D&D 5E (2014) Wizard: Divination vs Evocation

[tglassy]

Curse of Strahd has a library with every spell in the game. I ran it, and the party Wizard now has every Spell in er Spell book up to level 6, and made friends with the Lich there, so she can go back when she levels up to learn the rest.

 

[Fenris-77]

The Evocation school is, IMO, boring, as good as it might be. I'd much rather go Divination, which is also excellent but also more interesting. That's my two cents anyway.

 

[Todd Roybark]

I never did pick up 5e Curse of Strahd....I own enough versions of Ravenloft.

 

[abirdcall]

Go with the one whose personality you're going to like playing the most.

You'll be bored with either before long if you're just looking for their powers.

 

[Ashrym]

Considering a campaign from level 1 to 12. Only PHB allowed. No Multiclassing.
How would you rate these 2 Wizard Subclasses, in terms of:

1. DPR
2. CC
3. Utility
4. Social
5. Exploration
6. "Fun factor"

You already have my opinion, but I'll add more based on some of the comments above.

Spells known / prepped...

Warlock includes the arcanum at 11th level and excludes possible spells added via invocations. Wizards and tome pact warlocks also have access to rituals outside of spells known / prepped. I included other casters who were mentioned here and in other threads for comparison.

I am bringing this up because of the comment on sorcerer spells being restricted. This is true but does not prevent making use of good spells to match the style listed. For example...

While it's possible for evokers to make use of sculpt spells to work evocations around the party, careful spell lets sorcerers use any spell available that does not do damage on a save. Changing to hypnotic pattern (a very typical CC spell) and careful spell makes it party friendly, evokers do not have an options, diviners might use portent for one or two PC's, lore bards can preplan prep to give the PC's a bonus on the saves, and other spell casters do not have the party safe benefit. It's an example of why meta-magic can be awesome so sorcerers are definitely worth looking at.

Bards, clerics, and druids tend towards party support more than sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards but any of them have support options or offensive options. You do not need to limit your comparison. If the party friendly casting is important then sorcerers and evokers are your best options, however.

 

[Coroc]

Gotcha!
And how do you gusy feel about Draconic Sorcerer compared to these guys? Would it shine more in a Combat driven campaign or that's too relative?

Draconic (fire) sorcerer is contrary to common belief an absolute game changer with the points to spellslots mechanic at a certai nlevel . Groups of trash mob suddenly do not provide any threat anymore, they just get fireballed out of existence.
In my opinion (if you exploit the spellslots -> points - > spellslots) it is so good that i do not allow it in certain campaigns. Versus groups of mobs it out dpr's every other class. He can cast ?8? ?10? or so fireballs at level 10, i don't have the exact number at hand atm. It is AE to the max. Combine that with twinned haste for your melees and such shenannigans ....

 

[Coroc]

Curse of Strahd has a library with every spell in the game. I ran it, and the party Wizard now has every Spell in er Spell book up to level 6, and made friends with the Lich there, so she can go back when she levels up to learn the rest.

If you do the original Hyskosa Hexad, the party comes by Azalins vast castle, it also has a library with every spell known. But otoh you never make friends with Azalin

 

[Coroc]

A wizard can learn every spell in the game from the largest and most versatile list. They functionally play very, very differently from each other.

A wizard can learn every spell the DM wants him to be able to learn. Guys get a bit old school, if you DM you make things much easier if yo udo not allow mystic unrestricted access to everything. @Todd Roybark mentioned it: It would be the same if the fighter gets access to every magic weapon he desires at some point, you would not do that either would you?
In some campaigns it does not hurt if wizards have access to every spells in others it does. Also if there is unlimited acces it should be restricted e.g. by monetary costs of scrolls, i do it like that it works fine.
Concerning the sorc, check out my post 2 above this one.

 

[tglassy]

A wizard can learn every spell the DM wants him to be able to learn. Guys get a bit old school, if you DM you make things much easier if yo udo not allow mystic unrestricted access to everything. @Todd Roybark mentioned it: It would be the same if the fighter gets access to every magic weapon he desires at some point, you would not do that either would you?

Yeah, actually, why wouldn't you? No, seriously, what is the actual reason why you would not allow your players to get the items they want? The game already has a 3 attuned items rule. There is literally no reason not to allow your fighters to mix and match their magic items to their hearts content, other than "I'm the Dm and I don't know how to handle powerful parties."

I had a game where I allowed everyone to have basically whatever legendary items they wanted at around lvl 6. Some wound up with more than one. You know what it did? It made them have fun. They felt awesome. One guy critted with a Vorpal sword against the Dracolich on his first shot, and then again when the Dracolich reformed in a new body. Another guy saved the entire group by being the only one who succeeded on his dex save vs that Dracolich's fire breath and therefore the only one who wasn't knocked out, but he used his Staff of the Magi to transport everyone into the Astral realm. Both players still talk about those moments. And yes, I did send a Dracolich up against the party at lvl 6. If they were going to have legendary items, they were going to go up against legendary enemies.

What use is it to hold these things back? "Oh, no, you can't get too powerful, I need to be able to kill you!" You're the freaking DM. You can just say "Rocks fall" and everyone dies. This game isn't about DM vs Players, it's about letting everyone have fun. You know what happens when you don't let players have the items they want? They never get them. They never have those moments. "Oh, but they need to be lvl 17 before getting legendary items!" Bull. Few games ever get to lvl 17, so no one ever uses these items. There are a ton of awesome items just sitting there, all lonely, because all the DM's say they can't play because those DM's don't know how to deal with that kind of power. So I will take them all and give them a good home.

 

[Coroc]

Yeah, actually, why wouldn't you? No, seriously, what is the actual reason why you would not allow your players to get the items they want? The game already has a 3 attuned items rule. There is literally no reason not to allow your fighters to mix and match their magic items to their hearts content, other than "I'm the Dm and I don't know how to handle powerful parties."

I had a game where I allowed everyone to have basically whatever legendary items they wanted at around lvl 6. Some wound up with more than one. You know what it did? It made them have fun. They felt awesome. One guy critted with a Vorpal sword against the Dracolich on his first shot, and then again when the Dracolich reformed in a new body. Another guy saved the entire group by being the only one who succeeded on his dex save vs that Dracolich's fire breath and therefore the only one who wasn't knocked out, but he used his Staff of the Magi to transport everyone into the Astral realm. Both players still talk about those moments. And yes, I did send a Dracolich up against the party at lvl 6. If they were going to have legendary items, they were going to go up against legendary enemies.

What use is it to hold these things back? "Oh, no, you can't get too powerful, I need to be able to kill you!" You're the freaking DM. You can just say "Rocks fall" and everyone dies. This game isn't about DM vs Players, it's about letting everyone have fun. You know what happens when you don't let players have the items they want? They never get them. They never have those moments. "Oh, but they need to be lvl 17 before getting legendary items!" Bull. Few games ever get to lvl 17, so no one ever uses these items. There are a ton of awesome items just sitting there, all lonely, because all the DM's say they can't play because those DM's don't know how to deal with that kind of power. So I will take them all and give them a good home.

That is a very specific playstyle called monty haul. It is fun for a change but it gets boring quickly, and if you play legendary monsters as having legendary wits and tactics (including armies of followers , gated in reinforcements e.g.) some artefacts will not make the difference for a level 6 party.

Do it, if you like it, i like a more conservative approach where every find of a spell or weapon means something.

I did let my group exterminate a group of 400 attacking orcs at level 6 with a scroll of a level 10 spell in combination with one third of an extremely powerful artifact - and part of their lifeforce powering the spell and the wizard trying to channel that. It had a price for one of them, who only got raised due to him finding to one of the in game faiths recently and meeting his god and good RP got him an intervention.
That is the kind of powergame i like to do (depending on the campaign).
At some point they will have the whole artifact assembled eventually and be powerful enough (the wizard ) to cast the full version of the spell w/o a scroll. In the gameworld (Greyhawk) that spell (rain of colorless fire) was one of the twin cataclysms (wiping out a whole nation), it has near armageddon potential, depending on where it is cast.
But that certainly will not happen at level 6 but rather at level 18 or so.