Of Dual-School Spells and the Archmage…

[Âmesang]

So the Player's Handbook II "introduced" dual-school spells which were followed up by the book, Dragon Magic. This caught my eye because awhile back I attempted to update the 9th-level, 2nd Edition abjuration/transmutation spell, Slerotin's Fortitude, to add a bit of flavor for a Suel sorceress/archmage of mine (when the time came to learn it).

Now my archmage's present spells are all single schooled, but that made me wonder — since one must be able to cast 5th-level or higher spells from five schools of magic, how would dual-school spells work in that regard? Would a single one of those spells count as two schools for the purpose of such a prerequisite?

(I've yet been unable to find any kind of FAQ for Player's Handbook II or Dragon Magazine, and the errata for PHBII was silent on the issue.)

[GilesTheCleric]

I recall that dual-schooled spells were most impacted by your banned schools -- if one of them were banned, you couldn't cast the spell. From this, it makes sense that the spell counts as both schools at once. Of course, RAW will do as RAW does, and I don't have a source.

[DEMON]

In all cases, treat this spells as if they belonged to both schools simultaneously.

Each spell would give you access to 2 schools of magic for the purposes of Archmage prereqs.

[Aleolus]

So does that mean that if you have Spell Focus for both schools you get double the bonuses?

[Âmesang]

No, it specifically mentions in both the Player's Handbook II and Dragon Magic that having Spell Focus for both schools only counts once (overlapping effect, I'd imagine).

I'm very much a Murphy's Law kind of guy and just couldn't believe they'd count towards archmage's prerequisites. :smalltongue: "Nah, can't be; that'd be too good to be true, no?"

(Though, as I said, it's too late to matter for my own archmage, and I'm not 'bout to change her spell list just to take advantage. Still, this is cool; just feel kind of foolish since my eyes must have glazed over that or something.)