D&D (2024) why are spell schools and what should they be?

[Mind of tempest]

That's just the thing! Conjuration isn't the summoning school, it's the 'create stuff by pulling materials out of the planes' school. Stuff like... fire or acid.

wait what?

Sure it makes sense. When all is said and done, all arcane magic is manipulating energy in some way or another, after all. Arcane magic in the Realms is tapping into the energy and forces of the Weave and shaping them. Arcane magic in Dragonlance is pulling power from the Moons and shaping it. And so on. For divine and primal magics, you're a conduit for the power of godly or elemental/fey beings to channel through, but its the same idea. Energy moving around.

There's no need to force D&D magic into Fantasy Thermodynamics, Fantasy Laws of Motion, Fantasy Chemistry, and Fantasy Biology schools just because there's some similarities. Magic can follow its own rules.

Why would someone consider Shield and Protection from Good and Evil the same school? They both protect you. One is a shield to protect against physical attacks, one is to protect against eldritch forces, but I bet they could have the same basic spell structure - a shell of magic protecting the body and soul, attuned to "block" different types of energy: Physical force, divine and primal forces, etc. Even Dispel and Counter could be considered the same, by creating a shell that blocks energy and disrupts its spell form, rendering it null.

Why isn't there more done with spell schools? Because, lets be honest. This is a game that specializes in dungeon delving and killing monsters, all while taking loot. Not a magical academy nor a wizard research hub, Strixhaven aside. The details simply don't matter for the majority of games, and even then, some of the details change between settings, so an in depth dive into the exact science behind magic would be... kinda pointless.

a logical and thematic understanding helps build out ideas for wizards and makes it easier for the designers as they know where things belong.

you do not need science just a reason things are beyond the superficial.

 

[Mephista]

Undrave -​

Okay, if you don't find it intuitive.... What would you find that's both intuitive AND useful in play? Because if its just flavor texting and nothing to back it up, there's no point to it and will be ignored more than schools are now.

 

[Mephista]

a logical and thematic understanding helps build out ideas for wizards and makes it easier for the designers as they know where things belong.

you do not need science just a reason things are beyond the superficial.

I dunno. I'd argue that the 8 we have are rather logical and thematically appropriate. And yet designers, and players and DMs, still argue everything to death. You're always always always going to have people messing up where things belong or arguing what is what. Simple and superficial, or highly detailed and complex, doesn't matter.

Play Mage the Awakening, the World of Darkness game, sometime. The magic rules are very in depth and complex, and yet people will argue what practice and arcane category any given spell will fall under to death.

Its almost like you can't fit everything into nice neat boxes....

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

To me, it'd be better if the 3 spell lists had different school or ''category name''

The 8 schools sound very scholarly arcane magic.

Like Illusion would be an Arcane School, while a divine only ''illusion'' spell (is there any?!) would be from the Ethos of Apparition and a primal only illusion spell would be from the Mirage Source. Or something like this.

 

[Mephista]

a divine only ''illusion'' spell (is there any?!)

Silence is technically an illusion spell.

And, hey, its very scholarly arcane-like, but again... Detect Magic. The primarily use of spell schools (outside of Wizard subclasses) is as a tool for identifying and dealing with magic you find in the course of adventuring. There needs to be some standard way of analyzing divine and druidic magic as well.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Maybe you don't need to get all scientific, but I still don't think the current schools feel very intuitive from a in-universe perspective.

I mean, as far as I know Gygax invented the current schools almost entirely as flavor in AD&D 1st edition (they're not even called "schools" in the PHB, just "types"). It justified the illusionist wizard, but there were "illusion spells" very early in the game; there just wasn't a school for their spells in The Strategic Review V1 #4. Gary liked classifying elements in his game world, spell classification must have felt like a natural progression.

 

[Vaalingrade]

wait what?

Yeah, summons are conjuration because you're creating their form in our world. Summons aren't the actual being. Healing magic used to be conjuration after they decided Necromancy was the 'evil' school because you're conjuring positive energy.

Summoner, in a perfect world where we're allowed more classes, would be a class with actual thought put into it instead of a bunch of half-baked spells.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I dunno. I'd argue that the 8 we have are rather logical and thematically appropriate. And yet designers, and players and DMs, still argue everything to death. You're always always always going to have people messing up where things belong or arguing what is what. Simple and superficial, or highly detailed and complex, doesn't matter.

Play Mage the Awakening, the World of Darkness game, sometime. The magic rules are very in depth and complex, and yet people will argue what practice and arcane category any given spell will fall under to death.

Its almost like you can't fit everything into nice neat boxes....

no they are not.
abjuration is an ad hoc category.
enchantment is a work to apply magic to something not mind magic otherwise the enchanted sword is a spell and that goes nuts fast.
those are just the easy ones.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Yeah, summons are conjuration because you're creating their form in our world. Summons aren't the actual being. Healing magic used to be conjuration after they decided Necromancy was the 'evil' school because you're conjuring positive energy.

Summoner, in a perfect world where we're allowed more classes, would be a class with actual thought put into it instead of a bunch of half-baked spells.

why make a class for a sub class when you could just make the sub class better you want an endless army of wizards clone classes?

 

[Vaalingrade]

why make a class for a sub class when you could just make the sub class better you want an endless army of wizards clone classes?

Because Summoner should not be a subclass at all!

Or a Wizard!