No good divinations? Here's several!
You have got to be kidding me. Let's try it the powergamer way:
1) True Strike
2) Detect Thoughts (effectively Detect Enemies)
3) Clairvoyance (Spot checks for Long Range spells at 600+ ft suck. -1
to spot per 10 feet.)
4) Detect Scrying (lasts 24 hours)
5) Telepathic Bond or Quickened True Strike for your Empowered
Scorching Ray
(9th level caster) True Strike defeats all concealment
mods, so lets you autohit foes even inside the new 20% concealment
darkness spells, shoot a ray through fog, etc.
6) True Seeing is best for combat. The others have out of combat use.
7) Arcane Sight, Greater. Consider Extended True Seeing.
8) Moment of Prescience is again the best combat spell, but others are
good in other situations.
9) Foresight is both uber and the only known 9th level divination in the SRD.
Extending Moment of Prescience is minorly useful. More a Sorc thing to do.
(Sorcs with extend spell and hour/level spells simply empty out their
leftover slots after a hard day's adventure, buffing themselves and others.)
I am surprised you didn't consider metamagic, and have no use for
True Strike or Detect Thoughts.
Everyone knows about saving throw spells like fireball and taking spell
focus and crafting headbands of intellect, but a wizard's BAB often sucks,
and I tell ya, Empowered Scorching Rays are a sight to behold.
Divination is usually better in a homegame though. In Living Greyhawk,
which has a higher percentage of munchkins than homegames, (though we
have our fair share of roleplayers too) Diviners are considered the best
specialist for those who prefer versatility, though Generalist wizards have
many advocates.
Myself, I run an Abjurer 5/Elemental Savant (Fire) 2 who is always ready
to buff a party member or Dispel Magic or whatever, and generally focuses
on Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation and Transmutation. I have Illusion and
Necromancy banned, and few to no Enchantment or Divination spells. I do
just fine, having a dozen or so spells at levels 1 and 2, several 3rds and just
2 4th level spells so far. (Stoneskin and Otiluke's Sphere)
I'll soon craft a Wand of True Strike (wiz5/PrC 2 w/ 10 dex = BAB +3) for
Scorching Rays. I use my 2nd level spells for Glitterdust, Fox's Cunning and
other party buffs in the meantime, occasionally going to Flaming Sphere,
which really benefits from Fox's Cunning since it causes so many saving
throws.
I am the only vote for Abjuration in the polls so far, but I've played it in
homegames too, back when I was (2E) forced to lose transmutation and
(at the time) all the cool transportation and other spells.
I think if you have several to a dozen spells at each spell level, and some
of the "power" spells are among them, it doesn't really matter what your
specialty is.
It matters far more if you know Fox's Cunning, have taken spell focus feats
(I haven't) and/or have a PrC that boosts spell DCs (I have) if the goal is
combat superiority (as it is in Living Greyhawk).
I've seen a 7th level transmuter (with evocation and something else
banned) contribute greatly in battles though, purely by buffing the party.
As far as specialization, it's mostly a flavor thing at 7th level and later.
I did empty myself of every slot, including bonus specialty slots, in many
battles at 6th and lower level.
I think once you get to a high enough level to have lots of slots, the
Generalist Wizard is likely the most powerful, because he can craft everything,
can have False Life and Endurance up, other buffs, blast things, have
Detect Thoughts and/or See Invisible up (or permanent) etc.
The first several levels are rough without the specialty slots to fall back
on though... I suppose you could get around a lot of it merely by scribing
more scrolls.
Divination specialty is better than you think, but given a good player,
anything will work. You can only lose two schools, so if I have at least one
of [evocation, conjuration, transmutation] I can make a fine showing for
myself, even as an enchanter, illusionist or necromancer. Or Abjurer ;-)
Diirk said:
I'd have to disagree with divination. Once you get access to permanency especially, there's just no reason to keep alot of those handy low level spells like see invis, arcane sight etc memorized. Identify you don't particularly need in the middle of an adventure either.
All in all, in the style of campaign I play my picks for (core) divination spells would be like...
1st: Identify. Maybe.
2nd: None, permanencied see invis.
3rd: None, permanencied arcane sight.
4th: None usually.. scry occasionally for a particular purpose.
5th: Telepathic bond might be handy.
6th: True Seeing , good spell finally !
7th: um... nothing really great here either. Greater scrying I guess.
8th: Moment of Prescience
9th: Foresight
It doesn't seem worth it to me... compare it to something like transmutation where there's always handy spells you want memorized... enlarge person, feather fall, haste, knock, polymorph, baleful polymorph, disintegrate, flesh to stone, ethereal jaunt, reverse gravity, and basically all the 8th/9th level spells... especially time stop.
Divination probably gets alot better with splat books
