I found a PRc class in the compleat campion called the abjurant champion. it's another cross of mage and warrior, and this one reilies on spells for armor; boosting thier abj spells to do it.
so my question is this: why is mage armor a conjuration spell and shield a abj spell?
The short answer is: Lack of quality control -- the errata for that book removes the mage armor spell from the list of spells that benefit since it doesn't match school.
hmm, could you post that errata, Abraham?
No -- google it, I've told you it exists, and that you can find it -- sorry but I have better things to do with my time than track down errata for every old rules question that comes up.
Not to be rude, I'm simply not that invested in 3.5 anymore and have other stuff to do.
it's ok, have a good one.
it's ok, have a good one.
It is on the website, their website that is. It is kind of buried so you will have to use google to find it.
Mage Armor is Conjuration because that is what it has always been, at least since AD&D.
And I was going to say "Shield is abjuration, because it has always been abjuration" but that isn't true. For some reason, Shield used to be Evocation (at least it was in 2nd edition).
As to why they are in separate schools, despite both doing a very similar thing (creating an energy field to protect you), who knows? Maybe they separated them so that a specialist wizard was more likely to have at least one on his spell list. (In 2nd edition, an invoker had shield, but not mage armor. A conjurer had mage armor, but not shield.)
Maybe they separated them so that a specialist wizard was more likely to have at least one on his spell list.
i suspected that this might be, but fervently hoped it was not.
thanks guys, if you have any more relivent info... cool.
Yeah, they just weren't paying attention when they wrote that class up. It's still unbelievably good even if its bonuses only apply to shield instead of both shield AND mage armor. There are some other deflection spells in 3.5 (maybe even in that book, though Abjurant Champion is in Complete Mage not Complete Champion).
If you really want to go full cheese, the spell Greater Luminous Armor is in the Book of Enlightened Deeds in 3.5 and is a more rockin' version of mage armor that falls under Abjuration. Though...you do glow like the sun for the whole day (enemies get a -4 to attack you tho!).
Once upon a time, spells and their opposites were the same school.
If you think of shield as the opposite to magic missile, it makes a bit of sense.
As for the rest of it, you'll have to ask someone who can really cast spells, I'm just an amateur historian.
I'm just an amateur historian.
Hay, so am I! ;)