I have a huge problem with picking to opposing schools. I am looking to do a controller/blaster. What would be good opposing schools and why. (yes I read Treantmonk's guide to being a god).
I normally go as a generalist, but at low levels that extra spell slot looks mighty nice.
|
I am currently playing a similar concept. After 5 levels, here are my recommendations:
1. The one school to ban is def abjuration. There are a lot of good spells in that school, but they simply don't fit the controller/blaster concept. Want protection from evil? Drink a potion. And don't forget scrolls.
2. Divination is a toss up. On one hand, detect magic, identify, and true strike are invaluable to a wizard. On the other, nothing else has been truly necessary. One thing I want to point out is that you can jack up your init by picking Divination as your specialist school, having a good DEX, and choosing specific feats and traits. High init for controller/blaster = kick ass.
3. Take a close look at conjuration's pit spells. I think there are a lot of potential there.
4. I know a lot of people on the board dump on evocation, but my fireballs have thus far have not disappoint, even when enemies save. You should take people's advice into consideration, but BUILD YOUR OWN WIZARD.
Good luck!
I am currently playing a similar concept. After 5 levels, here are my recommendations:
1. The one school to ban is def abjuration. There are a lot of good spells in that school, but they simply don't fit the controller/blaster concept. Want protection from evil? Drink a potion. And don't forget scrolls.
2. Divination is a toss up. On one hand, detect magic, identify, and true strike are invaluable to a wizard. On the other, nothing else has been truly necessary. One thing I want to point out is that you can jack up your init by picking Divination as your specialist school, having a good DEX, and choosing specific feats and traits. High init for controller/blaster = kick ass.
3. Take a close look at conjuration's pit spells. I think there are a lot of potential there.
4. I know a lot of people on the board dump on evocation, but my fireballs have thus far have not disappoint, even when enemies save. You should take people's advice into consideration, but BUILD YOUR OWN WIZARD.
Good luck!
I will run this thru Herolab when i get home. Any other ideas are also appreciated.
Depending on HOW you want to "control", you might want to drop Enchantment and/or Necromancy.
Enchantment is great for control, but almost the entire school is useless against SO many things (immune to mind-effects and so on) and half of the remaining things have high will saves.
Necromancy has a few powerful debuffs (like Enervation) and at least one powerful Blast (Horrd Wilting) but I'd say in most cases there's a wide range of conjuration, evocation or transmution spells that work just as well.
These two would be the schools I'd pick as opposing for any specialist wizard. Ironically, I'm gonne play a witch soon and for that class, necromancy and Enchantment are among the biggest spell schools. ^^
Anyway, if you really can't decide (and have WAY too much time as I do occasionally), you could use math. Make a worksheet in Excel (or similar program) containing all Wizard spells, ordered by level and school. Add your personal ranking to each spell, filter by school and look for the two schools with the lowest average ranking. Then drop them.
|
Agreed on Abjuration. There's just too many spells you aren't going to use in that school or that can be made up for by party equipment. The only kicker is suffering on Dispel Magic. Still, one good spell doesn't justify keeping the entire school.
Necromancy generally targets one enemy and has a lot of spells you might not use (if good) or of limited use (if not facing undead). Since you're looking for maximized damage and control, it's not the way to go.
I'd consider Enchantment as a substitute for either as it sounds like you are going to blow things up, not subtlely manipulate them with jedi mind tricks.
Don't forget that the way barred schools work now is that they simply take up two slots. We have a wizard in our party that continues to think that he simply can't cast spells of a certain school (not sure if it ever worked that way).
I think for a blaster controller i would drop divination and enchantment (unless you were going to be a flat out enchanter). Enchantment is one of my favorite schools, but there are a lot of limitations on their spells, and spells like charm person/monster are almost useless in comparison unless you put significant effort into them (with the whole -4 to DC crap.)
|
I second dropping necromancy. Mostly single target spells and generally not even easy hits or good control.
Divination or Enchantment or maybe Abjuration are my other suggested drops - some nice spells but possibly not compelling. Which spells would you miss most?
Conjuration and evocation are core. Illusion has several good spells (control: color spray, wandering star motes; utility: invisibility, mirror image). Transmutation has Haste and Fly and is probably worth keeping just for that.
I also second the pit spells as being both controller and damage - they take people out of combat and do damage - especially once you get to Hungry Pit. Though acid pit needs to be used carefully as it destroys their posessions too.
Spells like flaming sphere and Ball lightning are particularly good long duration damage spells for any mage. Potentially dishing out damage exactly where needed for several rounds.
You should also look at elementalist wizards for control and damage. Less opposition spells though usually more important ones.
Blasting and Controlling. That suggest wanting Evocation and Enchantment. While you can blast and control without these schools, you will miss out on some of the quintessential blasting and controlling spells if you drop these schools. So I'd say these two are pretty essential to what you want to do.
Conjuration is almost necessary to have for any wizard. It gives you teleporting, summoning, and battlefield control, among other things. I don't think I'd ever suggest dropping this school.
Transmutation is almost as essential as Conjuration. Many of your buffs, both defensive and offensive, are in this school. This school is far too verstile to lose.
The leaves four schools left: Abjuration, Divination, Illusion, and Necromancy.
1. Abjuration provides Dispel Magic and some defensive spells. Aside from Dispel Magic, you can get by without abjuration. Look at the list...there aren't going to be many abjuration spells you will prepare a lot. This is a prime candidate for dropping.
2. Divination has a lot of information gathering spells. It can be real hard to get by without divination...no detect magic, analyze dweomer, see invisibility. It can be done, but it makes life difficult. I wouldn't drop this unless there was another caster in the party who can handle item identification and invisibility popping, such as a cleric with good spellcraft.
3. Illusion has a lot of great spells. Invisibility alone can be worth having this school. But then again, it is very counter to the thought processes behind blasting and controlling. I'd consider this nice to have, but easily dropped, for a blaster/controller.
4. Necromancy also has a lot of nice spells, some are even blasty and controlly types. Theres a lot of good debuffs here too to help make your blasting and controlling spells land better...enervation, waves and rays of fatigue/exhaustion to lower Ref saves, etc. Like Illusion, I'd consider this nice but not essential.
So personally, for a blaster/controller wizard, I'd definitely drop abjuration, and then either illusion or necromancy depending on how I see the character being. Illusion if going more defensive, necromancy for more offense. For a good guy illusion, for a bad or creepy guy necromancy. I wouldn't want to be without divination...personally I just couldn't play a wizard without wizardy ways of gaining info.
|
|
My conjuration specialist "god" wizard dropped divination and enchantment. Identify is practically useless and true strike is by no means necessary for a wizard who focuses on control and non-attack roll spells like fireball and magic missile. Detect magic is great, but you can just get an imp at level 7 who can do that for you!
A while back people said that evocation was the best school to drop because conjuration had direct damage spells like acid splash. With the dazing spell metamagic (or more importantly, rod of dazing) this is no longer true. A fireball with a rod of dazing just became one of the best crowd control spells in the game, all while dealing 10d6 damage to each target!
Enchantment is not a bad school, but everything in the enchantment school requires a will save, and most of them have similar effects (just different levels of control). There are some pretty decent spells (hold monster, for instance), but there's just not enough utility. Feel free to drop enchantment.
Whatever you do, do not drop necromancy. Necromancy is probably the second most important school for the type of wizard you're trying to play. Quite a few of the spells in here are worthless, but there are gems like enervation which are both technically a blast AND control (debuff) at the same time. Enervation is the sixth most important spell on my spell list every day.
Illusion also isn't a horrible school to drop. The usefulness of the image spells really depend on how your DM interprets the rules. Treantmonk thinks they're great spells, but I find them to be useless when I play with them ("A dragon just appeared in a city? I'll add a +20 to my will save before even interacting with it because I just don't believe it".) Outside of that there are a lot of decent but not omgwtfpwn spells like invisibility and mirror image. There are other ways to get out of the situations that these spells are good in (dimensional steps or stealthy rogues are good examples).