After running a campaign with 3 wizards and numerous NPC wizards it came to mine and my friends attention that the specialists were VERY inconsistent and weak in comparison to the Universalist school. No player would play any specialist, except Diviner.
Most of the schools needed improvement as well as balancing between each other.
Here's our fix:
Bonus spells
Because the Universalist can choose any spell to fill these slots, we gave +1 spell save DC to our specialist wizards chosen school spells.
Abjuration:
Specialist Bonus: 1 resistance bonus +1 per 5 caster levels to a max 5 at 20th level.
1st: Protective Aura - You can touch a creature as a standard action giving it damage reduction equal to 1/- per caster level. This bonus lasts 3 rounds or until hit. 0 damage is still a 'hit'. Once a creature has benefited from protective aura it can gain no further benefit from this ability for one day.
8th: As per the book.
20th: True Dispel - As a swift action the diviner can cast a dispel, targeted or area as dispel magic, with a bonus to the caster level check equal to (1d20 + Caster level + 10) with no caster level cap.
Conjuration:
Specialist Bonus: As per book with the following exception. The Armor bonus is as per mage armor a force effect.
1st: Apprentice Summoner - Summon spells are cast as standard actions, not full round actions.
8th: As per the book.
20th: As per the book with the following exception. The +2 bonus is also added to damage rolls.
Divination
As per the book for all abilities.
Enchantment
Specialist Bonus: 2 enhancement bonus +2 enhancement bonus per 5 caster levels to the following skills - Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate, Perform. To a max of +10 at 20th level.
1st, 8th, and 20th: As per the book.
Evocation
Specialist Bonus: Whenever you cast an evocation spell you deal 1 damage + 1 damage per 5 caster levels per die to a max of +5 per die.
1st: As per the book.
8th: Shape spell - The evoker can choose which squares of his area affect evocation spells are affected or not within the area of effect of the spell.
20th: Energy substitution - the evoker can change the element type of any evocation spell with an energy descriptor to any other energy type as the spell is cast.
Illusion
Specialist Bonus: As per the book
1st and 8th: As per the book
20th: As per the book with the following exception: 9th level magic is needed to pierce the illusion. Note a 6th level true seeing will not work, a heightened to 9th true seeing will.
Necromancy
Specialist Bonus: As per the book.
1st and 8th: As per the book.
20th: As per the book with these notes for clarification: Type changes to undead the character loses his constitution score and HD change to d12's (reroll hit points). Note the undead type in the Monster Manual for all changes. Character IS still immune to positive energy.
Transmutation
Specialist Bonus: As per the book.
1st: As per the book with this small change - damage die is 1d6.
8th: Shape Change - Transmuter gains the wild shape ability as though a druid of half his caster level.
20th: As per the book.
Universal
Specialist Bonus: NONE
1st: As per the book.
8th: Arcane Power - As a free action sacrifice 1 spell slot to increase the caster level for the next spell cast by a number equal to the spell level sacrificed. This can only be applied to a spell once per casting.
20th: Universal Understanding - Double the duration of all spells with a duration cast by the universalist. An opposing casters chance to dispel spells cast by the universalist is at -10 to the dispel check.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, you've seen our changes here are our reasons behind this. As we stated above, the consistency between the different schools of magic just wasn't there. We also found that the 'universal' school of magic was just too powerful as printed in the book.
The universal school's original 8th level ability guaranteed that most players would take the universal class. The 20th level ability is equivalent to 18 feats, we first attempted to half this and then realized that's still NINE feats: Spell focus (all 8 schools), greater spell focus (all 8 schools), spell penetration and greater spell penetration.
There was no other specialist or base class that gave free feats in that great an abundance.
Abjuration was a tough one, the bonuses were inconsistent with the other specializations. The first level power useless by about 10th level, and the 20th level power was easily circumvented by the evoker and covered by the 8th level ability. Abjurers are supposed to be good at preventing and removing magic so we gave them some serious dispel magic in our True Dispel power.
Conjuration was horrible for summoning, which was supposed to be it's core set of spells. We decreased the summoning time of spells and removed the acid dart effect because we wanted our conjurers to actually USE summon spells and the acid dart felt too much like an evokers ability. The 8th level power stayed because the utilitarian ability of a dimension door. We added to the damage rolls of the creatures because summoned creatures are not really on par with the monsters a 20th level conjurer would be facing. The book adds to all the other rolls of the monsters it seemed inconsistent not to add to damage.
Divination .... we have one PC diviner in the group (it's me I won't lie) and another that's an NPC. The divination school of magic as compared to the other schools in the book is one of the best if not THE best in comparison to the other specialist schools as printed. The specialist bonus and 1st level ability truly make the diviner worth playing more than the others as they were written in the book. Now the other specialist are on par with the power level of this one, as well as being very consistent.
Enchanting was really good except the specialist bonuses. We felt they were too small at all levels to be worthwhile as skill bonuses when transmutation gives ability bonuses. Ability bonuses are much more useful in the greater scheme of things as opposed to skill bonuses. We decided that the range of skills was too small and added Disguise, and Perform as well as increasing the bonus range to +2 to +10 from +2 to +6.
Evocation. Evokers suck under the D&D system. We fixed it taking a few tricks from the archmage prestige class and a little tweaking of the specialist bonus. NOW evocation magic can really damage the larger/more HD monsters. The shape at 8th level allows the caster to use the area of effect spells with more versatility, and the substitution ability means no monster will be immune to the spells the evoker may have prepared.
Illusions were good, up till 20th level, being able to see through a 20th level ability (equivalent to a 9th level spell) with a 6th level spell just seemed really wrong to everyone in our group (we have another fix for this ask us later). So we added the stipulation to the descriptor of the ability. It made a whole lot more sense that way on power level and just plain fairness. (and I'm the diviner remember.)
Necromancy is hands down one of the better schools on the list as is, but we felt it needed a little clarification in the 20th level ability. If you're undead you lose your con and gain d12 HD and a bunch of spiffy abilities ... but you're undead .... I guess it could be worse.
Transmutation was really decent but why the hell were all the other abilities at 1d6 and the first level one of this 1d4? the evoker can make his 1d6 any energy type meaning a guaranteed damage at low level, so we didn't see anything wrong with a 1d6 force effect for these guys. Now as why we changed the 8th level to wild shape is easy. The spells mimicked in the book are not useful as the character gains levels, the other specialists have abilities useful throughout their level advancement. Making it a wild shape keeps the flavor of the change shape ability with the scaling needed to make it useful but without taking anything away from the druid which is just better at it at the higher levels.
We had the hardest time coming up with the Abjuration 1st and 20th abilities and the Universal 8th level ability more than any other. They have to be the right power level to make the specialization worth it, but they can't be so powerful that they over shadowed the others.
This took us about 8 hours tonight, PLUS at least a year of conversation and playtesting everything we could think of. We realize this is a little late for printing but we hope everyone takes all of this into consideration and let's us know what you think about it.
Please constructive only, no flames ... cause he's an abjurer and can absorb them. And I'm a diviner and I knew it was coming before you cast it :P
Diviner Eien'Jinsai
Abjurer Dragons Lie
