Conjuration Specialization: Good idea? [Slightly rantish]

[hong]

In which case mang, er, Hong, you could play a Necromancer and give up Divination.

Behold my ability to proffer advice on stuff I know nothing about! (Of my six 3E PCs since the game's release, five have been fighter types, and the one spellcaster hasn't got past 2nd level. I am a buttkicker through-and-through, to use Robin Laws' classification scheme.)

Since a specialist wizard is only limited in terms of what opposition school she chooses, becoming a specialist is best seen less in terms of what you can do, and more as what you can't do. Of the various schools, nearly all have something to offer in powergaming terms.

So let's have a look at them. Stuff that's particularly important (IMO) will be in ALL CAPS.

- Abjuration: (nearly) all the protective stuff. SHIELD, prot. evil, prot. arrows, DISPEL MAGIC, STONESKIN, GREATER DISPELLING, MIND BLANK.

- Conjuration: summoning stuff. Mage armour, fog cloud, summon monster I-IX, web, stinking cloud, cloudkill, PLANAR BINDING, power word stun, power word blind, power word kill, GATE.

- Divination: read the DM's mind. True strike, identify, SEE INVISIBILITY, clairaudience/clairvoyance, scrying, contact other plane, TRUE SEEING, greater scrying, DISCERN LOCATION, foresight.

- Enchantment: control people. Daze, charm person, sleep, HOLD PERSON, suggestion, CHARM MONSTER, CONFUSION, lesser geas, DOMINATE PERSON, FEEBLEMIND, HOLD MONSTER, geas/quest, insanity, OTTO'S IRRESISTIBLE DANCE, DOMINATE MONSTER.

- Evocation: lotsa boom spells. MAGIC MISSILE, flaming sphere, continual flame, fireball, lightning bolt, ice storm, wall of fire, wall of ice, WALL OF FORCE, CONTINGENCY, Otiluke's freezing sphere, DELAYED BLAST FIREBALL, forcecage, meteor swarm.

- Illusion: pull the wool over people's eyes. Change self, COLOR SPRAY, silent image, blur, INVISIBILITY, minor image, mirror image, DISPLACEMENT, major image, IMPROVED INVISIBILITY, PHANTASMAL KILLER, persistent image, permanent image, programmed image, GREATER SHADOW EVOCATION, SHADOW WALK, WEIRD.

- Necromancy: kill things the direct way. Cause fear, chill touch, ghoul touch, VAMPIRIC TOUCH, ENERVATION, fear, animate dead, magic jar, circle of death, FINGER OF DEATH, CLONE, HORRID WILTING, astral projection (???), energy drain, WAIL OF THE BANSHEE.

- Transmutation: the good stuff, no sane wizard will go without this school. Burning hands, feather fall, ALTER SELF, BULL'S STRENGTH, CAT'S GRACE, ENDURANCE, darkvision, knock, ROPE TRICK, FLY, BLINK, gaseous form, GREATER MAGIC WEAPON, HASTE, SLOW, water breathing, DIMENSION DOOR, bestow curse, POLYMORPH SELF, POLYMORPH OTHER, TELEPORT, passwall, fabricate, DISINTEGRATE, flesh to stone, eyebite, MASS HASTE, TENSER'S TRANSFORMATION, PLANE SHIFT, ETHEREAL JAUNT, TELEPORT W/O ERROR, ETHEREALNESS, polymorph any object, SHAPECHANGE, TIME STOP.

So, now it's just a choice of which ALL CAPS spells we can do without.

Dropping Transmutation is clearly right out.

Necromancy has too many nifty instakill effects to drop, as does illusion, strangely enough. Illusion also has the game-breaking improved invis, and displacement to help you live longer.

Evocation actually isn't that great in terms of damage, compared to the old days. Fireballs topping out at 10d6 doesn't really cut it when monsters can have twice as many hit points as they did in 2E. But it's still got enough good stuff, in particular wall of force and contingency (which, ironically, aren't even direct-damage spells), to keep it in.

Enchantment is great for spells like hold/dominate. Not only that, it has a potent magekiller in feeblemind, and confusion and Otto's ID are always great to throw around.

Divination has plenty of good stuff, even if you don't want to short-circuit plotlines on a regular basis. See invisibility and true seeing in particular can save your butt. True strike is also a must if you want to mix it up with physical weapons or touch spells.

Abjuration is required if you want a long and healthy powergaming career. Not to mention it has two of the few absolutely-must-have spells, in dispel magic and greater dispelling (the others are fly, teleport and haste).

So that leaves Conjuration. What does it have? Its signature spells, the summon monster chain, aren't necessarily bad; being able to yank an astral deva out of your hat can't be written off. Gate and greater planar binding have the potential to be totally broken -- as written, you can get a solar to join you with greater PB -- but you have to wait a long time before you get to the good stuff. Not to mention that disturbing powerful outsiders on a regular basis will often have consequences.... Most of the other spells are either limited in their applicability or too weak to match up to the alternatives. And if you want powerful friends, there's always the Leadership feat.

Therefore, if I were to play a specialist, I would probably pick anything that allowed me the option of dropping Conjuration. This means anything other than an actual conjurer, basically. The actual choice would be a flavour and RP thing.

Of course every time you go into a town, people would beat you with a stick. Oh, wait. That already happens to you, doesn't it?

*Beats Hong with a stick.*

"No, Buttercup, don't beat me with a stick!"

 

[Angelsboi]

Umm i play a Conjurer (see my sig link) and we do JUSt fine. Theres glue (R&R), Web, Grease, Field of Razors (R&R II) and other spells from Magic of Faerun.

Trust me. Mine is all about RP and story. And she works out JUSt fine =)

Especially since we use the optional Summoning rules from Dragon ...

 

[hong]

Umm i play a Conjurer (see my sig link) and we do JUSt fine. Theres glue (R&R), Web, Grease, Field of Razors (R&R II) and other spells from Magic of Faerun.

Trust me. Mine is all about RP and story. And she works out JUSt fine =)

Oh, I'm not saying conjurers are useless. I'm basically saying that for my style of play (kick in the door, blast everything), conjuration is probably the school I could most afford to drop. If you prefer a more subtle style, then conjuration is probably right up your alley. Although walking around with a solar in tow might attract some attention....

 

[Pielorinho]

Although walking around with a solar in tow might attract some attention....

Believe me. When you gate in a solar, they get to hold the business end of the leash.

Daniel

 

[Vaxalon]

The conjurer in our game does VERY nicely, and the only change I've made is to allow elemental creatures as well as all four alignment creatures, if the wizard can speak the language in question.

 

[Wippit Guud]

Well, if you have a nice DM, work out that you can substitute different templates in place of feindish and celestial, as long as it's the same +ECL.

Then get Savage Species, and have template fun.

 

[Cassander]

I've had a conjurer in a campaign I've run and she's done ok.. just have to be creative, as others have said. You said you were looking for more options for Conjuration, so here's a link to an article I wrote for summoners: The Art of Summoning

 

[Joshua Randall]

The real reason to be a Conjurer is so you can emulate your idol, Jespo Crim. (From (contact)'s Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and Liberation of Tenh story hours.)

But seriously, Conjuration has plenty of solid combat spells - even ignoring the Summon Monster spells. You just need to be a bit more subtle than the Evoker. Instead of blasting everything, immobilize it and wear it down. Here's just a sampling of Conjuration combat spells that I saw when I glanced through the lists.

Level 0: Ray of Frost
Level 1: Grease, Mage Armor, Obscuring Mist
Level 2: Glitterdust, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web
Level 3: Flame Arrow, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud
Level 4: Evard's Black Tentacles, Solid Fog
Level 5: Cloudkill, M's Faithful Hound, Wall of Iron/Stone
Level 6: Acid Fog
Level 7: Power Word Stun
Level 8: Incendiary Cloud, Maze, Power Word Blind
Level 9: Power Word Kill

At high level you are also summoning some burly monsters, or using the Planar Ally spells. And of course who doesn't love Gate?

Conjure away, my friend.

 

[Garmorn]

I am currently running a conurer and am the power house of the party.

Frist some back ground. The DM likes to 3 or 4 monsters who CR is equal to or higher then our level he has so far keep the wealth equal to the default level. He is also what lots would call a Roll-player style DM, but is fun as he does include some story element and alternates with a story based campain.

We are using the Path of Magic, all of WotC splat books and R&R series. From that I have taken the Agumented Summing Feat mention above. From R&R 1, I have picked up 4 levels of Summoner and use only one type of dire animals for each level. But the thing that really made the different is The Magi Staff from the Path of Magic. It gave me one power that increases the number of animals summoned by 1 and increases the duration of the spell by 1 round per element (now 5) so it helped a lot at lower levels.

Because I can cast one or two summoing spells per combat the most of my remaing spells are noncombat types the help move the story (what little he has)

 

[Destil]

Conjuration is rather well balanced. It has a lot of potential, and with just a little research (as I said before, higher level energy missiles) it's very well rounded for attack, defnese, utility and 'tactics' spells (walls, for instance).