Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BaronDoctor
Needs incantrix, a banned class. :(
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MisterKaws
Well, with those three being the three best schools of magic, I'll leave it up to you to decide on whether I was serious or not.
Abjuration top 3, really? If your party has a cleric you can generally skip it. It's usually 4th on my list to go behind Enchantment, Necromancy, and Evocation. I'd rank Illusion higher for sure.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Psyren
Abjuration top 3, really? If your party has a cleric you can generally skip it. It's usually 4th on my list to go behind Enchantment, Necromancy, and Evocation. I'd rank Illusion higher for sure.
Well Dispel Magic/Greater/Disjunction are in it. So is Maw of Chaos/Starmantle/Energy imunity/Mind Blanc. Definitelly not a school i'd choose to ban.
My order of preferance (and Value over them) goes:
Conjuration
Transmutation
Abjuration
Divination
Necromancy
illusion
Evocation
Enchantment
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Voidstar01
Needs incantrix, a banned class. :(
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailman
The more of these you're missing, the less insane you'll be. I would say the bare minimum would be SC & 3 of the other 5 big ones.
Technically it just hampers the Metamagic-Reduction shtick, rather than making it totally not viable. A little Arcane Thesis / Easy Metamagic / Practical Metamagic will put you right, particularly with the Fast Metamagic .
Spelldancer (here) provides some neat and effective benefits.
Halruaan Elder (here) gets you Metamagic Reduction.
Mage of the Arcane order (here) costs one metamagic feat (and Arcane Preparation for qualification, but preparing spells would let one "Fast Metamagic" them by default so it's not a total loss) and gives them back, along with "There's A Spell For That" double-checking.
For more cost-reductions, try here.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Asmotherion
Well Dispel Magic/Greater/Disjunction are in it.
As I mentioned, clerics get the first two. As for the third - I happen to like loot, don't you? :smalltongue:
For the others you mentioned, I'd only really miss Mind Blank, but a Cowl of Warding or a Third Eye Conceal fixes that anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Asmotherion
My order of preferance (and Value over them) goes:
Conjuration
Transmutation
Abjuration
Divination
Necromancy
illusion
Evocation
Enchantment
Remember that you can't ban Divination, so you might as well put it at the top.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Fireball is definitely not a bad spell. It's a very efficient damage vehicle. Spell resistance and evasion pop up occasionally, but they are not common. (The latter basically only shows up on NPCs with class levels; any book-standard monsters aren't gonna have it.) That said, you should definitely also consider some less fire-dependent alternatives like Shockwave (deals 1d4/level nonlethal damage in a 20-ft. radius in Close range and dazes all enemies damaged this way; Fortitude halves damage and negates daze) and Boccob's Rolling Cloud (deals 1d6/level as a mix of fire, electricity, and untyped damage in a Close range cone, Ref half, and anyone who fails the save must pass a Fort save or be dazed).
I would definitely ban enchantment first. There are some powerful spells there, but if they don't line up with your strategy, you won't use them anyway. Next would be necromancy. It has debuffs, but you can get that with metamagic feats like Fell Drain, Fell Weaken, Fell Frighten, Entangling Spell, Blistering Spell, Spellstrike, etc. If you're not hoping to do undead minionmancy, it should be nbd. The third ban is tricky because now you have to ditch something actually good. Conjuration has most of the best battlefield control and SR: No damage spells (although there are SR: No evocations too). Illusion has strong defensive spells, invisibility-type effects, and shadow spells (but transmutation can at least compete well on the defensive category). Abjuration has a lot of strong antimagic spells, with Dispel Magic being a particularly big draw. And transmutation has a lot of buffs and debuffs and a surprising amount of just generally useful spells.
I would probably go with abjuration, provided at least one other party member can pick up the slack for Dispel Magic. If not, then illusion.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Scintillating sphere from Magic of Faerun is an electric fireball.
And, despite theory, sometimes direct damage -is- the way to go.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Endarire
Scintillating sphere from Magic of Faerun is an electric fireball.
And, despite theory, sometimes direct damage -is- the way to go.
"Dead" is the best debuff.
Delivering the Mail is the best way to apply it (they don't get saves, they don't get SR, they lose good day sir.)
Even Fireball will work better with Assay SR, True Casting, Dispel Defenses, and Searing Spell or Sanctified One of Kord to make fire damage fit even fire immune enemies.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
If you are going to be an evoker, specialize in dragon's breath (spell compendium p.73). Range is personal, and the breaths you and your familiar breath out are supernatural. Plus it has a *ton* of swift-cast buff spells that can pretty much achieve any debuff you would ever want. It's a hoot!
Just be sure you get widen spell.
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nebuul
If you are going to be an evoker, specialize in dragon's breath (spell compendium p.73). Range is personal, and the breaths you and your familiar breath out are supernatural. Plus it has a *ton* of swift-cast buff spells that can pretty much achieve any debuff you would ever want. It's a hoot!
Just be sure you get widen spell.
Dragonfire Adept looks up with a hurt expression
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
Sometimes you need to take a step back and question your assumptions.
Do you need to be a focused specialist? How much will you suffer from losing flexibility and gaining stamina? You’re having trouble picking banned schools. That tells me that you want things out of those schools. You’re going to have to give up at least one thing you care about to get focused specialist. That’s a cost. Are you truly happy with that cost? You might be, but remember that you can still be Captain Fireball as an evoker and not necessarily going FS. If you don’t want to pick a third school to lose, don’t. Just be a regular evoker. You wanted the utility flexibility anyway, which is why you picked wizard instead of sorcerer, right?
Or flip it around. Challenge assumptions about how much you’ll miss your banned schools. You’ll lose flexibility, but you’re already playing a suboptimal breed of wizard. (Still a wizard, of course.) Point is, you knew going in that you’re not going to be traditionally optimized. Is that a dealbreaker? Maybe you don’t need the utility that certain schools offer. Maybe your party can cover some of those gaps. Maybe you can make up the difference with wondrous items. Maybe you want to challenge yourself by accepting a mechanical handicap that’s harsher than is strictly optimal. It’s less effective than an optimized wizard, but it’s still way more effective than a soulknife. Maybe part of your fun this time around is figuring out how to solve wizard-level problems without the typical wizard toolbox. After all, the number of non-specialty spells the typical FS can prepare every day is limited, too. (You get more slots, but you also get fewer non-specialty slots. Noticeably so.) Will you even have the slot space for all the illusions and abjurations and conjurations you think you want? The rubber meets the road in actual play, and if you weren’t going to prepare a given utility spell instead of a boom spell anyway, you haven’t really lost anything by giving it up entirely.
As long as you’re aware of what you’re giving up and you do it with your eyes open about why you’re doing it, it’s okay to not be 100% optimal every step of the way. You can absolutely set the bar lower and still have fun. But you should be doing it intentionally.
But my ultimate point is this: if you can’t get everything you want and something’s gotta give, step back and ask why you feel like you need to cram all of these things into one build. Maybe you don’t need FS, or maybe you don’t need all the usual optimal schools because you’re leaning into FS. Think about what the character will realistically play like round by round and day by day. Wizards can theoretically do a ton, but you still only have so many slots and so many combat rounds per day. Maybe it’s not realistic to expect to do everything, and it’s okay to question your assumptions about what you “need.”
Re: What schools to ban as a focused evocation specialist wizard?
One other thing to consider is Prestiging.
The War Mage in Dragonlance's Age of Mortals pdf (which I recommend you dig up yourself, there are troves of knowledge). Costs 3 feats (but gives two blasty-oriented metamagic feats in return) and can be accessed pretty normally after level 5. +1 damage per die with spells, a bit of arcane spell failure reduction, add your Charisma to allies' AC (because how else do you get morale bonuses to AC?), and adds a good Fort save to the traditional wizard/sorcerer chassis.
If Incantatrix is banned (understandably), it's possible War Mage might not be.