[3.5e] Changes to wizard specialisation

[Jalkain]

Changes to wizard specialization: Wizards who Specialize gain +2 on Spellcraft checks when dealing with their school and have to choose 2 other schools (any two) that they will be unable to use. They cannot however choose Divination.

This scoop from Shadowstar, current holder of roytheodd's 3.5e PHB.

I assume the last bit means you can't choose Divination as a barred school, not that you can't specialise in it.

Anyway, what do people think of this? Seems to me that you could take a strong school like Transmutation, and it wouldn't cost you any more than if you took a weaker school, like Neromancy.

Might this lead to an excess of Transmuters and Evokers in 3.5e, much as used to be the case in 2e? Will we no longer see PC Diviners and Necromancers very often?

Is this a response to the release of extra spells from other publishers, which means that the original assumptions about the relative strength of different schools might no longer be valid?

My first instinct is that this rule assumes that all schools are equal, which means that either:

1. It is assumed that players own lots of splatbooks and other material, so that they have lots of extra spells from all schools to choose from.

2. The balance of schools has been changed in 3.5e to make all schools roughly the same in terms of power/spell selection

If one or the either apply, then the new rule should be balanced. If you're using core DnD only, and no siginifcant effort has been made to balance the schools, I wonder if it might not make more sense to retain the 3e rule.

Let's have your thoughts on this!

 

[Jalkain]

Hmmm, just thinking about it for a moment. A lot of the spells that have been reduced in power in 3.5e are transmutations. Buff spells, haste, disintegrate, polymorph... So that school is weaker now, while still being pretty desirable.

And there's also been talk of how evocation spells are going to be less effective, due to the higher HP monsters, so that school has arguably been toned down a bit too.

Plus, the DC bonuses from spell focus have been reduced, which primarily affects evocation, illusion, enchantment, necromancy, plus some transmutation, a few conjuration. Abjuration and divination are scarcely affected. So that looks about right.

Of the schools that contain many save spells, necromancy is perhaps the one that doesn't need weakening. But we've already seen some new necromancy spells - Waves of Fatigue and Waves of Exhaustion (yeah, I know not everyone likes them!). There might be other new spells in the PHB, added to balance out the schools.

So, a tentative conclusion is that WotC are trying to balance the schools. If they get it right, they will have killed several birds with one stone:

1. They can correct the existing problems with some transmutation spells being overpowered.

I know that while people generally are happy with changes to haste, some are less happy with other changes. Please let's not start that debate up again, and please try to look at the changes in light of the school balance issue.

2. They will reduce the problem of spells from supplements throwing out the balance of the schools.

3. If each school now has a better spell selection at each level, it provides more choice for specialist wizards, seeing as when you level up, you have to choose one spell from your specialist school when adding spells to your spellbook.



Makes for a pretty flexible system of school specialisation, apart from the fact that you must always have access to divination. The only thing I can think of is that it's pretty difficult to make divination as combat effective as the other schools, by it's nature, so they made it an exception, otherwise it creates a loophole for possible abuse. It's not as if there were that many combinations that permitted you to lose divination under 3e anyway.

Sorry this analysis is taking so long, but it quite an interesting development, and might go a long way to explaining some of the more controversial spell changes in 3.5e

 

[TiQuinn]

I think the rule change about banned schools was more for simplicity's sake, than for any game balance issues. The original restrictions weren't really complicated by any means, but they didn't fit into a nice, neat little formula either that coule be applied to all schools. I'm not sure which is better or not. As you said, there's a lot of other source material out there that can boost up Necromancy, and even Divination.

 

[Ravellion]

This discussion is pretty much going on already over here

Rav

 

[Jalkain]

This discussion is pretty much going on already over here

Rav

So I just noticed! Well, choose whichever thread you prefer, but bear in mind that the other thread is much more generic (at least going by the title). Mine is the only 100% genuine 'spell specialisation only' thread in town! Post to this thread, and you'll be granted a +2 stackable DC bonus for spells in your favoured school, and you'll receive a free Boccob's Blessed Book as well!

 

[Storm Raven]

My first instinct is that this rule assumes that all schools are equal, which means that either:

1. It is assumed that players own lots of splatbooks and other material, so that they have lots of extra spells from all schools to choose from.

2. The balance of schools has been changed in 3.5e to make all schools roughly the same in terms of power/spell selection

Or, more likely:

3. The guys doing the redesign haven't thought things through and are doing something stupid.

 

[Greybar]

I look forward to more balanced schools, so I'm hoping for #2.

Number 3 I reject as silly troll food and suggest other people do so as well.

Right now a large majority of the NPC wizards in my game are Transmuters. Now granted, that's because in my campaign world most of the NPCs that have been contacted come from a smithing point of view, but it is still hard for me to argue against others not taking Transmutation. It's so darn useful.

John

 

[bret]

Going to make it interesting to convert Diviners to 3.5.

I've run a few diviners (usually with forbidden Necromancy) mostly because I only had to give up one school that I wouldn't have used much anyways. Now that I would have to pick out a second forbidden school, I'm really not sure that extra ClairAudience and See Invisible are worth it.

Without seeing what they have done to the various spells, there really is no way of saying if this is a good change or not. I know that for me, it reduces the chances that I would ever play a specialist wizard.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Number 3 I reject as silly troll food and suggest other people do so as well.

I took #3 as a joke (quality of said joke is left as an exercise for the reader). As such, one would have to be a really silly troll to bite into it.

It looks to me like a lot more specialist wizards are going to have no access to the Necromancy school. I'd also say that you're going to see a lot more of the evoker/transmuter/conjurer crowd taking necromancer and illusion or necromancer and enchantment as banned schools. Why give up one of the big three, after all if you don't have to.

 

[Storm Raven]

I took #3 as a joke (quality of said joke is left as an exercise for the reader). As such, one would have to be a really silly troll to bite into it.

Number three was not a joke, nor a troll. There are several changes that seem to show that the redesign team hasn't rally thought through the effects of the changes they have made, and this seems like one of them.

It looks to me like a lot more specialist wizards are going to have no access to the Necromancy school. I'd also say that you're going to see a lot more of the evoker/transmuter/conjurer crowd taking necromancer and illusion or necromancer and enchantment as banned schools. Why give up one of the big three, after all if you don't have to.

I hold this portion of your post up as evidence in support of the notion that number three is a valid concern. If your supposition is correct, then the specialist wizard is now an unbalanced mechanic that favors wizards who specialize in the "big three" over other schools.