D&D 5E Extreme Wizard Specialization

[Ashrym]

I have one master list and classes get spells using tags. The tags are:

bard
cleric
druid
paladin
ranger
sorcerer
warlock
wizard

The PHB conveniently sorted the spells by tag for me to nake things easier. Various proposed systems aren't any different than using different tags.

 

[ClaytonCross]

It your doing a Bladesinging wizard school of X it works. Lets also remember that Elric and the majority of sources like this the wizards/sorcerers were also skilled martial fighters. Even Gandalf in Lord of the Rings used magic sparingly but then wielded a sword in combat most of the time.

School of Adjuration, School of Divination, and School of Illusion would need a multi-class or something to function. However, there rest could work as they are as ether damage or crowd control builds based on sub-class abilities and spell lists but all suffer from poor defense without Adjuration spells. I might suggest with no changes Adjuration + one other school of spells and up to 3 cantrips from a third school, then your good to go without any other tweaking. Even if you your Adjuration / Divination you can survive and once you hit level 2 you get mind spike so your not unarmed. If your just Adjuration and the 4 cantrips in any school is a little over the line but cantrips represent the lowest form of magic so while your not "skilled" in but 1 or 2 schools you have just enough to a couple of cantrips.

If you want to hold it to one school and not use Bladesinging, you have to homebrew some more cantrips because there just are not enough to even have 5 with each school and on top of that since offensive and defensive cantrips tend to be on different schools you end up short a "functional character". Not looking for optimal here you should have some defense and some offense. Even one school and your choice of cantrips solves some of both problems.

 

[Coroc]

The only way i know it was done closely to your idea officially was in 2e when you were prohibited to cast or learn or even use scrolls of the opposing school but you were not limited to your fav. school. You had lowered chances to learn spells not of your school though (and increased when they matched your school)

The big problem I do see in 5e, is that the available spells are to clustered. So specializing in a single school could give you problems, e.g. if there are some spell levels, in which only very few spells are available.

Also, not every school has all base features that the wizard uses to compensate for his lack of armor, HP and weapon skill available in a balanced way.

I rather recommend using the same methods I suggested in another recent thread: If you want some extra challenge for your wizard, introduce a nice no-magic or wild-magic zone here and there. (Dead or malfunctioning mythals, broken teleport gates, remnants of the spellplague, dimensional rifts, overlays of feywild or any strongly chaotic aligned plane, all of that works as an in game justification)

 

[Minigiant]

To really do this purely, you might have to copy some of the assumptions of my own setting that does this

1. Fully define the strength and weakness of each spell school.
2. Create new spells until you have at least 3 spells per spell level per school
3. Assume wizards of schools without attack spells resort to weapons if they adventure
4. Assume wizards of schools without defense spells resort to armor if they adventure
5. Assume wizards of schools without utility spells resort to skills if they adventure

 

[Samloyal23]

Yes. An old edition of Dragon Magazine had an article on this. They called it Path Magic. So you might have Fion the Fire-master, Arianna the Air-tamer, and so on. The 5E sorceror with its metamagic seems a good fit.

I remember that article, it was impressive. It gave some texture to spell selection.