Specialist No Evocation or Trans. Crazy?

[Lodow MoBo]

Ok I decided to really push the balanced schools idea. I created a specialist conj with opposition in evocation and transmutation. The question is will this be a successful wizard. Any experience with this kind of combo?

 

[Li Shenron]

From my experience I can tell you that banning Evocation is not a bad decision. Of course, the best offensive spells belong to the Evocations school, but you are still able to learn combat-oriented spells (the most common in general) from many other schools.

Banning Transmutation is instead more critical. The school is possibly the most varied one, and definitely is the one with the largest number of spells. This may hurt you more about using scrolls/wands/staves (at least if your DM usually give you random items), since you won't use quite a large amount of them. Transmutation is the perhaps the most versatile school.

However your choice is feasible overall. If you specialize, you have to pay the price of banning two schools, and there is always something you will miss. There is no spell which is 100% necessary, but almost every school has a key group of spells (e.g. Transmutation has all the flying spells IIRC) which you will be forbidden to cast. But I think you will be a perfectly effective Wizard even without it.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Agreed, very viable.

 

[Woas]

My best wizard I've played was a Conjurer specialist that banned Evocation and Necromancy. It was great. I would cast invisability on myself, then summon monsters into combat. Theres some other great spells from Conjuration school too...

 

[Shallown]

I think Transmutation synergies with Conjuration too much. There is a lot of beefing up of summoned things that can be done. Especially at the Mass spell levels. Consider Necromancy as a better choice IMHO. Later

 

[Kaodi]

Hmmm...

All I can say is: Conjuration, Enchantment, Illusion.

Well, that and depending on what combination of spells you use, when you hit 9th level wizard, you have serious potential to kick butt.

Mind Fog makes enemies easy targets for mind-influencing effects, and summoned monsters with illusions could be interesting too.

 

[Hjorimir]

Hah, I have this silly player in my campaign that did this exact thing! I can't wait to...wait a minute...is that you Álfarr?

 

[kamosa]

I think it's a fine idea, but here is a warning.

When I GM'd I always ended up wishing my players had taken evocation over some of the other spells they end up taking. Damage is the easiest of the magic effects to manage as a GM. By taking it away from the characters you force them to take other spells in the slots that would have held damage spells.

Sometimes that's a good thing, but sometimes they take things that make GM's age prematurely. By guiding them into using and taking damage spells you cut down on the "You cast what" factor during the game.

 

[Garmorn]

I had a wizard that did just that. Later he pickup the Summoner PrC. By getting such feats as improved summoning, and carefully taking other feats and spells and coordinating with the cleric on what spells we took, I was able to become the major damage dealer.

For direct damage I used Necromatic Spells like Ray of enfeeblement (empowered), Feeblemind and other such spells.

 

[Lodow MoBo]

Thanks for the input. Yea the illusion/conj criters seems like a fine combo. I know I'm taking a big hit with the Transmutation. I have played two wizards with heavy leanings on Trans and decided to cut it out to force change.