A thought on spell schools: Conjuration, Transmutation, and Enchantment

[TuggyNE]

Conjuration and Transmutation are strong for three main reasons, as far as I can tell: first, both of them allows easy access to most free-form monster abilities at roughly the same time you'd encounter them in combat; second, both have a large number of possible effects for nearly any situation beyond merely using monster abilities; third, the best effects of each tend to be those that act upon enemies only very indirectly, giving foes little or no opportunity to save against, dodge, or be immune to them.

Enchantment, though, and this is the thought: Enchantment is surprisingly similar on the surface, since its best effects give you direct control of all monster abilities that you have encountered, and indeed the monsters themselves; its effects also tend to best be used against current foes very indirectly, by controlling expendable minions used to actually fight. But there the similarities end, because Enchantment has trouble gaining minions past all the multifarious immunities, saves, and even Enchantment-specific save bonuses (neither Conjuration nor Transmutation allow any saves for their standard monstrous-ability-gain spells), and the school has a much narrower focus in practice than Conjuration or Transmutation.

There are also some subtler issues in play: if an Enchantment is dispelled, the caster may face not merely weakening of their assets or strengthening of the enemy's, but both at once, which Conjuration and Transmutation never suffer. There are also a few low-level spells that suppress the best Enchantments without a dispel check.

All that said, though, it still seems curious that with such initial similarities in their strong points, the schools end up on opposite ends of the power curve.

Really, I suppose, all schools are strongest when used indirectly and subtly: Evocation's strength is not blasting, but saveless, no-immunity, no-SR battlefield control; Illusion is best either when used on allies or when used unexpectedly such that it will not be called into question; Divination, if you can get past the methodology challenges, is handiest when you use it to ask questions about a target rather than attempting to see for yourself; Necromancy is classically good for gaining minions out of combat with no saves involved; and even Abjuration is perhaps best for buffing allies or the narrow but crucial role of removing enemy buffs. Perhaps the question should be how easy it is for each school to remain indirect while still pulling off its best tricks.

[Spore]

Enchantment is a kind of high risk high reward thing. If you succeed you effectively "rob" you enemy of a character eliminating him from the game and you gain an ally. Where as with summoning you gain a companion at the expense of an action. I agree that there is too much blanket IMMUNITY against mind affecting spells because this pretty much kills a whole lot of very pleasant spells of. I would like to see {Save}, partial effects for several (if not ALL) spells. E.g. Charm Person. DC-5. If the enemy fails it is under your control. If he saves or has immunity against mind affection he instead suffers -1 on Attack Rolls, Saves and Skill checks for the distraction a permanent mental struggle leaves in your head.

We have a specialised sorcerer in our group that suffers a lot with his concept in an undead campaign. The DM tries to cater to him as well but sometimes there is no reason to include thinking creatures in the dungeon or cavern. Then he is quite a lot weaker. If he still could debuff enemies with his control spells that would certainly be great. And debuffing isn't as far fetched because what you do is messing with their mind.

[hymer]

You're probably right, Tuggy. I think in practice most DMs don't like having their monsters fighting each other. It feels more OP to make them do that than to summon a monster to stand in front of you. Which, arguably, is right. The problem was that the ability may have gotten nerfed too hard, and in a sort of indirect way. It was nerfed a lot by monster makers as well as those who decided on the spell descriptions.

In 2nd edition, Enchantment was called Enchantment/Charm. It had all the charm, dominate and hold effects, but it also could do things like enchanting objects. Deeppockets, Enchant Weapon and Fabricate were Enc/cha spells. There were also spells like Fumble which (IIRC) worked just fine against mindless undead.
Giving Enchantment the old shtick of enchanting items as well as minds back could give the school a new lease on life, and make some melee happy in the bargain, when their armour and weapon start working for a change.
Enchanting people could also mean things that we don't see much of, Heroism e.g. Not enough of that, and not good enough when you do find it, it seems to me.

[Psyren]

Enchantment has to have numerous roadblocks. Having the BBEG or his lieutenants routinely end up dancing on the players' strings, or turned into drooling husks, is unlikely to be satisfying for either side. Plus, enchantment tends to have a wide variety of out-of-combat uses too, like bypassing bureaucracy and swindling merchants.

Part of the problem with enchantments is how binary they are. Because of the two-point swing with many successful enchantments, you can quickly turn an encounter from "hard" to "trivial" instead of the stopping in the "challenging" sweet spot, unless every encounter is designed with the enchanter's abilities in mind. And if the enchantment fails, generally it means the enchanter has wasted their turn entirely. Enchantments are also all but useless against environmental challenges unless you have time to go off and enthrall something before you know you might need it.

I personally would have loved it if enchantment had some overlap with transmutation as far as being the buffing school; that way, enchanters would have at least something to do when they face strong-willed foes, and the DM wouldn't have to feel like they're punishing the enchanter for their choice or letting them run roughshod over the campaign world.

[eggynack]

One of the major factors that separates conjuration and transmutation style monster use from enchantment style monster use is who the choice is given to. With conjuration or transmutation, the player decides which monster they want to emulate or call on, and the DM has very limited means to interfere. By contrast, with enchantment, the DM chooses the player's whole arsenal of minions. If the enemies the players find aren't the ideal ones for the job, which the summoned and transformed into creatures mostly will be, then that's a big problem for enchantment.

Sure, maybe the player will go on a raid of a major town, picking out the perfect target, but that too requires some degree of DM assistance (the right enemy has to be there, and you need the time available to take him), and it can be highly risky and difficult on occasion. The things that conjuration and transmutation does are not really risky and difficult, and they require little to no DM assistance, so they're better.