Most Un-Useful School of Magic

[Afgncaap5]

So, I'm working on a post for my blog's weekly magic column, and a friend suggested that I tackle a subject that my gaming group notoriously debated for hours without any real resolution other than that it wasn't even a really important argument to have. The topic: what do you think is the most un-useful school of magic from D&D's traditional eight schools?

Now, I don't necessarily mean most un-optimized or unoptimizable. However, it's quite possible that the traits that make a school unoptimizable will be a strong contender for being unuseful.

I've got a feeling that Evocation is going to be a popular choice, but I'm interested to see what people's general opinions are.

[Vrock_Summoner]

I think "least useful" is a better phrase, because all of the magical schools are deep and extremely useful.

Bad in optimization terms? Enchantment. But it has a plethora of uses and a wide spectrum of alternative options locked within itself.

Maybe evocation if we're talking out of combat usefulness, because its destructive and mass-production oriented spells can be emulated by other schools?

Good question.

[Sith_Happens]

Definitely Enchantment. While its most-known-for spells (Charm, Dominate, and Suggestion) are extremely useful, almost everything else it does is just a Mind-Affecting version of something you could do with some other school.

[Zweisteine]

Evocation, without a doubt, is widely regarded as the worst school.

There are three types of wizards:
Generalists
Specialists who ban evocation and at least one other school
Idiots

The problem is that while other schools have a variety of uses, Evocation is limited to one thing: Blasting.
Sure, it gets a few good spells, like contingency, but Shadow Evocation can cover those few.

EDIT:
Here (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/19557/what-wizard-schools-are-best-to-specialize-in-which-schools-are-best-to-sacrifi) are (http://diceofdoom.com/blog/2009/09/powergaming-choosing-a-wizard-school-specialization/) some (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?229481-3-5-D-amp-D-how-would-you-rank-the-spell-schools) articles/posts elsewhere describing why Evocation is bad, and why other schools are good.

Here's the simple breakdown:

Abjuration
While it might not be the best school to specialize in, it has some invaluable spells. Dispel Magic is something every caster wants.
It's not amazing, but you don't want to ban it, because it has certain spells you will want.

Conjuration
This is widely regarded as the best school. Summoning is great, and teleportation is invaluable. Battlefield control and blasting via the orb spells doesn't hurt at all either.

Divination
Sure, it's not something you'll want every day, but, like abjuration, divination has some spells you'll want at some point, and when you want those spells, you'll really need them.

Enchantment
This is a fun school, but one of the worst. It's slightly better than evocation, though. It would be much higher up in the rankings, but at high levels many creatures are immune to enchantments, whether through their type or the spell mind blank. This school has the distinction of being the only school rendered entirely useless by a single spell.

Evocation
All you can do is shoot. Burn, freeze, shock, melt, explode, implode, destroy. Sure, it's exciting, but it's not impressive. Necromany gets save-or-die spells, Conjuration gets save-or-suck spells, and Evocation? Aside from a few gems (contingency, force spells), Evocation gets slightly more damage each level. At low levels, it's perfectly fine, but at high levels everything has too many hit points for this much damage to matter. It's a much better idea to simply entangle your opponents and let the meat-shield do the rest of the work.

Illusion
This, like enchantment, is a fun school. Illusions are nice, and tend to be more effective at high levels than enchantments. Illusion also has the Shadow line of spells, which helps make up for banning evocation. While it isn't bad, though, illusion is also rather weak, but it's miles ahead of evocation and enchantment.

Necromancy
Evocation has some great spells, such as enervation and animate dead. A necromancer can be truly mighty, and the many save-or-die/suck spells in the school make it better than evocation. Eventually, immunities start to pop up, but not as often as immunity to mind-effecting abilities, and even after that point, you can still reanimate a small army to ring down your foes. It isn't an amazing school, but it isn't bad, either. (It also may be the school I know the least about.)

Transmutation
This is a school you should never ban. Fly, haste, and polymorph are far, far too important to gameplay, regardless of level. Personally, I prefer this to conjuration, though I suspect that is because I don't truly appreciate the value of good battlefield control. This is one of the best schools.

Here's how I'd rank the schools, personally:
1. Transmutation
2. Conuration
3. Abjuration
4. Illusion
5. Necromancy
6. Divination
7. Enchantment
8. Evocation
This ranking is heavily influenced by my personal views, of course, and some are easily switchable, even in my mind.

I'd probably rank the schools in tiers:
1. Conjuration, Transmutation
2a. Illusion, Necromancy
2b. Divination, Abjuration
3. Enchantment, Evocation
Tier 1 is the best. Tier 2a is good, but nowhere close to tier 1. Tier 2b isn't worse than 2a, but is good for different reasons, or out of necessity, rather than out of general usefulness. Tier 3 is worst.

[Zanos]

Thirding Enchantment. The entire school is Save or Lose of varying degrees, which can be replicated by other schools or out of combat social interaction. If you really need an echantment spell, chances are you can replicate it with a spell from another school fairly easily. The fact that several entire types and subtypes receive blanket immunity to it isn't really doing it any favors.

There are a couple notable gems in it, though. Sleep is the classic level 1 nuke, and Heroism and Greater Heroism are both solid buffs.

[Fouredged Sword]

In most games I play enchantment tends to be fairly useless. Ether A, you are in a combat situation and most things have immunity to charms and compulsions or B, you are in a town and dominating people is seen on part with murder and rape. Enchantment tends to be right up there with necromancy in most of the games I play in.

[Deophaun]

Enchantment is the least useful. Lots of things are immune, and the best spells are all thwarted by a level 1 abjuration.

Evocation, meanwhile, has contingency.

[Sliver]

I agree about Enchantment. Either it works and everybody else feels useless because the battle is likely over after one or two spells, or it doesn't work (they passed their save or are simply immune) and you are the one feeling useless (assuming that you are a focused enchanter, of course). It forces the DM to work around you, instead of with you. Either he negates you so others have fun, he allows you to dominate the battle so you can have fun, or he adds in some non-immune creatures so you can do your shtick while the others deal with the real threat, which isn't always an option that makes sense.

[Sith_Happens]

The problem is that while other schools have a variety of uses, Evocation is limited to one thing: Blasting.
Sure, it gets a few good spells, like contingency, but Shadow Evocation can cover those few.

Don't forget almost every cool [Force] spell, most of which are non-damaging BFC and therefore significantly weaker when Shadow Evocated.

[Kraken]

As a specialist I find myself banning enchantment and necromancy most frequently without question. Enchantment is definitely the weaker of the two.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Enchantment is the least useful. Lots of things are immune, and the best spells are all thwarted by a level 1 abjuration.

Evocation, meanwhile, has contingency.

And Wall of Force, and a few other nice BFC, SoS, and utility spells.

I still don't think people appreciate Enchantment enough. Also, the OP wasn't really asking about optimization-related things.

[Ravens_cry]

Divination is pretty limited, though it has some spells that are pretty much mandatory, and you can't ban it anyway. Enchantment really shines in a game where the immunities don't come up much. It's just so binary. If it works, it's golden, but if it fails, you're screwed, and everyone can roll a 20.

[Shining Wrath]

Evocation is superior to enchantment because so many things are immune to being enchanted; also, while being a blaster wizard is suboptimal, there are times when a Fireball (or equivalent) really is the best solution to the problem at hand. Think back over your D&D history; how often have you seen Fireball or B-guy's Hand spells, versus Charm / Dominate spells?

Also there are over 600 Evocations and less than 400 Enchantments.

Oh, and necromancy is very campaign dependent, as it is more likely to have the [Evil] tag applied.

[Deadline]

Enchantment and Evocation are the bottom of the schools of magic. However, that's a lot like saying $50,000 worth of free cash is worse than $100,000 worth of free cash. It's still awesome, just less than the other options.

Enchantment can be shutdown by a few spells, items, and creature types. Evocation lacks the versatility of other schools, and mostly just does HP damage, which is considered generally sub-par at high levels. Evocation is also completely subsumed, or just outclassed by Conjuration and Illusion. Conjuration has huge versatility, and can deliver direct damage much more reliably than Evocation. Illusion gets it's whole area of expertise, AND every Evocation spell (albeit slightly less effective).

[Talya]

This depends greatly on the campaign.

If your campaigns tend to include a lot of Social, Political, Intrigue, Espionage or similar elements, Enchantment becomes one of the best schools. Ban Evocation.
If your campaigns are purely combat affairs, Enchantment is expendable.

[XmonkTad]

I find that divination is very DM and campaign specific. Sometimes it rocks, but sometimes DMs just make stuff up on the fly or everything has mind blank. It's an entire school devoted to seeing/finding things.

[Zweisteine]

I see what everyone is saying about Enchantment, but I still can't see it as worse than evocation.

Evocation can be almost completely replaced by either a save-or-die spell, or a save-or-suck spell and a fighter.

The force spells are better, but not necessarily enough to redeem the school. Most things will have just as much trouble going through a wall of stone or iron as one of force.

Enchantment, however, is much harder to replicate. The DC to replicate suggestion with a bluff is 50 higher than the normal bluff DC. And it can be useful in some high-level situations, such as when fighting weaker enemies, or when interrogating a prisoner.

[Shining Wrath]

I see what everyone is saying about Enchantment, but I still can't see it as worse than evocation.

Evocation can be almost completely replaced by either a save-or-die spell, or a save-or-suck spell and a fighter.

The force spells are better, but not necessarily enough to redeem the school. Most things will have just as much trouble going through a wall of stone or iron as one of force.

Enchantment, however, is much harder to replicate. The DC to replicate suggestion with a bluff is 50 higher than the normal bluff DC. And it can be useful in some high-level situations, such as when fighting weaker enemies, or when interrogating a prisoner.

And what I said about necromancy actually applies (in a different sense) to the Ev/En debate; what your DM throws at you matters a lot. Waves of undead and ghola? Very few social situations? You don't need Enchantment. Lots of nimble rogues with evasion? Utility of Evocation just dropped.

I'm currently running a sorcerer in a party with a focused specialist transmuter, who banned the three schools most commonly listed herein; Evocation, Enchantment, and Necromancy. So I've been considering what the party needs out of those three schools, and while at L2 I've got Sleep, I think that long run I'll wind up with more Evocation than Enchantment, and Necromancy is probably not going to make the "spells I can spam every day as a sorcerer" cut. OTOH I'll probably take a lot more SoS spells, since the rest of the party are damage dealers. Conjuration is clearly better than Evocation, but then we knew that already.

[squiggit]

Enchantment suffers from being very very limited. There's lots of spell redundancies and effects that you do between a few levels later. It also suffers from being mind effecting.

I honestly think there was some sort of competition going on at WotC. Two teams of devs betting who can put more immunities in their game. Team 1 had fire immunity and team 2 had immunity to mind effecting spells. Whoever put their condition on the most monsters won.

I also disagree with the guy saying divination is one of the worst schools. It's certainly limited, but almost every "win the game" build relies heavily on a few divinations.

Evocation should be a good school, blasting is fun and there are some really potent spells in it. It has the unfortunately problem of being in a game where blasting sucks and where Orb of X and Shadow Evocation mean you can almost entirely replace the school with a couple others.

[Zanos]

I see what everyone is saying about Enchantment, but I still can't see it as worse than evocation.

Evocation can be almost completely replaced by either a save-or-die spell, or a save-or-suck spell and a fighter.

The force spells are better, but not necessarily enough to redeem the school. Most things will have just as much trouble going through a wall of stone or iron as one of force.

Enchantment, however, is much harder to replicate. The DC to replicate suggestion with a bluff is 50 higher than the normal bluff DC. And it can be useful in some high-level situations, such as when fighting weaker enemies, or when interrogating a prisoner.
Voice of the Dragon.

[TheMonocleRogue]

Enchantment is much worse considering a massive number of high level creatures have high will saving throws, and 90% of the enchantment spell list targets will.

I could make the argument that evocation is worse, but it is the best school to use with metamagic and has the ever so helpful contingency and force spells. Plus many of the AoE spells from the evocation list target reflex which is a below average save for many monsters.

[nedz]

I generally view Enchantment as weak, but you can use it for minionmancy. You just need to 'recruit' your minions well before you need them. They do get a save of course and so you will likely end up with lots of meat shields but who knows. There is the old Jedi mind trick stuff also.

Some of the comments above also under-rate Illusion IMHO, but Illusions have a low floor as well as a high ceiling. Also Shadow Conjuration > Shadow Evocation. Don't forget that Killer Gnome business either.

[Zweisteine]

I'm not arguing that enchantment isn't limited in it's uses (and you aren't saying that I was), but I am saying that its limited number of uses are more useful than evocation's.

While another party member can (and probably will) easily fill up the spot of damage-dealer, far fewer classes exist that can do some of the things enchantment lets you do (i.e. mind control). At low and middle levels in particular, enchantment can be very fun to play with, though less so in a simple dungeon crawl than in a more open-ended or intrigue-based campaign.

Evocation is just... Shoot them. And shoot them some more. And make a wall of force. While the power can be exciting, it's much less fun to play around with.

[eggynack]

I see what everyone is saying about Enchantment, but I still can't see it as worse than evocation.

Evocation can be almost completely replaced by either a save-or-die spell, or a save-or-suck spell and a fighter.

The force spells are better, but not necessarily enough to redeem the school. Most things will have just as much trouble going through a wall of stone or iron as one of force.

Enchantment, however, is much harder to replicate. The DC to replicate suggestion with a bluff is 50 higher than the normal bluff DC. And it can be useful in some high-level situations, such as when fighting weaker enemies, or when interrogating a prisoner.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about with evocation being replaceable with SoD's and SoS's. Or, rather, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about, and I think you're wrong. Evocation gets damage, yes, but it also gets force, as you've noted, and it also gets contingency, as has been noted elsewhere, and it also gets wind spells, which are sweet, and it also gets random utility, which is separately powerful. Enchantment is the class of spell that can often be replaced with a save or die, or often, a save or die plus a long term minionmancy spell.

While evocation looks like a blasting school, most of the actually good spells, resilient sphere, wall of force, forcecage, contingency, windwall, gust of wind, random combat maneuver spells, have nothing to do with blasting and they're significantly harder to replicate. Sure, wall of force can be easily copied, but can you necessarily say the same for all the spells I just listed, along with some others I didn't? I'm honestly somewhat doubtful. Evocation is still among the worst schools, and it has fewer unique effects than pretty much any other school of magic, but that "pretty much" does not really cover enchantment, because enchantment basically just has the one unique effect, repeated again and again, and it is a very troubled little effect.

[nedz]

I am minded to recall a comment by Tippy about Evocation.

Novices specialise in it, experienced players ban it, experts play generalists or at least never ban Evocation.

His argument, IIRC, was that there are a few really powerful spells in that school which a high level wizard wouldn't want to be without.
The Contingency line, several Force spells, various walls, Invoke Magic, Sending

There are also a few broken spells: e.g. Streamers

[HammeredWharf]

Edit: For my actual vote, Enchantment. It's very questionable even in a political campaign, because magical effects are tricky to hide, influential people often have high Will saves and most people will be pissed if they find out you dominated them. Social skills tend to be a better solution.


Evocation is just... Shoot them. And shoot them some more. And make a wall of force. While the power can be exciting, it's much less fun to play around with.

And make a huge hand of Force that'll grapple them with an obscenely high modifier. And Bull Rush them around. And fly around on a UFO. And summon winds that'll remove unneeded fog effects. And blind them with Darkness+ (TM). And maintain concentration for free. And encase them in an indestructible sphere. Speaking of encasing, lock them in a Force Cage. Finally, teleport away as a free action to the submarine you made earlier today on another plane.

I think people often have some serious misconceptions about the way Evocation works. It's not just Fireball and Wall of Force. Sure, you can copy some of these effects with Shadow spells, but not right away and not perfectly. Unless you're a Shadowcraft Mage, but that one's just broken.

[Afgncaap5]

I confess I wasn't expecting so many votes against Enchantment, but I definitely like the reasoning being used (even if it happens to be a favorite school of mine.)


I'm not arguing that enchantment isn't limited in it's uses (and you aren't saying that I was), but I am saying that its limited number of uses are more useful than evocation's.

While another party member can (and probably will) easily fill up the spot of damage-dealer, far fewer classes exist that can do some of the things enchantment lets you do (i.e. mind control). At low and middle levels in particular, enchantment can be very fun to play with, though less so in a simple dungeon crawl than in a more open-ended or intrigue-based campaign.

Evocation is just... Shoot them. And shoot them some more. And make a wall of force. While the power can be exciting, it's much less fun to play around with.

I think one of the main differences we're seeing in opinion from those who dislike enchantment and those who do is that there are a lot of different assumptions about playing the game. In a standard night of D&D? I'm almost certainly going to use Evocation more. Fireball is just too handy against a gang of zombies.

Still, there are different kinds of wizards. An angry wizard on top of a tower, defending it from invading armies while lightning flashes in the background is likely to have one set of preferences, while a patient wizard who has a target that it sees daily as it carefully sets up political or social pitfalls is likely to have an entirely different set.

[Talya]

I confess I wasn't expecting so many votes against Enchantment, but I definitely like the reasoning being used (even if it happens to be a favorite school of mine.)



I think one of the main differences we're seeing in opinion from those who dislike enchantment and those who do is that there are a lot of different assumptions about playing the game. In a standard night of D&D? I'm almost certainly going to use Evocation more. Fireball is just too handy against a gang of zombies.

Still, there are different kinds of wizards. An angry wizard on top of a tower, defending it from invading armies while lightning flashes in the background is likely to have one set of preferences, while a patient wizard who has a target that it sees daily as it carefully sets up political or social pitfalls is likely to have an entirely different set.

More people play in "Hack and slash" campaigns than any other.

I find such campaigns boring and avoid them. My campaigns tend to have MORE social interaction, intrigue, espionage, or political elements than they do simple combat. Therefore, Enchantment is golden.

[Afgncaap5]

More people play in "Hack and slash" campaigns than any other.

I find such campaigns boring and avoid them. My campaigns tend to have MORE social interaction, intrigue, espionage, or political elements than they do simple combat. Therefore, Enchantment is golden.

I like my players to have options. I prefer setting up intrigue and skullduggery as a DM, but I know that not all of my players enjoy that.

However, that leads to some interesting scenarios. I'm coming to the conclusion of a campaign that's been going for about two and a half years now, and the other night one character (who's actually new to the game and didn't see a lot of the initial plot) put a few pieces together that some of the combat-happy players had been avoiding and said "Wait a second... guys... are we the bad guys here?"

The ensuing hour-long debate as the players compared evidence was hilarious. I'd say that Enchantment would get them out of their situation well before Evocation would. But if they want to see their situation through to completion, Evocation may be the way to go depending on what they decide. (And Divination might help them regardless. Lucky me that not one of them prepares Divination spells.)

[Zanos]

More people play in "Hack and slash" campaigns than any other.

I find such campaigns boring and avoid them. My campaigns tend to have MORE social interaction, intrigue, espionage, or political elements than they do simple combat. Therefore, Enchantment is golden.
Isn't enchantment pretty easily foiled by a cantrip? Namely, detect magic. I wouldn't imagine you could get away with targeting anyone in any sort of important position without a level 1 spellcaster or cheap magic item ruining your schemes.

[Deophaun]

Voice of the Dragon.
Darn, beat me to it.

I'll also mention that glibness is Transmutation, but it's not a Wizard spell, so not really relevant.

[HammeredWharf]

Isn't enchantment pretty easily foiled by a cantrip? Namely, detect magic. I wouldn't imagine you could get away with targeting anyone in any sort of important position without a level 1 spellcaster or cheap magic item ruining your schemes.

As mentioned in my previous edit, this is also my gripe with Enchantment, but there are - usually unreliable, like Non-detection - ways to hide your spells and some good Enchantment spells, such as Suggestion, end after doing something. Besides, manipulating unimportant people can be useful.


I'm coming to the conclusion of a campaign that's been going for about two and a half years now, and the other night one character (who's actually new to the game and didn't see a lot of the initial plot) put a few pieces together that some of the combat-happy players had been avoiding and said "Wait a second... guys... are we the bad guys here?"

The ensuing hour-long debate as the players compared evidence was hilarious. I'd say that Enchantment would get them out of their situation well before Evocation would.

Enchantment is pretty morally ambiguous, too. Sure, most of the time making someone your mental slave for a while isn't as evil as killing them, but it usually isn't a nice thing to do.

[Zaq]

Are we talking only about Wizards and their specializations? Because although it doesn't usually make much difference, other casters do still have schools of magic. And just as an example, Hallow/Desecrate are Evocation, as are Holy Word and its cousins. There's a handful of cool Enchantment buffs if you look at the Bard list and the Cleric list, too. Just, y'know, gonna throw that into the mix.

[Afgncaap5]

As mentioned in my previous edit, this is also my gripe with Enchantment, but there are - usually unreliable, like Non-detection - ways to hide your spells and some good Enchantment spells, such as Suggestion, end after doing something. Besides, manipulating unimportant people can be useful.



Enchantment is pretty morally ambiguous, too. Sure, most of the time making someone your mental slave for a while isn't as evil as killing them, but it usually isn't a nice thing to do.

True. However, charming (or dominating) a high-ranking dwarf to call off the assassination attempts and publically choosing to stop raiding the strongholds that have the seven lost items (of which they only need one more) may be more "good" in the minds of the characters if their other option is to assault the final fortress and kill all the dwarves and other monsters between them and their goal.

I'm trying to let the players decide what they think is "right" rather than steering them. From the start of the campaign there were two possible options... stealing these items or protecting them. They chose stealing (even if they didn't think about it in that term until recently). They're having second thoughts now.


Are we talking only about Wizards and their specializations? Because although it doesn't usually make much difference, other casters do still have schools of magic. And just as an example, Hallow/Desecrate are Evocation, as are Holy Word and its cousins. There's a handful of cool Enchantment buffs if you look at the Bard list and the Cleric list, too. Just, y'know, gonna throw that into the mix.


The schools can come from any class. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, whatever. Heck, if we expand beyond SRD we can look at the effects of the Maho spells from Rokugan (one of the Maho necromancy spells should definitely be enchantment, in my opinion. Torrid dreams at night to alter a person's behavior in the future?)

The primary focus is on wizards (since that's where the differences are most apparent) but usefulness from other class lists are more than welcome.

[eggynack]

The schools can come from any class. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, whatever. Heck, if we expand beyond SRD we can look at the effects of the Maho spells from Rokugan (one of the Maho necromancy spells should definitely be enchantment, in my opinion. Torrid dreams at night to alter a person's behavior in the future?)

It's probably for the best to do these things in a somewhat separated fashion. It is very likely that the worst wizard school is different from the worst cleric or druid school, and talking about all of magic is a bit pointless. Really though, these things tend to default to wizards, just because doing the analysis for other schools isn't usually worth the effort. However, as a starting point, it's worth note that druids get almost no illusion magic, so that's probably the worst druid school, likely followed by enchantment.

[nedz]

Druid Illusion spells

Beastmask Defenders of the Faith: (3.0)
Chameleon Complete Arcane
Creaking Cacophony Spell Compendium
Phantasmal Disorientation Complete Divine / Spell Compendium
Phantasmal Wasting Exemplars of Evil
Shadow Landscape Complete Divine / Spell Compendium
Shifting Paths Spell Compendium
Woodland Veil Races of the Wild

Just to underline your point :smallsmile:

[eggynack]

Just to underline your point :smallsmile:
Yeah, that pretty much covers it, though they do also get benign projection (CV, 53), if you count sanctified spells. That spell is slightly sweet.

[Afgncaap5]

Don't get me wrong, I agree that focusing on wizardry simplifies things while still providing a lot of material. Given the thematic elements of what I'm looking at, though, I also like hearing people's thoughts on how it impacts other areas of the game. (Case in point, I'd never really considered a druid's lack of illusion spells before, and there are probably some valid thematic reasons for that depending on the lore of druids in any given game world.)

[nedz]

Yeah, that pretty much covers it, though they do also get benign projection (CV, 53), if you count sanctified spells. That spell is slightly sweet.

None of those are in core I note. Mind you they get precious few Conjuration spells which would benefit from Spell Focus (Conjuration) in core too. Spell Focus (Conjuration) is almost a feat tax for Summoning.

[Shining Wrath]

Don't get me wrong, I agree that focusing on wizardry simplifies things while still providing a lot of material. Given the thematic elements of what I'm looking at, though, I also like hearing people's thoughts on how it impacts other areas of the game. (Case in point, I'd never really considered a druid's lack of illusion spells before, and there are probably some valid thematic reasons for that depending on the lore of druids in any given game world.)

Yet Fey, who are very nature oriented, get lots of illusions or illusion like things (Dancing Lights is an evocation ...)

[CockroachTeaParty]

I wouldn't be so quick to entirely dismiss Evocation. A very large number of metamagic feats were designed with blasting in mind, and a canny caster can produce some interesting effects when combo'd with certain feats. I think one of the most useful aspects of Evocation is quick, decisive crowd control. Every once in a while, you'll be swamped with multiple weaker enemies. Particularly if you've got a time crunch, or precious buffs burning, it's often faster to blast them into the grave quickly, rather than relying on potentially time-intensive battlefield control + mop-up.

It's rare, but Evocation is also a great school for caster duels, particularly if both opponents start with no buffs up. Rather than waste time with defenses or other fancy tricks, if you seize the initiative it can often be better to just blow your opponent away. The 'magical sledgehammer' Xykon referred to in 'Start of Darkness.'

I'm going to go a slightly different direction and vote Necromancy as the least useful school. The only spell I would truly miss from Necromancy is Enervation, one of the greatest debuffs. You can emulate save-or-dies with other schools, and the production of undead while useful on paper comes with a whole mess of problems in practice.

From a roleplaying perspective, most 'normal' worlds will view necromancy with a great deal of distrust. The negative alignments attached to many necromancy spells, and the larger ethical issues, can bog a game down in debate and inconvenience. Worse, nothing brings the game to a screeching halt faster than Animate Dead. It's costly, it's Evil, it's potentially squicky, and you have to go searching for templates and monster statblocks. It's impossible to do quickly. The DM becomes paranoid, as anything he throws against you can now become scavenged.

I prefer to avoid all the headache and in-character red tape. I often ban necromancy, and often enchantment, particularly if my character is of good alignment or has more noble intentions. Necromancy is vulgar, if not evil, and Enchantment is perhaps the most evil school of all if you really think about it.

Of course, for villains and NPCs, Necromancy can be quite useful. But for most players and parties, I'd say it's more trouble than it's worth.

[Shining Wrath]

I wouldn't be so quick to entirely dismiss Evocation. A very large number of metamagic feats were designed with blasting in mind, and a canny caster can produce some interesting effects when combo'd with certain feats. I think one of the most useful aspects of Evocation is quick, decisive crowd control. Every once in a while, you'll be swamped with multiple weaker enemies. Particularly if you've got a time crunch, or precious buffs burning, it's often faster to blast them into the grave quickly, rather than relying on potentially time-intensive battlefield control + mop-up.

It's rare, but Evocation is also a great school for caster duels, particularly if both opponents start with no buffs up. Rather than waste time with defenses or other fancy tricks, if you seize the initiative it can often be better to just blow your opponent away. The 'magical sledgehammer' Xykon referred to in 'Start of Darkness.'

I'm going to go a slightly different direction and vote Necromancy as the least useful school. The only spell I would truly miss from Necromancy is Enervation, one of the greatest debuffs. You can emulate save-or-dies with other schools, and the production of undead while useful on paper comes with a whole mess of problems in practice.

From a roleplaying perspective, most 'normal' worlds will view necromancy with a great deal of distrust. The negative alignments attached to many necromancy spells, and the larger ethical issues, can bog a game down in debate and inconvenience. Worse, nothing brings the game to a screeching halt faster than Animate Dead. It's costly, it's Evil, it's potentially squicky, and you have to go searching for templates and monster statblocks. It's impossible to do quickly. The DM becomes paranoid, as anything he throws against you can now become scavenged.

I prefer to avoid all the headache and in-character red tape. I often ban necromancy, and often enchantment, particularly if my character is of good alignment or has more noble intentions. Necromancy is vulgar, if not evil, and Enchantment is perhaps the most evil school of all if you really think about it.

Of course, for villains and NPCs, Necromancy can be quite useful. But for most players and parties, I'd say it's more trouble than it's worth.

I've noted a couple of times; the answer to OP question does depend upon the DM's campaign.

[ryu]

Just going to add to the chorus of enchantment picks. It has literally one spell I even use at all, and it's almost certainly in a way the designers never intended in an environment none of them even foresaw as possible. Defensive applications of mindrape on one's self adds an entirely new level to the information war side of contingency chess.

[Deophaun]

I'm going to go a slightly different direction and vote Necromancy as the least useful school. The only spell I would truly miss from Necromancy is Enervation, one of the greatest debuffs.
Enervation is sweet, no doubt. But Necromancy has a few overlooked gems too. Undead eyes and zombie eyes make for fantastic scouting and surveillance (really, undead eyes should be known by any caster that intends to control mindless undead; the telepathic control alone is worth it). Then there are fun standbys like magic jar; sure, you can dominate the prince to make him kill the king, but the prince might not have the skills to do the job. However, if the prince was actually you...

Plus necromancy has good feat support, which enchantment lacks.

You can emulate save-or-dies with other schools, and the production of undead while useful on paper comes with a whole mess of problems in practice.
Really depends on what you're going for. A huge army? Problem. A dozen flame skulls hiding in your belt of many pockets? Easy.

And if I confess, it's those social problems that make necromancers fun for me to play.

[Vedhin]

Enchantment is the worst. The above posters have explained why.

Illusion is very hit-or-miss. Both in the saves, and in whether or not the player is creative enough to get good mileage out of the spells.

Necromancy is essentially Save-or-Else and minionmancy. Both of these are available through other schools, especially if you count summoning as minionmancy.

Evocation gets an undeserved bad reputation. There are essentially three envrionments that influence how good Evocation is.
In Core-only, Evocation is essentially your only option for blasting (nice to have), and has some great spells like Contingency, and Wall of Force.
In an environment that adds common splatbooks (The Completes, Spell Compendium, and Players Handbook II), Evocation gets some of its thunder stolen by the Orbs. It still remains the best multitarget blasting school, and it gets some awesome battlefield control options like Great Thunderclap and Howling Chain.
In an environment with all or almost all splatbooks allowed, Evocation is great. You can blast well with certain spells, you can get a huge variety of battlefield control, you get a handful of utility spells, and even a couple defensive spells.
Evocation will never be as awesome as Conjuration or Transmutation, but it's not something to dismiss out of hand

[Talya]

Any statement that enchantment is evil (other than specific [evil] spells) is opinion that is not supported by the fluff in the game. In fact there is a pretty good Sunite PrC in FR that requires both CG alignment and spell focus (enchantment).

[bekeleven]

Good wizard spells of each school (except conjuration and transmutation). Yes, I'm sure I missed your favorite.

1
Abjuration: Protection from X, Shield.
Divination: Arrow Mind, Identify, True Strike/True Casting
Enchantment: Charm Person, Power Word Pain (RAW), Sleep
Evocation: Magic Missile, Floating Disk, Persistent Blade
Illusion: Silent Image, Color Spray, Disguise Self
Necromancy: Backbiter, Ray of Enfeeblement

2
Abj: Dispelling Touch, Deflect, Resist Energy
Div: Detect Thoughts, See Invisibility, Sense Weakness
Ench: Touch of Idiocy, Ray of Stupidity, Hideous Laughter
Evoc: Combust, Scorching Ray
Ill: Invisibility, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Blur, Misdirection
Necro: Grave Mist, Spectral Hand, Blindness/Deafness

3
Abj: Anticipate Teleportation, Dispel Magic, Disobedience, Explosive Runes
Div: Alter Fortune, Arcane Sight, Tongues, Unluck
Ench: Elation, Heroism, Suggestion
Evoc: Sonorous Hum, Shatterfloor,
Ill: Major Image, Displacement, Cloak of Khyber (just me?)
Necro: Shivering Touch, Ray of Exhaustion, Vampiric Touch

4 (man after the jump in power from 2->3, 4 is just a letdown)
Abj: Ray Deflection, Stoneskin, Dimensional Anchor, Mass Resist Energy
Div: Arcane Eye, Assay Spell Resistance, Know Vulnerabilities
Ench: Charm Monster, Lesser Geas
Evoc: Resilient Sphere, Thunderlance, Force Chest
Ill: Greater Invisibility, Greater Mirror Image, Shadow Conjuration
Necro: Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Enervation

5
Abj: Skin of the Steel Dragon, Spell Theft, Wall of Dispel Magic, Indomitability
Div: Telepathic Bond (there are literally 4 spells to choose)
Ench: Dominate person, Mass Charm Person, Feeblemind, Sleep Mote
Evoc: Greater Electric Vengeance, Wall of Force
Ill: Persistent Image, Nightmare, Shadow Evocation
Necro: Magic Jar, Night's Caress, Touch of Vecna

6
Abj: Antimagic Field, Great Dispel Magic, Starmantle
Div: Glimpse of the Prophecy, True Seeing
Ench: Greater Heroism, Freezing Glance, Geas, Overwhelm
Evoc: Contingency, Chain Lightning, Overwhelming Revelations, Howling Chain
Ill: Permanent Image, Programmed Image, Mislead
Necro: Animate Dread Warrior, Malevolent Tentacles

Anyway, my roundabout point is that:

Divination has uses in combat, including having 2 of the best third level spells ever printed.
Evocation isn't just damage and contingency (although most of its other uses are basically less versatile conjuration).
Enchantment is a bit more than save-or-lose if you look.
Enchantment and Necromancy are great for nonlethal play (Freezing Glance :smallbiggrin:)


A few notable ACFs that benefit schools
Abjuration: Domain Granted Power (Purification), Abrupt Jaunt
Conjuration: Domain Granted Power (Summoning/Artifice), Rapid/Enhanced/Spontaneous Summoning
Divination: Domain Granted Power (Knowledge/Oracle), Spontaneous Divination, Bonus Feat List
Enchantment: Cohort
Evocation: Don't specialize in evocation, dummkopf!
Illlusion: Domain Granted Power (Gnome/Illusion), Chains Of Disbelief, Illusion Mastery
Necromancy: Domain Granted Power (Deathbound/Envy), Enhanced Undead
Transmutation: Domain Granted Power (Transformation), Transmutable Memory

Also remember that while enchantment can be partially destroyed by spells, so too can illusion. The real question is, can someone with true seeing punch me without hitting my shadow evoked contingency?

[Zweisteine]

All right, I'll concede that Evocation is as useful as Enchantment, if not more useful in general. :smallredface:

I will say, however, that in a full-sized party, a specialist wizard would do well to ban evocation before enchantment, to avoid overshadowing their allies in many ways. If you do all the close-up fighting with magic... yeah, you're fighter won't have a good time. Better yet, don't debate it, and ban both. :smallwink:

[ryu]

All right, I'll concede that Evocation is as useful as Enchantment, if not more useful in general. :smallredface:

I will say, however, that in a full-sized party, a specialist wizard would do well to ban evocation before enchantment, to avoid overshadowing their allies in many ways. If you do all the close-up fighting with magic... yeah, you're fighter won't have a good time. Better yet, don't debate it, and ban both. :smallwink:

Why? It's much more effective to do all the combat related stuff with conjuration, transmutation, and wave after wave of ice assassins.

[eggynack]

Why? It's much more effective to do all the combat related stuff with conjuration, transmutation, and wave after wave of ice assassins.
Yeah, I don't really get that position. The whole point is that evocation is at its best when it keeps serious distance from the damage dealing side of things. I guess some of the combat maneuver spells are kinda fighter copyingish, but it's just another form of BFC.

[Xar Zarath]

So, I'm working on a post for my blog's weekly magic column, and a friend suggested that I tackle a subject that my gaming group notoriously debated for hours without any real resolution other than that it wasn't even a really important argument to have. The topic: what do you think is the most un-useful school of magic from D&D's traditional eight schools?

Now, I don't necessarily mean most un-optimized or unoptimizable. However, it's quite possible that the traits that make a school unoptimizable will be a strong contender for being unuseful.

I've got a feeling that Evocation is going to be a popular choice, but I'm interested to see what people's general opinions are.

If you don't mind, could you post a link to your blog? Im kinda interested now

[Sliver]

In a campaign that focuses on social intrigue, I see enchantment as filling two roles:

Completely ruins the game: Charm or Dominate the right people, or the people that will help you to get to the right people, and you are done.

Does nothing: Everybody that matters has an amulet of protection from X or something and is simply immune.

It's basically the same as with any combat scenarios that matter: Either you own the scene and everybody else watch you, or your opponent is immune because a one-spell-solves-all solution ruins the fun for almost everybody involved.

[Lord Raziere]

Evocation, without a doubt, is widely regarded as the worst school.

There are three types of wizards:
Generalists
Specialists who ban evocation and at least one other school
Non-Optimizers


Fixed that for you. For a moment there one might think that you were insulting everyone who didn't follow your way of thinking. :smallsigh: Even a non-optimized wizard is a force of great power, and anyone who chooses the wizard class is hardly an idiot, because they're choosing the most powerful class in the game, even without sharpening the sword thats already the sharpest one around.

Why you need to imply that everyone who doesn't do it 100% is doing it stupidly when doing it even 40% will basically win easily anyways, is beyond me....:smallannoyed: to me you seem to be going overboard....

[HammeredWharf]

To be honest, I think that boring people play Focused Specialist Batmen with Evocation and Enchantment banned. Yeah, I get it, you've read Treatmonk's guide. You've got fogs and tentacles and Abrupt Jaunt and stuff. Wow, what an innovative character concept. You could put some Incantatrix/Hathran/Red Wizard there for more originality. It's like being a DMM Persist Cleric. Oh, you've persisted Divine Power? You don't say!

[Zweisteine]

Why you need to imply that everyone who doesn't do it 100% is doing it stupidly when doing it even 40% will basically win easily anyways, is beyond me....:smallannoyed: to me you seem to be going overboard....
Whoops. Let's try that again.

There are four types of optimized wizards:
Generalists
Specialists who banned evocation
Mailman ripoffs
Idiots

[nedz]

Whoops. Let's try that again.

There are four types of optimized wizards:
Generalists
Specialists who banned evocation
Mailman ripoffs
Idiots

Personally I prefer thematic casters — which is optimising to a concept. Sure it's weaker than the other options, but so what — you're still T1.

[chaos_redefined]

Actually, I have wanted to try an optimized evoker, considering they get a lot of cool effects... Unfortunately, the only games I'm in include newbie DMs, and one of them is a high level game. (We started at 4, and are currently 16). The other one, well, I've gone looking into homebrew options to replace T1/T2 properly. Noone wants to play a shugenja or a healer, and there are too many effects given up by losing clerics. And I wouldn't want to rely on wands for that many different effects...

[Sliver]

You could fill all your spell slots with Magic Missile. Sure it's weaker than the other options, but so what — you're still T1. :smalltongue:

[Talya]

Isn't enchantment pretty easily foiled by a cantrip? Namely, detect magic. I wouldn't imagine you could get away with targeting anyone in any sort of important position without a level 1 spellcaster or cheap magic item ruining your schemes.

In a setting where everyone is running around casting spells constantly to detect magic, it's highly unlikely that it would detect anything useful. In such a setting, everybody's going to glow like the sun with detect magic active - because everyone's got a bunch of buffs and magic items on all the time.

Furthermore, not all enchantments are ongoing effects. "Dominate" spells are only really useful for combat anyway. The best mind affecting enchantments are things like suggestion, and command. Sure, Charm Person is useful too, but it's just another tool...and you want a lot of varying tools. (I'm generally in line with Tippy, though. I don't like his style of play, but if playing a wizard I'd never go anything but Generalist.) My new favorite enchantment spell came in Pathfinder, though: Sow Thought. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sow-thought) Minor behavioral modification with no residual magic auras, nothing for Sense Motive to detect either.

[Shining Wrath]

We were talking about play style at our last session, and pretty much agreed that we're telling a story - which is not a novel theory, but anyway, on to my point.

Your wizard should reflect the story you are trying to tell. If your wizard is always the same because you think you've found the most powerful build and aren't willing to give up even a little power to tell a slightly different story - well, whatever floats your boat, but I like playing a different character each time.

I just don't get the "I must be THE MOST POWERFUL" style of gaming.

[Zanos]

Personally I prefer thematic casters — which is optimising to a concept. Sure it's weaker than the other options, but so what — you're still T1.
Guy with elemental spells or guy who uses necromancy isn't really any more thematic than guy with fog spells. Something something there are no original ideas something something. Your background and RP style matter much more to a character identity than what spells you use. There are thousands of necromancers, but only one of your necromancer.


In a setting where everyone is running around casting spells constantly to detect magic, it's highly unlikely that it would detect anything useful. In such a setting, everybody's going to glow like the sun with detect magic active - because everyone's got a bunch of buffs and magic items on all the time.

Furthermore, not all enchantments are ongoing effects. "Dominate" spells are only really useful for combat anyway. The best mind affecting enchantments are things like suggestion, and command. Sure, Charm Person is useful too, but it's just another tool...and you want a lot of varying tools. (I'm generally in line with Tippy, though. I don't like his style of play, but if playing a wizard I'd never go anything but Generalist.) My new favorite enchantment spell came in Pathfinder, though: Sow Thought. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sow-thought) Minor behavioral modification with no residual magic auras, nothing for Sense Motive to detect either.
A single casting of detect magic would allow you to make spellcraft checks to detect enchantment auras specifically, and a single casting will also let you sweep through an entire room of people at a meeting, or folks waiting to meet a king, or people at a feast. It's not exactly high magic or Tippyverse to keep a level 1 on retainer to make sure people talking to you aren't having their minds screwed with. It's even less obtrusive than searching someone for weapons. All you have to do is stare at someone for 18 seconds. Suggestion is still pretty good with it's short duration, so giving commands to be completed quickly is unlikely to be spotted. On the other hand, assuming 3.5, a 4th level transmutation spell I mentioned earlier is capable of completely replicating suggestion.

I'm not familiar with PF overly much but I was under the impression that permanent duration magic was still picked up by detect magic and it's ilk. (Also, detect magic is at will in PF, arguably making the problem much worse.)

[Talya]

A single casting of detect magic would allow you to make spellcraft checks to detect enchantment auras specifically, and a single casting will also let you sweep through an entire room of people at a meeting, or folks waiting to meet a king, or people at a feast. It's not exactly high magic or Tippyverse to keep a level 1 on retainer to make sure people talking to you aren't having their minds screwed with.
Completely rational for a king. But you're intelligent, so you didn't dominate the person going for an audience with the king. (Note however, that you need more than one level 1, unless you're running pathfinder. A person gets very few cantrips a day, with a short duration.)

Also, there are buffs and items with enchantment auras, just to give doubt to the person detecting magic.


I'm not familiar with PF overly much but I was under the impression that permanent duration magic was still picked up by detect magic and it's ilk. (Also, detect magic is at will in PF, arguably making the problem much worse.)

You're right. Fairly sure that that is a mistake, but I never noticed it. Sow Thought has an instantaneous effect as described; the permanent duration makes no sense on it, as it has no ongoing effect. If you dispelled it, nothing would happen. The target already had their thought, you're not undoing history.

[MrNobody]

I say enchentment!
Though it has flavourful spells, usefull in and out combat, it can be easy stopped even at 1st level.
If the DM chooses to throw at you non-humanoid creature you can say goodbye to Charm person. If your enemy is slightly prepared to fight you, knowing your alignment can get totally immunity to your enchantments with a "protection from X" spell.
A lot of spells from this school work on HD, becoming totally unuseful while you level up and face stronger enemies.
Most spells have both RI and savings.
Whole types of creature gain automatic immunity.
And then there is mind blank...

If it would't have been so easy to resist it could have been a great school.

[Vedhin]

Whoops. Let's try that again.

There are four types of optimized wizards:
Generalists
Specialists who banned evocation
Mailman ripoffs
Idiots

Ah, you are suffering from a case of acute blastitis, which causes the victim to regard Evocation as a blasting only school.
As somebody who has played not just Evokers, but Focused Specialist Evokers, allow me to help with a non-exhastive list of good evocation spells of each level, that are not primarily blasting (any blasting spells will be here for secondary effects).

0th: Dancing Lights, Sonic Snap
1st: Bigby's Helpful Hand, Blood Wind, Darklight, Darsson's Cooling Breeze, Dawnburst, Distracting Shadows
2nd: Battering Ram, Bigby's Slapping Hand, Bigby's Striking Fist, Bigby's Warding Hand, Darsson's Chilling Chamber, Darsson's Fiery Furnace, Force Ladder, Gust of Wind, Leomund's Tiny Igloo, Local Tremor, Numbing Sphere, Ray of Resurgence, Shadow Shroud, Shatter, Sun Bolt, Theskyn's Hearty Heave, Veil of Shadows
3rd: Blacklight, Blade of Pain and Fear, Body Blaze, Capricious Zephyr, Favorable Wind, Flashburst, Great Thunderclap, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Pebble Wind, Prismatic Mist, Ray of the Python, Rockburst, Shatterfloor, Sonorus Hum, Wind Wall
4th: Bleakness, Crushing Grip, Defenestrating Sphere, Dweomer of Transference, Greater Floating Disc, Force Chest, Force Claw, Mirror Sending, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Parboil, Searing Exposure, Stone Sphere, Storm Wall, Venom Bolt, Wall of Coldfire, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice, Wingbind
5th: Biby's Interposing Hand Boreal Wind, Cacaphonic Shield, Cyclonic Blast, Flaywind Burst, Resounding Thunder, Sending, Storm Touch, Wall of Force, Wall of Limbs
6th: Bigby's Forceful Hand, Contingency, Entomb, Halaster's Shaking Hand, Howling Chain, Ice Rift, Overwhelming Revelations, Sandblast, Shadow Canopy, Thunder Field
7th: Bigby's Grasping Hand, Electrical Storm, Forcecage, Ice Claw, Radiant Assault, Scalding Touch, Submerge Ship
8th: Bigby's Clenched Fist, Halaster's Blacksphere, Illusion Purge, Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere
9th: Bibgby's Crushing Hand, Binding Chain of Fate, Chain Contingency, Iceberg, Instang Refuge, Invoke Magic, Reality Maelstrom, Tidal Wave



And then, of course, it's possible to be a good blaster without mailman tactics.

A Wizard 3/Master Specialist 2/Stormcaster 5/Paragnostic Apostle 3/Archmage 2/Whatever 5 with Born of the Three Thunders, the Snowcasting line, and Mark of the Dauntless laughs at energy resistance and immunity, typically has +3 damage/die on his blasts, and can knock opponents prone as well as stun (2 chances) with his blasts. Without using higher slots for Metamagic. Throw in Reserves of Strength from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, and enjoy the carnage.

[KorbeltheReader]

Looking at it from an in-game experience, I have a 9th level focused specialist conjurer who banned enchantment, necromancy, and evocation. I've made a point of not taking any direct damage spells at all (my wizard finds them crude), and yet of the three banned schools, evocation is still the one I've missed the most by far. Specifically there have been numerous instances where shatter, blacklight, and gust of wind would have been helpful. This is all before I've even gotten 6th level spells (i.e., contingency).

[Talya]

Ah, you are suffering from a case of acute blastitis,

Vedhin,
Some people mistakenly think Evocation is all blasting, with few other abilities. You're right, evocation has a LOT of great stuff.

With that said, with a few small exceptions, almost the entire evocation school can be replicated with Illusion. The problem with evocation is not its blastiness, but the Shadow Evocation line of spells. Are they as good? Without killer gnome tricks, no, absolutely not. But they are a close approximation -- and you don't lose any of the utility spells that way. Shadow Contingency is just as good as Contingency, other than using a higher level spell slot to cast.

As a sorcerer, by consequence, i tend to take the Shadow Evocation spell lines and avoid the vast majority of the actual evocations. As a specialist wizard, you do run into a few spells that lose some of their great effectiveness as shadow spells if you ban evocation, so it becomes a matter of "how much do you lose?"

I would posit that you lose more by banning enchantment (campaign dependent, of course) than by replicating most of your favorite evocations with a shadow spell.

[Vedhin]

With that said, with a few small exceptions, almost the entire evocation school can be replicated with Illusion. The problem with evocation is not its blastiness, but the Shadow Evocation line of spells. Are they as good? Without killer gnome tricks, no, absolutely not. But they are a close approximation -- and you don't lose any of the utility spells that way. Shadow Contingency is just as good as Contingency, other than using a higher level spell slot to cast.

As a sorcerer, by consequence, i tend to take the Shadow Evocation spell lines and avoid the vast majority of the actual evocations. As a specialist wizard, you do run into a few spells that lose some of their great effectiveness as shadow spells if you ban evocation, so it becomes a matter of "how much do you lose?"

I would posit that you lose more by banning enchantment (campaign dependent, of course) than by replicating most of your favorite evocations with a shadow spell.

I agree that the main problem is (Greater) Shadow Evocation.
Those spells do have a few huge flaws though. Barring Shadowcrafting, you have at most 60% reality on your spells (20% with Shadow Evocation). If your save DCs are high enough for the Illusion school, that's not a big problem, but True Seeing still forces you to take a 40%-80% chance of doing nothing with your spell.
And an oft-missed line in Shadow Evocation says "Nondamaging effects have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them. Against disbelievers, they have no effect." You don't even get a result on a save unless the spell also does damage.
Also, quite a few utility spells are hampered by affecting objects, which autosave against (Greater) Shadow Evocation. Other utility spells are typically interacted with, provoking Will saves from whoever interacts with them.

[dextercorvia]

Enchantment is almost entirely Will based Save or Lose effects, which can be replaced with Illusions for the most part. Enchantment is all Mind-Affecting, so subject to countless immunities. There are a few decent buff spells in Enchantment, but similar effects can be gotten from other schools.

Shadow Contingency is seen as high cheese, or banned outright at a lot of tables, so your ability to replicate Evocation with Illusion might be limited in practice. Evocation also has a lot of options outside of the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list (Miracle, Holy Word, etc.) that you might want access to.

Unless there are thematic reasons to the contrary if I ever give up a school of magic (for Incantatrix, eg., Enchantment is usually the first to go. )

tl;dr If you are playing high op, so Evocation can be replicated by Illusion, then Enchantment is worthless, because everything is immune.

[Talya]

Oh, I'm not saying you don't lose anything. I'm saying that the existence of the entire Shadow Evocation line of spells means that you lose less by banning evocation than you do by banning any other school of magic.

Of course, you generally need to ban two schools of magic. This makes most people pick Enchantment and Evocation.

(My personal favorite trick is the diviner who takes the Arcane transfiguration line of feats. Now you're a diviner with no banned schools, at all.)

[Rebel7284]

All the schools are useful to some degree.

Before everyone has mind blank, enchantment isn't half bad. There are many cases where Charm Person can be the most powerful spell in the game. Having the right friends cannot be discounted and you can make them as long as you have first level spells. Also, fun stuff like Ray of Stupidity for insta-killing dumb things.

Evocation has 2 spells that can be essential for high level play. Contingency has been mentioned before, but there is also Invoke Magic which cannot be replaced with Shadow Evocation.

Even with Invoke Magic, Evocation really is the easy choice for worst school though.

[dextercorvia]

(My personal favorite trick is the diviner who takes the Arcane transfiguration line of feats. Now you're a diviner with no banned schools, at all.)

Meh, I don't think either Evocation, or Enchantment is worth 3 feats for a Wizard who can already cast everything else.

[Talya]

Meh, I don't think either Evocation, or Enchantment is worth 3 feats for a Wizard who can already cast everything else.

That's the wrong way to look at it.

Arcane Transfiguration is not "Three feats to cast a school of magic." (Which I actually think is pretty good.) No, because the smartest wizard was a generalist to start with. Arcane Transfiguration is, better thought of as "Three feats to grant you an extra divination slot at each spell level."

[bekeleven]

That's the wrong way to look at it.

Arcane Transfiguration is not "Three feats to cast a school of magic." (Which I actually think is pretty good.) No, because the smartest wizard was a generalist to start with. Arcane Transfiguration is, better thought of as "Three feats to grant you an extra divination slot at each spell level."

Not that I should say this, since my last post was about ACFs, but...

"three feats and ten levels in wizard."

Also, in said post, I mentioned that I liked some of the ACFs that traded away bonus spells. This is because typically, a wizard does not cast all his spells in a day.

[Talya]

"three feats and ten levels in wizard."


Yeah, those extra 3 levels of wizard are a real hardship. Full wizard spell advancement and a bonus feat!

I know, i know, there are PrCs to take!

[Sliver]

If your enemy is slightly prepared to fight you, knowing your alignment can get totally immunity to your enchantments with a "protection from X" spell.

That kind of knowledge isn't required. All Protection from X spells work against mental influence.


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) [...] This second effect works regardless of alignment.

[Talya]

Fortunately they are very short duration spells. By the time you know you need one for that purpose, it's really too late.

[Sliver]

It is a custom item, but would be a common one I believe: An Amulet of Protection from Evil.

A dungeon could have some voice activated resetting trap of Magic Circle Against Good that patrolling monsters go through every so often to give them relatively cheap and basic protection from meddling dungeon-crawlers (AKA adventurers)

[Talya]

Custom items require DM approval. Any custom item that makes a powerful short duration level 1 spell that invalidates an entire school of magic permanent should be denied on general principle.

I'm playing a druid with a unicorn companion. If she's riding it, she's got a permanent magic circle against evil. It's godlike.

[Adverb]

Why? It's much more effective to do all the combat related stuff with conjuration, transmutation, and wave after wave of ice assassins.

I prefer to do all the combat-related stuff with Wish spells. This is nice because it doesn't matter what school I have banned.

[Vedhin]

Custom items require DM approval. Any custom item that makes a powerful short duration level 1 spell that invalidates an entire school of magic permanent should be denied on general principle.

How about the Magic Circle spells, which last 10 minutes/level? Also, wands and Eternal wands are good for spells like this.

[eggynack]

It is a custom item, but would be a common one I believe: An Amulet of Protection from Evil.

Ooh, I actually still have this one from that "enchantment doesn't suck" thread way back when. The banner of law, from heroes of battle page 133, costs 8,000 GP, and creates a 30 foot magic circle against law effect. It's a little annoying, cause you need to hold it in two hands, but there are ways around that, like attaching it to a weapon (explicitly allowed), or having some chump carry it for you (though you may want to make sure they're well defended). In any case, it's certainly a workable option.

[bekeleven]

Disobedience is one of my favorite spells ever, Hour/Level, ignore mental control. However, note that short of Mind Blank, you're still getting frozen from Freezing Glance. Cold Immunity might work too, it's Enchantment[Cold]...

[Stormageddon]

Evocation is the worst simply due to the fact that it's nothing but damage, and other Schools and classes do that better.

I would judge it worst then enchantment simply because enchantment is wonderful during low levels.

[eggynack]

Evocation is the worst simply due to the fact that it's nothing but damage, and other Schools and classes do that better.
Why do people keep saying this? There's a whole thread, right in front of you, repeatedly saying the exact opposite of that. The idea of evocation as a pure blasting school is a bit of an illusion.

[dextercorvia]

Why do people keep saying this? There's a whole thread, right in front of you, repeatedly saying the exact opposite of that. The idea of evocation as a pure blasting school is a bit of an illusion.

Mainly because that is what Wizard guides have repeated to them, over and over for the last 10ish years. Is drop Evocation good advice? Absolutely. Is it always the best advice? No.

[eggynack]

Mainly because that is what Wizard guides have repeated to them, over and over for the last 10ish years. Is drop Evocation good advice? Absolutely. Is it always the best advice? No.
I don't think that's really accurate. Treantmonk's guide explicitly lists a number of good evocation spells that aren't blasting, and even logic ninja's guide concedes the usefulness of a couple of spells (it states that they can be copied by shadow evocation, which I'm pretty sure is just inaccurate in the case of wind wall). Even in general forum discussion, I think people have tended away from the pure-blasting model of evocation, as is evident in this thread.

I think there's a bit of a deeper issue at work here. In particular, folks definitely do say that blasting is a suboptimal path to victory, and evocation is associated with blasting, so connecting the dots seems trivial. This issue probably isn't helped by the fact that people do argue in favor of banning evocation for actually valid reasons, which gives the impression that it's evocation's nature as a pure blasting school that leads to tragedy. In reality, the issues with evocation come from a number of factors. In particular, many of evocation's better effects, like contingency or wall of force, can be approximated with other spells, which is at least partially attributable to shadow evocation. What remains of the school, in terms of unique effects, is just generally less than is offered by most other schools.

[dextercorvia]

Perhaps it is not the guides themselves, but people rushing to paraphrase, while offering advice on message boards. In this medium people are much more likely (obviously some playgrounders excluded) to say "Evocation is teh sux, cuz blasting!" than laying out the arguments for and against it.

[Metahuman1]

Just in case no one's mentioned it (sorry if is has been mentioned, ignore me in this case.)

Enchantment tends to have a lot of spells that do very little and that Summon Monster can usually give you something that get's the job done. Same for Necromancy, if I need a save or die, either I can get one form another school, or I can summon a critter to do it for me.

Thus, these tend to be the two I ban.

Evocation, I don't really use blasting much, but I do like the Disintegrate for a save or die, Contingency is awesome, and the Wall of Force/Force Cage Spells can be encounter enders/life savers if deployed right.

[Bonzai]

A while back I was asked a similar question in regards to focused specialists. My answer was this;

1. Non-negotiable: Abjuration, Divination.

You can never give up divination, and there is no replacement for dispel magic and the like in the other schools. They may not be power houses, but they are staples that your really need to have available to you.

2. Power Schools: Conjuration, Illusion, Transmutation.

These schools are all powerful, and have a lot of over lap with each other and other schools. To be remotely competent, you are going to need at least one of these schools. Preferably 2.

3. Niche schools: Necromancy, Enchantment, Evocation.

These schools are pretty specialized, and because of that are easy to give up. They tend not to provide anything that can't be achieved through other means.

[eggynack]

Enchantment tends to have a lot of spells that do very little and that Summon Monster can usually give you something that get's the job done. Same for Necromancy, if I need a save or die, either I can get one form another school, or I can summon a critter to do it for me.
Necromancy has some effects that aren't save or die, like magic jar, undead raising (which is just about the longest duration minionmancy that exists), and astral projection, along with some debuffs and SoL's that target odd things in effective ways. It's probably a valid choice despite that, however. Definitely one of the bottom three schools.


Evocation, I don't really use blasting much, but I do like the Disintegrate for a save or die, Contingency is awesome, and the Wall of Force/Force Cage Spells can be encounter enders/life savers if deployed right.
Disintegrate is transmutation, actually.

[ryu]

Necromancy has some effects that aren't save or die, like magic jar, undead raising (which is just about the longest duration minionmancy that exists), and astral projection, along with some debuffs and SoL's that target odd things in effective ways. It's probably a valid choice despite that, however. Definitely one of the bottom three schools.


Disintegrate is transmutation, actually.

Hide Life. Just saying.

[ace rooster]

Evocation is the worst simply due to the fact that it's nothing but damage, and other Schools and classes do that better.

I would judge it worst then enchantment simply because enchantment is wonderful during low levels.

One often overlooked use is seeing in the dark. Darkvision can help you to an extent but is limited to 60ft, and true seeing is limited to 120ft. Dancing lights can illuminate a moving target from medium range for 10 rounds without giving away your position, and is a cantrip! Flaming sphere is slower, but does damage and sets things on fire (more light sources. Given that objects pass saves against illusions, no matter how you rule shadow evocation with regard to light, this effect is not present in the shadow version).

The light spells require some creativity to use without giving away your position, but given that they can be cast on arrows, and then fired, they can mark targets a huge distance away. The duration even means you do not have to be anywhere near the archer when he fires them.

I've only done a decent search in core, but as far as I am aware, evocation has no substitute for night-fighting (If anyone is aware of any relevant spells I would love to hear them). Given that it is dark about 50% of the time on the surface, and 100% of the time underground, you would think this might come up.

[Metahuman1]

Necromancy has some effects that aren't save or die, like magic jar, undead raising (which is just about the longest duration minionmancy that exists), and astral projection, along with some debuffs and SoL's that target odd things in effective ways. It's probably a valid choice despite that, however. Definitely one of the bottom three schools.


Disintegrate is transmutation, actually.

Still, Necromany is not that much harder to replicate with Conjuration spells like Planar Binding/Ally then enchantment when you need it. The nice Evocation spells however are actually nice enought that yes, even though illusion dose a sorta copy, it's worth not banning the school.

That said, huh, always though "do a bunch of damage and make them have to save AND survive the damage to not be wiped in a none rezable fashion" was an evocation. Was it a Trans spell in earlier editions and they changed it in this one maybe?

[NecessaryWeevil]

Actually, I find Illusion to be pretty situational, outside of the Shadow line perhaps.

In the last four years I've played two long-term characters - a bard and an Unseen Seer - that attempted to use illusions. The DMs for both characters automatically gave every viewer a Will save (and I felt I went out of my way to make them believable). Given that neither character was an illusion-focused, single-class primary caster, you can guess how well that went. Illusion went to the bottom of my toolbox pretty quickly.

As a result, if I have the chance to play a pure arcane caster I will think long and hard before relying on illusion - might even be tempted to ban it.

EDIT: Never mind, forgot about Invisibility, Mirror Image, etc. Still, it's another school which is vulnerable to blanket invulnerabilities (True Seeing).

[eggynack]

Still, Necromany is not that much harder to replicate with Conjuration spells like Planar Binding/Ally then enchantment when you need it. The nice Evocation spells however are actually nice enought that yes, even though illusion dose a sorta copy, it's worth not banning the school.
There's definitely some room for replication, but it's not really a perfect copy. Meanwhile, the other stuff listed in this thread for necro, apart from animate dead, is also nice, and I don't think there's a perfect copy for something like ray of exhaustion or enervation either. There's something to be said for just debuffing your opponent into oblivion, and also, shivering touch is a thing.


That said, huh, always though "do a bunch of damage and make them have to save AND survive the damage to not be wiped in a none rezable fashion" was an evocation. Was it a Trans spell in earlier editions and they changed it in this one maybe?
I don't really know what it was before. Disintegrate could probably be refluffed into an evocation spell trivially, but strictly speaking, I don'g think there's any kinda energy there.


Never mind, forgot about Invisibility, Mirror Image, etc. Still, it's another school which is vulnerable to blanket invulnerabilities (True Seeing).
Yeah, it's a lot like enchantment in that way, except it lacks the other big weakness of enchantment which is extremely narrow effects, or another big weakness of enchantment, which is type limitation. It's just a school chock full of problems. The somewhat more DM dependent effects of illusion are obviously amazing, but there's a lot there without those.

[Vedhin]

In the last four years I've played two long-term characters - a bard and an Unseen Seer - that attempted to use illusions. The DMs for both characters automatically gave every viewer a Will save (and I felt I went out of my way to make them believable). Given that neither character was an illusion-focused, single-class primary caster, you can guess how well that went. Illusion went to the bottom of my toolbox pretty quickly.

And here you touch upon one of the other drawbacks of Illusion-- it is highly DM dependent.

[Stormageddon]

Why do people keep saying this? There's a whole thread, right in front of you, repeatedly saying the exact opposite of that. The idea of evocation as a pure blasting school is a bit of an illusion.

Because that's my opinion? And I'm unpersuaded by arguments to the contrary? Of course I must be wrong because your opinion is iron clad.....

[eggynack]

Because that's my opinion? And I'm unpersuaded by arguments to the contrary? Of course I must be wrong because your opinion is iron clad.....
Your "opinion" is that evocation has nothing but damage. You are completely (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resilientSphere.htm) and (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/windWall.htm) objectively (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contingency.htm) wrong (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm). There's no argument to be had here, and my "opinion" is iron clad. If you have some sort of counterargument, I'd be glad to hear it, but just jumping into a thread and saying, "All you guys are wrong," and then leaving without providing any evidence to support that point is a bit ridiculous. If you're unpersuaded by our arguments, you can say why. Otherwise, my position, which has yet to be challenged in a significant way, will remain the correct one.

[Stormageddon]

1. Didn't jump into a thread to say you guys are all wrong.

2. The few spells that are good in evocation for ME don't really make it a great choice. You're opinion that does is a fine one to have.

3. We're arguing about a school that's never top of the list for best schools ever, and almost always close to the bottom, if not the bottom, of that list. So please don't tell me no one shares my opinion.

[Optimator]

I'd say Necromancy.

[eggynack]

1. Didn't jump into a thread to say you guys are all wrong.
Well, it happened regardless of your intent.


2. The few spells that are good in evocation for ME don't really make it a great choice. You're opinion that does is a fine one to have.
You said that evocation just doesn't have non-blasting spells. It's not an opinion that that's mistaken.

3. We're arguing about a school that's never top of the list for best schools ever, and almost always close to the bottom, if not the bottom, of that list. So please don't tell me no one shares my opinion.
Of course it's not at the top. I've said as much in other posts. However, you don't judge a school by its worst spells, and evocation's blasting spells are not at the top of its list. If evocation is at the bottom of the list of schools, and it pretty much is, it's because its non-blasting spells don't provide enough useful unique effects, and not because there are no non-blasting spells.

[ryu]

1. Didn't jump into a thread to say you guys are all wrong.

2. The few spells that are good in evocation for ME don't really make it a great choice. You're opinion that does is a fine one to have.

3. We're arguing about a school that's never top of the list for best schools ever, and almost always close to the bottom, if not the bottom, of that list. So please don't tell me no one shares my opinion.

Is evocation one of the worst schools? Almost certainly. That doesn't change the fact that your ''opinion'' is actually phrased as a statement of fact detailing quantifiable things. The fact of the matter is that you are wrong on an objective level.

[Stormageddon]

Is evocation one of the worst schools? Almost certainly. That doesn't change the fact that your ''opinion'' is actually phrased as a statement of fact detailing quantifiable things. The fact of the matter is that you are wrong on an objective level.

Seriously!? Title says most Un-useful School of Magic. The question itself is asking for opinions. Now I find that as a whole the school is dedicated to dealing direct damage, and a few out-liners do not change this.

If you're asking if I scientifically do the research and went through every spell with an objective measurement of "What is actually useful." Well sir you got me there because I did not. But then again neither did you, because you can't objectively measure what is useful.

[eggynack]

Seriously!? Title says most Un-useful School of Magic. The question itself is asking for opinions. Now I find that as a whole the school is dedicated to dealing direct damage, and a few out-liners do not change this.
Why does what a school is "dedicated to" matter? Outliers are everything. Seriously, every damn thing. If a school is nothing but crap, except for one first level spell that's amazing, then you're looking at a pretty amazing school (though it'd have to scale well, and there are other factors, of course). Evocation has a bunch of blasting, but the blasting sucks.

If you want to evaluate how useful evocation is, you need to only look at the best of the best, which means wind wall, forcecage, contingency, and a bunch of others. Do you think those aren't the best spells in the class, and that the better spells are the blasting ones? If you do, you can try to prove that, but I'm honestly pretty doubtful. If evocation is bad, it has nothing to do with how bad its bad spells are, and everything to do with how good its good spells are.

[Vedhin]

Seriously!? Title says most Un-useful School of Magic. The question itself is asking for opinions. Now I find that as a whole the school is dedicated to dealing direct damage, and a few out-liners do not change this.

If you're asking if I scientifically do the research and went through every spell with an objective measurement of "What is actually useful." Well sir you got me there because I did not. But then again neither did you, because you can't objectively measure what is useful.

Well, I did go through every spell with an objective-as-possible measurement of what is useful, ignoring spells that are primarily blasting. Earlier in this thread, in fact.

Here's the non-exhaustive list:

0th: Dancing Lights, Sonic Snap
1st: Bigby's Helpful Hand, Blood Wind, Darklight, Darsson's Cooling Breeze, Dawnburst, Distracting Shadows
2nd: Battering Ram, Bigby's Slapping Hand, Bigby's Striking Fist, Bigby's Warding Hand, Darsson's Chilling Chamber, Darsson's Fiery Furnace, Force Ladder, Gust of Wind, Leomund's Tiny Igloo, Local Tremor, Numbing Sphere, Ray of Resurgence, Shadow Shroud, Shatter, Sun Bolt, Theskyn's Hearty Heave, Veil of Shadows
3rd: Blacklight, Blade of Pain and Fear, Body Blaze, Capricious Zephyr, Favorable Wind, Flashburst, Great Thunderclap, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Pebble Wind, Prismatic Mist, Ray of the Python, Rockburst, Shatterfloor, Sonorus Hum, Wind Wall
4th: Bleakness, Crushing Grip, Defenestrating Sphere, Dweomer of Transference, Greater Floating Disc, Force Chest, Force Claw, Mirror Sending, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Parboil, Searing Exposure, Stone Sphere, Storm Wall, Venom Bolt, Wall of Coldfire, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice, Wingbind
5th: Biby's Interposing Hand Boreal Wind, Cacaphonic Shield, Cyclonic Blast, Flaywind Burst, Resounding Thunder, Sending, Storm Touch, Wall of Force, Wall of Limbs
6th: Bigby's Forceful Hand, Contingency, Entomb, Halaster's Shaking Hand, Howling Chain, Ice Rift, Overwhelming Revelations, Sandblast, Shadow Canopy, Thunder Field
7th: Bigby's Grasping Hand, Electrical Storm, Forcecage, Ice Claw, Radiant Assault, Scalding Touch, Submerge Ship
8th: Bigby's Clenched Fist, Halaster's Blacksphere, Illusion Purge, Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere
9th: Bibgby's Crushing Hand, Binding Chain of Fate, Chain Contingency, Iceberg, Instang Refuge, Invoke Magic, Reality Maelstrom, Tidal Wave

[GameSpawn]

My feeling is that enchantment is more useful than necromancy. Not more powerful, necessarily; necromancy has some very powerful spells, but more useful. The reason I say this is that enchantment solves problems that other schools don't handle effectively, while necromancy doesn't. Does necromancy have very powerful debuffs? Yes. Debuffing is never my end goal, however, and there are other ways to win fights. The same is true of the minions. If I want to take a prisoner and bring them to the city 3 days away for a trial, dominate person is useful in a way that isn't readily duplicated by other schools, however.

[ryu]

My feeling is that enchantment is more useful than necromancy. Not more powerful, necessarily; necromancy has some very powerful spells, but more useful. The reason I say this is that enchantment solves problems that other schools don't handle effectively, while necromancy doesn't. Does necromancy have very powerful debuffs? Yes. Debuffing is never my end goal, however, and there are other ways to win fights. The same is true of the minions. If I want to take a prisoner and bring them to the city 3 days away for a trial, dominate person is useful in a way that isn't readily duplicated by other schools, however.

Smoky confinement, trap the soul, disable the mook and let the army of pet dragon ice assassins bring him there, teleport, greater teleport, Voice of the dragon for diplomacy tactics, baleful polymorph, and so on. Do I need to go on? I can keep going on if you like.

[GameSpawn]

Smoky confinement, trap the soul, disable the mook and let the army of pet dragon ice assassins bring him there, teleport, greater teleport, Voice of the dragon for diplomacy tactics, baleful polymorph, and so on. Do I need to go on? I can keep going on if you like.

I may have overstated my conclusion. I didn't mean to imply that there was no other way the result could be achieved, but dominate person does it very easily, and does it much better than voice of the dragon. The other spells come online later and mostly have large costs (trap the soul, ice assassin), or have undesirable side effects (baleful polymorph - if the person fails their will save, they won't be standing trial). I will admit I overlooked smoky confinement, which, while worse in 3 ways (costs money, higher level, requires you to have a plan for when you break open the container), isn't too much worse in any of those ways.

I still stand by my assertion about enchantment being less easily duplicated than necromancy (in terms of end effects). If you can provide me with some spells that are as effective as enchantment at changing people's behavior, I'm willing to concede the point.

[eggynack]

(baleful polymorph - if the person fails their will save, they won't be standing trial.
This is a non-issue. Baleful polymorph has a permanent duration, rather than an instantaneous one, which means that it can be dispelled, and the brain-loss effects explicitly dissipate when the spell does.

[GameSpawn]

This is a non-issue. Baleful polymorph has a permanent duration, rather than an instantaneous one, which means that it can be dispelled, and the brain-loss effects explicitly dissipate when the spell does.

Huh. I'd always misread that as applying only to the HD :smallredface:. I don't know why, as it's pretty clearly written. I guess baleful polymorph does the job pretty well too, for just slightly more investment in spell slots.

[ryu]

I may have overstated my conclusion. I didn't mean to imply that there was no other way the result could be achieved, but dominate person does it very easily, and does it much better than voice of the dragon. The other spells come online later and mostly have large costs (trap the soul, ice assassin), or have undesirable side effects (baleful polymorph - if the person fails their will save, they won't be standing trial). I will admit I overlooked smoky confinement, which, while worse in 3 ways (costs money, higher level, requires you to have a plan for when you break open the container), isn't too much worse in any of those ways.

I still stand by my assertion about enchantment being less easily duplicated than necromancy (in terms of end effects). If you can provide me with some spells that are as effective as enchantment at changing people's behavior, I'm willing to concede the point.

Glibness potion, Color spray followed by punching the victim unconscious while they're stunned, stripping them of their gear, tying them to a horse and laughing all the way to the bank, Grease to force dropping of weapons, prevent them from being able to walk, and then beat the victim unconscious as previous. There we have multiple methods that come online early and don't risk repeated will saves. Most of them also doable by level one. Facing an opponent too big for color spray and grease tactics? Congrats we're already past dominate levels to the good stuff at that point.

[Deophaun]

I still stand by my assertion about enchantment being less easily duplicated than necromancy (in terms of end effects). If you can provide me with some spells that are as effective as enchantment at changing people's behavior, I'm willing to concede the point.
The question is always "who's behavior?" The king's? Enchantment is going to fail; defenses against it are just too cheap. Random mook? Sure, enchantment does it better than any other school. Problem is, getting ahold of a random mook isn't all that impressive. Then there's the point that changing a random mook's behavior is not the point. Instead, it's a means to an end. What's the end? Can other schools achieve it? Want to frame someone for murder? Illusion will do it. Or you can magic jar him and commit the murder yourself with his body. Comes online at the same time as dominate person, and can't be negated after-the-fact with protection from x.

[ace rooster]

Glibness potion, Color spray followed by punching the victim unconscious while they're stunned, stripping them of their gear, tying them to a horse and laughing all the way to the bank, Grease to force dropping of weapons, prevent them from being able to walk, and then beat the victim unconscious as previous. There we have multiple methods that come online early and don't risk repeated will saves. Most of them also doable by level one. Facing an opponent too big for color spray and grease tactics? Congrats we're already past dominate levels to the good stuff at that point.

Glibness has a range of personal, and as somebody pointed out to me recently, there is some ambiguity as to whether personal spells can be made into potions. The DMG contains no examples of personal potions, which suggests not.

[Amphetryon]

I agree about Enchantment. Either it works and everybody else feels useless because the battle is likely over after one or two spells, or it doesn't work (they passed their save or are simply immune) and you are the one feeling useless (assuming that you are a focused enchanter, of course). It forces the DM to work around you, instead of with you. Either he negates you so others have fun, he allows you to dominate the battle so you can have fun, or he adds in some non-immune creatures so you can do your shtick while the others deal with the real threat, which isn't always an option that makes sense.

This is my take, as well. Evocation has a couple of tricks it can use, and blasting at least keeps the Evoker's Player involved and interested. An Enchanter can wind up twiddling her thumbs all too often - or make other Players twiddle their thumbs - if the DM doesn't specifically tailor the game around her.

[dextercorvia]

Glibness has a range of personal, and as somebody pointed out to me recently, there is some ambiguity as to whether personal spells can be made into potions. The DMG contains no examples of personal potions, which suggests not.

No ambiguity. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#creatingPotions)


The imbiber of the potion is both the caster and the target. Spells with a range of personal cannot be made into potions.

[Shining Wrath]

A while back I was asked a similar question in regards to focused specialists. My answer was this;

1. Non-negotiable: Abjuration, Divination.

You can never give up divination, and there is no replacement for dispel magic and the like in the other schools. They may not be power houses, but they are staples that your really need to have available to you.

2. Power Schools: Conjuration, Illusion, Transmutation.

These schools are all powerful, and have a lot of over lap with each other and other schools. To be remotely competent, you are going to need at least one of these schools. Preferably 2.

3. Niche schools: Necromancy, Enchantment, Evocation.

These schools are pretty specialized, and because of that are easy to give up. They tend not to provide anything that can't be achieved through other means.

I like this, but it poses the question: if you COULD give up Divination, would you drop it down to #2, or #3? A lot of Divination relies upon DM cooperation, e.g., Contact Other Plane, so that means that it's not going to work like you want it to work exactly when you need it most (BBEG). Same goes for any of the mind reading spells.

[Amphetryon]

I like this, but it poses the question: if you COULD give up Divination, would you drop it down to #2, or #3? A lot of Divination relies upon DM cooperation, e.g., Contact Other Plane, so that means that it's not going to work like you want it to work exactly when you need it most (BBEG). Same goes for any of the mind reading spells.

I wouldn't drop it down, even if I could give it up, personally, because it's just too useful. I find this particularly true at the low levels, so I suppose it's theoretically possible I could conceive a niche case where I'd want to consider dropping it if a PrC required me to drop an additional school.

[Sith_Happens]

I like this, but it poses the question: if you COULD give up Divination, would you drop it down to #2, or #3? A lot of Divination relies upon DM cooperation, e.g., Contact Other Plane, so that means that it's not going to work like you want it to work exactly when you need it most (BBEG). Same goes for any of the mind reading spells.

It's still the school of Detect Magic and Scrying, so no.

[Bonzai]

It's still the school of Detect Magic and Scrying, so no.

Exactly. Detect magic, arcane sight, scrying, true seeing, etc... It's just as hard to give up as abjuration with it's dispel magic and the like. They are essential tools that should be in every wizards tool kit. They aren't the power houses, but boy you are handicapping yourself without them.

[Shining Wrath]

Seriously!? Title says most Un-useful School of Magic. The question itself is asking for opinions. Now I find that as a whole the school is dedicated to dealing direct damage, and a few out-liners do not change this.

If you're asking if I scientifically do the research and went through every spell with an objective measurement of "What is actually useful." Well sir you got me there because I did not. But then again neither did you, because you can't objectively measure what is useful.

No one takes every spell - I once calculated how much gold would be required for a wizard to have every single spell in their books, and the answer was "lots". I can look up the exact amount if you care.

So when comparing schools of magic the question is "At each level, which are the best spells for my purposes"? If you find evocation occurs less often than any other, then for you, it's the worst school.

I suspect, though, that even if your wizard is Batman making everyone around him better, that you'll want some direct-damage spells in your pocket. And sometimes that might be an evocation, sometimes a conjuration.

If you've played a generalist Wizard or Sorcerer recently, go look at your selected spells. See which ones you picked. I'll bet Evocation snuck in there, and probably more often than Enchantment or Necromancy.

Currently playing a sorcerer and I'm going to be taking some evocation - because our wizard is a focused specialist Transmuter on his way to War Weaver and he's banned evocation, enchantment, and necromancy. Imagine that! The three schools most often mentioned in this thread!:smallsmile:

[Shining Wrath]

It's still the school of Detect Magic and Scrying, so no.


Exactly. Detect magic, arcane sight, scrying, true seeing, etc... It's just as hard to give up as abjuration with it's dispel magic and the like. They are essential tools that should be in every wizards tool kit. They aren't the power houses, but boy you are handicapping yourself without them.

What I meant to ask is if Divination is closer to Conjuration in power, or Enchantment?

[Phelix-Mu]

Seems like there is much agreement that Enchantment as it exists isn't much good around a good many tables. Has anyone spotted any good homebrew (here or elsewhere) that does a decent job at fixing this? I am interested in dealing with the mind blank issue (and the type-based immunities), and in a more thorough way than simply popularizing a buffed spell version of shatter mind blank, which I do anyway.

[Zanos]

Seems like there is much agreement that Enchantment as it exists isn't much good around a good many tables. Has anyone spotted any good homebrew (here or elsewhere) that does a decent job at fixing this? I am interested in dealing with the mind blank issue (and the type-based immunities), and in a more thorough way than simply popularizing a buffed spell version of shatter mind blank, which I do anyway.
I don't actually understand why shatter mind blank exists. Target gets a save, power resistance, and you have to make a caster level check? Why the hell would I not just use dispel psionics?

There are lots of suboptimal choices in 3.5, but shatter mind blank is like they were actively creating a trap power to suck up a power known.

[GameSpawn]

Glibness potion, Color spray followed by punching the victim unconscious while they're stunned, stripping them of their gear, tying them to a horse and laughing all the way to the bank, Grease to force dropping of weapons, prevent them from being able to walk, and then beat the victim unconscious as previous. There we have multiple methods that come online early and don't risk repeated will saves. Most of them also doable by level one. Facing an opponent too big for color spray and grease tactics? Congrats we're already past dominate levels to the good stuff at that point.

None of those options actually affect people's behavior though (except Glibness potion, which doesn't actually exist, and even if it did amounts to saying, "Yeah, I'm useless here. Go find a bard." (assuming you're a wizard)). The rest can be used for the scenario I originally suggested (though I'd argue they're less effective).

Let's move away from that scenario; I'm interested how you would solve other ones without enchantment spells:

Let's say I want to send a suggestion to someone who's location I don't know. The obvious solution is demand. Without access to enchantment spells, I could use Discern Location, possibly Plane Shift (twice), almost certainly (Greater) Teleport (twice), followed by Voice of the Dragon. This is a pretty heavy investment.

Another scenario: let's say I want to influence how a local council member votes over a long period of time in a parliament type system. Dominate Person might be viable, depending on the amount of interaction. Suggestion and charm spells are pretty useful as well, and depending on the circumstances, Geas might also be an option. Outside of enchantment, I have Voice of the Dragon, coming on line later than suggestion, and probably not giving me high enough skill modifiers to be better in any other way (and using suggestion in this scenario is only moderately effective). Magic Jar might be viable too, but if I need the person to make active use of their knowledge and skills, I'm stuck, and if I don't, Disguise Self + a truncheon works nearly as well. Enchantment is, again, a clear winner.

At least, that's how it seems to me. I missed some almost as good ways to address my last situation without enchantment, so it's perfectly viable there are some I'm missing for these too; there's a lot of spells.

As a side note, how do you feel about enchantment if Voice of the Dragon isn't available? What about in a core only game?

[Spuddles]

Miracle is evocation.

Or are we only talking about wizards?

[Deophaun]

Let's say I want to send a suggestion to someone who's location I don't know. The obvious solution is demand. Without access to enchantment spells, I could use Discern Location, possibly Plane Shift (twice), almost certainly (Greater) Teleport (twice), followed by Voice of the Dragon. This is a pretty heavy investment.
This is a tough one. However, you're using a level 8 spell, which means mind blank is online. This is the basic problem with Enchantment: theoretically you can put an empire on strings and control it like a marionette. Practically, it doesn't pan out.

Another scenario: let's say I want to influence how a local council member votes over a long period of time in a parliament type system. Dominate Person might be viable, depending on the amount of interaction.
A dominated person acting in public is going to trip someone's DC 20 Sense Motive check. This is something best accomplished directly through mundane means, which means either Diplomacy or Intimidate. That makes Divination your school of choice, as it lets you know exactly what buttons to push.

[ryu]

If I have multiple uses of plane shift and greater teleport the answer to influencing a politician I don't care about over a long time is to kill and replace with an ice assassin programmed to do exactly what I want. Same risk of being discovered in the act, doesn't get foiled by cheap spells in the industry, Isn't a temporary solution that needs to be recast every few days, doesn't risk him making a save against it at an unpredictable time, and has virtually no risk of being discovered after the fact.

How do I make a suggestion to a target I don't know where they are? Discern location, followed by scrying, followed by sending with the request. Give ample evidence that the caster is a high level wizard who doesn't want his time wasted. If the subject complies? Goody. If they don't? Replace them.

[Anlashok]

Miracle is evocation.

Or are we only talking about wizards?

Presumably, given that Wizards are the only ones who care about this topic.

[GameSpawn]

This is a tough one. However, you're using a level 8 spell, which means mind blank is online. This is the basic problem with Enchantment: theoretically you can put an empire on strings and control it like a marionette. Practically, it doesn't pan out.

The existence of a counter doesn't mean a spell is useless. Otherwise, Discern Location would be useless too. Energy Drain is trivially useless (Death Ward) and Magic Jar is right out (Protection from X).


A dominated person acting in public is going to trip someone's DC 20 Sense Motive check. This is something best accomplished directly through mundane means, which means either Diplomacy or Intimidate. That makes Divination your school of choice, as it lets you know exactly what buttons to push.

That was why I put the caveat after dominate; it depends on the details of the situation. And don't mistake me arguing enchantment is useful as arguing enchantment is better than divination; sometimes though, knowing isn't enough to influence a person (especially if you have the charisma of a triceratops).


If I have multiple uses of plane shift and greater teleport the answer to influencing a politician I don't care about over a long time is to kill and replace with an ice assassin programmed to do exactly what I want. Same risk of being discovered in the act, doesn't get foiled by cheap spells in the industry, Isn't a temporary solution that needs to be recast every few days, doesn't risk him making a save against it at an unpredictable time, and has virtually no risk of being discovered after the fact.

How do I make a suggestion to a target I don't know where they are? Discern location, followed by scrying, followed by sending with the request. Give ample evidence that the caster is a high level wizard who doesn't want his time wasted. If the subject complies? Goody. If they don't? Replace them.

I didn't necessarily mean the same character was in both those cases; they were intended to be independent. If your only option for replacing a 4th level spell is a 9th level spell with an XP cost and expensive material component, then that's not a 4th level spell I want to ban. EDIT: Apparently, I've been playing too many bards lately. But if you say 5th instead of 4th, the statement still holds.

For the demand replacement, that's not really an answer.

[Afgncaap5]

Presumably, given that Wizards are the only ones who care about this topic.

I think some other casters would care about this topic, personally. Wizards may be the most bookish and prone to categorizing of all the casters, but the lore does suggest that other casters are prone to studying how their magic works. (The implications behind a Warlock's UMD skills and the dead levels granted to a Sorcerer, for instance, though those admittedly have little to do with schools.)


If you don't mind, could you post a link to your blog? Im kinda interested now

My blog is here (http://craterlabs.wordpress.com/). Most of my gaming posts about magic can be found under the Magical Mondays (http://craterlabs.wordpress.com/?s=Magical+Mondays) tag. A lot of my posts are lore heavy and discuss ways that GMs can work outside of the rules, though, so there might not be much for the RAW-heavy reader.

[Vedhin]

I think some other casters would care about this topic, personally. Wizards may be the most bookish and prone to categorizing of all the casters, but the lore does suggest that other casters are prone to studying how their magic works. (The implications behind a Warlock's UMD skills and the dead levels granted to a Sorcerer, for instance, though those admittedly have little to do with schools.)

Questions about schools of magic do tend to focus on wizard spells though. While other classes can take Spell Focus and such, Wizards are the only class that has a major class feature revolving around schools. Wizards are also the only ones whose spell lists are sorted by school.

But the same general commentary holds true. It's worth noting that Clerics are better at Necrominionmancy, and that other classes tend to get more nonblasting Evocations (Divine Power, for one).

[GameSpawn]

I think some other casters would care about this topic, personally. Wizards may be the most bookish and prone to categorizing of all the casters, but the lore does suggest that other casters are prone to studying how their magic works. (The implications behind a Warlock's UMD skills and the dead levels granted to a Sorcerer, for instance, though those admittedly have little to do with schools.)

There are some feats that care about what school a spell is and are available to more than just wizard (Spell Focus, most famously), and there are also some PrC that require spells from a specific school.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

[Deophaun]

The existence of a counter doesn't mean a spell is useless. Otherwise, Discern Location would be useless too. Energy Drain is trivially useless (Death Ward) and Magic Jar is right out (Protection from X).
But the counter is actually pretty common at high-levels, (much like true seeing) and long lasting. Energy drain hurts for the same reason, as more and more creatures become immune to necromantic effects as you go up in level, although at least death ward isn't a spell that lasts all day by default. As for magic jar, you just need to get your foot in the door and protection from x no longer applies (plus, it has applications where protection from x just wouldn't come up, like possessing your undead brute minion).

[ryu]

The solution to the politician wasn't meant as a replacement for dominate. That spell was already inadequate for the assigned task for many reasons outlined in the solution. It has a multitude of counters, methods of being found out after the fact, requires the politician not have the most basic of defensive magic items you'd expect to find on someone with political power, and even assuming all that has multiple opportunities for saves to be made, and requires you to go in and recast it every few days. No plan that relies on the enemy being that thoroughly incompetent is acceptable.

[GameSpawn]

But the counter is actually pretty common at high-levels, (much like true seeing) and long lasting. Energy drain hurts for the same reason, as more and more creatures become immune to necromantic effects as you go up in level, although at least death ward isn't a spell that lasts all day by default. As for magic jar, you just need to get your foot in the door and protection from x no longer applies (plus, it has applications where protection from x just wouldn't come up, like possessing your undead brute minion).

Fair point about the duration, but if every opponent you fight has access to a wizard of your level, than you're playing a very different game than I am.


The solution to the politician wasn't meant as a replacement for dominate. That spell was already inadequate for the assigned task for many reasons outlined in the solution. It has a multitude of counters, methods of being found out after the fact, requires the politician not have the most basic of defensive magic items you'd expect to find on someone with political power, and even assuming all that has multiple opportunities for saves to be made, and requires you to go in and recast it every few days. No plan that relies on the enemy being that thoroughly incompetent is acceptable.

It's not terribly difficult to take a magic item away from someone and dominate needs to be recast less than once a week at that point. It's true that dominate has weaknesses (which I noted, as well as noting other enchantments that offer alternatives). I'm still thinking the enchantment school is the way to go at that level though. Can you offer a better solution that's available at the same level though?

[eggynack]

Fair point about the duration, but if every opponent you fight has access to a wizard of your level, than you're playing a very different game than I am.

If I'm at really high levels, and I'm a full caster, and my opponent doesn't have access to some high level of casting, then honestly, I don't care that much about what exact resources I can bring to bear.

[GameSpawn]

If I'm at really high levels, and I'm a full caster, and my opponent doesn't have access to some high level of casting, then honestly, I don't care that much about what exact resources I can bring to bear.

Not all full casters get mind blank though.

[eggynack]

Not all full casters get mind blank though.
I suppose, though it's notable that all primary casters, at least the core ones, and likely core ones also, have access to some form of protection from X, which seems to work against demand. If the minutes/level spell death ward is our standard of thing stopping, then protection from X seems like a problematic little spell.

[Talakeal]

Evocation can be almost completely replaced by either a save-or-die spell, or a save-or-suck spell and a fighter.


LOL. That is so sad, that an entire PC character is less valuable than a single school of magic. I know that isn't what you were trying to say, but its still true...

[ryu]

Not all full casters get mind blank though.

EVERYONE at a decent level gets mind blank. Even the big stupid fighter grips up a magic item of it. It's on the essential magic item list for goodness sake.

[Vogonjeltz]

Illusion by far. Almost entirely useless absent an observer.

Evocation has light spells
Abjuration has spells to protect against harm (always useful)
Transmutation has most of the environment deforming spells
Conjuration has the tool/thing creating spells
Enchantment has the social spells
Divination has the information gathering spells

Necromancy is also pretty awful. Maybe tied with illusion.

[eggynack]

Illusion by far. Almost entirely useless absent an observer.

...The quantity of spells that are useful without an "observer" of some kind is pretty small. I mean, how are enchantment's social spells useful without an observer to be social with? How are abjuration's spells that can protect against harm useful without an observer to protect against? How is any combat spell, ever, useful without some observer? This game has a lot of combat.

[ryu]

Illusion by far. Almost entirely useless absent an observer.

Evocation has light spells
Abjuration has spells to protect against harm (always useful)
Transmutation has most of the environment deforming spells
Conjuration has the tool/thing creating spells
Enchantment has the social spells
Divination has the information gathering spells

Necromancy is also pretty awful. Maybe tied with illusion.

Illusion has ice assassin which is one of the most powerful spells in the entire game unless epic spellcasting is in play in which case all standard spells are kinda pants by comparison.

[GameSpawn]

I suppose, though it's notable that all primary casters, at least the core ones, and likely core ones also, have access to some form of protection from X, which seems to work against demand. If the minutes/level spell death ward is our standard of thing stopping, then protection from X seems like a problematic little spell.

Does it though? The protection from X line specifies the spell must "grant the caster ongoing control over the subject". It seems hard to interpret that as applying in this case.

[eggynack]

Does it though? The protection from X line specifies the spell must "grant the caster ongoing control over the subject". It seems hard to interpret that as applying in this case.
It's explicitly based on suggestion, which causes the target to take actions according to your will for hours. It seems somewhat ongoing, though it's a bit on the ambiguous side, as are most things related to protection from x.

[Vogonjeltz]

...The quantity of spells that are useful without an "observer" of some kind is pretty small. I mean, how are enchantment's social spells useful without an observer to be social with? How are abjuration's spells that can protect against harm useful without an observer to protect against? How is any combat spell, ever, useful without some observer? This game has a lot of combat.

Observer in the sensory sense. For example, basically useless as a school vs the blind.

Enchantment doesn't depend on someone seeing the result to have any impact.
Abjuration can protect against environmental dangers, it would be useful even if there were no foes at all.
Combat spells could be used for terrain deformation :)

Illusion? Not so much.

*ice assassin actually requires other things to exist. If, per my posit, illusion is terrible, than an ice assassin of an illusionist is pretty awful too.

[Svata]

I know necromancy isn't the most POWERFUL school, its kinda lower-end, in fact, but it can be DAMNED useful. Also, its fun, and only mostly blocked by a spell or three, as opposed to enchantment, which is invalidated in numerous ways. Personally I put it equal to evocation, which, as has been shown in this thread, is a fairly underrated school by many. (but ovrrated by newbies)


Oh, and there's an amazing abjuration that hasn't been mentioned yet. (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation.

[eggynack]

Observer in the sensory sense. For example, basically useless as a school vs the blind.
And enchantments are useless versus zombies, oozes, plants, and a bunch of other things besides. I wonder whether there are more blind enemies, or more mindless enemies, and which are generally more dangerous. Also, shadow evocation is a thing.


*ice assassin actually requires other things to exist. If, per my posit, illusion is terrible, than an ice assassin of an illusionist is pretty awful too.
And enchantment doesn't require other things to exist? Weird little game ya got there.

[GameSpawn]

EVERYONE at a decent level gets mind blank. Even the big stupid fighter grips up a magic item of it. It's on the essential magic item list for goodness sake.

I believe you if you say everyone you fight has the effects on that list, but that has not been my experience.


It's explicitly based on suggestion, which causes the target to take actions according to your will for hours. It seems somewhat ongoing, though it's a bit on the ambiguous side, as are most things related to protection from x.

I'd always interpreted it as "can give commands in an ongoing manner". Still, I can see the ambiguity.

[Deophaun]

Protection from x doesn't work against demand, just as it doesn't work against suggestion.

And I'm not going to oversell it: blanket immunity to [Mind-Affecting] is expensive for non-casters, either in gold or character resources. Not everyone is going to have it. But the people who matter will, which cuts down on demand's utility. It's a nice trick if you have need of it.

But at the same time, in the setting we're dealing with, demand's niche seems rather small, and whatever you want the target to accomplish, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a more direct way to do it. At a level eight spell, I'm not sure if it's really worth the spell slot.

[GameSpawn]

Protection from x doesn't work against demand, just as it doesn't work against suggestion.

And I'm not going to oversell it: blanket immunity to [Mind-Affecting] is expensive for non-casters, either in gold or character resources. Not everyone is going to have it. But the people who matter will, which cuts down on demand's utility. It's a nice trick if you have need of it.

But at the same time, in the setting we're dealing with, demand's niche seems rather small, and whatever you want the target to accomplish, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a more direct way to do it. At a level eight spell, I'm not sure if it's really worth the spell slot.

It's very much campaign dependent. My argument is that enchantment is valuable for producing end results that other schools have a hard time creating, so banning it will result in limiting your abilities more than banning necromancy, for example. It's still almost certainly in the bottom three, but I'd argue the ability to create more unique effects is more useful to a wizard than having a 16th way of killing their enemies.

[ryu]

Observer in the sensory sense. For example, basically useless as a school vs the blind.

Enchantment doesn't depend on someone seeing the result to have any impact.
Abjuration can protect against environmental dangers, it would be useful even if there were no foes at all.
Combat spells could be used for terrain deformation :)

Illusion? Not so much.

*ice assassin actually requires other things to exist. If, per my posit, illusion is terrible, than an ice assassin of an illusionist is pretty awful too.

Ice assassin of a high level wizard means there's now TWO high level wizards to cast all the spells, craft contingent spells, and most importantly craft contingent spells onto. Ice assassin is the tool to create all of the best armies. Even if no other creature actually exists in the given universe you can make them exist with this spell thanks to the way spell component pouches work.

[Svata]

Observer in the sensory sense. For example, basically useless as a school vs the blind

Shadow Evocation/Conjuration. Also, many illusions do sounds, too, and if it fails a will save oninteracting with an environmental illusion (hallucinatory terrain) they would still percieve it (through touch/smell/whatever) as wht it is presented as. Oh, and Project Image can even have your spells cast through it, so that works against blind creatures, too, even better sometimes, in fact, as you don't have to worry about hiding from them.

[Spuddles]

Presumably, given that Wizards are the only ones who care about this topic.

Spell Focus on a druid or cleric wouldnt be terrible, especially considering the nasty splatbook status affecting spells they get.

Furthermore, if you are using Wyrm Wizard or some other method of getting non-wizard spells on your list, you might not want to ban evocation given miracle or cometfall or what have you.

[Frostthehero]

Evocation, illusion, and enchantment are all very bad. I see illusion as the worst, simply because it has no combat use. A point was made somewhere that enchantment is the only school that is shut down by one spell, which is not true. Illusion is crippled by true seeing, and even when it isn’t, it can do almost nothing. The 2 good illusion spells are weird and phantasmal killer. Evocation kills stuff, enchantment does too. Illusion has 2 spells. The one advantage is a low level save or die spell.

*edit* invisibility is nice as well, but other schools can replicate it, usually for a longer time. specifically polymorph.

[Anlashok]

The 2 good illusion spells are weird and phantasmal killer. Evocation kills stuff, enchantment does too. Illusion has 2 spells.
Color spray? Shadow Conjuration? Shadow Evocation? Simulacrum? Silent image? Invisibility? Mirror Image?

Honestly Save or Die that you get two saves against probably isn't even in the top 10 illusion spells.

[ryu]

Evocation, illusion, and enchantment are all very bad. I see illusion as the worst, simply because it has no combat use. A point was made somewhere that enchantment is the only school that is shut down by one spell, which is not true. Illusion is crippled by true seeing, and even when it isn’t, it can do almost nothing. The 2 good illusion spells are weird and phantasmal killer. Evocation kills stuff, enchantment does too. Illusion has 2 spells. The one advantage is a low level save or die spell.

*edit* invisibility is nice as well, but other schools can replicate it, usually for a longer time. specifically polymorph.

Ice assassin, killer gnome shadow illusions to cast ninths from level zero slots, and a slew of defensive buffs of such high caliber as to make some form of magical true sight required for high level play.

[Spuddles]

Superior Invisibility can only be defeated by True Seeing, Mindsight, Lifesense, and Touchsight, I believe. And you can (maybe) Mindblank, undeadify, and incorporeal yourself to block everything but mindsight.

Illusion is worth it just for invis.

[Deophaun]

It's very much campaign dependent. My argument is that enchantment is valuable for producing end results that other schools have a hard time creating
But you haven't actually supported this. Getting a guy to do X from far away isn't an end result. It's a means. A Necromancer can use undead eyes or zombie eyes to also do actions remotely, with stricter control, and at far lower levels.

[GameSpawn]

But you haven't actually supported this. Getting a guy to do X from far away isn't an end result. It's a means. A Necromancer can use undead eyes or zombie eyes to also do actions remotely, with stricter control, and at far lower levels.

I want the guy to come back to his city and make an announcement.

[eggynack]

I want the guy to come back to his city and make an announcement.
Why? Does it need to be him, or can it be an illusion of him, or something else of that variety? If it's the former, why must it be the former?

[Vedhin]

I want the guy to come back to his city and make an announcement.

Illusions. Polymorphing. Intimidate. Ice Assassin. Calling an Outsider to impersonate him.

[GameSpawn]

Why? Does it need to be him, or can it be an illusion of him, or something else of that variety? If it's the former, why must it be the former?

It's a variation on the Fisher King. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing)

[ryu]

It's a variation on the Fisher King. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing)

And why is that relevant? We have magic to control the weather, generate the food, and improve general quality of life. That remains true regardless of whether or not some weakling royal is present.

[Vedhin]

It's a variation on the Fisher King. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing)

Ice Assassin should still work.

[GameSpawn]

And why is that relevant? We have magic to control the weather, generate the food, and improve general quality of life. That remains true regardless of whether or not some weakling royal is present.

The announcement is a one time thing (i.e. the equivalent of an instantaneous effect). Control weather has a (comparatively) limited duration and area. I mean, in a general sense, I could devote my entire life toward wandering the kingdom and improving people's lives, but casting demand seems easier.

[Frostthehero]

Color spray? Shadow Conjuration? Shadow Evocation? Simulacrum? Silent image? Invisibility? Mirror Image?

Honestly Save or Die that you get two saves against probably isn't even in the top 10 illusion spells.

every single one of these spells can be shut down by a single one. true seeing crushes it.


Superior Invisibility can only be defeated by True Seeing, Mindsight, Lifesense, and Touchsight, I believe. And you can (maybe) Mindblank, undeadify, and incorporeal yourself to block everything but mindsight.

Illusion is worth it just for invis.
As i said, polymorph can replicate this just as well, and true seeing shuts illusions down.

[GameSpawn]

Ice Assassin should still work.

I suppose I could debate the point about whether it would work or not. Regardless, I don't have Frostburn, but it looks like Ice Assassin is limited in other ways (needing some part of the original, expensive material components, xp cost, always trying to kill the original).

[GameSpawn]

every single one of these spells can be shut down by a single one. true seeing crushes it.

If my opponents are all using True Seeing at the levels where color spray is first available, I think I have bigger problems.

[eggynack]

every single one of these spells can be shut down by a single one. true seeing crushes it.
First, true seeing is a short duration high level spell with a rather expensive material component. Having it up all the time is pretty difficult. Second, true seeing definitely doesn't stop shadow evocation, shadow conjuration, or simulacrum, because they're partially real, and it likely doesn't stop color spray. By contrast, mind blank is a massive duration high level spell, and protection from x is a low level spell with the same duration as true seeing, that's on a lot of lists. Having those up is easier. Simultaneously, protection from X stops most of what enchantment offers, and mind blank stops between literally everything enchantment offers, and everything enchantment offers minus one spell. I generally prefer illusion, given that comparison.

[TuggyNE]

I don't actually understand why shatter mind blank exists. Target gets a save, power resistance, and you have to make a caster level check? Why the hell would I not just use dispel psionics?

There are lots of suboptimal choices in 3.5, but shatter mind blank is like they were actively creating a trap power to suck up a power known.

It's close to useless, but it has two niche values: first is that you automatically get a scaling ML bonus without paying for it, and second is that it works even against powers that are protected against dispelling by e.g. dispelling buffer or some sort of Su transformation shenanigans.

Neither is really worth printing the power, though.


It's a variation on the Fisher King. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing)

If you have to resort to some sort of weird plot-based homebrew to find a useful situation for Enchantment... I don't know what to tell you.

[ryu]

I suppose I could debate the point about whether it would work or not. Regardless, I don't have Frostburn, but it looks like Ice Assassin is limited in other ways (needing some part of the original, expensive material components, xp cost, always trying to kill the original).

The original's part is inside your spell component pouch. The economy is easily broken at this level, we can farm ambrosia for any XP cost or crafting, and the original dying is actually beneficial. Less trying to take his kingdom back from my puppet that way.

[Tar Palantir]

My two cents on enchantment is that, while immunity is relatively easy to come by, anything that isn't immune to it can be handled with whatever level of force you deem necessary, and it can have some big ripple effects. Playing through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft as a psion (not technically enchantment, I know, but bear with me), I made a habit of using charm on uncooperative townsfolk, monsters, quest-relevant NPCs and party members (the last two once we learned IC of Strahd's vampiric nature, for the contested Charisma check for conflicting orders as an alarm bell for domination). While not all-powerful by any means, it helped a great deal with making enemies more receptive to our carrot-and-stick style of diplomacy (my MO was to offer every sapient enemy a peaceful, mutually beneficial arrangement and then brutally murder anyone who turned us down). We managed to substantially delay hostilities between the townsfolk and the werewolves by charming their chief lieutenant, and when his boss threw down with us the charm got him to stay on the sidelines. They may be better for a psion since you can use them only when you need them and not waste headspace on them otherwise, but they're an extremely fine-tuned tool for any caster, even if they don't always work.

[eggynack]

My two cents on enchantment is that, while immunity is relatively easy to come by, anything that isn't immune to it can be handled with whatever level of force you deem necessary, and it can have some big ripple effects. Playing through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft as a psion (not technically enchantment, I know, but bear with me), I made a habit of using charm on uncooperative townsfolk, monsters, quest-relevant NPCs and party members (the last two once we learned IC of Strahd's vampiric nature, for the contested Charisma check for conflicting orders as an alarm bell for domination). While not all-powerful by any means, it helped a great deal with making enemies more receptive to our carrot-and-stick style of diplomacy (my MO was to offer every sapient enemy a peaceful, mutually beneficial arrangement and then brutally murder anyone who turned us down). We managed to substantially delay hostilities between the townsfolk and the werewolves by charming their chief lieutenant, and when his boss threw down with us the charm got him to stay on the sidelines. They may be better for a psion since you can use them only when you need them and not waste headspace on them otherwise, but they're an extremely fine-tuned tool for any caster, even if they don't always work.
It's a very strong effect when it works, certainly, but it's still basically just one effect, over and over again. Even evocation can lay claim to a greater variety of spells, as can necromancy. It's a school of spells that is just riddled with problems.

[Frostthehero]

If my opponents are all using True Seeing at the levels where color spray is first available, I think I have bigger problems.

I never focus on first level. or second. or third. or almost anything else. Really what I do when I play wizard is figure out how to get maximum power at epic level (taking spells that will still be useful later, etc).

[Anlashok]

every single one of these spells can be shut down by a single one. true seeing crushes it.
I'd call blowing sixth level spells with material components to "counter" a first or second level spell a really good deal for the illusionist honestly.


I never focus on first level. or second. or third. or almost anything else. Really what I do when I play wizard is figure out how to get maximum power at epic level (taking spells that will still be useful later, etc).
You're still wasting gold and significantly higher level spell slots to counter cheap low end spells.

[GameSpawn]

If you have to resort to some sort of weird plot-based homebrew to find a useful situation for Enchantment... I don't know what to tell you.

I mean, it a relatively common trope. It's not the only way enchantment is useful; just one I happened to encounter, where I didn't see any alternative that wasn't much more difficult.


The original's part is inside your spell component pouch. The economy is easily broken at this level, we can farm ambrosia for any XP cost or crafting, and the original dying is actually beneficial. Less trying to take his kingdom back from my puppet that way.

That is an absurd and 100% correct interpretation of RAW. I don't think too many DM's would go for it though. It's true that you can start breaking the game at this point, but it's generally considered bad form. I mean, I could make infinite resetting limited wish traps too. If I have the option between breaking the game and not breaking the game, I pick "not".

[Deophaun]

I mean, it a relatively common trope.
I don't know how common "guy makes a speech and the weather changes for all eternity" trope is. But if you've got a guy with that power, then yeah, I expect him to be immune. If he isn't, that kingdom is screwed. Actually, that kingdom was screwed long, long ago, and several times since.

[bekeleven]

I know necromancy isn't the most POWERFUL school, its kinda lower-end, in fact, but it can be DAMNED useful. Also, its fun, and only mostly blocked by a spell or three, as opposed to enchantment, which is invalidated in numerous ways. Personally I put it equal to evocation, which, as has been shown in this thread, is a fairly underrated school by many. (but ovrrated by newbies)


Oh, and there's an amazing abjuration that hasn't been mentioned yet. (Greater) Anticipate Teleportation.

I mentioned it in my post about the best spells of each school.

I also mentioned Alter Fortune, yet nobody's saying divination is the best school for some reason.

[GameSpawn]

I don't know how common "guy makes a speech and the weather changes for all eternity" trope is. But if you've got a guy with that power, then yeah, I expect him to be immune. If he isn't, that kingdom is screwed. Actually, that kingdom was screwed long, long ago, and several times since.

Fisher King's pretty common; the variation, not so much (that I know of).

EDIT: Really though, every kingdom in a D&D world that doesn't have a whole bunch of high-level benevolent spellcasters is screwed if you take everything to it's logical extension. So I don't give DMs too much grief over it.

[ryu]

I mean, it a relatively common trope. It's not the only way enchantment is useful; just one I happened to encounter, where I didn't see any alternative that wasn't much more difficult.



That is an absurd and 100% correct interpretation of RAW. I don't think too many DM's would go for it though. It's true that you can start breaking the game at this point, but it's generally considered bad form. I mean, I could make infinite resetting limited wish traps too. If I have the option between breaking the game and not breaking the game, I pick "not".

Okay lets get one thing straight here. You can't create infinite anything. You can create an arbitrarily large amount of something. you can create something that creates an ever-expanding, but still constantly finite amount of something. You can even break all of the laws of conservation at the same time if the mood strikes you as a wizard. Creating infinite anything is still impossible though.

[GameSpawn]

Okay lets get one thing straight here. You can't create infinite anything. You can create an arbitrarily large amount of something. you can create something that creates an ever-expanding, but still constantly finite amount of something. You can even break all of the laws of conservation at the same time if the mood strikes you as a wizard. Creating infinite anything is still impossible though.

I actually meant to type "infinitely". My bad.

[ryu]

I actually meant to type "infinitely". My bad.

Even then entropy of existence will make the resetting stop eventually. There is no infinity that makes any sense in D&D. This has been conclusively proven time and again on this forum.

[GameSpawn]

Even then entropy of existence will make the resetting stop eventually. There is no infinity that makes any sense in D&D. This has been conclusively proven time and again on this forum.

You got me. Enchantment is worthless as a school because of the inevitable heat death of the universe. But to be fair, there aren't very many spells that are useful at that point.

EDIT: In all seriousness, would you mind providing links to that? I haven't seen it before, but it sounds like it might be interesting.

[ryu]

You got me. Enchantment is worthless as a school because of the inevitable heat death of the universe. But to be fair, there aren't very many spells that are useful at that point.

EDIT: In all seriousness, would you mind providing links to that? I haven't seen it before, but it sounds like it might be interesting.

Basically we got into this whole pile of nonsense about what the balls an infinity of infinite planes even means and now I simply accept as a matter of principle that the planes are finite in number if arbitrarily large or constantly expanding and finite in size if again arbitrarily large or constantly expanding. Why? Because we just don't even know what modelling the alternative would even MEAN!

[TuggyNE]

I mean, it a relatively common trope.

It's really not that common. In fantasy literature involving spellcasters who would be capable of this trick, I can think of only one example offhand, and that example is one where the Fisher King in question was extremely clever, extremely strong-willed, extremely paranoid, and extremely powerful. The result being that anyone who messed with him would generally die horribly, so this is, if anything, something of a strike against.

Now, who knows, perhaps my reasonably wide range of reading material just happened to miss all the dozens and dozens of examples out there, all of which expound upon Fisher Kings just waiting for the right meddling enchanter to come and bring them to their senses. I doubt it.


It's not the only way enchantment is useful; just one I happened to encounter, where I didn't see any alternative that wasn't much more difficult.

Well, what are some of the others?

[Frostthehero]

I'd call blowing sixth level spells with material components to "counter" a first or second level spell a really good deal for the illusionist honestly.


You're still wasting gold and significantly higher level spell slots to counter cheap low end spells.

(both of these were in reply to quotes)
you counter EVERY spell that the illusionist casts in the 11- however long period of time you have the spell in effect. no mageduel lasts that long. an easy way to counter illusions outside of combat is to use permanency on arcane sight, and go and touch or dispell anything that has an aura.

[ryu]

(both of these were in reply to quotes)
you counter EVERY spell that the illusionist casts in the 11- however long period of time you have the spell in effect. no mageduel lasts that long. an easy way to counter illusions outside of combat is to use permanency on arcane sight, and go and touch or dispell anything that has an aura.

Doesn't work on the army of simalcrums and ice assassins. Also doesn't work on all the spells of various schools that are going to get dropped on you by simple nature of them being there.

[eggynack]

(both of these were in reply to quotes)
you counter EVERY spell that the illusionist casts in the 11- however long period of time you have the spell in effect. no mageduel lasts that long. an easy way to counter illusions outside of combat is to use permanency on arcane sight, and go and touch or dispell anything that has an aura.
It's kinda odd how many times I have to explain this. True seeing does not counter every illusion. Seriously, we keep listing them, and you just ignore the facts. Also, if you're casting true seeing in combat, then that's an action, a pile of gold, and a high level spell you're spending, after which point the wizard can take that round to kill you. He could use one of the true seeing bypassing illusions I mentioned, if you need that, or he can use one from another school, under the assumption that the illusion already did its work if it caused your wizard to waste a whole round.

[Anlashok]

you counter EVERY spell that the illusionist casts in the 11- however long period of time you have the spell in effect. no mageduel lasts that long.
As already pointed out. It's not every spell. Sure, beating invisibility is good, but you're not going to have it up all the time and if you're just spamming it constantly waiting for when you might bump into an illusionist you're going to be chewing through your spells pretty quickly. Once the duel starts, sure it's good to throw up... if you know you're dealing with illusions.

dispell anything that has an aura.
Dumping level 3 (level 6 spells if you're dealing with a particularly high level mage) on everything vaguely magical on the offchance you might be dealing with an illusion doesn't seem like an effective use of resources either.

Again, no one's saying illusion is perfect, but your hypothetical mage is basically spending all their spell slots on dispel magic and true seeing and just hoping they find an illusionist sometime that day, which isn't particularly practical.


it allows you to see through the disguises on the simalcrums and ice assassins. all you would see would be a mound of snow, or an ice statue. as for the other schools, i am simply stating why illusion is the worst, not defending the merits of true seeing.
Except Simulacra and Ice Assassins are actual constructs. True Seeing would tell you the ice assassin isn't your clone. It wouldn't stop the ice assassin from ganking you though.

[Frostthehero]

Doesn't work on the army of simalcrums and ice assassins. Also doesn't work on all the spells of various schools that are going to get dropped on you by simple nature of them being there.

removes the disguises.


It's kinda odd how many times I have to explain this. True seeing does not counter every illusion. Seriously, we keep listing them, and you just ignore the facts. Also, if you're casting true seeing in combat, then that's an action, a pile of gold, and a high level spell you're spending, after which point the wizard can take that round to kill you. He could use one of the true seeing bypassing illusions I mentioned, if you need that, or he can use one from another school, under the assumption that the illusion already did its work if it caused your wizard to waste a whole round.

as i said. removes the disguises. sure, it cant counter shadow evocation, but it still allows you to disbelieve, and after that, you can fight without much trouble. disintegrate on constructs anyone?


As already pointed out. It's not every spell. Sure, beating invisibility is good, but you're not going to have it up all the time and if you're just spamming it constantly waiting for when you might bump into an illusionist you're going to be chewing through your spells pretty quickly. Once the duel starts, sure it's good to throw up... if you know you're dealing with illusions.

Dumping level 3 (level 6 spells if you're dealing with a particularly high level mage) on everything vaguely magical on the offchance you might be dealing with an illusion doesn't seem like an effective use of resources either.

Again, no one's saying illusion is perfect, but your hypothetical mage is basically spending all their spell slots on dispel magic and true seeing and just hoping they find an illusionist sometime that day, which isn't particularly practical.


Except Simulacra and Ice Assassins are actual constructs. True Seeing would tell you the ice assassin isn't your clone. It wouldn't stop the ice assassin from ganking you though.

in counter to point 1 - arcane sight will finish that up just fine. anything that is out of the ordinary, go and check out.
counter to point 2 - i also said you could touch it, so that you waste no spells, and you know if it is real or not.
as for the ice assassin, i have one word. disintegrate.

[eggynack]

as i said. removes the disguises. sure, it cant counter shadow evocation, but it still allows you to disbelieve, and after that, you can fight without much trouble. disintegrate on constructs anyone?

What does it even mean to "remove the disguise" of a simulacrum? Does doing that have any impact on the simulacrum's combat viability, at all? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. As for disbelieving shadow evocation, that's pretty tricky (read: impossible), when the shadow evocation is a contingency. Finally, simulacrum doesn't make constructs.

[ryu]

Also lets assume for the sake of argument that disintegrate automatically destroys all constructs (hint: it doesn't.) That's ONE ice assassin or simalcrum dead. What are you going to do about his hundreds of identical brothers?

[Frostthehero]

What does it even mean to "remove the disguise" of a simulacrum? Does doing that have any impact on the simulacrum's combat viability, at all? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. As for disbelieving shadow evocation, that's pretty tricky (read: impossible), when the shadow evocation is a contingency. Finally, simulacrum doesn't make constructs.

simulacrum does create constructs. once i know that the creature has 1/2 of my abilities, i simply kill it. or, if there are too many to kill, i discern location.


Also lets assume for the sake of argument that disintegrate automatically destroys all constructs (hint: it doesn't.) That's ONE ice assassin or simalcrum dead. What are you going to do about his hundreds of identical brothers?

i apologize for the disintegrate fallacy, i was thinking in terms of golems (really crappy saves). but hundreds of identical brothers? at 5000 times the XP cost? seems unlikely that i fight more than a few.


actually, my arguments are starting to sound a bit stupid. maybe you guys are right (i usually need to have things pounded through my skull)

upon further consideration, you are right. i concede.

*edit* can we all schools are useful under certain circumstances, and just say that generalists are great, and so are specialists, and be done with it? join the cabal of the one and the five (PHB2). one extra spell per level

[ryu]

I farm ambrosia. Spell XP costs and all crafting costs are meaningless to me starting around level ten.

[Frostthehero]

um... what? can you please refer me a link to the rules for this? knowing my DM, i would probably be fried in an instant, but i still want to know.

[eggynack]

simulacrum does create constructs. once i know that the creature has 1/2 of my abilities, i simply kill it. or, if there are too many to kill, i discern location.
I think you will find, on further reading, that simulacrum nowhere states that it creates constructs.

[ryu]

um... what? can you please refer me a link to the rules for this? knowing my DM, i would probably be fried in an instant, but i still want to know.

Book of exalted deeds. Look up the spell distilled joy. Put that in some wondrous architecture to cast it repeatedly on a regular basis. This nets you ambrosia which can be used in place of XP for all crafting and spell costs. My particular method of choice is wondrous architecture beds in a self-owned brothel. Profitable and silly.

[Frostthehero]

My particular method of choice is wondrous architecture beds in a self-owned brothel. Profitable and silly.
sorry, but what are these? I looked them up, and i seem to be able to find nothing.

[ryu]

sorry, but what are these? I looked them up, and i seem to be able to find nothing.

Wondrous architecture or brothels? Wondrous architecture is essentially an immobile structure you put spells in to be cast over and over again in bulk. If the other thing well just think selling the service of pleasure on a grand scale.

[Frostthehero]

Wondrous architecture or brothels? Wondrous architecture is essentially an immobile structure you put spells in to be cast over and over again in bulk. If the other thing well just think selling the service of pleasure on a grand scale.

how would i engineer putting these spells into beds? am i failing to make a vital connection?

[ryu]

how would i engineer putting these spells into beds? am i failing to make a vital connection?

Are you familiar with stronghold builder's guide?

[Frostthehero]

no. and unfortunately this message must be ten characters long.

[ryu]

no. and unfortunately this message must be ten characters long.

Well get stronghold builders guide. It has intensive rules for this exact thing, how to build and properly fortify the castle you keep in your own demiplane, and lots of other neat things.

[ace rooster]

Evocation, illusion, and enchantment are all very bad. I see illusion as the worst, simply because it has no combat use. A point was made somewhere that enchantment is the only school that is shut down by one spell, which is not true. Illusion is crippled by true seeing, and even when it isn’t, it can do almost nothing. The 2 good illusion spells are weird and phantasmal killer. Evocation kills stuff, enchantment does too. Illusion has 2 spells. The one advantage is a low level save or die spell.

*edit* invisibility is nice as well, but other schools can replicate it, usually for a longer time. specifically polymorph.

People have pointed out a lot of problems with this, but I thought I would add another two.

Project image. It comes online slightly after true seeing, but knowing that what you are seeing is a shadow in no way helps you against the spells it is throwing around. Using it you can break line of effect from your target and still be able to attack them without penalty, at extended range no less. Unless your opponent can attack you at medium+ range without knowing where you are and without line of effect, then you are safe from retaliation. It is one of the meatiest combat defense spells I know of.

Range. True seeing is limited to 120ft. Illusions have long range. Have fun against the many copies of the spellcaster surrounding you, that are all out of range of your true seeing, and each need an action to interact with. After you identify which group is the real group, if you are outwith 120ft, his mirror image spell works fine.

What you cannot see you cannot kill, and divination has limits. Illusions are not good at killing things, but they are very good at defense and diversion.

I have to say that enchantment is the only school that I am comfortable losing, and that is because I rarely play social characters. Every other school seems to have at least one niche that the other schools find hard or impossible to fill. These niches are situational, but that doesn't make them irrelevant. Is a spanner more useful than a highly specialised jig for a particular machine? Depends entirely on situation.

[ryu]

People have pointed out a lot of problems with this, but I thought I would add another two.

Project image. It comes online slightly after true seeing, but knowing that what you are seeing is a shadow in no way helps you against the spells it is throwing around. Using it you can break line of effect from your target and still be able to attack them without penalty, at extended range no less. Unless your opponent can attack you at medium+ range without knowing where you are and without line of effect, then you are safe from retaliation. It is one of the meatiest combat defense spells I know of.

Range. True seeing is limited to 120ft. Illusions have long range. Have fun against the many copies of the spellcaster surrounding you, that are all out of range of your true seeing, and each need an action to interact with. After you identify which group is the real group, if you are outwith 120ft, his mirror image spell works fine.

What you cannot see you cannot kill, and divination has limits. Illusions are not good at killing things, but they are very good at defense and diversion.

I have to say that enchantment is the only school that I am comfortable losing, and that is because I rarely play social characters. Every other school seems to have at least one niche that the other schools find hard or impossible to fill. These niches are situational, but that doesn't make them irrelevant. Is a spanner more useful than a highly specialised jig for a particular machine? Depends entirely on situation.

Enchantment has exactly one use at the highest level of OP outside pun-pun that I would feel uncomfortable losing. That would be defensive use of mind rape to control exactly what amount of knowledge you have of your contingent spell defenses. This layers on top of Vecna-blooded immunity to divinations to also prevent people getting info on you fully by mind-raping an ice assassin of you. It's a very important piece in the information war that is contingency chess. It only comes up at ridiculous levels of OP and with extreme paranoia.

[GameSpawn]

It's really not that common. In fantasy literature involving spellcasters who would be capable of this trick, I can think of only one example offhand, and that example is one where the Fisher King in question was extremely clever, extremely strong-willed, extremely paranoid, and extremely powerful. The result being that anyone who messed with him would generally die horribly, so this is, if anything, something of a strike against.

Now, who knows, perhaps my reasonably wide range of reading material just happened to miss all the dozens and dozens of examples out there, all of which expound upon Fisher Kings just waiting for the right meddling enchanter to come and bring them to their senses. I doubt it.

I don't think there are many that went the same as in that game, but the linked page has a list of examples.


Well, what are some of the others?

Off hand, in the demand situation, if the guy had information I needed, I'm not sure how else I would get it (short of assuming I have his fingernails in my spell component pouch for ice assassin, which doesn't make any sense and is kind of an inferior solution anyway. That component REALLY needed to be a focus). My recourse at that point would probably be trying to get the information some other way, which might or might not work.

Other uses I've seen in game that I'm not sure how I would replicate (at that level) without enchantment:

Using Charm Person to avoid starting a fight with an NPC in front of the group he was in charge of.
Using Charm Person to avoid a long combat and exploration sequence involved in gaining someone's trust and convincing them to come off with the group (later, beating the guy up worked for the rest of the journey, but if they'd tried it at the time they cast charm person, they would have started a fight with the whole town).
Using Charm Person to get a group of NPCs encountered in a dungeon to help guide them through the area.

In retrospect, enchantment's main advantage appears to be subtlety. I'll try to think of some more examples, but I need to get to work :smallfrown:.

As a side note, most of the spells I've seen suggested to work around not having enchantment are relatively obscure (Voice of the Dragon, Ice Assassin). Would you still feel enchantment is a redundant school in a core only game?

[ryu]

Considering craft contingent spell is out of core vecna-blooded to my knowledge and ice assassin as well, thus meaning I don't even want mind-rape at all? What possible argument could you make for me caring that enchantment exists?

[Deophaun]

You know, I'm going to throw another use of illusion out there that true seeing doesn't combat, but is invaluable: spellbooks made from permanent image. Now you can make backups of your spellbook for 100gp a shot, and add new spells you've learned by concentrating.

[ryu]

You know, I'm going to throw another use of illusion out there that true seeing doesn't combat, but is invaluable: spellbooks made from permanent image. Now you can make backups of your spellbook for 100gp a shot, and add new spells you've learned by concentrating.

Do... Do they actually function as legal spellbooks by RAW? I thought the excuse for the ink being so stupidly expensive was that it had to be rare ingredients that conferred some magical hipity skipity to the words written essential for using the spells in the wizard style... My word. The cheap low level backup potential is silly.

[Deophaun]

I thought the excuse for the ink being so stupidly expensive was that it had to be rare ingredients that conferred some magical hipity skipity to the words written essential for using the spells in the wizard style...
That was the case in 2e, but I haven't seen it in 3.5. Considering that spells you get as you level are freebies, and the cost for copying from a spellbook are halved, I don't think it applies.

[ryu]

That was the case in 2e, but I haven't seen it in 3.5. Considering that spells you get as you level are freebies, and the cost for copying from a spellbook are halved, I don't think it applies.

Okay this is officially hilarious if true. You are all now imagining the wizards coming to our world and immediately switching all spell storage to kindles.

[Sliver]

No no, the ink is quite expensive and needed


Once a wizard understands a new spell, she can record it into her spellbook.

Time: The process takes 24 hours, regardless of the spell’s level.

Space in the Spellbook: A spell takes up one page of the spellbook per spell level, so a 2nd-level spell takes two pages, a 5th-level spell takes five pages, and so forth. Even a 0-level spell (cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.

Materials and Costs: Materials for writing the spell (special quills, inks, and other supplies) cost 100 gp per page.

Note that a wizard does not have to pay these costs in time or gold for the spells she gains for free at each new level. She simply adds these to her spellbook as part of her ongoing research.

[Deophaun]

No no, the ink is quite expensive and needed
The ink is expensive. Its need is only established if you're writing the spell down. Creating an illusion of a spellbook does not require you to write anything, so the need for ink is not established in that case.

Ryu was asking if there was a rule that the ink needed to be expensive because it was containing magical energies or some such, which would indicate that an illusory spellbook wouldn't work. What you quoted doesn't say that.

[ryu]

Dammit. Well it was a nice dream while it lasted.

[nedz]

Evocation, illusion, and enchantment are all very bad. I see illusion as the worst, simply because it has no combat use. A point was made somewhere that enchantment is the only school that is shut down by one spell, which is not true. Illusion is crippled by true seeing, and even when it isn’t, it can do almost nothing. The 2 good illusion spells are weird and phantasmal killer. Evocation kills stuff, enchantment does too. Illusion has 2 spells. The one advantage is a low level save or die spell.

*edit* invisibility is nice as well, but other schools can replicate it, usually for a longer time. specifically polymorph.

You've possibly never seen illusions done well, especially since you list two awful spells as good. Illusions are hard to do well, but at the height of the art the target doesn't even suspect something is awry and so doesn't try to disbelieve or even cast True Seeing. They are trickier to pull off at high level and mages are the hardest mark, but not every encounter is a mage duel.

[Loxagn]

Well, I would actually say Enchantment. It's seriously an entire school invalidated by a single spell.

Evocation is a close second, although there are specific builds which can get away from this. (Hell, the most damaging spells aren't even Evocation. Disintegrate is Conjuration I believe, as is Harm, and Illusion can already replicate most of the good stuff Evocation can produce). The Macross Missile Massacre Mage in particular comes to mind, dealing hundreds of damage with no roll or save with 28 negative levels slapped on top of that with one spell cast. But that's getting into obscene optimization levels.

For third place, I'd have to say Necromancy. There are quite a few spells there that can be easily negated, although it's been a while since I've looked so that might be faulty memory playing tricks on me.

I think it's fairly universally agreed that the most useful schools are going to be Transmutation (Shapechange, Time Stop) and Conjuration (Gate, Teleportation). Also of great use are Abjuration and Divination. Illusion sees some utility as well with the Shadow Conjuration line and the ability to fool scrying.

Edit: Nevermind, Illusion's in fourth place. Abjuration does anti-scrying better.

[Vedhin]

(Hell, the most damaging spells aren't even Evocation. Disintegrate is Conjuration I believe, as is Harm, and Illusion can already replicate most of the good stuff Evocation can produce).

Disintegrate is Transmutation. For what it's worth, Stored Lightning Bolt from Secrets of Sarlona can potentially match the 2d6/level damage Disintegrate deals.


And, since True Seeing is being discussed, what does the thread think of Illusion Purge from Races of Eberron?

[Loxagn]

My mistake. Just goes to show you, Transmutation's pretty much just plain better. And I don't believe I've read Secrets of Sarlona. I was just talking out of core. Of course, splatbooks might give some better quality-of-life for the lower-tier schools. It's just that unfortunately, no matter what you do, Mind Blank still screws Enchantment, and flat damage is almost never going to be the best solution to the problem (barbarians do it better anyway).

[Sliver]

I find it amusing how many times people have been mistaken about the Disintegrate's school, within this thread.

[Zanos]

I find it amusing how many times people have been mistaken about the Disintegrate's school, within this thread.
I also see it being listed as a great damage spell, which is pretty hilarious.

I guess it's good against undead and constructs. As a general purpose damage spell it's terrible. The utility it gives though is pretty good. Being able to disintegrate force effects is invaluable.

[ace rooster]

I also see it being listed as a great damage spell, which is pretty hilarious.

I guess it's good against undead and constructs. As a general purpose damage spell it's terrible. The utility it gives though is pretty good. Being able to disintegrate force effects is invaluable.

Don't forget about it being one of the few reliable ways to kill something immune to HP death. It will turn a frenzied bezerker construct to dust if he is below 0hp just like anything else. If he is already below 5d6 worth of hit points his save doesn't even help. A bit specialist, but worth remembering.

Illusion purge looks good, but it doesn't seem stronger than true seeing. It has lower range, and I suppose a party only needs one casting, but it also prevents the entire party from using illusion based defenses, as well as alerting enemies around corners who can see an illusion ("huh, what happened to the invisible pit, better check the arrow slots."). In a fight at range it only shuts down your own defenses.
It seems like a very double edged sword, and at 8th level a very expensive one. It does shut down similacrums though, which is fun. A bit blunt for my liking.

Edit: I suppose it could be good for stripping the defenses of a creature for attack from a distance by another attacker, which true seeing would not be able to do, but that doesn't seem like a job for a full caster. They should be the one at a distance.

[Vogonjeltz]

And enchantments are useless versus zombies, oozes, plants, and a bunch of other things besides. I wonder whether there are more blind enemies, or more mindless enemies, and which are generally more dangerous. Also, shadow evocation is a thing.

And enchantment doesn't require other things to exist? Weird little game ya got there.

Strictly speaking no enemy must use sight to fight. So illusion is conceivably useless against all enemies, not just the mindless subset.

As a matter of fact, heroism doesn't require anyone else, and it provides bonuses to skill checks. So even in a complete wilderness with no other creatures, enchantment is superior to illusion.

[Vedhin]

Strictly speaking no enemy must use sight to fight. So illusion is conceivably useless against all enemies, not just the mindless subset.

As a matter of fact, heroism doesn't require anyone else, and it provides bonuses to skill checks. So even in a complete wilderness with no other creatures, enchantment is superior to illusion.

Shadow Conjuration (Create Magic Tattoo)?

Dream, to call for help?

Shadow Walk, to go somewhere else?

[ryu]

Shadow Conjuration (Create Magic Tattoo)?

Dream, to call for help?

Shadow Walk, to go somewhere else?

Shadow Conjuration (Create Food and Water) willingly fail the save on interaction and thus obviate survival checks.

[eggynack]

Strictly speaking no enemy must use sight to fight. So illusion is conceivably useless against all enemies, not just the mindless subset.
That's not really how it works. Or, to be more accurate, it is how it works, but you're arguing that the text of all illusion spells have their text replaced with, "Every enemy in every combat is blind, no save," which is pretty awesome, actually. Or, to be even more accurate, that isn't how it works, because some illusions work just fine against blind enemies, many of whom have been listed. You've just kinda decided to ignore them for some unfathomable reason.


As a matter of fact, heroism doesn't require anyone else, and it provides bonuses to skill checks. So even in a complete wilderness with no other creatures, enchantment is superior to illusion.
As others have noted, illusions actually do have utility when there are no enemies/friends/people. However, as I'm noting now, I don't care. If we're in vast featureless wilderness world, with absolutely no enemies, then I'm pretty apathetic about what particular school I've banned. Honestly, is that the sort of game you play? Do you often play games with just you, in a void of nothingness? Do you often, within those games, regret the fact that you banned enchantment instead of illusion, because oh man, heroism is a thing? Honestly, I'm pretty frigging doubtful.

Edit: Correction, in order for illusions to be ineffective, enemies would either need to know that they're facing an illusion, or always keep their eyes closed. So, my description of "silent image" now reads, "You are blinded permanently, no save, retroactively." I mean, sure, you can just close your eyes permanently, and that's your prerogative, but again, honestly, I'm pretty doubtful that you'd do that. Maybe with a blindfold of true darkness, but that's kinda a different thing, and definitely not every creature having immunity.

[Vedhin]

Or, to be more accurate, it is how it works, but you're arguing that the text of all illusion spells have their text replaced with, "Every enemy in every combat is blind, no save," which is pretty awesome, actually.

I'd totally cast those spells. No special conditions needed for the Rogue to Sneak Attack? 50% miss chance for the entire party (defensively)? The Fighter effectively has a +4 to trip and bull rush. Everything but us moves at half speed? And effectively a bonus to hit?

[eggynack]

I'd totally cast those spells. No special conditions needed for the Rogue to Sneak Attack? 50% miss chance for the entire party (defensively)? The Fighter effectively has a +4 to trip and bull rush. Everything but us moves at half speed? And effectively a bonus to hit?
Don't forget that they also suffer the standard downside of having their eyes closed, which is just not knowing where you are. It's like hyper-invisibility, given that the enemy knows neither where any party member is, nor where any environmental objects are. It's not exactly a good state of affairs.

[Vedhin]

Don't forget that they also suffer the standard downside of having their eyes closed, which is just not knowing where you are. It's like hyper-invisibility, given that the enemy knows neither where any party member is, nor where any environmental objects are. It's not exactly a good state of affairs.

So by potentially knowing a single spell, I have turned the world invisible, no save, for everything but my allies? Best. Spell. Ever.

[Deophaun]

You've just kinda decided to ignore them for some unfathomable reason.
He's not ignoring them. He's rolling to disbelieve.

[ryu]

He's not ignoring them. He's rolling to disbelieve.

Sadly for him they are over 100% real due to shadow magic.

[Vogonjeltz]

Shadow Conjuration (Create Food and Water) willingly fail the save on interaction and thus obviate survival checks.

Then you'd only think the food actually existed, it wouldn't provide nourishment.


He's not ignoring them. He's rolling to disbelieve.

Well played sir.

Eggynack, you're getting awfully worked up over my personal opinion. I like enchantment more than illusion, you like illusion more. /shrug

[Zanos]

Then you'd only think the food actually existed, it wouldn't provide nourishment.
I was under the impression that Shadow Conjuration effects were still partially real. That's how people take real(not nonlethal) damage from Shadow Conjuration/Evocation spells.

And as silly as it is, by RAW you can disbelieve food you know is fake by failing your will save and eat it to somehow treat it like normal food. Shadow Conjuration is weird like that.

[Vogonjeltz]

I was under the impression that Shadow Conjuration effects were still partially real. That's how people take real(not nonlethal) damage from Shadow Conjuration/Evocation spells.

And as silly as it is, by RAW you can disbelieve food you know is fake by failing your will save and eat it to somehow treat it like normal food. Shadow Conjuration is weird like that.

You can believe its real, but it isn't real.


Illusion
Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened.

Oh and failing a saving throw most certainly does not make an illusion real:


A failed saving throw indicates that a character fails to notice something is amiss. A character faced with proof that an illusion isn’t real needs no saving throw. If any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus.

[ryu]

Aw but the food does exist. It only doesn't exist if I refuse to believe in it. As I'm the one eating it I deliberately fail my will save. Alternatively make an ice assassin so we can ''find'' food and water for each other. Face it man enchantment doesn't get to compete on even remotely even terms with a school that crib from conjuration. Also evocation and unique spells all its own, but I find it funnier that I can literally take care of this with a single level 3 spell.

[Vogonjeltz]

Aw but the food does exist. It only doesn't exist if I refuse to believe in it. As I'm the one eating it I deliberately fail my will save. Alternatively make an ice assassin so we can ''find'' food and water for each other. Face it man enchantment doesn't get to compete on even remotely even terms with a school that crib from conjuration. Also evocation and unique spells all its own, but I find it funnier that I can literally take care of this with a single level 3 spell.

If you're making an ice assassin you already have a creature sized block of ice, so water isn't a problem.

*what level 3 spell did you have in mind?

[Deophaun]

You can believe its real, but it isn't real.
You need to keep reading there:

Shadow

A shadow spell creates something that is partially real from extradimensional energy. Such illusions can have real effects. Damage dealt by a shadow illusion is real.
Right there in the description of the subschool, just like Zanos said.

[eggynack]

Eggynack, you're getting awfully worked up over my personal opinion. I like enchantment more than illusion, you like illusion more. /shrug
I think my reasons for that are pretty good. Your assessment completely ignores a pretty good number of spells that don't care that you're closing your eyes, and even if this worked universally, blinding yourself to block illusions is a pretty horrible plan. This isn't an argument of opinion, is the thing. We can make reasonably objective assessments of how illusion compares to enchantment, and while different opinions may arise about how to evaluate those objective facts, the underlying nature of the game stays the same.

So, were you to say something like, "I value the ability to control enemies over this vast pile of stuff," then I disagree, but you're still in opinion mode. When you say stuff like, "closing your eyes makes you perfectly immune to illusions," (not directly what you said, but accurate to what you said), in that case, you're saying something that's absolutely and objectively wrong. And I'm going to say that. Like I just did.

[Vogonjeltz]

You need to keep reading there:

Right there in the description of the subschool, just like Zanos said.

Shadow Conjuration can't mimic cleric spells (create food and water). Which is probably why it doesn't get more specific than discussing damage dealing.

*eggynack it most certainly is a matter of opinion, you value illusions more than I do. Illusions are capable of miming some evocation or conjuration spells, at great cost, whereas enchantment is capable of ending the encounter entirely by coopting the threat, which increases the casters overall power.

Enemies that are immune to enchantment can be destroyed by those that aren't. Illusions have no such work around. If something bypasses them, the illusionist is just out of luck.

[squiggit]

You can believe its real, but it isn't real.

Even if you make the save against a shadow conjuration it's still 20% real, and if you fail the save you're effected by them at full strength. That's exactly what the spell says it does.

The bigger problem here is that Shadow Conjuration explicitly says it allows you to take spells off the sorcerer/wizard list, not the cleric list.

[Deophaun]

Shadow Conjuration can't mimic cleric spells (create food and water). Which is probably why it doesn't get more specific than discussing damage dealing.
I'm sorry, but weren't there goalposts here? There's a hole in the ground where they were, and it there are tracks in the turf from excavation equipment. And I never noticed goalposts on the roof of the administration building before, but those look identical to the ones I thought were here.

Why, it's almost like someone moved them.

[Vogonjeltz]

I'm sorry, but weren't there goalposts here? There's a hole in the ground where they were, and it there are tracks in the turf from excavation equipment. And I never noticed goalposts on the roof of the administration building before, but those look identical to the ones I thought were here.

Why, it's almost like someone moved them.

Really? I would say someone overstated what the illusion could do, claiming it could feed the caster.

[ryu]

If you're making an ice assassin you already have a creature sized block of ice, so water isn't a problem.

Actually you are fully aware that ice is actually less dense than water right? At around 39 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 Celsius it reaches maxium density of about roughly 1000 kg/m^3 and actually gets less dense as temperature lowers from there. In ice form at 0 Celsius assuming no unnatural process keeping it out of ice form it's almost ten percent less dense. Now what would you like to assume as room temperature for this experiment to find out exactly how much volume a cubic meter of ice would melt into.

[Pex]

The Mystic Theurge in my group is having a grand ol' time with his evocation spells. He knows he's a blaster. He wants to be a blaster. He's effective at being a blaster. Sometimes his blasting spells kill the bad guys by themselves. Other times party members do mop up. He's not an "idiot". It matters not to him or the rest of the players whether his spell kills the bad guy alone or his spell plus another party member kills the bad guy.

What is the least useful is only a matter of one's personal taste. You can scream Enervation and Animate Dead all you want to me. If playing a specialist wizard I ban Necromancy with ease. It does not appeal to me at all. It's the second school that's the problem. Depending on my mood and specialization it's either Illusion, Enchantment, or Conjuration. That's right, I said Conjuration. I do like the school but do not find it the nirvana others do. However, I'm not going to call someone an "idiot" just because he likes Conjuration or Illusion or Necromancy and wants to ban Evocation. We just have different preferences. Neither of us is playing the wizard Wrong.

[Deophaun]

Enemies that are immune to enchantment can be destroyed by those that aren't. Illusions have no such work around. If something bypasses them, the illusionist is just out of luck.
Illusionists can take levels of Shadowcraft Mage and potentially get their shadow-spells to be 120% real after a saving throw. In other words: Illusionists have access to class features that tosses this weakness out the window.

The closest thing enchanters have to that is Dread Witch, but that's only applicable to [Fear] spells and fails if the target has 5 HD on them.

Really? I would say someone overstated what the illusion could do, claiming it could feed the caster.
Considering you said that illusions were never real, yes, really. I think you just moved them to a whole 'nother country.

[Vogonjeltz]

Illusionists can take levels of Shadowcraft Mage and potentially get their shadow-spells to be 120% real after a saving throw. In other words: Illusionists have access to class features that tosses this weakness out the window.


Potentially if one is using an epic spell slot 12th level spells, not exactly worth using just to deal 120% damage of an evocation spell.

[Zanos]

The Mystic Theurge in my group is having a grand ol' time with his evocation spells. He knows he's a blaster. He wants to be a blaster. He's effective at being a blaster. Sometimes his blasting spells kill the bad guys by themselves. Other times party members do mop up. He's not an "idiot". It matters not to him or the rest of the players whether his spell kills the bad guy alone or his spell plus another party member kills the bad guy.

What is the least useful is only a matter of one's personal taste. You can scream Enervation and Animate Dead all you want to me. If playing a specialist wizard I ban Necromancy with ease. It does not appeal to me at all. It's the second school that's the problem. Depending on my mood and specialization it's either Illusion, Enchantment, or Conjuration. That's right, I said Conjuration. I do like the school but do not find it the nirvana others do. However, I'm not going to call someone an "idiot" just because he likes Conjuration or Illusion or Necromancy and wants to ban Evocation. We just have different preferences. Neither of us is playing the wizard Wrong.
I don't think anyone accused anyone of playing the Wizard "wrong" as there is no right way to play a class besides the one that is fun for you and your group. That said, the most mechanically "useless" school is probably a toss up between evocation and enchantment. Somethings mechanically efficacy is something that can be measured, and opinion does not play into that metric significantly.

I will say that I find banning conjuration a very hard pill to swallow under any circumstance, even if playing a dedicated evoker. While the summon monster line is definitely build dependent, conjuration does offer a large number of effects that are difficult to replicate with other schools and extremely useful, ranging from the lowly grease to powerful blasting spells to the all powerful gate.

[Deophaun]

Potentially if one is using an epic spell slot 12th level spells, not exactly worth using just to deal 120% damage of an evocation spell.
Um, no.

Heighten + Earth Spell + Powerful Shadow Magic = 120% from 9th level slot.

[eggynack]

*eggynack it most certainly is a matter of opinion, you value illusions more than I do. Illusions are capable of miming some evocation or conjuration spells, at great cost, whereas enchantment is capable of ending the encounter entirely by coopting the threat, which increases the casters overall power.
"Illusions can't impact enemies that have their eyes closed" is a matter of opinion? I think we have different definitions of "opinion". Meanwhile, that one line of spells isn't it for things that can impact blind-folk. There's simulacrum and ice assassin, there's spells with non-visual effects, there's shadow walk, and that's just a start.


Enemies that are immune to enchantment can be destroyed by those that aren't. Illusions have no such work around. If something bypasses them, the illusionist is just out of luck.
I think you're misunderstanding how this works. The question of school power has nothing to do with what you can do with nothing but a given school. It has everything to do with what you can't do when you lose a given school. This is where opinions would enter into it, incidentally. Meanwhile, the list of enemies immune to enchantment is still much greater than the list immune to illusions, because closing your eyes isn't an efficient means of acquiring immunity to illusion, and because there's a ridiculous number of ways to get really solid defense against enchantment. As for enemies who aren't immune to enchantment killing those that are, it's a pretty limited thing given how unreliable enchantments are. You're much better off running a different source of minionmancy in most cases.

[Zanos]

Potentially if one is using an epic spell slot 12th level spells, not exactly worth using just to deal 120% damage of an evocation spell.
Read up on The Killer Gnome. 120% shadow-reality is very possible pre-epic. I'm not intimately familiar with some of the higher end tricks, but I also believe you could get up to 140% shadow-reality situationally.