When you enter incantatrix, can you cast "banned" spells you already knew?

[Gusmo]

Let's say you you have charm person in your spellbook as a generalist wizard, or as a specialist wizard who hasn't banned enchantment. Or maybe one of your spells known as a sorcerer, or advanced learning spells as one of the list casters. Then you take a level of incantatrix and ban enchantment, because screw that tiny school. Can you still cast charm person?


Focused Studies (Ex): At 1st level, the incantatrix gives up a school of magic so as to focus more on the remaining schools. She must choose a school of magic other than abjuration or divination as a prohibited school. This prohibited school is in addition to any others already chosen due to school specialization. Thus, a specialized wizard taking this prestige class has three prohibited schools instead of two.

The ability is uselessly vague in explaining how it works. Now parse the specialization rules within the wizard class entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm#schoolSpecialization) and rules about arcane magical writings (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm#arcaneMagicalWritings). Also keep in mind that in the back of the PHB, known spell is defined as "A spell that an arcane spellcaster has learned and can prepare. For wizards, knowing a spell means having it in their spellbooks. For sorcerers and bards, knowing a spell means having selected it when acquiring new spells as a benefit of level advancement."

I don't think that either RAI or RAW on it are clear.

[KillianHawkeye]

When I played an Incantatrix, I avoided this ambiguity by just never learning any evocation spells before entering the class and banning it.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and she can’t even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands.
I really don't see the ambiguity here. You can't cast spells of your prohibited schools.

Any confusion about this generally comes from the fact that the 3.0 versions of Incantatrix and Red Wizard had a clause that allowed you to cast spells you learned before banning the school in question, but that clause does not exist in the 3.5 versions.

[Grooke]

RAW I don't think "not available" is properly defined (at least not in the excerpts given by OP) but RAI the "can't even cast..." implies, at least to me, that they certainly can't be cast by more traditional means.

[frogglesmash]

RAW I don't think "not available" is properly defined (at least not in the excerpts given by OP) but RAI the "can't even cast..." implies, at least to me, that they certainly can't be cast by more traditional means.

Though by strict RAW you could make an argument that normal casting is permitted since it's not specifically called out, but it'd be a weak argument imo.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Ummm it seems pretty clear that you can indeed use your old spells. This means it may be useful to delay entry long enough to grab key spells

"The incantatrix can never again learn spells from that prohibited school or schools. She can still use the prohibited spells she knew prior to becoming an incantatrix, including using items that are activated by spell completion or spell trigger."

The quote is clipped from the School Specialization section of the class. Did most people assume the entry was just a copy/paste of the entry of the same name from the Wizard class?

[frogglesmash]

Ummm it seems pretty clear that you can indeed use your old spells. This means it may be useful to delay entry long enough to grab key spells

"The incantatrix can never again learn spells from that prohibited school or schools. She can still use the prohibited spells she knew prior to becoming an incantatrix, including using items that are activated by spell completion or spell trigger."

The quote is clipped from the School Specialization section of the class. Did most people assume the entry was just a copy/paste of the entry of the same name from the Wizard class?

There are a couple versions of the class, not all of them include that line. I can't recall witch is the most recent version.

[Zanos]

There are a couple versions of the class, not all of them include that line. I can't recall witch is the most recent version.
The most recent version is in Player's Guide to Faerun, and does not contain that text. The version that does is in Magic of Faerun, a 3.0 book. The version without the text that allows you to cast spells you learned before you banned the school is the most recent one, so no enchantment/evocation spells for your Incantatrix.

It's a net gain anyway, the Magic of Faerun version can't persistomance cheese even half as well.