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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8953875" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Well, here's the thing.  Spell schools are mostly arbitrary.  Several spells have changed schools over the years for various reasons, and sometimes you really have to squint to understand why.Like in 2e, Burning Hands and Color Spray were Alteration.  Why?  No idea.  So was Teleport.  Cure Light Wounds was Necromancy.In 3e, Cure Light Wounds and Teleport were sorted into Conjuration.  Fear, amusingly, became a Necromancy thing.  Why?  Uh...Necromancy bad, I guess?Now in 5e, Cure Light Wounds is an Evocation.  But in the One playtest, it's Abjuration.Speaking of Abjuration, you'd think that'd be the school with all the defensive spells, but Mage Armor (or Armor) was Conjuration in 2e and 3e, and Shield was an Evocation in 2e, not being properly sorted into Abjuration until 3e!  So what are spell schools, really?  Are they descriptions for how the spells work, or what the spells do?  It's flip-flopped quite a lot over the years.  Spells that could be put into multiple schools are usually put in one or the other, as if having a spell share schools is some kind of cardinal sin.Further, while all spells have schools, only Wizards care about the division.  Clerics have had their spells sorted by completely different criteria, and other classes just have a hodge-podge of spells that "feel" like something they should be able to cast, something which can change dramatically; Rangers used to cast Wizard spells, Bards used to have Druid training.  Now Bards are arcane with a preference for mind-affecting spells like Enchantments and Illusions, but they also get Cure Wounds and sonic spells (like Shatter) because, well, it feels like a Bard thing.Even in 5e, only subclasses care about schools, like Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, and most (but not all) of the Wizard subclasses- and since Wizards can cast any spell they want now, they only really care about whether or not a subclass ability interacts with it.Elves used to have a resistance to the Enchantment school, now they only care about specific conditions.Nothing cool has been done with the schools of magic in a very long time, and even now, you could find spells that make you scratch your head, like why Flaming Sphere is Conjuration, but a Wall of Fire is an Evocation (no, don't say "because one conjures fire from another plane and the other just creates fire".  That's a distinction without a difference at this point).Spell schools were never anything more than arbitrary enforced flavor.  The game tried to have mechanics interact with them, but really they were more of a restriction than anything worthwhile.</blockquote>

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