Is mage of the arcane order still useful?

[Niwrad]

Hello everybody.
So my dm has ruled that the spellpool does not allow one to cast from banned schools or use metamagic feats on spellpool spells. He has however allowed use of spell compendium spells to be accessed from spellpool.


So, my question is: How useful would this prc with these rulings be for an 10 conjurer specialist/1 master specialist as a two level dip to gain access to spellpool 1 and the bonus feat?
Banned schools are necromancy and enchantment.

Any opinion on this matter would be great. Thanks.

[Rebel7284]

Are spell compendium spells typically NOT accessible? If that's the case, it's probably super useful as a way to get and scribe those. :)

[Xervous]

If you have a good memory for all the situational, yet awesome spells then MotAO allows you to pull them out of thin air at a moments notice (compared to the 10min or so it would take you to sit and prep it in an open slot)

For instance, if you stumble across a creature you weren't expecting and you know a certain spell can trivialize the encounter, MotAO will roll the encounter for you.

[Niwrad]

spell compendium spells are generally available for both at new levels and for purchase.

[Techwarrior]

Are spell compendium spells typically NOT accessible? If that's the case, it's probably super useful as a way to get and scribe those. :)

Yea, the spellpool base starts with just the PHB spells with others as 'at the dm's option.'

And, yes. It would still be very useful.

[Sith_Happens]

I don't think I've ever seen someone claim that you can call spells from your banned schools. As Xervous already explained, the main purpose of MotAO is to let you constantly say "I have just the spell for that."

[Chronos]

Yeah, no matter what situation you might find yourself in, no matter what you were expecting, you can always have exactly the right spell available for that specific situation. That's huge, though it requires a lot of familiarity with the spells to use to its full potential.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Pulling spells from banned schools was never legal anyway. The inclusion of SpC spells is -very- nice.

It's definitely worth the cost of entry just like it always was but even moreso now.

[holywhippet]

Pulling spells from banned schools was never legal anyway. The inclusion of SpC spells is -very- nice.


There was no actual rule against it that I can see even though it is kind of implied. A better example of abuse would be qualifying for the PrC via bard levels and casting spells that aren't even on your class list.

[Niwrad]

Thank you everyone for your input. I think this has helped me make up my mind.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There was no actual rule against it that I can see even though it is kind of implied. A better example of abuse would be qualifying for the PrC via bard levels and casting spells that aren't even on your class list.

It didn't need to be explicitly state in MotAO because a specialist wizard can't prepare or cast spells from his prohibited schools at all.