Different Schools of Magic

[Ichneumon]

Has anyone of you ever tried to use different magic school?

Currently I am thinking of maybe using some kind of color-school thing. Green: Illusion, divination
Blue: Protection and Healing
Red: Enhancing
etc.

[Umarth]

I just got rid of schools of magic in my homebrew. If you don't have specalist wizards I don't see a huge need for them at all.

[adanedhel9]

I have played with something similar - the idea was to create a specialist sorcerer that had a more natural-feeling group of specialized spells. I went with colors as well, but I don't remember any significant details. It was mostly pretty obvious stuff: fire is red, water is blue, darkness is black, etc.

In the end, I decided that the concept didn't really fit with my campaign world (plus it was just a pain to manage), and I tossed it out.

[magic8BALL]

I have a slightly different magic school array than standard D&D. The idea came about when I was asked why the pentagram had magical significane in a campaing. The reason is there are five schools. (If you want to assign colours, there happens to be five coloured types of dragon, so that could work nice too.)

The five schools are essentially a reduced form of the 8 core schools. I will list the new name, and note any changes to that school.

Schools:
Divination
Conjuration - minus healing spells.
Enchantment - plus Figment, Pattern, and Phantasm spells.
Transmutation - minus animate objects, plus Glamer spells.
Evocation - six subschools

Evocation Subschools:
Pyromancy - all [Fire] spells
Cyromancy - all [Cold] spells
Sonomancy - all [Air] and sonic spells and effects
Electromancy - all [Earth] and electric spells and effects
Animancy - all healing and light spells and animate objects spells
Necromancy - plus Shaddow and darkness spells

This has been tailored more for a specific champaing where there is only one caster class, a blend between a wizard and a sorcerer, but feel free to use it if you think it will work for what you want/need.

[Fax Celestis]

I go with five schools of magic: Divination, Creation, Transmutation, Protection, and Destruction. Divination is anything that scrys, detects, or divines the future or past, or messes with time. Creation is anything that summons or creates. Transmutation is anything that changes the target--from baleful polymorph to bull's strength. Protection is anything that guards: shield, spell turning, mage armor and the like. Destruction is anything that kills or damages a target.