Anyone used the specialist wizard variant?

[garyh]

I accidentally allowed a druid in my campaign to take Augment Summoning without the SF: Conjuration feat. I decided to let it slide because she's a new player and correcting the issue could be confusing, and druids have NO attacking conjuration spells anyways.

 

[Lodow MoBo]

My Current character is using the Conjuration variant.

Standard Action summoning - woo hoo Makes it fun!
Improved Summoning/dc increase Extra str and con is very nice. The DC bonus will be big in the mid levels, where the bad guys will have dispels to throw around. This is very true in the campaign I'm currently in because we are also using the spell point system.

To force my commitment to conj school, I am a conj specialist no evocation or transmutation. :\ I am ribbed about this often, but my character is very successful. I do not think he would have worked without the variant.

Oh yea I picked up sf:conj and greater sf:conj
The nice thing Conj has saves of all three types covering the gamut.

 

[hero4hire]

In the current tabletop game I am in, a fellow player is using the Necromancer variant.

He traded in Summon Familiar for Create Skeletal Minion. I can see it being a bit overpowered if he was a power gamer but he isnt real familiar with the rules (despite gaming for years). But I got to say his Pet Skeleton (Gorf) came in real handy at low levels. We gave him some decent armor and a bastard sword, he was useful in the front lines (He had the highest AC) And the fact that we can send him ahead to trip off traps saved our butts once.
It was kinda lucky we were based in a city of Necromancers (Hallowfaust) so he didn't attract any attention.

 

[Chun-tzu]

So what are the variant rules for necromancers?

They can get a skeletal minion instead of a familiar.
They gain some of the undead resistances (as save bonuses) every fifth level, instead of bonus feats.
They create slightly more powerful undead (similar to Augmented Summoning) instead of the specialist's additional spells.

 

[Li Shenron]

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

If you ban non-specialist wizards, you may consider replacing them with UA's domain wizards: definitely better than non-specialists, they are effectively a different take on specialisation (more narrow and focused). You can still allow the standard specialists at the same time.