Picking school for "Defense against Magic"


Advice

Liberty's Edge

I need help picking and prioritizing schools of magic for my Spellbreaker Inquisitor's Defense against Magic ability.

Defense against Magic:
At 3rd level, a Spellbreaker picks a single wizard school. She gains a +1 bonus on saving throws against arcane spells of that school. Every four levels beyond 3rd, the Spellbreaker picks a new school and gains this bonus against arcane spells of that school (to a maximum of five schools of magic at 19th level). Furthermore, each time the Spellbreaker picks a new school, the bonuses for the schools she has already chosen increase by 1.

The character we're working with here is a Dwarf Inquisitor of the Spellbreaker archetype with the Spellkiller Inquisition. First feat taken will be Steel Soul.

Here are my thoughts so far on the various schools:

Abjuration:
Primarily not an offense-based school, so probably not as worth worrying about.

Conjuration:
Definitely has some offensive focus. However, a lot of the spells I'd be worrying about are not save based (e.g. summoned monsters, acid arrows, etc). Still, there are the pits and fogs and such, so this will probably be a good one to include fairly early on.

Divination:
Again, primarily not an offense-based school, so probably not worth worrying about boosting saves for.

Enchantment:
(Hello Sandal) Definitely some offense-type spells in here that can mess with your character, but most of them are Will Save based, which will already by my strongest save, as well as mind affecting, which I will get two rolls on (Spellbreaker). Thus it might be more efficient to focus elsewhere.

Evocation:
Obviously the classic offensive school, so plenty of spells here to get thrown at me. Plus, the typically relevant save for Evocation spells is Reflex, which will be my weakest save in the Inquisitor class, so it would definitely be nice to have a little bump there. On the other hand, some of the offensive spells you see a lot are "ranged touch" based (e.g. Scorching Ray), so saves don't matter as much. Still, when the fireballs start flying, he who has good saves has a happy(er) day.

Illusion:
As with Enchantment(!), plenty of annoying offensive spells in the Illusion school but mostly Will Save based and Mind-affecting, the two things that I will already have the best defense against (high base Will save, high Wisdom, and roll twice for mind-affecting).

Necromancy:
Lots of scary offensive spells going on, almost all of which are save-based. Most are Fortitude saves, which will be a decently strong save for me already (Fast progression in inquisitor and will have a decent CON), but it won't be as good as Will, and I won't get the mind-affecting bonus roll. The main thing holding me back (aside from wanting to maybe focus on Reflex-based magic school first) is that Necromancy is maybe *slightly* less common than some of the other schools.

Transmutation:
As before, not really a direct offensive school. Won't worry to much about saves against this one.

My current order of priority is as follows:
1) Evocation
2) Necromancy
3) Conjuration
4) Enchantment
5) Illusion

What do you think? Which schools should I prioritize?

Grand Lodge

I would personally place Enchantment over Conjuration and possibly even Necromancy myself. While you make good arguments for your choices I have seen time and time again that the greatest weakness of any party is there ability to defend against mind control or mental attacks. Your party members may very well find that you defence against Evocation, Necromancy and Conjuration may all be turned against them with a single failed save.

Liberty's Edge

Jorda75 wrote:
I would personally place Enchantment over Conjuration and possibly even Necromancy myself. While you make good arguments for your choices I have seen time and time again that the greatest weakness of any party is there ability to defend against mind control or mental attacks. Your party members may very well find that you defence against Evocation, Necromancy and Conjuration may all be turned against them with a single failed save.

Heh, you make a compelling case. With all my resistances pumped, on the chance that I do get turned with mind control, the party's only option for reigning me in may very well be to kill me. So yeah, maybe I'll move that up the list a little further.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Salabrian wrote:
Heh, you make a compelling case. With all my resistances pumped, on the chance that I do get turned with mind control, the party's only option for reigning me in may very well be to kill me. So yeah, maybe I'll move that up the list a little further.

Don't forget that the bonuses are only against arcane spells. As long as you have divine casters in your group with appropriate spells to shut you down or remove the mind control, they'll still only need to deal with your base saves.


I would look to the schools with an abundance of nasty spells that have saving throws. In this order:

1.) Enchantment (you're my slave or otherwise useless)
2.) Necromancy (you're panicked or dead)
3.) Transmutation (you're a frog or slowed)
4.) Evocation (you're on fire or frozen)
5.) Illusion (you're not seeing what you think you are seeing)

I think conjuration spells will rarely be attacking your saves. I know some do, and if you think it's a problem, switch it for your 4th or 5th school.

abjuration is mostly protective except for a few nasties like prismatic wall, but just don't go through the wall.

divination is only worth taking if you think you may get scryed a lot.

Even though your reflex is your low save and evocation targets reflex often, you get resist/protection from energy in your spell list and its hit point damage, not save or die usually.


Necromancy and Enchantment spells are the most dangerous, I agree. It's generally easier to get protection against enchantment effects, though, so I'd pick necromancy.

Also, a good party can quickly dispel a mind-control effect, but raising the dead always carries a hefty price tag.

If you know your campaign will go as far as lvl 20, also keep in mind the capstone power. That's a big reason for NOT choosing Conjuration or Transmutation, as complete immunity to these schools would really suck on many occasions ("allright everyone, let's just Teleport out of the collapsing fortress - well, except the inquisitor - good luck in there, buddy!")

Liberty's Edge

ZZTRaider wrote:
Don't forget that the bonuses are only against arcane spells.

Good call. I wasn't thinking about that.

bfobar wrote:

3.) Transmutation (you're a frog or slowed).

I think conjuration spells will rarely be attacking your saves. I know some do, and if you think it's a problem, switch it for your 4th or 5th school.

I know that as soon as I say this, my GM is going to plan an encounter where everybody gets turned into frogs, but just numerically speaking, there over twice as many spells in Conjuration than Transmutation that I would realistically be worried about, many of which are also reflex saves. I agree though that compared to some others, Conjuration isn't as important.

And I know there are a couple spells at my disposal to protect from Evocation, but I'd rather not rely on my own spells for protection against specific magics. For one thing, I don't get many spells per day, and more importantly, you frequently don't know you're going to need resist energy until you already need it, and even then you need to know what type. I'll be much better protected by simply attacking a caster than by trying to play catch-up with spells.

Corlindale wrote:
If you know your campaign will go as far as lvl 20, also keep in mind the capstone power. That's a big reason for NOT choosing Conjuration or Transmutation, as complete immunity to these schools would really suck on many occasions ("allright everyone, let's just Teleport out of the collapsing fortress - well, except the inquisitor - good luck in there, buddy!").

Haha, yes I had thought of that. Good thing it's only arcane spells. Hurray-- Immunity to conjuration = no curing my wounds! I will keep this in mind, though actually it would would fit very well into the roleplay aspect of my character if he was unable to receive arcane assistance from a friendly mage. But that's a thread for another forum. At any rate, I won't be picking Conjuration or Transmutation as my first school.

So after people's comments so far, I'm thinking my revised list is looking something like this:
1) Necromancy
2) Enchantment
3) Evocation
4) Conjuration
5) Illusion

I still feel a little squirrely about putting my weakest saves so late down the list (I know it's "only" hit point damage, but hey- lots o' hit point damage = dead), but we'll see what others have to say.

Liberty's Edge

Salabrian wrote:

I still feel a little squirrely about putting my weakest saves so late down the list (I know it's "only" hit point damage, but hey- lots o' hit point damage = dead), but we'll see what others have to say.

If I do it this way with Evocation (and Conjuration) later, at the very least I'll take Lightning Reflexes in one of the earlier levels.

The Concordance RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

might want to break it down by level as will. What arcane spells do you have to worry about between 1st and 5th level? Obviously the level 1-3 spells. :) But how many enchantment spells are there versus evocation spells at that level.

So I guess my choices would be

3rd level) Enchantment
7th level) Evocation
11th level) Necromancy
15th level) Conjuration

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