So that there is still something that can affect creatures that are immune to enchantment.
To balance schools a bit.
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Yep, it's super odd.
...And I have no good answer for you.
They just went "Necromancy is spoooooky! Fear effects fit!" I think.
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because someone at some point said Necromancy is evil sounding so spells that do "bad things" need to be Necro... Willing to bet that's as much though as went into it.
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It's a holdover from 3.x. The flavor of necromancy in OGL-based games is "Powers of death and unlife."
With the switch from AD&D 2e to the OGL, WOTC changed all/most fear effect spells to necromancy, mainly to help balance out the school IIRC. PF kept them that way for back-compatibility (which was very important back in '09.)
Fear effects are flavored as "fear of death" or "dread from the grave." Or maybe you can say the magic stimulates the physical, primitive areas of the victims' brains to elicit a "fight or flight" response.
If you're the GM and it makes more sense for fear effects to be in the enchantment school, then change it!
And the necromancy school isn't evil in PF...only the actual creation of undead (and a small number of other, specific spells). I've got a good-aligned magical hunter of the dead character who's modeled on Dr. Van Helsing from the novel Dracula. I built him as a necromancer, but one who hates the undead and wants to destroy them all.
As for why healing is Conjuration? Mainly to pull it out of necromancy, when the flavor was changed from "powers of life and death" to "powers of death and unlife." Within that framework, healing doesn't make sense for necromancy. Conjuration is a poor fit, but it's the best one remaining.
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In my research it has become clear to me that the D&D 3.0 decision to move curing spells from necromancy to conjuration was in fact a mistake. With the exception of Abjuration (magical boundaries), Divination (ley lines), and Conjuration (the Astral plane), schools of magic are clearly influenced by the extant Inner Planes. That healing magic should have to come on a circuitous route from the Positive Energy Plane, to the Astral plane, and then to the Material plane while Necromancy can make a direct route from the Negative Energy plane to the Material makes no sense. Additionally, Evocation makes an argument for a school to connect to all planes of a particular theme, and this change covers all the Inner Planes in this fashion.
Abjuration -- Magical Boundaries
Conjuration -- Astral
Divination -- Ley Lines
Enchantment -- First World
Evocation -- Elemental Conjunction
Illusion -- Shadow
Necromancy -- Positive and Negative
Transmutation -- Ethereal
Universal -- Pure Magic
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Some schools of magic don't have many spells. They need the help.
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Necromancy is an awkward school, most schools are defined by the type of thing they do: illusion spells create false sensory stimuli, evocation spells create and manipulate energy, conjuration spells produce stuff, etc... Necromancy is mainly defined by tone. For example, Horrid Wilting does AoE damage by manipulating an element, but it's creepy so its necromancy rather than evocation.
Illusion is another odd duck. Create light *or* darkness, and it's evocation. Create sounds, and it's evocation. Create *colored* light, or sounds that sound like creatures or shadows, and it's illus-o-cation. Conjure energy or creatures from the positive energy plane or plane of fire or sixth layer of hell and it's conjuration. Conjure something from the plane of shadow, and it's illus-uration. (And conjure something from the negative energy plane and it's necrom-uration, because, screw you, school consistency!) Mind-affecting effects are enchantment, unless they are phantasms, in which case, illus-antment! (Again, with fear spells also being necrom-antment.)
At this point, the school setup is a funky artifact of the game's D&D origins, and not something that makes a whole lot of consistent sense, and there are a ton of spells that seem to have properties of multiple schools (fire trap, evocation damage, but it has a sensor telling it not to go off on you, a minor divination effect, that makes it, not evocation *or* divination, somehow?).
And then there's just silly stuff. Negative energy *hates* life, and ideally should be what one uses to murderdeathkill disease organisms, cankers, tumors and parasites with remove disease, while positive energy *loves* life, and even causes stuff to grow dangerously out of control, which means it *exactly* should be the empowering force behind the contagion spell. And yet, they are switched, because negative energy has to have all the icky bad stuff, instead of doing what it actually is supposed to do, and positive energy is supposed to have all the happy nice stuff, even if it will kill you to death just as mercilessly if you step onto it's home plane.
It's really not a fixable thing, IMO. One persons notion of where the spells 'should' go will conflict with another persons, and there are plenty of spells that could *easily* be logically shuffled into two or three different schools (like the aforementioned fire trap, which uses divination to set up an evocation effect, and doesn't 'abjure' a darned thing).
Other games have cleaner concepts, like White Mage (only heals and buffs) or Necromancer (only kills and raises undead). While that's easy to grasp, it's more prone to become dull and in some situations you probably don't have anything useful at hand.
I guess every school has its oddballs. For example Abjuration (the most defensive school) still has Explosive Runes. Such spells are usually not very powerful or versatile, but they are at least an option. A wizard player might end up with interesting decisions like:
Hmm, I have increased DCs on my favourite school, but the spell from the other school deals more damage...
Hmm, shall I use two spell slots for the forbidden spell or one for the weaker version from another school?
To some extent, this affects other casters too, especially when it comes to Spell Focus or foe's immunities. I wouldn't want to see this layer of complexity be gone just because it would feel more straight. There are enough (relatively) simple RPGs out there. Pathfinder should stay in its niche...
Some schools of magic don't have many spells. They need the help.
Fair enough, but in regards to cure spells, Conjuration does not need the help at all.
What with their Summon Anything spells, Evocation Knockoffs but without SR spells, and various other oft-mentioned power spells (Create Pit line, anyone?), Conjuration is stacked enough to only cast Conjuration spells your entire career and still be (mostly) perfectly fine.I've actually heard a few people say that just Summon-ish spells, with every other spell removed, would be enough for Conjuration.
An exaggeration, of course, but not far off.
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So that there is still something that can affect creatures that are immune to enchantment.Are there any monsters specifically immune to a school of magic? I can't recall any.
Constructs are immune to necromancy effects. That's the closest I can find.
Cause fear certainly could be enchantment. Depending on the exact mechanism of the spell though it could certainly fit into necromancy. If it doesn't directly create fear itself, but creates a link of 'dread' connected to the negative material plane and/or the power of unlife. Quite a few undead have similar effects, such as the lich's fear aura (although of course other things have a fear aura too).
Some schools of magic don't have many spells. They need the help.Fair enough, but in regards to cure spells, Conjuration does not need the help at all.
What with their Summon Anything spells, Evocation Knockoffs but without SR spells, and various other oft-mentioned power spells (Create Pit line, anyone?), Conjuration is stacked enough to only cast Conjuration spells your entire career and still be (mostly) perfectly fine.I've actually heard a few people say that just Summon-ish spells, with every other spell removed, would be enough for Conjuration.
An exaggeration, of course, but not far off.
The classes that care what school things are, generally speaking, don't have many/any cure spells anyway so I'm not really seeing this as a big deal.
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Illusion is another odd duck. Create light *or* darkness, and it's evocation. Create sounds, and it's evocation. Create *colored* light, or sounds that sound like creatures or shadows, and it's illus-o-cation. Conjure energy or creatures from the positive energy plane or plane of fire or sixth layer of hell and it's conjuration. Conjure something from the plane of shadow, and it's illus-uration. (And conjure something from the negative energy plane and it's necrom-uration, because, screw you, school consistency!) Mind-affecting effects are enchantment, unless they are phantasms, in which case, illus-antment! (Again, with fear spells also being necrom-antment.)Necromancy is an awkward school, most schools are defined by the type of thing they do: illusion spells create false sensory stimuli, evocation spells create and manipulate energy, conjuration spells produce stuff, etc... Necromancy is mainly defined by tone. For example, Horrid Wilting does AoE damage by manipulating an element, but it's creepy so its necromancy rather than evocation.
Abjuration is in a similar position. While most schools are (or at least can be) defined by their means -- evocation manipulates energy, enchantment manipulates minds, necromancy manipulates the forces of life/death, etc. -- abjuration is defined by its ends. It protects...by a variety of means.
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Maybe Cause Fear should be enchantment while a similar spell called something like "Strangle Soul" should be necromancy.
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Maybe Cause Fear should be enchantment while a similar spell called something like "Strangle Soul" should be necromancy.That sounds like a terrifying, high-level spell. I'd imagine it to be more like Darth Vader with a death grip on my neck than a *regular* fear-inducer.
True, the lower level version would be more like "Totally kind of creep-out soul by doing that crazy-eyes thing in a normal conversation, you know? I mean it's a party, but come on..."
I really want that level 2 spell.
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Maybe Cause Fear should be enchantment while a similar spell called something like "Strangle Soul" should be necromancy.
GURPS had a fear-inducing necromancy spell that revealed to a victim vision of their grisly death (although that, in d20 terms, would probably be more of a divination effect).
Another option that would play well with necromancy would be a spell that selectively kills (or temporarily deadens) specific brain cells (or other precisely targeted organs or systems), to cause uncertainty, or remove short-term memories, or inflict specific neurological damasge (such as paralysis of a limb, or blindness, or linguistic difficulties). There's a ton of potential for necromantic effects on both body and brain (if not necessarily mind) as well as harder-to-define effects involving suppressing, removing, binding or even temporarily *enhancing* the soul.
'White' necromancer "I just buffed your soul."
Spell's target "And that does what for me, mechanically?"
'White necromancer "Hell if I know... But avoid succubi and night hags, they'll find you irresistible, like an all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet."