D&D (2024) why are spell schools and what should they be?

[Bill Zebub]

Whatever the schools are, arcane casters should have to choose (or have it determined by class) and should somehow be restricted to that school.

Which means schools should be somewhat balanced. Hard to achieve, I know.

 

[Scott Christian]

Whatever the schools are, arcane casters should have to choose (or have it determined by class) and should somehow be restricted to that school.

Which means schools should be somewhat balanced. Hard to achieve, I know.

That is a tough, beyond tough, thing to balance. Damage versus utility. Novelty versus tradition. Ease versus difficulty. And then balance through six or seven schools, which also affect different classes. I would argue that it is impossible.

 

[Mephista]

Has D&D ever really made a run at a cast from hitpoints blood mage?

The closest has been the Hellfire Warlock PrC. 5e converted a blood witch from the Cult of Ravnos as a fiend warlock as well.

 

[Baron Opal II]

My groupings are:
Harmony, Discord, Truth, Illusion, Life, Death, Motion, Stasis, Luck, Fate, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Shadow

That's worked well for me. Some spells have tie to more than one group.

 

[Undrave]

That is a tough, beyond tough, thing to balance. Damage versus utility. Novelty versus tradition. Ease versus difficulty. And then balance through six or seven schools, which also affect different classes. I would argue that it is impossible.

Then make it less than 6? And you'd need to not be affraid of ditching tradition. And maybe have general spells.

 

[see]

Take Shield, for exemple. it's considered an Abjuration spell, right? But... why? What it physically does is create a shield of energy, so why isn't it an evocation spell, or even a conjuration? It's only an Abjuration spell because, in game terms, it protects you. But why would a person in universe consider Shield and Protection from Good and Evil or Sanctuary to be the same type of magic?

Well, looking back at previous editions, shield was originally an evocation, back when what are now "schools" were called "types of magic" -- that is, in the AD&D (1st edition) Player's Handbook. It wasn't swapped to abjuration until 3rd edition.

Which is probably a pure gamist effect of them having evolved from "types of magic" to schools with specialists who needed a choice of spells at each level. The abjurers needed more 1st-level spells, the evokers have plenty of 1st-level spells already, and it isn't that much of a stretch to go from spells like protection from evil, repel insects, anti-animal shell, globe of invulnerability, anti-magic shell, and repulsion, all 1e abjurations, to "force field that blocks attacks".

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Then make it less than 6? And you'd need to not be affraid of ditching tradition. And maybe have general spells.

I think with a good dose of refluff, you could switch many spells from a school to another in order to balance the schools between themselves.

ie:

Take Psychic Scream and change it to Revelation, an Divination spells where you revealed a mind-blowing secret of the universe in a creatures mind, causing painful psychic damage and a chance to literally blow their mind.

Take Summon Construct to Shape Construct, a Transmutation spell where you magically craft a golem.

Take Summon Shadowspawn and make it a illusory creature crafted from shadow-stuff in the illusion school.

''Wall of'' could all be Conjurations, leaving ''boom'' spells to Evocation.

Cure wound could be a Necromancy spell while Healing Word is an Enchantment.

Move ''find X'' and ''speak with'' spells to Divination.

etc

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think with a good dose of refluff, you could switch many spells from a school to another in order to balance the schools between themselves.

ie:

Take Psychic Scream and change it to Revelation, an Divination spells where you revealed a mind-blowing secret of the universe in a creatures mind, causing painful psychic damage and a chance to literally blow their mind.

Take Summon Construct to Shape Construct, a Transmutation spell where you magically craft a golem.

Take Summon Shadowspawn and make it a illusory creature crafted from shadow-stuff in the illusion school.

''Wall of'' could all be Conjurations, leaving ''boom'' spells to Evocation.

Cure wound could be a Necromancy spell while Healing Word is an Enchantment.

Move ''find X'' and ''speak with'' spells to Divination.

etc

true but sometimes you want to not let every school do anything just to have a reason to have different options and it makes people try the crazy options which always leads to the fun stuff.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That is a tough, beyond tough, thing to balance. Damage versus utility. Novelty versus tradition. Ease versus difficulty. And then balance through six or seven schools, which also affect different classes. I would argue that it is impossible.

I agree it would be tough to balance just taking the current schools, and spells, as they stand. I'm imagining it would take a pretty dramatic rethinking/rewriting of both.

The only things that would need to be balanced are the things that can actually be quantified, like damage or numerical bonuses. But if you're trading off a cool ability with obvious/frequent utility, versus a straight up damage number, then it's kind of up to the player to decide what they think is more useful. Kind of like with Feats.

 

[Voadam]

OD&D did not have the schools. Spells were just spells. Same in the B/X line of games that followed.

In 1e Gygax assigned each spell their types along the now classic eight schools, but this only seemed to come up for thematics of the spells and detecting spell types. Even 1e illusionist spells could be non-illusions depending on their effects. This was carried out through later editions. There was no real description of the different spell types.

In 2e specialist wizard subclasses were a revision and expansion of the 1e illusionist class to work more with the base wizard class structure and tie it into the illusion school of spells more directly and to expand with classes for the other spell schools as well. Now there were possible non detection mechanical aspects of a spell's school. So spell school could affect saving throw modifiers, ability to learn spells, caster level modifier, and so on. This continued on in different ways through different following editions.

The categories could be overlapping and things could be classified different ways. Curing started off necromantic in 1e as affecting life force, in 3e it was conjuration my guess would be to avoid having good clerics using necromancy.

I got really into the thematics of the spell schools for a while in the 2e and 3e era and so I would have thoughts on potential new spells like a 3e conjure flame that conjured actual non-magical flames that were not subject to spell resistance, and things of that sort.