This has probably been proposed before but bare with me here:

A wizard who is specialized in any school should honestly receive their selected school as a free focus AND arcane defense (which counts to the save cap anyway) because there's no reason not to.

A wizard who is both specialized and greater focused may treat his specialized school's spells as three levels higher for the purposes of damage, spell penetration, and duration scaling -- like Palemaster.

A wizard who is both specialized and epic focused in his chosen school, as I kinda cooked up, could totally be able to spontaneously cast any fifth circle or lower nonmetamagic spell of his school spontaneously if not slotted.



These benefits stack.

A specialist wizard may not epic focus in another school, and may (as im vanilla) not use magic items or cast spells of an opposing school.

Specialists also receive a discount when crafting wands, potions, and scrolls of their school.

Specialists always cast spells of their school which are level 1 or cantrips as though empowered. If not applicable, they will cast them as extended instead.



Now I'm just gonna duck behind a riot shield and let this roll.

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Playing: Tanar'i Shit Disturbers

That's not how the wizard spellcasting paradigme works and while they could always take feats that allow them a spell as a spell-like ability to avoid the prep stuff, spontanious conversion of a scribed wizardry spell to another is simply not how a wizard does his magic. (Mind I say wizard, BUT there is an epic feat that'd allow you to spontaniously cast spells and one in the FR setting called signature spell HOWEVER, it allows you to do it to a single spell you choose upon feat selection, and a single one only unless you grab it multiple times. So it requires immense dedication to a spell and specialization of that spell to gain spontanious spellcasting without a PRC that has an ability like that.)

Keep in mind that specialists already get one whole extra spellslot per level for specializing. The changes you're proposign are waaaay over the top.
If this was added in, there would be NO reason to not go illusionist, which looses the lowest number of "useful" spells for wizards. Or any of the spellschools that looses conjuration which I'd say is number 2 on the list due to the fact that it wouldn't bar you ingame or lorewise from grabbing one of the epic summons.

+1 Spell per level, +3 to beat SR and the 3 extra duration that comes with it (+6 in most cases given extend), +2 saves vs the school, and the ability to spontaniously cast a level 5 spell or below of your chosen school. It's way way WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over the top and as I mentioned before, here there's absolutely no reason to NOT go a specialist, buildwise. The spells you loose out on both ingame and in pnp trough RP stuff are a tiny tiny drop compared to the gains that comes with this.



Now, I don't disagree that specialist wizards could do with some extra love, but on a much much smaller scale that doesn't come with any ingame changes or updates unique to the class, because mechanical changes are followed by a myriad of balance problems.

Why not instead give them some fluff, like an emulation of the innate spell feat from the FR setting's book? Allow them a free spell like ability(but restrict it to level 0-2 or MAYBE 3 spells but then with haste omitted from that list) from their chosen spellschool with 3 uses/day. It's a bonus you get from specializing, it wouldn't require any dev work as the spell like ability widget already exists and can be requested, call it their 'signature' spell or somesuch and it's lorefriendly too (though scaled up for the power level of the setting)

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

Not feasible in the least.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

It's not really 'over the top'. I'd currently never play a specialist wizard because I'd have to lose out on either Illusion (Improved Invis -- read: the second most important spell), Divination (True Sight, Premonition, See Invis -- read: spread your cheeks for stealth builds), Conjuration (read: good luck PvMing (I'm reasonably sure that you're barred from epic summons with a specialization)), or Transmutation (Haste -- read: the most important spell in the game) -- which regardless of the scenario in question, would only gain 1 spellslot per level.

Which sounds great, until you realize: the only reasons to ever use those slots are for either spells you can no longer access (meaning going without it one rest, you have a free slot anyway); or for one extra cast in the average IGMS spam strategy (Bar slinging Bigbys spastically and conjuring a summon, the only 1v2+ PvP offense a Wizard has, contrary to belief)

vOv if blanket giving up an entire spellschool is mechanically worth 120 damage you're doing something wrong.


All things considered, there's nothing that being a specialist does mechanically that makes the gimp worth it; and nobody anywhere ever would even bother questioning you RPly because you're RPing what you have as a spell focus as 'basically the same thing'


Keep that in mind: a spell focus doesn't just exist to boost DCs. It RPly should reflect exactly the same thing you would with a specialization -- and if you're outclassed by a generalist, how can you claim to be the expert of your field?

'I'm a master necromancer' from a sorcerer with necromancy focus is equally valid as to a wizard with or without them who specialized -- so why pick the mechanically innately worse option?

Just shooting from the hip here.


EDIT: Fluff doesn't, and never has, excused objectively worse decisions on a class balance level. It's fine for feat balance because those are quintessentially as superficial as personality differences (and because there's essentially a big flashing warning sign on things like dirty fighting that say "this is bad"), but I don't believe in 'fluff' used to balance a class -- that would be like arguing PMs should be brought to their vanilla state and given new appearance options because fluff is a better way of not making normal wizards comparably irrelevant.

I'm fine talking weaker but still relevant adjustments calls though. Maybe a further bonus to the DC?

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Playing: Tanar'i Shit Disturbers

Specialists could have all spells of their school always known and be able to cast them infinity per rest and i still wouldn't pick one.

Losing any school is crippling in NWN and you can't ban necromancy. Banning a school is like selling your kidney with how nwn works, you might not miss mass haste now, but believe me, it will bite you later.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

Amen.

Seriously though. I'm pretty sure we can exercise a little freedom with how specialist wizards work -- if only with the stipulation of "can't use ____ epic spells (with all of them banning EMDs of the opposing school)"

I'll compile a list here later, but there's so many useful spells in each school that you honestly can't afford to serve as a party buffer or a damage cannon and expect to give up any 'one' school.

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Playing: Tanar'i Shit Disturbers

Pathfinder did it really well, you get your spell slot, but if you want to cast something from your opposed school (which you pick) it takes two spell slots.

But too bad it's all 100% nwn hardcoded and in order to change it you'd have to open nwn up and muck about in its innards.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

Honestly, if we ever wanted to actually do justice by Specialists IMO, we would just create our own system outside of the vanilla mechanical one. Have a notice that says "Don't actually take a specialization, we've got something of our own you can do" and it would be activated like the Domain Changer in the entry.

Maybe a script that works like the entryway one, except for a certain spell school. And in turn, a script that also gives you whatever bonuses when slotting/casting spells of your School. It's still a pretty large undertaking either way. That's 16 scripts right there, and not even counting that we might have to go into individual spells and add stuff to make it all work.

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