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Cruiser1
2007-07-26, 05:16 AM
Evocation is frequently considered the weakest school of magic, and the one most likely to be banned when playing a specialist. This is due to the relatively recent popularity of the "Batman" style Wizard which focuses on save or suck spells, battlefield control, and buffing, and the corresponding perceived inefficiency of direct damage spells. However before reaching the conclusion that Evocation is as worthless as playing a Monk (just kidding ;) there are a few points to consider.

Evocation is Simple

Beginning Wizards think the most important thing to have is spell slots. Intermediate Wizards think the most important asset you have is turn actions, hence the popularity of Quicken Spell. However only the most advanced Wizards realize that the most important thing you have is real world time. From a powergaming standpoint, given a fixed amount of time in a D&D session, you want to do as much adventuring as possible in it, in order to reach as high a level as fast as possible. The most fearsome enemy in D&D isn't the monsters, or even a sadistic DM, but the campaign ending altogether because the school year started again, or just because people just got bored and wanted to play something else.

In other words, you want battles to take place quickly, and to be fun. You can have the best build in the world, however if you don't get a chance to actually play it because combat takes too long, you won't ever reach high levels due to time constraints or because you get bored of the character. If I Scorching Ray (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scorchingRay.htm) an enemy, I simply roll to hit and the DM subtracts a number from the monster's hp. My turn is over as fast as the Fighter's. If however I cast something like Touch of Idiocy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/touchOfIdiocy.htm) or Enervation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enervation.htm), the game comes to a screeching halt while the DM adjusts the character's stats, saves, skill points, spells, etc. Does your group suffer from one-battle-a-session-itis?

Evocation is Effective

Evocation is one of the more effective schools, where not only do I suggest not barring it, but it even makes a good choice for specialization. I'm not suggesting a blaster Wizard is the best strategy, but rather Evocation has many other useful spells that you don't want to do without. For example:

Contingency (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contingency.htm): One of the most powerful spells available. Yes, it can be simulated with the Illusion spell Greater Shadow Evocation, but that's an 8th level spell, meaning you have to do without your "get out of jail free" card for four character levels. Most campaigns don't last long enough to reach that spell rank, or if they do your Wizard isn't that level because he's died and deleveled a few times because he didn't have Contingency! ;)
Wind Wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/windWall.htm): A simple way to deflect all ranged attacks. Awesome defensive spell that totally shuts down archers.
Shatter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shatter.htm): Destroy an item. Very versatile, and can even be used against an enemy's equipment. Hey, where'd my greataxe go?
Sending (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sending.htm): Send a message and get a reply from anywhere, even across planes. A great way to find missing people, communicate with distant NPC's or separated party members, taunt the BBEG from afar and get roleplaying XP, and so on.

Batman aficionados will agree battlefield control is one of the most effective things to do in combat, and Evocation has lots of it. Some cool Evocation control spells:

Wall of Ice (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfIce.htm): Keep the enemies away, and damage them if they break through. Comes in a nice hemisphere form as well.
Wall of Force (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfForce.htm): Block a passage, where not even Dispel Magic or an antimagic field can take it down.
Forcecage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm): Trap anybody with no save. Expensive, but worth it after you take their stuff. ;)
Resilient Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resilientSphere.htm): Trap the enemy inside, or have an invulnerable safe haven to buff within.
Telekinetic Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telekineticSphere.htm): Like Resilient Sphere but you can move it around. Move your party past any obstacle, or levitate a trapped enemy and drop them from high up.

Similarly, save or suck spells, even those with no save, don't work as well as you might expect in actual combat. For example, consider Solid Fog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/solidFog.htm), which reduces your speed to 5 feet. However, the fog has 20 foot radius, so even if you're in the middle of the Fog, you can get out in one round by doing a run action to move 4x your speed. Yay, you've wasted a 4th level spell slot and now the enemy is 20 feet closer to you.

Evocation, of course, does Damage

This message is about "Evocation is good", not "blaster is good", however there are a few things to say about doing damage in combat. Area of effect damage spells (and battlefield control) are effective against weenie swarms, so they don't run past the meatshields and take you down before your allies can stop them. Damage spells (and of course buffing party members) are also surprisingly good against BBEG's, because their saves are high enough to resist save or sucks (the DM probably made sure of it). Finally damage spells are important if you're by yourself or separated from the party. Battlefield control so you can face monsters one at a time, or save or suck so the party can chop up the weakened monster, still depends on someone actually killing them afterward, where if your melee lackeys aren't present you need to be able to do damage yourself.

Another thing about damage is that it's reliable. Barring things like spell resistance or immunity, or using a Reflex save spell against a monster with Evasion, a damage spell is guaranteed to do damage, even on a successful save. Hence you're guaranteed to be able to take down a monster in x rounds. Doing damage makes it easier for the DM to figure out and balance appropriate encounters. Reliability is an important and often overlooked part of D&D, so you don't die due to a few bad rolls.

Once, my group was playing Environmental Impact: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030425a. The DM made an encounter stronger by doubling the number of Needlefolk (so there were 14 total). When we encountered them, they were all spread out, but still within an 80 foot diameter circle. My turn, I simply cast Ice Storm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/iceStorm.htm) over them all, and rolled enough to do over 16 damage, no save. The other players stared, and the DM sighed and swept 14 minis off the table. :) Sure, our enemies used different tactics from then on, but that made them vulnerable to other things. Sometimes just the threat of being able to do an area of effect spell is more effective than actually casting one.

Evocation is Fun

Even if you don't agree that Evocation is equal to other schools in power, you should at least agree that Evocation is one of the most fun schools! Ultimately, the person who "wins D&D" is the one who has the most fun. The popularity of Wizard blaster builds isn't due to people thinking they're effective, as much as people simply wanting to play them. Flashy area of effect spells like Fireball (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireball.htm) are fun, where you take out a bunch of enemies at once. Battlefield control spells are fun too, where you get to lay down walls, spheres, and other geometrical goodness on the battlemat. Stone Sphere, Ball Lightning, and especially Defenestrating Sphere are awesome, where they let you roll a ball around bashing, zapping, or tossing enemies around like rag dolls. :)

Similarly, playing a utility Wizard isn't very fun. Save or suck spells are frustrating and unsatisfying. They either end the battle right away, or don't work at all. A Wizard who uses save or suck spells is like a bad lover. You're either *bang* done right away, or you can't get it going in the first place. ;) Don't get me wrong, save or suck (assuming it works) is one of the most powerful things in D&D. It's just not very enjoyable. Consider the following scenario:

BBEG: "Well, if it isn't the party of 'adventurers'. I was wondering when we'd finally meet. I see you've dispatched my trusted lieutenants. I must admit your skills have improved quite a bit over the last year. But you're still no match for me, where I will enjoy sacrificing your souls to -"
PC Wizard: [Rolls initiative] *Baleful Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm)*
BBEG: "Rats, rolled a 1 on my Fort Save" [turns into snail]
PC Wizard: Calmly picks up snail and feeds it to familiar.
Fluffy: *gulp*
PC Fighter, Cleric, and Rogue: ...
DM: "Well, that was an anticlimax. I wonder what's on TV?"

Improving Evocation vs. Other Schools

Still convinced that Evocation is bad? Fine, however it shouldn't be a bad school. Evocation should be the most powerful school for doing direct hp damage to monsters. Unfortunately the Orb spells which bypass spell resistance and only require a ranged touch attack to hit (and are therefore some of the best damage spells in the game) are all Conjuration. A number of Conjuration spells bypass SR, presumably because they conjure "real" things and throw them at you, as opposed to evoke "magic" energy around you directly.

That's disappointing, because Conjuration (which already has healing, teleportation, and summoning, along with other quality effects like Mage Armor and Grease) seems to also have SR bypassing damage spells, arguably making it a better Evocation school than Evocation. Just as people often complain about class balance, there should also be balance between schools of magic. A very good house rule is to move the Orb spells to Evocation.

Similarly, Transmutation can be considered better than Evocation at nuking, due to the powerful Disintegrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm), which does 2d6 damage per caster level, instead of 1d6 for standard nukes. Disintegrate should be an Evocation spell as well, because it seems like it uses force energy to rip things apart at a molecular level. In other words, if you want to nuke, it should be an Evocation spell. If you ban that school, you shouldn't be able to do direct hp damage to monsters.

Artemician
2007-07-26, 05:39 AM
Well said, well said. Stabbing people through the heart with a lightning bolt is cool. Draining their strength is not. Debuffs in general.. while the most effective use of your spell slots, are about as fun as shooting fish in a barrel.

On another note, I've been rolling an idea around in my head for quite some time:

What is the difference between Conjuration, Abjuration and Evocation?

Sure, you say. Abjuration is creating barriers. Conjuration is uh.. creating stuff. Evocation is blasting. However, explain the orb spells. Contingency. Similiarly, why is Wall of Ice Cvocation? Isn't it creating stuff? And Mage Armour is Conjuration, while the mechanically similiar Shield is Abjuration. What a sorry state of affairs.

I propose a new (and radical) solution: Remove the entire Abjuration school.

Dispel Magic, Spell Turning, Disjunction, et all are moved to Universal.

Physical-type ones (Stoneskin) are moved to Transmutation.
Antibuffs (Remove Curse, Freedom) are moved to Necromancy.
Globe of Invulnerability, Prismatic Wall as well as the "trap" spells (Explosive runes, Fire Trap) are moved to Evocation.

Shield is moved to Conjuration.

Magic Circles, Dimensional Anchors and Guards and Wards are moved to Enchantment.
Defensive Buffs (Resistance, Endure Elements, et all) are also moved to Enchantment. This includes Nondetection and Mind Blank

*
Now, since Conjuration is regarded as overpowered generally, and since it is, and has in its possession many spells that don't fit, move the following spells.

All healing spells are moved to Necromancy.
Orb spells (and other damage-dealing stuff, such as Acid Splash and Melf's Acid Arrow) are moved to Evocation.
Teleport is moved to Evocation.

*Now, we run into a problem. Conjuration seems pretty sparse.

Wall of X spells are moved to Conjuration.

__

The end product here, is that two previously "weak" schools, Enchantment and Evocation, are brought up to the level of the other schools. The enormously overpowered school, Conjuration, has been pruned. The spell list and school classification also makes more sense. Thoughts?

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 05:51 AM
Beginning Wizards think the most important thing to have is spell slots. Intermediate Wizards think the most important asset you have is turn actions, hence the popularity of Quicken Spell. However only the most advanced Wizards realize that the most important thing you have is real world time. From a powergaming standpoint, given a fixed amount of time in a D&D session, you want to do as much adventuring as possible in it, in order to reach as high a level as fast as possible. The most fearsome enemy in D&D isn't the monsters, or even a sadistic DM, but the campaign ending altogether because the school year started again, or just because people just got bored and wanted to play something else.

In other words, you want battles to take place quickly, and to be fun. You can have the best build in the world, however if you don't get a chance to actually play it because combat takes too long, you won't ever reach high levels due to time constraints or because you get bored of the character. If I Scorching Ray (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scorchingRay.htm) an enemy, I simply roll to hit and the DM subtracts a number from the monster's hp. My turn is over as fast as the Fighter's. If however I cast something like Touch of Idiocy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/touchOfIdiocy.htm) or Enervation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enervation.htm), the game comes to a screeching halt while the DM adjusts the character's stats, saves, skill points, spells, etc. Does your group suffer from one-battle-a-session-itis?
Enervation imposes a flat penalty; touch of idiocy reduces some stats. For a group that's been playing for a bit, or any PvP, this simply isn't much of an issue--Glitterdust, saves, okay, blinded, -2, flatfooted, go.


Evocation is Effective

Evocation is one of the more effective schools, where not only do I suggest not barring it, but it even makes a good choice for specialization. I'm not suggesting a blaster Wizard is the best strategy, but rather Evocation has many other useful spells that you don't want to do without. For example:

Contingency (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/contingency.htm): One of the most powerful spells available. Yes, it can be simulated with the Illusion spell Greater Shadow Evocation, but that's an 8th level spell, meaning you have to do without your "get out of jail free" card for four character levels. Most campaigns don't last long enough to reach that spell rank, or if they do your Wizard isn't that level because he's died and deleveled a few times because he didn't have Contingency! ;)
Contingency is nice. It can be duplicated, as you mention, and getting it four levels earlier isn't enough to save the school.


Celerity: Another lifesaving spell. Always win initiative, or always get a spell off *now* if you want to, even during another player's turn.
Celerity, um... isn't Evocation. It's Transmutation, which is one of the truly good schools.


Wind Wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/windWall.htm): A simple way to deflect all ranged attacks. Awesome defensive spell that totally shuts down archers.
Handy... on rare occasions. Actually, archers can be dealt with in other ways, and may well go around your Wind Wall. Furthermore, archers are a tiny fraction of the enemies one faces.


Shatter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shatter.htm): Destroy an item. Very versatile, and can even be used against an enemy's equipment. Hey, where'd my greataxe go?
Very soon, enemies have either magical gear (humanoids) or none (monsters), making Shatter completely ineffective.


Sending (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sending.htm): Send a message and get a reply from anywhere, even across planes. A great way to find missing people, communicate with distant NPC's or separated party members, taunt the BBEG from afar and get roleplaying XP, and so on.
Seriously? This is the sort of thing one pays NPC casters for. One doesn't use it often.


Batman aficionados will agree battlefield control is one of the most effective things to do in combat, and Evocation has lots of it. Some cool Evocation control spells:

Wall of Ice (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfIce.htm): Keep the enemies away, and damage them if they break through. Comes in a nice hemisphere form as well.
Evocation is far poorer at battlefield control than the schools that specialize at it, barring one spell (Forcecage), IMO. Wall of Ice, for example, is significantly inferior to Wall of Stone because of its puny hit points.


Wall of Force (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfForce.htm): Block a passage, where not even Dispel Magic or an antimagic field can take it down.
And then you can't get through either. At high levels carving a path through rock won't take that long, teleportation bypasses walls of force, Disintegrate or a rod of cancellation removes it... and that's neglecting the fact that this thing has to be a vertical plane! That's what kills it. When I make walls, I want to be able to shape them.


Forcecage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm): Trap anybody with no save. Expensive, but worth it after you take their stuff. ;)
Greater Shadow Evocation strikes again, bypassing the material component. Speaking of the component, it makes this impractical for actual play.


Resilient Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resilientSphere.htm): Trap the enemy inside, or have an invulnerable safe haven to buff within.
Telekinetic Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telekineticSphere.htm): Like Resilient Sphere but you can move it around. Move your party past any obstacle, or levitate a trapped enemy and drop them from high up.
Okay, but in no way top-notch spells.

Yes, Evocation has a few useful spells. Otherwise, giving it up wouldn't cost *anything*. But it has far fewer good spells than any other school.


Similarly, save or suck spells, even those with no save, don't work as well as you might expect in actual combat. For example, consider Solid Fog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/solidFog.htm), which reduces your speed to 5 feet. However, the fog has 20 foot radius, so even if you're in the middle of the Fog, you can get out in one round by doing a run action to move 4x your speed. Yay, you've wasted a 4th level spell slot and now the enemy is 20 feet closer to you.
Except, of course, they do--at least, they have in my experience, and that of many others; I've seen numbers on saving throws for monsters versus DCs posted that bear that out. Critiquing one spell isn't much of an argument... and you're wrong on that, as it happens. Any creature trying to move through the solid fog progresses at a speed of 5 feet--regardless of how it's moving. You can't move more than five feet through the fog a round, which is the point.


Evocation, of course, does Damage

This message is about "Evocation is good", not "blaster is good", however there are a few things to say about doing damage in combat. Area of effect damage spells (and battlefield control) are effective against weenie swarms, so they don't run past the meatshields and take you down before your allies can stop them. Damage spells (and of course buffing party members) are also surprisingly good against BBEG's, because their saves are high enough to resist save or sucks (the DM probably made sure of it). Finally damage spells are important if you're by yourself or separated from the party. Battlefield control so you can face monsters one at a time, or save or suck so the party can chop up the weakened monster, still depends on someone actually killing them afterward, where if your melee lackeys aren't present you need to be able to do damage yourself.
The common counterargument to this is that "weenie swarms" aren't a credible threat--if an area spell kills them all, they could be defeated without using that spell without much if any trouble, or with the help of, say, a low-level illusion.
As for BBEGs, that's where no-save debuffs and repeated castings come in. Not every "boss" can be a Hexblade/Paladin of Tyranny with high charisma, after all! Besides, battlefield control, no-save spells like a lot of rays, dispelling, buffing, and the like give a wizard plenty to do. Haste is going to be more helpful than Fireball (two iconic third-level spells), whether against a regular enemy or a BBEG.


Another thing about damage is that it's reliable. Barring things like spell resistance or immunity, or using a Reflex save spell against a monster with Evasion, a damage spell is guaranteed to do damage, even on a successful save. Hence you're guaranteed to be able to take down a monster in x rounds. Doing damage makes it easier for the DM to figure out and balance appropriate encounters. Reliability is an important and often overlooked part of D&D, so you don't die due to a few bad rolls.
It is possible to reliably get spells past enemy saves. You say "reliable", but evocation spells are subject to energy resistance and immunity--which is increasingly common the higher level you are.


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030425a. The DM made an encounter stronger by doubling the number of Needlefolk (so there were 14 total). When we encountered them, they were all spread out, but still within an 80 foot diameter circle. My turn, I simply cast Ice Storm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/iceStorm.htm) over them all, and rolled enough to do over 16 damage, no save. The other players stared, and the DM sighed and swept 14 minis off the table. :) Sure, our enemies used different tactics from then on, but that made them vulnerable to other things. Sometimes just the threat of being able to do an area of effect spell is more effective than actually casting one.
If 16 damage killed them, how much of a threat were these things? The party could have cleaned them up in several rounds, maybe taking a few points of damage, and still have that slot.


Evocation is Fun

Even if you don't agree that Evocation is equal to other schools in power, you should at least agree that Evocation is one of the most fun schools! Ultimately, the person who "wins D&D" is the one who has the most fun. The popularity of Wizard blaster builds isn't due to people thinking they're effective, as much as people simply wanting to play them. Flashy area of effect spells like Fireball (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireball.htm) are fun, where you take out a bunch of enemies at once. Battlefield control spells are fun too, where you get to lay down walls, spheres, and other geometrical goodness on the battlemat. Stone Sphere, Ball Lightning, and especially Defenestrating Sphere are awesome, where they let you roll a ball around bashing, zapping, or tossing enemies around like rag dolls. :)
Personally, I've never found evocation to be fun. "I cast Fireball. I cast Fireball. I cast Lightning bolt. Let me roll my damage dice. Now I'm out of spells." I have a lot of fun with Enchanters and Illusionists (as character types, not necessarily as specializations). This is entirely a matter of taste, and there are *plenty* of people who enjoy playing SUBTLE wizards, not strategy-less firebrands ready to throw a magic missile at anything that moves. It's never fun to debuff? Nonsense. It's a lot of fun for a lot of people, some of whom find "MAGIC MISSILE MAGIC MISSILE FIREBALL FIREBALL BOOM BOOM BOOM!" to be dull and finesse-free.
What's more, "Fireball" rarely actually takes out several enemies at once. More often, it only damages them somewhat.


Similarly, playing a utility Wizard isn't very fun. Save or suck spells are frustrating and unsatisfying. They either end the battle right away, or don't work at all. A Wizard who uses save or suck spells is like a bad lover. You're either *bang* done right away, or you can't get it going in the first place. ;) Don't get me wrong, save or suck (assuming it works) is one of the most powerful things in D&D. It's just not very enjoyable. Consider the following scenario:
That's not true at all! Debuffing and buffing and battlefield control are a lot of fun. Tactical battlefield control, clever illusions, and simply tossing a Glitterdust into a group of advancing enemies and watching as they wander around unable to locate your party getting picked off. There is satisfaction in a job well done, and a lot of fun to be had by the precise application of the right spells to demolish enemies.
And then there was that time I launched a Confusion spell at a group of enemies lurking in a tree to ambush us. It turned into Tree Fight Club, and much hilarity ensued.
It's also fun pointing at an enemy, saying "die!", and having it actually happen, rather than having them shrug off your twenty points of damage and charge you.

Frankly, if what you call the "Batman" wizard (because his spell list is a utility belt? Because he wins?) were really by and large as un-fun to play as you say, it wouldn't have gained the popularity it has.


BBEG: "Well, if it isn't the party of 'adventurers'. I was wondering when we'd finally meet. I see you've dispatched my trusted lieutenants. I must admit your skills have improved quite a bit over the last year. But you're still no match for me, where I will enjoy sacrificing your souls to -"
PC Wizard: [Rolls initiative] *Baleful Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm)*
BBEG: "Rats, rolled a 1 on my Fort Save" [turns into snail]
PC Wizard: Calmly picks up snail and feeds it to familiar.
Fluffy: *gulp*
PC Fighter, Cleric, and Rogue: ...
DM: "Well, that was an anticlimax. I wonder what's on TV?"
Funny how that never seems to happen to me! There are a number of reasons for this--namely, that BBEGs generally have minions and defenses against this sort of thing. For example, the first round of combat would generally be spent casting Haste, or Repulsion, or something of the sort--one can't and doesn't rely on enemies rolling a one.

What's more, you're expected to do things other than blast: consider any big, beefy monster with a low will save, like a giant! The simple application of a spell like Confusion or Slow or Fear turns an encounter with a group of them from life-threatening to quite manageable. If instead you threw a Fireball at them, your party is getting squished.
An unsquished party is a happy party!

Swooper
2007-07-26, 05:53 AM
For example, consider Solid Fog, which reduces your speed to 5 feet. However, the fog has 20 foot radius, so even if you're in the middle of the Fog, you can get out in one round by doing a run action to move 4x your speed. Yay, you've wasted a 4th level spell slot and now the enemy is 20 feet closer to you.
I beg to differ. The wording on Solid Fog does in fact not suggest that your base speed drops to 5 feet, but rather, that you are unable to move more than 5 feet per round. Am I terribly wrong in this? If I am, the spell is rather pointless.

Other than that, good article.

Dausuul
2007-07-26, 06:14 AM
Can't say I agree with the "evocation is simple" statement. You know why? Because you're usually rolling a whole pile of d6s for damage, and adding them up takes a while. And there are saving throws to consider. And you have to figure out exactly who's in the area of effect and who isn't. When I played a blaster in a high-level game, I actually took Maximize Spell just so I wouldn't have to roll so many damn dice.

Compare that to enervation, where you roll a d4, the DM applies the penalty, and that's that. And many battlefield control spells don't involve a roll at all. In my experience, Batman spells are actually quicker to resolve... and I find them a whole lot more fun and interesting than just dishing out damage.


I beg to differ. The wording on Solid Fog does in fact not suggest that your base speed drops to 5 feet, but rather, that you are unable to move more than 5 feet per round. Am I terribly wrong in this? If I am, the spell is rather pointless.

Other than that, good article.

Solid fog says (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/solidFog.htm):


This spell functions like fog cloud, but in addition to obscuring sight, the solid fog is so thick that any creature attempting to move through it progresses at a speed of 5 feet, regardless of its normal speed...

It says "a speed of 5 feet," not "a speed of 5 feet per round." That means it has to be talking about the creature's move speed.

However, the rules on actions in combat also say "you can't run if you can't see where you're going (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#run)." It would be up to the DM to decide exactly how to apply that, but strictly as written that would make it impossible to take a quadruple move in a solid fog, since you can't see the destination square from your starting position.

Solid fog isn't a win button, but its tactical value is still quite high.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-07-26, 06:24 AM
I myself have always been a big evocation fan. Not because I think it's more effective, I do indeed think evocation is one of the least worthwhile schools to be a part of in hopes for optomization. I do however believe evocation is by all means really really fun. Not just for combat either; I have a CE elven sorcerer who's a evocation specialist and has a few ways to improve his damage. This makes it very fun when you're in towns, there's someone you don't like in the tavern, take a nice hidden little stake-out within eyesight of it and take the place out.

Fire, lightning, cold and acid are so fun to throw at people and monsters, I can picture their effects. I can't really picture the effects of enervation except for the monster looking a little more sallowed. I can picture the monster being burned alive, or having skin eatten away, or having it being immediately frosted over and turned black and I LOVE being able to picture that.

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-26, 06:38 AM
Hi everyone,

Cruiser1 makes some very valid points. Yes, Evocation is not the weakest school for arcane spell users, and it is one of the points where I believe the otherwise excellent LogicNinja Batman guide is wrong. In fact evocation is one of the strongest schools.
Although Rachel Lorelei provides some good counterarguments as well.

I'd like to add the following strengths of evocation:
- attacking spells necessitate often reflex saves. Reflex is the strong save of only a few classes, and those can be dealt with with fortitude-saves (excepting the monk, but those are likely rare). Most of the typical opponents (monsters, animals, enemy warriors and priests/casters) have sucky DEX and base reflex saves.
- they are mostly LONG range. This is so much better than many of the LogicNinja-Spells that are save/suck or nosave/suck, but close in range (getting the caster within the charging range of enemies most of the time).
- they are great for affecting large areas/many enemies and soften them up for cleave-using fighters in the group
- they are very easy to use (in terms of strategy)

On individual key spells:
- sending: one of the great uses of this spell is to send to one of your friends who is acting strangely recently. If that friend does not respond, it is quite clear the guy next to you is disguised/illusioned enemy spying on you. The spell is also great for locating your lost friends (something an npc caster cannot do)
- contingency: shadow evocation only goes so far. The Greater version will duplicate the contingency, but only at 60% probability (a really harsh DM may go with the RAW and say it is only 20% since the only thing that changes with the greater shadow evocation version over the 5th level one is level availability and damage). Could be a nuisance to waste two or more 8th-level spells in an adventure instead of a 6th level slot (say, if you want to get up a contingency again quickly after it was triggered).
- resilient sphere/wall of force/force cage: I cannot list the sheer number of times I saw these spells used in duels or on maxing boards listing the greatness of arcane casters (vs non-casters). These spells are among the most powerful of their respective levels. Combine them with item creation feats to gain those coveted cube of force, etc. stuff
Again, Greater Shadow evocation emulates them only with a certain probability, making it quite hazardrous at those levels.
- similarly wind wall and shatter (combine with quickened dispel magic, then you squish almost all magic items) are listed often as must-haves for arcane superiority.


- Giacomo

Cruiser1
2007-07-26, 06:50 AM
Enervation imposes a flat penalty; touch of idiocy reduces some stats.
Well, negative levels impose penalties to attack rolls, saves, skill checks, ability checks, hp, and spells available, which seriously affects a character sheet. Reducing some stats means reducing saves and skill checks and such based on them.

Celerity, um... isn't Evocation.
Doh! That's what I get for writing about non-core sources. :( Celerity at least seems "zippy" like an Evocation spell, although since it deals with turns like Haste and Time Stop I see why it's Transmutation.

Very soon, enemies have either magical gear (humanoids) or none (monsters), making Shatter completely ineffective.
So Dispel Magic on the enemy's gear first and then Shatter it. :) Shatter certainly loses effectiveness at high levels, but its great for a 2nd level spell.

Seriously? This is the sort of thing one pays NPC casters for. One doesn't use it often.
The Sending spell is useful in the field or dungeon when there aren't NPC's around, say when you get separated from your party in the Tomb of Horrors.

Wall of Ice, for example, is significantly inferior to Wall of Stone because of its puny hit points.
Well, Wall of Stone is a 5th level spell compared to a Wall of Ice being a 4th level spell. Wall of Stone can also only be cast in certain circumstances, i.e. attached to existing stone, while Wall of Ice can be cast in the desert, in a dirt field, etc. A Wall of Ice also covers 4x the area of Wall of Stone.

And then you can't get through either. At high levels carving a path through rock won't take that long
Wall of Force is dismissable, so when you're done with it, just dismiss it if you need to get through. Sure, at high levels lots of things are possible, but Wall of Force is pretty interesting when you're 9th level (e.g. cast it in front of a ship and watch the ship crash).

Any creature trying to move through the solid fog progresses at a speed of 5 feet--regardless of how it's moving. You can't move more than five feet through the fog a round, which is the point.
The Solid Fog spell says "creature attempting to move through it progresses at a speed of 5 feet, regardless of its normal speed". That seems to imply its speed becomes 5 feet. If I'm in a Solid Fog, I can use my move action to move 5 feet, and then cast Gust of Wind (another Evocation spell :) to get rid of the Solid Fog. If I didn't cast a spell, and instead did a double move, it seems like I could move 10 feet (or even run to move 20 feet).

If 16 damage killed them, how much of a threat were these things? The party could have cleaned them up in several rounds, maybe taking a few points of damage, and still have that slot.
Environmental Impact (see above link) is an adventure for 8th level characters (which we were, meaning pure casters' top spells are 4th level). The Needlefolk are ranged attackers, who concentrate their fire on Elves. Guess what my race was? Round 1, they all shot at me, almost killing me. Druid goes, and casts Wind Wall (Evocation :) to protect us. My turn, I really want a heal, so I ended the combat right then and there.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-07-26, 06:59 AM
The Solid Fog spell says "creature attempting to move through it progresses at a speed of 5 feet, regardless of its normal speed". That seems to imply its speed becomes 5 feet. If I'm in a Solid Fog, I can use my move action to move 5 feet, and then cast Gust of Wind (another Evocation spell :) to get rid of the Solid Fog. If I didn't cast a spell, and instead did a double move, it seems like I could move 10 feet (or even run to move 20 feet).


Except for the last bit about running you are correct.


You can’t run across difficult terrain or if you can’t see where you’re going.

mikeejimbo
2007-07-26, 07:06 AM
My typical response for "Why'd you ban Evocation?" is something along the lines of "What do I look like, a sorcerer?"

Of course, I've only played a wizard a few times. Mostly I play a Cleric.

Evil DM Mark3
2007-07-26, 07:10 AM
Evocation is a middle range school. Enchantment and Necromancy are both lower than it I feel (go and look how many high level things are immune to mind effecting spells.) and Divination for the wizard is saved by canny use and the drop only one school specialisation.

(For the record my fav ever char was a "Light specialist" Wizard who was themed heavily around prismatic spells so there was quite a bit of evocation there.)

But it is getting weaker.

Conjuration, allready holding the healing magic that necromancy ought to have is now taking the direct damadge spells too. I can forive Disintigrate because "transuting somone so they fall apart" makes sence. Conjuring a "real ball of sound" makes 0% logic. Abjuration is fine as it is, strong yes but at the same time lacking what would make it a true swis army school.

its_all_ogre
2007-07-26, 07:11 AM
most of my players greatly prefer evocation type blasting spells.
well aware that they are generally not as effective as others though.
that said i normally experience the lower level 'save or lose' spells, where an enemy can often pass by rolling a mere 12 or higher. at that stage most enemies pass and the damage spell would have been more effective.

now i'm off to get popcorn and enjoy this duel!:smallbiggrin:

Dausuul
2007-07-26, 07:47 AM
Well, negative levels impose penalties to attack rolls, saves, skill checks, ability checks, hp, and spells available, which seriously affects a character sheet. Reducing some stats means reducing saves and skill checks and such based on them.

Negative levels are relatively easy to track... just knock off 5 hit points for each one, and keep track of how many the subject has. Apply that number as a penalty on all d20 rolls.

Sure it takes away spells, too, but very few monsters are actual spellcasters--the vast majority just get SLAs, which aren't affected. And even where casters are concerned, it's not hard to just knock off one top-level spell or slot per negative level.

I do actually see your point; the main problem with debuffs is not the individual debuff, it's the fact that each one does something different and you have to remember them all. However, if you limit yourself to just one or two debuffing spells (and really, with enervation and slow, how many more do you need?), it's not a big issue.


most of my players greatly prefer evocation type blasting spells.
well aware that they are generally not as effective as others though.
that said i normally experience the lower level 'save or lose' spells, where an enemy can often pass by rolling a mere 12 or higher. at that stage most enemies pass and the damage spell would have been more effective.

That's why you soften them up with enervation first.

I agree that dumping Evocation is not an automatic decision; the force-barrier and Bigby spells are very very useful, particularly in a dungeon setting where a wall of force can trap an enemy (preferably with a cloudkill thrown in for good measure). The use of shadow evocation to produce a contingency effect, while legal by RAW, is extremely sketchy and likely to be forbidden by many DMs. And there are times when direct damage is called for.

Amiria
2007-07-26, 07:52 AM
For non-core Evocations, don't forget Moonbow (SC, 5th level). A maximized Moonbow does a truly obscene amount of hit point damage. Heck, this blaster spell is even a worthy candidate for the Arcane Thesis feat (PHBII). Combine it with Incantatrix and some Metamagic Rods to go crazy. Empower Spell, Quicken Spell, Twin Spell. Get the Energy Substituiton feat or the archmage's Mastery of Elements class feature for best results.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 08:05 AM
Okay. So you like Evocation. That's fine. Play what you like, no one's going to stop you.

That doesn't stop Fireball from being mechanically and mathematically weaker than Haste, though.

Why do people have the urge to try to convince people that their way of playing is the One True Way of True D&D? Why do the opinions of random neckbeards on the Internet matter to you so much? Just play what you want to play, and if it embarasses you so much, don't tell us!

Lapak
2007-07-26, 08:10 AM
Whether or not damage-dealing is mechanically weaker than save-or-lose/debuff/battlefield control (which it is) I think it's ridiculous that the school's one strength has been usurped by Conjuration.

I don't like the 'magically created single-round' spells to begin with; the distinction between the fire in an Orb of Fire and the fire created by Burning Hands seems utterly false to me. But putting them in Conjuration is just adding insult to injury, and I don't think that they belong there.

SilverClawShift
2007-07-26, 08:17 AM
I think one thing people forget when they're arguing about things like this, is that D&D is a game. It's also a game controlled by an intelligent person (in theory) who has a twin-job of telling a story, and making sure everyone (themselves included) is having fun.

Ultimately, whatever school of magic you specialize in (if any) and whatever schools of magic you drop, you and your party should still be having a good time playing the game. If your DM puts you in situations where you CANNOT win without a spell from your banned school, he's not maknig the game very fun.
Arguing the finer points of game mechanics is fine (and fun in its own right). Just don't forget that no matter what you play, the game is meant to be enjoyable, and an unenjoyable game fails. A party of 4 monks? Hey, weak, make it fun though, that's all that matters.
Some people have fun optimizing for uber-power. Personally I'd rather just play the game, but to each their own.

As far as spell schools go, I find evocatino to generally be less fun for most spellcasters. If you want to deal damage, you can grab a big stick and hit something with it. Magic can change reality itself into your favor. That tends to be a little more 'cool' in my book.

The Prince of Cats
2007-07-26, 08:19 AM
That doesn't stop Fireball from being mechanically and mathematically weaker than Haste, though.
I have seen the look on the fighter's face when she realised that the BBEG got an extra attack per round. It was concern and consternation.

I saw the look on their faces when I started counting out d6s for a fireball spell. No competition; that was terror...

Tyger
2007-07-26, 08:29 AM
I have seen the look on the fighter's face when she realised that the BBEG got an extra attack per round. It was concern and consternation.

I saw the look on their faces when I started counting out d6s for a fireball spell. No competition; that was terror...

Yup, but that's not what we're talking about here. Its not what the spells can do in the hands of the BBEG... its what those same spells can add to the effectiveness of the party.

I have seen the look on my teammates' faces when they realized that they got an extra attack, a bonus to AC, a bonus to relfex saves, a bonus to BAB and an extra 30 feet of movement.

I saw the look on their faces when I asked to borrow two more D6s. No competition, there was boredom. :)

Indon
2007-07-26, 08:33 AM
I'd like to throw in that while a bit of utility spellcasting is okay, it's very, very easy to make the game boring with it.

"Oh, look, another encounter." *Renders enemy helpless* "Okay, Rest of the party, you go mop up, I'mma go get me a lemonade."

It's a great way to, as far as I'm concerned, suckify any campaign.

And as for BBEG's actually having a defense to you? I wish Tippy were posting on this thread so he could spend the next 8 pages systematically demonstrating that unless your BBEG is _also_ Batman, he gets neutralised in 1 round, and can push it to 3 if he's really lucky. But I'll settle for pointing out that the whole _point_ of being Batman is to be able to deal with _any situation_. Unless your opponent can deal with any of your myriad measures for immediately defeating him (which means he's probably another Batman wizard), you're going to beat him the boring way.

And if your players didn't want life-threatening encounters, they wouldn't be playing a game in which they were adventurers. They'd ask their DM for an NPC-class-oriented campaign in which they were all competing merchants or something.

Blasting, in general, means you contribute to the party (about as much as everyone else if they're optimising as much as you are) without boring everyone else with coup de grace combat. This doesn't mean you _only_ cast Fireball, or related spells. It just means you don't rely on encounter-enders.

So I guess I should say that I feel a balance of approach to be optimal.

As for individual spells, Shatter is awesome. It's Sunder, except it doesn't rob you of good loot.

Evocation also has a couple of the Prismatic line of spells (Which is strange, because if I recall there are also Conjuration and Abjuration prismatic spells).

Argent
2007-07-26, 08:36 AM
I have seen the look on the fighter's face when she realised that the BBEG got an extra attack per round. It was concern and consternation.

I saw the look on their faces when I started counting out d6s for a fireball spell. No competition; that was terror...

No doubt -- it's not near as viscerally frightening to have an extra attack roll against you as it is to watch that DM shaking a double handful of dice and grinning maniacally at you.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 08:40 AM
I have seen the look on the fighter's face when she realised that the BBEG got an extra attack per round. It was concern and consternation.

I saw the look on their faces when I started counting out d6s for a fireball spell. No competition; that was terror...

If the BBEG was a wizard, why was he casting haste on himself?!

Compare an extra attack per round from a wizard to an extra attack per round from a barbarian, or a rogue in flanking position with said barbarian...

Of course, fear has absolutely nothing to do with how strong or weak something actually is, just what your players think is strong or weak. :smallwink:

AKA_Bait
2007-07-26, 08:46 AM
Two quick things:

1. Must agree witht the OP. Evocation is FUN. As much as I understand the mechanical benifits of the batman wizard nothing says Arcane Might like rolling a whole bunch of d6 for damage.

2. A word on shatter. It is useful as a low level spell in combat. It is also useful at higher levels outside of combat or in the moments leading up to combat. Sure, you won't be able to shatter the BBEG's sword with it because the weapon is magical but during his BBEG speech you can sunder his throne (if it's light enough) or secptre or statue to himself. If he hasn't drawn the weapon yet you can probably shatter the scabbard it's in. Sure, it's not all that mechanically useful after a point but as an RP tool it can be darn cool. That is not unimportant.

DM: Upon entering the room you see an altar made of bone. It seems thinly constructed of human arms and legs. Upon it sits a dagger and a bowl full of blood. Behind it, coweled in a deep red robe stands a humaniod figure. Only the red of his eyes can be seen below the shadow of the cowl.

Evoker: I shatter the altar. "Hiya pookums! Aww, did we break your toy?"

Dausuul
2007-07-26, 09:13 AM
And as for BBEG's actually having a defense to you? I wish Tippy were posting on this thread so he could spend the next 8 pages systematically demonstrating that unless your BBEG is _also_ Batman, he gets neutralised in 1 round, and can push it to 3 if he's really lucky. But I'll settle for pointing out that the whole _point_ of being Batman is to be able to deal with _any situation_. Unless your opponent can deal with any of your myriad measures for immediately defeating him (which means he's probably another Batman wizard), you're going to beat him the boring way.

The "Batman wins everything always" arguments look nice on paper but often don't hold up in play. The biggest reason for this is that they tend to assume the wizard in question is 20th level with access to every spell in the book. With rare exceptions, most campaigns I've seen or heard of take place in the 4-12 range, where wizards are powerful but far from unbeatable... particularly if the DM doesn't allow access to the Spell Compendium. Wizards are a lot easier to challenge if they aren't allowed the celerity line or assay spell resistance.

Quietus
2007-07-26, 09:13 AM
Okay. So you like Evocation. That's fine. Play what you like, no one's going to stop you.

That doesn't stop Fireball from being mechanically and mathematically weaker than Haste, though.

Why do people have the urge to try to convince people that their way of playing is the One True Way of True D&D? Why do the opinions of random neckbeards on the Internet matter to you so much? Just play what you want to play, and if it embarasses you so much, don't tell us!

Awww, I think you missed the point.

This isn't a "I love Evocation! *Hug*" thread. This is a "Evocation isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is" thread. Which is entirely true.

Tyger
2007-07-26, 09:16 AM
Awww, I think you missed the point.

This isn't a "I love Evocation! *Hug*" thread. This is a "Evocation isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is" thread. Which is entirely true.

Yup, exactly. Defenstrating Sphere is my absolute favorite spell, and its evocation. And I've been been known to have my wizard toss a few fireballsfrom time to time as well. Nothing says wizard like a good fireball. :)

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-26, 09:22 AM
Awww, I think you missed the point.

This isn't a "I love Evocation! *Hug*" thread. This is a "Evocation isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is" thread. Which is entirely true.

Evocation is a school of magic. That makes it inherently good. Good enough that a wizard who's only school was evocation is balanced with a level 20 fighter.

But compared to the other schools of magic, evocation is the worst. I rarely advocate banning any schools (elf generalist sub level instead) of magic btu evocation simply is the worst of them all.

Saph
2007-07-26, 09:29 AM
One point in favour of Evocation which Cruiser missed:

It's true that a save-or-suck spell or a party buff spell is usually more effective than a direct damage spell . . . if the enemy is at full hitpoints.

If the enemy is at 10%-30% hitpoints, however, then buff and debuff spells become much less useful. By that point several members of your party are likely to be disabled or low on HP, and one way or another, the battle is only going to last one or two more rounds (either the monster kills one of your party members, or you kill it first). In this situation just blasting the monster and trying to kill it as fast as possible is a pretty good tactic.

- Saph

Grod_The_Giant
2007-07-26, 10:00 AM
evocation being fun or not is a matter of taste. Personally, I can't stand buffing and dispeling and all that stuff- give me a warmage any day!

True, things like save or dies and debuffs and negative levels are effective, but are they fun? Ok, yes, a player may find it fun, but look at it from the DM's perspective:

Dispel Magic? Arrgh, what's the caster level on a +4 armor? Who buffed the minions?
Enervation? Dammit...sure, they may look easy to keep track of, but the DM has to keep track of all the stuff you do for MULTIPLE monsters, remember to use the special abilities of all his creatures, environmental factors, timing...Is it really nice to add MORE to his load?
Save or Die? Crap...the BBEG I spent TWO HOURS ON is dead...in one round...:smallfurious:

Anticlimatic, adding to the DM's load (and DON'T say that he shouldn't be DM if he can't handle all that- I always DM for my party, and it's not easy as it is- and I try to steer clear of ability and level drain and other abnormal rules), stealing the spotlight from the other party members...is this 'fun'?

Also, the schools should be:
Abjuration: Spells that protect, block, or banish. Fine...well, maybe banishing should be Conjuration or Transmutation.

Divination: Spells that reveal information. No problem.

Enchantment: Spells that imbue the recipient with some property or grant the caster power over another being. Change the description to "spells that grant the caster power over another's mind" and it's fine. Or put the buff spells from Transmutation in here.

Illusion: Spells that alter perception or create false images.

Necromancy: Spells that manipulate, create, or destroy life or life force. Why isn't healing in here? Oh, if you call it 'using positive energy'... that's evocation.

Transmutation: Spells that transform the recipient physically or change its properties in a more subtle way. Some overlap with Enchantment, but still no biggie.

The problem is:

Evocation: Spells that manipulate energy or create something from nothing.
Conjuration: Spells that bring creatures or materials to the caster.

Overlap? Major overlap here. What are the Orb spells doing in Conj? Why does the descriptions of theses two schools sound suspiciously identical?

Instead, try this:
Evocation: Spells that manipulate energy to smite the caster's foes.
Conjuration: Spells that create and manipulate real-world materials, and call creatures.

Put ALL the wall spells in Abjuration, the orb spells in Evocation, and so on. Judge spells on a case-by-case basis when a player wants them but school might be an issue.

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-26, 10:12 AM
(and DON'T say that he shouldn't be DM if he can't handle all that- I always DM for my party, and it's not easy as it is- and I try to steer clear of ability and level drain and other abnormal rules)

Right, then you're not quite doing what you should if your players decide to ramp up the power-level. If the party wizard takes it to 11, you don't stop at 10. You set up a trap with a kobold warband. The sorcerer of the warband slaps him with Feeblemind.


Dispel Magic? Arrgh, what's the caster level on a +4 armor? Who buffed the minions?

The minion cleric. Partly level -1.


Enervation? Dammit...sure, they may look easy to keep track of, but the DM has to keep track of all the stuff you do for MULTIPLE monsters, remember to use the special abilities of all his creatures, environmental factors, timing...Is it really nice to add MORE to his load?

Counters. Take a notepad, write "BBEG", "Affected Guys", and "Unaffected Guys". Mark down the number he rolls on Enervation, then put a mark down for each NPC that gets hit with it.


Save or Die? Crap...the BBEG I spent TWO HOURS ON is dead...in one round..

You spend two hours on a BBEG? Uh.. I don't know what kind of games you're running, but I've never spent two hours on a BBEG. How can you possibly waste two hours on a BBEG when you have to stat out his thirty or forty minions?

Grod, you seem to be taking the wrong kind of approach when it comes to DMing. Your NPCs are the extras in the movie. The PCs are the heroes. They always win unless it's Ravenloft.

If the party wizard nukes your BBEG with one save-or-die, then thats a tactical choice on the part of his player. It's not something you take personally, because then you fall into the mind-set of the DM Versus Players, which kills your game faster than any PC--Yes, even Pun-Pun.

Dausuul
2007-07-26, 10:23 AM
Dispel Magic? Arrgh, what's the caster level on a +4 armor? Who buffed the minions?

How could you not know who buffed the minions? You're the one who made them buffed in the first place! Although it might make sense to roll for every buff as a group rather than tracking which buffs are dispelled on which minions. (Also, I find it ironic that you're complaining about the book-keeping for dispels and debuffs, yet putting buffs on your NPCs...)

As for the armor, the only way to dispel a magic item is to target that item specifically. If taking out one item's magic properties is worth the caster's time, it's probably also worth looking up the item's CL.


Enervation? Dammit...sure, they may look easy to keep track of, but the DM has to keep track of all the stuff you do for MULTIPLE monsters, remember to use the special abilities of all his creatures, environmental factors, timing...Is it really nice to add MORE to his load?

I've never had much trouble keeping track of enervation effects, mostly because they tend to target one guy at a time. Enervation is a spell for softening up BBEGs, not zapping random minions.


Save or Die? Crap...the BBEG I spent TWO HOURS ON is dead...in one round...:smallfurious:

This is a fair criticism, and one of my biggest complaints about D&D as a whole. There are two ways to address it. One is to carefully prep your BBEG to withstand any save-or-die the party throws at him (this is one reason undead make great BBEGs).

The other is to fudge the saving throw.

AKA_Bait
2007-07-26, 10:43 AM
You spend two hours on a BBEG? Uh.. I don't know what kind of games you're running, but I've never spent two hours on a BBEG. How can you possibly waste two hours on a BBEG when you have to stat out his thirty or forty minions?

This really depends upon the kind of BBEG you are working with. I hardly ever stat out thirty or fourty minions. Most will go down like a sack of bricks within the first few rounds of combat so I just use a generator on the web or the MM versions.

If your BBEG is intended for more than one encounter/adventure then OF COURSE you spend a lot of time on them. See below for more on this.


Grod, you seem to be taking the wrong kind of approach when it comes to DMing. Your NPCs are the extras in the movie. The PCs are the heroes. They always win unless it's Ravenloft.

Two things:
1. There is no wrong approach to DMing if everyone is having fun. I'm sure there is some net fallacy I'm supposed to quote here but I have no idea.
2. If your NPC's are at all worthwhile they are NOT extras in the movie. Extras walk on for one scene and, if they are lucky, get a line and a SAG membership. The BBEG, his memorable minions, and anyone other NPCs that a DM plans to reoccur not only need to be statted out (the easy part) but fleshed out in terms of personality. Otherwise RP dies for the sake of combat stats.


If the party wizard nukes your BBEG with one save-or-die, then thats a tactical choice on the part of his player. It's not something you take personally, because then you fall into the mind-set of the DM Versus Players, which kills your game faster than any PC--Yes, even Pun-Pun.

Well, obviously you don't take it personally. Frankly, as a DM you should have had some contingency planned for that if the BBEG is more than just a dangerous tackling dummy. However, I think the point that Grod is making is that it can be frustrating (for both players and DM) when what was planned to be a climactic encounter ends up being a cakewalk.

the_tick_rules
2007-07-26, 10:44 AM
evocation can be very effective, this forum's ideas on spellcasting issues can be kinda weird sometimes.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 10:48 AM
evocation can be very effective, this forum's ideas on spellcasting issues can be kinda weird sometimes.

Yes. It's magic. Magic is good. But Divination, Enchantment, Necromancy, Illusion, Conjuration and Transmutation can be more effective.

Indon
2007-07-26, 10:52 AM
Yes. But Divination, Enchantment, Necromancy, Illusion, Conjuration and Transmutation can be more effective.

Effective can be boring. For both the DM, and the other players. That's really a matter of varying power-levels, though.

Also, Enchantment and Necromancy I don't really feel are particularly powerful compared to Evocation. They all have their gems, but are generally less-than-stellar.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 10:53 AM
Effective can be boring. For both the DM, and the other players. That's really a matter of varying power-levels, though.

Also, Enchantment and Necromancy I don't really feel are particularly powerful compared to Evocation. They all have their gems, but are generally less-than-stellar.

If you don't find it fun, don't play an effective wizard. But I like being effective. My party mates like being effective. My DM loves to challenge us.

Your mileage, as always, may vary.

I'm not trying to tell you how you should play. Why are you telling me how I should play?

AKA_Bait
2007-07-26, 10:56 AM
If you don't find it fun, don't play an effective wizard. But I like being effective. My party mates like being effective. My DM loves to challenge us.

Your mileage, as always, may vary.

I'm not trying to tell you how you should play. Why are you telling me how I should play?

One wonders how many message board wars have been fought over the use of the word 'effective'...

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-26, 10:58 AM
Effective can be boring. For both the DM, and the other players. That's really a matter of varying power-levels, though.

Also, Enchantment and Necromancy I don't really feel are particularly powerful compared to Evocation. They all have their gems, but are generally less-than-stellar.


Enchantment has the most broken spell in the game. And is on the whole fairly powerful.

Necromancy has a large number of nice, useful spells. Far more than evocation.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 10:58 AM
One wonders how many message board wars have been fought over the use of the word 'effective'...

Hey, he said effective was boring. So obviously he shouldn't play an effective character, right? Maybe a wizard with an Int of 14..

On the whole "Enchantment is weak!" thing: many more monsters have energy immunity than have immunity to enchantment effects.

Morty
2007-07-26, 11:10 AM
Enchantment has the most broken spell in the game. And is on the whole fairly powerful.


Which one is that? Irresistible Dance?
Also, the worst thing WotC has ever done to Evocation was adding Orb of X spells to Conjuration in Complete Arcane. Sure, direct damage isn't the best thing caster can do, but it was supposed Evocation thing.


Hey, he said effective was boring. So obviously he shouldn't play an effective character, right? Maybe a wizard with an Int of 14.

There's a world of difference between wizard that's not twinked to maximum and completely ineffective wizard. Let's not fall into extremes here.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 11:11 AM
About effectiveness vs. fun...

D&D is designed as a wargame with roleplaying. Now, I don't play numerous different systems, but out of the four I have examined or played, D&D (and its variants such as d20 Modern, of course) is the only one whose approach to battle is detailed with tactical movement, attacks of opportunity, detailed flying maneuverability levels, etc.. And I'm inclined to think that the point of wargames are winning wars and battles. And other than a few examples I can recall and are given in this thread (like Sending), Evocation has very few out of combat uses and therefore tends to be judged by its level of effectiveness at disabling and destroying the opposition. Sure, blasting things are fun, as shown by the scorched towns my players tend to leave behind them, but in combat (with opponents that can threaten you, not with commoners that have about no chance of truly hurting you), you are playing a wargame where effectiveness tends to have a higher priority than how much fun you're having.

I do not intend to say "you're playing wrong and I'm playing right and you suck" (cause I used to play warlocks and truenamers and they are quite low at the effectiveness scale), but I am trying to explain why some people do not think playing blaster types is a good idea.

Then again, I play M&M, which has thankfully removed all the wargaming aspects of d20 System I can think of right now, so... yeah.

Indon
2007-07-26, 11:14 AM
Enchantment has the most broken spell in the game.
Gate?

On a more serious note, I assume you're referring to Dominate Monster.



Necromancy has a large number of nice, useful spells. Far more than evocation.

I can't actually think of any really significant necromancy spells offhand. I guess I can go look when I get off work.

SITB
2007-07-26, 11:16 AM
Enchantment has the most broken spell in the game. And is on the whole fairly powerful.


Are you talking about Programmed Amnesia?

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 11:17 AM
Evocation is Simple
False: the speed with which a DM will be able to adjust statistics on the fly depends on their math skills, not on their effectiveness as a DM or anything else. Evocation is simple on the part of the player, not anything else, but that does get boring. Your answer to just about everything is "blow it up!" which can be both tiresome and cramping of the more stealthy members' styles.


Evocation is Effective
False: All schools of spells are effective; Evocation is the least effective in a combat situation (ironically), because of what I'm going to say below.


Evocation, of course, does Damage
True, but this is not a good thing: the majority of Evocation spells rely on doing energy damage, and nine times out of ten this is easily resistable and requires breaking Spell Resistance. This is bad. Why? Because anyone can do damage, and energy damage is too easily preventable. Simple spells like energy resistance, creature subtypes, and natural resistances can provide resistance or even total immunity to a single or multiple energy types.

Further, if you're really set on doing damage, other schools do it better than Evocation: Conjuration has better damage spells that don't deal with Spell Resistance; Necromancy, Enchantment, and Transmutation have spells that deal Ability Damage or provide Ability Penalties, which is both far harder to heal and a far more precious resource than HP.


Evocation is Fun
False: Evocation's entertainment value depends on your play style. Some of us like playing Batmen or Casterninjas.


Improving Evocation vs. Other Schools
Your points here are valid. Evocation is weak because of the spells in it, not because of its "style."

Indon
2007-07-26, 11:17 AM
Hey, he said effective was boring. So obviously he shouldn't play an effective character, right? Maybe a wizard with an Int of 14..


I said effective can be boring.

And a Wizard with 14 int could still be played effectively. You just focus on metamagic and, well, level 1-4 spells could probably pull you through even high levels. If anything, you'd be approaching being a Wizard innovatively and you'd be able to focus on playing more effectively without stealing the spotlight from your party.

Edit: And for Fax: You know, Energy Substitution (Acid) goes a long way towards nullifying energy resistances, plus you neglect the creatures with energy vulnerability (In particular, creatures with the Cold or Fire subtypes).

PaladinBoy
2007-07-26, 11:19 AM
If you don't find it fun, don't play an effective wizard. But I like being effective. My party mates like being effective. My DM loves to challenge us.

Your mileage, as always, may vary.

I'm not trying to tell you how you should play. Why are you telling me how I should play?

I think it's more a matter of disliking being told that our wizards are less effective than yours, when it's entirely a matter of situation and power level. I highly doubt that it's even possible to prove that evocation is always less effective than other schools, in every situation. Actually, I know it's impossible, because I can think of some situations. The most obvious is that one that the OP mentioned....... a large number of mooks with ranged weapons that were a threat to the squishy wizard.

For that matter, what defines "more effective"? You can make a case that the save-or-suck spells are more effective because they allow your party to win with a minimum of fuss and injury. Our party's warmage working together with my wizard can do pretty much the same thing with a fireball and a scintillating sphere. Either way, the other members of the party might have to do some melee cleanup.

Saying "well, an enemy with fire resistance will shut you down" or "you can't touch an enemy with Evasion" is certainly true. And? Save-or-suck spells aren't exactly foolproof either. An enemy with high saves or an enemy that simply makes a lucky roll spells a wasted turn for a debuff wizard. For a blaster, it only means less damage, at least most of the time.

I guess the whole point of this is to avoid generalizing and saying that evocation is always less effective than other schools. The whole point of the Batman wizard is the right tool for the job, right? Well, sometimes every d6 at the table is the right tool for the job. Evocation has its place, and is no less effective at its job than debuff spells are at theirs.

I'm not saying that Evocation is the be-all end-all of magic, because it's not. In fact, I think that debuffs, buffs, and save-or-suck spells are all useful tools. Simply put, I also believe that the handful of d6s is another useful tool.

Kurobara
2007-07-26, 11:20 AM
Again looking outside of core, I've saved party members with ray of the python (PHBII). (Keep that girallon from full-attacking? Yes please!) But then again, I was a Bard//Favored Soul, so it's not like I had to worry about school specialization and what schools to drop in the first place. :smalltongue:

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 11:21 AM
I said effective can be boring.

And a Wizard with 14 int could still be played effectively. You just focus on metamagic and, well, level 1-4 spells could probably pull you through even high levels. If anything, you'd be approaching being a Wizard innovatively and you'd be able to focus on playing more effectively without stealing the spotlight from your party.

Edit: And for Fax: You know, Energy Substitution (Acid) goes a long way towards nullifying energy resistances, plus you neglect the creatures with energy vulnerability (In particular, creatures with the Cold or Fire subtypes).

Of course, everything would make their saves against your spells... :smallwink:

And yes, Energy Substitution: Acid is good to add to your fireballs. Sonic would be better, but, alas, Wizards saw that that would make fireball actually able to deal damage, so they don't let you choose Sonic.

Indon
2007-07-26, 11:22 AM
Of course, everything would make their saves against your spells... :smallwink:

Heighten Spell, I believe, would help with that? Yes, there IS a use for that metamagic feat! I think.

Or, alternately, using rays, which don't have saves.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 11:23 AM
Heighten Spell, I believe, would help with that? Yes, there IS a use for that metamagic feat! I think.

Or, alternately, using rays, which don't have saves.

Yeah, Heighten Spell is for boosting your save DCs and getting through globes of invulnerability.

Or for playing a gnome Illusionist/Shadowcraft Mage.

AKA_Bait
2007-07-26, 11:25 AM
About effectiveness vs. fun...
effectiveness tends to have a higher priority than how much fun you're having.


All I have to say here is, any time you are playing a game, if fun becomes secondary to something else then you are taking the game too seriously. IMNSHO.

Draz74
2007-07-26, 11:26 AM
A few notes that surprisingly haven't been covered by all the responses:

- Shatter: Yeah, it's good, but make the Cleric do it instead of the wizard.

- Sending: Yeah, it's extremely useful in non-routine situations, but make the Cleric do it instead of the wizard. Heck, it's a 4th-level spell instead of a 5th-level spell for him. And he already "knows" it without using up space in his spellbook.

- Sometimes the party does get separated. That's an excellent point in favor of why the Wizard should know at least one or two direct-damage spells.

- A lot has been said about Shadow Evocation. These spells are, frankly, ambiguous. Whether a nondamaging effect is "interacted with" and allows a disbelief save is sometimes subjective. And it's not quite sure what the intention of the rules was for non-attack spells thus duplicated. (Duplicate Sending, your contacted ally probably doesn't want the spell to fail.) These spells are somewhat overpowered if some kind of limit doesn't get put on non-attack spells ... so a lot comes down to the DM in these cases.

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-26, 11:27 AM
I'm not trying to tell you how you should play. Why are you telling me how I should play?

I do not think that anyone suggested that. It's a forum where opinions are exchanged.

Overall I'd say you can find a lot of good and bad stuff in all schools, so it is a tough choice to specialise and lose some of the good of other schools.
Enchantment is a bit problematic in actual play because you get "adventure solvers" quite early (charm person) and it is thus really challenging for a DM.

The problem is that charm spells (up to the dominate monster) are actually dependent on the DM more than most other spells. Dominate monster, for instance, and also dominate person are highly interpretable by the DM due to the following sentence:
SRD: "Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. "
So basically you try first the dominate an opponent, and then command him to do something and immediately that guy will get another save at +2 (or you are very clever in suggesting stuff that will not directly go against that person's "nature").

Hey, a 9th level spell that allows at least two saves and spell resistance? And does not affect undead, plants, constructs etc? Great...(Plus, a 24 hour mind blank stops most of the enchantment spells, even the power words.)

An alternative is to leave the enchantment spells in the group to the bard...but hey, it all depends on your personal taste and how the DM handles it.

- Giacomo

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-26, 11:27 AM
Which one is that? Irresistible Dance?
Programmed Amnesia. With just that spell I can take over the world in under a month.


Also, the worst thing WotC has ever done to Evocation was adding Orb of X spells to Conjuration in Complete Arcane. Sure, direct damage isn't the best thing caster can do, but it was supposed Evocation thing.

What WoTC should have done was spread out everything in evocation among Conjuration, Transmutation, and Abjuration and then dumped the whoel school.

Or even better make the blasting spells into universally spells that all have SR: No, move the non blasting spells to more appropriate schools and allowed the player to flavor how they make their fireballs and the like.

Player 1 creates a fireball by summoning part of the elemental plane of fire into the material plane for a brief instant (SR doesn't apply because the fire isn't magical, just the method of its arrival).

Player 2 creates a fireball by creating a small amount of a highly volatile chemical and shooting it at the target (again SR: No because its just a normal chemical reaction, even though the chemicals were created by magic).

Player 3 creates a fireball by transmuting the air into extremely hot gas or plasma (SR: No because its an instantaneous change).

SITB
2007-07-26, 11:31 AM
Or even better make the blasting spells into universally spells that all have SR: No, move the non blasting spells to more appropriate schools and allowed the player to flavor how they make their fireballs and the like.

Player 1 creates a fireball by summoning part of the elemental plane of fire into the material plane for a brief instant (SR doesn't apply because the fire isn't magical, just the method of its arrival).

Player 2 creates a fireball by creating a small amount of a highly volatile chemical and shooting it at the target (again SR: No because its just a normal chemical reaction, even though the chemicals were created by magic).

Player 3 creates a fireball by transmuting the air into extremely hot gas or plasma (SR: No because its an instantaneous change).

And that will be awesome.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 11:31 AM
All I have to say here is, any time you are playing a game, if fun becomes secondary to something else then you are taking the game too seriously. IMNSHO.

Let me rephrase that, cause, well, the way I put it, you have a point.

"At wargames, the fun you have from obliterating your enemy usually tends to have a higher priority then the fun you're having from sticking to a theme and saying 'ooh, look at the number of shiny dice I am rolling!'."

You are rolling shiny dice, yes, but the enemy is kicking my ass over here. Don't you think emerging victorious might be more fun then getting killed (unless you're playing the kind of game where the point is dying in the best way possible, which I did)?

Morty
2007-07-26, 11:33 AM
What WoTC should have done was spread out everything in evocation among Conjuration, Transmutation, and Abjuration and then dumped the whoel school.

Or even better make the blasting spells into universally spells that all have SR: No, move the non blasting spells to more appropriate schools and allowed the player to flavor how they make their fireballs and the like.


The better way would be merging Conjuration and Evocation and moving some spells from both schools to other ones- like Mage Armor and Forcecage to Abjuration and, most importantly Teleport to universal.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-26, 11:39 AM
The problem is evocation doesn't really make sense.


Evocation

Evocation spells manipulate energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end. In effect, they create something out of nothing. Many of these spells produce spectacular effects, and evocation spells can deal large amounts of damage.

Every school of magic manipulates energy (except maybe enchantment).

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 11:41 AM
Hey, don't be putting down Wizards with 14 INT, Yuki! Sometimes that's the best you get in a 3d6 game! Which of course, are games I love. Well, only when I don't roll any 3s. Or 4s. Or 5s. Or more than a single stat under 10. :smallannoyed:

Anyway, Fax Celestis kinda said all the stuff I wanted to. So, I really don't have a purpose in being here, other than supporting the idea that Evocation really isn't as good as the other schools.

I'll play a Wizard and keep evocation, but only because my other 5 wizards dropped it. It's about the idea of having the same mechanics - I need to change things up, once in a while. But, being effective isn't boring. Effectiveness is only "boring" when you're either a) doing the same thing over-and-over, or b) without a challenging DM. And generally, the only reason that "a" would continue to work is because of "b".

edit: Wow. A lot of people posted. This was meant to go a bit back...

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 11:41 AM
Every school of magic manipulates energy (except maybe enchantment).

Enchantment manipulates the energy of brains!

Morty
2007-07-26, 11:42 AM
The problem is evocation doesn't really make sense.
Every school of magic manipulates energy (except maybe enchantment).

What energy? I can't see how Transmutation uses energy.
And yes, Evocation doesn't make much sense. That's why it should be merged with Conjuration while removing some spells from both schools so we don't end up with some ultimate uber-school.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 11:42 AM
Enchantment manipulates the energy of brains!

Which we know as electricity, of course. :smalltongue:

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 11:43 AM
Enchantment manipulates the energy of brains!

Enchantment = Psionics?

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-26, 11:44 AM
If your BBEG is intended for more than one encounter/adventure then OF COURSE you spend a lot of time on them. See below for more on this.

Two hours on one character? Even if he/she is going to be around for more than one encounter, which they honestly shouldn't since any party would try to kill him before letting him escape, that doesn't mean you spend more than two hours on it.



1. There is no wrong approach to DMing if everyone is having fun. I'm sure there is some net fallacy I'm supposed to quote here but I have no idea.

Yes, there is. "I'm angry at the party for killing my BBEG, I'm going to throw [X Monster Over The Appropriate CR] at them for it."


The BBEG, his memorable minions, and anyone other NPCs that a DM plans to reoccur not only need to be statted out (the easy part) but fleshed out in terms of personality.

If you're going to have an extended campaign, then the only personalities that actually matter are the two to three NPCs that the party sees frequently. A BBEG might get a monologue, but in all honesty the part should not meet him before fighting him, so they shouldn't see/know his personality sans the scenes he leaves for them to discover.


However, I think the point that Grod is making is that it can be frustrating (for both players and DM) when what was planned to be a climactic encounter ends up being a cakewalk.

Tough. It happens. Just like sometimes a Guardian charges the Sith Lord, crits, and does 22+ Wound damage. Is that the Guardian's fault? No. It's the dice. If you don't want a nat-1 screwing up a climactic encounter, then I believe there are various feats that allow you to ignore nat-1s for each of the three saves.

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 11:45 AM
Enchantment = Psionics?

That'd be my guess!

Counterpower
2007-07-26, 11:48 AM
Let me rephrase that, cause, well, the way I put it, you have a point.

"At wargames, the fun you have from obliterating your enemy usually tends to have a higher priority then the fun you're having from sticking to a theme and saying 'ooh, look at the number of shiny dice I am rolling!'."

You are rolling shiny dice, yes, but the enemy is kicking my ass over here. Don't you think emerging victorious might be more fun then getting killed (unless you're playing the kind of game where the point is dying in the best way possible, which I did)?

I see this all the time, and it annoys me every time I do. If the choice at the table is between creating the most efficient character you possibly can or getting killed, then the DM is not doing their job right. If a player wants to play a warmage or an evoker, and I as a DM kill them in combat because they're not as mechanically effective as they would have been as a conjurer, then all I've done is punished the player for playing the way they wanted to play.

Personally, I favor the OP's solution to balancing the schools of magic.

Ramza00
2007-07-26, 11:49 AM
Another great evocation spell (though it is sorc only) is wings of flurry.

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 11:52 AM
Wait, who's killing warmages and evokers for being warmages and evokers? There's a difference between not-effective and being so awful that you can't ever win.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 11:54 AM
Wait, who's killing warmages and evokers for being warmages and evokers?

Golems, I assume.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-26, 11:55 AM
What energy? I can't see how Transmutation uses energy.
Transmutation is the manipulation of sub atomic particles. If you can manipulate matter on a subatomic scale then you can literally turn anything into anything else.


And yes, Evocation doesn't make much sense. That's why it should be merged with Conjuration while removing some spells from both schools so we don't end up with some ultimate uber-school.
But the wall spells should be put in abjuration. Cloudkill should be moved to transmutation. Contingency should become a divination spell.

I would just make most of evocation universal or work with the player to put the spells in what school they wanted depending on how the saw the effect being accomplished.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 11:56 AM
If a player wants to play a warmage or an evoker, and I as a DM kill them in combat because they're not as mechanically effective as they would have been as a conjurer, then all I've done is punished the player for playing the way they wanted to play.

It's not you, it's the game. At one point, you realize that the monsters you are fighting just aren't hurt by your spells anymore, so they kill you.

That's the same point where I said "screw D&D, I'll go play another system".

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 11:58 AM
It's not you, it's the game. At one point, you realize that the monsters you are fighting just aren't hurt by your spells anymore, so they kill you.

That's the same point where I said "screw D&D, I'll go play another system".

That's funny, I would have said "Screw that approach, let me think of another."

Morty
2007-07-26, 12:02 PM
Transmutation is the manipulation of sub atomic particles. If you can manipulate matter on a subatomic scale then you can literally turn anything into anything else.

That's one way to look at it. I personally never explained spells in scientific way, possibly because I suck at physics. But I presume there are other explanations of how transmutation works if we want evocation to be only school that manipulates energy.


But the wall spells should be put in abjuration. Cloudkill should be moved to transmutation. Contingency should become a divination spell.

Is that any problem? Besides, I despise all wall and cloud spells, so I belive they should be in fact removed.


I would just make most of evocation universal or work with the player to put the spells in what school they wanted depending on how the saw the effect being accomplished.

The latter way would indeed work. However, it applies to many non-evocation spells.


It's not you, it's the game. At one point, you realize that the monsters you are fighting just aren't hurt by your spells anymore, so they kill you.

"At one point". Which point exactly?

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 12:03 PM
I see this all the time, and it annoys me every time I do. If the choice at the table is between creating the most efficient character you possibly can or getting killed, then the DM is not doing their job right. If a player wants to play a warmage or an evoker, and I as a DM kill them in combat because they're not as mechanically effective as they would have been as a conjurer, then all I've done is punished the player for playing the way they wanted to play.

D&D is lethal. All kinds of players die all the time. If you're scared of that, then perhaps you should play something safer.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 12:05 PM
"At one point". Which point exactly?

In my case, when a level 6 party couldn't bring down a CR 5 zombie.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 12:06 PM
"At one point". Which point exactly?

Right around the point when you first fight a golem.

Artemician
2007-07-26, 12:08 PM
What's up with the whole "You need to be optimized to have fun" gang?

Have they not realized a very simple rule? The DM sets the encounters. THis means exactly how difficult they are is up to him. Not up to you.

You can make the most supertwinked, way-above-his-ECL character, but in that case the DM will send mosnters of a higher CR at you. Likewise, if you play a character that isn't optimized, the DM will send monsters of a lower CR at you. Personal effectiveness has nothing to do with it.

Morty
2007-07-26, 12:10 PM
In my case, when a level 6 party couldn't bring down a CR 5 zombie.

:smallconfused: Now how did that happen?


Right around the point when you first fight a golem.

So? Evocation spells aren't effective against golems. Neither are sneak attacking rogues. But everything should be weak against something, and it's not blasters' fault batman wizards aren't. Anyway, I belive the whole point is there's big difference between being 100% optimized and being utterly unoptimized. There are a lot of possible characters between twinked wizard and core-only TWFing kobold fighter with bastard swords.

Counterpower
2007-07-26, 12:11 PM
I see my point wasn't understood, so I'll try again. Khantalas's post implied to me that in D&D, it's more important to be having fun from victory than having fun through playing the way you want to play. I dislike that, and I don't think that a DM should force players to choose between enjoying victory and enjoying their playstyle. It shouldn't matter what's more important, because you should be able to have both.

Khantalas: I am the one who controls what the party has to defeat in combat. If they can't defeat the challenge as a warmage or an evoker, just absolutely have no way of winning, then all I've accomplished is to kill the party.

Fax: Where in the divine realms did you get "scared" from what I said? If the players have to face a TPK because they wanted to play a monk, a blaster mage, and a fighter, how is that not punishing them and ruining the game's fun solely because of what they wanted to play? D&D is a roleplaying game, and I'm not going to fire off a TPK because I don't like their character choices.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 12:11 PM
What's up with the whole "You need to be optimized to have fun" gang?

Have they not realized a very simple rule? The DM sets the encounters. THis means exactly how difficult they are is up to him. Not up to you.

You can make the most supertwinked, way-above-his-ECL character, but in that case the DM will send mosnters of a higher CR at you. Likewise, if you play a character that isn't optimized, the DM will send monsters of a lower CR at you. Personal effectiveness has nothing to do with it.

...In a perfect world.

But the world is not perfect, and humans are fallable.

Artemician
2007-07-26, 12:13 PM
...In a perfect world.

But the world is not perfect, and humans are fallable.

Explain what you mean, please, I don't quite get you.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-26, 12:14 PM
D&D is lethal. All kinds of players die all the time. If you're scared of that, then perhaps you should play something safer.

I think the point there was that it should be possible to play the character type you want to play and win, even if the character you want to play is a warmage.

Yes, players are supposed to be in danger and possibly die druing adventures..... but that's true whether you're a Batman wizard or a blaster. Even with that danger, the PCs should still be able to win. The DM determines all the challenges for the players, and if a golem is a challenge that the players simply can't win against, then the wizard the players are hunting doesn't have any.

Also, facing an unconquerable challenge is not specific to evocation. Every type of character has a counter...... a challenge against which the character cannot win. No, I'm not thinking of the tarrasque or the hecatonchieres. Mind blank shuts down enchantment and divination just as reliably as fire immunity shuts down fireball. Actually, a blaster mage can still avoid fire immunity, whereas an enchanter will have problems with mind blank.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Repeatedly.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 12:15 PM
Explain what you mean, please, I don't quite get you.

In a perfect world, with a perfect DM, the DM will always send monsters that are a perfect challenge against his perfectly balanced PCs. However, that never happens, because nothing's ever perfect. :smallwink:

A monster that challenges the much-higher-than-his-ECL character will slaughter everyone else in the party, for one thing.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 12:16 PM
Khantalas: I am the one who controls what the party has to defeat in combat. If they can't defeat the challenge as a warmage or an evoker, just absolutely have no way of winning, then all I've accomplished is to kill the party.

Remember the CR 5 zombie I was talking about? Which was supposed to be an easy encounter?

I had to use DM Fiat to keep the players alive. I had to act more stupid then a programmed being. If it was an intelligent CR 5 encounter, and I used that intelligence, there was no way the players could survive.

Yes, I almost had a case of a CR 5 zombie obliterate a level 6 party. Of five players. Who played intelligently. Just because they wanted to play their way. There is something very wrong with that picture.

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 12:17 PM
Remember the CR 5 zombie I was talking about? Which was supposed to be an easy encounter?

I had to use DM Fiat to keep the players alive. I had to act more stupid then a programmed being. If it was an intelligent CR 5 encounter, and I used that intelligence, there was no way the players could survive.

Yes, I almost had a case of a CR 5 zombie obliterate a level 6 party. Of five players. Who played intelligently. Just because they wanted to play their way. There is something very wrong with that picture.

Was their way stabbing themselves?

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 12:17 PM
Fax: Where in the divine realms did you get "scared" from what I said? If the players have to face a TPK because they wanted to play a monk, a blaster mage, and a fighter, how is that not punishing them and ruining the game's fun solely because of what they wanted to play? D&D is a roleplaying game, and I'm not going to fire off a TPK because I don't like their character choices.

The point is that you should need to be effective to survive. The CR system assumes it.

It is the DM's responsibility to send appropriate encounters at the party, yes, but it is the party's responsibility to survive them.

SilverClawShift
2007-07-26, 12:19 PM
Save or Die? Crap...the BBEG I spent TWO HOURS ON is dead...in one round...:smallfurious:

Well, you could always try making BBEG's who are more than just something to headbutt (wow, that sounded snarky! I didn't mean for it to, honest!)

Our DM likes to throw "Big Bosses" at us who challenge us as more than just a slug-fest for that very reason (his exact words, I beleive, were "You've spent half the game hitting stuff with a sword, you're toe to toe with a pile of pure walking evil, you want to climax to be stabbing something in the chest?"). We slaughter minions, but when it comes time to tackle the Big Bad we find ourselves walking into...well. Big Bad stuff.
We find out that BB has been playing the world around him like a chess board. Our presence in his lair means now WE look like the badguys.
Or we're in the middle of a war that we can't stop.
Or we're in over our head in "Outer Plane" business.
Example: One time we spent a whole campaign lugging around this evil black skull that we were trying to find a way to destroy. The skull did a number of very bad things, and was a blight on the universe itself. The BBEG who was trying to 'stop' us from destroying it lost in three rounds, we thought we were winning when we destroyed it... only to have a panicked angel who was engaging in a fight with a demon come spilling through a planar gate. The angel killed the demon, and then looked at us with horror. It turned out, that the BBEG was a powerful DIVINER, who used his knowledge of what was going to happen to play the timeline against us. The angel was 'fated' by the universe to defeat that demon, come to our 'rescue' against the evil guy, and destroy the skull herself, re-purposing the energy inside of it in the process (something we couldn't do).
We asked what the heck that meant? All the angel did was stammer and say "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do to help you now.." and it gated itself out, dejected, while the evil guy laughed.
What happens? Well, what happens when you buck the destiny of the entire universe?
Inevitables. LOTS of them. I mean a LOOOOOT of them. They came tumbling into the material plane like kobolds. It seems we'd screwed up the universal balance bad. It was a minor thing, but that event was supposed to be of the 'written on the stars' level fate. So Mechanus (the plane) is hemmoraging drones in a vein attempt to restroe order, not even knowing how to fix the problem. The rapidly emptying plane is invaded by demons and slaad and all of chaos. Chaos wins, good game Law, good game.
We did actually win in the end. As the universe was basically tearing itself apart and become a massive blob of chaos, we tucked into the timestream itself (the plane of time, which almost killed us). There we found a clockwrok dragon who flew us backwards against the sands of time (weakened us critically, and killed it, which we felt bad about). We plunged ourselves back to an earlier date in the timestream, went to confront the BBEG, who re-fed us the "You'll never destroy the skull while I'm here to stop you!" line, to which we TOSSED THE SKULL OUT THE WINDOW and said "We're not worried about the skull, we're just here to kill YOU".
Enter blank expression, engage fight, enter confused angel who flies out to get the skull out of the bushes (:smallbiggrin:) and we win.
Save or Die? Wouldn't have helped us a bit. Would have just meant that we broke the universe 2 rounds earlier. We had to find a way to beat the BBEG at his own "I know the future" game before anything we did mattered.

Another thing our DM likes to do is put us up against BBEGs who are way out of our league, and aggressive about it. None of this 'trapsing through the countryside growing in power'. No, we wind up going toe to toe with someone who could kill us in 1 round, but thinks it's funny to mess with us. An Eldritch Knight who stopped an axe-swing an inch from our fighters face, leaned forward and kissed his forhead, and teleported herself to the rafters, laughing. Reaction? "We are so screwed".
Leaving us looking for alternate ways to win the fight.

Erk. Anyway, my point is, your players are going to adapt themselves to your game and do what's best for themselves. No one wants to fail and go home to get called a loser by the king who sent them out to fight. They're going to try to win.
Any good player will adapt themselves to their DM. The DM should then adapt to their PLAYERS. As they get more cunning, YOU get more cunning. It's a lot of work, but DMing isn't easy :smallsmile:

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 12:26 PM
Was their way stabbing themselves?

Well, to be fair, they did spend a few rounds trying to find what can overcome the zombie's damage reduction. But their way was playing a paladin, a warmage, a cleric without the -zilla, a party supposedly balanced.

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 12:29 PM
Well, to be fair, they did spend a few rounds trying to find what can overcome the zombie's damage reduction. But their way was playing a paladin, a warmage, a cleric without the -zilla, a party supposedly balanced.

Zombies get single actions. And can't run.

And...and...

Seriously, HOW did this happen? If it was kicking their asses, did they at least try withdrawing?

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 12:32 PM
Well, to be fair, they did spend a few rounds trying to find what can overcome the zombie's damage reduction. But their way was playing a paladin, a warmage, a cleric without the -zilla, a party supposedly balanced.

But... wouldn't a Cleric have ranks in Knowledge: Religion? Or a Paladin, for that matter?

They're trained to fight undead, and zombie are the most common undead of all!

:smallconfused: Didn't the paladin even have a sword?

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 12:36 PM
:smallconfused: Didn't the paladin even have a sword?

I'm guessing his "way" was unarmed combat. And the Cleric's got Craft: Basketweaving instead of Knowledge: Religion.

SilverClawShift
2007-07-26, 12:37 PM
It is the DM's responsibility to send appropriate encounters at the party, yes, but it is the party's responsibility to survive them.

I understand where you're coming from, and agree with the line itself, but not with the point you're trying to make with it. A game should be engaging and fun, wether the players are optimized or not.
Personally, I don't want to play in the game where I have to be twinked out just to survive.

But I understand that many people do, and wish them happy gaming. This thread kind of illustrates how important it is to find compatible DMs and Players with what you want out of the game. A hardcore optimizer won't be happy in a game full of 'misfit' characters where the DM tailors the world to not slaughter them every step they take. And any other combinations of less than matching tastes.

My group plays for 'coolness'. We consider any game that ends with us saying "That was so awesome" to be a smashing success. Wouldn't trade it for the world, but everyone needs a group that suits them.

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 12:43 PM
I understand where you're coming from, and agree with the line itself, but not with the point you're trying to make with it. A game should be engaging and fun, wether the players are optimized or not.
Personally, I don't want to play in the game where I have to be twinked out just to survive.

I think it means "play a Fighter who doesn't only take Toughness for bonus feats". A DM should not have to put large amounts of time into specially tailoring challenges for a group because they simply can't take out what's considered the appropriate CR.

AKA_Bait
2007-07-26, 12:49 PM
Two hours on one character? Even if he/she is going to be around for more than one encounter, which they honestly shouldn't since any party would try to kill him before letting him escape, that doesn't mean you spend more than two hours on it

If you're going to have an extended campaign, then the only personalities that actually matter are the two to three NPCs that the party sees frequently. A BBEG might get a monologue, but in all honesty the part should not meet him before fighting him, so they shouldn't see/know his personality sans the scenes he leaves for them to discover..

This is, unquestionably a diffrence of play style. If you don't agree go and take a look at The Giant's example of a well fleshed out BBEG in the gaming section of this website. One he used in a campagin with his friends. You may prefer a BBEG that's just around for a few quick condescending words to the PC's and then some 'splodie/level-drainie/hack and slash but that does NOT mean in any extended campagin only two or three NPCs that are around all the time matter.

A good villian takes as much time to create as a good PC. Their stats, backstory, and motivations need to be totally fleshed out so that they can react to the party's sucesses and failures in a manner that is consitant with their personality, flaws, abilities and goals. Have you never spent more than two hours working on a PC?


Tough. It happens. Just like sometimes a Guardian charges the Sith Lord, crits, and does 22+ Wound damage. Is that the Guardian's fault? No. It's the dice. If you don't want a nat-1 screwing up a climactic encounter, then I believe there are various feats that allow you to ignore nat-1s for each of the three saves.

Sure. As I said, a DM ought to plan for things like that, but sometimes even the best laid plans and anticipatory builds go to ash once the players get involved. It's one of the most beautiful parts of the game really, for both the players and the DM. That said, it can be frustrating.


Yes, there is. "I'm angry at the party for killing my BBEG, I'm going to throw [X Monster Over The Appropriate CR] at them for it."

I take it you didn't read my caveat about everyone having a good time then right?

Ok, and now I think I've aided and abetted in the derailing of this thread long enough. I'm going to start a new one about preferred types of BBEG's where this discussion can continue if people want.

Missing Shoe
2007-07-26, 12:50 PM
I understand where you're coming from, and agree with the line itself, but not with the point you're trying to make with it. A game should be engaging and fun, wether the players are optimized or not.
Personally, I don't want to play in the game where I have to be twinked out just to survive.

...

My group plays for 'coolness'. We consider any game that ends with us saying "That was so awesome" to be a smashing success. Wouldn't trade it for the world, but everyone needs a group that suits them.
Something to consider. If you optimize your characters you can fight higher CR creatures. Meaning you level up faster. Meaning you can do more crazy stunts and fight more interesting baddies. Thus you can have a higher chance to leave each session going "That was so awesome". Now sure, there hits a point when its no fun anymore (epic battles can take hours apon hours), but mid to high level battles are usually more interesting than low level ones IMO.

Plus, some people enjoy the feeling of "Dang...we should NOT have been able to win that!" Optimizing helps with that.

--

As for on topic, I liked the article, it was nice to hear something besides the batman view. I'm not going to take a side and say evocation is weak/strong. I think you should take whatever schools are appropriate for your character's personality.

Indon
2007-07-26, 12:56 PM
Contingency should become a divination spell.

I don't see anything that would make Contingency Divination, rather than Universal.



I would just make most of evocation universal or work with the player to put the spells in what school they wanted depending on how the saw the effect being accomplished.

That sort of thing would be pretty inconsistent with the rest of the system. While it's a viable change, it'd best be done along with an overhaul of all the other schools of magic, as well.

Dausuul
2007-07-26, 12:56 PM
A DM should not have to put large amounts of time into specially tailoring challenges for a group because they simply can't take out what's considered the appropriate CR.

And guess what? You don't! All you have to do is get a sense of what your group's actual effective level is--which should be easy enough to figure out after a couple of fights--and then match your CR to that. It's not really that hard.

I played in a high-level game recently where the DM was constantly beefing up the stats of every monster he threw at us, because we blew through level-appropriate challenges like a crossbow bolt through a wet character sheet. If he'd stuck to the system as written, we'd all have been bored stiff. PCs are never exactly as powerful as the book says they're supposed to be. Sometimes they're stronger, sometimes they're weaker. That's a fact of life in a system as complicated as D&D.

Matching challenges to the PCs' capabilities is part of the DM's job.

Krellen
2007-07-26, 01:02 PM
Well, to be fair, they did spend a few rounds trying to find what can overcome the zombie's damage reduction. But their way was playing a paladin, a warmage, a cleric without the -zilla, a party supposedly balanced.
What the heck kind of zombie is immune to the warmage's blasting?

If anything's a poster-child for the use of Evocation, it's undead. They have many immunities that render a good deal of Batman's pouch useless, but their lack of Constitution, even with their large hit die, leads to generally low hit points - which makes them prime targets for the pure-damage HP-reducing spells that are Evocation's* speciality.

*Whoever made the Orb spells Conjuration should be shot for fundamental misunderstanding of the schools of magic. Direct damage is Evocation, and assuming I allow the Orb spells in my game (they're not Core, after all), that's how I view it.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 01:05 PM
What the heck kind of zombie is immune to the warmage's blasting?

The bad part about zombies are, they have much more HD then they have CR. Which means while not immune, per se, the zombie can be blasted for a good amount of time before falling.

Krellen
2007-07-26, 01:07 PM
The bad part about zombies are, they have much more HD then they have CR. Which means while not immune, per se, the zombie can be blasted for a good amount of time before falling.
Perhaps, but the warmage can solo the thing, thanks to it's single-action-only drawback. Blast it, move away. Zombie spends its turn moving. Warmage blasts again, moves away. Rinse, repeat.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 01:10 PM
Perhaps, but the warmage can solo the thing, thanks to it's single-action-only drawback. Blast it, move away. Zombie spends its turn moving. Warmage blasts again, moves away. Rinse, repeat.

Assuming it has room to move around. In a small room with a large zombie that has reach, that tactic is not very effective.

grinner666
2007-07-26, 01:12 PM
Something to consider. If you optimize your characters you can fight higher CR creatures. Meaning you level up faster.

Not in my campaign, you don't. I've had parties that ... super-optimized ... their characters outrageously. In fact, one of my favorite players of all time has a natural talent for making the rules work for him, in any game system, and he's willing to share his talent with the rest of the players. That's fine ... he's also one of the finest roleplayers I've ever encountered, and his characters are a joy to watch in action.

So I let them play their twinked characters ... and cut experience awards to 80% of normal. Then, because I like to play a combat-heavy game and didn't want characters rising in levels before they could enjoy the level they were at, to 70%. All strictly by the book, of course.

Just a hint for DMs with players like shoeless, here ... :smallwink:

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 01:12 PM
Perhaps, but the warmage can solo the thing, thanks to it's single-action-only drawback. Blast it, move away. Zombie spends its turn moving. Warmage blasts again, moves away. Rinse, repeat.

Zombies can move and attack. They can do a partial charge each turn.

Krellen
2007-07-26, 01:12 PM
Assuming it has room to move around. In a small room with a large zombie that has reach, that tactic is not very effective.
To be honest, at that point my anal-retentive players start arguing with me that the large zombie with reach couldn't possibly fit into this small room in the first place. :)

Morty
2007-07-26, 01:13 PM
I still can't see how those characters couldn't kill the zombie. Even if it was close space and the zombie had reach, they could've just worn it down sooner or later.

Chronos
2007-07-26, 01:13 PM
One point, from a couple of pages back... A few folks have stated that it doesn't make sense to put the healing spells in Conjuration. I agree; it doesn't really make sense. I'd probably put them in Necromancy, and buck the convention that necromancy is always evil/unholy/dark. But what does it matter? So far as I can tell, the school a spell is in mostly only matters to a wizard who can choose to specialize, and wizards can't cast healing spells anyway. I guess that if you chose to bar Conjuration, it would make it a little harder to emulate a healing spell with Limited Wish or Wish, but that's hardly a common situation. Well, I guess there's also Spell Focus, but healing spells are not exactly known for their saving throws. And most of them are instantaneous, so they don't leave an aura for Detect Magic to pick up. Other than fluff, how is Conjuration (Healing) any different from Necromancy (Healing)?

Arbitrarity
2007-07-26, 01:15 PM
Spell focus, for clerics. But really, save DC on CLW matters not at all, except to undead.

Krellen
2007-07-26, 01:19 PM
Zombies can move and attack. They can do a partial charge each turn.
That's what expeditious retreat is for (at least if I remember correctly, Transmutation is one of the schools Warmages have access to; even if it's not on their main spell list, by level 6 Warmages have gotten an expanded learning.)

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 01:20 PM
That's what expeditious retreat is for (at least if I remember correctly, Transmutation is one of the schools Warmages have access to; even if it's not on their main spell list, by level 6 Warmages have gotten an expanded learning.)

You remember incorrectly. It's not on their spell list, and expanded learning only applies to evocation.

ALOR
2007-07-26, 01:21 PM
I understand where you're coming from, and agree with the line itself, but not with the point you're trying to make with it. A game should be engaging and fun, wether the players are optimized or not.
Personally, I don't want to play in the game where I have to be twinked out just to survive.

But I understand that many people do, and wish them happy gaming.

i really think this is a great point. I've been reading through this thread and thinking " but i like evocation and they say it sucks" or "batman wizards just sounds cheesy". To me, optomazation is killing D&D. Thats just me. Others absolutly love to make pun pun (well not literally i hope). The point is Evocation can be incredibly effective in some groups, more so than any other school perhaps. Other groups, people laugh and point at you should you not git rid of evocation. It's all about having fun regardless of neing batman or blaster

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 01:22 PM
You remember incorrectly. It's not on their spell list, and expanded learning only applies to evocation.

There's the Eclectic Learning PHB-II Variant, but that hardly counts.

Khantalas
2007-07-26, 01:23 PM
There's the Eclectic Learning PHB-II Variant, but that hardly counts.

Doesn't count at all, because the game was before PHB II was published.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 01:25 PM
i really think this is a great point. I've been reading through this thread and thinking " but i like evocation and they say it sucks" or "batman wizards just sounds cheesy". To me, optomazation is killing D&D.
Optimization is, and has always been, a part of D&D.


Thats just me. Others absolutly love to make pun pun (well not literally i hope). The point is Evocation can be incredibly effective in some groups, more so than any other school perhaps.
Your point has gone from "people shouldn't make their characters too effective" (optimize) to "evocation can too be incredibly effective".

And not really, it can't. Maybe in a game where all you fight are hordes of mooks, but that's about it.


Other groups, people laugh and point at you should you not git rid of evocation. It's all about having fun regardless of neing batman or blaster
I think we're already aware that we like having fun.
I don't think anyone's suggested that people stop having fun.

grinner666
2007-07-26, 01:28 PM
One point, from a couple of pages back... A few folks have stated that it doesn't make sense to put the healing spells in Conjuration. I agree; it doesn't really make sense. I'd probably put them in Necromancy, and buck the convention that necromancy is always evil/unholy/dark.

I believe the idea is that the healer is creating new flesh and blood to replace that lost in combat. Yet another logical blunder from our good friends at Wizards. :smallannoyed:

SITB
2007-07-26, 01:30 PM
i really think this is a great point. I've been reading through this thread and thinking " but i like evocation and they say it sucks" or "batman wizards just sounds cheesy". To me, optomazation is killing D&D. Thats just me. Others absolutly love to make pun pun (well not literally i hope). The point is Evocation can be incredibly effective in some groups, more so than any other school perhaps. Other groups, people laugh and point at you should you not git rid of evocation. It's all about having fun regardless of neing batman or blaster

That's exactly the problem. People argue the Evocation isn't as effective as what you can otherwise do, not that it isn't 'fun' (though some people stand up and write that they prefer playing 'Batman'-esque builds).

Arguing that Evocation is 'fun', isn't the same as arguing the Evocation is effective.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-26, 01:31 PM
But I LIKE killing everyone on board a ship with cloudkill!

Bitzeralisis
2007-07-26, 01:46 PM
Well, you didn't change my opinion about spell schools.

You just reinforced it.

Evil DM Mark3
2007-07-26, 01:56 PM
Can I step in and say somthing?

Optimisation =/= Twinking

Effective =/= Super Optimised.

A character must be effective to survive, but an evoker, hells a sorcerour with only evocation spells, can be effective. There seems to be some confusion between effective and twinked. Trying to make the most powerful character you can is not being effective, frequently it is being a jerk. I have had to sit next to a player with an Ulber Twinked Batman Wizard recently. I was playing a Cleric, an effective and interesting PC. I spent most of my time watching fun being had by other people, when I asked around afterwards it was agreed that fun had been had by one person.

Deepblue706
2007-07-26, 01:56 PM
And guess what? You don't! All you have to do is get a sense of what your group's actual effective level is--which should be easy enough to figure out after a couple of fights--and then match your CR to that. It's not really that hard.

I played in a high-level game recently where the DM was constantly beefing up the stats of every monster he threw at us, because we blew through level-appropriate challenges like a crossbow bolt through a wet character sheet. If he'd stuck to the system as written, we'd all have been bored stiff. PCs are never exactly as powerful as the book says they're supposed to be. Sometimes they're stronger, sometimes they're weaker. That's a fact of life in a system as complicated as D&D.

Matching challenges to the PCs' capabilities is part of the DM's job.

Sometimes getting a "sense" can be more of a hassle. For instance, if you're DMing for a group of 3 rogues: one of which who dual-wields without two-weapon fighting (he refuses to get the feat, though he knows it exists), another of which who decided to grab MWP and then EWP Bastard sword to "fight like a fighter in melee" (without any martial-based class levels), and the other only used shurikens and improvised weaponry. The fourth member is a wizard who only uses evocation and (very rarely) necromancy. They also don't use teamwork, whatsoever. They don't try to flank. Only the shuriken guy will used ranged weaponry.

There are some things they can take out, and plenty things they can't. They never get hirelings, they never multiclass to fill up other roles.

At that point, it's not just about CR, but what is easy to hit, won't hit back hard (when it rarely does hit), is vulnerable to sneak attacks, and will not be invulnerable to damage-based spells, will never force the players to use ranged weaponry, and still be fun to fight.

Yeah, a DM needs to be able to adapt to his/her players...but he/she should remind them not to be jackasses, too, so he/she doesn't have to waste time making every single encounter so unique, because his/her options become very limited.

------------------------------------------------------------

But anyway, this has gone far from the spirit of the thread. Again, I feel Evocation is good because it's a magic school, but it's still the weakest of the schools.

If you disagree, I'll fight you.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 02:09 PM
Here's the thing: a wizard can always have the right tool for the job.
An evoker has a hammer. And boy howdy, does he ever like hitting things with it!

Me, I find relentless hammering primitive and kind of dull. Some people seem to like it, though. It's fun for them... which doesn't make it suitable for any situations other than those requiring a hammer. And you've already got two or three other characters with (non-magic) hammers! Too many hammers spoil the broth, as the saying goes...
Which leads me to another analogy: Evocation is like fast food. with, uh, hammers in it, I guess?

Swordguy
2007-07-26, 02:11 PM
Okay. So you like Evocation. That's fine. Play what you like, no one's going to stop you.

That doesn't stop Fireball from being mechanically and mathematically weaker than Haste, though.

Why do people have the urge to try to convince people that their way of playing is the One True Way of True D&D? Why do the opinions of random neckbeards on the Internet matter to you so much? Just play what you want to play, and if it embarasses you so much, don't tell us!

I realize it's late in the thread to be replying to this, but what the hey.

Because some people might be sick and tired of hearing about "Batman wizards uberpwn everything", and therefore may want to make a guide about how playing a non-Batman wizard may still be an enjoyable experience.

Morty
2007-07-26, 02:12 PM
Here's the thing: a wizard can always have the right tool for the job.
An evoker has a hammer. And boy howdy, does he ever like hitting things with it!

Me, I find relentless hammering primitive and kind of dull. Some people seem to like it, though. It's fun for them... which doesn't make it suitable for any situations other than those requiring a hammer. And you've already got two or three other characters with (non-magic) hammers! Too many hammers spoil the broth, as the saying goes...
Which leads me to another analogy: Evocation is like fast food. with, uh, hammers in it, I guess?

You're mistaking Evoker with Warmage here. Wizard can focus on blasting but still use some buff and utility spells, or the other way around.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 02:12 PM
may want to make a guide about how playing a non-Batman wizard may still be an enjoyable experience.

That's not what this is.


Edit: okay, so evokers are In & Out. It's not bad, but it's no catering service. And they're hammers with... uh... you know the kinds of hammers with the flat, split end on one end and the hammer on the other? That you can use to pry nails out and stuff? Yeah. They're those.
In soup.

ALOR
2007-07-26, 02:13 PM
Optimization is, and has always been, a part of D&D.

For some groups yes, for other groups no.



And not really, it can't. Maybe in a game where all you fight are hordes of mooks, but that's about it.

in my experiance evocation is as powerful as the other schools.
But i stress in my experiance.



I think we're already aware that we like having fun.
I don't think anyone's suggested that people stop having fun.

true and i didn't think I suggested that anyone had said that.
I was just giving my opinion on what really matters most at a gaming table, fun.

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 02:14 PM
may want to make a guide about how playing a non-Batman wizard may still be an enjoyable experience.

That's seriously not what this is. This is a "you're playing it wrong! My way is the only True way to play D&D!" thread.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-26, 02:15 PM
Just play an elven generalist, don't bother banning schools. Ya don't have to use evocation, but some of the better spells are options.

Krellen
2007-07-26, 02:15 PM
You're mistaking Evoker with Warmage here.
A common mistake I see, actually. Warmages are not wizards, or wizard-alternatives. They're barely casters, and certainly don't fill a "caster" party role. If someone's playing a Warmage, it's best to think of him as a "Fighter with spells", fulfilling the same sort of party role as any other fighter.


That's seriously not what this is. This is a "you're playing it wrong! My way is the only True way to play D&D!" thread.Only if the Batmans insist on making it that. Reading the OP, it is clearly a "Evocation does not suck, here's a bunch of good things about it" thread, which is very close to an alternate guide. It only becomes a "True Way" thread when the Batmans come in saying "No, you're wrong, Evocation sucks".

Yuki Akuma
2007-07-26, 02:17 PM
A common mistake I see, actually. Warmages are not wizards, or wizard-alternatives. They're barely casters, and certainly don't fill a "caster" party role. If someone's playing a Warmage, it's best to think of him as a "Fighter with spells", fulfilling the same sort of party role as any other fighter.

He's really more of an archer. And archers don't fill the same roles as fighters, even though they usually have fighter levels.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 02:20 PM
For some groups yes, for other groups no.
You give the fighter a high strength (or dex) and the wizard a high intelligence. That's optimizing; it's making choices which are mechnically just plain better. You don't take Skill Focus for every feat. In fact, you may even take feats that will be actively *useful*. This is pretty much regardless of group. I can't see a serious game of D&D where the wizard has 12 INT and the fighter has 8 CON and a bunch of Skill Focus feats going too well.

What's more, some optimization is part of *D&D*, the game, its design. It's assumed that characters will be at least reasonably competent at their job. It's assumed that the fighter is going to take combat-oriented feats, not Skill Focus and Deft Hands. It's assumed that the wizard isn't going to memorize nothing but Hold Portal.


in my experiance evocation is as powerful as the other schools.
But i stress in my experiance.
It stops being the case when the other schools are applied properly. Plus, one can--say--crunch the numbers on Haste and Fireball.


true and i didn't think I suggested that anyone had said that.
I was just giving my opinion on what really matters most at a gaming table, fun.
"Fun is what matters!" has become a trite cliche. Nobody's going to argue with that. We all know it. It adds nothing.



Only if the Batmans insist on making it that. Reading the OP, it is clearly a "Evocation does not suck, here's a bunch of good things about it" thread, which is very close to an alternate guide. It only becomes a "True Way" thread when the Batmans come in saying "No, you're wrong, Evocation sucks".

Did you miss the part where it talks about how non-evokers make the game less fun and generally ruin play, including exaggerated and unrealistic examples in red text?

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 02:20 PM
Only if the Batmans insist on making it that. Reading the OP, it is clearly a "Evocation does not suck, here's a bunch of good things about it" thread, which is very close to an alternate guide. It only becomes a "True Way" thread when the Batmans come in saying "No, you're wrong, Evocation sucks".

Most of us didn't say "Evocation sucks," we said "it's worse than other arcane magic." Being worse than "other arcane magic" still makes it a powerful option because...well, because it's arcane magic, the single strongest part of the D&D game.

Indon
2007-07-26, 02:24 PM
That's seriously not what this is. This is a "you're playing it wrong! My way is the only True way to play D&D!" thread.

I disagree.

I think the original points of this thread are:

-Optimization isn't everything, and in fact can outright bore the rest of your party if you solve everything for them,
-Evocation has a couple nice spells (though the need for many can be circumvented with sufficient optimization), and
-Evocation and Evocation _alone_ is potent enough for a Wizard to be an effective character, but you aren't restricted to using just Evocation spells, or just Blasting spells in general.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 02:24 PM
Blastery arcane magic isn't one of the strongest parts of the game (unless, like anything else, it's truly hyper-optimized), regardless of the fact that it's arcane magic, IMO. Arcane magic is strong for different reasons.
But regardless--"Evocation is a weak school" IS NOT "this is the one true way, Evokers will be shot with dogs that shoot bees out of their mouths".

Pointing out that something is weak doesn't prohibit anyone from playing it. It's widely acknowledged that a lot of people have a lot of fun blowing stuff up. Nobody's suggested that Evokers are bad for the game like the OP said non-Evokers are. Again, did you guys miss the part of the post that talked about how non-evocation ruins everyone's fun?

You're welcome to play all the evokers you want and to have fun doing it. That doesn't mean people can't object when someone pretends it's one of the more effective schools.

SilverClawShift
2007-07-26, 02:43 PM
Can everyone just chill out a little?

Or an Evoker specialist is gonna come in here and drop Cone of Cold on all of us.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-26, 02:45 PM
Fiend! An Enchanter shall assault with arcane reached chained Tasha's Hideous Laughter!


It's funnier.

Indon
2007-07-26, 02:47 PM
Or an Evoker specialist is gonna come in here and drop Cone of Cold on all of us.

At least it's not an Explosive Cone of Acid.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 02:50 PM
At least it's not an Explosive Cone of Acid.

...that just brought all kinds of horrible mental imagery.

Swordguy
2007-07-26, 02:52 PM
That's seriously not what this is. This is a "you're playing it wrong! My way is the only True way to play D&D!" thread.


That's just silly. Everyone knows that MY way is the right way to play. :wink:

(I do agree with the OP about evocation being easier on the DM than a lot of other stuff - and that's no bad thing, in my estimation.)

mostlyharmful
2007-07-26, 02:53 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html

Batman at work. (not wizards but go work with me here)

Evokers may not be strictly speaking "uberpowerful arcane kickass masters of the universe in sexy robes" but I for one love the visual of a nerdy little man in a dress rolling up the sleeves and flattening half the landscape in pyrotecnic FX extravangazas.:smallcool:

plus they're still wizards so when that gets boring or the party needs to be bailed out they can still batman in the clinch:smallsmile:

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 02:54 PM
At least it's not an Explosive Cone of Acid.

Yo quiero Taco Bell.


Edit:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html

Batman at work.

Evokers may not be strictly speaking "uberpowerful arcane kickass masters of the universe in sexy robes" but I for one love the visual of a nerdy little man in a dress rolling up the sleeves and flattening half the landscape in pyrotecnic FX extravangazas.:smallcool:

plus they're still wizards so when that gets boring or the party needs to be bailed out they can still batman in the clinch:smallsmile:

No, that's not "Batman". A wizard would have flown up, up, and away (Overland Flight, as Xykon noted, lasts for hours), hit the cleric with (Empowered?) Ray of Enfeeblement, then maybe a lesser-rod-quickened Ray of Exhaustion (or just saved it for the next round).

That's clerics, for some reason casting spells at each others' very high saves rather than buffing up and hitting each other with metal things, pointy or otherwise.

And the thing is--no, when the party needs to be bailed out, an evoker can't "batman" (it's a verb now, too? C'mon, guys). He's prepared evocation spells! If he regularly prepares a whole bunch of "batman" spells, he's not an evoker, he's a "batman" wizard who tosses of a few evocations sometimes. If he doesn't, he's not likely to have the right spell when it's called for. Hill giants! Glitterdust and slow? Sorry, I prepared Scorching Ray and Fireball. and some more, for when I use the first ones.

Oh, and there's another note--evokers generally need to blast the whole fight. Meanwhile, a "proper" wizard lays down a Grease and throws out a Glitterdust or a Haste and his job is done, he doesn't need to expend any more spell slots. He can fire from a low-level wand, use a reserve feat, or have a tea party with his familiar, Fluffy.

Aquillion
2007-07-26, 03:02 PM
The thing is, the problem really isn't "blasters are weak". They aren't, compared to other non-full-spellcaster classes. Even a Warmage is a usable class; maybe not quite as strong as the ToB fighter-types, but easily equal or superior to most of the straight unoptimized core fighter-types. (Damage spells have trouble keeping up with a decent fighter's damage output, I think, but they make up for it by giving you more options and being generally harder for opponents to avoid / negate.) "Mixed" blasters with some spells to keep themselves from being swarmed are even better.

"Blasting is a sub-optimal strategy for full casters" shouldn't be confused with, say, "Blasting is like taking Craft: Basketweaving" or "Blasting is like taking Monkey Grip" or "Blasting is like playing a Monk." If you just want to do damage at range and don't want to play an archer, blasters can function fine.

Are other full casters better? Sure. A good 'batman' caster can resolve fights much faster than a blaster's pinging, no question, and usually wasting fewer spells; they can also cover many more situations, even outside of combat, while a blaster gives up a lot of that.

While "interesting" and "fun" are matters of taste, I've played both, and I do have to argue in defense of batman-casters. (The following paragraph is all opinion, so don't take it too seriously, but...) When you get down to it, warmage-types involve throwing flaming, freezing, electric damage dice at the opponents, over, and over and over--since they don't have to worry about getting too close, they're one of the most 'lather-rinse-repeat' strategies out there. A batman-type caster, on the other hand, often has to think when casting spells... sure, you have your save-or-dies, but those often have more detailed effects than just 'does damage' or 'die', and there's some thought involved in deciding which one you want (do you want the enemy to run away, suck at combat, or what? That's more choice than a blaster has.) And no question, battlefield alteration involves a lot more strategic thought than throwing down the thunder... the best batman-type casters work with the rest of the party to let everyone operate in high gear, while the best blasters are just throwing a few more dice of damage into the pool.

Sure, blasting can be fun, but I can't see taking it in large doses.

Morty
2007-07-26, 03:05 PM
And the thing is--no, when the party needs to be bailed out, an evoker can't "batman" (it's a verb now, too? C'mon, guys). He's prepared evocation spells! If he regularly prepares a whole bunch of "batman" spells, he's not an evoker, he's a "batman" wizard who tosses of a few evocations sometimes.

He doesn't need to prepare a "whole bunch" of batman spells, just some buffs to keep him safe. Saying that wizard isn't blaster wizard if he doesn't prepare only damage spells isn't fair, because, logically there are less damage spells than non-damage spells.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 03:11 PM
The thing is, the problem really isn't "blasters are weak". They aren't, compared to other non-full-spellcaster classes. Even a Warmage is a usable class; maybe not quite as strong as the ToB fighter-types, but easily equal or superior to most of the straight unoptimized core fighter-types. (Damage spells have trouble keeping up with a decent fighter's damage output, I think, but they make up for it by giving you more options and being generally harder for opponents to avoid / negate.) "Mixed" blasters with some spells to keep themselves from being swarmed are even better.
No way--a core (or core-and-completes, since we're talking Warmage, especially) barbarian or paladin has no problem keeping up with the Warmage damage-wise, and he's much less fragile. I mean, weak saves? The Warmage has that too; a weak Fortitude save and no need for Wisdom (and some MAD causing it to typically stay low). The Warmage is fragile and has few ways of protecting himself. His damage output isn't much better, if at all, and he's a lot squishier.


"Blasting is a sub-optimal strategy for full casters" shouldn't be confused with, say, "Blasting is like taking Craft: Basketweaving" or "Blasting is like taking Monkey Grip" or "Blasting is like playing a Monk." If you just want to do damage at range and don't want to play an archer, blasters can function fine.

Are other full casters better? Sure. A good 'batman' caster can resolve fights much faster than a blaster's pinging, no question, and usually wasting fewer spells; they can also cover many more situations, even outside of combat, while a blaster gives up a lot of that.
It's not just that--blasters tend to go overboard with the blasting, and non-blasting type spells are often very vital for the party's continued health and well-being. Is the blaster likely to pack a couple of Glitterdusts and a Slow? Not really, which means that Ogre-with-fighter-levels is going to back a dumptruck of hurt over the fighty-types before he dies, instead of only getting a hit or two (or none, if the party is careful, smart, and lucky) in. This is why I cringe when someone wants to make a blaster caster, although I don't stop them: their blasting is going to hurt me, indirectly. If I'm playing a melee character, I need support, cover, debuffs for the enemy, and so on, and I know it--and blaster sorcerers and evokers don't often provide that support.


Edit: a blaster wizard is probably going to spend most of his spell slots on blasting. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that he's not going to have more than a few other spells, because that's how it goes. If you prepare three Fireballs, you might have a Haste, but you sure don't have two Hastes, a Slow, and a Ray of Exhaustion.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 03:16 PM
...which is, in my reasoning, exactly why sorcerors make better blaster casters. Sure, they get less spells known, but they also get the ability to choose as they go.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 03:21 PM
They certainly do. They have more spells, which blasters need, they can choose them on the fly and apply Energy Substitution on the fly, which is very important for getting past energy resistance, and they can fall back on whatever other stuff they have in their repetoire (since you only really need one blasting spell of each level, two of a few, at most--especially with metamagic; why waste a precious spell known on Cone of Cold when you can have an empowered energy-substituted Fireball?)
"You're not a sorcerer why?" is my gut reaction to Evokers, really, beyond "wince". Wizards can know a lot of different spells... which doesn't actually help with blasting at all.

Aquillion
2007-07-26, 03:24 PM
It's not just that--blasters tend to go overboard with the blasting, and non-blasting type spells are often very vital for the party's continued health and well-being. Is the blaster likely to pack a couple of Glitterdusts and a Slow? Not really, which means that Ogre-with-fighter-levels is going to back a dumptruck of hurt over the fighty-types before he dies, instead of only getting a hit or two (or none, if the party is careful, smart, and lucky) in. This is why I cringe when someone wants to make a blaster caster, although I don't stop them: their blasting is going to hurt me, indirectly. If I'm playing a melee character, I need support, cover, debuffs for the enemy, and so on, and I know it--and blaster sorcerers and evokers don't often provide that support.Oh... I should have clarified. A blaster can do all right as a damage-dealer (I think their range, versilitility, some limited defensive magic make up for their squishiness and lower damage to an extent), but they're not a substitute for a real arcane caster. A blaster should be seen as a way of filling the archer/damage-dealer role in a party, not as they way of filling the arcane caster role in a party. And, yes, it isn't a vital role, but it can be all right if the vital roles are filled.

I agree that blasters should be sorcerers, of course.

Indon
2007-07-26, 03:31 PM
Oh... I should have clarified. A blaster can do all right as a damage-dealer (I think their range, versilitility, some limited defensive magic make up for their squishiness and lower damage to an extent), but they're not a substitute for a real arcane caster.

I don't see how they aren't, at least if they're a Sorceror (preferably Metamagic Specialist variant) with a decent spell selection.

I agree that Evoker wizards are kinda silly, but I have a low opinion of magic specialists in general, thinking the sacrifice too much for just a little more magic power.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 03:33 PM
Oh... I should have clarified. A blaster can do all right as a damage-dealer (I think their range, versilitility, some limited defensive magic make up for their squishiness and lower damage to an extent), but they're not a substitute for a real arcane caster. A blaster should be seen as a way of filling the archer/damage-dealer role in a party, not as they way of filling the arcane caster role in a party. And, yes, it isn't a vital role, but it can be all right if the vital roles are filled.

"Archer" and "damage dealer" aren't typically roles, though--"archer" is a combat style that's suited for people who are a little squishy for melee, or otherwise get an advantage out of it, and "damage dealer" is part of the melee-guy role. I suppose my problem with "damage dealer" characters is the same as with "party face" characters--instead of filling an actual role, they're turning a sub-role that should be covered by one or more other people as part of what they do into an actual role.
Which isn't to say that they don't contribute. If you have a typical group of four, adding a blaster certainly helps encounters along.

Edit: a sorcerer who's focused on blasting is going to have a hard time filling in for the wizard, whose role (as the Batman Guide that's the subject of so much discussion here says) is "everything the others aren't doing". He just doesn't know enough spells for that, especially if he's spending one a level on blasting.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 03:36 PM
It also changes from campaign to campaign. In a war-skirmish campaign, where you're fighting in the front lines against...well, against a lot of people, then blaster's value goes up, merely from the radii of their spells.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 03:43 PM
It also changes from campaign to campaign. In a war-skirmish campaign, where you're fighting in the front lines against...well, against a lot of people, then blaster's value goes up, merely from the radii of their spells.

Ehh...
Check how much area a single Minor Image can cover.
Now take the "illusionary fog" tactics a good illusionist can use, and apply them to a battlefield, where the soldiers of one side have been briefed ahead of time that if you see fog, it's an illusion, and maybe had that demonstrated, so they can see through it because they know it's not real. One side can see each other and the enemy, the other side can't.

Now how about a Minor/Major/etc Image illusion of one of the enemy commanders calling for a retreat? And then being shot down? Or of a group of soldiers arriving to help hold a flank, and then turning out not to be there? Or of Entangle (well, that one's for druids) coupled with a squad of archers?

Or the kind of damage a Confusion spell can do as soldiers stop and break ranks or attack their comrades?
Or a Stinking Cloud rather than a Fireball in the midst of enemy forces? Chaos and breaking up formations is going to be more valuable than killing a few soldiers (and non-level-1s might survive a Fireball, which at CL 5 is between 15 and 20 damage on a failed save)--assuming that formations even exist, seeing what great targets they make for casters. And then there's Web, with its long duration (you can also couple it with flaming arrows for something that'll be more effective than a Flaming Sphere overall).

Sure, the usefulness of explosions increases on a battlefield--but so does the usefulness of many of the tactics which were already superior, especially illusions.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 03:45 PM
Sure, the usefulness of explosions increases on a battlefield--but so does the usefulness of many of the tactics which were already superior, especially illusions.

I was more referring to the comparative value of AoE vs. Single Target in that kind of campaign--though single targets still have their uses. Spellwarp Sniper with Enlarge Spell metamagic can hit a target at no penalty from a quarter mile with a fireball ray.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-26, 03:48 PM
That is truly what one terms sniping.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-26, 04:25 PM
My primary problem with saying that Evocation is the least effective school is that that strikes me as a generalization. Generalizations are usually untrue, and that one doesn't seem any different to me.

Is evocation always going to be the worst choice in any situation? No. Sure, Haste might give more damage through extra attacks than a Fireball will damage the enemy, but that haste isn't going to be as useful if the enemies need to be taken out now, not over the next 5 rounds.

Evocation also strikes me as more reliable. The primary problems to worry about are SR and energy resistance or immunity. Absent those, you can be reasonably certain that your Fireball or Cone of Cold will do something. With many save-or-suck spells, good saves or a simple lucky roll can shut your wizard's strategy down. Against an enemy wizard that can dispel your battlefield alterations and provide magical defenses against your save-or-suck spells, you're even worse off.

I don't think that either style is inherently better than the other; Evocation has its weaknesses too. I just think that saying that Evocation is always less effective is not entirely true. As I said earlier, it has its place.

Personally, I prefer a combination of invisibility magic and delayed evocations. I don't go around repeatedly blasting. I prefer more subtle decisive strikes, if I even have to fight in the first place.

Dausuul
2007-07-26, 04:45 PM
My primary problem with saying that Evocation is the least effective school is that that strikes me as a generalization. Generalizations are usually untrue, and that one doesn't seem any different to me.

Is evocation always going to be the worst choice in any situation? No. Sure, Haste might give more damage through extra attacks than a Fireball will damage the enemy, but that haste isn't going to be as useful if the enemies need to be taken out now, not over the next 5 rounds.

Setting aside the irony of the statement, "Generalizations are usually untrue..."

Of course it's a generalization. That's the point. Are there situations where evocation is the best thing to have? Sure. The question is, how common are those situations compared to the situations where necromancy or conjuration or enchantment is the best thing to have? And the answer is, relatively rare. So, overall, evocation is less effective.


Evocation also strikes me as more reliable. The primary problems to worry about are SR and energy resistance or immunity. Absent those, you can be reasonably certain that your Fireball or Cone of Cold will do something.

That's like saying boats are more useful transportation than cars because, absent wanting to go anywhere on land, you can be reasonably certain that you won't get a flat.

Energy resistance and immunity are very common, especially as you get into the higher levels. You can't just shrug them off as a minor detail. Then you add rogues with evasion, monsters with spell resistance, and on and on.


With many save-or-suck spells, good saves or a simple lucky roll can shut your wizard's strategy down. Against an enemy wizard that can dispel your battlefield alterations and provide magical defenses against your save-or-suck spells, you're even worse off.

If you are depending on the success of a single save-or-lose spell, then you need to overhaul your strategy. It's likely to take several shots of blasting magic to kill a foe; why should it not then take a couple shots of save-or-lose before the foe fails the save and loses?

Anyway, if you're worried about the enemy's saves, there are plenty of tactics that bypass them entirely. You can use spells like enervation and ray of enfeeblement, which give no saving throws. You can use battlefield control spells to divide and conquer. You can buff your own party with haste and the like. You can summon stuff to fight for you.


I don't think that either style is inherently better than the other; Evocation has its weaknesses too. I just think that saying that Evocation is always less effective is not entirely true. As I said earlier, it has its place.

Always, no. In general, however, yes.

mostlyharmful
2007-07-26, 04:46 PM
That is truly what one terms sniping.

I can see your house from here - BOOOOOOOMMMM - oh no wait, I can see your crater from here!

Skjaldbakka
2007-07-26, 05:04 PM
Having read over this thread, i want to chip in my two bits:

1st Bit:

The point is that you should need to be effective to survive. The CR system assumes it.

I would just like to point out that this statement is not, in fact true. The CR system assumed that the party is composed of four party members, 3 of which are considered to be 'effective'.

The CR system assumes the party is:
1 Fighter (not crazy fighter either- I believe they assumed sword and board)
1 Heal-bot cleric
1 Blast-it Wizard
1 Rogue (the only class that does what it claims to do well, without overshadowing the party)

2nd Bit:
While the evocation school may be weak in D&D, I have yet to play or see a wizard or sorceror that did not use a fireball at some point in there career, and every wizard I have played or that has been in my games has either prepared at least one(regularly)/known fireball, kept a scroll of as-big-a-fireball as they can scribe, or kept a wand of fireball for back-up (or for killing minions blocking the path to the real threats).

Addendum to 2nd Bit:
There are times when fireball is the best spell to cast in a situation. Especially Acid-Templated ones, which deal full damage to objects, which can cause environmental effects.

Side-note:
In Arcana Evolved, which is what I play much more frequently than D&D IRL, Blast-it spells and mega-buffs are the 'good' spells, with save-or-lose being the next tier down (there are less of them, and tend to have ways to defeat them, be it Balance for Muddy Ground, or high strength for Chains of Vengeance0.

tobian
2007-07-26, 05:18 PM
Of course it's a generalization. That's the point. Are there situations where evocation is the best thing to have? Sure. The question is, how common are those situations compared to the situations where necromancy or conjuration or enchantment is the best thing to have? And the answer is, relatively rare. So, overall, evocation is less effective.



I agree on this point. On the whole, taking all the other schools in account, evocation generally has the least amount of situations that it is optimal. That being said, I think it always has a place; most of the schools have situations where they simply suck. Anything with SR or evasion is generally going to win versus evocation. However, take undead monsters for example. For creatures immune to mind affecting abilities, schools like enchantment can be shut down. It just seems on the whole though, evocation has less situations where it shines, and has quite a few situations where it flat out sucks. The fact that the school only really has one job aside from contingency and forcecage makes it less versatile in the long run.

It does have its job to do (blow up enemy's), just that other schools can fill that role if need be. Evocation cannot do the reverse though; it cannot fill roles of the other schools. Hence why it is abandoned usually(imo)-there is enough damage elsewhere if blasting is needed.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 05:35 PM
It does have its job to do (blow up enemy's), just that other schools can fill that role if need be. Evocation cannot do the reverse though; it cannot fill roles of the other schools. Hence why it is abandoned usually(imo)-there is enough damage elsewhere if blasting is needed.

It's not just that: not only do other schools blow things up, too, but blowing up or hacking apart, or bludgeoning, the end result is the same, enemies is what all the other party members do, too.

barawn
2007-07-26, 05:51 PM
It just seems on the whole though, evocation has less situations where it shines, and has quite a few situations where it flat out sucks.

In what situation does evocation flat out suck?

Flat out sucking is having only mind-affecting spells when fighting undead. Flat out sucking is sleep versus creatures with more than 4 HD. Evocation is almost always in some ways useful. Evocation's a nice safety net.

In a lot of ways, it really depends on the campaign, and in some sense, the DM. Creatures can be incorporeal (and thus battlefield control is a bit difficult), immune to mind-affecting spells/polymorph, immune to death effects, etc. - but damage hurts everything.

Of course, that's why evocation is typically "not as useful" for higher-level campaigns - you're not nearly as spell-restricted.

Personally, I've always felt that, much like clerics and spontaneous healing, evocation (well, at least some of them) should be spontaneous conversion spells for wizards. Spontaneous healing is channeling the magical energy for a spell into healing. Spontaneous evocation would be channeling the magical energy for a spell into "boom." I haven't ever really had a chance to playtest that, though.

tainsouvra
2007-07-26, 05:54 PM
The CR system assumes the party is:
1 Fighter (not crazy fighter either- I believe they assumed sword and board)
1 Heal-bot cleric
1 Blast-it Wizard
1 Rogue (the only class that does what it claims to do well, without overshadowing the party) I'm going to disagree, as the class design for both the Cleric and the Wizard contradicts the "healbot" and "blastit" pigeonholes.

Cruiser1
2007-07-26, 05:58 PM
That doesn't stop Fireball from being mechanically and mathematically weaker than Haste, though.
Fireball is indeed weaker than Haste if you have a lot of allies facing few enemies. In that case, giving an extra attack to a bunch of friendly melee characters does more than reducing the hp of just one or two enemies. However, Haste is weaker than Fireball if you have few allies facing many enemies. If it's just a Wizard and a Cleric facing a pack of kobolds, Haste isn't going to do much for you, but a Fireball can take out most of the enemies in one round.

And for Fax: You know, Energy Substitution (Acid) goes a long way towards nullifying energy resistances, plus you neglect the creatures with energy vulnerability (In particular, creatures with the Cold or Fire subtypes).
This isn't meant to be a "blasting is good" thread, however if you choose to do direct damage, you will certainly want to know which energy types to use, and have spells/feats that give access to the different energy types. For example, don't use fire spells against devils, and don't use electricity against demons. Instead use electricity against devils, or sonic against both. Weaknesses in spells aren't limited to direct damage, e.g. Grease doesn't make flying monsters slip, Glitterdust doesn't blind monsters without eyes, Haste doesn't help anymore once your party gets Haste items, and pretty much the entire Enchantment school is shut down by Mind Blank.

evokers generally need to blast the whole fight. Meanwhile, a "proper" wizard lays down a Grease and throws out a Glitterdust or a Haste and his job is done, he doesn't need to expend any more spell slots.
Not barring Evocation, or even specializing in Evocation, doesn't mean you have to a blaster and only cast blasting spells. An Evocation specialist can even make a good Batman. If you're going to compare just the blasting spells in Evocation to the other 7 schools, sure Evocation will seem to pale against everything else. I agree that if you actually want a character to focus on blasting, a Sorcerer makes a better choice, since you can choose the right energy type and apply metamagic feats on the fly.

I have a low opinion of magic specialists in general, thinking the sacrifice too much for just a little more magic power.
School specialization is like the reserve feats: Better at low levels when spell slots are scarce, and less useful at high levels when they're plentiful. Specialization may also be useful from a roleplaying standpoint in order to define your character. Saying "I'm an flirtatious Enchantress" or "I'm a show-off Evoker" gives an impression of a character right away (not that saying "I'm a generalist" doesn't also communicate flavor).

tobian
2007-07-26, 05:58 PM
In what situation does evocation flat out suck?

Flat out sucking is having only mind-affecting spells when fighting undead. Flat out sucking is sleep versus creatures with more than 4 HD. Evocation is almost always in some ways useful. Evocation's a nice safety net.

In a lot of ways, it really depends on the campaign, and in some sense, the DM. Creatures can be incorporeal (and thus battlefield control is a bit difficult), immune to mind-affecting spells/polymorph, immune to death effects, etc. - but damage hurts everything.

Of course, that's why evocation is typically "not as useful" for higher-level campaigns - you're not nearly as spell-restricted.


Maybe that was a bad choice of words then-your right, evocation spells will generally do something. However, if the monster in question:


Has spell resistance
Energy resistance
Energy immunity
Evasion, or worse, improved evasion
Or a decent reflex save


Then evocation's effects are nullified badly. Evocation spells seem to have more counters than most of the other schools imo. And to clarify a point, I personally don't think Evocation is worthless. I'm more referring to why people seem to ban it if/when they become specialists.

Vhaidara
2007-07-26, 06:02 PM
On the topic of Evocation, I love it. On the topic of Evokers, I hate them. I hate all forms of specialist wizard. Evocation gives access to the two most well known spells in DnD: Magic Missle and Fireball.

Skjaldbakka
2007-07-26, 06:14 PM
I'm going to disagree, as the class design for both the Cleric and the Wizard contradicts the "healbot" and "blastit" pigeonholes.


Disagree all you want, that is the way CRs were playtested, and the assumptions that were made when the system was designed. There has been a discussion on this very topic, although I have no intention of digging for it.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-07-26, 06:17 PM
Disagree all you want, that is the way CRs were playtested, and the assumptions that were made when the system was designed. There has been a discussion on this very topic, although I have no attention of digging for it.

No, it's not. Turning the cleric into a melee force was a deliberate design decision; similarily, if wizards were *meant* to be blasters, there would be far more blasting spells and far fewer and less varied save-or-loses. Just consider the CR of things like Hill Giants to know that players are meant to target their Will saves.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-26, 06:26 PM
CRs were playtested

Therein lies the problem; they were not.

barawn
2007-07-26, 08:43 PM
And to clarify a point, I personally don't think Evocation is worthless. I'm more referring to why people seem to ban it if/when they become specialists.

I'd agree there - you can obviously replace most evocation spells with spells from other schools (there're still a few direct damage spells in Necromancy, Conjuration, etc.), so you're losing a little to gain more.

What's funny is that even though that's true, it's still true that evocation is still a pretty good school to specialize in, because that extra evocation spell each level will rarely be useless for an entire day (assuming combat's included), whereas it's easy to imagine spells from other schools going unused in a day.

Chronos
2007-07-26, 09:24 PM
Personally, I've always felt that, much like clerics and spontaneous healing, evocation (well, at least some of them) should be spontaneous conversion spells for wizards. Spontaneous healing is channeling the magical energy for a spell into healing. Spontaneous evocation would be channeling the magical energy for a spell into "boom." I haven't ever really had a chance to playtest that, though.The Archmage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/archmage.htm) can do something like that, with his Arcane Fire ability. It only targets one enemy per casting, though, and I don't know whether it's worth it.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-26, 09:33 PM
That's like saying boats are more useful transportation than cars because, absent wanting to go anywhere on land, you can be reasonably certain that you won't get a flat.

Energy resistance and immunity are very common, especially as you get into the higher levels. You can't just shrug them off as a minor detail. Then you add rogues with evasion, monsters with spell resistance, and on and on.

Energy resistance and immunity are very common, but then, that's why I would prepare force spells, both fire and electricity magic, or use divinations to determine which element to prepare. Worst case, I use invisibility to retreat and return later. If you're smart about it, it's not much of a problem.

A rogue with evasion or a monster with high spell resistance are problems, I'll agree. They can shut a blaster wizard down. Then again, you use these examples to attack evocation, but there are things like undead, a hostile wizard with mind blank, or an enemy with good saves which shut down other schools just as reliably.

This is why, IMO, you need to be able to blast as well as debuff.


If you are depending on the success of a single save-or-lose spell, then you need to overhaul your strategy. It's likely to take several shots of blasting magic to kill a foe; why should it not then take a couple shots of save-or-lose before the foe fails the save and loses?

At least the blasty magic will do something. Even on a successful save, it'll still do damage most of the time. And that damage means your party doesn't have to do as much to finish them. A failed save-or-suck spell is little more than a wasted round.


Anyway, if you're worried about the enemy's saves, there are plenty of tactics that bypass them entirely. You can use spells like enervation and ray of enfeeblement, which give no saving throws. You can use battlefield control spells to divide and conquer. You can buff your own party with haste and the like. You can summon stuff to fight for you.

Do we really need to go through every tactic available to a wizard? The point is, each different idea has its own strengths and weaknesses. Many of the harmful effects are single target. The battlefield control strategies can be bypassed or destroyed by hostile magic. Time spent buffing or summoning is time the enemy is using to attack you.

There are ways and strategies to negate the weaknesses and emphasize the strengths. Even with Evocation. Labeling it as less effective seems to be a bit of a disservice to a tactic that is just as effective in its own element as other strategies are in theirs.

Finally, who determines what is common or not common about these strategic situations? Why are the ones in which Evocation shines intrinsically less common than the ones in which other schools shine? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or rude, I'm just curious as to where the conclusion that Evocation-oriented situations are rare came from.

Counterpower
2007-07-26, 09:39 PM
Maybe that was a bad choice of words then-your right, evocation spells will generally do something. However, if the monster in question:

I love picking lists apart. Let's see........


Has spell resistance

I'm pretty sure that's a problem for more than just evocation. Besides, SR isn't insurmountable, it's not like "Oh crap, it's a drow! None of my fireballs will work!!"


Energy resistance

Such is the worth of energy substitution. Seriously, unless a target has resistance to EVERY type of energy (and that is extremely rare) then you don't strike with the type he's resistant to.


Energy immunity

Ah, the reason I consider this separately is because the first monster that comes to mind when I think of energy immunity is the noble true dragon. How could you mention energy immunity and not mention energy vulnerability? Do your homework and don't strike with the wrong type of energy. We're not suggesting that a stupid evoker is better than an intelligent Batman wizard. I'm not even suggesting that evocation is better at all. Right now, I'm simply pointing out that most of these supposed weaknesses aren't really that much of a problem.


Evasion, or worse, improved evasion

Now that IS something an evoker need fear. Well, improved evasion at least, since that's a guaranteed half damage. Evasion's only a concern when they succeed on their save, which is a problem for most magic.


Or a decent reflex save

Just as an enchanter should be worried about a high will save, or a transmuter need worry about his target's fort save. Really, saving throws are a concern for a good deal of spells, not just evocation.



Then evocation's effects are nullified badly. Evocation spells seem to have more counters than most of the other schools imo. And to clarify a point, I personally don't think Evocation is worthless. I'm more referring to why people seem to ban it if/when they become specialists.

I think most of those counters are illusionary, as discussed above. Finally, I think banning Evocation as a specialist closes off way too many great spells to consider it.

tainsouvra
2007-07-26, 09:58 PM
Disagree all you want, that is the way CRs were playtested, and the assumptions that were made when the system was designed. There has been a discussion on this very topic, although I have no attention of digging for it. And the special attention they put into making it so that "healbot" was not the ideal use of a Cleric, and "blast" spells weren't the majority of Wizard spells...that's just coincidence, because you say it is with absolutely no evidence?
Right.
They made Clerics not need to memorize any healing spells and still be able to save the party because they wanted them to be healbots. They made some of the most powerful Wizard spells non-blast because they wanted them to be blasters.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a whit of sense.

You might like classic-MMO-style D&D parties, but the game was not designed with those pigeonholes in mind--the design actually counters it pretty effectively. Clerics can smash face decently, Wizards can play havoc with or without blasting, and both were things that were added into the game with the intention they'd be used.

horseboy
2007-07-26, 10:15 PM
And the special attention they put into making it so that "healbot" was not the ideal use of a Cleric, and "blast" spells weren't the majority of Wizard spells...that's just coincidence, because you say it is with absolutely no evidence?
Right.
They made Clerics not need to memorize any healing spells and still be able to save the party because they wanted them to be healbots. They made some of the most powerful Wizard spells non-blast because they wanted them to be blasters.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a whit of sense.

What in d20 does?

The thread in question:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49378

Skjaldbakka
2007-07-26, 10:17 PM
Sorry, but that doesn't make a whit of sense.

I didn't claim that it made sense, just that there has been a discussion on this topic before, when someone brought up this very point. I decided to look up the discussion for you. Here you go. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2817761&highlight=playtest#post2817761)


EDIT- I believe I was just ninja'd.

tainsouvra
2007-07-26, 10:36 PM
What in d20 does? A lot of it does to me, but I have a strange sort of logic, I suppose.


The thread in question:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49378 That's a thread built on another thread built on another thread...so if I'm missing something key, feel free to point it out, I wasn't here when that whole thing started.

I don't question the veracity of Swordguy or his source, but it's patently absurd to think that there aren't a few people over at WotC that didn't plan on Clerics being healbots, or that their design influence wasn't significant. Otherwise, I'm at a loss for a reason why a Cleric's healing role is built to function on the assumption that he doesn't memorize a single cure spell, or why healing spells aren't designed to make progress against level-appropriate incoming damage. It simply doesn't add up, the Cleric's actual design is completely counter to what's being professed, and it's not like the design made itself--someone made it this way.

Ulzgoroth
2007-07-26, 10:56 PM
The speculation, I believe, was that they figured giving clerics enough shiny toys would convince somebody to take the healbot job. (You don't have to prepare healing spells, no you don't...you just have to chew up most of those spells you prepared as something else on healing anyway. Because the wizard is tossing fireballs and the fighter is sword and boarding it, so the fight lasts more than 2 rounds.)

And similarly, all the great reasons not to be a blaster are presumed to have crept in on something along the lines of 'it'll be cool, once in a while, to make someone drop dead without a mark on them, in between throwing buckets of d6.' With some people noting that the SoD spells are parallel to older spells that were less useful due to lower enemy HP totals.

No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Neither do the consequences of those two design choices, so clearly they screwed up badly someplace.

horseboy
2007-07-26, 10:57 PM
I don't question the veracity of Swordguy or his source, but it's patently absurd to think that there aren't a few people over at WotC that didn't plan on Clerics being healbots, or that their design influence wasn't significant. Otherwise, I'm at a loss for a reason why a Cleric's healing role is built to function on the assumption that he doesn't memorize a single cure spell, or why healing spells aren't designed to make progress against level-appropriate incoming damage. It simply doesn't add up, the Cleric's actual design is completely counter to what's being professed, and it's not like the design made itself--someone made it this way.

And yet the power of Batman and CoDzilla proves that they didn't play test it. (Or didn't play test it well). Such is the failures of d20.

Thinker
2007-07-26, 11:02 PM
And yet the power of Batman and CoDzilla proves that they didn't play test it. (Or didn't play test it well). Such is the failures of d20.

No. Such is the failure of the magic system. As a system d20 works fairly well for keeping verisimilitude.

horseboy
2007-07-26, 11:09 PM
No. Such is the failure of the magic system. As a system d20 works fairly well for keeping verisimilitude.

ROTFLMAO D20 and verisimilitude should never be used in the same sentence (except maybe with the word "Lacks").

tainsouvra
2007-07-26, 11:39 PM
And yet the power of Batman and CoDzilla proves that they didn't play test it. (Or didn't play test it well). Such is the failures of d20. The apparent fact that it was designed to do something other than what it was tested for is indeed a poor reflection on the playtesting, but it simply does not change the facts of the design. Clerics were intentionally designed to not need to memorize cure spells, which is not really explainable you operate under the assumption that they exist only as heal dispensers.

Clerics may have been playtested as healbots, but they were blatantly not designed to be them--they were specifically given key abilities that are completely counter to that role. Poor playtesting doesn't change it, it's just poor playtesting.

tobian
2007-07-26, 11:54 PM
I love picking lists apart. Let's see........

My Turn! :smallbiggrin:




I'm pretty sure that's a problem for more than just evocation. Besides, SR isn't insurmountable, it's not like "Oh crap, it's a drow! None of my fireballs will work!!"

Imo, you miss the big point here. I flipped through (well, flipped through the srd because SOMEONE has my phb:smallwink:) evocation spells in a few books, and they all have a common theme. Spell resistance. Evocation, from what I can see, has the more spells with spell resistance than any other school. The big exception I see is forcecage, but that has an expensive material component.



Such is the worth of energy substitution. Seriously, unless a target has resistance to EVERY type of energy (and that is extremely rare) then you don't strike with the type he's resistant to.

"Excuse me Mr. Green Dragon. Can we delay this fight for 8 hours? I thought we were fighting Mrs. Blue Dragon today and I prepared my spells in lemon-lime instead of blueberry."
This is less of a problem with Sorcerers, but wizards have to apply their metamagic when they prepare spells. If you don't know what you are fighting, then how do you know what metamagic to apply? Sure, you could apply all the flavors (fire, acid, cold, and lightning), but that would quickly fill up your spells prepared for the day.




Ah, the reason I consider this separately is because the first monster that comes to mind when I think of energy immunity is the noble true dragon. How could you mention energy immunity and not mention energy vulnerability? Do your homework and don't strike with the wrong type of energy. We're not suggesting that a stupid evoker is better than an intelligent Batman wizard. I'm not even suggesting that evocation is better at all. Right now, I'm simply pointing out that most of these supposed weaknesses aren't really that much of a problem.

Again, it may not always be possible to do ones homework before hand. See above. And while I'm thinking about it, yes one could be an archmage and take that nifty energy substitution that's on the fly, but that requires an 8th level spell slot, so it would not come into play until much later in the game. Would be a boost though.



Now that IS something an evoker need fear. Well, improved evasion at least, since that's a guaranteed half damage. Evasion's only a concern when they succeed on their save, which is a problem for most magic.

The thing with that is, there is nothing similar to evasion for the other two saves.




Just as an enchanter should be worried about a high will save, or a transmuter need worry about his target's fort save. Really, saving throws are a concern for a good deal of spells, not just evocation.

Aside from magic missile and forcecage, it seems that almost all evocation spells have a reflex save. Compare that with the (often controversial) orb spells of conjuration. Those have no save, only a range touch attack. There are many spells outside of evocation that do not require a save.

**I think thats an important point that needs to be brought out, most evocation spells have both a save and spell resistance.**





I think most of those counters are illusionary, as discussed above. Finally, I think banning Evocation as a specialist closes off way too many great spells to consider it.

But, ironically, you only ban off 8th and 9th level spells if you ban off evocation if you keep illusion. Yes, they are slightly weaker versions, but if you need them, they are still there. I cannot think of any 8th or 9th level evocations off the top of my head that I would deem overly useful.

Ok, its late and i'm done until tomorrow.

NullAshton
2007-07-27, 12:14 AM
As a counter to the argument that everyone can do damage and that's why evocation(IE, dealing damage) is bad...

Yes, everyone deals damage. This is why dealing damage is usually GOOD. Because when the current damage on an enemy rises above their HP, they DIE. Thus, it's not really all that useless, and can be fairly effective with the right high-damage spells.

Aquillion
2007-07-27, 01:16 AM
In what situation does evocation flat out suck?What Evocation spells would you use in the following situations? (Assume the party knows no other spellcasters or powerful people who would be willing to help them; while you could technically solve anything by casting Sending and asking your level 20 wizard friend for help, this is not a reliable strategy. No using Wish or Limited Wish, for obvious reasons, and no magical items that perform effects that could not be duplicated with evocation spells on the wiz/sorc list. Basically, this is an evocation challenge; all solutions must depend exclusively on wiz/sorc evocation.)

Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.

While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.

Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

Solo
2007-07-27, 02:06 AM
Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.


Definistrating Sphere.


While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

Forecage should work.


While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/GuestStrips.html


The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.
Meteor Swarm the sucker and take his kingdom from his cold, dead hands.


The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.
Kill him. No king, no one to want hte daughter to become a boy. Problem solved and the daughter doesn't have to become a transexual. I think everyone wins.


While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely
Blast the walls to bits with Lightening Bolt.


You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.
Shatter. Shatter. Shatter.


Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.


Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.


If I was to be depended upon for transport, I'd have researched an Evocation spell that either created a Force effect that would transport people around or fling them up in the air and allow them to land around the right location.

Falling damage caps at 20d6, so have a tough fighter be the target and tell everyone else to get into a portable hole (or Bag of Holding or something.)


The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

Be a sorcerer, so you have no need of spellbooks.

Become a Lich.

Go into the Underdark (in other words, underground) find a spot underneath the kingdom, and start blasting. You've got an eternity ahead of you, so no rush.

If you do it right, you'll weaken the ground the kingdom is on and destroy it from below in a devistating magic caused cataclysm, like a gigantic earthquake of unimaginable proportions.

Then you pry the control of the kingdom out of the hands of the few remaining survivors with a Bolt-2 set to wide disperse and establish a New World Order.

The suckers will never see it comming.

its_all_ogre
2007-07-27, 04:39 AM
now show me here how you would solve all of those problems using any other single school of magic.
then we can discuss how evocation is weak.
if you cannot do that then you have failed to impress on many other people how exactly one school not being able to do everything means that school is weakest.
oh and no shadow evo obviously.

Dausuul
2007-07-27, 05:14 AM
The thing with that is, there is nothing similar to evasion for the other two saves.

Actually there is. It's called "mettle," and it is essentially evasion for Fort and Will.

It's pretty rare, however.

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-27, 05:15 AM
What Evocation spells would you use in the following situations? (...) Basically, this is an evocation challenge; all solutions must depend exclusively on wiz/sorc evocation.)

I'll try, using only core spells...:smallcool:


Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

Cast Wall of Ice several times to create means to climb out. If the DM rules the party takes cold damage from climbing the planes of ice, cast fire shield on yourself (cold) and take party along on some floating disks.


Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

Everyone except conjurers has a problem. Not really a challenge.
But a Sending could help. That, or making it within 24 hours to someone with teleport who can be forced (with evocation spells) into providing the service.
Ah, and of course a limited wish will provide a teleport spell even if conjuration is a barred school.


More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

Same as above. No conjuration spells, wizard cannot help in this situation. Or, again, the all-powerful limited wish spell.


While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

A tiny hut spell can already provide some shelter (since the flying monster cannot see inside. Create several such huts and it will likely pick the wrong one to attack). Then, a large flying monster with high HP? Create a wall of force in its flight path. It crashes against it, drops to the ground. Party fighters do the rest.


Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

Put up a force cage around your party (2hrs/lvl, D) in an area that is difficult to access and cast also extended darkness for concealment if needed.


Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

Again limited wish or the conjurer's job. Next.


While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

Create wall of ice plane as a bridge.


You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

Wind Wall vs the long-range attacks. At the same time, THEY are still in range for area spells (just use listen-cross class to locate) etc.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

Cast a sending to someone outside the plane whose name you know via your knowledge skill-planes. Promise a great reward and do a cross-class diplomacy check to obtain the answer. In a week, you can likely ask about more than 20 different outsiders each with your diplomacy check. One is bound to give you an answer (which may be incorrect, but hey, then there is no reward...).


While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

If walls of force, wait for the few rounds to be over. If the walls are made of any other material...well, it's damage time! Likely the higher-level spells bring down walls in 1 round.


You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

Forceful hand spell could likely push away the debris, while a wall of force or wall of ice keeps the corridor from collapsing completely.


Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

Party bard or rogue. Does the evoker have to do everything here? :smallsmile: OK, seriously, the following could work. Start casting continual flame everywhere in secret. The townspeople will wonder, but it is a bane for the rogue guild there- how to go about their sinistre buisnesses in a city lit at night as a bright day? Then, try to contact the guild (gather information cross-class if need be). Tell them you maybe know a way to get rid of the flames...if they would help finding that strange old relic...


The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

Strike a deal/force anyone with the ability to polymorph any object. And then at the very high levels, there is still a wish spell (universal)...


The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.

The only ones capable to find that out are diviners or bards (bardic knowledge). Does this mean transmuting is a weak school? Ah, but limited wish for analyse dweomer/legend lore is luckily availble for all...


While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.

Search for interpreter (this village should not be completely away from everyone). Via magic, again only one school can solve- or limited wish. Or, use sending to ask for help in this case - you can pay for the 2 teleports and tongue spell of an npc the usual sum.


Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

You really like diviners, don't you?:smallsmile: Actually, that is tricky even for a diviner. The evoker would nuke the area and hope the lich kept it quite close to him (which would make sense).


As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

Area spells. Wall of Force in flight path. Resilient sphere/forcecage around creature stunned from crash. Dispel magic and shatter (this only works in combination) the brooch of shielding for magic missile.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

Limited Wish. Emulate Glitterdust. The kingdom should be worth the 300 XP :smallbiggrin:

- Giacomo

Orzel
2007-07-27, 05:16 AM
Evocation isn't bad. Dealing damage is bad. D&D quickly become debuff the enemies into a single file of walking vanilla pudding the hit them. Damage is last on the list. The good thing about damage wins is that is always works. The bad thing is that if anything else works, it works more efficiently. Weapon users have to get past range, AC, and DR. Blasters have to get past SR, Saves, and resists. Combine that with the chance of rolling lower the average and the varying HD, pure damage wins are too hard for no reason.

But when you add a few buff and debuffs, the amount of damage doesn't matter much since you're a flaming giant monster and they're blind, slowed, crippled, mice. Works done, the damage is just the final draft of the paper. The color and font don't matter much as long as you can read it.

Cruiser1
2007-07-27, 05:41 AM
Some more examples of the versatility of the Evocation school:


Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

Cast Greater Floating Disk and fly yourselves out.


While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

Cover your escape with Interposing Hand, while sniping at it with Magic Missile. (If you want to do damage, force damage is the one of the best ways to go about it.)


Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

Keep blasting using a reserve feat until all the enemies are dead. If necessary, hide yourselves in a Tiny Hut.


Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

Use Freezing Sphere to freeze sections of water and just walk across it. Note: Requires lots of castings! ;)


While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

Make a bridge with Wall of Ice (it can be cast at angles).


You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

Ready an action so when a warlock attacks you, you cast Sunburst at the location the attack originated from. Now the warlock is blind and can't see you either!


The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

Use Sending, and tell the king the answer is no. If he replies through the spell saying that answer is wrong, then verbally say the answer is yes. Nobody else knew you used Sending, and if the king mentions it, say the first bit didn't count as an official answer.


You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

Use Gust of Wind or Defenestrating Sphere to create yourself some more air, while you blast your way out.


The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

Cast Fireball on the king, and transform him into a "sun". ;)


As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

Fight it with Clenched Fist and/or Mage's Sword. Brooch of Shielding prevents Magic Missiles, but lots of other Evocation spells deal force damage.

tobian
2007-07-27, 09:13 AM
I did the evocation in random situations quiz:

Spoiler tags are my friend.



Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

Defenstrating sphere for the win.



Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

Have a contingent teleport on the ready for when you get lost and need to get halfway across the world. :smallwink: Or, if you banned conjuration, Shadow Walk is often overlooked and its in illusion.

Actually, heres something better. Prismatic spray, the purple color. Just get hit by that twice, and hope for the best. :smalltongue:


More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

Have a contingent Mount spell!


While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

Forcecage for the win!


Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

Tiny hut. And a forcecage for good measure.


Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

Telekinetic sphere. Float above the water!


While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

Telekinetic sphere. Float across!


You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

What kind of invisibility is it? Well, a contingent see invisible would do the trick.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

Prismatic spray, and pray for the insanity effect. Who will follow an insane king? :smallwink:


While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

If its not force walls, shout, greater. They will be gone soon enough. If they are force walls, then prismatic spray yourself/friends and hope for violet. Or, if there is a gaze attack thats evocation, those work through walls of force.


You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

Use that contingent dimension door/teleport/shadow walk that I am sure you prepared. :smallbiggrin:


Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

Cast sending and ask the person from whom they found out that the relic was there in the first place and get more specific directions.


The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

... Prismatic spray his a@#. Hope for violet.


The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.

Put your friend with ranks in use magic device in a forcecage. Think of it as motivation. He cant come out until he figures out how to work it, and if he accidentally activates the self-destruct feature that all strange magic items seem to have, the damage will only be localized. :smallamused:


While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.

Contingent comprehend languages-you'll know right away what hes saying after the trigger of "activate when someone is saying something that I don't understand".


Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

Prismatic spray, pray for blue. He's stone, not dead, so he cant regenerate, but he's out of your hair.


As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

Prismatic spray, pray for blue or violet. Indigo could work too.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.
Prismatic spray-Indigo or violet. Either he is insane, or he is on another plane.

That was fun!

Solo
2007-07-27, 09:17 AM
You, sirs, are awesome and full of win, and have inspired me to make my next sorcerer an Evoker.

Indon
2007-07-27, 09:29 AM
I'll see if I can think of any solutions that others haven't.



Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

With no specified level? Telekinetic Sphere.



Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

Sending to an NPC Wizard at or near the destination or someone who can get an NPC wizard for a Teleportation spell.



While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.


-Take cover.
-Hide.
-Wear away the creature's HP with Searing Ray, while sniping. A flying enemy is going to be some distance from you, and distance applies a spot penalty. If it gets close, Shout.



Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

If you can't find a space that won't be discovered when invisible (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/tinyHut.htm), then how's Rope Trick gonna help you?



While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

Make a bridge with Wall of Ice.



You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

"Contingency: When I am fired upon by an invisible flying Warlock, I counterattack with <Enter blasty spell here>". Preferably, don't use ray spells.



While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.


These are both problems that can be solved with raw damage to inanimate objects.



The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

Just do the module the DM prepared for your group instead of magicking your way out of it.



The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.


-Go kill something with a horde of treasure with Fireballs.

-Commission a Girdle of Gender Change, appropriately-sized.

-???

-Profit.



The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.


Use like, a floating disk or something to give the item to your UMD rogue.



While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.


Memorize a _lot_ of Sendings, then use a level 18 Monk you've heard of as a translator. Be very courteous.



Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

Prismatic Spray him until he is turned to stone. (Note the spell does not say "As Flesh to Stone", it simply turns the subject to stone, and Undead aren't immune to petrification). Keep him as a statue at your home base.



The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

Okay, I got nothin'.

AKA_Bait
2007-07-27, 10:47 AM
Oooh Me too!


Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.
Telekenetic Sphere.



Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.
Use Sending and inform your dinner guests that you will be late. I should like to see this done without the wish spells or conjuration spells. Transmuters would be late too, but too rude to call ahead. There is also room for a contingent Telelport as has been mentioned or an Elminsters Evasion.


More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

If it's important enough we can hit them with the prismatic eye enough times, healer gonna be busy, that eventually we plane shift to the right spot. Also above.



While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

Prismatic ray it a bunch of times. 2/6 chance you kill it or poison it and 1/6 chance you drive it nuts.


Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

Forecage + Shadow Canopy. Many combonations possible here.


Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

No major ones eh? How about a lonley fisherman? Anyone with a boat? If not, get a long flat peice of wood and cast 4 floating disks at the corners and one in the middle. Now we have a floating platform. Off we go.


While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

Telekenetic Sphere.


You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

Telekenetic sphere to someplace with limited spaces they can hit me. Ready Illusion Purge for once they shoot. Hello my visible warlock friends. Let the rain of fire from above begin.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

So I might know someone not on the plane? Sending and ask them. If not, cast flaming sphere and when absently playing with it inform the king the answer is 'Yes.'


While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

Lightning bolt, battering ram, bigbys fist, so many options.


You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

See above.


Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

Why do I need to use magic for this? I cast 'Gather Information Check'.


The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

I think the appropriate spell here would be Shout. Specifically, at the moron sexist king.


The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.

I cast 'have the meat shield play with it inside a resilient sphere until it does something'.


While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.

Again, why need a spell? Charades anyone?


Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

Electric Jolt + Minions = Answers


As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

Exact, same, strategy.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

I pay someone to plane shift me to someplace more reasonable.

Counterpower
2007-07-27, 11:45 AM
First, I would like to say that I thought Aquillon's challenge was somewhat unfair, as I do not believe there was a single school of magic that could do all of that anyway. Then I saw the responses. I agree with Solo: you are all full of win. :biggrin:

Now, for the counterattack!


Imo, you miss the big point here. I flipped through (well, flipped through the srd because SOMEONE has my phb:smallwink:) evocation spells in a few books, and they all have a common theme. Spell resistance. Evocation, from what I can see, has the more spells with spell resistance than any other school. The big exception I see is forcecage, but that has an expensive material component.

Now, who could that be? :smallamused: I think you're overstating the problem here. SR only requires a caster level check to overcome, and there are several ways to decrease the enemy's SR or grant bonuses to overcoming it.


"Excuse me Mr. Green Dragon. Can we delay this fight for 8 hours? I thought we were fighting Mrs. Blue Dragon today and I prepared my spells in lemon-lime instead of blueberry."
This is less of a problem with Sorcerers, but wizards have to apply their metamagic when they prepare spells. If you don't know what you are fighting, then how do you know what metamagic to apply? Sure, you could apply all the flavors (fire, acid, cold, and lightning), but that would quickly fill up your spells prepared for the day.

You do have a good point here, I admit. I've always been saying that one of a wizard's weaknesses is that they have to prepare ahead. That said though, divination has its place.


Again, it may not always be possible to do ones homework before hand. See above. And while I'm thinking about it, yes one could be an archmage and take that nifty energy substitution that's on the fly, but that requires an 8th level spell slot, so it would not come into play until much later in the game. Would be a boost though.

That's on the fly. Very helpful, yes, but not the only way to get substitution. Besides, what resistances can you find against force damage spells?


The thing with that is, there is nothing similar to evasion for the other two saves.

As has already been said, this is incorrect. An ability called mettle allows a person to ignore a spell with Fort or Will partial if they succeed their saving throw. It is much rarer, which is why I didn't mention it earlier. Although, your party's seen it in action! Remember the paladin you got attacked by? She was a multiclass Deneith warden (from Dragonmarked) and had that exact ability!


Aside from magic missile and forcecage, it seems that almost all evocation spells have a reflex save. Compare that with the (often controversial) orb spells of conjuration. Those have no save, only a range touch attack. There are many spells outside of evocation that do not require a save.

To be fair, you don't have the Spell Compendium available. In addition, there are several times as many spells outside Evocation as inside it, of course there are going to be several that don't require saves. Also, the orb spells are single target and do require a ranged touch attack. Enemies that would resist evocation spells (high Reflex saves, evasion) probably have a decent touch AC as well.


**I think thats an important point that needs to be brought out, most evocation spells have both a save and spell resistance.**

Neither of which is as much of a problem as I think you're making them. SR can be defeated, and saving throws are going to be a problem when you're casting offensive magic anyway.


But, ironically, you only ban off 8th and 9th level spells if you ban off evocation if you keep illusion. Yes, they are slightly weaker versions, but if you need them, they are still there. I cannot think of any 8th or 9th level evocations off the top of my head that I would deem overly useful.

Okay......... so what you're saying is, you like giving enemies two saving throws? I sure don't. They get a Will save, and if they pull it off, the damage is reduced to 60%. That's if it's a damaging spell. If it's not, disbelief means you wasted an 8th level spell. They also still get any saving throw the spell being simulated allows, meaning damage could literally be reduced to 30%! Or halved like always, if they believe the illusion. As a side note, among the core classes, only the barbarian, fighter, and paladin have both poor Reflex and poor Will saves. The paladin has divine grace, so it's saves aren't as horrible as they first appear. A good deal of monster types have either good Reflex or good Will saves. Finally, among the core spells, you will never get: telekinetic sphere, greater shout, polar ray, sunburst, clenched fist, meteor storm, and crushing hand. Telekinetic sphere was listed by several people in their solutions to Aquillon's problem. Greater shout provides sonic damage, one of the least resisted types and one that's effective against objects. Polar ray doesn't require a saving throw, and is a large amount of d6s. Sunburst can blind enemies and is simply devastating to undead and oozes, with untyped damage, no less! Clenched fist can stun enemies with a failed Fort save (gasp, not Reflex) and can bull rush or block the enemy. Meteor storm can hit a target with up to 32d6 damage, with no save if you succeed the ranged touch attack, and not all of it is fire. That is, of course, ignoring the 40ft explosion each of your meteors produces, and you can individually target each one. Crushing hand can grapple enemies, dealing damage with each successful check.

I'm sorry, but greater shadow evocation is a pathetic substitute for true evocation magic.

Roderick_BR
2007-07-27, 12:32 PM
Quoting Vaarsavius: "I love the smell of fresh bat guano in the morning."
Seems like people repeatedly blasted ways to make Evocation at least non-sucky.
Evocation's main problem is that it is too especific. It's about directly affect an enemy. Other than that, it's not unlike others schools.
So, evocation doesn't work well against evasion/energy resistance or immunity.
Necromancy, illusion, and enchantment doesn't work well against constructs, undead (unless you try to make or control them), some forms of plants, and most outsiders.
Transmutation is likely the most powerful school, since a lot of the good stuff is about buffing.
Divination is a good tool for much needed info. And thats it.
Summoning, ajuration, and the rest are good, with it's own limitations.

And finally, for one of the first posters: You can have fun with a school that you like. Some people like to fool enemies with illusions, others to throw enemy against their allies with enchantment, others like to play know-it-all.
Others like to blow sh*t up. It's not "boom boom boom, I ran out of spells." It's about knowing when to use it. I played a evoker/blood magus (the horror! blood magus doesn't have full caster progression) and it was one of my coolest characters ever (because he didn't ban transmutation, of course =P )

Arbitrarity
2007-07-27, 12:35 PM
Illusionist (banned evocation and conjuration)/shadowcraft mage with earth spell and heighten spell, however, is full of win. Yeah, made your will save? Doesn't make a difference!

:smallbiggrin:

Lapak
2007-07-27, 12:53 PM
What Evocation spells would you use in the following situations?

To add to the many solutions given through Evocation magic, I'd like to add my two bits to the 'not a good test' pile by noting that a barbarian with an adamant greataxe and adamantine-tipped arrows has a pretty good shot at solving a lot of these; even more if he's tossed a few skill ranks into Knowledge: Engineering, Intimidate, Gather Information, Survival and Handle Animal. With tongue in cheek, I give you the non-magic solutions:

Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.
Hack a staircase out of the walls with the axe.

Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.
Track down the nearest dragon, beat it into submission, and force it to fly you there. If it's able, Intimidate it into Teleporting the lot of you instead of flying.

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.The dragon will still work, but for lesser distances it's probably easier to hunt down lesser creatures and Handle Animal (with Push modifier) them into temporary mounts.

While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.Good thing I brought along the bow and arrows.

Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.Using Knowledge: Engineering, find a chamber - or better yet, large series of chambers - with only one exit whose exit can be safely collapsed. Hack hack with the axe, lovely safehouse. If they haven't dug you out by the time everyone is rested, dig your own way out with the poor abused axe.

Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.This one is tricky, unless you still have your beaten-down Intimidated dragon handy. I suppose you might be able to rustle up some giant turtles or something to use Handle Animal on, but otherwise you may be out of luck.

While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.
Tie rope to arrow, fire arrow into opposite wall, instant bridge. Use that Engineering knowledge to build a bridge from that starting point if necessary.

You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.
This one is somewhat more trouble. Time to find a cave, building, or other three-dimensional cul-de-sac to force them to approach along a particular line, then use the bow or axe depending on how good your chokepoint is. On the up side, you probably have enough hit points to make it to such a place alive!

The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.He didn't say that I couldn't force the answer out of him. Intimidate check time, I believe.

While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.
This is another low point for the barbarian, depending on time constraints. If it's Wall of Force, we'll have to wait. Anything else, and he starts digging his way out.

You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.
Okay, on this one we're probably in trouble, but if there IS a fast enough way to dig out Engineering should reveal it.

Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.
Gather Information, done.

The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.
Convince him to adopt me instead!

The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.
If by 'unravel' you mean 'take apart', I have an axe that can probably break the thing... :)

While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.
Not much can be done here.

Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.
If he's a wizard-lich, (and those do seem to be most common) destroy his spellbook - which presumably had to be more conveniently located than his phylactery. Those aren't easy to replace; one or two more go-rounds should be enough to cause him to give up. If he's a sorceror or cleric, I've got nothin'.

As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.
As above, with arrows.

The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. ...
Intimidate a spellcaster with Glitterdust and Invisibilty to fake it for me.

Koji
2007-07-27, 12:59 PM
Evocation is cool and that's why it's good. You can make just about any school worthwhile with the right PrCs and feat choices, so it doesn't really make much difference anyway.

Indon
2007-07-27, 02:12 PM
To add to the many solutions given through Evocation magic, I'd like to add my two bits to the 'not a good test' pile by noting that a barbarian with an adamant greataxe and adamantine-tipped arrows has a pretty good shot at solving a lot of these; even more if he's tossed a few skill ranks into Knowledge: Engineering, Intimidate, Gather Information, Survival and Handle Animal. With tongue in cheek, I give you the non-magic solutions:


Creativity may well be > Arcane Magic in terms of power level.

PirateMonk
2007-07-27, 03:39 PM
Ah, and of course a limited wish will provide a teleport spell even if conjuration is a barred school.Or, again, the all-powerful limited wish spell.Again limited wish or the conjurer's job. Next. Strike a deal/force anyone with the ability to polymorph any object. And then at the very high levels, there is still a wish spell (universal)...Ah, but limited wish for analyse dweomer/legend lore is luckily availble for all... Via magic, again only one school can solve- or limited wish.
Limited Wish. Emulate Glitterdust. The kingdom should be worth the 300 XP :smallbiggrin:

- Giacomo

Uh, actually:


No using Wish or Limited Wish, for obvious reasons

tobian
2007-07-27, 04:45 PM
This post was getting really long, so I spoiler tagged it.




First, I would like to say that I thought Aquillon's challenge was somewhat unfair, as I do not believe there was a single school of magic that could do all of that anyway. Then I saw the responses. I agree with Solo: you are all full of win.

Now, for the counterattack!

I counter your counter with a counter of my own, thus negating the counter. Or is the counter not able to be countered, thus negating the original encounter?
...
Wow, I just confused myself. Moving on!




Quote:
Originally Posted by tobian View Post
Imo, you miss the big point here. I flipped through (well, flipped through the srd because SOMEONE has my phb) evocation spells in a few books, and they all have a common theme. Spell resistance. Evocation, from what I can see, has the more spells with spell resistance than any other school. The big exception I see is forcecage, but that has an expensive material component.

Now, who could that be? I think you're overstating the problem here. SR only requires a caster level check to overcome, and there are several ways to decrease the enemy's SR or grant bonuses to overcoming it.

Ok, so SR only requires a caster level check to overcome. It still is another check that could fail, thus making the school that is always supposed to do something do nothing.



Quote:
"Excuse me Mr. Green Dragon. Can we delay this fight for 8 hours? I thought we were fighting Mrs. Blue Dragon today and I prepared my spells in lemon-lime instead of blueberry."
This is less of a problem with Sorcerers, but wizards have to apply their metamagic when they prepare spells. If you don't know what you are fighting, then how do you know what metamagic to apply? Sure, you could apply all the flavors (fire, acid, cold, and lightning), but that would quickly fill up your spells prepared for the day.

You do have a good point here, I admit. I've always been saying that one of a wizard's weaknesses is that they have to prepare ahead. That said though, divination has its place.

And you also have a good point. True, one could divine what they were fighting, but if you don't know you were going to be fighting at all in the first place, how can you divine what you are supposed to be fighting?



Quote:
Again, it may not always be possible to do ones homework before hand. See above. And while I'm thinking about it, yes one could be an archmage and take that nifty energy substitution that's on the fly, but that requires an 8th level spell slot, so it would not come into play until much later in the game. Would be a boost though.

That's on the fly. Very helpful, yes, but not the only way to get substitution. Besides, what resistances can you find against force damage spells?

Thats a problem with the substitution feats-you only get 1 flavor per feat. That normally wouldn't be a problem, but if you fight a dual immune monster such as a lich and only have a cold spell and a cold substituted into lightning spell you are going to have some issues. IMO, the substitution feat should allow one all four flavors for 1 feat. And force damage spells... I looked, but evocation does not seem to have as much of those as energy based spells. There is the hand series and the magic missile series, but other than that I do not see a whole lot of variety in that area.



Quote:
The thing with that is, there is nothing similar to evasion for the other two saves.

As has already been said, this is incorrect. An ability called mettle allows a person to ignore a spell with Fort or Will partial if they succeed their saving throw. It is much rarer, which is why I didn't mention it earlier. Although, your party's seen it in action! Remember the paladin you got attacked by? She was a multiclass Deneith warden (from Dragonmarked) and had that exact ability!

Ok, I goofed. Mettle does indeed act as evasion for the other two saves. But, up until this point I did not know about that. And I went and looked up classes that got it-they did not seem that common. But, I learned something new today, and I concede this point to you.



To be fair, you don't have the Spell Compendium available.

How do you know? :smallamused:



Quote:
Aside from magic missile and forcecage, it seems that almost all evocation spells have a reflex save. Compare that with the (often controversial) orb spells of conjuration. Those have no save, only a range touch attack. There are many spells outside of evocation that do not require a save.

In addition, there are several times as many spells outside Evocation as inside it, of course there are going to be several that don't require saves. Also, the orb spells are single target and do require a ranged touch attack. Enemies that would resist evocation spells (high Reflex saves, evasion) probably have a decent touch AC as well.

But, there are ways to increase ranged touch attacks much more than saves. True strike for an example, quicken that and that orb will hit pending god hating you.



Quote:
**I think thats an important point that needs to be brought out, most evocation spells have both a save and spell resistance.**

Neither of which is as much of a problem as I think you're making them. SR can be defeated, and saving throws are going to be a problem when you're casting offensive magic anyway.

Point being, most spells in evocation have both. IMO, I wish more lacked one or another. But thats just my opinion on that.



Quote:
But, ironically, you only ban off 8th and 9th level spells if you ban off evocation if you keep illusion. Yes, they are slightly weaker versions, but if you need them, they are still there. I cannot think of any 8th or 9th level evocations off the top of my head that I would deem overly useful.

Okay......... so what you're saying is, you like giving enemies two saving throws? I sure don't. They get a Will save, and if they pull it off, the damage is reduced to 60%. That's if it's a damaging spell. If it's not, disbelief means you wasted an 8th level spell. They also still get any saving throw the spell being simulated allows, meaning damage could literally be reduced to 30%! Or halved like always, if they believe the illusion. As a side note, among the core classes, only the barbarian, fighter, and paladin have both poor Reflex and poor Will saves. The paladin has divine grace, so it's saves aren't as horrible as they first appear. A good deal of monster types have either good Reflex or good Will saves. Finally, among the core spells, you will never get: telekinetic sphere, greater shout, polar ray, sunburst, clenched fist, meteor storm, and crushing hand. Telekinetic sphere was listed by several people in their solutions to Aquillon's problem. Greater shout provides sonic damage, one of the least resisted types and one that's effective against objects. Polar ray doesn't require a saving throw, and is a large amount of d6s. Sunburst can blind enemies and is simply devastating to undead and oozes, with untyped damage, no less! Clenched fist can stun enemies with a failed Fort save (gasp, not Reflex) and can bull rush or block the enemy. Meteor storm can hit a target with up to 32d6 damage, with no save if you succeed the ranged touch attack, and not all of it is fire. That is, of course, ignoring the 40ft explosion each of your meteors produces, and you can individually target each one. Crushing hand can grapple enemies, dealing damage with each successful check.


I'm sorry, but greater shadow evocation is a pathetic substitute for true evocation magic.

Is it really? Access to ANY 7th level evocation is a bad thing? The utility spells are all available, and if I need damage, ill look towards conjuration, abjuration and necormancy for my fix. And if I need death right now spells, necromancy, illusion, and enchantment all answer the call. You get the utility you need out of shadow evocation, while you pull the damage from elsewhere. Horrid wilting and incendiary cloud both do a good job at punching nice HP holes into many enemies at once. I'll admit, losing telekinetic sphere would suck, but the other spells can be replaced, and as one moves away from core, the more the disparity becomes clear imo. Evocation is good at what it does, but it could be replaced by other schools if the need arises.

In closing, I repeat something I said earlier.

And to clarify a point, I personally don't think Evocation is worthless. I'm more referring to why people seem to ban it if/when they become specialists.

PirateMonk
2007-07-27, 05:10 PM
I'm bored, so I'll respond to Aquillion's challenge exclusively with blasting. :smallamused: As should be obvious, I'm joking.


Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

Blast the walls until you can cimb them.


Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

Blast the world until it's small enough for you to get where you need to quickly!


While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

Meh. Blast it anyway.


Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

Carve out a place to rest.


Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

Evaporate the ocean with fire spells.


While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

Blast the cliffs until you can climb up and down them.


You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

Blast everywhere. You're bound to get them eventually.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

Blast the king, and anyone who objects to you seizing the kingdom.


While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

Blast the walls.


You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

Blast through the rubble.


Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

Magic Missile some sense into yourself, then torch the town until you in it or someone shows you where it is.


The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

Blast the parents of a baby boy, switch with king's daughter, blast anyone who catches you.


The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.

Blast the item and the town that will be destroyed anyway.


While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.

Quickly teach him your language, with blast spells as an incentive.


Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

Blast the entire multiverse. You're bound to get eventually.


As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

Again, blast it anyway.


The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

Nuke the kingdom!

Arbitrarity
2007-07-27, 05:26 PM
That's how warlocks solve things :belkar:

namo
2007-07-27, 06:08 PM
Evocation is the *best* school and has two of the most powerful spells in the game. I mean, Holy Word, Miracle ?
Ooh, arcane magic. Nevermind then.

heroe_de_leyenda
2007-07-27, 07:58 PM
Evocation Rocks!!!!!

At level 5th the wizard makes the cothern characters feel underpowered (until 6th level, in wich tankers get a second attack, but anyway!)

It is just so cool when you take 12 o 15 o 20 dice in your hand and throw them at the game table, knocking down some minis in the process!!!! the sound of fultiple polyedrons rocking and hitting each other and finally the silence and counting and adding (wich is NOT annoying if you went through elementary school!!!) .... it is sooo good when there are a lot of 5s and 6s facing up!!!!!!

Jack Mann
2007-07-27, 10:02 PM
The problem with evocation damage spells is that, ultimately, you do more damage with other schools of magic. You just don't do the damage directly. Instead, you make it easier for your allies to do damage, whether by buffing them (haste, polymorph), debuffing enemies (ray of enfeeblement, enervation), or battlefield control (solid fog, wall spells). The only time you get better damage with evocation is when you have a load of mooks, and most of the time, the mooks aren't going to be doing enough damage to make the spell slots all that worthwhile.

Sure, you can use fireball if you like. But you're still better off, from a mechanical standpoint, preparing other spells.

tannish2
2007-07-27, 10:14 PM
there is, however, something funner than an evoker, a kineticist (unless your DM isnt allowing psionics because your character has 2 18's and a 16, or they dont read the rules, making the whole book overpowered and therefore not used)

Thinker
2007-07-27, 10:19 PM
I think everyone is losing sight of the fact that compared to other schools, Evocation just kinda sucks. Damage is the one thing everyone in DnD can do, whereas other schools have other spells that have effects which are harder to come by. You could make new uses of spells and find creative side effects to make evocation less crappy or you could just take the easy way out and use the better schools.

horseboy
2007-07-27, 10:46 PM
In 40k terms evocation was "stealth nerfed". It's over all power level remained constant while it's competition was made more powerful. Flaming Sphere used to be an awesome spell, when it was used against 3-7 hp goblins or 1-2 hp kobolds. Now a days, everything has way more hit points, but evocation only does the same amount of damage as it did before the increase. This has caused wizards who were getting frustrated with their lack of performance to start experimenting with the other spells. Originally those spells were just there for situational needs. Before 3.x you didn't get any sort of "real" bonus for being made larger. Now it's almost mandatory for a fighter. Thus the Batman was born.

So, yeah evocation is still there, you can still use it if you want, it's just nerfed all to Hell and back. That's why it gets no love from the rest of the population.

tannish2
2007-07-27, 11:52 PM
What Evocation spells would you use in the following situations? (Assume the party knows no other spellcasters or powerful people who would be willing to help them; while you could technically solve anything by casting Sending and asking your level 20 wizard friend for help, this is not a reliable strategy. No using Wish or Limited Wish, for obvious reasons, and no magical items that perform effects that could not be duplicated with evocation spells on the wiz/sorc list. Basically, this is an evocation challenge; all solutions must depend exclusively on wiz/sorc evocation.)

ill take your challenge... and ill also give you a kineticist solution

Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters.

they suck, but blast a stairway out anyway, or just use that rope you had...

Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours.

too high an int to put all those skill points in useful places, so a few in knoledge(theoretical physics/geography) would allow you to blast a point in the universe that would make in fold in on itself, letting you take one step to your location, or (favorite existant/nonexistant divine entity forbid) you could know/have scroll of another schools scroll/power

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide.

see: previous one, and blasting the towns wizard until he will teleport you

While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save.

energy resistances... resistance is not immunity

Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.

a good blaster never runs low on spells, but sleep in your open bag of holding, or just keep watch in shift (i know, terrible suggestion idk where i got the idea)

Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance.

blast a large peice of something into boat shape, use blast spells like an outboard motor or see: other transportation questions

While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges.

see: boat question

You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.

spells with a large area of effect

The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer.

blast his most trusted servant into telling you, or blast him until he says you answered correctly, or, kidnap a family member(or 20) threaten to blast if he does nit relinquish controll

While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely.

....blast? or see: any transportation questions

You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air.

blast a path out with sonic/cold spells instead of fire or see: any other questions of transportation

Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it.

why not? or use the treasure from that dragon you just blasted to bribe them into telling you... or you could just look4it

The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.

kill the sexist bastard, or diplomatize/blast a wizard into a girdle of femininity/masculinity

The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item.

screw em, their just townspeople, kill them and take their things yourself, or just do it the old fashioned way, knoledge+appraise+spellcraft+magical appraisal+thinking

While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language.

ask another party member who does, or use a *ominous music* SCROLL or spell from anther school... or just do without the information

Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.

capture him, and torture him with holy water (which because of this act you may be temporarily unable to handle) into telling you where it is, and promise extra nice with someones bluff skill that you wont kill it, you just want to polish it

As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.

blast him.... without the aid of one first level spell

The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.

this is where those ranks in knoledge (nuclear physics) and (architecture and engineering) come in VERY handy, also talking to your DM about campaigns that specifically foil your character, or make a scroll of something evocationy for the rog (or just cast it if your an unseen seer/arcane trickster) and make good use of the bluff skill, to make him think it was glitterdust, or the kineticist alternative, which does not risk the uberdeath penalty


theres also a few situations where u need a good blasting spell, the dragon with the luck feats that let him reroll saves, or the uber-saver character with insane HP, air walk shoes, those same luck feats, and a staff of wind wall, and maybe an invisible ally with a ring of enduring arcana who constantly casts dispells on your fly/air walks and you cant seem to locate to dispell, maybe he always stays 100 feet away or something, how do you solve that with without blasting?

and your last one, with the no-evocation world... a world where any sorc/wiz who casts anything other than evocation spells while doing anythjing other than hunting down/executing a non-evoker will be executed with with a necrotic termination spell (soul is destroyed as well so no rez) and where everyone is immune to illusions and mind controll, and you need to kill 20 goblins at onece, tightly grouped, with the kings head batman-hunter looking over your shoulder how do you do it without blasting?

Lapak
2007-07-28, 12:35 AM
I think everyone is losing sight of the fact that compared to other schools, Evocation just kinda sucks. Damage is the one thing everyone in DnD can do, whereas other schools have other spells that have effects which are harder to come by. You could make new uses of spells and find creative side effects to make evocation less crappy or you could just take the easy way out and use the better schools.No one has lost sight of the fact that Evocation, in its current incarnation especially, is mechanically inferior. But 'mechanically inferior' is not the same thing as 'pointless to play,' nor 'useless to play.'

People can play Evokers, have a good time with it, and be useful on both combat and utility fronts. Are they doing so with maximum numerical efficiency? No, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The_Werebear
2007-07-28, 02:11 AM
I have to try this one.

Your party falls into a very deep greased pit. You are unable to climb out and you have no other casters. Bigby's something or another to rip sections of wall down and build a stairway out of them. Or just blowing the pit down to your level. Or burning the grease off with a fire spell.

Your party is stranded in the wilderness and needs to get halfway across the world in 24 hours. Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere...You never specified how big a world it is... Plus, the fall rate is 60 feet a round, meaning that if you are going up, you can coast down a lot faster from the top of your arc.

More generally, your party needs to get somewhere quickly, and has no mounts or other forms of transportation aside from what you, as the arcane spellcaster, can provide. Threaten to blow up the stables unless you get a deal on the horses.

While outdoors, with no useful shelter nearby, your level 12 or lower party is attacked by a large flying monster with high HP and high energy resistances, whose sole weakness is its very low will or fort save. Wall of force to stop it dead in it's tracks, or Bigby's forceful hand to counter it's forward momentum so it falls. Gust of wind works as well. Alternately, you can blast some trees over for cover.

Your party is deep in a large dungeon belonging to a high-level evil wizard, with wandering bands of monsters actively searching for you at his behest. You have run somewhat low on spells, and everyone is tired and needs to rest. You have been unable to locate a safe location to set up camp.
Create a cave with a few well placed explosives. Then seal it behind you the same way.

Your party needs to get somewhere, but there is an ocean in the way. There are no major seafaring communities within reasonable distance. Telekinetic Sphere.

While adventuring, you find a wide, deep chasm in exactly the direction you need to go, cutting right across the dungeon. It is too far to jump, and you can't find any bridges. Wall of ice or Telekinetic Sphere.

You are attacked by invisible flying warlocks with long-range attacks who can teleport short distances freely.
Ready an action to throw an AoE where the spells are coming from.

The king offers to leave his kingdom to you if you can answer a single yes-or-no question accurately for him within one week. You know of no people on the plane, aside from the king, who know the answer. Sending off plane/ Browbeat a seer to send off plane for you with threats of bodily harm.

While fighting an evil wizard, he uses his magic to create walls and trap your party completely. Create walls around him/Blow them away.

You set off a trap that causes the corridor before and behind you to collapse, trapping your party in a small area with very little air. Shatter everything in your way/ Bigby's hand.

Your party needs to find an old relic, which they know is somewhere in town. You don't want to offend anyone in town or cause any trouble while looking for it. Wait until everyone is asleep, then excavate the town with Bigby's hand. Kill anyone who appears with Silent Spells.

The king is upset that his child was born a daughter, and offers to leave half his kingdom to anyone who can magically transform her into a son.
Take the daughter to your lab. Then, go to a commoner and threaten to blast them unless they give you their newborn son. Give them the daughter and take the son to the king. Everyone is happy, and you set up the next story arc for the DM.

The fate of a town depends on how quickly your party can unravel the secrets of a strange magic item. A few Sendings to your loremaster friends solves the problem. Or, you could literally unravel the item with a few well placed fireballs.

While searching some runes, you discover a native villager from the region who seems to have important information. Unfortunately, you do not speak his language. Pantomime FTW

Your party has fought a high-level lich several times, and wants to finish him off for good, or at least take him out of the equation indefinitely (read: for a duration longer than "hours".) You have no leads on where his phylactery may be.
Blast the bastard to pieces, then shocking grasp minions until they talk. And I want to know, how does the person with only divination spells plan to destroy the phylactery once they find it?

As above with the large flying tough energy resistant monster, but the monster is also wearing an Brooch of Shielding.
Gust of wind it into walls until it dies.

The king offers to leave his kingdom to the first person who can cast a Glitterdust spell. He loves how that spell looks. Also, he is allergic to Evocations and has ordered anyone who uses Evocations put to death in the most painful way imaginable. People who cast evocations are hunted down like the brute animals they are and executed for entertainment on magical TV. The gods themselves have supported the king in this, and no cleric will assist your cursed evocation-casting form; great magical works spread over the realm cause anyone who casts Evocations, ever, to stink with the rot of their heinous misdeed for the rest of their natural lives so that all should know the depths of their sin. Transcribing or simply discussing the means by which an evocation spell could be cast is an offense punishable by summary execution in any court anywhere on the plane.
Drop a fireball into a bag filled with Mica; call it Glitterdust if anyone survives.

That was fun.

Cruiser1
2007-07-29, 06:45 AM
For non-core Evocations, don't forget Moonbow (SC, 5th level). A maximized Moonbow does a truly obscene amount of hit point damage.
The SC is inconcistent on how (Presper's) Moonbow behaves. The spell description header says you get 1d4 motes of electricity to fling, however the first sentence says you always get three motes. Is PGF (Player's Guide to Faerûn, the original source) also ambiguous? Assuming it's 1d4, then at level 20 attacking with four motes at once would do 40d6 (up to 240 damage). That's as good as Disintegrate, and it's also nice since (unlike Disintegrate) it has no saving throw. :smallsmile:

Meteor storm can hit a target with up to 32d6 damage, with no save if you succeed the ranged touch attack, and not all of it is fire.
Meteor Swarm is fun (doing up to 192 damage) however it's a 9th level spell. Another one of most damaging nukes is the 5th level spell Greater Fireburst, which at level 15 does 15d10 damage (up to 150 damage). Apply Sculpt Spell to it so you don't have to get within 15 feet of your enemy. The SC version of the spell is better than CA, since in CA the dice are only d8's. Why throw buckets of d6's when you can throw d10's? :smallbiggrin:

Skjaldbakka
2007-07-29, 06:48 AM
Why throw buckets of d6's when you can throw d10's?

But who has buckets of d10s lying around? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0474.html

:smallbiggrin:

Arbitrarity
2007-07-29, 12:00 PM
Wouldn't those really be D12's? Otherwise, what are the d10's for? Not HD, so.... something.

PirateMonk
2007-07-29, 02:52 PM
That's a reference to the WoD vampire thing.

Dausuul
2007-07-29, 03:43 PM
The SC is inconcistent on how (Presper's) Moonbow behaves. The spell description header says you get 1d4 motes of electricity to fling, however the first sentence says you always get three motes. Is PGF (Player's Guide to Faerûn, the original source) also ambiguous? Assuming it's 1d4, then at level 20 attacking with four motes at once would do 40d6 (up to 240 damage). That's as good as Disintegrate, and it's also nice since (unlike Disintegrate) it has no saving throw. :smallsmile:

The spell text takes precedence over the header, so it's 3 motes. Which is still quite prodigious damage at high levels... particularly since it can be maximized.

RaistlinandPals
2007-07-29, 06:58 PM
Huzzah for Evocation and this thread!
The defense lawyer for Evocation will be Phoenix Wright, ace attorney.

We can't lose!

Leatherhead
2007-07-29, 08:31 PM
I dislike evocation crazy mages for the same reason I dislike sunder-monkeys, only more so. They have a tendency to destroy loot and cause unacceptable amounts of collateral damage to friendly npcs, other players, buildings, forests, and anything else that is within range of their spells.

Cruiser1
2007-07-30, 11:59 PM
The spell text takes precedence over the header, so it's 3 motes. Which is still quite prodigious damage at high levels... particularly since it can be maximized.
The above seems a logical way to handle the discrepancy, however do you know of a rules reference or FAQ question or whatever that actually states spell text takes priority? If so, then it's cute that there exists rules on how to properly interpret the rules. :smallwink:

Evocation is the *best* school and has two of the most powerful spells in the game. I mean, Holy Word, Miracle ?
That's true, Miracle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/miracle.htm) is an Evocation spell. Usually the schools for non-arcane spells never come into play, since Clerics and such can't specialize. Miracle is indeed an awesome spell, since it can simulate any other 7th level or lower spell, and unlike Wish it doesn't require XP to do so. Hence this raises a cool potential for to how to do the most things with just one school of magic. If you take a feat that gives you access to a Cleric domain such as Luck (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericDomains.htm#luckDomain), then with Miracle you can do more with Evocation than you can with any other school. Shadow Illusion spells are a poor substitute to the versatility of a Wizard with Miracle! :smallyuk:

Kurald Galain
2007-07-31, 06:39 AM
hey have a tendency to destroy loot and cause unacceptable amounts of collateral damage

Try a wild mage...

Kurald Galain
2007-07-31, 07:08 AM
Okay, so the responses to the Aquillion test have proven that Evocation is more versatile than it might first seem. I'm kind of curious how the other schools would fare on this test. Conjuration and Transmutation would seem to have an easy time, but Abjuration and Divination appear to be in big trouble, as does Illusion if you don't count shadow magic. So it follows that Abj and Div are the weakest schools, and nobody should every play them, right? (that was irony, by the way)

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-31, 08:47 AM
Probably in the end the question amounts to whether if you specialise as a wizard which specialisation are the greatest asset and what schools are best to dump alongside that specialisation.

Evocation fared badly in the LogicNinja guide since some of its major advantages (range, DEX-saves, damage, force effects) are possible to replicate with other schools. But that is also true for the other schools, except maybe conjuration and transmutation, so an outright "evocation sucks" is not warranted.

- Giacomo