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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 5988987" data-attributes="member: 6696971">This is quite a good post and there is so much relevant content to address that I don't feel I can snip any of it.  I'm going to work my way through your points in a different chronology than you have devised in your post.1)  You are quite correct that dealing with these issues through spell mechanic manipulation will have inter-class reverberations that will affect specialists or other classes if spell lists are shared.  Kaiilurker brought this point up upthread.  If done, I think the best way of handling this would be (again...and clearly contentious) hard-coding some of the open-ended spells that function outside of the mechanics as "pillar conflict circumvention."  These spells can actually be coded to be quite potent as there standard M.O. usage (eg decent bonuses to skill checks for Scrying or Arcana or Spellcraft or Knowledge (Planar) for binding and seeking answers from a summoned creature or creating a Teleportation Circle).  The problem manifests when total pillar conflict circumvention is available through negotiation or leveraging open-ended mechanics with the DM.  If the mechanics upper limits are more tightly bound then I am fine with the mean usage getting a boost, so long as a boost means "class-relevant interaction with the fiction that does not result in pillar conflict circumvention".  Once these spells upper limits are bound, I think dealing with both the Generalist and the Specialist would be considerably easier.2)  Assuming 1 is done, I think your approach of evaluating the impacts of each school on the Macro Pillars and the Micro-Components of the Pillars as well should yield good results.  Afterall, a wizards potency is comprised fundamentally by (i) the potency and variance of the spells at his disposal (which is inherent to the schools mechanical manifestation and the accompanying fiction), (ii) the total number of spells at his disposal, (iii) his ability to bulwark his arsenal with extra-arsenal charges, (iv) his ability to foresee the demands on the coming "work-day, (v) and his ability to "reset his spell-load".  It seems an intuitive start to begin a proper evaluation with (i).  That would be a very large task, to say the least, and would have to be "edition-specific", but it could be done.3)  In theory, a Specialist Wizard (outside of the Summoner...which WotC would do well in examining 5E's Summoner iteration very intensely) should have their "specialty pillar" potency receive a moderate bump while their inverse pillar receives a moderate dip.4)  I think I would be satisfied with hard-coded Divinations (even if their mean production is elevated while their upper bounds are constrained) and Teleportations/Transmutations constrained and then the final result of the Generalist Wizard fall somewhere between the Rogue/Thief and Bard GPA.  The spread between their "Pillar GPA" is reasonable by my estimation.<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/kaiilurker.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/kaiilurker.html</a></blockquote>

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