Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5634013" data-attributes="member: 20741">Honestly, I go for a Universalist, every time. I hate school specializations for my Wizards. Here's why:Arcane Bond: This is far and away the greatest ability that a Wizard has; I'll go farther: it is the single best ability that any class gets in the game. I would argue that even Smite Evil is not as powerful in the long run as Arcane Bond. You get to spontaneously cast one free spell per day that you know. It's like having a special ability, once per day, to do any one of several hundred things. And the way I play my wizards, it really is several hundred things. I sink an INSANE amount of gold pieces into spells.  There wasn't much of a good reason to do this in the past -- as these spells would almost never come into play, and if they did, it would only be on a strategic basis (you know the reason you need the spell, you rest and prepare it).  So if you did, you did it to be a "completist",  or for role-playing purposes, or just because you thought it was "cool".Now, with Arcane Bond, there is a HUGE benefit to this and you are always Johnny-on-the-Spot with THE STOPPER. The more spells you know, the more AWESOME this ability is. It scales with the level of the character in this sense, and so it grows in power. Arcane Bond is so monstrously powerful an ability, it is TOO GOOD.If you play a specailist wizard, you permanently foreclose two entire schools of magic to you in terms of your arcane bond ability. That wipes out DOZENS and DOZENS of spells from your chance to be the Wizard with THE STOPPER.From some people, this is a trade-off they are prepared to make. To me? No. I vastly prefer the versatility of Universalist Wizards and with the Arcane Bond, this is a versatility which really does come into play.Plus, a Universalist gets to throw their weapon! If you play an elf, you  can thrown  your longsword. If you play a human wizard and take a longsword as an Heirloom weapon, you can throw that too. At lower levels this ability comes up often. Hell, even at higher levels it has its moments. Plus, it's so flavorful and spiced with badassery. I love this ability.All by way of saying: Play a Universalist, try to buy every spell in the GAME available to you and collect spells left, right and centre with a view (however difficult it may be) to getting em all. With Arcane Bond, every one of those puppies is available to you whenever you want. It is the ultimate special ability in the game. Given the MASSIVE power this puts in the Wizard's hands, there really is no other ability which comes close to it in the game. Anything which restricts that power is a sub-optimal choice in the long run, imo.</blockquote>

Verification