AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Wizard Specialization; What schools prohibits the other?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorce ... ialization

Hey. I need some help trying to track down what schools prohibits the other?
This - http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_school - Is dead wrong at least.

Do you mean in PnP, or in NWN?

In PnP, you choose what your prohibited schools are. They aren't decided for you.

In NWN, the prohibited school is selected for you, and that list should be accurate.

The NWN wiki link is exactly what you'll find in terms of prohibitions if you go in game and investigate during character creation with a wizard. So like Letum said, that list is accurate.

LetumLux wrote:

Do you mean in PnP, or in NWN?

In PnP, you choose what your prohibited schools are. They aren't decided for you.

In NWN, the prohibited school is selected for you, and that list should be accurate.

I ment PnP

And whaaaaat? You choose a school?

What about amia then? Can i be an illusionist and claim my prohibited school is ...Divination?

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.

So, technically... no.

In PnP you have prohibited schools, at least two, not just one. If you go into certain PrCs (such as the Incanatrix, and the Red Wizard of Thay) you choose additional prohibited schools, on top of the ones you already have for being a Specialist.

Unless you play Pathfinder, in which case you take "prohibited" schools but can still learn, prepare and cast those spells (it's just twice as hard).

In case you, or anyone else for that matter, does not have access to the Players Handbook, Wizard Specialization is as follows:

Each specialist must choose a prohibited school.

Abjuration Specialist: (1) Either Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, or Transmutation. Or (2) both Divination and Necromancy.

Conjuration Specialist: (1) Evocation. (2) any two of; Abjuration, Enchantment, and Illusion. (3) Transmutation. Or (4) any three schools.

Divination Specialist: Any single school.

Enchantment Specialist: (1) Either Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Illusion, or Transmutation. (2) Both Divination and Necromancy.

Evocation Specialist: (1) Conjuration. (2) Any two of Abjuration, Enchantment, or Illusion. (3) Transmutation. (4) Any three schools.

Illusion Specialist: (1) Either Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, or Transmutation. (2) Both Divination and Necromancy.

Necromancy Specialist: (1) Any other single school.

Transmutation Specialist: (1) Conjuration. (2) Evocation. (3) Any two of Abjuration, Enchantment, or Illusion. (4) Any three schools.

Those are Third Edition rules, Bravo. They were overwritten in 3.5 Edition, so that specialists now just need to pick any two schools other than Divination as their prohibited schools.

Lizzie wrote:

Those are Third Edition rules, Bravo. They were overwritten in 3.5 Edition, so that specialists now just need to pick any two schools other than Divination as their prohibited schools.

And diviners pick one. But that's PnP.

I need a ruling from the DM's.

Can i claim to be a specialized Diviner, and say that Transmutation is my prohibited school, or am i forever bound to biowares rules?

Bound by Bioware. Sorry. (Irks me too, trust me)

Lizzie wrote:

Those are Third Edition rules, Bravo. They were overwritten in 3.5 Edition, so that specialists now just need to pick any two schools other than Divination as their prohibited schools.

Change is bad. I therefor invoke my right to totally reject your reality and maintain my own slightly outdated one for the sake of simplicity. And I'm still boycotting Wizards for trying to fool me into buying three times as many manuals for twice the price of the ones printed only six months before. And, since I went to all the trouble of finding real foil made of tin, I'm putting my hat on. La, la, la, la, la, la........

Besides, next time he can ask a more specific question pertaining to exactly what system and version he's referring to. It's totally up to him what information he uses in his campaigns.

And now eeeeeveryone knows why generalists overpopulate.

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Spellschools.2da

Looks changeable to me?

NinjaClarinet wrote:

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Spellschools.2da

Looks changeable to me?

Looks possible to change specific opposing schools but not to implement the free choice thing. Not that I understand anything about NWN scripting; maybe you could have a changer in game.

Not free choice, no, but you could redistribute the opposed schools so there isn't the silly overlapping going on where half the schools all oppose the same school.

And give free rebuilds to every specialized wizard? I wouldn't mind Conjuration opposing Necromancy or Transmutation opposing Abjuration, but that really screws over established characters whose specialization might be integral to their RP and don't even want to rebuild out of it.

Abjuration vs Conjuration
Divination vs Illusion
Transmutation vs Evocation
Necromancy vs Enchantment

It's been suggested in the back rooms a few weeks ago with a few possible alternatives. Can't happen until a HAK update but it is quite possible.

The only way any of it becomes viable though is with the addition of new spells to those that seriously lack spells and spells currently attributed to the wrong schools, being edited into the correct schools.

If you seriously want to do it, I'd suggest a way to do it the 'right way' (i.e. that is, school selection, with divination being un-bannable) or to leave it as it is. Unless there's a methodology behind the currently suggested pairs? I can sort of see one, but I'm interested as to what the present logic is.

Curious, was there a logic behind Divination being an unbannable school in PnP? Were they just assuming that every wizard had to learn how to scry or divine by some measure?

Pretty sure it was a throw-back to AD&D 2E. All wizards could learn what was considered 'Lesser Divination,' because Read Magic was essential to learning spells way back when. And thus every wizard had, at least, a small command of divination magic.

I think it was also a matter of balancing mechanics, of Divination being thought of as the "weakest" School for most campaigns, which are more like to demand explosions or mind control to beat, so taking Divination as a prohibited School wasn't considered enough of a sacrifice.

Which I also don't agree with at all, I think Divination is awesome and incredibly useful, but that's an explanation that I have heard before.

LetumLux wrote:

I think it was also a matter of balancing mechanics, of Divination being thought of as the "weakest" School for most campaigns, which are more like to demand explosions or mind control to beat, so taking Divination as a prohibited School wasn't considered enough of a sacrifice.

Which I also don't agree with at all, I think Divination is awesome and incredibly useful, but that's an explanation that I have heard before.

Divination is cool but doesn't really do much in NWN:

3 spells in 6-9:
-one defensive spell: premonition (great defensive spell)
-two offensive spells: power words kill (no dc; doesnt work if they have 100< health) and stun (no dc; doesnt work if they have 150< health)

1-5
all spells but feeblemind are easily found in potions/scrolls/trinkets
a maximized feeblemind can easily make a wizard's int 0, but only if they roll a 1

So what you have in NWN is a single spell that can be replaced with stoneskin.

Last edited by LetumLux on Thu, Feb 28 2013, 22:47 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Divination isn't supposed to be a very useful School for offensive magic. That isn't its niche. It having Power Word, Stun/Kill and Feeblemind is ridiculous. It's like a pity lay, and they should have stayed Enchantments. If people are looking to blast things with Divination, they're looking at the School wrong. It's about utility, and oh, I don't know, seeing and knowing everything. In Single Player NWN, sure that doesn't have much use outside of True Seeing and Premonition, but on RP servers we're playing a dynamic rather than railroaded story where Divination can really stretch out, as long as people aren't skittish about PnP spells.

Discern Location, Greater Scrying. There's a reason Div is kinda the most powerful school in P&P.

Also trying to do spell research without even basic div is the worst thing ever argh (a fun challenge but so is gnawing your own leg off before running a marathon, do not do).

LetumLux wrote:

Divination isn't supposed to be a very useful School for offensive magic. That isn't its niche. It having Power Word, Stun/Kill and Feeblemind is ridiculous. It's like a pity lay, and they should have stayed Enchantments. If people are looking to blast things with Divination, they're looking at the School wrong. It's about utility, and oh, I don't know, seeing and knowing everything. In Single Player NWN, sure that doesn't have much use outside of True Seeing and Premonition, but on RP servers we're playing a dynamic rather than railroaded story where Divination can really stretch out, as long as people aren't skittish about PnP spells.

Was explaining why it was bad in NWN and why it wouldn't make balance sense to have it as a selectable ban.

Quote:

There's a reason Div is kinda the most powerful school in P&P.

So wrong

conjuration, evocation, transmutation

not even up for argument.

Divine goal, end adventure, end argument.

just because you know where something is doesn't mean the adventure is done

this assumes that the spell works perfectly accurately with no interference

you're wrong, sorry, this has been figured out for years by people far smarter than both of us about the system

Evo/Conj/Trans are the best schools.

Isn't the whole idea of a "best school" kind of silly? I mean... best for what? In what context? If your DM is running a murder mystery, I imagine divination would be pretty kickass. In a dungeoncrawl, go with conjuration. On a battlefield, evocation. Blah blah blah. "Best" doesn't exist.

Any wizard memorizing DPS evocations in PnP is doing it wrong.

Lizzie wrote:

Isn't the whole idea of a "best school" kind of silly? I mean... best for what? In what context? If your DM is running a murder mystery, I imagine divination would be pretty kickass. In a dungeoncrawl, go with conjuration. On a battlefield, evocation. Blah blah blah. "Best" doesn't exist.

It does, though. There's a reason people commonly ban things like Enchantment and Necromancy, or in a pinch Illusion. You lose far less for banning them.

Quote:

Any wizard memorizing DPS evocations in PnP is doing it wrong.

That's not what you're using your Evocations for, generally.

My understanding is that conjuration is the best school, in PnP. The fact that you can cast spells that ignore spell resistance, or spells which can be targeted to any saves will/fort/reflex thus making the best school for controling battlefield. Also walls you can create and summon you can summon. Plus teleportation.

But I love to have useless spells with fun as the main objective, englarge person for example. My DM just facepalms as I choose entirely wrong spells as sorcerer. Whops?

The School of Abjuration wrote:

(Re) Best School Argument:

lol no

Wizard Specialization; What schools prohibits the other?

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