Arcane School selection help

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm playing a support-focused Occultist VMC Wizard in one of my games right now, and am having troubling choosing an arcane school for my VMC. The ones I'm considering:


Divination (Forewarned is awesome, Diviner's Fortune looks like a nice thing to toss on the party melee)
Foresight (As a support caster I won't be making many attack rolls, but I could use Prescience for skill checks)
Scryer (I'm not sure how useful the scrying sensor would be since it requires line of sight and line of effect, but it could be useful)
Enchantment (Enchanting Smile goes well with the Enchantment implement resonant power, Dazing Touch is a no-save daze on a successful touch attack, which is pretty crazy)


Any suggestions? This is VMC, so I get the first two powers at 7th level and the third power at 19th level, which means I'm only really paying attention to the 1st-level powers.

[rockdeworld]

Forewarned is awesome.

Prescience also lets you reroll your initiative, hint hint, but Forewarned is still better because it boosts your initiative in addition to letting you act anyway.

I feel the same way you do about scrying.

Dazing Touch is not, because 1. it's an enchantment effect, and therefore commonly resisted/immune, and 2. it requires you get close enough to touch your enemy. And you really don't want to be next to them if you miss (in part because the type of enemies who would fail the save will also murder you in a round or two).

Other options:
I played a Teleportation wizard, and Shift is also awesome because of its versatility.

IMO, if you prefer divination spells in your bonus slots, pick Divination. If you prefer Conjuration, pick Teleportation. If you prefer Enchantment, let me recommend this link to you (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/19557/what-wizard-schools-are-best-to-specialize-in-which-schools-are-best-to-sacrifi). It's written for 3.5 but the bit about Enchantment still applies.

[Extra Anchovies]

Forewarned is awesome.

Right? I'll be picking up a hare familiar, and my Transmutation resonant power will be going towards Dexterity (which I have a base of 17 in), giving me an eventual initiative modifier of "yes".


Prescience also lets you reroll your initiative, hint hint, but Forewarned is still better because it boosts your initiative in addition to letting you act anyway.

I do get both of those with Foresight, though. It's Diviner's Fortune that gets traded away.


Dazing Touch is not, because 1. it's an enchantment effect, and therefore commonly resisted/immune, and 2. it requires you get close enough to touch your enemy. And you really don't want to be next to them if you miss (in part because the type of enemies who would fail the save will also murder you in a round or two).

True. I already have enough enchantment effects from spells and the enchantment implement.


Other options:
I played a Teleportation wizard, and Shift is also awesome because of its versatility.

I'll actually probably be picking up the Side Step focus power, which lets me teleport 10 feet per level as part of my movement for 1 point of mental focus. I also really don't want to take anything from Conjuration; none of the subschools replace Summoner's Charm, which is useless for me (Summon Monster isn't on the Occultist spell list; instead, an Occultist with the Conjuration implements gets to spend mental focus to use a Summon Monster SLA, which as a SLA doesn't benefit from Summoner's Charm).


IMO, if you prefer divination spells in your bonus slots, pick Divination. If you prefer Conjuration, pick Teleportation. If you prefer Enchantment, let me recommend this link to you (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/19557/what-wizard-schools-are-best-to-specialize-in-which-schools-are-best-to-sacrifi). It's written for 3.5 but the bit about Enchantment still applies.

I don't actually get bonus spell slots from my school, though, because I have Wizard as my secondary class (primary is Occultist).

[Kurald Galain]

Check the section on familiar archetypes, in particular the School Familiar... divination has a good one!

[SangoProduction]

I'll point out the problems with the schools, to potentially help.

Divination: Requires DM buy in, and planning (or at least good improvisation skills). If the DM isn't lenient with what he tells you. then the specialization is useless. It also requires party buy in, in that they need to wait for you to cast your divination.

Foresight/Scryer: Not sure how they are different from Divination (in fact, thought they were divination, but whatever). Same problems

Enchantment: Requires a DM that doesn't have a "it's me vs them" mindset, because there are plenty of creatures that're basically immune to this. Thankfully, DMs with that mindset are relatively rare, so it's a safe bet, and can be pretty powerful.