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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2109611" data-attributes="member: 3146">Where do you get that idea? I haven't seen any posts or statements to that effect myself. If you have a link to some, however, I'd be interested to see them.My own take on it is that the flexibility of a generalist wizard is pretty hard to beat. In order to specialize in anything, you have to give up a number of important capabilities. Giving up necromancy means losing Ray of Enfeeblement, False Life, Enervation, Finger of Death, Horrid Wilting, etc--all of which are very useful and are not easily duplicated by other schools. Giving up transmutation would mean not being able to craft any statboost items, giving up haste, rary's mnemonic enhancer, disintegrate, flesh to stone, etc. Giving up Evocation is a lot easier with Complete Arcane since its direct damage dealing abilities are only competitive with conjuration rather than the only game in town. However, you still have to give up the ability to ever use Wall of Force, the various Bigby's Hand spells (most notably, Bigby's Grasping Hand and Bigby's Crushing Fist) or Contingency. Conjuration means losing all of the nifty no SR damage spells, summonings, teleportations (pretty much the only reliable anti-grapple stuff a wizard has), and Evard's Black Tentacles. Giving up Illusion means giving up Invisibility, Greater Invisibility, Displacement, Mirror Image, etc.--most of a wizard's physical defensive magics. Giving up abjuration would mean losing Shield, Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, duelward, assay resistance, and reciprocal gyre (which is almost essential--if only to put in a ring of counterspells). Losing Enchantment means giving up Heroism, Greater Heroism, Touch of Idiocy, Feeblemind (again, if only for the ring of counterspells) and all the various charm, dominate, and geas spells.A wizard who gives up various schools of magic gains a few extra spells but sacrifices a significant number of capabilities. At lower levels when characters don't have those capabilities and have fewer spells per day, that may seem like a good deal. However, by 12th level, the ability to use teleport or contingency is easily worth a few spell slots. At that point, the number of capabilities you would have if you weren't a specialist is starting to add up. The guy who sacrificed abjuration would be using Assay Resistance if he hadn't. The guy who sacrificed evocation would be using contingency if he hadn't. The guy who sacrificed conjuration would be using teleport, dimension door, force orb, fire orb, and vitriolic sphere if he hadn't. The guy who sacrificed transmutation would be using Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer and would have crafted a +6 headband of Intellect if he hadn't done so. At the same time, the benefits of specialization  are becoming less significant. A spell point advantage like Roman demonstrates is only significant if the character is actually taxed to the point that he runs out of spells. If that doesn't happen, the advantage is less significant. (Not completely insiginificant because there are things you can do when you're not worried about running out of spell/power points (like keeping See Invis and Heroism up 24/7), but specializing reduces the number of such things that you can practically accomplish). When compared to lost capabilities like contingency and teleport, the balance is (IMO) in favor of the generalist.</blockquote>

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