Just curious what people thought of the wizard school focus spells now that they've been finalized. To my surprise I actually like the Necromancy spells.
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Abjuration looks pretty fun for me, the first focus spell is basically Bard but for defense, and the second gives you a great reaction to protect yourself from elements, Red Dragon would cause 100 fire damage on you with his breath weapon? Make it 60.
Universalist I don't know if it was the game design intent but apparently drain arcane bond works on any prepared spell slot, including multiclassing ones, so that School could make an amazing Theurge.
Necromancy is fun. Advanced power for Enchantment is bonkers.
Transmutation is bottom tier :'(
Universalist I don't know if it was the game design intent but apparently drain arcane bond works on any prepared spell slot, including multiclassing ones, so that School could make an amazing Theurge.
Oh yeah. That's kind of cool.
As long as you take a dedication that grants you prepared spells you can use the drain bonded item for other class spells. The only restriction is once per day, once per spell level, was prepared and cast.
That's probably not strictly intended, but also not a big problem while being cool and appropriate for universalist wizards. Seems nifty as an option for a Nethys fan.
I like illusion and transmutation. The former has a couple real neat spells like illusory creature, the latter with quick prep thesis let's you ignore a lot of obstacles. I also like the teleport focus power of conjuration, but I think I'll need a couple more bestiaries before I really like the school as a whole. I like the transmutation and illusion focus powers too.
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For those interested, here's a list of spell numbers by school fo arcane casters. This inculdes Cantrips but not Focus Powers.
Abjuration 31
Conjuration 34
Divination 25
Enchantment 23
Evocation 40
Illusion 36
Necromancy 19
Transmutation 34
Also, here's a short evaluation of my personal opinions (this does NOT include focus spells, which are nice but in my opinion don't have enough impact to ruin a good school - or save a bad one).
- Abjuration looks average overall. A few powerful and useful spells, but many of them only situationally useful.
- Conjuration lives and dies by summon spells. I haven't done any research on them, but if they still suck at higher levels (as they did in the playtest) conjuration has lost most of its steam.
- Divination seems like a bad school to specialize in, simply because more than a third of its spells are uncommon. And they have always been situational.
- Enchantment has the old problem of always hitting Will. At least outright immunity to it seems to be far less common nowaday. Also has a high number of Incapacitate spells, so if you like to deal with the minions while the rest of the party fights the BBEG, enchantment looks pretty solid.
- Evocation is easily usable at all levels thanks to many spells and heightening. Could have minor problems with filing out the low level slots with useful stuff at high character levels. Also has few spells that don't just blow stuff up. Still, you'll always find use for damage so the school is good in my book.
- Illusion seems like a top contender for best school. Many of the new additions are awesome for damage (Phantasmal Calamity), utility (Illusory Object) or even both (Illusory Creature). Somehow even Phantasmal Killer looks good! Arcane lacks 4 Illusion spells compared to Occult (Phantom Pain, Visions of Danger, Silence and Paranoia) But gains Drop Dead, which is nice. Occult casters are slightly better illusionists than wizards but it's still a very good and versatile school.
- Necromancy is the only school that doesn't have at least one spell for each level (level 4 has no necro spells, Enervation is gone, unfortunately). But with heightening, that's a much smaller issue than it was in PF1. Still, with the short spell list and few spells that look like they'd make a great daily preparation, I would stay clear of Necromancy for the time being.
- Transmutation is hard to sell. Turning into stuff to hit other stuff is nice, but the druid does it better. Beyond that, most of the spell list is weak or situational. With a few noteworthy exceptions like Fly and Haste, of course.
So that's that. Illusion is probably the best you can get with Evocation being a prime contender if you like fireworks. Enchantment is nice if you like a bit sublety, but I feel illusion can even cover this pretty well.
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Conjuration lives and dies by summon spells. I haven't done any research on them, but if they still suck at higher levels (as they did in the playtest) conjuration has lost most of its steam.
Pretty much still suck by higher levels. Partly because there aren't enough common creatures to summon, partly because they are generally 5 levels behind you, partly because cool abilities are excluded from summons (high-level spells, 3 action powers, reactions).
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Also, I like that wizards aren't as compelled to stick to their school. You get some free spells for your specialty but you don't have things like spell focus or opposition schools to discourage you from branching out, so you can take a school that is largely situational and only use the bonus slots on that school, filling the rest with generally useful spells.
Universalist hands down for me, especially with the Bond Conservation class feat. That feat is a bit of a game changer that becomes better the later in the day it is and the more spells you have cast.
Plus as a half-elf wizard, and with the metamagic thesis, I get a total of four bonus class feats to play with :D
Universalist hands down for me, especially with the Bond Conservation class feat. That feat is a bit of a game changer that becomes better the later in the day it is and the more spells you have cast.
Plus as a half-elf wizard, and with the metamagic thesis, I get a total of four bonus class feats to play with :D
3; the wizard 1st level feat was a typo. Still a lot though.
Illusionist and Diviner both look very fun to me.
Illusionist is the one very much better off than in PF1 though. Their focus power is really great and will see decent battlefield control use every battle. Making it clear that interacting with illusions costs an action really makes illusions great action wasters against enemies.
Diviner definitely took a hit in power level from PF1 to PF2, but was so over the top in PF1 that it still feels like it would be a great build in a war for the crown/mystery/ plot heavy game.