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2008-03-22, 08:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Which school would you rather drop?
I'm trying to decide between Necromancy and Illusion as schools to prohibit for specialization (already dropped evocation and enchantment). Both schools have such good spells. Necromancy has a lot of nice Rays, and Illusion has the Image spells (Major Image, Mirror Image, etc) and also invisiblity. Is it purely a question of wanting an offensive school or a defensive school? Or do people usually conside rone better than the other?
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2008-03-22, 08:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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2008-03-22, 08:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2005
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Drop necromancy like third period French.
That is, if you use illusions like a smart person.
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2008-03-22, 08:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2006
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- Oak Harbor, WA
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
People usually drop necromancy before looking at it, so I'm betting you'll get a lot of those responses, but as you've pointed out, it has some very good spells.
I think the key here is that you've dropped evocation already, so as it stands your only access to those spells (contingency *cough*) is through shadow evocation or wish/limited wish, and the former isn't as costly.
Another thing to consider is that necromancy has a lot of 'mutually assured destruction' type of spells. I'm not sure if many other DMs think of it the way I do, but the first time you finger of death (to death?) the BBEG, a world of bad things that can happen to your character opens up, many with permanent consequences. Illusion, while it may confound DMs, isn't as disastrous to characters with poor fortitude saves."It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
- Thomas Jefferson
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2008-03-22, 08:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Smart like how? :) I'm trying to learn how to play a batman (albeit not at level 20) I'm picking up Celerity, and plan on picking up Foresight and Time Stop.
Last edited by Frosty; 2008-03-22 at 08:38 PM.
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2008-03-22, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Tough choice, but I'd pick Illusion. The idea is, make a list of "must-have" spells from each school, and compare. The smaller list is the school you drop.
My list (mostly from memory and so mostly core) looks like:
Illusion
Shades - 9
Greater Shadow Evocation - 8
Greater Shadow Conjuration - 7
Mislead - 6
Greater Invisibility - 4
Greater Mirror Image (PH2) - 4
Major Image - 3
Invisibility - 2
Mirror Image - 2
Color Spray - 1
Necromancy
Energy Drain - 9
Finger of Death - 7
Enervation - 4
Ray of Exhaustion - 3
False Life - 2
Ray of Enfeeblement - 1
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2008-03-22, 09:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
I'd drop Necromancy, mostly because I prefer the flexibility that the Illusion school grants. Not to mention, since you dropped evocation, you can use Shadow Evocation and Greater Shadow Evocation if need be.
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2008-03-22, 09:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Oh, I almost forgot. Most Necromancy and Evocation spells can be imitated by Conjuration and Transmutation spells. Illusion is hard for any school to replace.
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2008-03-22, 09:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
huh? How do you imitate level drain, Ray of Exhaustion, and save or dies with conjuration and transmutation? I guess you can PaO an enemy into a kitten or something...
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2008-03-22, 09:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2005
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2008-03-22, 09:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
More like, you can cover all the enemy weak points with Conjuration+Transmutation. There's Fort save, Ref save, Will save, ranged touch, AoE, no save, save or suck, save or die, save & suck, etc. Whereas Illusion's defensive and utility spells are trickier to compensate for.
Speaking of Baleful Polymorph, Saph showed why polymorphing an enemy into a kitten isn't the best idea, in a great campaign journal. The kitten did a lot of damage to their party and was almost impossible to hit as it darted around. A tortise or salamander is probably the best option.
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2008-03-22, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2006
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Lose Illusion, lose Invisibility, lose all the image spells and lose all the versatility of being able to create a image of anything you can imagine.
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2008-03-22, 11:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Well yeah. Losing any one of these two schools kinda suck. Damn you Incantatrix class for making me lose an extra school that's not divination!
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2008-03-22, 11:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2007
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- Metro Manila, Philippines
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Unless you plan on making an undead horde (which clerics are better suited to than wizards), I'd drop necromancy. There are a couple of really good necro spells (Avasculate, Ray of Enfeeblement), but I think it's hardly enough to justify dropping Illusion's flexibility.
Granted, the Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration spells have nasty double save mitigation, but Necromancy can't top that. Illusion also has a couple of my favorite disabling and killing spells (Phantasmal Assailants and Phantasmal Killer). At low levels, there's also Legion of Sentinels, which looks like a whole lot of fun.
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2008-03-22, 11:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2004
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- I wish I knew...
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
How do you imitate save or die? It's called Disintegrate, and it comes a level sooner than Finger of Death. Even better, you don't have to get up close and personal to do it. Even earlier is Phantasmal Killer, although it does require a double-save (Will and Fort).
How do you imitate level drain? If he's a caster, it's called Feeblemind or Touch of Idiocy. Suddenly, he can't cast crap.
Ray of Exhaustion? Why bother with that when you can cast Evard's Black Tentacles to keep him occupied while you fire away at range. Or, if you MUST drop his attack rolls, Crushing Despair.
Also, with Greater Shadow Evocation, you get both Contingency *AND* Forcecage (and without the material cost!), so you can do Forcecage/Cloudkill combo on things it will work on (needs to be affected by poison, not collossal, and if it can use extra-dimensional travel, you need to toss in a Dimension Lock).SpoilerQuite possibly, the best rebuttal I have ever witnessed.
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2008-03-22, 11:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- The Land of Cleves
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
The reason everyone always drops Evocation and Enchantment in the first place is because they're not dropping Illusion. Most of the Will save-or-lose spells are in Enchantment and Illusion, so if you want those, you pretty much have to keep one of them, and Illusion (via Shadow Evocation) can duplicate the few must-have spells from Evocation (heck, a shadow Wall of Fire is almost as good as the real thing, for some purposes, even on a successful save).
Also, I've heard some debate on what exactly you lose with Incantatrix's super-specialization. There's apparently a school of debate that says that you can't learn any more spells from your dropped school, but you can still cast any you already know. Not having the book, I won't weigh in on this, but if your DM buys that interpretation, you could just make sure you already know Enervation and the other low-level goodies before you take the PrC, and lose almost nothing.Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
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2008-03-22, 11:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2008
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- Within my own Insanity
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Allow me to rattle off an anecdote. My first wizard.
I looked through the spells in the Player's Manual 3.5, and decided Necromancy would be very awesome, and that I could do away with Divination and Conjuration (I was going to be a blaster, though I didn't know it at the time).
Awhile later, I keep getting pinned to taking a Necromancy Spell at every new spell level, and it never really came in handy.
"Please {DM's Name}, please! I hate necromancy, please let me chance, I can't keep going on like this!"
He was a nice DM, and let me change. And while I don't constantly use Illusion Spells, I use them more often then I touch my necromancy spells. But again, Blaster Mage.
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2008-03-22, 11:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
The following assumes that you ban Necromancy.
You can nab the first few good Necromancy spells--at least False Life &
Ray of Enfeeblement, possibly Ray of Exhaustion if you're canny about it--before you do the Incantrix specialization (which I'm guessing you're doing at level 5). The Incantrix specifically says that any spells you knew in the banned school before specialization are still usable. If you delayed the Incantrix levels, you'd be able to pick up even more spells before specializing.
Here's the online excerpt with the Incantrix. The relevant passage is spoilered below (emphasis mine).
SpoilerSchool Specialization: Upon becoming an incantatrix, the character chooses to focus her studies on protective and metamagic, forsaking other types of spells. In effect, the incantatrix is a specialist in the school of Abjuration (gaining all the benefits of specializing in a school), and the incantatrix must choose an additional prohibited school or schools using the rules on page 54 of the Player's Handbook (although an incantatrix can never choose Transmutation as an opposed school). The incantatrix can never again learn spells from that prohibited school or schools. She can still use the prohibited spells she knew prior to becoming an incantatrix, including using items that are activated by spell completion or spell trigger. If the incantatrix already is a wizard specialized in Abjuration, she does not need to choose another prohibited school. A bard or sorcerer who becomes an incantatrix must still choose a prohibited school to gain the benefits of specialization.Last edited by Chronicled; 2008-03-22 at 11:31 PM.
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2008-03-22, 11:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- *stab*
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
One could argue that if you scribed Necromancy spells that you couldn't cast, ie, high level ones, into your spellbook, you "knew" them before specializing further, and would be still able to cast them.
The DM will most likely smack you upside the head if you did this, however.
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2008-03-22, 11:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2004
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- I wish I knew...
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Then delay to 7th level and get Enervation. That's about the last 'must have' Necro spell out there. Replace Finger of Death with Disentegrate. Metamagic'd Enervation mimics Energy Drain. Nothing else in Necromancy really worth it.
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2008-03-22, 11:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2006
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- Akron
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
@ necromancy anecdote: You can't give up divination, I thought.
Last edited by Maerok; 2008-03-22 at 11:29 PM.
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2008-03-22, 11:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Singapore
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Necromancy has several powerful effects, but I'd say that illusion (especially with shadow evocation) has many more things you just won't be able to do without it. Necromancy mainly just has powerful ways of killing / weakening things, which you have other options for. So I'd say drop necromancy.
Obviously, grab enervation if you can.Last edited by Aquillion; 2008-03-22 at 11:37 PM.
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2008-03-22, 11:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
I don't see anywhere in the Incantatrix that says you can still cast spells from before you entered the school. Can you give me a page numbe rin PgtF for that?
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2008-03-22, 11:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Last edited by Chronicled; 2008-03-22 at 11:36 PM.
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2008-03-22, 11:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2008
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- Within my own Insanity
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
My DM loves house rules. It's possible that RAW don't allow you to, but my DM suggests that Divination was not allowed to be barred in 3.0, but it became allowed to be disallowed in 3.5. I'll go look it up through.
EDIT:
I was wrong. Divination is still considered too weak (or maybe something else) to give up, and if you pick it as your specialty, you only have to give up one other school. It doesn't really make sense on a intra-game level to me, but it makes a lot of sense on a meta-game level.
I guess I'll have to thank my DM for allowing that with his House Rules, then.Last edited by drengnikrafe; 2008-03-22 at 11:38 PM.
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2008-03-22, 11:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Singapore
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
The wizard must choose whether to specialize and, if she does so, choose her specialty at 1st level. At this time, she must also give up two other schools of magic (unless she chooses to specialize in divination; see below), which become her prohibited schools.
A wizard can never give up divination to fulfill this requirement.
(Of course, the exact effect making you ban the school might say otherwise -- I don't have Incantrix in front of me, maybe that lets you ban divination.)Last edited by Aquillion; 2008-03-22 at 11:39 PM.
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2008-03-22, 11:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
That's the 3.0 Incantatrix, Chonicled. I'm using the 3.5 version, which has no such text AFAIK.
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2008-03-23, 12:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
Re: Which school would you rather drop?
Today's just not my day... that's not the first mistake I've made. Yeesh.
Yeah, the PGtF Incantrix isn't very clear about that sort of thing. I'd show your DM the MoF version along with it, and try convincing him that was what they meant.
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2008-03-23, 12:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2007
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2008-03-23, 12:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- The Land of Cleves
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Re: Which school would you rather drop?
I was wrong. Divination is still considered too weak (or maybe something else) to give upTime travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
Chronos's Unalliterative Skillmonkey Guide
Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics