Is Focused Specialist Wizard worth it?

[Krunchitus]

-Re-posted from incorrect forum-

Hi guys! First post, first thread, so please be gentle :P

Anyway, the title says it all. Been talking to my DM about it, and he suggested I make a profile here and ask the gathered peanut gallery of gurus and other wise ones. I've referenced this site many times before so I gotta say it's pretty neat to actually be part of discussion for once.

To be more specific, I'm planning on going the Transmutation Specialist route in 3.5 setting. I could care less about giving up three schools, as harsh as that is, but what gets me is that over the course of twenty levels I need to give up nine spell slots, one for each level. Is the benefit of being able to prepare two additional spells of your school worth the steep cost? Is there something that I am missing?

Also, for consideration, we will be doing a Gestalt campaign, and I've chosen Factotum as my second class, which rounds out, covers, or otherwise shores up a lot of my wizard deficiencies, but the core question remains: is Focused Specialist a viable and beneficial variant to use?

Thoughts, please and thank you! :D

[Naez]

Being a Specialist Wizard you already gain an additional spell slot that can only be used for transmutation spells. the focused specialist wizard gives you two additional spell slots that may only be used for transmutation spells. So overall you lose 1 spell slot at each level (that may be used for anything) and 3 schools of magic, but gain 3 spell slots at each level that can only be used for transmutations. Seems like a good deal to me.

[Cosi]

Focused Specialist is good for some schools and not for others. For Transmutation or Conjuration, it's worth it. For Divination, it's probably not. For Enchantment, Illusion, or Necromancy, why aren't you a Beguiler or Dread Necromancer? For Evocation or Abjuration, why are you specializing in those schools?

[Inevitability]

Transmutation is the second-most versatile school in the entire game. If you can't come up with a good use for the slots locked into it, you're not really trying.

In addition, the nature of its spells encourages god wizardy, which is more fun for the other players as well.

[noce]

Three schools to drop: best candidates?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Three schools to drop: best candidates?

Enchantment, Necromancy, Evocation, Illusion is the order that i'd give up schools in.
Other people may drop Evocation before Necromancy, but i make a lot more use of spells like Resilient Sphere and Forcecage than i do necromancy spells.
Sure, necro has some gems, but you can access a big chunk of those with conjuration. Summon Monster and the Planar Binding line cover that one a lot better than most other schools.

[ATHATH]

You might want to consider taking the 1st level Changeling Wizard substitution level as well- while you'll lose ANOTHER spell school, you'll gain the ability to prepare Illusion spells as well as Transmutation spells in your extra spell slots.

Ask your DM how Changeling Wizard interacts with the Master Specialist PrC.

[Amphetryon]

Three schools to drop: best candidates?

Assuming any other party member is dealing damage, it's safe to drop Evocation.

Assuming you're not in an extremely social-heavy campaign without Mindblank, it's safe to drop Enchantment.

The 3rd school depends a bit on your DM and campaign. Illusion is either very powerful or very weak, based on both DM rulings and Player creativity. If you have concerns about either, Illusion might be a viable choice to drop. If you have no such concerns, Necromancy is a small enough school with a limited enough focus that it may be a good choice to drop, instead.

[etrpgb]

I think it's worth it, and you can compensate the loss of schools a bit via Beguiller/Ultimate Magus.

e.g., Transmutation Specialist 2/Beguiller 1/Transmutation Specialist 2/Ultimate Magus 10/Archmage (some)/Transmutation Specialist (rest)

You should ask your master to change the "+1 level of lower-level existing arcane casting class" with something more sane like "+1 level of one of the existing arcane casting class". If he does not accept you need to pay a feat tax for Practiced Spellcaster(Beguiller). It's not a _bad_ tax, but there is better.

[Cosi]

Three schools to drop: best candidates?

Evocation is an easy ban. Direct damage is pretty bad, and it has very little else you'd use. There are a couple of mid to high OP options (contingency, invoke magic), but those can be replicated (Shadowcraft Mage, Craft Contingent Spell), and in a game where you need them, you're probably a Domain Wizard Elf Generalist anyway.

You can ban one of Enchantment or Illusion pretty easily. They're both "beat up people with low will saves" with some upside in some cases (charmed allies from Enchantment, shadow conjuration from Illusion). Enchantment has a higher ceiling, Illusion has a higher floor. You need one at first level for sleep or color spray.

Necromancy has a bunch of cool stuff (save-or-dies, save-or-sucks, minions), but its all stuff you could get from other schools if you wanted. You can ban it.

Abjuration has a bunch of spells that you are mandated to have access to at certain points (magic circle, protection from evil, dispel magic), but those are all also Cleric spells. You can ban it, but only if someone can cover the holes that creates for the party.

Conjuration and Transmutation are both very good. While OP can't ban Transmutation, it's probably theoretically losable because it's mostly buffs + polymorph, and polymorph is more trouble than its worth. Ultimately doesn't come up much, because there are enough schools to ban you'll never need to lose it.

You can't ban Divination.

[Flickerdart]

Three schools to drop: best candidates?

Depends on your personal preference, your DM, and the campaign.

If the campaign takes place at a higher level, or a higher power level, Evocation is a no-brainer - it has too many SR: Yes spells, Reflex half spells, and spells that use commonly resisted energy types. Conjuration has some blasting if you still want to do direct damage. Evocation does bring contingency to the table, so check if you can use greater shadow evocation to emulate it, or take the Craft Contingent Spell feat.

If the campaign takes place at a higher level, or a higher power level, Enchantment is also an easy drop. Anything that's immune to mind-affecting spells (undead, constructs, oozes, anyone with mind blank) laughs at literally every spell in the school except one.

If the campaign takes place at a higher level, or a higher power level, Illusion is not very good - there are plenty of spells (like true seeing) or abilities (like blindsight) that can shut you down. Additionally, if the DM does not allow you to get away with some of the more powerful uses of open-ended spells like silent image, or if you yourself are not up to the challenge of coming up with creative ways to use them, this is not a school worth bothering with.

Necromancy is a bit better, but death ward blocks a lot of its usefulness, and the actual dead-raising aspects require a steady supply of corpses and a DM that will put up with minionmancy shenanigans. Many of these spells depend on Fort saves, which monsters tend to have in spades.

Abjuration has a lot of overlap with the capabilities of clerics. If your party has a cleric, you might not need any spells from here.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would drop necromancy, illusion, and enchantment. Necromancy's biggest loss is no save negative level spells. You can make up for a big chunk of that with fell-drain metamagic applied to some SR no direct damage spells or preferably multi-target no save damage spells. Illusion and enchantment have far to much of them removed by single trump spells that counter the whole school.

Evocation is something I prefer not to ban because while you don't need a lot of this school it has some solid gems and a little blasting can go a long way if used at the right time.

Some people like to ban abjuration, but again I find it far too useful as a jack of all trades school to think about banning it. It has too many useful spells that solve specific problems.

[eggynack]

As sleepyphoenixx said, evocation has a lot that isn't blasting. Contingency, sure, but that's just the highest profile effects. It also gets you force effects, as was already mentioned, but also wind spells like gust of wind, wind wall, and defenestrating sphere, the classic distant communication spell sending, and a couple prismatic effects at higher levels. It's a lot of utility, and yes, you also get blasting. Enchantment has significantly fewer unique forms of utility, with the charm and dominate line capped by mind rape as the prime objects, and necromancy might as well. Still, if you're focused specializing, you're probably banning all three anyway. Illusion is better than all of those. All these schools have some useful stuff though, so not specializing on this basis is more solid than you make it out to be, especially when you consider domain wizard and/or elven generalist.

Anyway, your prime question was essentially whether it's worth trading one general slot for two transmutation slots, because that's what you're losing aside from banned schools. What you want to determine, then, is whether, after already preparing one transmutation spell, you'd rather prepare a single spell from any non-banned school, or two more transmutation spells. This depends on whether there are three transmutation spells of each spell level you'd want to cast a lot, and the answer is usually going to be yes. Transmutation has a lot of really great spells.

[Krunchitus]

The three schools I was planning on dropping were Necro, Enchantment, and then Illusion. Honestly though that last one is a toss up between that and Evoke just because we were told Spell Resistance WILL come up, probably regularly. Being Trans the first two were no-brainers.


Being a Specialist Wizard you already gain an additional spell slot that can only be used for transmutation spells. the focused specialist wizard gives you two additional spell slots that may only be used for transmutation spells. So overall you lose 1 spell slot at each level (that may be used for anything) and 3 schools of magic, but gain 3 spell slots at each level that can only be used for transmutations. Seems like a good deal to me.

Now THIS is what I am most interested in. Schools to choose/schools to drop I feel in the end are really the preference of the player and campaign, as noted by the replies that I'm seeing. What I am concerned the most is the spell slots, which is why I bolded the quote. Is that what happens? I was under the assumption that I just simply gained three more prepared spell of selected school overall, that's it, not three per level. If that IS the case then yes, it would seem to be a fair trade.

[eggynack]

What I am concerned the most is the spell slots, which is why I bolded the quote. Is that what happens? I was under the assumption that I just simply gained three more prepared spell of selected school overall, that's it, not three per level. If that IS the case then yes, it would seem to be a fair trade.
Yep, three per spell level. "You can prepare two additional spells of your specialty school per spell level each day." That's on top of the spell/level gained from standard specialization, of course.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Now THIS is what I am most interested in. Schools to choose/schools to drop I feel in the end are really the preference of the player and campaign, as noted by the replies that I'm seeing. What I am concerned the most is the spell slots, which is why I bolded the quote. Is that what happens? I was under the assumption that I just simply gained three more prepared spell of selected school overall, that's it, not three per level. If that IS the case then yes, it would seem to be a fair trade.

That one depends a lot on your level. At lower levels the extra spell slots are invaluable, but starting around the mid levels even generalist wizards usually go to sleep with spell slots left over.
Not to say that extra high level slots aren't still useful, but it becomes less valuable as you raise in levels. Then there's also things like Pearls of Power, wands, scrolls and so on that can replace the need for more slots with a WBL investment.
On the other hand having more spell schools to choose from goes up in value as you get more spell slots and higher spell levels. Every school has spells that are valuable.

The last consideration is if you want to take levels in Red Wizard of Thay and/or Incantatrix. Both of those lose additional schools, so taking Focused Specialist on top of them might be more crippling than you're comfortable with.

[Fouredged Sword]

A focused specialist is for someone who wants to use a specific school of magic to solve all their problems. You will have a delay in accessing your highest spell level for spells outside your school, and in exchange you will be able to use transmutation spells from your highest spell level in almost every encounter. Because you lose one standard slot each level you would, for example, ONLY have transmutation slots for 2nd level spells at 3th level. Bonus spells from high int are thus important because they will give you back that spell slot for any spell.

You will benifit from considering the master specialist class. The transmutation abilities are a little meh, but the minor one is actually HUGE. If someone dispels your transmutation you are using to not die you will have a full round to reapply it before it actually wears off. You are going to use transmutations to do a lot of things other people do with other spells, like fly or gain energy resistance. Now if someone dispels your flight midair you will have time to land or recast before you fall.

[Psyren]

If there's a cleric in the party, usually there's less need for Abjuration as well. I would generally toss Evocation before that (after Necro and Ench of course) but it's worth at least evaluating.

[ericgrau]

I dunno, transmutation is really good, but it's because it has a small handful of amazing spells. And you often only cast 1 or 2 of them in a day. I dunno about filling 2 per level. If you do enough splatbook digging I'm sure you can pull it off and it will become basically a free spell per day at every level. So yeah it's worth it, it's just more work. I wouldn't do it with transmutation in core or even core+spell compendium. But with wide book access sure. Plus fluff-wise it's a little thematic.

As for what to drop: Yeah evocation has a lot of great stuff besides blasting. And on the blasting front the multi-target stuff can be quite useful until SR comes in, and multi-target is hard to replace. Enchantment is easy to drop, no argument there. Abjuration I think isn't just easy, but super easy to drop if you have a cleric. Whatever you need you need 1 of or with a day's notice, etc. Necromancy actually has some really good spells that get overlooked including no save spells, buffs and of course minions. You may be forced to drop it but I'd at least blink first. With a party cleric or probably even druid I wouldn't even blink before dropping abjuration. I wouldn't blink before dropping enchantment period. Illusion is actually really easy to drop, especially if you're hard up for versatility. The spells you really need are invisibility and greater invisibility. Other than that the spells are good, but not necessary. You can get by more than fine without ever casting an illusion and being less subtle. I'd say most players do exactly that without even thinking about what school they're only using 2 spells from. Maybe get invisibility in some kind of item form, or use factotum for it. True, many often don't use necromancy either, but that's more because they don't know how and never tried it.

So now the decision is pretty easy if you have a divine caster: abjuration, enchantment, illusion. If no divine caster, you might drop illusion instead of abjuration and compensate with an invisibility item/factotum. Or maybe necromancy, although I don't think it's as easy to drop as most think. Usually you don't even need too many abjurations, just dispel magic, or you have a day's notice, so you might factotum that even without a party divine caster. For that matter abjuration and illusion aren't too spell level sensitive; you usually don't want to blow your highest level spells on them. So they're that much easier to factotum. The good necromancies, while not numerous, are level sensitive though.

Even if I don't agree that conjuration is the uber school, it's way to varied and decent to ditch on a versatility starved build. So it is of course in. Though I'd also say evocation has a variety of super good options too. IMO keep both no matter what. Both are also very spell level sensitive.

TL;DR: Drop abjuration, enchantment and illusion, but use factotum to easily compensate for abjuration and illusion. And maybe allies/items too.

[Gusmo]

In terms of the overall question of whether focused specialist is worth it, personally I'm not a fan. At low levels when you don't have very many spells it can be nice, but past level 4 or so, it really loses its luster. With all that said, enchantment is almost always the school I drop first. I don't have anything to add about the points that have been brought up about dropping other schools, the only two sacred ones are conjuration and transmutation. Though you might be able to get away with dropping conjuration if you're abusing shadowcraft mage, but that's not viable until later levels.

[Zancloufer]

Focused Specialist is worth it for the two biggest schools (Conjuration and Transmutation) but generally not worthwhile otherwise.
On Banning Schools:

Can't Ban Divination, and Conjuration best school. Like Literally has 1/5th of the spells and covers 5 different niches.

Enchantment is probably the best choice to ban. Too many spells that are just outright useless vs certain buffs or entire groups of enemies.

Necromancy has some very nice gems, but is one of the smaller schools. Won't loose much from banning that.

Abjuration is nice for the like 10 spells you use, but they are a little niche and the cleric gets all the actually useful ones except Disjunction.

Evocation is 90% blasting, 10% really good stuff. More millage than Necromancy for sure especially with force and contingencies.

There is MANY calls to ban Illusion: I actually disagree with this. There are MANY solid spells there and if you ban both Evocation AND Enchantment I would advocate AGAINST banning it. Shadow Evocation let's you get around the lack of many Evocations and while it's SoLs have the same larger issue as Enchantment (many don't work vs mindless) True Seeing is less of a instant win vs it than Mind Blank/Protection from X is against Enchantment. Also invisibility spells are nice. Yes the DM MIGHT say that illusions all instantly blow chunks for no reason, but in that case you know you should ban it because of **** DM, not because it sucks.