Merlion
First Post
Ok on a slightly different subject for a change.
I've been thinking about Wizard school specialization. (and before anyone says it, yes I have seen the variants in Unearthed Arcana, and they are interesting, but dont really address the things I want to address).
As it stands, when you specialize in a school of magic, you give up two schools (or one if your a Diviner) neither of which can be Divination, and you gain 1 extra spell slot each day which must be used for a spell of your school. And, now one of your 2 free spells each level, must come from that school.
Does this seem an unfair trade to anyone else? I mean theres 8 schools of wizard magic, and especially in 3.5 those schools are all pretty equal in overall number of spells, and usefulness (accept maybe for Divination, which cant be chosen as a barred school)
So basically, your losing a quarter of your spell list, in exchange for 9 spell slots, which can only be used for certain spells.
I have several possible ideas for what I feel would be more even ways to do it.
One, regardless of others, is I think a Specialist should automatically learn an extra spell of his school at each level, rather than having one of the base two have to be of the school.
Also, perhaps rather than an extra spell slot, allowing the Specialist to spontaneously cast some or all of the spells of his school might be interesting. Either all of them, or perhaps 1 chosen spell of each spell level.
And/or perhaps an increase in caster level with speciality spells.
Or give them access to spells of their school from other spell lists.
Any of these might work, alone or in combination.
Anyone have any other ideas?
I also considered the idea of having specialists wizards each be there own class, with their own spell list and features. The trouble with that is, you'd have to choose when building such a class, which spells to include or not include, which leads to the old 2nd edition problem of any given specialist losing the same spells, and figuring out well should an Illusionist loose Evocation, or maybe transmutation? Should a Necromancer loose Enchantment, or perhaps Abjuration? etc
Also, some different class abilities for specialists might be interesting. Giving them some of the UA abilities as added abilities rather than exchanges for existing ones perhaps
Anyway, thoughts, ideas?
I've been thinking about Wizard school specialization. (and before anyone says it, yes I have seen the variants in Unearthed Arcana, and they are interesting, but dont really address the things I want to address).
As it stands, when you specialize in a school of magic, you give up two schools (or one if your a Diviner) neither of which can be Divination, and you gain 1 extra spell slot each day which must be used for a spell of your school. And, now one of your 2 free spells each level, must come from that school.
Does this seem an unfair trade to anyone else? I mean theres 8 schools of wizard magic, and especially in 3.5 those schools are all pretty equal in overall number of spells, and usefulness (accept maybe for Divination, which cant be chosen as a barred school)
So basically, your losing a quarter of your spell list, in exchange for 9 spell slots, which can only be used for certain spells.
I have several possible ideas for what I feel would be more even ways to do it.
One, regardless of others, is I think a Specialist should automatically learn an extra spell of his school at each level, rather than having one of the base two have to be of the school.
Also, perhaps rather than an extra spell slot, allowing the Specialist to spontaneously cast some or all of the spells of his school might be interesting. Either all of them, or perhaps 1 chosen spell of each spell level.
And/or perhaps an increase in caster level with speciality spells.
Or give them access to spells of their school from other spell lists.
Any of these might work, alone or in combination.
Anyone have any other ideas?
I also considered the idea of having specialists wizards each be there own class, with their own spell list and features. The trouble with that is, you'd have to choose when building such a class, which spells to include or not include, which leads to the old 2nd edition problem of any given specialist losing the same spells, and figuring out well should an Illusionist loose Evocation, or maybe transmutation? Should a Necromancer loose Enchantment, or perhaps Abjuration? etc
Also, some different class abilities for specialists might be interesting. Giving them some of the UA abilities as added abilities rather than exchanges for existing ones perhaps
Anyway, thoughts, ideas?