D&D 5E Should D&D Have a 9th School of Magic (Restoration)?

[The Annihilargh]

So, when reading the flavor text in the 5e PHB that describes what evocation and necromancy are, it would make sense that healing spells like cure wounds and prayer of healing would fall under the evocation category. Evocation is classified as manipulating "magical energy to produce a desired effect," although it'd be better worded "to elicit a desired effect" instead. So if you think about those healing spells as manipulating positive energy to heal someone, it makes more sense.
Necromancy is a little tricky. I think of necromancy spells as directly manipulating the life energy within things—as opposed to healing evocation spells, which channel the surrounding magical/positive energy to restore a creature's health. Adding the Restoration School seems like it would really be stepping on Necromany's domain, as effing with the forces of life and death is the main part of its whole shtick.
I think the main issue here is that when WotC were writing chapters 10 and 11, it seems they weren't very concerned about how well certain spells fitted under their designated schools. For instance, Blindness/Deafness and Bestow Curse are almost completely unrelated to the Necromancy School—Blindness/Deafness are totally unrelated, and Bestow Curse just has inflicting extra necrotic damage as an option.
I believe that there should at least be a separate school for spells like these that inflict debuffs and don't neatly fall under a school of magic, or maybe have some spells that can fall under multiple schools.

 

[Rabulias]

Odd trivia department: Though most likely a mistake, there was a small 9th school of magic in AD&D 1e...

Spoiler

The spiritual hammer spell's type of magic was listed as "Invocation" in the AD&D 1e PHB. It was the only spell with such a designation there.

 

[Blue Orange]

I'm pondering aspects of a D&D variant and wondering if I'd let wizards have healing/harm spells, but at a level behind the clerics, or slightly weaker versions. The justification for this play balance move could be that healing/harm magic are hard, but clerics have a leg up as evidenced by their channeling. Would make it less goofy that they can be on the bards list but not the wizards.

OD&D (not AD&D) in the Companion set had cureall (heal, basically--it restored all damage) as a 9th level magic user spell. So there is some precedent.

 

[Alzrius]

And put them into to the school of blow stuff up.

Don't forget that they were part of the Conjuration school back in Third Edition.

 

[Maxperson]

Don't forget that they were part of the Conjuration school back in Third Edition.

Not in my game. I put them back in necromancy where they belonged.

I don't know what WotC is smoking. Evocation is blowing stuff up and Conjuration is bring critters to you. Neither one is healing.

 

[Li Shenron]

Personally I think it would be even better if school weren't exclusive/separate lists of spells. The fact that each spell must always have one and only one school delivers the idea that this property is a law of nature. Instead, they could be really disciplines or (surprise) "schools" actually: no special reason why a spell might belong to multiple schools or even none at all in particular, or if which school a spell belongs to might change regionally or in time.

That way, you can certainly add a "school of restoration" that freely overlaps with others, without worrying what happens to preexisting characters.

It even has a better educational value than a partitioned system.

 

[Sithlord]

Personally I think it would be even better if school weren't exclusive/separate lists of spells. The fact that each spell must always have one and only one school delivers the idea that this property is a law of nature. Instead, they could be really disciplines or (surprise) "schools" actually: no special reason why a spell might belong to multiple schools or even none at all in particular, or if which school a spell belongs to might change regionally or in time.

That way, you can certainly add a "school of restoration" that freely overlaps with others, without worrying what happens to preexisting characters.

It even has a better educational value than a partitioned system.

Once upon a time spells could belong to multiple schools.

 

[Maxperson]

Once upon a time spells could belong to multiple schools.

I could see healing spells being Necromancy and Alteration, but not just Alteration.

 

[Tonguez]

Why not just change the name Necromancy to something like Vitamancy and allow spells to both enhance and diminish Vitality. The old necro spells that cause damage fit as do Healing and even some buffs.


Of course I’ve entirely changed the Schools and Magic system in my homebrew set so things are a lot more freeform

 

[Asisreo]

I actually think Transmutation would make good sense for Healing spells, since transmutation spells are the physical manipulation of things, closing wounds seem like an obvious inclusion.

It lets you grow, shrink, and make new body parts. I think its within the realm of reason they would mend those parts that already exists to their original state.