[3.5E D&D] Why are healing spells conjurations?

[AintThatASeamus]

I have been pondering this question for as long as I have been playing 3.5E; why do healing spells fall within the conjuration school? I have let it slide until now, but for my current campaign I have already made some changes to the spell list as written (largely eliminating teleportation and resurrection magic), so while I'm at it I want to address this issue that has bugged me for a long time.

Except for the spells of the healing subschool, conjuration magic is about creating matter from nothing, or transporting creatures or objects from one place to another, and I just don't understand how healing fits in alongside that family of spells. Indeed, healing seems more organically part of any of several of the other schools. Evocation (channeling positive energy), abjuration (restoring and energizing), transmutation (altering the body), and necromancy (affecting the life force) all make more sense to me.

Is there some rationale that I'm not quite getting? Is it intended as a game balance issue? I would really like to understand the rule before I change it. Please help!

[TheCountAlucard]

In second edition, healing spells were in the Necromancy school. However, in the interest of making Necromancy spells all dark and edgy like a 90's-comics antihero, they shipped the healing spells over to the Conjuration school in third edition.

At least, as far as I can tell.

[Zeful]

I have been pondering this question for as long as I have been playing 3.5E; why do healing spells fall within the conjuration school? I have let it slide until now, but for my current campaign I have already made some changes to the spell list as written (largely eliminating teleportation and resurrection magic), so while I'm at it I want to address this issue that has bugged me for a long time.

Except for the spells of the healing subschool, conjuration magic is about creating matter from nothing, or transporting creatures or objects from one place to another, and I just don't understand how healing fits in alongside that family of spells. Indeed, healing seems more organically part of any of several of the other schools. Evocation (channeling positive energy), abjuration (restoring and energizing), transmutation (altering the body), and necromancy (affecting the life force) all make more sense to me.

Is there some rationale that I'm not quite getting? Is it intended as a game balance issue? I would really like to understand the rule before I change it. Please help!

Necromancy is seen as the Black Arts in common perception and is oft linked with Satanism. By moving the healing spells away from necromancy, along with other changes, allowed for the game to move away from the old "corrupting our children" of older generations.

[Zaq]

Honestly I can't find a reason. Balance doesn't seem to have much to do with it (there isn't really much reason to try to balance the schools of magic for divine casters, and only very rarely indeed will Spell Focus matter for healing)... it's inexplicable to me as well. I could see it as transmutation (you're changing the flesh into something new and whole), abjuration (you're undoing the damage that has been done), evocation (evocation channels energy, and positive energy is energy), or necromancy (necromancy deals with life and death, and the Inflict spells are necromancy anyway, so...) but conjuration doesn't make sense to me either. I'd rule them as either necromancy or evocation before conjuration. It's worth mentioning that for psionics, the healing school is psychometabolism (closest to transmutation), not metacreativity (closest to conjuration).

The only exception I can see is resurrection-type magic, since you're pulling the soul from somewhere else and forcing it back into the body. Maybe, maybe regenerate, since that new flesh (or those new organs) has to come from somewhere, unless you're just creating it anew, but even then, if I were making it from scratch I'd probably put those spells in with the other healing spells just for consistency's sake.

Of course, there's a good handful of spells that really have no business being in the school they're in. The Orb spells are a good example, but my favorite is Maw of Chaos being, of all things, abjuration. I mean yes, it disrupts spellcasting, but not everything that disrupts spellcasting is abjuration, and that hardly seems like its primary purpose... anyway, yeah, healing being conjuration doesn't make sense to me either. Maybe there's some reason buried in the history of earlier editions... I freely admit to knowing very little about anything before 3.5 or some 3.0. You're not alone in noticing the oddness, at least.

[Riffington]

Evocation brings in force - that'd just cauterize your wounds or blow you up.
Necromancy deals with negative life force.
Abjuration might allow you to heal quicker, but it adds no life by itself.
Transmutation would be fine, perhaps.

Healing is an act of Creation. Seen in that light, what school is the school of Creation?

[Pronounceable]

They aren't. It's a damn big lie...

[Tequila Sunrise]

There are a handful of divine spells that interact with schools, like Imbue With Spell Ability. Presumably healing spells being conj's has something to do with those spells, but that's still a lame-@ss reason. The bottom line is that a bunch of spells were dumped into the wrong schools for one hairbrained reason or another, and that's that.

[Shpadoinkle]

Because necromancy is only used by bad, bad, evil, icky characters.

[DragoonWraith]

Personally, I think Necromancy makes the most sense. It's the school most involved in manipulating (life and) death. Conjuring makes sense for like... blood loss, but you can't just "conjure" tissue - tissue has to be connected to the rest of the tissue. Not to mention that even the simplest of tissue is way more complicated than other 1st-level conjurations (in the case of CLW) are capable of. You would need to simply augment the body's natural healing ability, and that falls under the purview of Necromancy, IMO.

[quick_comment]

Evocation makes sense to me.

Evocation is manipulating energy. Healing spells are basically just fireballs made of positive energy.

[Tempest Fennac]

I disagree with the idea that Necromancy fits due to that school being entirely about death and negative energy. Based on my Reiki training in real life, I think Evocation is the best fit for healing spells (except for Raise Dead and Revivify, which should probably be Necromancy due to being used to bring someone back to life, and Ressurrection and True Ressurrection should probably be Conjuration because they involve creating a new body). I never understood why Deathward was Necromancy rather then Abjuration either.

[Southern Cross]

Monte Cook agrees with you....
In Arcana Evolved,healing spells are part of the Evocation school.

[quick_comment]

. Based on my Reiki training in real life,

[SoD]

They're conjuration spells presumably because; you conjure positive energy from the Positive Energy Plane to do it.

That being said, if that is the reason, then inflict spells should also be conjuration.

I personally put inflict as necromancy, and heal as transmutation.

[TheCountAlucard]

I disagree with the idea that Necromancy fits due to that school being entirely about death and negative energy.

In 2e, though, it was about life and death, hence the reason why healing spells were necromancy.

I never understood why Deathward was Necromancy rather then Abjuration either.

I suppose it's just because it deals in negative energy; that seems to be the only sensible reason, as far as I can tell.

[Kaiyanwang]

Even if Necromancy makes more sense (Necromacy is the school of magic interacting with life force) they are conjuration because... conjures meat where is gone away

[Tempest Fennac]

How is protecting people from death/level drain edgy? I was only really looking at what the schools do in the 3rd Edition (ironically, looking at historical necromancy, the school should also cover summoning and divinations rather then just death magic). What's wrong, Quick Comment?

[TheCountAlucard]

How is protecting people from death/level drain edgy?

Oops, meant that "darker and edgier" for someone else. My apologies.

[ZeroNumerous]

Using the description of the Evocation school as a guide, both Inflict X Wounds and Cure X Wounds(along with Heal/Harm and mass versions thereof) should be of the Evocation school. As they draw upon the unseen power source of the Positive/Negative Energy Planes respectively.

Conversely, arguments can be made for Conjuration school as well due to each spell bringing the manifestation of Negative/Positive(damage/hp) energy to you.

[Juggernaut1981]

I think its all stylistic/thematic really. I imagine a conversation had amongst the development team that resulted in the statement below...

"Because Necromancers are evil people who do nasty things with corpses and are bad people and will eat your babies and the PCs aren't supposed to be evil and yeah... Necromancy can't heal things...."

2E had Necromancy as the spells connected to life force, life, death and souls. Thematically makes sense for why Necromancy should be its own school rather than some fruity version of Evocation or Conjuration or Transmutation.

If you view Evocation as the manipulation of elemental energy (treat magic as it's own element), Conjuration as the making of material physical things from nothing and Transmutation as getting material physical things and changing them to other material physical things (or warping material physical things)... then you NEED Necromancy to explain Undead, how you could talk with a soul (the divination-style stuff), raising people to life, etc, etc, etc.

I have always thought of Necromancy as manipulation of life-force (or maybe qi/ki or chakra or whatever life-interacting energy you want).

Conjuration = making stuff
Divination = looking at stuff/people, getting answers from distant beings
Enchantment = screwing with minds/senses
Evocation = making energy (fire, cold, lightning, etc)
Necromancy = playing with life force
Transmutation = playing with physical material stuff (including making wormholes/portals to walk through)

I find the Universal School to be a more irritating concept....

[Tempest Fennac]

Juggernaut, Chakras are basically energy centres which serve as focal points for Chi energy. I know what you mean about Universal being awkward (I'd say a lot of those would class as Transmutation, apart from the Wish spells, which can potentially mimic any school).

[sonofzeal]

Using the description of the Evocation school as a guide, both Inflict X Wounds and Cure X Wounds(along with Heal/Harm and mass versions thereof) should be of the Evocation school. As they draw upon the unseen power source of the Positive/Negative Energy Planes respectively.

Agreed. Necro is draining things, Trans is changing things, Conj is calling things, and Evocation is applying the essence of things. Necro would be unsuitable for healing unless you needed to remove a growth or amputate a limb. Transmutation could work for many wounds, but would likely function more as a stopgap measure where your "real form" (the one with the gaping hole) returns after a bit. Conjuration could accomplish healing by summoning a healing-type thing or creature (like, say, Unicorns). Evocation fits best though, as you're evoking the essence of positive energy and that essence encourages healing in the same way a fireball encourages burning. This to me is preferable to Conj creating a glob of positiveness.

[Kurald Galain]

In second edition, healing spells were in the Necromancy school. However, in the interest of making Necromancy spells all dark and edgy like a 90's-comics antihero, they shipped the healing spells over to the Conjuration school in third edition.

That is pretty much the case, yes.

To elaborate a bit - 2E was a bit fuzzy on what spells belonged in which schools, originally lumping a lot of them under transmutation because "it changes stuff" or under evocation because "it involves energy". This leads to such artifacts as Color Spray and Burning Hands being transmutation. In the PHB at least, those two schools were about as big as the other six combined, and it took several splatbooks to give the diviner and necromancer, in particular, enough different spells to be more playable. Although yes, healing spells were firmly filed under necromancy because they involve life and death (except that it rarely matters much what school a cleric spell belongs to).

3E did get a clear focus on what evocation is supposed to be (and healing doesn't really fit there because it involves chi rather than elementalism) but as a result of this change, way too many things got thrown into conjuration instead, which is why in 3E the best schools are considered conjuration and transmutation. This fuzziness wasn't fully fixed until 3.5: up to 3.0, teleportation was considered transmutation because "it changes stuff" (i.e. your physical location) whereas 3.5 realizes that teleportation is really not all that different from summoning.

Necromancy is an oddball among the schools: it is the sole school that contains spells by effect, rather than by cause. So while spells that change things are usually transmutation, spells that change things related to undead tend to be necromancy. Protective spells are abjuration, but protective spells related to undead might be necromantic. And so forth.

[JeenLeen]

From the SRD
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.

I see the healing subschool as pulling forth positive energy from the positive energy plane, going more into the summoning/calling properties of conjuration than the creating aspects.

Evocation manipulates already existent energy or taps unseen sources. Healing calls energy from the positive energy plane, a known source. Necromancy would make sense, but it seems linked to the negative energy plane so only to death, not life and death, in v3.

[Ehra]

Except for the spells of the healing subschool, conjuration magic is about creating matter from nothing

Is there some rationale that I'm not quite getting?

It sounds about right to me. If someone's bleeding then simply closing the wound won't bring them back to top health since they've lost blood. Creating more blood out of nothing, on the other hand....

As for the Necromancy thing.... as far as I can tell, 3rd edition Necromancy basically means "manipulating negative energy." Healing doesn't fit anymore.

[Zhalath]

I've always thought that healing spells pull energy from the Positive Energy Plane, which is why they're Conjuration. Positive energy, I figure, causes cells in the body to rapidly speed through mitosis without needing more energy (as the positive energy is supplying itself). Blood is replaced, the skin knits back together, and the wound is healed.

Negative energy is Necromancy because Necromancy deals exclusively with the Negative Energy Plane, not with any others. Why Inflict spells aren't Conjuration is beyond me.

Conjuration works with matter, and Evocation works with energy (the D&D definition, not the actual physics term).

However, what I just said was some made-up fluff, and isn't "canonical". A lot of things in the PHB seem just kind of random at times.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Let's go through the schools:
Abjuration: If you view HP as heroic ability to dodge/survive things, then Pos Energy would be adding to that ability, but...eh, maybe. Still, I could see healing being considered 'defensive', especially since Abjuration is a fairly support school already.

Conjuration: Summons/creates things. Could repair the flesh by creating more, but that's a stretch, especially since it wouldn't fix, say, broken bones that way. Yeah, 'summoning pos energy', but that's Evocation's schtick. This school could afford to lose something anyways. If you need Conjuration-based healing, go Summon Nature's Ally IV.

Evocation: Works with raw energy to create effects. Perfect fit. It could use the boost, energy is what it does, why not? I'd even say give it Inflict, too, or make those dual-school.

Necromancy: Controls death, life force, and neg Energy. Probably should either gain Cure or lose Inflict. Good fit. After all, it controls life and death, why not make it able to move people one way or the other with those?

Transmutation: Changes one thing into another. Could shift damaged flesh into whole, but again, iffy. Would be fine if the fluff of the spells was different, but as-is, Transmutation has no connection with interplanar garbage and doesn't need one, IMHO.

[Starbuck_II]

I have been pondering this question for as long as I have been playing 3.5E; why do healing spells fall within the conjuration school? I have let it slide until now, but for my current campaign I have already made some changes to the spell list as written (largely eliminating teleportation and resurrection magic), so while I'm at it I want to address this issue that has bugged me for a long time.

Is there some rationale that I'm not quite getting? Is it intended as a game balance issue? I would really like to understand the rule before I change it. Please help!

Because you steal someone's liver from A and give B the liver to heal them. It is conjuration, dude, you teleport stuff.

[MickJay]

(ironically, looking at historical necromancy, the school should also cover summoning and divinations rather then just death magic).

Just to expand a little, historical necromancy would be covered by Speak with Dead and perhaps some weaker spells that summon ghosts/spirits of the deceased people (for the purpose of asking them about things they knew); perhaps it would also include trying to curse people with the aid of the dead, or underworld deities. All the stuff about creating undead and negative energy was just added to actually make the cool-sounding Necromancy useful