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I'm hoping to get this added to the Golarion Rules and Questions FAQ.
There is conflicting information regarding whether the Thassilonian Specialist (from Inner Sea Magic) can choose a Focused Arcane School (from the Advanced Player's Guide).
In August 2011 James Jacobs (the designer of the Thassilonian Specialist) said "Yes":
Would this wizard gain the Enchanting Smile ability (from the normal Enchantment school)? Would he have the ability to take a focused school such as Controller?
Yup; being a Thassilonian specialist doesn't change any of the rules for being that type of specialist. It just locks you into your prohibited schools and gives you a bonus spell slot; you still gain all the extra perks of specialization.
But a year later, in September 2012, he said "No":
Thassilonian specialists say nothing about the school powers because they don't change those at all. They have standard school powers, in other words, for their chosen specialty. They CAN NOT choose sub schools at all—Thassilon was all about specializing in the seven Thassilonian schools. That also means you can't pick divination as a Thassilonian specialization.
So, I have to ask: Can Thassilonian Specialist Wizards take a Focused Arcane School?
It's certainly a "frequently asked question", as seen HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE, as well as the two threads linked above.
Please feel free to click the FAQ button.
It doesn't sound like James contradicted himself, just sounds like he didn't answer the second part of the first question.
Creative Director
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James Jacobs still says no. Thassilonian specialists are what they are because of their intense and focused study on their chosen specialization. Branching out from that into a sub school would be akin to one of them trying to be a divination specialist... no such thing.
If you're a Thassilonian specialist, you pick one of the 7 choices listed and take the opposition schools listed. It's a lot more structured and rigid and leaves less customization.
He contradicted himself because he had time to think it over and realized that the whole point of Thassilonian specialists is that they're rigid and don't customize... and because the themes that link the sins to the 7 specific schools of magic run VERY deep and have a lot of symbolic meaning. I spent many hours working out those meanings to make sure that they were all the exact right choices. Picking one of those 7 schools is what defines you as a Thassilonain specialist.
AKA: I make mistakes too.
If you play a Thassilonian specialist, you cannot specialize in a sub school. They are two mutually exclusive wizard options. Pick one or the other but not both.
EDIT: Although I could in theory post this to the FAQ... I won't because I forgot how to do so. :P
=(
Oh well.
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Creative Director
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See, I would have thought the subschools would be like specializing *further*
They are indeed specializing further. Further than Thassilonian specialists allow. If you focus too much on one specific aspect of a subject, you're not going to be able to serve the subject as a whole as well as needed... even if that subject is itself a specialization.
Just the other day I had this idea if I could combine Thassilonian Specialist and either Egorian Academy Infernal Binder (or Mage of the Veil), both from Inner Sea Primer, Cheliax and Qadira specific, respectively.
Technically, by rules as written, they do stack by the fact that Thassilonian Specialist leaves the school powers unchanged, where as you still are a specialist of said school. Technically school powers are separate class features, right?
However, Those archetypes above alter the normal school powers much like Focused Schools do. Now, I do understand that Thassilonian Specialists are *specialists* on their own right on their focused area and thus that alone might prevent from having two archetypes, even if they, by RAW, stack.
I think it would be worthwhile to add a note whether Thassilonian Specialist can take any other archetypes at all or not. I know that in lorewise they shouldn't be able to stack with anything else, but the little archetype-tinkerer in me disagrees and tells me that I could do that, despite the lore and flavor, because the rules are what they are about how archetypes stack.