why play a evoker since complete arcane?

[kilamanjaro]

I only have one PC spell caster in the party, and even with this house rule he uses more buff spells than anything else. Obviously, it's not going to work for every campaign, but it works for me.

 

[Christopher Lambert]

The wizard specialists don't seem to have anything to do with balance. It's impossible to keep them balanced when new spells are being created anyway - it's like the polymorph problem in this respect.

 

[Chun-tzu]

IIRC there was a similar option espoused in Unearthed Arcana that allowed any energy damage spell to ignore SR. The idea was that it would keep the damage dealing spells as viable alternatives to save or death at higher level. I tried it. But when the BBEG mindflayer got totally hosed by a call lightning, I decided to revoke.

No, the UA variant for Evokers allows them to treat Energy Resistance as 10 points lower (not ignore it completely) a limited number of times per day. They have to give up the specialist's extra spells to gain this ability.

 

[fafhrd]

No, the UA variant for Evokers allows them to treat Energy Resistance as 10 points lower (not ignore it completely) a limited number of times per day. They have to give up the specialist's extra spells to gain this ability.

That's a different option. I was talking about Andrew Finch's house rule on page 174. That alternate evoker might be worth looking at though.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Why play a specialist at all?

Why not go for sorcerer? Ok, you don't get the selection of spells a wizard can have, but you can pick your favorites; the one's you use most. You select your favorites from one school, get to cast them loads of times per day, and you can fill out your spell-list with the most essential spells from any other school. There will probably be times when you find yourself without just the right spell for a given situation, but that's what scrolls are for! With all the money you're saving on spellbooks, you can afford a few scrolls...

Well, it's not quite the same, but it's yet another option! Personally, I like the challenge of going without just the right spell sometimes so I've played both sorcerers and specialist wizards but never a straight wizard. (Just something that occured to me just now. Mostly I play high DEX melee characters, though! Rogues, archers, fighter/rogues, monks... )

Not to cause to much of a trainwreck, I'll try to get this post back on track before I finish my ramblings: IMHO it's ok for conjuration to have some good offensive spells; to me it's "the other" offensive school. Energies and items can be conjured just as easily as monsters. The spells mentioned above are all single-target spells (aren't they...? I think so...), while the evocation spells of like level are generally area spells. Conjurations not quite as powerful, IOW.

Just as useful though, in the right situation. You don't have to worry about blasting your allies, for one thing. However, if your allies are fighting your target you make your ranged touch attack with a -4 penalty; unless you have Precise Shot, and how many mages have that? If they're not, then you could just as well have used an area spell... (And afterwards scolded your fighter-buddies for not doing their job! )

In conclusion, I think evocation still has the most powerful damage spells. Ok, they have SR, but they're mostly area spells and don't require an attack roll... Just my 0.02$ worth!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Specialist wizards need to work more like domains, IMHO. It needs to give them powers no other wizards have, related to their sphere. Have exclusive spells or powers. So IMC, specialists fit into a few general spell list categories, each of which has a specific barred school or descriptor. The Earth Mage specialist for instance gains some druidic spells, some extra power with Earth and Acid but cannot cast spells with the Air or Electricity descriptors, and takes extra Electricity damage.

I like the UA variant specialists, a lot, and I encourage them, too. But they don't fit every archetype very well.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I agree wholeheartedly. There is no reason that the majority of Complete Arcane's direct damage spells should be conjuration. The only difference between them and the standard evocation spells is that they don't allow SR. In other words, "Complete Arcane Conjuration: it's like evocation, but it's better, has teleport, and lets you summon things too." Ridiculous.

And the various uber druid spells and feats were old before Complete Divine. No, druids do not need to be able to cast a lightning substituted meteor swarm. Wizards' designers should be forced to recite "druids are not nature wizards with d8 hp, who cast in armor, and can change shape" 100 times every time they write a druid spell. They should also be required to recite "druids are already one of the strongest classes in the game" every time they design a new druid exclusive spell. I swear, these days, expansion book druid spell is synonymous with broken.

 

[MerricB]

I agree wholeheartedly. There is no reason that the majority of Complete Arcane's direct damage spells should be conjuration. The only difference between them and the standard evocation spells is that they don't allow SR.

If only...

Range, my dear chap. The damaging conjuration spells in CA are almost uniformly of short range.

1st level: 5 Lesser Orbs - Short range, 1 target, ranged touch attack, no SR
4th level: 6 Orbs - Short range, 1 target, ranged touch attack, no SR
4th level: Blast of Flame - 60' cone, Ref half, no SR (max 10d6)
5th level: Arc of Lightning - Short range, line between 2 creatures, Ref half, no SR (max 15d6)
5th level: Vitriolic Sphere - Long range, 10' burst, Reflex negates, no SR

That's it. The only long range spell has a Reflex negation save.

Cheers!

 

[Gez]

Well, most 3rd party sources still favor the Evoker and Conjuration did lose a lot when 3.5 changed the Power Word spells.

Speaking of them, am I the only one who finds it utterly stupid to have power word, blind of a lower level than power word, stun? A permanent physical cripple being lower level than a temporary mental condition that, in the worst case, do not last even 2 minutes. PWB can even affect more hit points than PWS!

 

[Li Shenron]

I hate the new trend to even out the schools of magic. Putting a bunch of direct damage dealing spells in Conjuration seems silly to me. In my opinion, a conjurer should be conjuring creatures, and an evoker should be shooting flames. I don't care if all the subclasses are perfectly balanced with each other, I'd rather see them stay within their flavor. If they play a specialist, I'd rather it be because they're interested in focusing on that school, not because they just want to get some extra spells while still using all kinds of spells. If that's what they want, they should just play a generalist.

I probably agree with everything.

I think recently they have tried to add good damaging spells (but also protective spells) to schools which usually don't have them, possibly because the core rule is to forbid 2 schools of magic. They are slowly realising that maybe if that means to miss 20-30% of specific spells (and scrolls/wands) then it is a fair disadvantage; if it means to completely miss an entire game option then it is not always worth. One could completely miss teleportation, summoning, invisibility, polymorphing [just like any non-caster misses...], but offense & defense must be available and efficient to everyone.

I got used to the D&D way to specialization, but it'd definitely have been nicer to have done it in a different way so that a specialist was actually BETTER than others when casting spells from its schools. A D&D specialist isn't really that IMO at all...