Hi everyone !
I have a few questions regarding Advanced Player's Guide spell schools categories as they seem to be wacky for certain spells.
I am a new pathfinder player and a GM and this is my first post, so please be kind. :)
There are a several, or perhaps maybe more, spells that don't seem to fit in their school categories which I find very strange because it just doesn't seem right.
Namely:
An oracle spell Borrow Fortune, is classified as an evocation spell. As far as I know, evocation spells produce tangible effects out of magical energies and these effects usually deal large amounts of damage. Shouldn't this spell belong to divination school ?
Crafter's Curse and Crafter's Fortune: Fortune applies a bonus and curse applies a penalty on craft checks and they are classified as transmutation. Shouldn't they be divination/necromancy ? Fortune spell clearly states that you are struck by a moment of inspiration and allocating it to a transmutation school doesn't really make sense.
Pain Strike - Deals untyped damage and sickens targets. Shouldn't this be a necromancy spell and not evocation ? Especially considering that symbol of pain is a necromancy spell.
Sculpt Corpse - Changes the appearance of a corpse. In description it states that "this spell merely changes the appearance" so why is it classified as necromancy. It should be classified as transmutation in my opinion.
I would like to hear your opinion regarding these 'weird' choices as I am unsure whether I am making a mistake or developers are not taking spell schools seriously.
I'd like to apologize if this has been already debated as I am a new member here. Thanks.
An oracle spell Borrow Fortune, is classified as an evocation spell. As far as I know, evocation spells produce tangible effects out of magical energies and these effects usually deal large amounts of damage. Shouldn't this spell belong to divination school ?
Crafter's Curse and Crafter's Fortune: Fortune applies a bonus and curse applies a penalty on craft checks and they are classified as transmutation. Shouldn't they be divination/necromancy ? Fortune spell clearly states that you are struck by a moment of inspiration and allocating it to a transmutation school doesn't really make sense.
Pain Strike - Deals untyped damage and sickens targets. Shouldn't this be a necromancy spell and not evocation ? Especially considering that symbol of pain is a necromancy spell.
Sculpt Corpse - Changes the appearance of a corpse. In description it states that "this spell merely changes the appearance" so why is it classified as necromancy. It should be classified as transmutation in my opinion.
It depends is he actually borrowing the forture? haha, I mean if he has to grab it from somewhere supposedly. I do agree it seems divination.
CC and CF could be making their hands extra sensitive, manipulating the body I suppose? kind of falls there.. seems more enchantment to me.
Pain Strike - yeah I dont know what happened.
Sculpt corse - because it has corpse in the name! DONT ASK!
Good points though
My PO^
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Dude, I stopped trying to make sense of the way spells are allocated to schools a long long time ago.
Why is Mage Armor a conjuration spell when it's made of force (evoc)?
Why is healing in conjuration, but harming in necromancy?
Why is speak with dead in necromancy and not divination?
Why is cause fear in necromancy and not enchantment?
In short: If it can even vaguely make sense just give up and go with it. It isn't worth it.
Dude, I stopped trying to make sense of the way spells are allocated to schools a long long time ago.
Why is Mage Armor a conjuration spell when it's made of force (evoc)?
Why is healing in conjuration, but harming in necromancy?
Why is speak with dead in necromancy and not divination?
Why is cause fear in necromancy and not enchantment?
In short: If it can even vaguely make sense just give up and go with it. It isn't worth it.
Well, I suppose an evocation defensive spell seemed like an abomination at time so they decided to call it conjuration. :)
In 3.5 development process they thought that clerics don't have enough conjuration spells, so they decided to change Necromancy[healing] into Conjuration[healing], which was a bad idea because it makes less sense RP wise plus schools are mainly wizardly issues and healing was traditionally necromancy for as long as I remember. It was just a really bad decision.
Cause fear was added into necromancy for the same reason healing was turned into conjuration. They felt sorcs/wizs didn't have enough low level necromancy spells. Another bad decision implemented into 3.5.
Regarding 'Speak with dead'... I suppose writers/devs just put everything with the word dead/death in it into necromancy.
I am just trying to make the point here and honestly, I see no balance reasons to hack at fluff when it comes to schools of spells. Also these 'mistakes' could have been changed with a little bit of tweaking. I am surprised no one on PF team decided to work on them as they don't require much work at all.
Thanks for your reply btw.
IMHO, things like Speak with Dead should be in multiple schools at once. I really don't know why it's anathema to do that. It would make much more sense for Speak with Dead to be both Divination and Necromancy (Divination by Necromancy). There's a lot of spells that fall into multiple's like that. You could do the healing spells as Conjuration/Necromancy (Conjuring Life force), same for harm (Conjuring anti-life force).