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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5634896" data-attributes="member: 20741">Whenever I see anybody on ENWorld begin to deconstruct another’s post on a “point by point” basis using selective, broken up quotes throughout, in an attempt to ostensibly address the contents of another post in a methodical fashion --  that’s a sure sign that the post I’m about to read is almost certain to be confrontational, argumentative, obnoxious and, usually, more than a little insulting.  And when it comes to your post, it would appear that my spidey senses were tingling correctly.    There is nothing “obvious” of “doublefacepalm worthy” of the suggestion that the arcane bond is the best ability the Wizard class has.  Casting spells is great, no argument. Casting any spell the wizard knows without having to first prepare it is even better, as the former is subsumed by the latter. This is the part I would add in “obviously”, except clearly, it isn’t obvious as you appear to have missed it.  I have no idea where you pluck the percentages of just how LESS often the Universalist will be using Arcane Bond than the specialist wizard.  It certainly isn’t clear what circumstances or assumptions you are making which lie at the root of this declaration – but it sounds specious to me.   Why are you starting to add up the gp value of spells at fifth level? Could it be that because if you started doing it at, say, first through third level, the mathematical argument against  trying to accumulate “every spell in the game” isn’t convincing at all?  In fact, it’s pretty doable at that stage, right? But  instead of counting up the cost of buying all the first and second level spells and even third levels spells in an attempt to “disprove” this approach to playing a Universalist Wizard, you pick as a point for your accounting departure, 5th level spells? Hmmm... interesting. It’s not as if I didn’t say it would be difficult.  You also choose as the yardstick a wealth by level in the Core Rulebook, which is intended to be a guideline for NPCs but which, in practice, is almost never actually used in Paizo’s own adventure products. PCs in Paizo’s APs will accumulate a LOT more treasure (and spells) than are noted in the “wealth by level” passage in the Core Rulebook to which you refer. So as a yardstick, this really isn’t a very meaningful or practical measurement and amounts to little more than the raw stuff for a straw man.   Your main point of contention seems to be that it would be much easier to just carry around a boatload of scrolls in a prohibited school while keeping the bonuses for a specialist wizard, too. You state that such an approach is a more optimal choice. Your point is attractive and has the appearance of being persuasive when judged in a vacuum.  But while this is persuasive if all you need to consider is the crunch of the game, such judgment is  divorced from the realities of actual play. The fact that you are proposing this suggests to me that your GM is not much concerned by your stated approach to optimizing power curves for specialist Wizards in the game. That does not make such an approach by a GM invalid, but it does, in my experience, make it uncommon.  You see, in the case of the games where I play and someone else is the GM (and in my own campaigns where I am the GM), if a player chooses a Universalist Wizard (and foregoes an extra spell slot), I’m not going to penalize him or suddenly become exacting to a fault in making sure his magic items make saving throws whenever he fails a save. And the GMs I play with won’t do it either.   But when the specialist takes the extra spell slot, and THEN attempts to get around the penalty that a specialist wizard suffers due to his arcane bond not working on prohibited schools, by instead carrying a crap load of those spells in scroll form to escape the in-game consequences of the rule? That’s when the specialist Wizard’s magic items will all be playing by the RAW to an exacting degree.  Because that’s the way I treat munchkinism in my game. And yes, make no mistake – what you are suggesting is crossing the line into munchkinsm, imo.  Carrying around a vast collection of scrolls is just asking for said scrolls to get taken out by a wayward area attack. It may be permitted under RAW, but it’s not the spirit of the game, imo. YMMV  -- and clearly does.</blockquote>

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