Assuming that we're playing with Pathfinder rules, even strictly in many cases, and no other changes in rules were made (except this one) by DM...how can i explain and make him reason ? It's a huge nerf in Evocation this way...and i think lists were already balanced.
A) I totally agree with your DM (except maybe for Acid Orb); the orb spells make more sense in Evocation.
B) How is adding spells to the Evocation list a "huge nerf"? Did you mean Conjuration?
The problem is that the Orb spells were written in metagame mindset instead of using the previously established in game logic. The only orbs that would be conjuration would be acid and potentially cold, if you explained that it conjured up existing ice and not just did cold damage.
In fact, Force Orb was originally an evocation spell, which further screws with the whole concept. Generally, its assumed "in game" that acid spells conjure up some acidic agent from somewhere. Evocations directly use magic to do their "energy type" damage, but conjurations bring something from somewhere else to produce an effect.
Acid fits the bill for this, and as I said above, so does ice, but most fire or electricity spells are kind of assumed to be directly applying magic to create a fire or electrical effect with the magic instantaneously when the spell occurs.
And do you summon a force effect from the Plane of Force? Or a sonic effect from the Plane of Sound? The problem with the spells is that someone thought they needed to create damage dealing spells that could bypass Spell Resistance, and proceeded to beat square pegs into round holes.
So I guess the short version is that I don't entirely disagree with you GM on this one. I can see that if acid doesn't have a secondary effect, it might just be an instantaneous magical effect created by a evocation, but I have a hard time picturing somewhere that allows you to conjure "force" or "sonic," for example.
If these had lingering effects, I could see an argument for some of the energy types being conjured from the elemental planes, but they just hit and do damage.
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I also agree with your DM.
They never made sense as Conjuration spells.
The Conjuration school is for creating something out of nothing, and summoning creatures. It should have primarily battlefield control spells, like web, along with minion spells (summon monster) and utility / mobility spells (mount, teleport).
The Evocation school is for blowing stuff up. Nuking everything and its mother to kingdom come. Sure, it's got the occasional oddball "non-hurty" spell, like floating disk, but mostly the school is about killing things.
So, where does a spell that lets a mage "create an orb of fire in his hand and throw it at his enemies face" belong, Conjuration or Evocation?
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In regards to the history, they were originally created in a D&D 3.0 mage supplement book. They were added to the conjuration school because, quite frankly, the conjuration school sucked back then.
Wizards were mostly generalists (because specializing meant no casting or using items with that school at all) and if they specialized in anything it was divination (because you only gave up two schools instead of three, and could pick any that you liked). An Evoker, on the other hand, had to either drop both conjuration and transmutation, or one of those and two others.
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Well I think that the change to evocation should be made for Orb of Force. That made no sense as conjuration. The sound orbs should be in the same school as Sound Blast and all the other sonic spells, which also looks like evocation.
After all, Evocation isn't about just hurting things, it's about using the forces of magic in a destructive way. You get magical effects from it, magical fire, magical cold, etc.
The elemental orbs should remain conjuration, you are actually summoning a real orb of fire/ice/acid/electricity and physically hurling it at someone. The fact that they're conjuration is important to how they work, just like create water does. The whole justification for the no save no SR idea is that what your conjuring is the real stuff. Also, making them into evocation spells makes anti-magic much more powerful.
I think there should be one of two changes made to them.
First, they could be moved to Evocation and given SR. Then they look like a standard Evocation spell. They do a lot of damage but can be negated by SR.
Second, they could be left in Conjuration but the damage decreased or spread out over time. Conjuration has damage spells, like acid arrow, but they don't compete with Evocation spells for damage dealing. I'd probably make them deal d6/2 levels, but making the greater ones something like 3d6 for level/3 rounds would also be reasonable.
If they are left in Conjuration, no SR is reasonable. The spell is actually creating stuff and hurling it, so by the time SR would come into play, there's no magic to be resisted. This gives wizards a option to do some damage against creatures that are immune to magic or have high SR. In that special case, they are better than Evocation spells, but Evocation will still be better for direct damage in most cases.
If they are left in Conjuration, acid, cold and fire are certainly reasonable. (Think of the fire version as Summon Super Alchemist's Fire.) What the sonic version is doing is less clear. Perhaps it summons an unstable substance that immediately explodes, creating a focused shock wave. With force, I have even less idea and would probably outright ban it.
I think there should be one of two changes made to them.
First, they could be moved to Evocation and given SR. Then they look like a standard Evocation spell. They do a lot of damage but can be negated by SR.
Personally, I think all energy spells should be "SR=no". Why punish casters twice with both spell resistance and energy resistance?
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As one of the folks who has argued that Orbs should be Evo for a long time I agree; then and about 90% of the direct damage spells in the stupid Spell Compendium.
After a lot of consideration I've decided I like Hogarth's "energy spells should be SR=no" concept also. Most direct damage spells are already double jeopardy -> Save or Touch Attack + Energy Resistance. To add spell resist is just making weak spells even weaker.
I generally don't incorporate the orb spells into my games because they were kinda an ultimate "evocation as a school blows" slam. Basically conjuration is already one of the best schools
- summon minions - check
- excellent battlefield control -check
- transportation spells - check
- some camping spells - check
- blast - some but limited
In comparison the evocation school was mainly good for blast but 3.x blast is a trap. It's flashy and fun but ultimately is a sucky use of a wizard.
But orbs give conjurers a good blast option that is actually better than most evocation spells because it ignores SR :| You might as well just be saying be a conjuration specialist and take evocation as restricted school because you really don't have to take a hit in utility.
Yeah Orbs should be a)nerfed so they have SR and b) shifted to evocation. Evocation doesn't have to instant only (Delayed Blast Fireball is an obvious example).
AoE Evocations should probably be no SR as well but evokers can't have nice things :D
Get into a conversation about how magic actually works with you GM.
The core rulebook lacks any satisfactory explanation, and just a little more information can really, really help GMs to arbitrate things. With my group, we set up a definition of each of the schools and worked back from that.
Under our expanded system, Orbs stayed as conjuration because they were actually pockets "summoned" from the Elemental Planes. An evocation, by contrast, would coalesce the forces of the present plane into the spell effect, meaning it could function within the bounds of a dimensional anchor or similar — and the orb spells could not.
In our metaphysics, cure spells are necromancy once more, and transmutation has a fraction of the spells it once had. Really, it's all about how your GM wants to play it, but I find expanding just a little on the basics of magic makes the whole system much more enjoyable.
When the Orb spells were first printed in Tome & Blood, they were Evocation. Moving them back to evocation makes sense. It's not like Conjuration is losing much, it's still plenty powerful enough. Evocation needs the support. ;)
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Under our expanded system, Orbs stayed as conjuration because they were actually pockets "summoned" from the Elemental Planes. An evocation, by contrast, would coalesce the forces of the present plane into the spell effect, meaning it could function within the bounds of a dimensional anchor or similar — and the orb spells could not.
That is brilliant. I'm totally nicking this for my house rules.
Did you make orb of force and orb of sound evocations, then?
I'm with the DM. Evocation DOES suck compared to conjuration -- the only thing conjuration does worse without them is blasting, which is a lousy use of spells to begin with. Orbs should be evocation.
And mage armor should be abjuration, but that's just me.
EDIT: That said, Evil Lincoln's idea is cool, although dimensional anchor is such an unusual corner-case that I'd hardly call it a meaningful general limitation. I REALLY like what they've done with cure spells (necromancy) and transmutation (spreading the load) as well.
I'm glad people like my suggestion.
I encourage you all to look a little harder at where things should be in the schools of magic. With a little thought and discussion with your GM, you can make them into useful categories rather than just another thing you have to memorize. We really try to make the schools define a spell's behavior, not the other way around.
I called for these kinds of revisions to magic during the Pathfinder playtest, but alas, I see how much havoc that would wreak on the existing 3.5 statblocks. We can still hope, however, for a Pathfinder Grimoire to come along and sort all this out for us.
PS — Raise Dead is necromancy by definition I don't care what the book says. Ooo. Idea for a new thread!
Just agreeing with the majority here, particularly Ogre. Acid is conjuration, with no SR, no save. Acid arrow is a good spell for forcing concentration checks on casters. Few are acid resistant, and "neutralizing" it would require what, a waterfall? Dispel magic might take care of it. You might rule that create water could dilute the acid enough to carry on, but getting doused with several gallons of water would again force a concentration check. Ongoing damage is a b#@ch.
The rest are evocations, and making them subject to SR is lame. You still get to save for half, so what's the big deal? The classes that can use them usually have better things to do with an action, anyway.
If an arcane caster blasts you, it should hurt. He bothered to specifically draw energy from the very center of magic (evocation: something from nothing; i.e.: I willed it so because I can). You shouldn't be able to just flip him off because you're a magical wonder. You need evasion for that.
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In my game, I just lessened the the damage by one die. Off the top of my head i think the lesser do d4 and cap at 5d4 which is in line with spells like burning hands and shocking grasp. And the normal versions are now d6 and cap off at 10d6 which is kinda in line with fireball etc, except they still need a ranged touch attack.