How strong is an Evocation only Wizard?

[eunwoler]

If a Wizard can only use Evocation spells how strong/weak is it? If going by JaronK's tier list where would this gimped mage sit at?



What about the other schools?

Starting from a wizard with access to all schools how many schools and which schools do you remove before its no longer overshadowing gishes and martials?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If a Wizard can only use Evocation spells how strong/weak is it? If going by JaronK's tier list where would this gimped mage sit at?About the same as a warmage, I'd say, although with less versatility to being a prepared caster with an extremely limited list, but also more due to having access to an even wider variety of spells.

[Particle_Man]

I think that the fighter, rogue, evocation only wizard and healing cleric (including remove, cure, raise dead, etc.) would be a balanced party, and may have been what the 3.0 designers thought to base 3.0 on.

[ShurikVch]

Note: extensive access to sources may increase capabilities of Evoker
For example, Mind Transfer is Evocation - but from rather obscure source
Arcane Disciple may give access to Miracle (which is Evocation too!)

[Troacctid]

Evocation only? That might be substantially worse than the warmage, since you lose out on the warmage's conjuration and necromancy spells. Like, there are some good evocations that aren't on the warmage list, plus useful features like aligned spellcaster (great with a Stone Socket of Gruumsh), and you get a lot of synergy with Red Wizard...but on the other hand, you have to deal with prepared casting, and you're not making good use of your spellbook (which is normally the wizard's greatest strength).

Evocation is a great school, and you can do powerful things with it, but you can only go so hard in one direction! Any time you limit yourself to only a single school of magic, you're really handicapping yourself.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Evocation is actually surprisingly varied when it comes right down to it. There's not -much- in the way of buffs but BFC, comms, and debuffs are all represented. The shiniest gem in the school, contingency, loses a lot of luster but is still pretty nice.

I'd call it high T4, same as a warmage for slightly better utility and less of less reliable, slightly less potent dakka. Given a choice between the two, I'd sooner take the warmage than the evocation only wizard for ease of play.

Farthest I'll go on evoker is focused specialist with a prestige class to knock off a fourth school: lots of evocation, and a bit of divination (mandatory), enchantment, and abjuration. Any weaker than that and wizard just isn't worth picking over any of the alternative arcanist options except magewright, assuming they're not all similarly nerfed/ banned.

[Particle_Man]

If it is strictly evocation only, you lose Read Magic, which would make life much harder for the wizard.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If it is strictly evocation only, you lose Read Magic, which would make life much harder for the wizard.

Only at the earliest levels. Getting your spellcraft up to where you have good or even guaranteed odds on all the checks involving magical writing doesn't take terribly long.

[KillianHawkeye]

How strong? That depends on whether or not you're playing a game where all your problems can be solved by fireballs. If yes, then very strong. If not, then less strong.

[Silly Name]

Viable in a "casual" campaign where most problems are straightforward fights, for sure. You still have enough variety of spells and effects to ensure it's not the Wizard equivalent of the Fighter saying "I attack" every turn, and you even get to provide some out-of-battle utility thanks to stuff like Tenser's Disc or Tiny Hut. It's an interesting trade-off with Warmage, since you lose on some non-Evocation spells that can be quite powerful, but unlike the Warmage you keep Evocation spells that do stuff other than deal damage.

I agree that losing cantrips like Read Magic and Detect Magic is a bit of an hassle, but as long as another spellcaster in the group can cover those you're probably fine. Still, if this was a self-imposed rule, I'd be tempted to make exceptions for some basic utility spells.

[ericgrau]

Don't forget evocation has some of the best BFC spells, top spells in the top category, and a few other tricks. It's no warmage because warmage doesn't have wall of force and so on. The damage you do have carries you much better through the lower levels before the BFC than most anything else.

Only the school:
1. Conjuration. More because of versatility than power as this is an "only" school list. Normally I'd be the one to say it's way over-rated apart from infinite summon loops and so on no one actually uses. But when you're limited to only one it covers the most avenues and it covers them 80-100+% as well as other schools.
2. Evocation. It has a lot of the best BFC besides area damage, which is far stronger than single target damage. And at all spell levels.
Getting by on this school alone actually wouldn't be that hard as the few spells you want are top spells. For a rookie or even a moderately skilled player may be even easier to get by than conjuration. If playing in a limited cheese game I'd be torn between this and conjuration, especially at mid levels. Orbs and summons are a weak low level struggle when you actually need to hurt something hard because it's immune to a condition. Even something as simple as a zombie. At higher levels I'd be less afraid of conjuration and it still manages well enough at lower levels, which is why it keeps the top spot even without getting into crazy cheese.
3. Necromancy. Super powerful debuffs actually give you a lot to do with or without animate dead. False life keeps you alive, plus other random handy tricks. Animate dead and so on lets you get creative on top of that. Summon undead and so on adds many more options, if allowed. But to give you an idea of how many spells get overlooked, I'd be totally happy playing a core only undead free necromancer.
4. Illusion. Images and invisibilities. Bit of a 2 trick pony, albeit great versatile tricks. You're a bit hosed when they don't work, and they're limited when they do work. Shadowcraft could pull it ahead if we're allowing that here, but otherwise shadow spells are super low power and don't really do much of anything to add versatility.
5. Enchantment. Relies on controlling people to fight the ones you can't control. Extremely hard to pull off but if done well might be higher ranked.
6. Abjuration. Very little to attack with, leaving your party down a member with very minor buffs and/or spells only used now and then. Sure great when you really need it, but you really need it 5-10% of the time. Until then it's tiny buffs.
7. Divination. It's hard to do anything in combat. It's hard to do anything 90% of the time even outside of combat. Until very high level what you can do is limited without a ton of cheese. Maybe with ACFs for many more divinations it could be way better, maybe 4th-5th place. Because the spells prepared are the big bottleneck. You practically need to be psychic to know what to prepare, which is a bit of a catch 22.

Transmutation intentionally omitted because it all depends how you handle polymorph and so on, as it's a real mess in practice. That's why it got banned in Living Greyhawk. More for dragging down games to a halt even before we talk about the power. If we just ignore polymorph spells as many players do I'd say 4th. Great spells but very few of them. With lots of sourcebooks it could be better, but then so is necromancy. But I'll be the first to say that's unfair to transmutation. Polymorph is a big part of its charm and I really wish D&D made it 10 times less clunky.

I don't really believe in tiers, I don't think anyone can make a consistent argument for what belongs in what tier. But in a regular game without crazy cheese I'd be plenty happy playing 1-3. I'd be afraid to give any of them to a new player, but especially necromancy. I'd be terrified of playing 4-7. I'd struggle really hard to manage with 4-5 if I agreed to try it at all, and with 6-7 I'd flat out say no I'm not even trying.