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I think enchantment would make more sense. What does the spell have to do with death or the like?
Looking over the spells. It seems like if it has the fear descriptor it's a necromancy spell. The only exceptions to this are when the effect is very clearly an illusion, phantasm or divination spell. I'm not sure that it's really an explanation but at least there is consistency.
The description of the school under magic states.
Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school.
I'm guessing its tied into the whole "fear of death" that most living things have but its a weak explanation.
Sure, it could be enchantment, but I think it is more interesting to throw that into the necromancy wheelhouse. Tying fear to life energies is a little more flavorful, in my opinion.
EDIT: Going to my copy of the playtest document, they have moved Fear to enchantment school. So, Necro gains healing and loses fear. Ah well.
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I think enchantment would make more sense. What does the spell have to do with death or the like?
Necromancy and Illusion are kind of 'theme' schools, in a sense, cobbled together from bits and pieces that should technically be in other schools.
Fear being a necromancy effect, when it's kind of clearly an enchantment effect, is one of many examples of such.
Conjure forces from any place *other* than the planes of shadow or negative energy, even Hell itself, or the positive energy plane, and it's conjuration. Conjure forces from the plane of shadow, it's illusion. Conjure forces from the negative energy plane, it's necromancy.
Create light, evocation. Create darkness, evocation. Create damaging sound, evocation. Create *colored light* or make sounds that sound like people talking, and now it's illusion? (Even if the 'illusionist' isn't creating the light, but actually reshaping pre-existing light, then it should be transmutation, not illusion...)
It is what it is. Spells are slotted into categories kind of willy nilly, and *many* spells both create and reshape material, or both create and move objects (like creating a chunk of ice or stone and then throwing it at someone), and wouldn't neatly fit into a single 'school' anyway, so it's always going to be a kludge, and any fixes offered would be subjective, since so many spells and effects could go in various directions.
Examples; creating darkness (or cold) isn't really 'creating' something so much as removing it. Thematically, both fit under the squiffy necromancy tag. Mechanically, either could fit under abjuration, as one is 'abjuring' light (or heat) from an area, sending it away or warding it off to 'create' darkness (or cold). Moving all darkness (or cold) effects (that don't conjure solid objects of 'darkness' or ice anyway) to necromancy or abjuration would *radically* change certain game assumptions, and make both those schools, and evocation, significantly different.
Is that a desired result?
Sometimes it's easier to accept the inconsistency of having spells scattered among different schools for 'balance' reasons, than to resort them all according to, admittedly subjective and sometimes contradictory, associations...
Eh, I'm just rationalizing my own laziness here. Yes, it's weird, but I can't be bothered to try and change it all to suit my own preferences, and even if I did, they'd just be *my* preferences and someone would come along with different preferences and be as unsatisfied with my choices as with I was with the original ones.
IIRC, the reason fear is listed in Necromancy was just to give the school a few more spells, as it initially didn't have that many. If we want to rationalize it instead, say that the spell doesn't play with your emotions but rather alters the flow of adrenaline in the body, provoking a flight response. There you go, something that makes sense in Necromancy :)
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I think that Fear spells should by default be in Enchantment, but I wouldn't be completely averse to having a few sprinkled elsewhere, reflecting specialists in other Arcane Schools having figured out how to use their specialty schools cleverly to trigger effects not directly in their own school of specialty. An analogy would be what Sean K. Reynolds did (unofficially) with Fly (scroll down for non-Transmutation Fly spells, although for something official I'd like to see this fleshed out a bit more. For Cause Fear (low level) and Fear (mid level), an approximate equivalent would be to have these be Enchantment by default, but Necromancers figured out spells having related effects Induce Fright (low level) and Panic (mid level), each being higher level than the Enchantment equivalent, but targeting Fortitude instead of Will due to bypassing the target's mind(s) and tinkering insidiously with the target's life force to cause a fight-or-flight response, weighted heavily towards autonomically-induced panic.
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The same "reason" that mage armor and shield (force effects) are Conjuration and Abjuration instead of Evocation, cure X wounds is Conjuration, etc.: It is the result of an attempt to "balance" the schools during the development of 3.0.
In 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D, fear was an Illusion school spell (similar to phantasmal killer, I guess), cure X wounds was Necromancy, shield was Evocation, etc.
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I always thought healing should be evocation since it "summons" positive energy. The rule seems to be evocation summons energy and conjuration summons tangible things.
And there's where the subjectivity comes in.
Healing spells could be;
Conjuration because they conjure positive energy.
Necromancy because they deal with life-energy and life-force and the body.
Evocation because creating energy is what evocation does.
Transmutation because they reknit flesh and fuse broken bones, or Abjuration because they eradicate or 'abjure' injury, disease or poison.
I could probably delve into the Hindu concept of Maya (reality is an illusion) or some sort of implicate 'ideal self' gobbledigook or the mind/body 'I convinced the mind to heal the body' stuff to justify Illusion or Divination or Enchantment as well...
Ultimately, it's kind of on the setting to try and find a rationale for what schools exist, and *how* they work. (If cure wounds spells don't use positive energy but just reknits flesh magically, or uses 'life-energy,' then Transmutation or Necromancy makes much more sense than Conjuration or Evocation.)
I'm not a huge fan of the positive energy plane as it is, it having always been a strange sort of step-child in previous editions of D&D (nobody living there, and rarely having any sort of reason to go there or 'use it' narratively, as GM or player). It seemed to exist solely as a balance to the negative energy plane, which is kind of baked into the setting through it's connection to the undead. I'm kind of with James Jacobs on how sometimes things don't need to exist in matching pairs, one of each type, and that just because you've got this one cool thing over on the left side of the spectrum, doesn't mean that there *has* to be a balancing thing over on the right side of the spectrum. I'd be totally fine with a setting that had no positive energy plane at all, and used life-energy or soul-energy or something like that to rationalize magical healing (perhaps explaining why, in such a setting, that healing magic would be more commonly the purview of the gods, and divine casters, since it's tapping into the power of souls).
I still think healing should be evocation. Evocation summons energy (except for negative energy which is necromancy). Conjuration summons material stuff. Consider that all the energy type damage spells are evocation except for acid which is conjuration, the reason presumably being acid is a liquid or other substance. Healing spells don't summon anything tangible so I think evocation makes the most sense
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I still think healing should be evocation. Evocation summons energy (except for negative energy which is necromancy).
If negative energy is necromancy, then so is positive energy. I do agree that they better fit the description of "manipulate magical energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end", which is the description of evocation.
So yeah, maybe the necromancy school schouldn't even exist.
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Aside from simple thematics, and the perk of having some mind-affecting magic that isn't enchantment, I'd go with the concept of fear being something more primal and rooted than other emotions and thoughts. It's somewhat of a impulse all living things have, and you just need to poke them in the mortality to get them to feel it. Just like you tap a knee to get it to reflexively kick.
That said I generally echo Set's thoughts here.
It would be interesting to have an evolutionary tree of magic, in which more specialized Arcane Schools evolved over time, branching off from each other and sometimes anastomosing a bit, like the evolution of life itself. For instance:
Necromancy branched off from Transmutation, which could manipulate life force enough to transmute bodies for polymorphing purposes and even heal or create simple breaks and cuts, but didn't have the finesse needed for more subtle repairs or sabotage. It's actually similar to how Gluttony is a specialty version of Greed (these are the respective associated Deadly Sins). . . .
I still think healing should be evocation. Evocation summons energy (except for negative energy which is necromancy).If negative energy is necromancy, then so is positive energy. I do agree that they better fit the description of "manipulate magical energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end", which is the description of evocation.
So yeah, maybe the necromancy school schouldn't even exist.
Well, there is also the creation of undead, which is another big part of necromancy, as well as death spells. That said, I agree that it seems weird for all the types of energy in the game to be evocation except for negative which is necromancy.
I presume that creating undead is done by animating a corpse with negative energy. Most death spells seem to manipulate life energy (or do something with negative energy), and could or even should thus be in evocation.
I actually want to make something out of what was presumably a mistake in my edition of the 1st Edition AD&D Monster Manual, which said that Mummies had a strong connection to the Positive Material Plane. If most living things have Positive Energy Affinity, but a few weird ones have Negative Energy Affinity, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're evil -- why not have it that only most Undead have Negative Energy Affinity, while a few weird ones have Positive Energy Affinity, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're good? In both cases they would be created by Necromantic effects.
If negative energy is necromancy, then so is positive energy.
Or magic using negative energy is necromancy, and positive-energy-based life magic is vivomancy.
It does make sense that Fear can be an enchantment. It makes sense that it could be a Necromancy effect as well. There are other lores where Fear is simply a Mind-affecting effect and not a Necromantic effect. /shrug
It makes sense that it could be a Necromancy effect as well.
But it doesn't, not in Pathfinder. "Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force." Fear does neither, what it does, is fit perfectly the description of "Enchantment spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior." Fear spells in general could also very well be illusion ("Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened."), but the Fear spell itself doesn't give any indication that it induces fear by using terrifying images or sounds.
It makes sense that it could be a Necromancy effect as well.But it doesn't, not in Pathfinder. "Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force." Fear does neither, what it does, is fit perfectly the description of "Enchantment spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior." Fear spells in general could also very well be illusion ("Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened."), but the Fear spell itself doesn't give any indication that it induces fear by using terrifying images or sounds.
interestingly, Vision of Hell specifically causes affected creatures to see something terrifying and it is a fear effect. It's also an example of a fear effect that's an illusion instead of necromancy. Suggesting that normal fear doesn't cause people to see things it just frightens them.
It makes sense that it could be a Necromancy effect as well.But it doesn't, not in Pathfinder. "Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force." Fear does neither, what it does, is fit perfectly the description of "Enchantment spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior." Fear spells in general could also very well be illusion ("Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened."), but the Fear spell itself doesn't give any indication that it induces fear by using terrifying images or sounds.
Fear hits you with a dash of death energy (necromancy), which makes you afraid. I’m honestly amazed anyone can’t understand this.
What is "death energy" supposed to be? If you mean negative energy, if you hit a living creature with that, it takes damage, but Fear doesn't deal damage. There are few spells that say "necromantic energy", but none of them are emotion effects.
You can flavor justify anything in any direction. Sometimes you just need to put something somewhere to make options more viable or balanced.
It's like asking why fling creatures aren't primary in Green in Magic: The Gathering even though its the creature part of the color pie. Its a direct balance choice.
What is "death energy" supposed to be? If you mean negative energy, if you hit a living creature with that, it takes damage, but Fear doesn't deal damage. There are few spells that say "necromantic energy", but none of them are emotion effects.
If you hit a living creature with fire, it takes damage. Yet it is possible to run your hand through a flame, feel pain, and not take meaningful damage.
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Well, if (the equivalent of) running your hand through a flame gets you so afraid that you run away panicked or cover in fear, that's your issue, but most characters are made of sterner stuff.
It's like asking why fling creatures aren't primary in Green in Magic: The Gathering even though its the creature part of the color pie. Its a direct balance choice.
Except the magic schools aren't balanced. Transmutation has way more spells than any other school, for instance. Conjuration is the second largest school, if you move the healing spells to necromancy where they belongunder the description, necromancy could easily stand to lose the fear spells to enchantment and illusion. Likewise, not having similar effects spread across multiple schools is actually beneficial to balancing.
Could Fear be flavored to to fit into necromancy? Probably. But it isn't. There isn't a single word in it's description that fits the necromancy school description. I'd like to say it's only in that school because some idiot at WotC couldn't get their head around the fact that the school isn't "the Evil school", but honestly, a spell that makes the enemy run away without harming them in any way is actually more Good than Evil. Maybe there was a dart board involved?
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It makes sense that it could be a Necromancy effect as well.But it doesn't, not in Pathfinder. "Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force." Fear does neither, what it does, is fit perfectly the description of "Enchantment spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior." Fear spells in general could also very well be illusion ("Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened."), but the Fear spell itself doesn't give any indication that it induces fear by using terrifying images or sounds.
It does make sense if you consider the Death Energy Nether coefficient times twice the circumference of a half-orc barbarian skiing backwards down a mountain, and then be sure to carry the 1.
J/k ^_^