fobid evocation is high cost?

[isildur]

I find orb series, arc of lightning, flame blast, ice knife, acid breath... etc
evocation is mainly for deal some damage, but there are many conjuration blast spells. my current plan is grey elf Master Specialist(conjuration), and fobid
enchantment, necromency. but there are many nice controll spell in enchantment and necromency school. now i consider fobid evocation, and take enchantment or necromency.

starting level: 3rd.
wealth: 2700gp
party: wizard(me), fighter, druid
supple: complete ~~, spell compendium

[Bakeru]

As far as I can tell, evocation and enchantment are usually considered the weakest schools. Evocation, because everything evocation does, conjuration does better, and enchantment, because on higher levels, there's easy immunity against most of its tricks.

[isildur]

i think evocation blast spells are slightly better than conjuration balst spells. aren't they?

[TuggyNE]

i think evocation blast spells are slightly better than conjuration balst spells. aren't they?

SR:No is quite useful at times, usually when your options are low otherwise, and the Conjurations without saves are also very handy.

Evocation is useful in best-case scenarios for blasting, but its main strength is actually in utility and BFC; contingency, resilient sphere, and wall of force, for example.

[isildur]

i see.. Wall of Force and Resilient Sphere are replaceble, but Contingency isn't. than, you recommend fobid nec and enc?

[Andezzar]

That may be true, but with YdX damage spells you cannot wreak true havoc. What really devastates opponents is removing their ability to do stuff. Once you get them to helpless or a similarly debilitating condition, even the monk can finish them off and even before that happens they cannot hurt your team.

[MirddinEmris]

Usually, conjuration blasts diesn't allow SR and/or save (for example, Orb spells you mentioned), so even as blasting school conjuration is a better one. You could argue that evocation has more blasting spells that conjuration ... nut how many spell do you need for a purpise to beat the s*** out of someone? Two-three at best and make them more versatile with energy substitution/mastery of elements/etc.

What hurts much more with banning evocation is a loss of Contingency, wall of force and some control spells like wind wall.

Enchantment is bad and not even because of one spell able to stop the whole school, but because of redundancy - 90% of enchantment spells are variations on the same theme.

[isildur]

i know that. but i think wizard need some blast spell. it's handy and pretty cool. mainly controller, but sometimes blaster.

[Greenish]

Evocation isn't too shabby a school at all. Treantmonk did a quite comprehensive overview of the school (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869246/Treantmonks_guide_to_Evocation_Spells:_Gods_tools) (most of the schools, actually) in his God Wizard guide. ("God wizard" is one that focuses on being a teamplayer, with mostly buffs/debuffs, crowd control, and utility, but a bit of blasting might come in handy too.)

[Story]

Are you allowed to use the SRD? If so, you may want to consider Domain Wizard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm). It's pretty much superior to specializing, since it gives you nearly everything specialization does without any of the drawbacks. If you pick a good domain like Conjuration, the only real drawback is slightly harder Prc qualification due to lack of Master Specialist.

If Race of the Wild is open, you can take Elven Generalist too to make it even better.


I didn't see the d20SRD on your list of supplements, but since it's freely available online, many DMs will allow it.

[Andezzar]

No Abrupt Jaunt either, but the PHB II was not on the list of allowed material anyways.

[isildur]

Unearthed Arcana is not allowed. thanks anyway.

[Deophaun]

Craft Contingent Spell replaces contingency. Wall of force, force cage, and resilient sphere are nice, but it's not crippling if you don't have them.

[ericgrau]

i see.. Wall of Force and Resilient Sphere are replaceble, but Contingency isn't. than, you recommend fobid nec and enc?
That's the flipside of the issue. Wall of force and resilient sphere are no SR rarely immune control, wall of force is no save and resilient sphere targets the lowest save on average. Other spells tend to have saves and immunities. You can live without those spells, but you are gimping yourself if you do.

"Best case scenario" is also a bit misleading. Most creatures aren't resistant to damage spells, so if you want damage evocations should be the main spells and the orbs the backups, not the other way around. At level 3 in particular you want flaming sphere. Likewise at level 5 you only have 1 ally to haste so it isn't as good as usual. That leaves sleet storm and stinking cloud which aren't always effective (lack of space, immunities). You'll want/need fireball for the most reliable option until you gain some more levels.

I would select your spells first and then choose what to forbid. Enchantment and necromancy are often easy choices because many people don't bother with those spells. Abjuration can work ok since you have a druid. Depending on your spell choices sometimes you can even forbid illusion.

That said, I never forbid necromancy because I take ray of enfeeblement, false life and enervation. Then I empower them. But the control spells from enchantment are poor; conjuration and evocation has way better ones and unlike necromancy or evocation it doesn't have any control that can't be done better with other schools. Enchantment is only good if you want to charm and dominate some slaves to follow you around; otherwise don't bother with it.

I would say the easiest choices are enchantment and abjuration and missing these is unlikely to ever cause you much issues as long as the druid covers abjuration.

[Alleran]

As far as I can tell, evocation and enchantment are usually considered the weakest schools. Evocation, because everything evocation does, conjuration does better, and enchantment, because on higher levels, there's easy immunity against most of its tricks.
And low levels.

"Second, the barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person)."

Protection from Evil.

[Andezzar]

Most creatures aren't resistant to damage spells, so if you want damage evocations should be the main spells and the orbs the backups, not the other way around.That may be true, but it does not mean anything if your campaign world has lots of those with SR.

[ericgrau]

He's level 3. That'll be around 7 more levels or more, after the best non-damage SR no evocations come online. In the meantime, fireballing is one of his best options, and for levels 3-4 it's flaming sphere. Especially with less allies to buff (like haste) and less to cleanup after his control. In fact he can use that further to his advantage: only 2 spells to ward them. At any dungeon entrance tag both with resist fire or protection from fire from the druid then include them in the fireball blast whenever needed.

But most of all enchantment and abjuration are such easy choices; there's little or nothing to juggle and trade-off. The druid can handle the most important abjurations. Some potions of protection from evil might be nice for rare domination emergencies but they're cheap.

[SaintRidley]

i know that. but i think wizard need some blast spell. it's handy and pretty cool. mainly controller, but sometimes blaster.

If you think a wizard needs to be able to blast, dump evocation anyway. Conjuration answers all your blasting needs. Get rid of enchantment too. Necromancy has plenty of nice spells for wrecking an opponent without damage.

[HalfQuart]

In my experience the damage dealt by most evocation spells are often simply not worth it... For example, at 5th level, a 5d6 damage fireball averages 17.5 damage on a failed save, or 8.75 on a successful save. That's great if you're facing a swarm of low HP baddies, but if you can only get 1-3 monsters, it's rather underwhelming.

Generally I think that spells that continue to do damage beyond the first round, or otherwise inhibit monsters, are better. For example Haste (Transmutation) is an incredibly powerful spell, and probably my go-to 3rd level spell if you're in a party that has 2+ PCs that can regularly get an extra attack out of it. Or consider Summon Monster III (Conjuration) with a Celestial Bison.. It gets a gore attack at +8 for 1d8+9, or 13.5 average damage. (If you've got the Augment Summoning feat, it will be +10 for 1d8+11 damage, or 15.5 damage.) It won't hit every round, but it does decent damage, can be used to flank with, will stick around for 5 rounds, and perhaps best of all, can draw attacks from enemies away from your PCs.

So it's not that you can't make evocation work, but especially in a party where you've got others focused on direct damage dealing, I think Wizards can usually get better mileage out of other techniques.

It's also true that Conjuration has a lot of effects that bypass SR, but SR doesn't really kick in with much frequency until much later, so I wouldn't worry about that for awhile. Spells without saves are nice too, but those generally require a ranged touch attack, so you'll probably need some dexterity to be good with them. Touch AC doesn't generally scale well, so at high levels a touch attack can be pretty trivial, but at low levels they can actually still be pretty tough.

[ericgrau]

{table]CR|average HP
1|7
2|21
3|27
4|48
5|56
6|69
7|87
8|97
[/table]
For a group of 3 monsters and EL = party effective level + 2 (difficult fight), CR = party level - 2. The lowest save on average is reflex. So using your own example on average you can single handedly win a fight with 2 fireballs. Not to mention your allies' damage stacks with your efforts, unlike some other tactics.

When enemies are grouped you fireball. When they aren't you don't. There's absolutely no reason to force yourself to choose one or the other. Prepare flaming sphere, fireball AND web, sleet storm, and so on. Web + flaming sphere and Evard's black tentacles + fireball are particularly good combos. The question is not to see if you can manage ok with some smooth partially effective tricks, the question is what's the weakest thing to ban. He has a druid for abjuration. Ban enchantment + abjuration, because that's the weakest. Simple, done. This is not an either-or situation, you can do both control and multi-damage and be the most effective that way.

Here are some other good non-damage spells for the OP to mix in with damage, since he seems less familiar with those: solid fog, wall of ice, greater invisibility, wall of stone, cloudkill. Generally wall of force is way better than wall of stone in combat for the much larger area and being harder to destroy, but you can get both. Plus there's all the spells mentioned previously which are primarily in evocation, conjuration and necromancy.

[Malroth]

banning abjuration means no calling spells and i'm pretty sure fireball losses to even lesser planar binding every time

[ericgrau]

It would not be surprising if he never uses a calling spell in his lifetime of playing D&D. And it's almost certain that the DM will not allow the more abusive uses making it a so-so spell for level 5. Nothing normal with 6 HD is that special at level 9. Since it involves many checks and a paid fee, it wouldn't be used frequently. He can still call non-teleporting creatures if he wishes. So... he loses partial function on either a mediocre or brokenly ban worthy spell. This has become grasping at straws now. I gtg, but I think I've already spent too much time on the interwebz.