likely conjuration or transmutation).

There's also a chain of feats which lets you cast from banned schools by level 10, so that can make Divination focus sweeter, giving your Necromancy back.

[Lactantius]

Well, my central question is what would be better:

+1 slot/level, gaining pretty much slots/day overall to memorize a broad palette or

giving up only 1 school (instead of 2).

Mechanically, it seems like a wizard could waive 2 schools, especially if he foregoes the narrow ones.
On the other hand, I also like enchantment spells beside the usual charms and dominates.
For example, the whole symbol- and power-word-lines are thematically cool.
The weakness is their bad design (too mich gold for symbols to use them frequently, too low hp-cap to make power words effective).

Well, if i would go further and tweak those spells, enchantment could be sweeter and interesting again.

*sigh*
So many decisions and the need to tweak (which can always be dangerous to do)


Ideas?

[Lactantius]

No fans for the real slim wizards - aka the wises of all magicians - here?

Seems like playing focused conjurers and SCMs became a standard way to go - boooring ;)

[Answerer]

Focused Specialist is rarely a good trade, unless you've really got something specific in mind. Focused Conjuror and Focused Transmuter can work, thanks to the enormous size and versatility of those schools, but basically everything else isn't worth it.

Focused Diviner's unique because you lose only two schools. This is nice, since Enchantment and Evocation can be lost at little cost to you, but do you honestly think there are three Divinations at every spell level that you want to cast every day?

[Flickerdart]

Focused Specialist in Divination isn't a very good choice, not because of losing schools (a Wizard can lose a lot of schools and still kick ass) but because Divination by itself can't give you the things a wizard needs to be able to do for his party. Focused Diviner is pretty much only going to be worth it if you're going Unseen Seer, since you'll be packing your low level slots with stuff like Hunter's Eye that you'll be using very often.

[Lactantius]

Did both of you considered the mentioned houserule?
At the end, it's just extra slots vs. one more banned school. Here is the question whether its worthy or not. I'm unsure...