What does dropping evocation lose?

[Vaz]

Since i joined here, one of the gospels of the casters who drop spell schools has tended to be along the lines of dropping evocation. I can understand why as it was heavily overrated by WotC.

I sort of accepted it, you guys and gals seem to know what you are doing, after all why take evocation when you can summon an individual who can SLA it? Or have a fellow caster/rogue UMD it.

I will also agree that it is less flexible, an SM or SNA can get you either a spy or a fighting companion or a means of travel or a trap monkey or quest information advancement, while outside of fighting evocation can simply just make your office untidy.

So, we have banned evocaton, what spells will we miss on a scale that means we cause to not waste money on a staff for rogues, or friendly summon, let alone Wish.

Boreal Wind (Frostburn) is a semi decent Damage over time, particularly useful in tunnel conditions, 20ft high and wide long range column doing around 35 damage a turn, for around 10 turns, provided the enemy is still within the effect.
Call Avalanche is another, a save or suck, that also deals damage but scales well.

Cloud of Bewilderment is a close range d6 rounds of nausea to get away

Coat of Arms is a bit.like Shield and Cloudof Knives all in one.

Any others?

[Answerer]

The biggest one is contingency; wall of force and forcecage aren't fun to lose either.

But shadow evocation and greater shadow evocation get us contingency back, anyway. If it weren't for those (or if your DM interprets the illusion rules as preventing shadow contingency from functioning, which is arguable though I think the rules favor it working), contingency alone would be reason enough to avoid banning Evocation. It is that good.

Of course, for how infrequently you have to use it, you could rely on scrolls and UMD. DC 25 check is hard cross-class, but if you plan for it (e.g. Apprentice [Spellcaster] to get UMD in-class), that's not a problem.

[killem2]

The biggest one is contingency; wall of force and forcecage aren't fun to lose either.

But shadow evocation and greater shadow evocation get us contingency back, anyway. If it weren't for those (or if your DM interprets the illusion rules as preventing shadow contingency from functioning, which is arguable though I think the rules favor it working), contingency alone would be reason enough to avoid banning Evocation. It is that good.

Of course, for how infrequently you have to use it, you could rely on scrolls and UMD. DC 25 check is hard cross-class, but if you plan for it (e.g. Apprentice [Spellcaster] to get UMD in-class), that's not a problem.

If it is a banned school, could you use the scroll though?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The only worthwhile spells you can't get back with (Greater) Shadow Evocation are Iceberg in Frostburn and Invoke Magic in Lords of Madness. Everything else from that entire school is easily replaced by spells of equal or lower level from other schools, barring a few unique items that (Greater) Shadow Evocation easily covers. Just be sure to roll the % chance for Shadow Contingency when casting it, rather than when it triggers, so you always know whether it's going to work and can recast it if it fails.

[Darrin]

You also lose sending, which can be problematic, but more importantly... Sending is evocation?! WTF?!?!?!

There's some feats in Lost Empires of Faerun to get a banned spell back... Spell Reprieve, I think? Diversified Casting from Dragon #325 can get back three spells.

[JBento]

There's always the Cheese Cheesy Spe - I mean, Craft Contingent Spell feat to bypass that.

[Answerer]

If it is a banned school, could you use the scroll though?
Yes, you can. Unfortunately, Wizards chose to word everything as if you were single classed and assumed you had no cross-class ranks. However, Complete Arcane explicitly states that a Wizard/Sorcerer can use spells banned as a Wizard with his Sorcerer spells known and spell slots. Thus, the absolute wording used in the Wizard class feature description is taken to be absolute only for the limited case of what the Wizard class itself is giving you.

Basically, it says that a Wizard cannot use those items. What it means is that the Wizard class does not give you the ability to use those items. If you have that ability from elsewhere (as with UMD), then you can. On some level, it's also a matter of specific trumping general: Wizard says you cannot use those items, but UMD says you can.


There's some feats in Lost Empires of Faerun to get a banned spell back... Spell Reprieve, I think? Diversified Casting from Dragon #325 can get back three spells.
There's an ACF in Unearthed Arcana for Transmuters that allows you to replace your Bonus Feats with an extra spell that can explicitly even be from banned schools. Taking Master Specialist to delay that 5th level until you can get contingency with that feature is a really good idea.

[TuggyNE]

Resilient sphere may be useful.

Really, the useful spells in Evocation are basically non-damaging [force] spells plus contingency. That ... pretty much sums it up I think.

[limejuicepowder]

Resilient sphere may be useful.

Really, the useful spells in Evocation are basically non-damaging [force] spells plus contingency. That ... pretty much sums it up I think.

I've always wanted to make caster that has telekinetic sphere. If he's in trouble he just spheres himself and floats away, while doing a taunting dance. This behavior would infuriate one of the people I play even more than a normal person, which is a big reason why I want to do it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I've always wanted to make caster that has telekinetic sphere. If he's in trouble he just spheres himself and floats away, while doing a taunting dance. This behavior would infuriate one of the people I play even more than a normal person, which is a big reason why I want to do it.

Getting a scroll of disintigrate isn't expensive at 1650 and once you're at a certain level it's always a good idea to have a rod of cancellation (11k) just to be safe. If either one hits your telekinetic sphere, with it's utter trash AC, you get dropped on you butt.

[Metahuman1]

Persistent blade is nice for the party melee's to have, especially if they have sneak attack, and still so if they have power attack. Not a bad thing for a Gish to have a lower level either.

[limejuicepowder]

Getting a scroll of disintigrate isn't expensive at 1650 and once you're at a certain level it's always a good idea to have a rod of cancellation (11k) just to be safe. If either one hits your telekinetic sphere, with it's utter trash AC, you get dropped on you butt.

Yeah it wouldn't be particularly optimized, just funny and annoying.

That situation did make me think of this though: I would imagine most casters would keep several different useful scrolls in easy reach, say attached to their belt or on a bandolier or something. It take a move action to grab something in that case (or free if you have quick draw), but what about grabbing the wrong thing? It's totally against RAW I know, the character just automatically grabs the right thing for the situation because the player has time to leisurely choose the right thing from the character sheet, but IRL it's not as easy as all that. Anyone who's worn a tool belt has grabbed the wrong thing before, and I bet they weren't in combat at the time.

Anyone ever house rule something for that? Make an int check or something?

[Phelix-Mu]

Getting a scroll of disintigrate isn't expensive at 1650 and once you're at a certain level it's always a good idea to have a rod of cancellation (11k) just to be safe. If either one hits your telekinetic sphere, with it's utter trash AC, you get dropped on you butt.

Hmm. Was attempting to think of a way to maintain the strategy while avoiding this drawback. The first thing that came to mind was possibly twinning telekinetic sphere. It seems to me that this shouldn't work, but I don't know enough metamagic and spell effects to say why. Any input?

[limejuicepowder]

Hmm. Was attempting to think of a way to maintain the strategy while avoiding this drawback. The first thing that came to mind was possibly twinning telekinetic sphere. It seems to me that this shouldn't work, but I don't know enough metamagic and spell effects to say why. Any input?

How about invisible telekinetic sphere? +0 spell level, and it looks like you just cast fly. That should buy you some time to get out of line of sight as they waste a spell hitting your invisible shield.

That makes it even more annoying >:)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hmm. Was attempting to think of a way to maintain the strategy while avoiding this drawback. The first thing that came to mind was possibly twinning telekinetic sphere. It seems to me that this shouldn't work, but I don't know enough metamagic and spell effects to say why. Any input?

Wouldn't work. Twinning the spell would definitely have one of them trying to occupy the same space as the other, which would cause it to fail. A particularly vicious DM might even say that since they form simultaneously they block each other and nothing happens except you burn off a spell-slot.

Even if you get around that and end up with one wrapped around the other, they require concentration to move, meaning you could only move one at a time. Since they're wrapped around each other, this effectively makes them immobile.

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, too bad, I do like the visuals of flying around in a telekinetic sphere.

I am thinking of dropping evocation for my monk/conjurer. Currently am thinking drop enchantment and evocation. Is there consensus that illusion is better than evocation for utility? Seems that way, but being new to the boards, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something serious that has been discussed in older threads.

[Slipperychicken]

If it is a banned school, could you use the scroll though?

Not normally. There are some ways to weasel out of it, though, which some of the others mentioned.


Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and she can’t even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands. She may not change either her specialization or her prohibited schools later.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well, too bad, I do like the visuals of flying around in a telekinetic sphere.

I am thinking of dropping evocation for my monk/conjurer. Currently am thinking drop enchantment and evocation. Is there consensus that illusion is better than evocation for utility? Seems that way, but being new to the boards, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something serious that has been discussed in older threads.

Evocation and enchantment are pretty universally accepted as the two bottom schools.

Transmutation and conjuration are regarded as the top.

Illusion, Necromancy, and Abjuration will vary in their placement by who you ask.

Divination can't be banned, but is none the less reasonably well regarded by most, and occasionally severely over-estimated.

[TuggyNE]

I am thinking of dropping evocation for my monk/conjurer. Currently am thinking drop enchantment and evocation. Is there consensus that illusion is better than evocation for utility? Seems that way, but being new to the boards, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something serious that has been discussed in older threads.

General consensus, yes; illusion can partially replace evocation, but evocation can't really replace illusion at all.

Of course that does change if you have a DM who dislikes illusions enough to nerf them with misinterpretations of RAW. :smallyuk:

[Answerer]

By the way, here's a pretty exhaustive analysis of what each school offers (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/19558/4563). Not exactly ground-breaking; mostly a rehashing of conventional wisdom, but it does go into detail to give you a pretty good idea of what each school has and why conventional wisdom is what it is.

[Metahuman1]

I dunno, I personally like to just play a diviner and ban necromancy or ban nothing as a generalist. If I had to ban too though, I'd probably ban enchantment and just have some juiced social skill checks.

[Sith_Happens]

To be fair, a handful of the blasting spells in Evocation are reasonably worthwhile, especially with metamagic. If you're up against a large crowd of mooks, for instance, killing them with a Fireball is quicker than disabling them and waiting for the Fighter to finish the job.

[Kelb_Panthera]

^ that's true.

While blasting is the weakest option available to a wizard, that doesn't make it a weak option in general.

[killem2]

Yes, you can. Unfortunately, Wizards chose to word everything as if you were single classed and assumed you had no cross-class ranks. However, Complete Arcane explicitly states that a Wizard/Sorcerer can use spells banned as a Wizard with his Sorcerer spells known and spell slots. Thus, the absolute wording used in the Wizard class feature description is taken to be absolute only for the limited case of what the Wizard class itself is giving you.

Basically, it says that a Wizard cannot use those items. What it means is that the Wizard class does not give you the ability to use those items. If you have that ability from elsewhere (as with UMD), then you can. On some level, it's also a matter of specific trumping general: Wizard says you cannot use those items, but UMD says you can.


There's an ACF in Unearthed Arcana for Transmuters that allows you to replace your Bonus Feats with an extra spell that can explicitly even be from banned schools. Taking Master Specialist to delay that 5th level until you can get contingency with that feature is a really good idea.
Oh ok, I gotcha. I knew a wizard couldn't I just thought you were hinting that the wizard could.

[Hirax]

Personally, enchantment is my clear cut pick for easiest school to ban. The only spell I find myself missing on a regular basis is mindrape. Mindrape aside, everything else from enchantment is replaced fairly easily through feats such as mother cyst and arcane disciple. And in fact, mother cyst's necrotic dominate and necrotic tumor are better than the enchantment versions, because they get around mind affecting immunities.

[Spuddles]

Gust of Wind and Wind Wall are really great spells, and their best functions cannot be mimic'd by shadow evocation.

Virtually every battle field control spell from a wizard will be clouds that get dispelled by a second level evocation. If you are going to face CharOp casters, gust of wind is a must have, otherwise you get to hang out with your face melting off in an acid cloud.

At low levels, you'll also lose out on the most effective, and safe, way of dealing with incorporeal undead- magic missile.


You also lose sending, which can be problematic, but more importantly... Sending is evocation?! WTF?!?!?!

Honestly, I think Evocation should have gotten more than mostly damage spells. I mean, what else would Sending be? You're creating a non-thing from nothing and giving it locomotion. That is pretty much definitionally Evocation.


To be fair, a handful of the blasting spells in Evocation are reasonably worthwhile, especially with metamagic. If you're up against a large crowd of mooks, for instance, killing them with a Fireball is quicker than disabling them and waiting for the Fighter to finish the job.

Yeah, blasting can be really efficient, especially if you're taking advantage of an Energy Vulnerability. It also saves at-the-table time, which for me, is terrific. If you're playing a 15 minute adventuring day, saturating the field in solid fogs and weak-ass summon monsters with tremorsense sucks just because it takes an hour to resolve the battle. Two fireballs and a great cleave and the longest part of the combat was getting everyone's initiative written down.

[Aquillion]

Getting a scroll of disintigrate isn't expensive at 1650 and once you're at a certain level it's always a good idea to have a rod of cancellation (11k) just to be safe. If either one hits your telekinetic sphere, with it's utter trash AC, you get dropped on you butt.Sure, but that's normal caster-vs-caster trade-offs. If you were able to cast the sphere before a fight (and it does last 1 minute / level), forcing the enemy to spend an action removing it is a win for you, usually.

I mean, if they waste an action disintegrating your sphere, that buys you an action to disintegrate them.

(Of course, you don't fall when it's destroyed, because you have Overland Flight up. There's no reason to ever not have Overland Flight up.)


Divination can't be banned, but is none the less reasonably well regarded by most, and occasionally severely over-estimated.The other nice thing about Divination is that it costs you less to specialize in it than other schools; this is the main reason it's so popular. It's not better than Transmutation or Conjuration, sure, but it's good enough that you're always going to have uses for its spells.

[ericgrau]

Getting a scroll of disintigrate isn't expensive at 1650
1650 is expensive to negate 1 out of 1,000 possible challenges. And then since your turn is next you cast telekinetic sphere again or one of your other 15 high level spells and laugh at the expense.

I might prepare it as a caster though to get past walls and fight undead. But most monsters aren't high level arcane casters. Fewer still would prepare it to fight you when there's no reason to nuke their own walls and you're not undead. It's not impossible, but highly unlikely and gets in the way of preparing for the other 999 things you might do.

[Vaz]

Just realised Miracle is as well. Bit of a pain that, rather would like to use that in favour of wish.

[TuggyNE]

Just realised Miracle is as well. Bit of a pain that, rather would like to use that in favour of wish.

... Most casters that can specialize don't have miracle on their list, you realize.

[Vaz]

Yep. Still, my build could cast both if I didn't ban evocation. Its a case of you only miss it when youve had it.

I didn't rise enchantment was also a dump list. That may be my chosen one instead, I am playing it in an extremely magic heavy campaign.

Any big spells outside of dominate?

[Sith_Happens]

Any big spells outside of dominate?

Charm and Suggestion, along similar lines. And Ray of Stupidity for one-shotting animals.

[Kelb_Panthera]

1650 is expensive to negate 1 out of 1,000 possible challenges. And then since your turn is next you cast telekinetic sphere again or one of your other 15 high level spells and laugh at the expense.

I might prepare it as a caster though to get past walls and fight undead. But most monsters aren't high level arcane casters. Fewer still would prepare it to fight you when there's no reason to nuke their own walls and you're not undead. It's not impossible, but highly unlikely and gets in the way of preparing for the other 999 things you might do.

It's only an expense for a non-caster using the scroll via UMD. Another wizard could simply cast it from memory or even counterspell the telekinetic sphere before it ever forms.

And as you point out yourself, disintigrate is a reasonably useful spell in its own right. Punching through walls, digging an instant pit, dealing with uppity skill-monkeys, collapsing a building if you know where to aim, etc. By the time telekinetic sphere is on the table a scroll of that level is easily expendable.

[Eldan]

Charm and Suggestion, along similar lines. And Ray of Stupidity for one-shotting animals.

Mind Rape, if one does not mind the evilness.

[DEMON]

And Ray of Stupidity for one-shotting animals hydras.

FTFY :smallwink:


Mind Rape, if one does not mind the evilness.

And Programmed Amnesia if he does...

Still I don't think these are used often enough to warrant not banning Enchantment.

[Phelix-Mu]

I dunno, I personally like to just play a diviner and ban necromancy or ban nothing as a generalist. If I had to ban too though, I'd probably ban enchantment and just have some juiced social skill checks.

Mmm, generalist is very appealing, and actually I had done that. Just retrained it, though, when I realized that the Immediate Magic ACF for conjurer was uber-synergy with Sun School's last tactic. Plus, my monk is Int-based, and since it's an epic-level campaign, I stand to get around 15 uses of the Immediate Magic.

Honestly, I almost never play straight wizard anyway. I like gishing, and I'm from old school 2e where magic was not quite as all-powerful as it is now. Multiclass is still an attractive option, nevertheless. Last campaign I played a dwarven fighter/wiz/runesmith/eldritch knight. Not particularly optimized, but with Arcane Strike and whirling blade and such, no slouch. Tons of flavor, too. He was always arguing with his raven familiar.

[Jerthanis]

Honestly, I think the conventional wisdom when it comes to Evocation is crazy.

It's got a Reflex-based save-or-lose earlier than any other school that also doubles as an "Oh-Sh**" button that gives you a few safe turns to buff if you were facing down your death or cornered otherwise. Sending is a spectacularly useful spell that doesn't have nearly as robust a replacement elsewhere; Wall of Force and Force Cage are often no-save-just-lose effects; The late Hand spells will outwrestle dragons and I think I die inside every time someone talks about using Greater Shadow Evocation to duplicate Contingency. It's questionable whether it should work AND it's using an 8th level spell to duplicate a 5th level one and pretending it's just as good. You seriously might as well say that you can just use Limited Wish and could ban ANY school.

On top of that, the Evocation Blasty spells are more prone to being resisted or reduced in some way than some of Conjuration's effects, but their low level, good scaling, large base damage and solid areas can make them prime resources to metamagic up into being totally awesome. Evocation doesn't really benefit much from being specialized in, since the good spells it has aren't the ones cast round-by-round, but I find that it is a solid contributor, and many of its spells are of exceptional power and utility.

Personally, I'm against specialization in general, but if I do it, I'd ban Necromancy and Enchantment over Evocation. Necromancy gets one of the later save-or-dies, and most of its debuffs only really inconvenience enemies that are outright trumped by the Evocation spells that you're giving up to retain those debuffs. While I've only had limited involvement with Animating Dead and am no expert at it, I feel like my basic sense of the system (that you're breaking WBL in the wrong direction with it) isn't far off. The only real things I miss when banning Necromancy are spells like False Life and Enervation, and even then, Enervation is kind of a souped-up damage spell with a minor debuff attached than it is a really powerful action-denial style debuff. And damage spells being bad is one of the reasons you're happy banning Evocation...

Enchantment is my second choice to ban, and cuts a little deeper, but the reason it's my second choice is that its best spells are limited to humanoid targets until late level and at late level you're starting to see more and more monsters flatly immune to the whole school. Add to this the fact that the erosion of a person's free will is a pretty heinous crime except in the most dire of circumstances and the utility aspect of the school kind of slides into the darker side of the alignment scale.

[Phelix-Mu]

I also considered banning necromancy, but for gishing, l find that the touch spells in necromancy can be very attractive, particularly monk gish. Flavor-wise, necromancy was closely matched with evocation, but I decided that some metamagic-rod quickened low-level necromancy stuff, like vampiric touch, might be more valuable than an opening round fireball or cone of cold. While damage dealing is excellent, I often find that only straight casters or some decent CL optimizing can reliably get through the boss' SR, and my current grade of gish isn't with it.

Forcecage is very cool. Missing contingency could suck, but I would probably allow players to shadow evocation it if they tried, rolling the percent fail when the spell is first cast, not when triggered. Is Elminster's evasion also evocation?

Now, as for specializing in evocation, I find it to be quite formidable if you are sticking chiefly to the role of destroying stuff. Not quite optimized, I guess, and you do end up with a wizard that acts more like a warmage or blaster sorcerer, but I've designed some high-level elven evokers that could lay down some serious damage, and in some style, too.

[Story]

Honestly, I think the conventional wisdom when it comes to Evocation is crazy.

It's got a Reflex-based save-or-lose earlier than any other school that also doubles as an "Oh-Sh**" button that gives you a few safe turns to buff if you were facing down your death or cornered otherwise.

Are you talking about Grease or Web? Because they're both Conjuration, not Evocation.

[ericgrau]

I think it's also a matter of what it does to you compared to losing other schools. There are spectacular options on spell levels 1-8 that are hard to replace elsewhere. You can try, but everything that supposedly does is an order of magnitude worse. There are nice options in abjuration, illusion, enchantment and necromancy, but you can live without them or get alternatives. I myself would never ever ban evocation. I'm pretty sure it's the victim of internet hate and nothing more. Because on the internet when you want to promote a new best you gotta trash talk your biggest competition.

I actually like necromancy a lot for the no save effects that are hard to get elsewhere. For single targets it's hard to beat. On a ray caster especially I'd never ban it. And it has the best core defensive buff that doesn't eat into your action economy: false life. And one of the best spells for my favorite weapon enchant: vampiric touch in a spell storing weapon. But you can live without necromancy too, at least if you're not a ray caster.


Are you talking about Grease or Web? Because they're both Conjuration, not Evocation.
Resilient sphere. Which is the earliest actual save or lose and yet it is perhaps the best in core because it targets the most common low save and has the fewest immunities. And resilient sphere can be used defensively, those cannot at all. It's save-or-lose, not just a save-or-get-mildly-inconvenienced, or a mass suck whether you save or not. The last type is awesome when you need it, but I'd rather have both that and something to deal with single targets thank you very much. Note that I don't talk about banning conjuration either. I keep both schools. There's no reason at all to act like you can only have one or the other. Or that any small advantage on one makes the other worthless. Losing either school would be pretty dumb. I mean, why would you make an argument for banning a school based on it not being the #1 school? That's pretty poor reasoning when there are 6 others to consider.