Why the spell cure wounds is in evocation school, and mass cure wounds is in conjuration school? According the descriptions of the schools I assume the mass cure wounds should would be also evocation, shoudn't it?
Because the D&D schools of magic don't make sense, and never have.
Novacat wrote:
Healing spells used to be Necromancy, back when they made sense. 
Huh. I suppose that Cure Wounds might involve creation of positive energy from nothing (Evocation), while Mass Cure Wounds might involve opening a conduit to the Astral to get a pile of radiant energy (Conjuration). Similar end effects, different in-universe mechanisms.
I've often felt like Shield ought to be an Evocation, in spite of being defensive, because it explicitly creates from nothing a force.
The reason D&D's magic schools don't make sense is because some of them are concerned with the end-effect of a spell, and others are concerned with how a spell achieves its effect. For example, Imprisonment is an abjuration spell, but many of its effects are described as effects that seem better suited to transmutation, evocation, or conjuration.
The fact that a spell must belong to only one school, instead of potentially many, forces some spells to not fit as neatly into their listed school.
Novacat wrote:
Regardless, in this specific instance it still does not make sense that the cure spells belong to different schools. It implies there is no standard for spells that are clearly related, or that standards are not being followed. In Pathfinder, they are both conjuration.
Uchawi wrote:
I think they have some of the schools all messed up in this edition.
Just look at the transmuter. One of his special powers is raise dead, which is a necromancy spell. That's ridiculous.
Raise/animate Dead, Healing, Regeneration, Energy drain, all that stuff should be necromancy. That's D&D tradition.
I agree that some spells should have more than one school, 2e did that and it worked out fine.
In the 2e PHB the following wizard and priest spells were necromancy. I think this list made more sense. There is an obvious theme here.
Invisibility to Undead (1st)
Aid (2nd)
Animate Dead (3rd)
Cure Blindness or Deafness (3rd)
Cure Disease (3rd)
Feign Death (3rd)
Negative Plane Protection (3rd)
Raise Dead (5th)
Regenerate (7th)
Reincarnate (7th)
Restoration (7th)
Resurrection (7th)
Chill Touch (1st)
Detect Undead (1st)
Spectral Hand (2nd)
Feign Death (3rd)
Hold Undead (3rd)
Vampiric Touch (3rd)
Contagion (4th)
Enervation (4th)
Animate Dead (5th)
Magic Jar (5th)
Summon Shadow (5th)
Death Spell (6th)
Reincarnation (6th)
Control Undead (7th)
Finger of Death (7th)
Clone (8th)
Energy Drain (9th)
Since the sidebar on spell schools mentions that in-setting, it's wizards who insist on classifying everything into the same eight schools, I just assume they have trouble with the clerical spells and different interpretations have risen to dominance over time.
So you could literally reflect the edition changes by saying that wizards in the game world USED to classify the healing spells as necromancy, but that rubbed some people the wrong way. Then the majority began to favor conjuration, presumably under the theory that the spells are creating/summoning new tissue to seal wounds. Most recently, some wizards have pushed to reclassify the spells as evocation, since they call forth positive energy to do their work. The clerics just don't care. 
Seriously, in terms of the book, I don't know why the two cure wounds spells would be of different schools. I'd say there will be errata for one of them sooner or later.
After taking another look at the spells in the PHB, most of the schools look fine.
The cure and regenerate spells simply need to be changed to necromancy. That way they fit the school description presented in the PHB. It's not a difficult change because I don't think it changes anything mechanically.
They could be a mistake but I can see a possible intent of the conjuration is much like summoning a fire elemental you are summoning energy from the Positive material plane which is released at the location of the spell. This will be how I describe it unless I see an erratta.
Deadstop wrote:
Yep, should be necromancy. I don't get why they would move away from that tradition. Also I'm assuming the difference between the two is a mistake.
Atheosis wrote:
Evocation and Conjuration are synonyms, really.
Any distinction D&D makes about which spell goes into which school is purely game-based, for balance purposes I guess.
Don't try to overthink D&D spell schools or you'll go mad!