What do you lose by banning each school

[taltamir]

So, I thought to myself, what are the best spells from each school? there are tons of sub par spells or redundant spells nobody cares about, but what do you really lose, what spells are the top of the top that some loses out on.

For example, if you ban conjuration, you miss out on teleportation. And if you ban evocation, you miss out on contingency (unless emulatable via shadow evocation). And if you ban enchantment, you miss out on mindrape.

So what are the best unique spells that truely stand out in each school of magic? Bonus points if you name one that is not from core; the more obscure the better.

[FishAreWet]

Enchantment
Necromancy
Evocation

In almost every case, ban in that order.

NEVER BAN CONJURATION or Transmutation.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Enchantment
Necromancy
Evocation

In almost every case, ban in that order.

NEVER BAN CONJURATION or Transmutation.

That wasn't the question at all.

[SurlySeraph]

Enchantment: Lots of "Will-save-or-be-screwed" spells, and a few buffs.
Evocation: Yo dawg, I heard you like direct damage, so we put direct damage on your direct damage so you can do damage while you do damage. And, maddeningly, it's less direct damage than you can do with Conjuration. You also lose some useful battlefield control from Force effects, but not a lot. Also Contingency, but you can take the Craft Contingency feat.
Necromancy: Strong debuffing abilities, a bit of summoning and direct damage.
Transmutation: Lots of buffs and battlefield control, some debuffs and a bit of direct damage.
Illusion: Lots of Will save-based effects, some battlefield control, and everything Evocation can do (via Shadow Evocation).
Conjuration: Conjuration has spells for everything, but what you'll most miss are the great single-target direct damage (the Orb of X spells), teleportation, and summoning.

[Eldariel]

Alright, I'll try for a quick list:

Abjuration: DISPEL MAGIC, Disjunction, Mind Blank, Anticipate Teleport, Anti-Magic Field, Protection from Alignment, Magic Circle against Alignment (take note with regards to Planar Binding), Dimensional Anchor (again, Binding), Alarm, Dimensional Lock, Prismatic Sphere

Conjuration: Teleportation, Planar Binding-line, Glitterdust, Web, Grease, Stinking Cloud (and higher-ups), Solid Fog, Orbs, Summon Monster-line, Gate, Maze, Wall of Stone, Wall of Iron, Phantom Steed, X Creation, Caltrops...please just don't ban it. I'm only half-way through...

Divination: True Strike, Assay Resistance, True Casting, Read Magic, Detect Magic, Contact Other Plane, Foresight, Moment of Prescience, Greater Scrying, See Invisibility, True Seeing, Greater Prying Eyes, Unluck & Rogue-stuff (Sniper's Shot, Golem Strike, etc.)

Enchantment: Daze, Charm Person, Charm Monster, Dominate Monster, Mind Rape, Programmed Amnesia, Hold Monster, Feeblemind Mindrape, Ray of Stupidity, Dominate Person, Sleep, Ray of Dizziness, Heroism-line

Evocation: Contingency, Wall of Force, Instant Refuge, Forcecage, Resilient Sphere, Wind Wall, Combust, Scorching Ray, Seeking Ray, Magic Missile

Illusion: Color Spray, Simulacrum, Project Image, Silent Image, Mirror Image, Displacement, Invisibility-line, Shadow Evocation, Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Walk, Mirage Arcana, Legion of Sentinels, etc.

Necromancy: False Life, Enervation, Astral Projection, Clone, Waves of Fatigue, Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Enfeeblement, Spectral Hand, Avasculate, Fort SoDs

Transmutation: Enlarge Person, Rope Trick, Reduce Person, Alter Self, Fly, Overland Flight, Plane Shift, Polymorph-line, Slow, Haste, Baleful Polymorph, Ghostform, Bite of the Werex, Greater Blink, Blink, Ironguard, Bull's Strength-line, Greater Magic Weapon, Launch Bolt, Mage Hand, Heroics, Wraithstrike, etc. And yeah, only half-way through here too.

[Brendan]

Evocation loses contingency and a few other gems, but the rest is just direct damage that can be replicated.
Enchantment loses compulsion and the symbol ofs
necromancy loses a lot of killing spells, and undead creating
conjuration loses everything
As does transmutation
illusion loses the evocation replication and some tricks
abjuration loses your only direct protection

[Sstoopidtallkid]

abjuration loses your only direct protection

Outside of Illusion and Transmutation. They actually have better defensive spells in the form of Greater Mirror Image and Fly.

[Eldariel]

Outside of Illusion and Transmutation. They actually have better defensive spells in the form of Greater Mirror Image and Fly.

Abjuration does contain some very keys in Anticipate Teleport and Mind Blank though; along with Disjunction, Dispels and the tools you need for Planar Binding (Magic Circle against Evil, Dimensional Anchor) and Dimensional Lock. Oh, and Maw of Chaos, of course.

[Gralamin]

Outside of Illusion and Transmutation. They actually have better defensive spells in the form of Greater Mirror Image and Fly.

You and your Greater Mirror Image. Ironguard / Ray Deflection - wait, I remember this argument. It ended with heavy agreeing that Maw of Chaos is awesome, if I remember correctly.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

You and your Greater Mirror Image. Ironguard / Ray Deflection - wait, I remember this argument. It ended with heavy agreeing that Maw of Chaos is awesome, if I remember correctly.

Immediate action for 89% miss chance. I have had a lot of DMs that like hitting the party with an ambush for very little buff time, so immediate=good.

And yes, Maw of Chaos is awesome.

[Brendan]

that was mostly from memory, so forgive the exceptions. However, I'll just say: You lose the least from evocation.

[Sharkman1231]

All schools have really awesome spells worth keeping. The only ration decision is thus:
BAN THE UNIVERSAL SCHOOL!!!

Oh wait, nevermind...
Yeah, my wizards don't specialize.

[Killer Angel]

And if you ban evocation, you miss out on contingency (unless emulatable via shadow evocation)

A fact that I always like to point out, is that shadow evocation is ok, but you duplicate the spell later. So, for contingency, if you develope the character while playing and if you've banned evocation, you had to wait 3 levels to duplicate the spell. Which isn't exactly good.
(I know, the answer is craft contingent spell, but is frequently banned)

[Eldariel]

A fact that I always like to point out, is that shadow evocation is ok, but you duplicate the spell later. So, for contingency, if you develope the character while playing and if you've banned evocation, you had to wait 3 levels to duplicate the spell. Which isn't exactly good.
(I know, the answer is craft contingent spell, but is frequently banned)

Two levels. But yeah.

[Longcat]

BAN THE UNIVERSAL SCHOOL!!!

And lose Predistigitation and Wish? No way, sir!

@Topic: The only school you can savely ban without loosing anything is Evocation, thanks to Shadow Evocation.

[Doc Roc]

Streamers is Evocation.
Freaking Astral Projection is necromancy.

[JaronK]

Evocation: lose the ability to cast evocations without having Shadow Evocation, which you do have. Easy drop!

Enchantment: lose a bunch of charms and other mind screwy spells. Good drop if it's kick in the door hacky slashy, but might be a bad plan if intrigue is the order of the day for this campaign. Then again, you can always kill them and reanimate them.

Abjuration: Lose Shrink Item, Dispell Magic, and Explosive Runes. Go cry in a corner when you hit 5th level and realize this. Also, lose Maw of Chaos, which is the best Wizard blast spell (take that Evocation!).

Illusion: Lose all those evocation spells! Also Mirror Image, and Colorspray. Ouch.

Conjuration: Lose the ability to build a castle when you're bored, summon the hordes of heaven or hell to do your bidding, and cast Glitterdust. That's bad.

Transmutation: Lose the ability to shape that castle you build with conjuration, and the ability to turn into the hordes of heaven or hell. Also, everything else you could turn into. Lame.

Necromancy: Lose the ability to animate everything you ever defeat. Could get that back with spell stitching though. Also, Shivering Touch.

JaronK

[Cyclocone]

And lose Predistigitation and Wish? No way, sir!

And Rary's Arcane Conversion, and Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability.

Anyways, the ones I can remember:

Abjuration: (Greater) Dispel Magic, Mind Blank, Disjunction, Duelward, Energy Immunity, Superior Resistance, Ironguard, Maw of Chaos (can this be mentioned enough?), Antimagic Field/Ray, Planar Bubble, Prismatic Wall, Ray Deflection, Reaving Dispel, Shrinshe's Spell Shift, Spell Turning, Anticipate Teleportation

Divination: Contact Other Plane, Scrying, , Foresight, Moment of Prescience, Assay Spell Resistance, Unluck, (Greater) Arcane Sight, True Casting/Seeing/Strike, Battlemagic Perception, Detect Thoughts

Enchantment: Mindrape, the Dominates, Ray of Stupidity, Irresistible Dance, Power Word Pain, Final Rebuke, Sleep

Evocation: (Chain) Contingency, Resilient Sphere, Forcecage, Howling Chain, Sonorous Hum, Invoke Magic, Streamers, the old Moonbow, Iceberg, Defenestrating Sphere, Shatter, Wind Wall, Scorching Ray, Radiant Assault, Explosive Cascade, Channeled Pyroburst, D-B Fireball (only with timestop),

Illusion: Solipsism, Simulacrum, Ice Assassin, (Greater) Mirror Image, (Greater/Superior) Invisibility, Major/Persistent/Project Image, Mislead, the Shadow Evocation/Conjurations, Color Spray

Necromancy: Veil of Undeath, Astral Projection, Shivering Touch, Fleshshiver, Desiccating Bubble, Enervation, Fear, Animate Dead, Magic Jar, Hide Life, Clone, Avasculate/Avascular Mass, Necrotic Skull Bomb, Ray of Enfeeblement, Waves/Ray of Exhaustion, Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee, 3.0 Horrid Wilting, Vampiric Touch, False Life


Since I don't have all day, I'll just skip Conjuration and Transmutation.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'll go with conjuration and transmutation:

Conjuration: (greater) teleport, dimension door, the orbs (unless you are not using any blasty spells), about half the rest of the school.

Transmutation: fly, many buff spells, polymorph, PAO, timestop, at least a quarter of the school, in core.

And no wizard would ban anything. Except for evocation. Wizards invented the internet.

[Killer Angel]

And no wizard would ban anything. Except for evocation.

Unless you are a diviner, you cannot be a specialist and limit the banning to evocation... (at least, in Core. In the end, you lose something valuable, while the tradeoff can be still positive)

[Starbuck_II]

Ban them all: use Disjunction on an artifact!

[Sinfire Titan]

And no wizard would ban anything. Except for evocation. Wizards invented the internet.

Evocation and Enchantment, actually. Too many things are immune to Enchantment spells (because, RAW, they all have the Mind-Affecting tag even if they don't say it), and Evocation is inefficient.

[taltamir]

Alright, I'll try for a quick list:

Abjuration: DISPEL MAGIC, Disjunction, Mind Blank, Anticipate Teleport, Anti-Magic Field, Protection from Alignment, Magic Circle against Alignment (take note with regards to Planar Binding), Dimensional Anchor (again, Binding), Alarm, Dimensional Lock, Prismatic Sphere

Conjuration: Teleportation, Planar Binding-line, Glitterdust, Web, Grease, Stinking Cloud (and higher-ups), Solid Fog, Orbs, Summon Monster-line, Gate, Maze, Wall of Stone, Wall of Iron, Phantom Steed, X Creation, Caltrops...please just don't ban it. I'm only half-way through...

Divination: True Strike, Assay Resistance, True Casting, Read Magic, Detect Magic, Contact Other Plane, Foresight, Moment of Prescience, Greater Scrying, See Invisibility, True Seeing, Greater Prying Eyes, Unluck & Rogue-stuff (Sniper's Shot, Golem Strike, etc.)

Enchantment: Daze, Charm Person, Charm Monster, Dominate Monster, Mind Rape, Programmed Amnesia, Hold Monster, Feeblemind Mindrape, Ray of Stupidity, Dominate Person, Sleep, Ray of Dizziness, Heroism-line

Evocation: Contingency, Wall of Force, Instant Refuge, Forcecage, Resilient Sphere, Wind Wall, Combust, Scorching Ray, Seeking Ray, Magic Missile

Illusion: Color Spray, Simulacrum, Project Image, Silent Image, Mirror Image, Displacement, Invisibility-line, Shadow Evocation, Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Walk, Mirage Arcana, Legion of Sentinels, etc.

Necromancy: False Life, Enervation, Astral Projection, Clone, Waves of Fatigue, Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Enfeeblement, Spectral Hand, Avasculate, Fort SoDs

Transmutation: Enlarge Person, Rope Trick, Reduce Person, Alter Self, Fly, Overland Flight, Plane Shift, Polymorph-line, Slow, Haste, Baleful Polymorph, Ghostform, Bite of the Werex, Greater Blink, Blink, Ironguard, Bull's Strength-line, Greater Magic Weapon, Launch Bolt, Mage Hand, Heroics, Wraithstrike, etc. And yeah, only half-way through here too.

this is what I was looking for... very nice list

[mostlyharmful]

Mind-affecting is the kiss of death to an entire school, luckily it's also the smallest crappiest school in the game (evocation has Contingency, Shatter, Wall of Force, Miracle (if you get the luck domain) and the fun times of defenestrating sphere).

Be a Div specialist, if you really want to up your mindganking abilities beyound Illusion and bound minions then get the three feats from lost empires of faerun that gives you a school back.

[taltamir]

well... enchantment being "mind effecting" is a pretty big deal... but it has mindrape which is a really useful spell.

Feeblemind is just cruel... and dominate, while not effective when you want it to due to being mind effecting, is unbelievable if done right.

EX:
You bring a taskforce of bugbears/orcs/whatever to kill the kings guards, capture the king, remove magical protections, dominate him... then kill the remaining bugbears/orcs/whatever... Have the king explain to the reinforcements that you saved him if any arrive, if not then the two of you can come back to the court and have him tell everyone how you saved him from assassins and give you position and power (just an excuse for you to remain close to him)...
start acting quickly, get rid of any other casters in the area, get wedded to the king's daughter... some time later they have an unfortunate accident... you are now the king. Or just have them become reclusive, and when someone HAS to see them, well they do. A dominated king puppet.

[mostlyharmful]

well... enchantment being "mind effecting" is a pretty big deal... but it has mindrape which is a really useful spell.

a really useful NINTH LEVEL spell. sure.

[Lysander]

My run down:

Abjuration: A must have. Dispel Magic. Endure Elements. Protection from Arrows. Lots of things that keep you alive or stop magic. Not having abjuration is like not wearing pants.

Conjuration: teleport. It has teleport. Yeah it can make webs and clouds and monsters but teleport. That's all there is to it. The rest is a bonus.

Divination: You can't ban it!

Enchantment: This is one of those things you need or one of those things you don't. It depends on the game. Maybe your wizard can get through life just by killing or threatening to kill anyone in their way. But if they're part of society instead of loners in a tower or adventurers in the middle of a dungeon, having mind control powers is pretty damn useful. I know that I in real life would rather be able to cast Suggestion than Meteor Swarm.

Evocation: In defense of evocation. Shadow Evocation only replicates up to 4th level spells. So you'll never get contingency if you ban evocation. Or other useful spells that don't deal direct damage like Sending, Forcecage, Telekinetic Sphere, etc. And stuff that you do get, like Resilient Sphere, now allows a will save to ignore it. Also, evocation has some great damaging spells at lower levels. Sure Shadow Evocation lets you cast Magic Missile, but not with a 1st level spell slot. I think evocation is a little too heavily discounted - it actually is really good at what it does. The only problem is that any party member can deal damage, so a wizard is better off providing utility spells and battlefield control than saving the barbarian from doing some work. But it has a plethora of spells that don't allow saving throws and deal a lot of damage to a lot of people. Don't dismiss it as "just damage." Just damage means a lot of dead enemies.

Illusion: This is also one of those things you need or don't just like enchantment. Except instead of controlling their mind outright you outwit it. What I like about it is that's it's only limited by your creativity as a player.

Necromancy: Zombies slaves! Negative buffs. And a slow wizard version of resurrection, and some ways of stopping other people from resurrecting. And don't forget astral projection. But mostly zombies. I'm not a huge fan of this school. Not too much to do unless you're evil, in which case it's pretty much mandatory.

Transmutation: Everything.

--------------------

So that's my opinion at least. Personally I'd ban Enchantment or Evocation and Necromancy. Undead servants are useful but who wants to do that much rolling in battle? Plus, ya know, evil. If you're going to blast people ban enchantment, if you're going to rule people ban evocation.

[Tyndmyr]

By banning Conjuration, you lose D&D.

[taltamir]

By banning Conjuration, you lose D&D.

V in OOTS banned conjuration...

[Tyndmyr]

And we saw how troublesome that was, didn't we?