Focused Specialist

[mobdrazhar]

hey guys, been ages since i've been on the forum and have been looking around again but can't find anythign to help me. what are people's thoughts on the Focused Specialist alternate class feature, or can someone link me to a discussion on it that has already been.

cheers

[Sir_Thaddeus]

I've never been a fan of specializing anyway (takes away a bit of a wizard's versatility, one of its strengths), and the Focused Specialist ACF basically ... focuses that, increasing both the drawbacks and the rewards. If you're specializing anyway, it's not that bad, at least if you can afford to lose a third school (or second, if you're a Diviner); personally, though, I prefer to keep my spell schools.
Good for flavour, though.

[lsfreak]

Thanks to the silliness of the Conjuration school, it's probably *the* strongest way to play a wizard. Banning Evocation, Enchantment, and Necromancy is the standard; you can ban Abjuration if someone else is covering dispelling duties well enough.

Still, unless starting at very low levels, where the extra spells are really needed, I'd rather play a slightly-less-powerful generalist. I like my Enervation too much.

[Golden Ladybug]

I found out long ago that my favourite way to play a Wizard is as a Focused Specialist Illusionist (Killer Gnome optional). The sheer versatility of Illusions with a relatively permissible DM as well as the bevy of options inherent to the Wizard spell list makes for oodles of fun.

And, luckily enough, you're probably not going to get books thrown at you most of the time, because all you're really pushing the boundaries on is how imaginative you can get with your Illusions.

Generally, I ban Enchantment, Necromancy and Abjuration for a FS: Illusionist. Optimal? Not even a little bit, but I like all my [Force] Evocation spells and Blastiness, and Clerics get most of the essential Abjurations and Necromancy spells anyway.

In other situations, I still think Focused Specialist is a powerful ACF, and I'll consider it for many wizards. However, while I think Specialising is a must for any non-Elf, non-Domain Wizard, I would always think hard before using it. The loss of three schools is a very high price to pay.

[Bakkan]

I generally find that giving up three schools is too much of a cost ofr the benefit you get except, as has been said, at very low levels.

The exception, however, is if you've got some other way of handling the effects of two or more schools. In the case of party members, if you've got a Dread Necromancer and a dispel-focuesed cleric in the party, you can go ahead and drop necromancy and abjuration with almost no loss in party power and one additional banned school won't be so bad. Another option is a class like Ultimate Magus, where (for instance) you can group Wizard and Beguiler and ban illusion and enchantment easily from your wizard side, or Wizard and Sorcerer (less optimal because of MAD) and ban anything you want (except conjuration and transmutation of course) and pick up the best spells form those schools on your sorcerer. The Ultimate Magus option works best when you ban schools whose best spells are lower-level, since you will often only be getting 4th- or 5th-level spells on your spontaneous side.

[Kurald Galain]

FS is great! What matters in practice for a wizard is not how many spells you could use, but how many spells you do use. FS gives you a minor reduction in the former, and a major boost in the latter.

This is true even at higher levels. Suppose you're level 9, then you'll want to use fifth level spells because that's the best you got. Look at how many L5 spells a regular wizard gets, and then look at how many a FS gets. It's impressive, really.

A Generalist wizard of 9th level will have 2 5th level spells. How many schools can he have represented maximum in those two spells? The answer is two.

The Focused Specialist wizard of 9th level will have 4 5th level spells. How many schools can he have represented maximum in those 4 spells? The answer, again, is two. So the generalist is only more versatile in theory, the FS is much stronger in practice. Please read this post (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19864630/Focused_Specialist_is_better_than_you_think) that explains it very well.

[mobdrazhar]

well i'm looking at running an abjurationist and later going into Initiate and Abjurant Champ

[Piggy Knowles]

Unfortunately, I don't think FS is a good choice for an abjurer. There simply aren't enough abjuration spells that are "OMG MUST CAST" good at each level to justify the loss of three schools. And honestly, Abjuration is one of the first schools I'd recommend dropping for a Focused Specialist (assuming you have a cleric in the party, you don't plan on mucking around with planar binding, and you aren't going past level 15).

In any case, to echo what others have said, I find FS to be quite useful in the early levels, and a pretty good choice throughout the game. Past level 7 or so I find that standard specialists start to push ahead, and past level 13 or so I find that generalists tend to be better, but that may just be my own experience. Generalists also tend to suffer in the low levels, when they don't have enough spells per day to bring their crazy versatility to bear, so keep that in mind.

In a higher-op game, though, I would absolutely NOT specialize unless it was just for the lowest levels, or I was playing something specific like a gish where I'm not as concerned with having the absolute answer for everything.

In very high-op games, not only do you have to worry about losing access to essential spells like mindrape, there's also a very good chance you'll want to take levels in a class that makes you drop even more schools. Red Wizard and Incantatrix are right up there with Tainted Scholar and Anima Mage as just about the best prestige classes for very high-caliber wizards, and I'm sorry, but giving up 4 schools just isn't tenable.

Also, tricks like using Greater Celerity + Uncanny Forethought to cast just about any spell on demand are especially potent when you have access to, well, almost every amazing wizard spell in existence. It becomes less useful the fewer schools you have access to.

In slightly less insane campaigns, you still feel the pinch - just about every school has something that is hard to do without. You could get by losing one, maybe two of these schools - but three or four? Ouch.

Enchantment is theoretically the easiest to drop, but mindrape is difficult for a highest-level wizard to lose, and things like feeblemind and irresistible dance certainly aren't slouches. And heroics is one of the most versatile low-level spells around. This is still one of the first to go, but man, there is basically nothing else in the game that can do what mindrape does.

Evocation has a ton of insanely useful spells, including resilient sphere, wind wall, contingency, forcecage and more. Shadow evocation helps, but it means you're spending a higher level spell when a lower level version could do, and adding in a save where no save existed before. One of the nicest thing about the best evocation spells is that they DON'T offer saves - wind wall stops every archer dead, no matter how observant they are. Adding on a will save for disbelief makes it a much less effective "NO" option. Again, this is still not a terrible school to drop, since a lot of its effects are duplicated by Conjuration, but you'll feel it.

Abjuration is not too bad to drop in the low levels if you've got a cleric around, but if you plan on doing any planar binding (one of the best ways to gain access to otherwise banned spells), you pretty much need this school. In higher levels, mind blank is one of the most essential defensive buffs around... and it doesn't appear on the cleric list. And I'm sorry, I know that it's popular to compare disjunction to nuclear weapons and recommend against its use, but I've played in high level games, and sometimes it's essential. How else are you going to remove the ridiculous laundry list of buffs from that dragon with a MUCH higher CL than you? There's also a few other gems on this list that the cleric can't duplicate. Who doesn't like explosive runes or prismatic sphere? What low level party doesn't get mileage out of the simple, no-nonsense alarm spell? And there's all sorts of shenanigans that can be done with spell engine. If I am playing in a game that probably won't spend much time at level 15 or above and I've got a cleric in the party willing to coordinate things I might be willing to drop this, but I absolutely wouldn't in a game going to level 15+.

Illusion has the best defensive buffs around, the most useful one probably being greater mirror image. Unlike Abjuration, this school tends to boost your non-AC defenses (miss chances and the like), which is almost always more effective than just trying to send your AC as high as possible. It's also the single most versatile school, thanks to the image line and shadow spells. No superior invisibility is also quite sad. If you're playing a wizard without access to Illusion, you are probably going to die on the end of a pointy stick, and that's no way for a wizard to go. I would basically never drop Illusion. (This is actually the only other school besides Conjuration and Transmutation that I'd consider being a Focused Specialist in, as a matter of fact.)

Necromancy is another that is difficult. On the whole, unless you're playing a debuffer, it's not that bad to lose this one. Even then, feats like Fell Drain can help ease the pain of losing it. If there's a cleric in the party, they can animate things better than you... at least until level 11, when animate dread warrior far outstrips anything the cleric can do. Shivering touch can breeze through encounters all on its own if used effectively. Spectral hand opens up a whole lot of spells that previously weren't useful for non-gishes - there are workarounds, but they don't generally come online as early as level 3, and they often require investing more resources. Magic jar is pretty difficult to duplicate, and is an easy way to leave your pathetic fleshy body and take on a form more... suitable. Command undead doesn't appear on the cleric list, and woah-mama is this one handy if you're facing undead... it offers no save for mindless undead, which means that any time the DM sends a zombie or skeleton against you, it becomes your puppet for for 1 day/level. False life is one of the best low-level survival spells around. Again, you CAN lose this school - it helps that the really essential spells for high levels, such as astral projection, are easily picked up by planar binding - but it's got a lot of very effective answers to encounters that simply cannot be duplicated by other schools.

Conjuration and Transmutation are obviously not even worth joking about dropping. And Divination is really not an option.

So yeah. If I'm playing a Shadowcraft Mage, sure, I'll drop three schools. If I'm playing a gish, chances are most of my spells are going to be buffs and utility spells, and any utility spells I don't use will be dropped for Arcane Strike, so having more spells per day helps me out there as well. And if I'm playing a game that probably won't make it much further than level 10 or so, I'll gladly drop, say, Abjuration, Enchantment, and Evocation or Necromancy, depending on my playstyle. Higher than that, I probably would prefer a straight-up generalist (Elven Generalist if possible).

This isn't to say that Focused Specialist is BAD at the high levels, by the way. It's not - it's still very, very good. If all I want is BFC, a Focused Conjurer can toss out solid fogs and cloudkills until the cows come home. If I want to buff my party, well dang, hard to beat a Focused Transmuter. But if I want to play the invincible wizard that has the answer to everything, I'm probably not going to specialize at all.

[Tokuhara]

Normally, I'm not a FS fan either, but many times I will specialize to fit the niche my party needs.

Now, that being said, in my upcoming local game, I will be playing an Arcane Gnome Focused Gnome Illusionist/Master Specialist/Shadowcrafter/Shadowcraft Mage and there I see an advantage in ultra-specializing vs. Generalist route due to Silent Image/Shadow Evocation/Shadow Conjuration being insanely versatile. If you truly want versatility, Illusionist has a very broad specialization in comparison to the others.

My other favorite Specialization is Anagakok school from Dragon Magazine. I adore the utility of the school.

[Runestar]

I find that there is little point to knowing so many spells in the game, when you only have so many slots to cast them from, and most players I know typically end up preparing the same few spells anyways.

That said, focused specialist seems to work best for only a select few schools like conjuration and maybe transmutation, because these schools seem the most "self-contained" and versatile (since more than half your spells will come from this school).

The most ironic thing? For most part of the game, you end up getting more slots than sorcs, and at an earlier time too! :smallannoyed:

[jedipilot24]

Here's Treantmonk's Guide (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19873034/Treantmonks_guide_to_Wizards:_Being_a_God).

Focused Conjurer and Focused Transmuter=Win

[Aharon]

FS is great! What matters in practice for a wizard is not how many spells you could use, but how many spells you do use. FS gives you a minor reduction in the former, and a major boost in the latter.

This is true even at higher levels. Suppose you're level 9, then you'll want to use fifth level spells because that's the best you got. Look at how many L5 spells a regular wizard gets, and then look at how many a FS gets. It's impressive, really.

A Generalist wizard of 9th level will have 2 5th level spells. How many schools can he have represented maximum in those two spells? The answer is two.

The Focused Specialist wizard of 9th level will have 4 5th level spells. How many schools can he have represented maximum in those 4 spells? The answer, again, is two. So the generalist is only more versatile in theory, the FS is much stronger in practice. Please read this post (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19864630/Focused_Specialist_is_better_than_you_think) that explains it very well.

While I agree that FS isn't a bad choice, this argument doesn't hold, because if you slightly rephrase the question (How many schools can he have represented maximum in those 4 spells on two or even more consecutive days?) the versatility of the generalist becomes less theoretical. While on any given day, he is about as flexible as the FS, over the course of several days, he has a broader choice.

Indeed, at the high end of optimization, the FS has difficulty acquiring some tricks, since the paranoid nearly-invincible wizard's spells are spread across multiple schools (evocation for force cage, contingency, necromancy for astral projection, conjuration for gate, ...)

For PO, the FS probably wins out unless the build relies on generalist for other reasons.

[chaos_redefined]

Well, with that logic...

A ninth level generalist wizard has 2 spells of his highest level. Specialist has 3 and FS has 4.

On day 1, the specialist (a conjurer) has a transmutation, an illusion and a conjuration. The day 2, he has an abjuration, a necromancy and a conjuration.

Show me how a generalist has more versatility. Sure, the focused specialist can't match that versatility, but your claim is that generalist is better than both the specialist and the focused specialist due to the fact that he can prepare different spells each day.

There is a weakness to treantmonk's argument, and that is lower level spells. A 9th level wizard can have all 8 schools represented in his spell list. It's just that some of those schools won't get seen in his highest 2 levels. A 9th level specialist can have all 6 schools that he has access to represented in his spell list, even if he just uses his top two level spells. A 9th level focused specialist can have all 5 schools he has access to represented in his spell list, but some of those schools won't get seen in his highest 2 levels, just like the generalist.

The other part of it, though, is how often effects are seen in other schools. By giving up access to enchantment, you lose access to things like suggestion, right? Wrong. Voice of the Dragon is a transmutation spell that gives you a suggestion for free. By giving up access to evocation, you lose contingency, right? Wrong. Shadow Evocation and Greater Shadow Evocation come into play later, but still give you the effects. You get the idea. Someone already mentioned conjuration getting planar binding, and it also gets summon monster. This allows you to cast spells from all kinds of schools. Overall, you get the general idea. Losing access to a school generally just means you have to use other schools to get that effect, usually a bit later.

[Spuddles]

Focused Specialist is only good for a handful of builds, usually either Shadowcraft Mages and Theurges.

Otherwise, you're probably better off playing a sorcerer.

[Kurald Galain]

While I agree that FS isn't a bad choice, this argument doesn't hold, because if you slightly rephrase the question (How many schools can he have represented maximum in those 4 spells on two or even more consecutive days?)

I don't think I've ever seen a wizard player make frequent large changes to his spell selection every day, though. They make the occasional shift if they know they're going into e.g. the flaming volcano lair of the burning pyromancer, but generally speaking wizards have a standard memorization list that they use every day.

[Spuddles]

I don't think I've ever seen a wizard player make frequent large changes to his spell selection every day, though. They make the occasional shift if they know they're going into e.g. the flaming volcano lair of the burning pyromancer, but generally speaking wizards have a standard memorization list that they use every day.

Really? In a village of humanoids, stuff like disguise self, charm person, appraising touch, etc. etc. are way more useful than fireball, haste, or command undead.

Likewise, shrink item & teleport are more likely to occupy top level slots on off days.

[Bakkan]

I don't think I've ever seen a wizard player make frequent large changes to his spell selection every day, though. They make the occasional shift if they know they're going into e.g. the flaming volcano lair of the burning pyromancer, but generally speaking wizards have a standard memorization list that they use every day.

That, I think, is the result of table logistics. It can take a long time to change one's spell list around, time that most other characters would have nothing to do. Also, a lot of players don't find the spell selection subgame as interesting as the rest of the game. I would be interested in finding out if wizards in PbP games change out their spells more often than those in RL games.

Unfortunately, this means that pressures outside the class mechanics artificially restrict the wizard's versatility. The most "realistic" chain of events would probably be the following: Before an expedition, the wizard spends a couple of days and takes advangtage of his Knowlege ranks, Int score, and if possible a local library to find out as much as he can about their target location. After this, he casts several days' worth of divinations (now that he has good questions to ask) to confirm his research and find out a great deal more. Then, he gains access to any spells that would be useful (based on his research) that he does not already have in his spellbook. Then, (and this is the part that can't be glossed over with a few d20 rolls), he spends several hours looking at many different ways of preparing his spells. He selects one that he'll use on the trip there and one that he'll use at the beginning of their expedition. If he has hard data on major opponents, he'll come up with spell lists he wants to use when facing them. He decides which slots he's going to leave open which day and compiles an extensive list of useful spells (based on his research) that he might want to fill those slots with. He creates an even more extensive list of contingencies and potentialities upon which he will change his prepared spells. If there is time, he creates some useful items for himself and his party that are custom-tailored to their builds and the dangers they will be facing. During the expedition, his spells prepared likely will never stay the same from one day to the next, as he is continually optimizing based on new information he receives.

That is how an optimized wizard operates at near-full potential. At a table, this would translate into over an hour of one player doing a bunch of stuff and everyone else wondering when it's going to be their turn.

[Story]

A Generalist wizard of 9th level will have 2 5th level spells. How many schools can he have represented maximum in those two spells? The answer is two.

The Focused Specialist wizard of 9th level will have 4 5th level spells. How many schools can he have represented maximum in those 4 spells? The answer, again, is two. So the generalist is only more versatile in theory, the FS is much stronger in practice.

Ignoring of course Domain Wizard, Elven Generalist, and Alacritous Cogitation/Uncanny Forethought.


I find that there is little point to knowing so many spells in the game, when you only have so many slots to cast them from, and most players I know typically end up preparing the same few spells anyways.


For standard adventuring, you'll often prepare mostly the same spells, partly due to the fact that some staples are so good and partly due to laziness. But a versatile spell list shines precisely when you aren't going through just another random dungeon.

Need to gather information in a city? Prepare Friendly Face and Share Talents in all your slots. Traveling on an airship? Better swap out Web for Earthbind.