Hey everyone, I just wanted opinions on which is better for a wizard to specialize in, an elemental school or an arcane school?
It seems that arcane schools have better given abilities, but the elemental schools give the ability to only have one opposing school instead of the arcane specialists 2 opposing schools. Given that the elemental opposing school is select spells and not every single spell from a school, this seems attractive.
Personally, I am liking the wood elemental school. It gives a permanent (at least I think it is) bonus to an attribute, a decently damaging ability, a decent spell list that includes some druid spells (though admittedly later), sirocco sooner (haven't found a ruling on if this is true) and the metal school only has a few spells in it that seem attractive. Air is also pretty awesome, but then you put grease into an opposing school then.
If I were to pick an arcane school to specialize in, it'd probably be either illusion or conjuration. Each has good abilities and spells associated with them. Thing is, are the abilities added, good enough to take 2 opposing arcane schools?
Any thoughts, opinions or advice as to which is better between elemental schools or arcane schools?
If you go Elemental, don't forget to take Opposition Research at 9th level. It removes the restrictions from the opposing school.
Conjuration is a good one, another good one is Divination (because you always get to act). The Teleportation subschool of Conjuration is often viewed as being over powered because you're really hard to pin down.
That's a good point, opposition research can do a lot for both elemental and arcane schools. Teleportation is very good, though specializing in divination I wouldn't be sure about.
Thanks for the input.
Actually, Divination is a great school because your Wizard always gets to act in the surprise round, and you get a bonus to your initiative equal to half your wizard level. This is an amazing ability as going first as a Wizard can drastically alter the fight ahead.
For instance, say you an the party are creeping through a dungeon when you're ambushed by a group of orcs that no one knew was there. You, as a Diviner, get to act in the surprise round, and may actually get to act before the Orcs do. You could cast a spell (like Wall of Iron, Wall of Ice, Black Tentacles or Create Pit) that would slow down the Orcs and give your party enough time to marshal their defenses.
You also get a really good Spell-like Ability in Diviner's Fortune. You can simply touch an person and give them a bonus an all rolls (except damage) equal to half your wizard level. At 10th level, you can touch the Fighter and give him +5 to hit, +5 to his saves +5 on his strength checks and +5 on his skills for 1 round. That's AMAZING!
Also, you can then take the feat Quicken Spell-like Ability to use Diviner's Fortune on yourself 3 time per day to give yourself a bonus to when you need it as well. For instance, say you really need to land that Enervation spell, you can give yourself a bonus on the attack roll equal to half your caster level. Granted, you can't take this feat till later on, but it's something to keep in mind.
That does sounds pretty darn good. A very good case for divination indeed, not sure if there are enough divination spells that I'd want to pick up each time I level, at least at lower levels. Of course, I'm not nearly as experienced as other practiced wizard players.
Well that's not a problem either, you can simply play an elf spellbinder and swap those spells you don't like after you memorized them.
I don't think spell binder is better than familiar or item bond though.
Just grab a preferred spell, I think.
Divination isn't something you do for the extra spell slots; you're not going to want to cast a divination spell of every level every day.
I kind of think of it as universalist with awesome powers.