I was wondering if anyone had put some thought into this from a practical perspective rather than just flavor.
Considering that there are no longer forbidden schools, and that specialization doesn't give you more spells per day of your school, or more spells prepared of your school, I think this question is less a matter of looking at the spells themselves and more a matter of comparing the class feature benefits of the various specializations. Not that I've really done that, yet, though...
DateOfLies wrote:
considering that Disintegrate is one of the most powerfull single target spell in the book (10d6+40 damage+3d6 per extra level and instant kill if the target HP reach 0 VS dex save) is transmutation, anything that would make that spell more powerfull would be make it very good.
an other very powerfull spell when used correctly is Haste which also is transmutation
Time stop is also transmutation.
If you prefer AoE explosion, then Evocation would be very good for you specially with Magic missle (adding +5 on every darts...)
malisteen wrote:
I'm going with "Hogwart's".
Simply, Shield spell gives "THP" to abdjurers. Nice. =)
Ashrym wrote:
Hyphen_ wrote:
Conjuration, no contest. 2nd llevel class feature OP
Summon 10 pounds of the sun, or lava or hypercompressed air, plutonium, etc. Use divinations for extra cheese.
Also free spell components. Just summon a ruby or a diamond or whatever. This also means free Contingencies later on, and that just rocks.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
malisteen wrote:
Hyphen_ wrote:
Hyphen_ wrote:
Overpromises wrote:
NN1 wrote:
Hyphen_ wrote:
reddaemon wrote:
The most 'best' school is Evocation, no contest.
IgnatiusJ.Reilly wrote:
The "best" one is situational, and depends on what kinds of challenges your DM throws at you. And since many/most DMs tune the encounters to the strengths and weaknesses of the team, there is no "best".
Play the school sounds the most fun to you.
Me? Divination and Enchantment sound fun.
Conjuration from 2nd level ability is visibly magical. Hence anyone who could afford a 10 lb gem should know that visible magic might be awesome power... or a silly wizard trick!
Is a ball of gas an object? Probably not... and itd expand instantly to beyond 3 feet. but a telescope? Id be ok with if they exist.
I dont think you can add physical adjectives to items when you conjure them :) or atleast its up to DM choice. I summon a 10 lb ball of metal at 100000degrees is a stretch.
Regardless... at the conjuratuon wizard school, I imagine a whole museum of 10lb or less items, less than 3 feet wide. The conjurer students can walk the halls and see a whole myriad of useful items to conjure :)
Coils of razor wire... telescopes... a million different keys of different shapes. An adamantium chain link coif. An aluminum hat to avoid mind control. A 3 foot mirror to fight gaze attackers.
All the schools have their places, but that doesn't mean we can't analyse the schools to assess situations where a school will perform particularily well or make recommendations for players based on their personal playstyle, what they expect from the Dungeon Master, and what the rules allow.
As a trend, most of the schools offer a few key benefits:
- The ability to scribe spells of your school for half the cost and time. This is actually a measurable benefit, since currently some spell schools are larger than others. Conjuration and transmutation, unsurprisingly, have the most options so you're most likely to get better milage out of this ability with these specializations.
- A raw throughput-enchancing ability that enchances spells cast from your school, or a rechargable defensive benefit related to your school.
- A utility perk that is deliberately difficult to use effectively in combat, but might be useful in a problem-solving capacitity
Abjuration is particularily defensive with a special focus on shutting down enemy spellcasters (quite hard, I might add. Arcane Ward is basically regenerating THP and it will help your concentration (by taking damage for you instead, so the attack doens't trigger the check) Counterspell is a very potent reaction without the abjuration buff, which kicks it into overdrive in terms of efficiency. Spell resistance is just tasty, though. A party with solid antimagic already, such as a Cleric or Paladin (especially one with the Oath of Ancients) can probably leave the abjurer at home, however.
Conjuration is literally a grab-bag. If you're creative, you will find tons of things to do with the 2nd level power. Benign Transposition, combined with Misty Step, will let you play chessmaster with the battlefield and will be very effective for grid-combat. The 10th level ability is a clear winner and "solves" your concentration problem completely, so it's really, really good in a game without feats where you can't get War Caster and Resilient. We've seen some of the CR 5 elementals you'll be able to summon with Conjure Elemental, and they are plenty sturdy without +30 HP... but wait until you conjure 24 minor elementals and put and extra 720 hit points worth of bounded accuracy on the board. Ouch. Overall an amazing school, especially for high level games with lots of problem solving and tactical combat.
Divination. I'm honestly not a fan of this school at all, if for no other reason than the Lucky feat does half of what the school does already, and most of its other powers can be replicated with spells. It's cool that you can force a failed saving throw on a creature though, so this could make Divination amazing if we see some especially effective save-or-die spells. Expert Divination makes divination spells somewhat worth casting, but in pratical play it's hard to use because you usuallly want to cast your divinations first, so I can see quite a few situations where you don't have spell slots expended you can recover.
Enchantment. Instinctive Charm is a great defensive benefit and will get a LOT of milage throughout your career to divert away ranged attacks, but it does compete with Shield in this respect. Split Enchantment, however, is amazing, because it doubles the effected targets of some of the best high level spells in the game, like Hold Monster, Otto's Dance, Power Word Stun, Feeblemind, and Power Word kill. This is the only school that confers such a strong benefit to your high level spells. If your campaign is going over 10th level and you can shore up your concentration with feats, I'd say it's the obvious pick.
Every evocation perk is related to damage-dealing spells -- but you're probably here for Empowered Evocations and Overchannel, so we should be on the lookout for good evocation spells that get great milage out of its benefits, like Magic Missile and Bigby's Hand. Combat ultility comes from Sculpt Spells, though potent cantrip is a little disappointing right now. If your party lacks for a good souce of damage, Evocation is probably a solid pick.
Illusion, predicably, boosts your illusions. We get an extra cantrip out of the deal early on, and a solid defensive ability, but one that's only useable once per rest and comes online a little too late for me. Illusion's 14th level power is really cool, but at this level it feels like it should have come online sooner. I just feel Illusion doesn't do enough soon enough to make it worth taking, but it certainly opens the door for a lot of creativity... but not much more than you can accomplish with the illusion spells already.
Necromancy, like Conjuration, takes your creature making into overdrive with Animate Dead... which is awesome in an evil campaign but probably won't sail for most games. Grim Harvest and Inured to Undeath will come up enough to be moderately useful. If you can't make good use of Animate Dead in your party, skip this one.
Transmutation. Again, a creative utility power starts us off. Transmutation is pretty generic, giving us a few useful buffs that just make you better at what you do already. Like Divination, most of what's here can be replicated with feats and spells already, so it's much better in a featless game as the most direct path to proficiency in Con saves. The 14th level abilities are really unique for Wizard powers. I think it's strictly worse than Conjuration, personally.
So for me, the top picks are Conjuration and Enchantment. I give strong marks to Abjuration and Evocation for being practical and simple in their application, however. I think there is solid potential in the rest, but they lack the raw throughput-enchancing abilities of the other schools (or in the case of Necromancy, have this ability locked up in evil spells)
Nice post
hyphen_ wrote:
Furion_Thamior wrote:
I vote for illusion. The illusion you create is actually observed by all who see it, it doesn't need to pass through an ability saving throw. If the DM wants the creatures to treat it as an illusion they must spend an action doing an investigation check (INT). Perhaps one creature finding it's an illusion would be observed by others, but clever illusions can avoid that. I'm betting monsters won't be proficcient in investigation, but rather perception. The daring monster will likely fail their skill check and this will reinforce the illusion. The cantrip doesn't require concentration (lasts 1 minute), and the illusion school lets you have both sound and visuals. a 5' square limitation still allows for quite a bit of freedom.
NN1 wrote:
One other use for minor conjuration would be to conjure a 3 foot box of air if you are trapped in a sealed room and unable to breathe. This could be done repeatedly to provide air for your whole party if necessary. You could probably do something similar to breathe underwater as well. Maybe a tank with a breathing mask, to pass around? Just a couple ideas. I really like that this is just an action, with charges or number of uses. It makes some pretty broken possibilities if your DM is reasonable.
Gentlemen, gentlemen. Please. I know I myself advocated Transmutation previously but I was --- what's the phrase I'm looking for? --- temporarily less than fully correct.
May I direct your attention to the Enchanter's Hypnotic Gaze:
1. Wizard delays until right before monster's initiative, steps up to it and compliments it on the delightful bouquet of puss and swampwater that it's wearing tonight.
2. On its action, monster blinks twice and coos in presapient Growlese, why yes, I knew this evening would be a special occasion. Four-course dinners are such a treat!
3. The "appetizer," "entree," and "desert" treat monster like a giant piñata. (The enchanter wizard is of course the cheese plate.)
4. Wizards declares, oh my how rude of them. Now where were we?
Rinse and repeat. You can spam that thing all day until a given target makes a Wisdom save, and there's plenty of monsters rocking a mighty +0 Wisdom. IIRC they don't have to speak your language, or any language. Single-target lockdown, ranging from 60% effective per round at level 1 to 90% effective per round at level 20.
Hypnotic Gaze. Everything else is fighting for second place.
Portent from Divination is amazing.
Roll a 20, and you get to replace a sticky roll with a near guaranteed result.
Roll a 1 and you force your enemy to use that as thier saving through for your Save or Die spell you just cast on them.
GentlemanLoser wrote:
Not the best results, but still sometimes being able to 'take 10' is good enough. ;)
Save them for Death checks maybe. 11's for friends, 10's for enemies.
I'm surprised more folks don't say evocation. Many of the schools have snazzy abilities, but overchannel is just absurd with the kind of damage that can be accomplished with it. It's not just a once a day thing either, With many of the spells a wizard will have at higher level it generally makes complete sense to accept the damage you take from continuing to overchannel and keep hurling max damage spells...
meteor swarm = 120-240 dmg to many targets..0 damage to self
disintegrate cast as an 8th lv spell = 60-121 damage to 1 target...average 13 damage to self
disintegrate cast as a 7th lv spell = 55-110 damage to 1 target...average 19-20 damage to self
disintegrate cast as a 7th lv spell again = 55-110 damage to 1 target...average 26 damage to self
disintegrate = 50-100 damage to 1 target...average 32-33 damage to self
disintegrate = 50-100 damage to 1 target...average 39 damage to self
Aften overchannelling about 6 times we finally reach the point where the spells we have left can't do enough damage to equitibly make sense relative to the damage we're taking. We're already dumped every spell slot 6th level and higher at this point however! Even the Sorc can't match firepower of this magnitude!
Of course, we have taken a fair amount of damage ourselves, equaling 130 points on average in those 6 rounds. Even were this 3.5, that would be alot, but in 5th edition with wizards getting the D6 die among other available buffs, it isn't unusual for a wizard to reach 20th level with close to 200 hitpoints! Clearly, the overchannelling wizard could well come under attacks that drain his hitpoints and he won't be able to just hurl ridiculousness with impunity, but simply looking at the damage that is possible is simply staggering.
Edit: ok ,also worth thinking about I suppose is that I shouldn't be looking at this as the average daamge taken relative to the damage dealth, but the average damage taken relative to the extra damage done above the average, so I guess we may wish to cut off our overchannel castings sooner than I mentioned above...
The level 2 Conjuration ability is really hard to argue with, at least in the exploration pillar. The possibilities are nigh endless.
Ashrym wrote:
Huntsman57 - You are using Overchannel wrongly. You aren't allowed to use it on spells that are above level 5. No wonder you think it's such a good ability.
Evocation. You simply can't beat the combat utility of dropping Fireballs and Cones of Cold right on your party and not carying at all.
Also, Overchannel + Empowered Evocation = Level 5 Scorching Ray all hiting to do 102 Fire damage in a round. Combine that with MMM for some more fun.
Empowered Evocation + Magic Missile is just a great minigun.
Abjuration is the best school because Arcane Ward takes damage INSTEAD of you, so if the damage doesn't pierce the shield you don't have to make a concentration check. Abjuration is circumstantially the best if your campaign involves a lot of npc and monster casters because of the proficiency bonus to counterspell and magic resistance.
Conjuration is the best at high levels because you become immune to concentration checks while conjuring, eliminating the need for the Warcaster Feat or Constitution proficiency. They are the best because their summons will have the most HP of other classes. They also get an extra spell slot for teleportation.
Divination is the best because Portent means that on average every other day you're guaranteed to land a saving throw based spell, and you will often have good odds on your own saving throws. Divination is also the best for Humans that just need Dark Vision so you're not alerting every creature where you are with your light spells, and circumstantially the best for if your DM employs a lot of invisible creatures.
Enchantment is the best past level 10 because twinning Otto's Iressistable Dance is extremely powerful. Enchantment is also circumstantially the best if you are playing a social campaign because after level 14 you can charm all you want with zero consequences.
Evocation is the best because you don't have to aim your AOE spells and once per day you can do some nice burst damage at no cost to yourself. Evocation is circumstantially the best if your party lacks damage and you still insist on playing a Wizard instead of Sorcerer or Warlock.
Illusion is the best because you can alter your illusions on the fly which completely breaks spells like Mirage Arcane since you create a mile area funhouse for your enemies. Illusion is also the best because you can summon utility with your illusions since you can make them real.
Necromancy is the best because it will help you maintain your army of undead and substantially increase the damage they deal - this is good because unlike conjuration, necromancy doesn't require concentration. Necromancy is the best at high levels because you can turn any undead with an intelligence of 11 or lower into your permanent pet, things like a Beholder Zombie or a feebleminded Dracolich.
Transmutation is the best because you can give yourself proficiency in Constitution saves for Concentration Checks, or Dark Vision if you're human, or Resistance to an element before you fight a dragon. At high levels you can duplicate some divine spells without multiclassing.
So yeah, the best school is super obvious.
MechaPilot .... Sept 18 2014
Rigol ............. April 30 2015
OnionDruid ... "Necromancy"
Isn't it ironic don't cha think
A little too ironic I really do think
awaken_D_M_golem wrote:
Dis thread be Necro'd yo.
KaptainKrunch wrote:
OnionDruid wrote:
awaken_D_M_golem wrote:
??
I'd think having a thread be necro'd and then
the very next post being unironically about necro-ing,
that the combo would be the definition of ironic.
However irony does allow an ironic definition of itself.
Call it meta-irony.
KaptainKrunch wrote:
Kentor_Slowhand_02 wrote:
I've been having a ton of fun with my Lucky, Divination Wizard. Here are some highlights of what has happened so far.
Gave the rogue an auto-crit when a guard spotted us. Had one chance before he allerted the next room.
Locked down the BBEG in a fight we were supposed to lose with Tasha's hideous laughter for 2 full rounds. This won an encounter we were supposed to lose.
Advised multiple NPC's with some of my good rolls that I wasn't going to use like a travelling merchant negotiating a sale price for his wares.
We negotiated an awesome price for some loot selling.
Even average rolls in the 10-12 range are good for things. You can usually cause auto-hits for high-attack characters or auto-misses versus high AC/party members.
Lucky + Portent seems extra powerful during travel time or overland encounters. But that's true for most Long Rest abilities I suppose.
During town stays when time isn't a factor, you can wait until your Portent is favorable to go through with some plans. Don't like your rolls? Wait a day. Hmmm, I don't think I'll try my investigation just yet. I think I'll run errands and hang out at the bar. Maybe tomorrow...
- Eck
The problem I have found with the Transmutation school is that the 10th level ability, Shapechanger, gives you the ability to transform into a beast of CR 1 or lower, but does not state that you retain your mental statistics, unlike other similar class abilities (e.g. a druid's wild shape), which explicitly state that you do. So... aside from getting polymorph in your book, assuming you hadn't learned it already, the main point of Shapechanger seems to be to turn into a small animal at 10th level and forget that you're a wizard because at best you'll probably have an Int of 3 >_>
Quillblade wrote:
While it's not officially a school i think being an Apprentice of the White Council could be fu-
Oh wait, D&D Schools.
I've always wanted to try a Transmutation Wizard personally.
Combat Wise you've got Disentigrate at High Levels and the things you can do utility wise is pretty fantastic too. Turn a suit of plate Armor into wood and set it on fire, then laugh at the man inside or hide all of your gold as wooden chips from thieves. Reinforce a Wooden Gate into a solid Iron Wall against an attack/seige. And we aren't even getting into the Transmutation stones and other fun spells.