I would suggest divination.
Evocation seems to be very difficult to keep you damage up high enough to be a major contributer later in the game. And at low levels your damage is high enough, but you don't have enough spells to really go-to-town very often. They do seem to do pretty well in the 5-9 level range. Just my limited experience.
Divination's greatest boon is the bonus to initiative. At 6th level I had a +11 to initiative. Your concern is valid in that their are not a huge number of really great divination spells, and many of those are almost as good on a scroll. Rarely is there an adventuring day that I don't want to read someone's mind or find their treasure.
1) detect secret doors, detect undead , comp lang, true strike
2) detect thoughts, create treasure map, locate object, see invisibility
3) arcane sight, clairaudience, locate weakness, seek thoughts, tongues
4) arcane eye, detect scry, scry, locate creature
Etc...
On the other hand...
I have to say that blowing the carp out of things as an evoker is just plain fun (even if not as effective).
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first of all, i'm new to pathfinder (although i used to play 3.x) and as such a player i don't have good familiarity with the spells/feats available yet.
our game will allow: core rulebook, apg, um, and uc
i am trying to decide on which school for my new wiz, and i've basically got it down to two choices: evocation or divination.
i want to play him as a controller/buffer primarily.
divination:
if i go divination, i'm thinking forsight school. it adds a lot to my ability to buff the party after level 8. conceptually, i like the idea of divination and would probably lean that direction except i'm concerned that i won't have enough good spells to choose from for my school slot on each level.
evocation:
if i go evo, i'm thinking admixture school (apg) and picking up the Rime spell metamagic (um) it seems like this should give me a few more options for dealing some damage while also controlling creature mobility. also, with metamagic adjusts, i don't think i'll ever worry about whether or not i have a good evo spell to prep in my school slot.
can somebody give me an idea of what divination spells on each level will be worth having or confirm my concerns over it? the core book seems to have spells/lvl listed by school but the other spell lists i saw were not listed by school and it's painful to wade through...
but currently it's looking to me that i'll have trouble finding real useful spells to prep with divination on at least some of my spell levels.
thanks.
The Prescience and Foretell abilities are solid, especially as a buff/debuff you can use on the fly. Divination is a bit of a rough one though, since at most levels of play you'll have 1/2 or fewer of the number of options available to the other schools for bonus slots. I'd say to go through and see if you can find spells you'd want to fill those slots with at each level, just to make sure you want to go that route.
Evocation is, of course, your standard blow 'em all up and let the gods sort 'em out wizard, hard to go too wrong there.
You could always spec Evocation, but otherwise play a non-blasty wizard. There are a number of Buff/Debuff evocations that can go in your slot, and you can fill the rest of your slots with what ever you want.
At low levels, you have "controlling" evocations like Darkness, Pilfering Hand and Ear-Piercing Scream. And at higher levels, you have the Hand series of spells.
Also, I find that the force missile power is very usefull at low levels, since it allows you to contribute to battle for much longer.
Also, Intense Spells + Alchemist's Ice + Ray of Frost makes for a d3+2 damage cantrip. Which is better than a crossbow :)
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gniht:
Evocation: Damage spells have taken a major hit in effectiveness compared to 3.X. I would not go that route most of the time.
Divination is good. :) High initiative means you get your spells off sooner.
Personally, my favorite School is Conjuration with the Teleportation Subschool (APG p147). The ability to dimension door short distances is useful in so many ways.
Conjuration, Necromancy, and Transmutation are my big three for area control, debuffs, and buffs respectively.
- Gauss
Conjuration does damage AND battlefield control. The Create Pit series of spells, black tentacles, cloudkill, etc. all do damage and control areas.
I love conjuration.
- Gauss
Conjuration is boss.
Conjuration (teleport) for the win.
Unless you really are determined to be incompetent, you really can't lose as a wizard no matter what school you specialize in, or if you don't even specialize at all.This is likely true, but I would advice against:
- Necromancy - It's too hard not to be Evil, which can be problematic both for the party and the adventure.
- Enchantment - There just aren't enough creatures susceptible to enchantments, and even when it does work that just means you deny the other players their shot at the enemy.
- Illusion - I dearly love illusions, but you need a good rapport with the GM to make sure they do what you think they do.
Conjuration (teleport) for the win.
Yup... Spell Focus (conjuration) & Augment Summoning...
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Why does everyone associate evocation only with blast-spells? Yes, many blasts (and most of the famous, like fireball) are evocation, but there is more in that school than that. Darkness, Ice Wall, all the "Hand" spells, are also in the evocation-school.
I'd say, if you want to go controller, choose cojuration. If you want to go controller/blaster hybrid, go evocation. If you want to go buffer, choose transmutation.
You could also always read Treantmonk's guide to the "god"-wizard, or KaptainKrunch/Professor Q's guide (which is based on treantmonk's, but contains more material and thinks different of some spells/abilities).
Unless you really are determined to be incompetent, you really can't lose as a wizard no matter what school you specialize in, or if you don't even specialize at all.
I have to disagree here.
Some GM's, groups, and/or campaigns can make a wizard very difficult to survive and accomplish much.1) Many groups do not do a good job of protecting the squishy (and wizards are about the most squishy, especially at low levels.
2) Some campaigns have little/no time to create magic items, opportunity to learn what will be encounter during the day (spell selection), availibility to learn more spells for the spell book.
3) Some GM's will have intelligent opponents target the squishy and dangerous wizard first (so you always blow all your spells trying to survive). Essentially making you a very bad tank.
I have sometimes found wizards extremely difficult to survive and be effective. Especially low levels.
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The Divination school powers are extremely powerful, especially if you take the Foresight school (which is Divination But Better as far as I'm concerned), but the "price" for that is the slim options you'll have to fill your school slots with.
The following are, in my opinion, your strongest choices:
Level 1 - See Alignment, Comprehend Languages, Identify
Level 2 - See Invisibility, Blood Transcription
Level 3 - Arcane Sight, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance
Level 4 - Detect Scrying (circumstantially), Symbol of Revelation (circumstantially), Communal Tongues (circumstantially), Arcane Eye
Level 5 - Telepathic Bond
Level 6 - True Seeing, Analyze Dweomer
Level 7 - Greater Arcane Sight
Level 8 - Discern Location (circumstantially), Moment of Prescience, Greater Prying Eyes
Level 9 - Foresight
There is only one 9th level Divination spell.
Problem "A" is there just aren't many Divination spells, which, coupled with problem "B" most high level spells are improved versions of low level spells, makes your spell selections kind of a pain.
As a Diviner you're going to be in a situation where two things are definitely going to come up. The first thing is: I hope you're comfortable playing with scrying sensors, because it will be hard to go without preparing any of the scouting Divinations. The second thing is: metamagic on your school slots. The latter is going to require metamagic feats.
Level 1 to 3 - kind of meh for metamagic
Level 4 - Extended Clairaudience/Clairvoyance
Level 5 - Quickened True Strike
Level 6 - Quickened See Invisibility
Level 7 - Extended True Seeing
Level 8 - Extended Greater Arcane Sight
Level 9 - Quickened Telepathic Bond
Or whatever metamagic spells you like on your divinations. It would be cheaper to extend telepathic bond, I guess, but then you'd have the rest of the party in your brain yapping away for 6 1/2 hours a day and, while that would likely cover all of your combat, it also sounds really, really annoying.
On the scrying sensor spells: I like Clairaudience/Clairvoyance and Prying Eyes.
C/C is cast on a location, from which it doesn't move, but you don't need to be present at that location to cast it. Spell range is 400ft + 40ft / level, but you could Enlarge it to double that, capping out at 2,400 feat. You can then keep tabs on that location for 1 min/level, and unlike Scrying it doesn't allow a save :) C/C's main drawback is that you only get to hear or see, not both.
Prying Eyes gives you get 1d4+CL scrying sensors that you send off on individualized little information gatherer missions. That gets to be a lot of sensor. They exist for up to 1 hour per caster level, obey commands up to 25 words, and replay everything they've seen to you at a rate of 1 hour/round -- but it doesn't say this takes any kind of action. Because you'll get 15 to 20 of these things with every cast, you can send 5 of them off on legitimate scouting missions, then leave the other 10 watching specific locations for various lengths of time. Or, you could use them to guard one spot, having one sensor return to you every half-hour to tell you what's been going on.
Greater Prying Eyes gives each one of these things True Seeing.
If your group is less about optimization than role play, be an evoker and have fun with it, if the group is a bunch of munchkins with a killer GM, Go read trentmonk's guide and dont look back!
Of note I prefer conjuration, divination, and illusion myself.
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The divination spells are underwhelming, but not disastrously so. At every level there's something I'm comfortable with to have prepared every day, even if it's "just utility". Once you have it, you'll find a use for it. It's different from many other schools in that you don't prepare your most important spells in specialty slots, which is a bit weird.
However, Divination's school powers are so awesome that I don't really mind. Prescience and a good crit weapon is brutal. If you forecast a 20, that's a good time for a nasty ray spell.
Also: the Lookout teamwork feat and Divination. It feels like cheating, it's that nice. If you talk the rest of the party into taking it, you'll generally have a Full surprise round against Standard enemies. That's definitely an unfair advantage.
If you go pure wizard, or at least hold off on any prestige classes until after level 9, you could do opposed Necromancy and Conjuration, picking up Opposition Research as your 9th level feat, which will unrestrict the school right when you gain access to Teleport.
I find Abjuration, Evocation, Necromancy, and Enchantment the easiest to use as opposition schools depending on character concept and setting. For example if the campaign involves a lot of political intrigue keep enchantment its a life saver, if however its mostly fighting dragons and such, enchantment suddenly isn't so nice. At the end of the day, you can still use your opposition school spells if u really need to, so as long as that's not real often it doesn't really matter much.
Personally I don't think I could ever oppose Abjuration. Losing the ability to spend my Bonded Item unprepared spell on an emergency Dispel Magic is the stuff of nightmares.
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I like familiars much more than bonded objects, but I wouldn't want to lose Abjuration, defense is too important.
I'm no fan of Enchantment. I just don't like the all-or-nothing style; Charm spells would be best before combat, during intrigue. But if the spell fails you've probably turned a neutral party to enemy. The other schools don't gamble quite that much.
Necromancy has good spells, but not anything you can't do with other schools, so it's something you can afford to miss. If you really want the heavy execution spells, it's a good candidate for Opposition Research.
See I can understand that, but I been playing a long time (all of 3.X and some 2nd ed D&D even), and I always feel guilty if I don't take a familiar. Almost like I'm cheating on the little critter or something.
Also I guess I should mention I'm used to groups where one caster controls, and another buffs, and I was control, He was buff the party, It actually worked quite well most of the time. Depending on party make up, abjuration may be a great or horrible choice. although conjuration does give mage armor and summon monster which are two of the best defenses you can get.
See I can understand that, but I been playing a long time (all of 3.X and some 2nd ed D&D even), and I always feel guilty if I don't take a familiar. Almost like I'm cheating on the little critter or something.in 3.x (3.5 i think) there was an option in one of the books to drop havving your familiar for a bonus feat. i'm not sure if that's part of pathfinder but i'll check with my dm if i can do that.
if i can trade the familiar for a feat, then that would make loremaster stand out a bit more. (plus loremaster is conceptually awesome for a diviner i think)
if i can't trade out the familiar, it seems like for critical game mechanics that loremaster only really nets me +2 on fort and reflex saves.
The Affair might be worth while if you get a good feat. *looks around suspiciously to see if his familiar heard him*
...but that's effectively minus 1 for the bogus skill focus pre-req...
What's your charisma like? Have you considered taking any of the Eldritch Heritage feats, given you'll have that Skill Focus anyway?
Up to your DM if they'll allow you a bonded item and familiar at the same time, if you did 10 wiz 10 Loremaster, a Bonded Item doesn't lose anything from a lower level in wizard, and a familiar gained through Eldritch Heritage functions at Character Level - 3.
If your DM is generous with RAI vs RAW, you could pick up Metamagic Adept that way, to gain a few spontaneous metamagics per day; and there is nothing bad with a feat that just gives you +2 DCs with a school that stacks with everything. That + SF & GSF + Spell Perfection = happy dance time
A halfway decent charisma + making your headband do INT & CHA both will do you until you can boost your CHA with Wish spells.
haven't looked at those feats, no idea what they are... will check it out, but originally i was planning on cha as a dump stat (pretty sure we're using one of the point-buy options, but he hasn't stated for sure yet what are stats are)
The Eldritch Heritage feat tree allows non-sorcerers to gain sorcerer bloodline abilities. They have Skill Focus in the bloodline's proffered class skill as a prerequisite, in addition to necessary charisma scores (13 for the first, 15 for the second, 17 for the third).
If your DM allowed you to pick up some of the Arcane Bloodline abilities, however, you could net a second Arcane Bond, spontaneous metamagics a couple times each day, and +2 DCs to one school.
You can meet feat requirements with headbands, and you wont't be able (or want) to take those feats right away, either, as they have minimum character levels and you need your skill focus first.
If you had 15 point buy, you could afford an array like this...
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 12
INT 16
WIS 10
CHA 11
11 CHA will get you everything you need if you get Headbands of Mental Prowess for INT and CHA both (which is more expensive than Headbands of Vast Intellect but not undoable).
If you had 20 point buy, you could afford to put a 12 into CHA, which would mean that, by the time access to Wish rolls around, you could Wish your CHA up to 17 and not need to rely on the headband any more (which is, again, expensive but not impossible).
VRMH:
Necromancy is not about evil. Most of the necromancy spells are not evil. A decent number of necro spells are excellent debuff spells.
Bialaska:
The biggest problem with choosing your specialty is that half of your spells (after first level) belong to your speciality. So while you may want to choose a specialty based on the powers if you are stuck with only your spells gained at each level you just limited your focus. Some GMs do not provide the opportunity for wizards to gain new spells.
- Gauss
gniht: No it would not apply. Those spells do not use your CMB.
- Gauss