Sending is Evocation?????

[Lysander]

Ok, now this makes no sense. Divination I'd understand, transmission of knowledge. Conjuration makes a lot of sense, interdimensional contact. Even transmutation is a better case seeing that it has Message. Why Evocation?

[deuxhero]

Because 10 mins for 50 words screams "evocation"? ...Sorry.

I also think it is good example of a mis-schooled spell.

[Myrmex]

Because it is the fabrication and sending of something that really doesn't exist. You aren't summoning or creating anything, you are simply willing a thought into brief existence for transmission.

Who knows. 7 schools of magic is dumb. 3e magic is dumb.

[Morty]

Well, I suppose you could say that you're creating a sound, so it's Evocation just like spells that do sonic damage are evocation.
But the truth is, I don't think there's ever been any sort of system of "schools of magic" in which most of the spells couldn't be easily put in at least two of them.

[Zeful]

Well, I suppose you could say that you're creating a sound, so it's Evocation just like spells that do sonic damage are evocation.

Except Orb of Sound.

The schools of magic are badly designed, and if you rewrote them so they made sense, you'd lose a very large section of magical abilities that no longer fit any definition.

[Godskook]

Except Orb of Sound.

Orbs already should be evocations.

[Zeful]

Orbs already should be evocations.

I'm starting to pull towards the opinion that if the spell targets an object or creature rather than an area, or moves in any other direction than down (gravity permitting), it should be Evocation. Conjuration spells should be in the vein of Ice Storm rather than Melf's Acid Arrow

[Bayar]

Nono, the orbs are not pieces of immaterial energy. They are solid orbs. The spells are creation. that is why they work inside an AMF.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I'm starting to pull towards the opinion that if the spell targets an object or creature rather than an area, or moves in any other direction than down (gravity permitting), it should be Evocation. Conjuration spells should be in the vein of Ice Storm rather than Melf's Acid Arrow

Why do people keep to the 8-school system. 3 are grouped based on what they do, 4 based on how they do it, and 1 does everything. You can get much better results by tearing the system down and starting over.

[Sinfire Titan]

Except Orb of Sound.

The schools of magic are badly designed, and if you rewrote them so they made sense, you'd lose a very large section of magical abilities that no longer fit any definition.

Wouldn't the unclassified spells fall under Universal by default?

[Lapak]

Nono, the orbs are not pieces of immaterial energy. They are solid orbs. The spells are creation. that is why they work inside an AMF.

Which is, frankly, one of my biggest problem with them. Fireball magically creates a ball of flame. Orb of Fire magically creates a ball of flame. If it wasn't magical fire, it would do 1d6 damage, max, and no further effects. The 'nonmagical' Conjuration attack spells are all brain-breakingly inconsistent with every other magical effect in D&D.

[Bayar]

Which is, frankly, one of my biggest problem with them. Fireball magically creates a ball of flame. Orb of Fire magically creates a ball of flame. If it wasn't magical fire, it would do 1d6 damage, max, and no further effects. The 'nonmagical' Conjuration attack spells are all brain-breakingly inconsistent with every other magical effect in D&D.

Fireball actually does not create a ball of flame. It creates an explosion of flame. The "pea-sized bead" is just the visual special effect of the fireball spell. Once it gets in the range of detonation, it "blossoms" into a fireball.

Orb of Fire creates a 3 inch orb that is shot at an enemy with an attack roll. Think of it as a stone. Once hit, the target takes fire damage, but he only risks getting dazed, not set ablaze.

See, the main difference between freball and orb of fire is: one is an immaterial bead of explosive arcane energy, the other a material, palpable ball that breaks with fiery power upon a target.

[Zeful]

Nono, the orbs are not pieces of immaterial energy. They are solid orbs. The spells are creation. that is why they work inside an AMF.

Except when you try to break down the action to describe what happens: it makes no sense.

We have a ball of something (literal Raw reading has them all as Acid with differing damage types, but RAI has them as balls of Fire, Sound, Cold, Force and so on) that is held together and sustained non-magically (Orb of Acid, Sound and Fire no longer make any sense whatsoever) and thrown in such a way to justify a ranged touch attack with a no range increment, but can get hundreds of feet away (only Hulking Hurlers are allowed to out shoot a bow with their bare hands). Further under RAI (as literal balls of whatever,) they are reusable, with the same stats they have at the time of casting. Under the Rules for Conjuration (Creation) that we have, the Orbs of X simply don't belong.

Why do people keep to the 8-school system. 3 are grouped based on what they do, 4 based on how they do it, and 1 does everything. You can get much better results by tearing the system down and starting over.

Yes it would be better, but 8 is a number very intuitively accessible to everyone, so if you were to tear down the existing framework and replace it, you're better at least trying to make 8 schools rather than 6 or four or two.

Wouldn't the unclassified spells fall under Universal by default?

No, as Universal would mean things taught by All Schools in such a rewrite. Read Magic and Wish are good examples (Read magic not so much) of spells that every school of magic would want their pupils to know. Which means unless the definition of at least one school made allowances for say, Forcecage, it would be removed as a spell option, while Teleport would be made into a Universal Spell.

[Mewtarthio]

But how can you make a ball out of fire? Once it hits an AMF, it should simply disappear after running out of fuel. Nowhere near as bad as a ball made out of "sound," I guess, but still...

[ericgrau]

Evocation is any spell that creates something out of nothing.

And ya, the school and the "it's no longer magic even though it's a self sustaining ball of X" explanation for orb spells is royally screwed up.

[Solaris]

Why do people keep to the 8-school system. 3 are grouped based on what they do, 4 based on how they do it, and 1 does everything. You can get much better results by tearing the system down and starting over.

Diminishing returns.

[nightwyrm]

Evocation is any spell that creates something out of nothing.

No, that's conjuration. See Wall of Iron.

But the 8 schools are totally screwed up anyhow. Some are defined by purpose (divination, necromancy, abjuration), some are defined by mechanics (enchantment, illusion) and others are defined by fluff (conjuration, evocation, transmutation).

[hamishspence]

I wondered if the orbs were chunks of material pulled from the Inner Planes (or maybe Limbo)

Basically, instead of: call elemental

it is: call chunk of "elemental material"

So to speak.

Energy in D&D is not quite like the real thing anyway.

[Zeful]

No, that's conjuration. See Wall of Iron.

But the 8 schools are totally screwed up anyhow. Some are defined by purpose (divination, necromancy, abjuration), some are defined by mechanics (enchantment, illusion) and others are defined by fluff (conjuration, evocation, transmutation).

Yep, that's why I want to sit down and rewrite all of the schools of magic so that these problems don't ever come up.

[nightwyrm]

Yep, that's why I want to sit down and rewrite all of the schools of magic so that these problems don't ever come up.

Good luck with that. See you in a few months, lol.

[ericgrau]

No, that's conjuration. See Wall of Iron.

Evocation creates a force. That's creating a material, probably from another plane. And dood, I got the "something out of nothing" definition I wrote from the friggin' rules description of evocation. The conjuration(creation) section says creating by manipulating matter, btw.

I'm amazed at how people want to redefine the schools simply because they supposedly don't match the definitions that they've never read.

[Lapak]

Orb of Fire creates a 3 inch orb that is shot at an enemy with an attack roll. Think of it as a stone. Once hit, the target takes fire damage, but he only risks getting dazed, not set ablaze.

This makes no sense. Fire is not a solid object like a stone. It cannot be thrown many feet with no sustaining fuel. It does not daze people. Orb of Fire acts like actual, non-magical fire in exactly one way: it looks like fire. Otherwise, it is an utterly unnatural (read: magical) construct that has nothing to do with nonmagical fire.

See, the main difference between freball and orb of fire is: one is an immaterial bead of explosive arcane energy, the other a material, palpable ball that breaks with fiery power upon a target.

The main similarity is: neither one of them acts like natural fire. At all. (Particularly in 3e+, where fireballs don't deform based on obstacles.)

Saying 'but it's a real ball of fire' doesn't make it nonmagical. It is pure rules-by-fiat.

[neoseph7]

Sending as an evocation spell is silly. It really should be conjuration (which is both pulling nothing out of thin air and bringing it from somewhere else).

The orbs of X are broken. They should not be immune to spell resistance.

D&D magic should continue to use most of the spell groups, but how they are arranged and organized could change. I think it is fair to say that spells can be defined both by what they affect and how they affect it. You could define schools in these broad categories and then have every spell fall under one each 'how'/'what' or just a single 'how' or single 'what'. When you focused in a school as a wizard, you would select one 'how' and remove one 'how', or select one 'what' and remove one 'what' from your casting abilities (no need to remove two since your options were cut in half). This would make some spells both conjuration and evocation for manipulating energy (evo) by channeling it from another plane of existence (con). Is this a complete system? No. But it may give you something to consider if you seriously want to redefine the magic system but keep most of the spells intact.

[hamishspence]

in D&D, there is a whole plane "made of fire" and "creatures made of living fire"

A called elemental does not wink out in an antimagic field- only a summoned one does.

One way of doing it, is to think of it as like that-almost like a bit of "elemental flesh" flung at the enemy.

And there are creatures that are almost "made of elemental sound" the energons in Planar Handbook.

[ericgrau]

Sending as an evocation spell is silly. It really should be conjuration (which is both pulling nothing out of thin air and bringing it from somewhere else).

Conjuration doesn't work with forces. Evocation does. Conjuration works with materials. By that logic all evocation spells that create something - almost all of them - would be conjurations.

But, agreed, orbs of X are broken for the save, SR, school and believability (you sure that's not still magic?!?) issues.

[Lapak]

in D&D, there is a whole plane "made of fire" and "creatures made of living fire"

A called elemental does not wink out in an antimagic field- only a summoned one does.

One way of doing it, is to think of it as like that-almost like a bit of "elemental flesh" flung at the enemy.

And there are creatures that are almost "made of elemental sound" the energons in Planar Handbook.

If it was 'solid element' or 'living element' and it was Called rather than Summoned, it wouldn't cease to exist after one round. So that's out as an explanation as well. Either it's self-sustaining, actually there, and nonmagical (in which case it should remain in place rather than instantly disappearing after doing its damage) or it is magically sustained in some way and should at the very least fall apart upon contact with an AMF if not wink out of existence altogether.

[nightwyrm]

Evocation has it's own problems. Spraying out a rainbow is evo, but putting up a wall of rainbow is abjuration.

[Southern Cross]

No argument there.Conjuration,especially,needs a revamp-read "nerfing",as many of its spells actually belong in other schools,not just the various orb spells,but mage armor and arc of lightning should be in the abjuration and evocation schools,respectively.

[hamishspence]

the orb spells were in Evocation in Tome and Blood. Only in the Miniatures Handbook did they switch over to Conjuration.

[Roderick_BR]

Ok, now this makes no sense. Divination I'd understand, transmission of knowledge. Conjuration makes a lot of sense, interdimensional contact. Even transmutation is a better case seeing that it has Message. Why Evocation?

I don't see Divination as "transmission of knowledge", as it's more gather information for yourself.
Conjuration makes sense, though, as it's a form of "teleport".
I think it was just slaped into evocation because you are creating and sending sound waves, as in Shout.