Retooling the Wizard / Sorceror List

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Thank you very much for responding.

I didn't DM 1e, and so had either forgetten having been told that, or just never learned it. (Because, you know, teenager)

It's fine, a lot of people jump into D&D as new players without knowing much of the underlying lore, trusting the DM to handle it for them.

And then frequently complain about D&D lore being bad or shallow or whatever and want to change or remove it without actually reading any of it, but that's a separate issue.

Sure, Healing has a Necromantic "effect" but doesn't draw upon the Positive Elemental Plane (Inflict doesn't need the Negative Elemental Plane) to work, since the "power" for the spell comes from the Deity directly. (This was why Good Deities could grant Inflict - and Evil Deities could Heal). Same for Turn/Rebuke Undead.

Remember, positive and negative energy are not Good- or Evil-aligned, anymore than being alive is Good or entropy is Evil. The idea that negative energy = Evil is a retcon by some of the 3e designers, who made mindless undead Evil (when they, being mindless, should be True Neutral like every other Mindless creature) and moved healing from Necromancy to Conjuration because "necromancy is icky and icky stuff is evil."

Spontaneous healing/inflicting and turning/rebuking were divided by moral alignment not because of any inherent associations, but because Good clerics tend toward defensive/protective spells while Evil ones tend toward offensive/harmful spells. Good gods can want their clerics to destroy their enemies and Evil gods can want their champions healed to tip-top shape with no alignment issues whatsoever.

[Great Dragon]

It's fine, a lot of people jump into D&D as new players without knowing much of the underlying lore, trusting the DM to handle it for them.

And then frequently complain about D&D lore being bad or shallow or whatever and want to change or remove it without actually reading any of it, but that's a separate issue.

I did do more studying than a lot of the others (even those playing Mages) but, (A) I can't always remember everything, and (B) getting all the books (even PDFs) is really hard.

Your posting the AdD rules on it was appreciated.

Remember, positive and negative energy are not Good- or Evil-aligned, anymore than being alive is Good or entropy is Evil. The idea that negative energy = Evil is a retcon by some of the 3e designers, who made mindless undead Evil (when they, being mindless, should be True Neutral like every other Mindless creature) and moved healing from Necromancy to Conjuration because "necromancy is icky and icky stuff is evil."

Yeah. For the most part, I actually ignored both Positive and Negative Planes.
Both were totally boring to me, since there wasn't anything of use (ok, Plane Shifting into the Positive Plane for quick non-divine healing was cool. And using that spell to "banish" a non-undead to the Negative Plane for a nearly guaranteed death, could be awesome) or interest on either.

All hail the Satanic Panic.
And since Healing was usually considered "Good", they got it away from the icky school.

Spontaneous healing/inflicting and turning/rebuking were divided by moral alignment not because of any inherent associations, but because Good clerics tend toward defensive/protective spells while Evil ones tend toward offensive/harmful spells.

(1) Good gods can want their clerics to destroy their enemies and Evil gods can want their champions healed to tip-top shape with no alignment issues whatsoever.

(1) Which is why both spells are on the Main Cleric List, and not locked into Life (heal) and Death (inflict) Domains. (Yes, I'm aware of Neutral/Good death gods)

So, no real arguments from me, here.
***
Sorry that I derailed the thread.

[BlackLamb]

If Scotty could cast dimensional anchor, it certainly would be.

Anti-teleportation defenses in D&D are anti-planar-travel defenses that happen to cover teleportation because it uses the Astral Plane (though there are a few spells like anticipate teleportation that specifically target teleportation and not planar travel). Making teleportation not use the Astral Plane has a bunch of ramifications (magic circle against X doesn't prevent teleporting out of it anymore without a houserule, you need to come up with an explanation for how exactly non-line-of-effect teleportation works, calling working differently from teleportation despite both of them instantly moving creatures from point A to point B makes little sense, etc.), so keeping it as-is is for the best.



Indeed.

1) Conjuration (Creation) shouldn't exist; it's just Evocation by another name, and the PHB description of it is literally just a rephrasing of the Evocation description. The vast majority of those should go to Evocation, though there are a few outliers (for instance, phase door should still be Conjuration and shouldn't have been subschooled Creation in the first place, phantom steed is more of an Illusion (Shadow) spell--I mean, c'mon, it's got "quasi-real" in the first line of its description--and sepia snake sigil is more of an Abjuration even though it's a [Force] effect which would normally be Evocation).

Moving those spells takes ~300 spells out of Conjuration (or ~60 if you're just looking at the PHB), gives Evocation all the [Acid] and [Force] spells Conjuration was hogging and a bunch of nice utility spells to make it more than just "the blasting school," and tightens up Conjuration thematically to "the planar school" instead of a random grab bag, so that's a win all around.

2) Looking at core Transmutations, they fall into several distinct categories: physical creature alterations like alter self/bull's strength/enlarge person, mental creature alterations like darkvision/fox's cunning/Mordenkainen's lucubration, object alterations like erase/passwall/transmute rock to mud, "kinetic" spells like feather fall/jump/telekinesis, energy spells like flame arrow and pyrotechnics, and planar spells like blink/ethereal jaunt/rope trick.

The planar spells obviously go in Conjuration and the energy and kinetic spells in Evocation, and the mental alterations should really go in Enchantment, once again giving a currently-thematically-narrow school some much needed utility and narrowing Transmutation's theme. Moving those spells cuts Transmutation down from 76 core spells to 56, and really makes it a school of transmuting things instead of generically "changing" things.



That leaves you with the problem that no non-(Shadow) Illusion spell ever has physical effects on anything, just mental effects, except for the prismatic spells that you've now moved there. If you don't want to dual-school them, you should probably at least give prismatic spells the (Shadow) subschool; that would justify the physical effects, and shadows are as much light as darkness, after all.

There are a couple of factors missing from your calculations.

1) I've already moved all spells with a casting time greater than one into a separate ritual system
2) I've consolidated reversible spells and I eliminated the animal buffs, stripping Transmutation of a lot it's false variety.

That said, you still make some good points. I've already consolidated Force and Telekinesis spells into Evocation, making it one of the more robust schools.

Let's look at the Creation sub-school.

Acid Arrow
Acid Fog
Acid Splash
Black Tentacles
Fog Cloud
Faithful Hound
Glitterdust
Grease
Incendiary Cloud
Magnificient Mansion
Obscuring Mist
Phase Door
Sleet Storm
Solid Fog
Stinking Cloud
Unseen Servant
Web

To prevent Evocation from getting too powerful with this shuffle, I'd keep the Weather spells as well as the Summoning type spells (Black Tentacles, Faithful Hound, Unseen Servant) and Phase Door in Conjuration.

If I move Acid Splash to Evocation, then I'd drop Unseen Servant back to a Cantrip and eliminate Mage Hand and Open/Close from Evocation.

Magnificent Mansion and Rope Trick are Extra-Dimensional spells, but if I eliminate the Shelter spells from Conjuration than I can bring Tiny Hut back into Evocation as the only reason I eliminated it was that it is a Force Spell and a Shelter Spell.

Acid Fog could be eliminated because Acid and Weather are now explicitly in separate schools.

Maze will have to be eliminated because it is both Extra-Dimensional and Force.

Gust of Wind and Lightning would be moved from Evocation to Conjuration because they are Weather themed.

This would still make Conjuration less robust and more tightly themed and doesn't overload Evocation too much.

I could then move Dimension Door, Teleport and Greater Teleport from Transmutation to Conjuration and eliminate Teleport Object and Refuge as they are too weak for their levels anyway.

I would then move Sequester from Abjuration to Transformation (using the Bestow Curse/Remove Curse logic AND looking at it as a lesser Temporal Stasis). This keeps Transmutation a little more robust.

I could then move Sonic spells (Shatter, Shout and Greater Shout) from Evocation to Illusion. This would enhance Illusion's power to effect the world and still keep it on theme of light and sound.

I would then have to eliminate Wail of the Banshee as it is both Death and Sonic.

These changes would make Illusion the most robust school, albeit without many powerful spells, and Transmutation one of the least robust schools, but with most of the powerful spells.

I appreciate your input.

Would it be worthwhile if I updated the first page of this thread with all of the changes?

[Caelestion]

Where would Mage Hand and Open/Close go to if they weren't Evocation? You've already said that telekinesis is evocation, after all, so you're in danger of violating your own rules, simply to maintain an arbitrary number of spells in each school.

[BlackLamb]

I'd eliminate them as spells. If Unseen Servant is a Cantrip, and it covers much the same ground as Mage Hand and Open/Close then we won't need them as Cantrips. And we can't relevel them lower 0th.

Do you have any Conjuration Cantrips that you would prefer I add instead?

[Great Dragon]

The Old Cantrips:
Hide and Present?

These can seem to be Illusion, but their description states that the item is transported to/from a location.
Which seems more Conjuration.

Willow's "Pig disappearing trick" might be the Hide Cantrip memorized at a higher level
(5e = used with a Spell Slot), in order to affect a living creature?

[BlackLamb]

The old Hide Cantrip I'm familiar with just makes something Invisible for awhile. Present is more of a limited Dimension Door so that might work

[Great Dragon]

The old Hide Cantrip I'm familiar with just makes something Invisible for awhile. Present is more of a limited Dimension Door so that might work

Sigh.
Managed to googlefu Hide, and you're correct. It's an Illusion. Causes the item to be hidden behind a 2D "invisibile" barrier.

Maybe the "reverse" of Present was just Homebrew?

Edit: To my mind, Palm (actually turns the item Invisible for a few seconds) should have been the reverse of Present since two Illusions that caused an item to "be hidden by an Illusonary effect" was not needed.

Any agreements, or it just me?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

There are a couple of factors missing from your calculations.

1) I've already moved all spells with a casting time greater than one into a separate ritual system

Ah, by "special category" I thought you meant something like a universal spell list that every class could access, so they'd still be spells with schools and such, not a separate casting system. In that case, number of spells per school isn't as important, but then you were focusing on core spells so it wasn't a huge deal anyway.

To prevent Evocation from getting too powerful with this shuffle, I'd keep the Weather spells as well as the Summoning type spells (Black Tentacles, Faithful Hound, Unseen Servant) and Phase Door in Conjuration.

Making black tentacles and the rest (Summoning) spells and phase door an (Extraplanar) spell makes a lot of sense, but the weather spells, not so much. Ice storm (create falling ice in an area) and flaming sphere (movable area of fire damage) are Evocation, so why would sleet storm (create slightly different falling ice in an area) and incendiary cloud (bigger hotter movable area of fire damage) be Conjuration?

Maze will have to be eliminated because it is both Extra-Dimensional and Force.

Eh, not really. The force portion is entirely flavor text, since physical movement through the maze does nothing and/or is impossible; a maze of stone walls would have the same effect, and incorporeal and ethereal creatures wouldn't be able to make it out any easier. It'd be better to delete the word "force" from the description, take off the descriptor, and leave it in Conjuration.

I would then have to eliminate Wail of the Banshee as it is both Death and Sonic.

Phantasmal killer sets the precedent that Illusions can kill people, so if you wanted to you could keep wail of the banshee by making it Illusion [Fear, Mind-Affecting, Sonic].

Would it be worthwhile if I updated the first page of this thread with all of the changes?

Yeah, good to have everything in one place for an overview.

[BlackLamb]

The Spell List is updated.

Let me know what you think.