How would you rank Wizard Schools?

[Schwann145]

Mechanically, and from a flavor standpoint, if you had to give each school (Including things like Bladesinger and Lore) a 1-5 rating, how would you rate them?

[Dudu]

1 terrible
2 bad
3 some neat bonus
4 quite good
5 very solid
6 broken good

Abjurer - 5 - does his job well. Allow some tanking multiclassing. Ward is a great defensive tool.

Bladesinger - 5 - good melee option. The extra attack seems wasted. Ludicrous ammount of AC and other shenanigans bring some bulky numbers to his melee capabilities.

Conjurer - 4 - Maybe 5, but I think there are some who are slightly better. Benign Transposition is good, great utility, the same for minor conjuration. The ability to keep concentrating on a summon despite being hit is very good on a summoner, obviously.

Diviner - 5 - Portent is simply great. He has some in build spell slot recovery as well. Great all around wizard.

Enchanter - 3 - Some tricks here and there. Enhances big time the Enchanter, but isn't as solid as other option imo.

Lore Master - 6 - Too many opportunities to exploit the game and make other characters (like the party sorcerer, if he is there) feel obsolete.

Illusionist - 4 - Starts mild. Then at lvl 14 gains the biggest potential to shape the battlefield.

Necromancer - 3 - Some neat bonuses. Can assemble an army of undead, but those ventures are usually time consuming at the table, and the undead will still be too inferior to the party fighter.

Transmuter - 3 - Again, an array of tricks, but not as impressive as the ones other schools get. Possibly the least impressive school.

[Elminster298]

1 terrible
2 bad
3 some neat bonus
4 quite good
5 very solid
6 broken good

Abjurer - 5 - does his job well. Allow some tanking multiclassing. Ward is a great defensive tool.

Bladesinger - 5 - good melee option. The extra attack seems wasted. Ludicrous ammount of AC and other shenanigans bring some bulky numbers to his melee capabilities.

Conjurer - 4 - Maybe 5, but I think there are some who are slightly better. Benign Transposition is good, great utility, the same for minor conjuration. The ability to keep concentrating on a summon despite being hit is very good on a summoner, obviously.

Diviner - 5 - Portent is simply great. He has some in build spell slot recovery as well. Great all around wizard.

Enchanter - 3 - Some tricks here and there. Enhances big time the Enchanter, but isn't as solid as other option imo.

Lore Master - 6 - Too many opportunities to exploit the game and make other characters (like the party sorcerer, if he is there) feel obsolete.

Illusionist - 4 - Starts mild. Then at lvl 14 gains the biggest potential to shape the battlefield.

Necromancer - 3 - Some neat bonuses. Can assemble an army of undead, but those ventures are usually time consuming at the table, and the undead will still be too inferior to the party fighter.

Transmuter - 3 - Again, an array of tricks, but not as impressive as the ones other schools get. Possibly the least impressive school.

Umm, yeah... pretty much that ^^^

I would be tempted to drop Necro to a 2 only because you need so many minions to make it powerful. I do think it's a solid 3 though because it actually is a very effective archetype even if it is cheesy.

[Jerrykhor]

What about the UA stuff like Theurgy and War Wizard?

[SharkForce]

a few tweaks:

bladesinger: adds some powerful abilities to make a regular wizard better at being tough, but as far as making the class even remotely like a wizard that wants to use weapons, it's pretty lousy. so... it's good, but it's not good at being a bladesinger.

conjurer: i'm honestly not that impressed. wizard summoning isn't that great without planar binding (which removes concentration requirement anyways), and the other abilities aren't that awesome to me.

diviner: it's amazing... in, like, one fight per day. the rest of the time, it's mostly just a regular wizard that doesn't do much of anything.

enchanter: i think it is underrated by those above, personally. hypnotic gaze is very strong, though a touch risky, when you get it... but let's be clear: at level 2, an ability that incapacitates targets that can be used once per target per long rest is mind-blowingly awesome on a wizard. you have 4 spells to get you through an entire day, then it's cantrips for a typical wizard. you get to incapacitate enemies in exchange for your action. sounds pretty good to me.

evoker: for some reason not listed above? personally, i rank it low. damage dealing is a good tool to have in the wizard arsenal, but not worth focusing everything on.

illusionist: due to the fact that illusions rely on DM cooperation, i would consider this to be extremely hard to rate. in one group, it can easily be the most powerful. in another, it can consistently struggle to accomplish anything at all.

necromancer: one minion isn't the equal of a fighter. 20 minions, i'm not so sure.

UA

Lore master: way too easy to abuse. should never have been written. almost nothing in it is even salvageable unless everyone agrees in advance to not use any of the abilities to their fullest potential, with the exception of expertise in int skills. even that's probably better than the equivalent that everyone else gets.

theurgy: very powerful, uncreative, steals the cleric's thunder entirely. it isn't as poorly made as lore master, but i can't think of any compelling reasons to not scrap it.

war wizard: seems fine. haven't really heard or seen much of it. probably somewhere in the middle of the pack, i guess.

and, although you didn't mention it...

artificer wizard (not the new class, the one from waaaaaay back when they did the eberron UA): it's avoided notice, but is actually quite strong. has a fair number of interesting ideas. i'm not sure how well it will play when it is tidied up so that the exploitable loopholes are not present, but they really should be before use (current loopholes include such things as scrolls don't require expensive components, and scrolls aren't restricted to level 5 the way arcane recovery is).

[TheUser]

Lol @ the people who don't understand how broken necromancer's are....

Completely glossing over their level 2 feature which can trigger multiple times from one spell. For instance, Evard's Black Tentacles and Wall of Fire deal damage on the turn of the creature they damage. Meaning the once per turn healing effect can go off multiple times in a round from one casting of the spell....(cloud kill, cloud of daggers etc. etc.). It's like a selfish version of the life cleric's healing buff (oh and it works wonders with vampiric touch!). Not that you should be taking lots of damage but it makes healing you a non-issue in large multi-enemy fights.

As for the zombies and skeletons...even if you only keep a handful of undead with you (5-10) they turn deadly encounter's into easy encounters and hard encounters into trivial ones. It's like frontloading spells for the adventuring day to up your consistent damage/presence on the field. You have 16 Int don't you? Then use it and keep the skeletons behind cover only coming out to shoot. Equip your Zombies in chainmail (8 AC becomes 16 AC and they have the strength to use it). Each hit that they take is a hit that your party doesn't have to. Keep them spread out to avoid getting mowed down by AoE and play smart.

Moreover, a necromancer's animate dead is the only instance of a spell that scales with caster level (polymorphs scale off the level of the target :D). This creates a non-linear scaling mechanism; every other caster is getting higher slot levels and more plentiful slots to up their potential but the necromancer is getting more effectiveness out of those same slots. A level 3 fireball for a wizard is always 8d6 but a level 3 animate dead is very different for a level 6 necromancer than it is for a level 20 one (14hp and +3 damage for two undead to be exact). It doesn't sound like much but it adds up really quick when you've got a dozen of them.

As soon as your party starts finding ways to give your skeletons/zombies advantage or casting support spells like crusader's mantle it's a whole new level of shenanigans.

When Finger of Death becomes available you have a means to generate unlimited extra undead at a rate of 1/day.

As a final note, the necromancer is the only archetype that I have had requests to not play because it breaks the CR's and encounter table so egregiously and made the rest of the party feel like an accessory to their power. Either your DM will have to intentionally pinch down on your capabilities (which nobody enjoys) or let you run rampant and steal the spotlight and force them to jack up the difficulty of all encounters.

Say what you will but for me the Necromancer is on it's own level.

[Sans.]

diviner: it's amazing... in, like, one fight per day. the rest of the time, it's mostly just a regular wizard that doesn't do much of anything.

enchanter: i think it is underrated by those above, personally. hypnotic gaze is very strong, though a touch risky, when you get it... but let's be clear: at level 2, an ability that incapacitates targets that can be used once per target per long rest is mind-blowingly awesome on a wizard. you have 4 spells to get you through an entire day, then it's cantrips for a typical wizard. you get to incapacitate enemies in exchange for your action. sounds pretty good to me.


Your complaint about Diviner is that it only works in one fight per day, but you rate Enchanter's ability as mindblowingly-good, which has less versatility, also only works once per day and also requires you to be within 5 feet of the enemy, as opposed to the Diviner's you-see-it-you-can-use-it range.

[Aett_Thorn]

Just two comments:

1) the original response leaves out the Evoker, which I would personally rank about a 4-5. The ability to lob AoEs without worry of hitting your party is a great bonus. Especially with some control spells within the Evocation school, such as web, they can be situational but highly useful.

2) Abjurers are definitely a 5, but can go up to 6 with the right race (looking at you, Svirfneblin!)

[Beechgnome]

Your complaint about Diviner is that it only works in one fight per day, but you rate Enchanter's ability as mindblowingly-good, which has less versatility, also only works once per day and also requires you to be within 5 feet of the enemy, as opposed to the Diviner's you-see-it-you-can-use-it range.

I think as was pointed out it is once per day Per Enemy. You can keep using it as long as you pick different targets.

[Elminster298]

Lol @ the people who don't understand how broken necromancer's are....

Completely glossing over their level 2 feature which can trigger multiple times from one spell. For instance, Evard's Black Tentacles and Wall of Fire deal damage on the turn of the creature they damage. Meaning the once per turn healing effect can go off multiple times in a round from one casting of the spell....(cloud kill, cloud of daggers etc. etc.). It's like a selfish version of the life cleric's healing buff (oh and it works wonders with vampiric touch!). Not that you should be taking lots of damage but it makes healing you a non-issue in large multi-enemy fights.

As for the zombies and skeletons...even if you only keep a handful of undead with you (5-10) they turn deadly encounter's into easy encounters and hard encounters into trivial ones. It's like frontloading spells for the adventuring day to up your consistent damage/presence on the field. You have 16 Int don't you? Then use it and keep the skeletons behind cover only coming out to shoot. Equip your Zombies in chainmail (8 AC becomes 16 AC and they have the strength to use it). Each hit that they take is a hit that your party doesn't have to. Keep them spread out to avoid getting mowed down by AoE and play smart.

Moreover, a necromancer's animate dead is the only instance of a spell that scales with caster level (polymorphs scale off the level of the target :D). This creates a non-linear scaling mechanism; every other caster is getting higher slot levels and more plentiful slots to up their potential but the necromancer is getting more effectiveness out of those same slots. A level 3 fireball for a wizard is always 8d6 but a level 3 animate dead is very different for a level 6 necromancer than it is for a level 20 one (14hp and +3 damage for two undead to be exact). It doesn't sound like much but it adds up really quick when you've got a dozen of them.

As soon as your party starts finding ways to give your skeletons/zombies advantage or casting support spells like crusader's mantle it's a whole new level of shenanigans.

When Finger of Death becomes available you have a means to generate unlimited extra undead at a rate of 1/day.

As a final note, the necromancer is the only archetype that I have had requests to not play because it breaks the CR's and encounter table so egregiously and made the rest of the party feel like an accessory to their power. Either your DM will have to intentionally pinch down on your capabilities (which nobody enjoys) or let you run rampant and steal the spotlight and force them to jack up the difficulty of all encounters.

Say what you will but for me the Necromancer is on it's own level.

As i said, they are undoubtedly effective. I still labeled them a 3 because, unless a DM is running a solo/duo party for you, they would never allow you to hog the spotlight and slow the game down to a crawl with all the dice rolls it would take to make a necro strong. Without cheese it is simply a 3 on a scale of 1 to 6. If you are allowed to go full on ham and cheese the necro is a solid 5 or 6. However, even then they are reliant on corpses so enemy types could still cuck your whole plan bringing it back down to a 3.

[TheUser]

As i said, they are undoubtedly effective. I still labeled them a 3 because, unless a DM is running a solo/duo party for you, they would never allow you to hog the spotlight and slow the game down to a crawl with all the dice rolls it would take to make a necro strong. Without cheese it is simply a 3 on a scale of 1 to 6. If you are allowed to go full on ham and cheese the necro is a solid 5 or 6. However, even then they are reliant on corpses so enemy types could still cuck your whole plan bringing it back down to a 3.

As long as societies exist they will have corpses and any cemetery or graveyard is likely more than willing to be paid for it's corpses.

I used an array of averages for damage vs a particular AC after I got over half a dozen undead.

essentially the average roll of 10 + 4 and then plus or minus 5% of the aggregate damage depending on the AC of the foe. Advantage would give roughly +5 to hit disadvantage -5.

So if something has 14 AC then 10 skeletons would just hit 5x on average. I was even cool with the DM averaging out the damage to 9.5 per hit (3.5+2 +4 proficiency bonus). So that's 45 damage vs AC 14 but if for whatever reason they get advantage it's going to shoot up to 71.25 DPR.

It wasn't the slowing down of the play that got it banned....it was adding ~50 DPR to my level 9 necromancer while still keeping half of my spell slots available for shenanigans.

[smcmike]

The power of a necromancer is very setting/campaign dependent. In a lot of places you just aren't going to be able to bring an army of the undead with you.

[Elminster298]

As long as societies exist they will have corpses and any cemetery or graveyard is likely more than willing to be paid for it's corpses.

I used an array of averages for damage vs a particular AC after I got over half a dozen undead.

essentially the average roll of 10 + 4 and then plus or minus 5% of the aggregate damage depending on the AC of the foe. Advantage would give roughly +5 to hit disadvantage -5.

So if something has 14 AC then 10 skeletons would just hit 5x on average. I was even cool with the DM averaging out the damage to 9.5 per hit (3.5+2 +4 proficiency bonus). So that's 45 damage vs AC 14 but if for whatever reason they get advantage it's going to shoot up to 71.25 DPR.

It wasn't the slowing down of the play that got it banned....it was adding ~50 DPR to my level 9 necromancer while still keeping half of my spell slots available for shenanigans.

I do not need the math. I am fully aware of what a necro can do. It's still a 3. No matter how you spin it. Same as I would rate the Lore Master a 3- 4 without the cheese of mile range, stacking elemental bonuses, and unreasonable ability saves. Same as I would rate the theurgy a 3- 4 without the cheese of every cleric spell known. Also, speaking of travel... How do you plan on transporting your undead army? When you answer remember you can not assume access to ANY specific magic items. Access to demiplane or possibly plane shift would do the job but to quote Malcolm Reynolds, "That's a long wait for a train don't come."

EDIT: Also, when i I mentioned access to corpses, I was talking about situations where you are fighting on other planes where you can't raise their corpses. Or any place other than a LARGE(10,000+ population) human city where you can bribe someone for access to corpses. Other races and smaller cities are far more protective of their dead. Even evil races who use necromancy would not allow outsiders access to a resource they rely on themselves.

[Stan]

re: necromancer power, are you playing that multiple castings of animate dead stack? I've played that, like other spells, multiple castings don't stack. So, you're limited to (highest spell slot - 1) times 2 undead, which isn't unstoppable.

[TheUser]

re: necromancer power, are you playing that multiple castings of animate dead stack? I've played that, like other spells, multiple castings don't stack. So, you're limited to (highest spell slot - 1) times 2 undead, which isn't unstoppable.

Read the necromancer's abilities chum

you target two corpses with one casting of animated dead as a level 6 necromancer

you also have the Create Undead the spell.

I'm not sure where stacking effects is coming into play; you have targeted different corpses with the same spell/more spell slots... different corpses affected by different castings of the spell don't all of a sudden invalidate previous castings since the spell has no duration and is free from concetration..... it's not one corpse under multiple animate dead spells....so stacking abilities is a moot point.

you can use animate dead multiple times a day; I'm not sure where you got this insane notion.

[Stan]

you can use animate dead multiple times a day; I'm not sure where you got this insane notion.

Because it makes the power reasonable. When I have the choice between thinking the the designers intended a crazy interpretation of an ability that threatens to break the game and a reasonable one, I choose the latter. I've played that, for control, only the most recent counts.

[TheUser]

Because it makes the power reasonable. When I have the choice between thinking the the designers intended a crazy interpretation of an ability that threatens to break the game and a reasonable one, I choose the latter. I've played that, for control, only the most recent counts.

Oh I see.

So what you meant to say is "necromancers are so strong, I have to break the rules to balance them."
You needed to say that in the first place.

[Elminster298]

Oh I see.

So what you meant to say is necromancers are so strong, I have to break the rules to balance them.
You needed to say that in the first place.

Wow. You just can not have a normal conversation without getting a ****ty attitude and attacking people can you? You are now irrelevant to me and I know not to respond to ANY of your comment again. GL HF.

[TheUser]

Wow. You just can not have a normal conversation without getting a ****ty attitude and attacking people can you? You are now irrelevant to me and I know not to respond to ANY of your comment again. GL HF.

And you have the mindset of a petulant child who takes offense to someone who types over the internet.

Grow up and learn to debate without taking things on a personal level. At no point in time did I make a personal attack on you, I simply paraphrased what you said. If this is a strawman please tell me where my point is inaccurate. This seems to be exactly what you do; break the rules so necromancers go from being wildly overpowered to one of the worse wizard schools.

[JNAProductions]

TheUser, your attitude was not the best. While Elminster probably could've responded a bit better as well, pretending you're blameless makes you look the child, not them.

[TheUser]

TheUser, your attitude was not the best. While Elminster probably could've responded a bit better as well, pretending you're blameless makes you look the child, not them.

Because the question isn't "what's your take on wizard subclasses after homebrew" if he can't even bother to come in here and stick to the thread what point is there in posting it?

Is he agreeing with me? That necromancers are so strong the only way he allows them is to change how the rules work around their core spell? Because he should of come in here and said that from the get go; he's literally agreeing with me.

I gave him all the respect he was due as far as I am concerned.

I made no attacks on his character. If he chooses to take offense over his own words being mirrored that's his perogative but I cannot be held responsible for how others are sensitive to being wrong.

[smcmike]

Why not try to be friendly......

[Elminster298]

TheUser, your attitude was not the best. While Elminster probably could've responded a bit better as well, pretending you're blameless makes you look the child, not them.

I know that I absolutely could have responded better. And, if he had gotten an attitude with me, i would have just shrugged it off without a second thought. Instead he decides to belittle "Stan" for making a comment that was an actual misunderstanding of the subject. I have no further animosity towards him. He's just irrelevant now. Meaningless. I will however attempt a more...controlled reaction if I run into this situation again.

[SharkForce]

Your complaint about Diviner is that it only works in one fight per day, but you rate Enchanter's ability as mindblowingly-good, which has less versatility, also only works once per day and also requires you to be within 5 feet of the enemy, as opposed to the Diviner's you-see-it-you-can-use-it range.

enchanter level 2 ability works in every fight of the day. once per day PER ENEMY, as as i said in my initial post. it has some risk to it, certainly, but it has high reward too. and especially at the level where you get it, it is a *very* welcome way to make your spell slots last. being able to pin down even something like one goblin out of four is a big deal. if you can pin down an ogre in a fight where it's one ogre and some weaker minions, it's hilariously powerful. oh, and they don't get additional saves, so long as you keep spending actions, they stay charmed and incapacitated. also, it doesn't cost concentration. if this ability existed as a cantrip, everyone would want it.

at this point, there's a fair chance you're looking at casting mage armour at the start of the day, possibly keeping 1-2 spell slots for shield, and you only have level 1 spells for offense, so you don't have anything like hypnotic pattern or fireball, or even web or shatter, to make a huge difference in those fights where you actually get to use spell slots.

higher level enchanter abilities are solid as well.

the level 6 ability is likewise once per long rest... per enemy.

the level 10 ability is free twin on every enchantment spell you cast.

the level 14 ability can allow you to use a variety of charm spells much more effectively. note that unlike modify memory, there is no listed way to restore those memories (presumably a wish spell would do it, but then again a wish spell can do almost anything).

so quite frankly, you couldn't be more wrong about the enchanter being only once per day. everything it has can be used multiple times.

[MeeposFire]

Why not try to be friendly......

I see you forgot what site you are on. This is par the course here (heck for this sit we have not even seen it get that bad yet in this thread).

[Temperjoke]

I want to make a joke about Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons, but since the thread has already moved into argument stage I guess I'll stick more with topic.

Personally, I think it's hard to rank the various schools in a white room. So much of what makes one better versus another depends highly on the situation/campaign. In an evil campaign, Necromancer is king, after all, all your former enemies become your tools. But in a good campaign, you have to go to so much work to be inconspicuous to everyone you come across, since undead things are pretty universally despised. Illusions depend on what your DM allows.

Frankly, you can't really categorize things like you used to be able to, some things are better in one situation while others thrive in a different situation. I think that's part of what made the Lore Wizard UA so strong, it's not that it was excessively strong, it's more that it didn't have any weaknesses to counter it's regular strength.

[Beechgnome]

A handy cheat sheet, based on experience and some of the above responses:

Combat-heavy Dungeon grind adventure? Abjurer
Just One or two big encounters? Diviner
Evil campaign? Necromancer
Permissive DM? Illusionist
Intrigue Campaign? Enchanter
Puzzle/Death Trap Dungeon? Conjurer
Zombie Apocolypse/Military campaign? Evoker
Um, grifter role-playing scenario or high-level campaign with no Cleric? Transmuter

[RickAsWritten]

enchanter level 2 ability works in every fight of the day. once per day PER ENEMY, as as i said in my initial post. it has some risk to it, certainly, but it has high reward too.

Wow, that's an excellent feature. Never realized it was repeatable.

A build just coalesced:
Fire Genasi
Light Cleric 1st level
Enchanter Wizard the rest of the way

Light Cleric gives better AC, Warding Flare for extra protection, and stylistically fits terrifically with Fire Genasi.
"Like a moth to the flame"

[Temperjoke]

A handy cheat sheet, based on experience and some of the above responses:

Combat-heavy Dungeon grind adventure? Abjurer
Just One or two big encounters? Diviner
Evil campaign? Necromancer
Permissive DM? Illusionist
Intrigue Campaign? Enchanter
Puzzle/Death Trap Dungeon? Conjurer
Zombie Apocolypse/Military campaign? Evoker
Um, grifter role-playing scenario or high-level campaign with no Cleric? Transmuter

See, this is a practical list for people who want to wizard and don't have a flavor preference.

[MaxWilson]

I would be tempted to drop Necro to a 2 only because you need so many minions to make it powerful. I do think it's a solid 3 though because it actually is a very effective archetype even if it is cheesy.

"So many" meaning half a dozen?

Even if you only spend a single 5th level spell raising skeletons/zombies, that's still way more meat shield HP than an Abjuror's Arcane Ward, and compared with your cantrip (Fire Bolt or Chill Touch or whatever) those skeletons will triple your effective DPR against most foes. But of course you don't need to stop at only one spell slot, because Animate Dead is one of the few spells in 5E that stacks well with itself at no concentration economy cost and minimal action economy cost (only a bonus action).

Even if all you do is raise a half dozen skeletons, equip them with Nets, and have them Help each other throw nets at the monsters you fight while soaking up attacks, your Necromancer's investment is well-repaid. That's three completely free restrain attempts per round (and each monster restrained both increases the party's DPR and decreases the damage they take), and somewhere between 114 and 198 HP.

Later on you'll want to mostly abandon Animate Dead and start leveraging Create Undead (wights) + Geas IX + Mass Suggestion IX to create armies of permanently charmed super-wight hirelings. They are smarter and have more initiative; and of course they have more HP, damage resistance, and twice the DPR of skeletons or zombies. Plus, you can finally stop re-casting Animate Dead constantly, and can just re-Mass Suggestion your wights every year.

If the Abjuror is a 5, Necromancer can hardly be less than a 4.

Anyway: strongest/most fun wizard schools IMO are Illusion (primarily on the awesomeness that is Malleable Illusion--Illusory Reality doesn't hurt at all either but it comes late), Necromancy (for cheap minion-mancy), Divination, and perhaps Abjuration, depending on how spell-heavy your antagonists are. Conjuration is all right, but is weakened by the fact that its best features (temp HP for summons; not failing concentration checks to control elementals) are subsumed by other spells and features (Inspiring Leader; Planar Binding). Enchantment is really fun if you multiclass correctly (Fighter 1/Enchanter X is light years better than mere Enchanter X because you can now afford to wade into melee and actually use Hypnotic Pattern/Instinctive Charm). Alteration is on the weak side, Evocation is also weak-ish mainly just because blasting spells are a poor use of spell slots in the first place.

[Sans.]

Wow, that's an excellent feature. Never realized it was repeatable.

Not really. Might be repeatable, but you have to be right next to the target, 5 feet away. Wizard and melee: like a vase and gravity. If it's melee and it saves, you're screwed. If it doesn't save but has friends, you're screwed. Even if everything goes right, you're still using your action every turn, which is... really boring. You can't even use it for awesome auto-crits with the paladin more than once, since it breaks on damage. There are probably party configurations and arrangements and situations where it works well but meh. I'll stick to pew-pewing away from safety.

[Elminster298]

"So many" meaning half a dozen?

Even if you only spend a single 5th level spell raising skeletons/zombies, that's still way more meat shield HP than an Abjuror's Arcane Ward, and compared with your cantrip (Fire Bolt or Chill Touch or whatever) those skeletons will triple your effective DPR against most foes. But of course you don't need to stop at only one spell slot, because Animate Dead is one of the few spells in 5E that stacks well with itself at no concentration economy cost and minimal action economy cost (only a bonus action).

Even if all you do is raise a half dozen skeletons, equip them with Nets, and have them Help each other throw nets at the monsters you fight while soaking up attacks, your Necromancer's investment is well-repaid. That's three completely free restrain attempts per round (and each monster restrained both increases the party's DPR and decreases the damage they take), and somewhere between 114 and 198 HP.

Later on you'll want to mostly abandon Animate Dead and start leveraging Create Undead (wights) + Geas IX + Mass Suggestion IX to create armies of permanently charmed super-wight hirelings. They are smarter and have more initiative; and of course they have more HP, damage resistance, and twice the DPR of skeletons or zombies. Plus, you can finally stop re-casting Animate Dead constantly, and can just re-Mass Suggestion your wights every year.

If the Abjuror is a 5, Necromancer can hardly be less than a 4.

As i I have said several times already... I do not disagree with how powerful they are! I rate them at a 3 because after two session of double to total table dice roll and battles that take four times long to get through (3/4 of which is just you rolling dice for your minions) people are going to get pretty tired of it. I necromancer played to it's full potential and allowed access to the necessary supplies STARTS at a 4 and just keep going up in rank the longer the game goes on. Even if you found a DM that would allow that, is kind a jerk move to the rest of the party... If you cut it down to a reasonable number of minions it's a solid 3.

[TheUser]

As i I have said several times already... I do not disagree with how powerful they are! I rate them at a 3 because after two session of double to total table dice roll and battles that take four times long to get through (3/4 of which is just you rolling dice for your minions) people are going to get pretty tired of it. I necromancer played to it's full potential and allowed access to the necessary supplies STARTS at a 4 and just keep going up in rank the longer the game goes on. Even if you found a DM that would allow that, is kind a jerk move to the rest of the party... If you cut it down to a reasonable number of minions it's a solid 3.

So when you don't play the class to it's full potential you rate it a 3...how is that a fair assessment?

"When I play invokers but don't use fireball because it's overtuned and requires too many dice rolls I rate them a 2"

That's how you sound right now.

Why don't you try to use averages to cut down on dice tedium and actually play the subclass with a fair rating?

The fact that downtime is a thing means carrying over Undead between sessions is completely doable and makes Animate dead that much more efficient.

[smcmike]

So when you don't play the class to it's full potential you rate it a 3...how is that a fair assessment?

"When I play invokers but don't use fireball because it's overtuned and requires too many dice rolls I rate them a 2"

That's how you sound right now.

Why don't you try to use averages to cut down on dice tedium and actually play the subclass with a fair rating?

The fact that downtime is a thing means carrying over Undead between sessions is completely doable and makes Animate dead that much more efficient.

Unless, of course, you are playing the gritty realism variant. They get pretty screwed by that.

[JNAProductions]

You know, those undead aren't invulnerable. Any area attack will make necromancers very sad.

In addition, there's the social cost.

[TheUser]

You know, those undead aren't invulnerable. Any area attack will make necromancers very sad.

In addition, there's the social cost.

Yes, just as a DM can throw things like counterspelling casters at other schools too there are loads of DM fiat's that can any DM can use to **** on the dreams of any class. Having skeletons jump out from full cover and shoot then duck back behind full cover is pretty hard thing even to AoE (given that you too can prepare counterspell).

As for social stigma just have them wear hoods, long sleeves/gloves and a mask and you'll be set. Worst comes to worst use seeming to make them seem like golems/constructs.

[Elminster298]

You know, those undead aren't invulnerable. Any area attack will make necromancers very sad.

In addition, there's the social cost.

Blah... I almost responded to him as well before I realized who it was. It does no good. He just has no interest in addressing the very real issues with the necromancer. He just wants to keep saying "IT STRONK!" over and over again. Unless I misinterpreted the OP, didn't the question specifically include reasons other than just mechanics?

[JNAProductions]

Yes, just as a DM can throw things like counterspelling casters at other schools too there are loads of DM fiat's that can any DM can use to **** on the dreams of any class. Having skeletons jump out from full cover and shoot then duck back behind full cover is pretty hard thing even to AoE (given that you too can prepare counterspell).

As for social stigma just have them wear hoods, long sleeves/gloves and a mask and you'll be set. Worst comes to worst use seeming to make them seem like golems/constructs.

So a dragon breathing their breath is DM fiat that craps on your caster's dreams? An enemy caster using Fireball near you is that as well? And how convenient, that you'll ALWAYS have full cover available, yet somehow your skelly archers (attack bonus of +4, mind you) will of course have free line of sight to the enemy-no cover granted from friendlies or anything!

And that could work, if it wasn't for rotting smell, sleeves getting pulled up or similar revealing bony limbs, or anything like that. Hell, even just having never-sleeping sentinels that never talk and always fully conceal their bodies is creepy in and of itself! Not as bad as marching into town with an undead army, but it's not gonna win you friends.

[Renduaz]

As a munchkin, I'd rate them based on what type of munchkinry I intend to achieve with a given character.

Abjuration - I find it almost completely worthless for the amount of protection the ward can give ( As a Wizard, you have much better abilities for that purpose, if you are proficient in the art of munchkinry ), the only useful aspect is the Spell resistance for certain builds.

Conjuration - I might take it in a campaign that I know will never progress beyond a few sessions for tricks with Minor Conjuration, otherwise it's worthless.

Divination - The Munchkin's best friend. Will make your DM punch you in the face as you use it on a daily basis to trap and then control powerful creatures by forcing them to fail a save or two for the rest of the campaign, doing so on a daily basis, insta-wiping creatures with save-or-suck spells like Polymorph, and even eliminating legendary resistances one by one if you got lucky. All provided you have so much as one or two bad rolls stored up in the morning

Enchantment - Hypnotic Gaze is arguably the most powerful ability at a low-level campaign. At higher level it's a bit useless. 5 feet range is not the problem, not being allowed to move 5 feet away while the creature can't move, the "see you or hear you", the taking damage limitations and so on are the real problem. It could be called a free per one creature "save-or-you-both-suck" ability which makes you incredibly limited for the rest of the fight if it's ongoing, while as a high-level Wizard you simply have too many save-or-suck spell slots without any disadvantage of the sort to make it worth it, and those spells can be attempted on the same creature repeatedly too if he succeeds. A high-level Divination Wizard would be almost completely superior to a high-level Wizard with this. And everything else is useless.

Evocation - Pretty much worthless. Overchannel for 5th level spells and lower is nothing compared to what a knowledgable or 14/6 Multiclasser could potentially do.

Illusory Reality - A bit underwhelmed by Mirage Arcane by the time you get it in my opinion, ever since Crawford clarified that Mirage Arcane is in fact real ( You could climb a tree created by it ). You could do major and minor images but the "no Direct harm" clause ( Which by the way is not present in Mirage Arcane ) turns it a bit lackluster. It has it's uses, definitely, a good Munchkin can do a lot with it when it comes to cover and trapping, but it will not be my first choice.

Necromancy - Grim Harvest, if you used up your 9th slot even, no matter how many creatures you kill, You get at best something like 18 hit points. On the other hand, did you know the Fiend Warlock actually has a much better ability which is completely broken per RAW and lets you get potentially hundreds of hit points on your turn by crushing a bunch of worms or something? Everything else is basically worthless, Command Undead pales in comparison to a variety of other control methods which can capture undead too.

Transmutation - A completely worthless school.

[Renduaz]

So a dragon breathing their breath is DM fiat that craps on your caster's dreams? An enemy caster using Fireball near you is that as well? And how convenient, that you'll ALWAYS have full cover available, yet somehow your skelly archers (attack bonus of +4, mind you) will of course have free line of sight to the enemy-no cover granted from friendlies or anything!

And that could work, if it wasn't for rotting smell, sleeves getting pulled up or similar revealing bony limbs, or anything like that. Hell, even just having never-sleeping sentinels that never talk and always fully conceal their bodies is creepy in and of itself! Not as bad as marching into town with an undead army, but it's not gonna win you friends.

JNA, I see you have a recurring habit of being antagonistic to virtually any poster who dares to voice any ideas with magic, even in you first post when you chose to side against TheUser, I'm curious as to your motives.

[Specter]

Considering the usefulness of level 2 abilities:

1) Abjurer/Diviner: features that can find use in any adventuring day, in 99% of situations.
2) Evoker/Enchanter/Illusionist/Necromancer: features that increase what you can do a bit, but that may not see use in an adventuring day.
3) Conjurer/Transmuter: very situational features that will require effort and creativity from the player to be used decently.

[AvatarVecna]

JNA, I see you have a recurring habit of being antagonistic to virtually any poster who dares to voice any ideas with magic, even in you first post when you chose to side against TheUser, I'm curious as to your motives.

So...you actually gonna address the points made, or just dismiss them because of issues you have with JNA due to actions in a previous thread?

[strangebloke]

Yes, just as a DM can throw things like counterspelling casters at other schools too there are loads of DM fiat's that can any DM can use to **** on the dreams of any class. Having skeletons jump out from full cover and shoot then duck back behind full cover is pretty hard thing even to AoE (given that you too can prepare counterspell).

As for social stigma just have them wear hoods, long sleeves/gloves and a mask and you'll be set. Worst comes to worst use seeming to make them seem like golems/constructs.

Three things:

In general, evil doers more often face threats of the angry mob variety than they do the adventurer variety, so they're almost certainly going to have countermeasures. intelligent antagonists absolutely are going to force your horde into narrow hallways, dump burning oil on them, use aoe magic and kite your zombies.

Your work around for social stigma is silly. What, are people just going to fail that dc 2 perception check to notice the smell of rotting flesh? Is the king going to be pleased that you brought stinking, fly-ridden mercs with you as back up? Do you never have to work alongside a paladin or cleric who will 100% know what you're up to, and will think worse of you for trying to hide it? Are the local villagers going to be cool with someone reanimating Grandpa as a meatshield? Seeming will help, for the low low cost of a fifth level slot. But it won't help against those with divine sense.

Silly.

Finally, animate dead doesn't give you the fine control that you think it does. You can issue one general command to multiple undead, or one specific command to one undead.The example general command is 'guard this choke point' and anything further is up to the discretion of the undead. Zombies have 3 int and skeletons have 6 int, which makes them comparable to dogs or exceptionally stupid orcs.

[TheUser]

So a dragon breathing their breath is DM fiat that craps on your caster's dreams? An enemy caster using Fireball near you is that as well? And how convenient, that you'll ALWAYS have full cover available, yet somehow your skelly archers (attack bonus of +4, mind you) will of course have free line of sight to the enemy-no cover granted from friendlies or anything!

And that could work, if it wasn't for rotting smell, sleeves getting pulled up or similar revealing bony limbs, or anything like that. Hell, even just having never-sleeping sentinels that never talk and always fully conceal their bodies is creepy in and of itself! Not as bad as marching into town with an undead army, but it's not gonna win you friends.

This is often why I prefer skeletons. Not only can they be spaced out in a nice wide arc in something like a dragon lair but they also have no smell of rotting flesh.

You could also argue that your use of undead is no different that the use of a golem. If you aren't an evil necromancer have a paladin or cleric detect your alignment and tell them that the ends justify the means; I mean if your players are going to be antagonistic ***** for the sake of RP and make your life hell then really this can work with any composition of players (a druid hates the way the warrior uses smithed armor and weapons or the way a warlock abuses the power of the fey; you name it there can be PC conflict). More than likely your PC's are going to work together if they all share an alignment or are within one step of eachother (good do fine with neutral who do fine with evil).

Again this is all obstacles a DM chooses to put in front of the player because....they don't like their army of undead? Or they can just go with the flow and let your army of constructs be passed off as an army of...constructs, that thing I said.

[JNAProductions]

To paragraph one: A dragon's lair will likely not be easily accessible to anyone without flight. Sheer cliffs, high tunnels, stuff like that. Maybe, if the dragon has kobold minions or similar, they might have their lair be easier to access, but if they live alone? Skellies are not gonna get there easily.

To paragraph two: There's no alignment detecting anymore. In addition, in some settings, necromancy is inherently evil in a way golems are not. (Typically not in my settings, but that is the case in FR, I believe.)

Finally, to the last paragraph: These are realistic (well, as real as you can get in a D&D game) obstacles put there because without them, necromancy is far too powerful. If the DM, to use your own words, puts the game in easy-mode and doesn't make actual challenges, then yes, necromancy is ridiculously powerful. But if your campaign takes place in, say, high society, they become a much harder to use option. If your adventure is in narrow tunnels, they're much harder to use simply because of space. If the enemy has AoEs, they become much less valuable as they're destroyed quickly.

Necromancy is powerful, but not unduly more so than the others, since the power it brings is tempered by limitations and additional challenges as a direct result.

Edit: I found a relevant quote.


Then your DM has been coddling you and I directly state this in the guide that this DM dependancy exists. If you have an easy mode DM who never does anything to contest the casting abilities of their players so as to give martials the spotlight and protect/save them but instead lets them cast willy nilly all day vs what would otherwise be intelligent opponents is a negligent DM at worst and a noobie at best.

So yes, I actually agree with you, partially! If the DM doesn't put realistic challenges in the face of the players, then Necromancy can get more powerful than it should be.

[strangebloke]

Undead can be very strong.

But.

They can't fly. They require the caster to steal, kill, or buy bodies. They are weak to AOE. They are almost universally feared and loathed. They are a pain in the butt to transport. They are bad when forced to fight in narrow confines against powerful foes.

In short, there are many logistical hurdles that may make them impractical in a wide variety of circumstances.

[TheUser]

To paragraph one: A dragon's lair will likely not be easily accessible to anyone without flight. Sheer cliffs, high tunnels, stuff like that. Maybe, if the dragon has kobold minions or similar, they might have their lair be easier to access, but if they live alone? Skellies are not gonna get there easily.

To paragraph two: There's no alignment detecting anymore. In addition, in some settings, necromancy is inherently evil in a way golems are not. (Typically not in my settings, but that is the case in FR, I believe.)

Finally, to the last paragraph: These are realistic (well, as real as you can get in a D&D game) obstacles put there because without them, necromancy is far too powerful. If the DM, to use your own words, puts the game in easy-mode and doesn't make actual challenges, then yes, necromancy is ridiculously powerful. But if your campaign takes place in, say, high society, they become a much harder to use option. If your adventure is in narrow tunnels, they're much harder to use simply because of space. If the enemy has AoEs, they become much less valuable as they're destroyed quickly.

Necromancy is powerful, but not unduly more so than the others, since the power it brings is tempered by limitations and additional challenges as a direct result.

Edit: I found a relevant quote.



So yes, I actually agree with you, partially! If the DM doesn't put realistic challenges in the face of the players, then Necromancy can get more powerful than it should be.


Good quote. And while I've discussed challenges to overcome in previous posts you've outlined railroading and attempts to completely nullify a necromancer's strength.

Dragons don't always fight you in their lairs, storing undead in coffins or crates for transportation into town, or just keeping a few in a bag of holding OR THE SEEMING SPELL TO MAKE THEM LOOK LIKE GOLEMS LIKE I'VE SAID THREE TIMES NOW etc etc. The point is that smart necromancers will find ways to circumvent the bull**** responses you are putting up as limiting factors for necromancers and they are no more limiting than anything else a DM could do to limit the power of any other class.

If a DM comes up with wide open terrains where enemies have 30ft of space between them an Invoker quickly goes from being rated a 4 to a 2.

A conjurer who never gets attacked gets zero worth out of benign transposition and focused conjuration. And if the DM just throws disabling enemies at them that shell out incapacitates then the conjurer becomes really hard to maximize.

If an abjurer never gets attacked directly and never faces off against casters they go from being a 5 to a 2 (since they can only really shield).

If an enchanter only ever fights zealots and fanatics or other creatures with immunity/resistance to charm then the enchanter goes from a 4 to a 1.

If an illusionist fights a dragon with blindsight 100ft then they've got to wait until level 14 before they go from a 1 to a 3 instead of their normal 5.

If a transmuter never needs con saves or darkvision or movespeed then I guess they go from a 2 to a 1.

If the DM puts up multiple challenging fights in a day the Diviner gets to shine in one of them but feels lack luster the rest of the time. What about putting up shields against scrying/divination? (Xonthal's Tower comes to mind).

You see how the DM can **** over everyone?

But if a player works to overcome the challenges that a DM can put in front of them the necromancer still becomes the most horrendous of the bunch. Stop using this tired trope when comparing classes. The DM can screw any class over they find annoying or overpowered but the point is: what happens if you play around it and maximize the potential of the class?

[JNAProductions]

Yes, I do see. I also see how those situations are a lot less likely than, say, needing to be in a town. (You get Animate Dead at 5th level. You get Seeming at 9th. That's 4 levels worth of time when you can't cast Seeming.)

If you are incapable of seeing how Necromancy inherently has more challenges involved than, say, Conjuration, then I don't really know what to do.

[Schwann145]

Unless I misinterpreted the OP, didn't the question specifically include reasons other than just mechanics?

It certainly did! :)

[TheUser]

Yes, I do see. I also see how those situations are a lot less likely than, say, needing to be in a town. (You get Animate Dead at 5th level. You get Seeming at 9th. That's 4 levels worth of time when you can't cast Seeming.)

If you are incapable of seeing how Necromancy inherently has more challenges involved than, say, Conjuration, then I don't really know what to do.

Keep your skeletons concealed in robes and keep them close to you. Explain your situation to any figures of authority (unless they are say....associated with the order of the gauntlet) and don't tell the townsfolk. Put masks on them and a big sign on their chest that says "Magical Golem DO NOT TOUCH OR TALK TO ME"

If it's a zombie use prestidigitation for the smell.

[JNAProductions]

Okay. Let's assume none of the peasants know about necromancy, or at least not much. Let's also assume the robes never slip, no clumsy zombie or skeleton ever trips, nobody tugs on their robes, no mask ever slips-just in general, assume everything goes right and your hoard of undead never get revealed.

You are followed by a bunch of silent, non-eating, non-sleeping humanoids. That is going to creep people right the hell out, and they will not want you there even if they DON'T know about the necromancy.

Same for authority figures. What says they'll be any more amenable to the undead than townsfolk?

Edit: In addition, Skeletons have 13 HP. A single fireball (8d6, averages to 28) will kill them on a successful save. That's a serious issue.

Now, admittedly, this does go up by 6 next level. 19 HP means they can survive your average fireball on a successful save. But it still has a (assuming a DC of 15) about two in three chance of killing them outright.

[TheUser]

As for flavor...I mean what's more badass than being a master of life and death whilst having a literal army of undead at your command?

[TheUser]

Okay. Let's assume none of the peasants know about necromancy, or at least not much. Let's also assume the robes never slip, no clumsy zombie or skeleton ever trips, nobody tugs on their robes, no mask ever slips-just in general, assume everything goes right and your hoard of undead never get revealed.

You are followed by a bunch of silent, non-eating, non-sleeping humanoids. That is going to creep people right the hell out, and they will not want you there even if they DON'T know about the necromancy.

Same for authority figures. What says they'll be any more amenable to the undead than townsfolk?

What's to say they approve of witchcraft at all? You THERE with your robes and wizard hat and magical staff! We don't take too kindly to spellcasters here! If we so much as see you trying to cast a spell we'll kick you out!

What if we bring them to Athkatla where cowled wizards will aggro onto anyone who dares to cast magic inside the town?

Guess who's going to have an easier time now?

Again we're just verging on a "what if" or "maybe"

If you told me flat out as my DM "I'm going to roadblock the **** out of you as a necromancer by making to eat**** inside of towns, and splatter you with AoE's every chance I get" I'd probably just re-roll a sorcerer right there and then.

[Elminster298]

What's to say they approve of witchcraft at all? You THERE with your robes and wizard hat and magical staff! We don't take too kindly to spellcasters here! If we so much as see you trying to cast a spell we'll kick you out!

What if we bring them to Athkatla where cowled wizards will aggro onto anyone who dares to cast magic inside the town?

Guess who's going to have an easier time now?

Again we're just verging on a "what if" or "maybe"

If you told me flat out as my DM "I'm going to roadblock the **** out of you as a necromancer by making to eat**** inside of towns, and splatter you with AoE's every chance I get" I'd probably just re-roll a sorcerer right there and then.

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE ALL HAVE TO SAY THAT THE NECROMANCER IS STRONG!! DO WE LITERALLY HAVE TO YELL IT AT YOU FOR YOU TO FINALLY GET THE POINT!

You really are just dense. When I ranked the other archetypes I took into account the positives and negatives just the same as with the necromancer. You seem to be the ONLY person on this thread who has not given an impartial judgement. Run an necromancer through every single published adventure. People can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there might be one or two that you could play the necromancer to his full potential with only minimal problems. ALL of the rest have the exact same limitations that we have all been mentioning this whole time. Bury your head in the sand all you want. That won't make your favorite toy anything more than a sock with a face drawn on it.

[SharkForce]

As a munchkin, I'd rate them based on what type of munchkinry I intend to achieve with a given character.

Abjuration - I find it almost completely worthless for the amount of protection the ward can give ( As a Wizard, you have much better abilities for that purpose, if you are proficient in the art of munchkinry ), the only useful aspect is the Spell resistance for certain builds.

Conjuration - I might take it in a campaign that I know will never progress beyond a few sessions for tricks with Minor Conjuration, otherwise it's worthless.

Divination - The Munchkin's best friend. Will make your DM punch you in the face as you use it on a daily basis to trap and then control powerful creatures by forcing them to fail a save or two for the rest of the campaign, doing so on a daily basis, insta-wiping creatures with save-or-suck spells like Polymorph, and even eliminating legendary resistances one by one if you got lucky. All provided you have so much as one or two bad rolls stored up in the morning

Enchantment - Hypnotic Gaze is arguably the most powerful ability at a low-level campaign. At higher level it's a bit useless. 5 feet range is not the problem, not being allowed to move 5 feet away while the creature can't move, the "see you or hear you", the taking damage limitations and so on are the real problem. It could be called a free per one creature "save-or-you-both-suck" ability which makes you incredibly limited for the rest of the fight if it's ongoing, while as a high-level Wizard you simply have too many save-or-suck spell slots without any disadvantage of the sort to make it worth it, and those spells can be attempted on the same creature repeatedly too if he succeeds. A high-level Divination Wizard would be almost completely superior to a high-level Wizard with this. And everything else is useless.

Evocation - Pretty much worthless. Overchannel for 5th level spells and lower is nothing compared to what a knowledgable or 14/6 Multiclasser could potentially do.

Illusory Reality - A bit underwhelmed by Mirage Arcane by the time you get it in my opinion, ever since Crawford clarified that Mirage Arcane is in fact real ( You could climb a tree created by it ). You could do major and minor images but the "no Direct harm" clause ( Which by the way is not present in Mirage Arcane ) turns it a bit lackluster. It has it's uses, definitely, a good Munchkin can do a lot with it when it comes to cover and trapping, but it will not be my first choice.

Necromancy - Grim Harvest, if you used up your 9th slot even, no matter how many creatures you kill, You get at best something like 18 hit points. On the other hand, did you know the Fiend Warlock actually has a much better ability which is completely broken per RAW and lets you get potentially hundreds of hit points on your turn by crushing a bunch of worms or something? Everything else is basically worthless, Command Undead pales in comparison to a variety of other control methods which can capture undead too.

Transmutation - A completely worthless school.

abjuration: is a lot more interesting for a few reasons.

1) ward can be easily charged by expending time, and is not you (meaning that if your ward absorbs a 5 HP hit, you don't need to make a concentration check), and can be used to help others if it isn't needed for you. no matter how you slice it, a few extra HP per day for someone in the party isn't a bad thing.

2) counterspell with high chance of success is an excellent ability.

3) advantage against spell saves is only useful for certain builds? really? i can think of lots of situations where it's great. like, say, if you ever face a spellcaster. at all.

divination: again, great for 1 encounter. the rest had better not need much in the way of class features. fortunately, you're still a wizard, but as far as subclass is concerned, you probably really only have one practically speaking for one encounter per long rest.

enchantment: hypnotic gaze gets a lot less useful, but never useless. it's still a resourceless charm that doesn't explicitly create enemies, if nothing else, and talking isn't an action. furthermore, it allows you to potentially set up a critical hit up to once per round. it is *very* easy to make that more valuable than the fire bolt you might have been thinking of in situations where you aren't blowing spells (for example, if you have a rogue, they can now crit on their sneak attack, a half-orc barbarian can brutal critical for a lot of damage, and so forth). now, once you get so many spell slots that low level resources stop being much of a concern (especially at level 18+ for wizards), sure hypnotic gaze loses some value. but until then, especially with some creativity, it can be very interesting. it can also be quite interesting if you have a mount that can grapple your target if moving someone is your goal... or heck, even having someone grapple both you and your victim and just keep you both next to each other :P

the higher level abilities are also nice. make a giant throw a rock at his friend instead of you (maybe you like getting hit in the head with boulders, but my wizards don't)... free twin is hilarious (twin antipathy/sympathy, twin feeblemind, twin geas, twin hold person/monster (way better as a level 2/5 slot than level 3/6 of course), twin suggestion, twin modify memory (you know how common it is to have a situation where someone has themselves plus a bodyguard to protect them from manipulation? well, now you can deal with both of them), twin power word stun/kill... and then later on, you get a free (limited to deletion) modify memory at the end of any spell that charms people.

necromancy: grim harvest is a heal. not temp HP. and used properly with the right spells can heal a crudload (it isn't once per spell, it's once per turn, so for example sunbeam can get you 12 hit points per turn, and vampiric touch can be spammed for an incredible amount of healing since it is a necromancy spell that can kill stuff for up to the next minute). it's pretty good. command undead is much better than any other method of controlling undead. the typical ideal target is a mummy lord, but a beholder zombie could be interesting. or a dracolich. even an ancient white dragon is only int 10, which means an ancient white dragon dracolich is also int 10 (you could also get up to young adult of any other dragon type provided you feeblemind it first... beyond young adult, you're only gonna get 30 days before they get legendary resistance to remove feeblemind).

[Renduaz]

abjuration: is a lot more interesting for a few reasons.

1) ward can be easily charged by expending time, and is not you (meaning that if your ward absorbs a 5 HP hit, you don't need to make a concentration check), and can be used to help others if it isn't needed for you. no matter how you slice it, a few extra HP per day for someone in the party isn't a bad thing.

2) counterspell with high chance of success is an excellent ability.

3) advantage against spell saves is only useful for certain builds? really? i can think of lots of situations where it's great. like, say, if you ever face a spellcaster. at all.

divination: again, great for 1 encounter. the rest had better not need much in the way of class features. fortunately, you're still a wizard, but as far as subclass is concerned, you probably really only have one practically speaking for one encounter per long rest.

enchantment: hypnotic gaze gets a lot less useful, but never useless. it's still a resourceless charm that doesn't explicitly create enemies, if nothing else, and talking isn't an action. furthermore, it allows you to potentially set up a critical hit up to once per round. it is *very* easy to make that more valuable than the fire bolt you might have been thinking of in situations where you aren't blowing spells (for example, if you have a rogue, they can now crit on their sneak attack, a half-orc barbarian can brutal critical for a lot of damage, and so forth). now, once you get so many spell slots that low level resources stop being much of a concern (especially at level 18+ for wizards), sure hypnotic gaze loses some value. but until then, especially with some creativity, it can be very interesting. it can also be quite interesting if you have a mount that can grapple your target if moving someone is your goal... or heck, even having someone grapple both you and your victim and just keep you both next to each other :P

the higher level abilities are also nice. make a giant throw a rock at his friend instead of you (maybe you like getting hit in the head with boulders, but my wizards don't)... free twin is hilarious (twin antipathy/sympathy, twin feeblemind, twin geas, twin hold person/monster (way better as a level 2/5 slot than level 3/6 of course), twin suggestion, twin modify memory (you know how common it is to have a situation where someone has themselves plus a bodyguard to protect them from manipulation? well, now you can deal with both of them), twin power word stun/kill... and then later on, you get a free (limited to deletion) modify memory at the end of any spell that charms people.

necromancy: grim harvest is a heal. not temp HP. and used properly with the right spells can heal a crudload (it isn't once per spell, it's once per turn, so for example sunbeam can get you 12 hit points per turn, and vampiric touch can be spammed for an incredible amount of healing since it is a necromancy spell that can kill stuff for up to the next minute). it's pretty good. command undead is much better than any other method of controlling undead. the typical ideal target is a mummy lord, but a beholder zombie could be interesting. or a dracolich. even an ancient white dragon is only int 10, which means an ancient white dragon dracolich is also int 10 (you could also get up to young adult of any other dragon type provided you feeblemind it first... beyond young adult, you're only gonna get 30 days before they get legendary resistance to remove feeblemind).

Well, recharging the ward is not the problem, I know very well how it could be charged ( Rituals, at higher levels even with Spell Mastery and a 1st/2d-level Abjuration for almost instant recharges between combats ), but I wouldn't choose it for it's 45 temp hit points at max level over other schools in itself, since I do not think it's that much even with recharges between battles honestly, but the ward not being you and not losing concentration does raise some interesting points I haven't considered. And what I meant to say is that this final Abjuration feature as a whole can be useful for certain builds geared around protection, but advantage is hardly what matters - You can get magic saves on INT,WIS AND CHA ( Almost all spells ) from being a Deep Gnome and there are other possibilities of doing that, what really matters here is the total Spell Resistance, which is almost impossible to achieve otherwise. Advantage also tends to become less useful as you're facing higher level enemies, with almost impossible to beat DC's, although spell resistance will stay forever.

And yes, Divination is great for 1 encounter, In which you could literally Charm Person any humanoid no matter his level as long as he doesn't have legendary resistance, while you yourself are level ****ing 2, provided you had a nice low roll in the morning, or force a Suggestion on any creature regardless of how high his saving throws are or what level it is by the time you're level 3, and by the time you're level 7, take anything effectively out of the battle with Polymorph or Banishment. And you know what you do with those "useless one-encounter" portents? Save them for the "big fights" which you have literally almost every adventuring day. An average adventuring day will have like a couple fights a day, with one of them usually being the "major" one, which is potentially the only one to really pose a threat to the party rather than 2-3 trash mobs. And that's where Portent comes in. And hell, that's actually rapid pace. Most campaigns I've seen, the party usually stops and takes a long rest like 2 times or so at least in a single session.

Now, you must be completely out of your mind to skip the out-of-combat uses. There are so many low-level uses for it when you can make something auto fail a save with a guarantee of success, I can't even name them all, but let's start with this - Do you have any idea what even a medium-level Divination Wizard could do with one or two low portent rolls, which he can bank on at virtually any day for a future plan, and a few medium-level spells?

Did you know that the CR21 Solar and the CR23 Kraken, as well as the CR20 Pit Fiend do not have any legendary resistances? If the Wizard knows where to find one ( And at later levels with Plane Shift or Teleport it would be very easy, but at medium levels the Divination Wizard might as well target any other creature without legendary resistances ) and saved a low (1/2/3 rolls ) from some time, he can just walk right up to one of those, cast Polymorph to a snail before they even blink ( Or Imprisonment at an higher level ), instantly neutralizing them into doing whatever I please to do with them for an hour as long as they don't take damage ( There are MANY ideas ), and the crown Jewel - using Planar Binding on them, Solar or Pit Fiend, ( not concentration ) while they're polymorphed to literally make them my CR20+ bitch for the entirety of the campaign, forcing them to fail with a second low portent roll. And next time I wake up some morning and have low rolls, I'll do that again, and again, and again, against any creatures I want to barring legendary resistances. Now go look at what the saving throw numbers are for the Solar, Kraken and Pit Fiend and figure out for yourself if anyone but a Divination Wizard could pull this off instantly at such a low level.

One of the primary problems with Gaze is you not being able to move 5 feet away, which in many combat situations, puts you in danger of other monsters. It also ends if the creature takes damage, so only one critical. It has uses at low levels but I wouldn't choose enchantment for it if it was a long-term campaign.

As for necromancy, I don't see 18 or even more that per turn as very high, given what you can do at higher levels. On low levels it will be perfect healing though, yes. Command Undead is not much better if you actually know how to do those things ( http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?525624-The-Advenurer-s-Guide-to-Abusing-Monsters ) in fact. But as you say, it's "best" target is the Mummy Lord which isn't so great, dracoliches are really uncommon, and overall Planar Binding among others can get much better stuff on it's own albeit not undead, but there are methods to obtain undead. Regadless, this is not something I'd trade Divination or other schools for.

[SharkForce]

well sure, if you do a single battle and long rest every single time, diviner looks great. but i don't know any DMs who'll let you get away with that all the time. i mean, sure, you'll pull that off with plenty of completely unimportant battles in a sandbox CaW game. but just being able to rely on that for important battles that you'll get one and done? yeah... good luck with that. sandbox doesn't mean powerful people are morons. quite the opposite. you don't even ever *see* the pit fiend or whatever. long before you get anywhere close, you are dead meat, because you have a 2/day ability that you're trying to use to get through the entirety of a general of hell's full defenses.

or, more likely, you'll wish you were dead. i don't expect being captured by devils is a terribly pleasant experience.

you don't just "walk up to" *anything* of that power level. they're not sitting around in the forest waiting for you to randomly come across them with absolutely no guards or protections in place. most likely, you start casting, and since you didn't ask for permission, one of the several dozen guards or minions in the area knocks you unconscious, and you wake up an hour later with none of your gear, blindfolded, with your hands tied. if you're lucky. have fun with the interrogation.

heck, try and pull that kind of stunt on a wealthy local merchant and you can probably expect similar results at level 2. you could super-reliably charm a farmer or something i guess. of course, an hour later, no matter how badly that farmer failed their saving throw, they still know you mind-controlled them, so expect the local guards to be looking for you. also, expect nobody around that area to ever trust you again.

[Renduaz]

well sure, if you do a single battle and long rest every single time, diviner looks great. but i don't know any DMs who'll let you get away with that all the time. i mean, sure, you'll pull that off with plenty of completely unimportant battles in a sandbox CaW game. but just being able to rely on that for important battles that you'll get one and done? yeah... good luck with that. sandbox doesn't mean powerful people are morons. quite the opposite. you don't even ever *see* the pit fiend or whatever. long before you get anywhere close, you are dead meat, because you have a 2/day ability that you're trying to use to get through the entirety of a general of hell's full defenses.

or, more likely, you'll wish you were dead. i don't expect being captured by devils is a terribly pleasant experience.

you don't just "walk up to" *anything* of that power level. they're not sitting around in the forest waiting for you to randomly come across them with absolutely no guards or protections in place. most likely, you start casting, and since you didn't ask for permission, one of the several dozen guards or minions in the area knocks you unconscious, and you wake up an hour later with none of your gear, blindfolded, with your hands tied. if you're lucky. have fun with the interrogation.

heck, try and pull that kind of stunt on a wealthy local merchant and you can probably expect similar results at level 2. you could super-reliably charm a farmer or something i guess. of course, an hour later, no matter how badly that farmer failed their saving throw, they still know you mind-controlled them, so expect the local guards to be looking for you. also, expect nobody around that area to ever trust you again.

Again, that "single battle" will usually be the boss battle for the session which actually poses a threat. That's how it works in the official adventure modules too, you have areas with a bunch of random patrols and enemies and so forth for which you probably don't want to waste any special abilities anyway, then you have a multitude of enemies or one powerful monster with a few cohorts encounter, which is a challenge, and then the Divination Wizard just completely demolishes the strongest foe around in an instant, and usually afterwards the party takes a long rest before moving on to another series of encounters. As for everything else, you're still a Wizard, you still got spells and stuff, not just school abilities, you realize that? A necromancer, illusionist ( at least at low to medium levels, and even afterwards ), transmutation or evocation Wizard or Conjurer isn't going to do 1/100000 of the sheer power of neutralizing almost any monster in the game with a single spell, even if their abilities can be recharged.

Also, it is funny to tell me I'd be dead or wish I was dead. I don't know how else to say it, but, really.... this is me we're talking about here. I know how to make myself a quasi-god should I want to as a Wizard, I know how to get total invincibility for a minute, I have a thousand combinations up my sleeve, but really, that isn't necessary. If the Pit Fiend or Solars were well hidden and guarded by the DM ( And keep in mind this is not always the case, nor do the guards always have the time to show up, I could reference Critical Role cast fighting a Pit Fiend in the City of Brass with literally nobody but an Erinyes with it before a guard showed up many rounds later ), but anyway I assume if you were my DM that I'd have to Plane Shift anyway, so I'd be high level enough for a few things.

First of all, Clone. Contingency+Otiluke's Resilient Sphere followed by teleport. It's not so easy to kill me, if you tried. If a being was heavily guarded, I'd go for something like a forced polymorph followed by a forced Plane Shift to a location of my choosing as a snail, then vanish out of there. Do scrying on what is now an entity with the statisics of a snail, and teleport to said location myself. Once there I'll complete what I started. At Higher level, I'd go for Greater Invisibility followed by Dominate Monster, then vanish out of there, not before telepathically ordering it to show up alone at some location soon, or just willingly join me with Teleport. At even Higher level I'd cast Imprisonment instead of Polymorph.

Secondly, in scenarios where the party is already fighting beings like this and we have to mop up the guard anyway, then instead of finishing it off with a killing blow, I'll just finish it off with a neutralizing spell and bind it. And lastly, of course, Pit Fiends and Solars and Krakens being the most extreme examples ( Which I can still do very well ), I can also capture any other beings with these ways.