Anyone used the specialist wizard variant?

[shilsen]

Has anybody here used the specialist wizard variants from Unearthed Arcana? Namely the ones which allow characters to give up the ability to call a familiar, the bonus feats and the bonus spells for specialization, and receive three specific abilities instead.

I plan to use it IMC, but am currently going to be running a wizard PC (my group alternates DM duties) and was planning to take the diviner specialization with these variant rules.

I liked the flavor of the rule variant and didn't notice anything which could be seriously unbalancing, but thought I'd check with the people on this board in case I missed anything.

Experiences and opinions, please?

 

[Li Shenron]

I would like to try a couple of them myself, but I haven't had the opportunity yet. IMO they are great ideas and quite balanced, although the Diviner ones IIRC are the least attractive...

 

[Jarrod]

I just started a Summoner variant. I think it's a little front-loaded, but overall pretty good.

Familiar for standard action summoning: I miss the familiar, but the SA summoning is a must. Full-round actions just scream "Hit me! Hit me!".

Scribe scroll + feats for augmented summoning + monster powers: probably too frontloaded. You get Augmented Summoning without the prereq of Spell Focus: Conjuration (umm... what is more useless? Oh, wait, SF: Abjuration On the other hand, the bennies you get for the later feat trades are kinda weak. It all balances in the end.

I didn't take the specialization track, so I can't comment.

 

[shilsen]

I would like to try a couple of them myself, but I haven't had the opportunity yet. IMO they are great ideas and quite balanced, although the Diviner ones IIRC are the least attractive...

From the POV of power, I think you're right about the diviner abilities. But then you don't choose to play a diviner if you're looking for power, anyway.

Anyone else?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Anyone else?

I think Piratecat used the standard action Summon ability recently, too.

-Hyp.

 

[coyote6]

I had a villain that used the familiar-for-standard-action-Summoning ability. It was fairly useful -- especially since we were still using 3e haste.

 

[Veritas]

The campaign world I'm designing is going to have specialist wizards being manditory, with sorcerers taking up the slack of the "generalized wizard".

 

[Mouseferatu]

The campaign world I'm designing is going to have specialist wizards being manditory, with sorcerers taking up the slack of the "generalized wizard".

Given some thought to doing that myself.

As a player, I've run both a conjurer and a necromancer using UA rules. (Well, technically my necromancer is one of the alternate necromancers from Dragon Magazine, but they're very similar in several respects). In both cases, they were a blast to play, and in neither case did I appear to be overbalanced or have any unfair advantage.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Spell Focus: Conjuration (umm... what is more useless? Oh, wait, SF: Abjuration

Ever looked at the non-Summoning spells? Grease? Acid Arrow, Glitterdust, Flame Arrow, Sepia Snake Sigil, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud?
All very nice spells.

Or maybe Fire Trap or Explosive Runes...if you really want to kill intruders...
Or Prismatic Wall, Repulsion, Banishment, Prismatic Sphere...

Okay, not many, but if you're an Abjurer, you gotta make the best of things.

 

[Pielorinho]

Heh--I was thinking about taking SF: Conjuration for my own character . So what are the variant rules for necromancers?

Daniel