Thought of this last night while trying to decide on a familiar for a character that really doesn't want a familiar:
Only one school is prohibited, but in doing so the mage must sacrifice Arcane Bond (familiar, item, etc).
The question I'm left with is whether or not one prohibited school is enough; in dropping Arcane Bond, should the mage only choose one school or forget about prohibition entirely?
(I'd love to see Ultimate Magic address wizards who don't want familiars and feel that bonded items are too much of a risk.)
Thought of this last night while trying to decide on a familiar for a character that really doesn't want a familiar:
Only one school is prohibited, but in doing so the mage must sacrifice Arcane Bond (familiar, item, etc).
The question I'm left with is whether or not one prohibited school is enough; in dropping Arcane Bond, should the mage only choose one school or forget about prohibition entirely?
(I'd love to see Ultimate Magic address wizards who don't want familiars and feel that bonded items are too much of a risk.)
Well prohibited schools aren't as prohibited as in 3.5, and the bonded item is a powerful feature. I would say that getting rid of the prohibition for two schools is ok, but it is a difficult question.
Edit: What I did in 3.5 was trading the familiar for bonus feats.
Thought of this last night while trying to decide on a familiar for a character that really doesn't want a familiar:
Only one school is prohibited, but in doing so the mage must sacrifice Arcane Bond (familiar, item, etc).
The question I'm left with is whether or not one prohibited school is enough; in dropping Arcane Bond, should the mage only choose one school or forget about prohibition entirely?
(I'd love to see Ultimate Magic address wizards who don't want familiars and feel that bonded items are too much of a risk.)
Having access to an additional school is in most cases way better than the bonded object/familiar.
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What would you do for a generalist wizard who wanted to do this same thing? Would you give that wizard an additional spell slot of each level?
If that's the case, then I see no problem with the setup as proposed. If that sounds too powerful to you, then the specialist in question probably ought to pick one opposed school.
Thanks for the input (esp. the reminder about Universalists). I'll let the mages drop Arcane Bond instead of the additional school, but still require one prohibited school. Giving Universalists bonus slots will definitely help level things out. If it seems to be too much of a boost, I'll just use Lyrax's idea for every specialist and keep the two prohibited schools. Really won't know until the weekend.
The 2 prohibited schools is one of the biggest turn offs to becoming a specialist wizard. I say that is a good thing.
I know when my group started a new campaign and I made up my new character who by the way is a Wizard. The toughest choice I had to make was whether or not I wanted to become a specialist or remain a generalist. I finally decided to go specialist Evocation with prohibited schools Enchantment & Conjuration which wasn't an easy decision and it never should be.
Take the example above. Another person in the same group made a wizard and decided against becoming a specialist wizard. He played around with the idea of becoming a specialist but in the end decided against it.
It should never be an easy decision, kind of like choosing a career when one goes to college. Most individuals usually take the first year of college to get their feet wet and test the waters and then make their decision the 2nd year on what career path they want to take. It isn't an easy decision and shouldn't be taken lightly.
The same goes for specialist in the wizards case. A wizard must decide to first become a wizard and crack the books hard to learn magic. The decision on focusing on a specific school of magic should be looked at the same as college or a career. As such one must weigh the benefits with the disadvantages and then chose what is best for him/her.
Hope this helps.
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Personally, I think that dropping the arcane bond IS worth an additional spell of every single level you can cast. So for specialists, I think it would be worth it to let them drop both their opposed schools.
After all, they're losing the ability to spontaneously cast any spell in the wizard's book once per day, which is an *awesome* ability, and it only gets better as time goes on.