D&D 5E Should D&D Have a 9th School of Magic (Restoration)?

[Steampunkette]

Necromancy should be spells that manipulate life and death. Not just create death and undeath.

The push to move healing magic into conjuration, and later evocation, was just to move to placate parents, and 1980s satanic panic parents in particular, to avoid any kind of moral outrage.

It was a foolish decision based in fear. Healing magic is necromancy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The elephant in the room is, of course, that magic-users aren't supposed to be able to restore damage. That's been part of the game since the earliest published editions where we had Fighting Men, Clerics, and Magic-Users, though there was the occasional workaround. If they could, well, what's the point of clerics?

Now house rules are house rules, and you can make any rule you want; the line between abjuration or alteration and evocation has been blurry on quite a few occasions (Fire Shield comes to mind) and even back in 1st ed quite a few spells were listed in 2 schools.

2nd and 3rd ed put the clerical spells (including of course healing) into spheres (2e) or domains (3e), so you didn't have to worry--healing spells were in the healing domain, along with Plant, Animal, Combat, Guardian, and whatever else you wanted to make up. It's like asking whether an orange is a car or a truck--it's an orange, it's another class of object entirely.

So can arcane casters take restoration magic as a school; if they can, what do they have to give up to get it? Evocation magic would be my first thought--no more fireball--but it's ultimately up to whatever you want to do with your game.

Or, if you dislike the cleric anyway, just let Wizards heal.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Or, if you dislike the cleric anyway, just let Wizards heal.

It would let us ban divine caster without super unbalancing the party, plus it stops necromancers from being killed every time they are seen.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sometimes I really wish the schools were skills, and described the types of effects you could do, with direct power determined with a spell level table, and indirect power level gated in the description of each Magic Skill.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Look, Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

 

[Charlaquin]

Sometimes I really wish the schools were skills, and described the types of effects you could do, with direct power determined with a spell level table, and indirect power level gated in the description of each Magic Skill.

You’re basically describing Mage: the Awakening’s magic system (sans Paradox).

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This is simple. I've always been put off by most healing spells being a part of the Evocation spell list and most spells that raise people from the dead being Necromancy magic. I know that the "8 schools of magic" is a sacred cow from previous editions of D&D, but I feel that one more that makes sense both vibes well thematically with the other schools of magic while also fixing one issue many people have with the schools of magic warrants a change like this. I'd still keep Reincarnate as a Transmutation spell, and Life Transference as Necromancy, but the rest of the bunch of healing spells and resurrection spells can be moved to a ninth school of magic: Restoration, which would be all about restoring hit points and life to creatures (basically just restoring "life essence", while Abjuration would be protecting people from losing their "life essence" in the first place).

I'm interested to see what people think of this, especially if any older-style D&D players would get on board with this. I get that many people would be hesitant (to say the least) about changing one of the parts of D&D that has been with the hobby for many editions, but I feel that this one fits well enough that people shouldn't be too hostile to the idea (right? who am I kidding? This is the internet).

Let's get discussing!

Other than just using a different word to describe a magic effect when someone is looking at it with Detect magic, what would be the actual practical effect of this change?

 

[Kobold Stew]

I have long thought that all the necromancy and healing spells should be in the same school: it's life-essence magic. It means that none of the schools is inherently based on alignment -- there are good and evil uses of each school. It also keeps the 8 schools (tradition) and for myself makes better sense.

Thematically it sets healers against (traditional) necromancers, as rivals within the same school, which I also like.

 

[Charlaquin]

The schools of magic don’t make any sense anyway. Some are defined by the nature of the magic (enchantment, illusion, etc) while others are defined by what you use the magic to do (abjuration, evocation, etc), which makes the choice of where to put some spells feeling very arbitrary.

 

[Iry]

Healing = Necromancy for me. That's one old dog that doesn't want to learn a new trick.