Specialist Wizards

[Ferrix]

I was wondering if anyone had implemented any house rules for specialist wizards vs. generalist wizards.

Dropping two full schools of magic hits really hard at the core of the wizards versatility as a spellcaster. And the meager gain of 1 spell per level isn't very much trade-off, especially the higher level you go.

I also think it makes it quite interesting flavor wise to further differentiate the different schools of magic.

Some ideas on potential house rules:

• Becoming specialized gives you access to a selection of spells only a specialist can cast, sort of like gaining an exclusive domain.
• Specialist Variants like those found in Unearthed Arcana.
• Increased caster level or save DC with specialized schools.

 

[SteelDraco]

I'm quite fond of the variants in Unearthed Arcana; I think that specialist wizards should be able to do things with their chosen school that others just CAN'T, rather than just getting a few more spells per day. Specialist-only spells are an interesting idea, and something I hadn't thought about before. Any idea what kinds of things you'd add?

 

[Ferrix]

I'm quite fond of the variants in Unearthed Arcana; I think that specialist wizards should be able to do things with their chosen school that others just CAN'T, rather than just getting a few more spells per day. Specialist-only spells are an interesting idea, and something I hadn't thought about before. Any idea what kinds of things you'd add?

Well, it falls sort of in line with the way psionic disciplines are handled. You gain access to a number of powers based on what discipline you choose.

One idea could be breaking off some of the more powerful spells of each school at each level and putting them into the specialized only camp. This would reduce the versatility of a wizard slightly, but would be less work than making new spells.

Specialized only schools would be things that epitomize their school, and would in a sense be approximately half a level higher in power than a normal spell.

So, say your normal magic missile does 1d4+1, up to 5 missiles at level 10, the Evokers version would do perhaps slightly more damage and have a higher cap. Perhaps an Enchanters Deep Sleep spell would affect 6HD rather than the normal 4HD Sleep spell, or perhaps it requires inflicting at least 1 point of damage to awaken sleeping creature.

An Evokers 3rd level fireball equivalent spell called Conflagration would deal d8's rather than d6's, or perhaps deal 2 dice more damage to a single 5 ft. square in the center of the blast radius.

Just tossing out ideas.