Three new wizard schools available on Demiplane

[Xenocrat]

Demiplane has added to the wizard page three new wizard schools (scroll down to the bottom). Two are from Shining Kingdoms, one is from Shades of Blood AP volume 3.

The school of gates is excellent, with top shelf focus spells and good curriculum spells or heightening options at all levels; school of magical technologies looks pretty good with a flexibly good initial focus spell, defensible second one, and reasonable to good curriculum spells throughout (you can always put in some Summon Constructs for trap triggering or Wooden Doubles for crit eating), and the school of kalistrade certainly exists if you like the focus spells and want to blend away most of your curriculum spells that aren't filled with invisibility, charm, or suggestion.

I think gates and magical technologies make wizards considerably more playable by providing you with useful starting focus spells you would actually want to use in every combat and allowing you to play any thesis without feeling your curriculum slots were thrown in the trash.

[Tridus]

I've said before that I think the primary issue with Wizard schools isn't the concept: it's just that there wasn't a lot of interesting published schools. Nice to see some interesting options appearing now.

[R3st8]

Have any new feats been added for these schools? Right now, the schools feel more like limits than real improvements. It’s a bit frustrating when it seems like something was taken away and only partly given back, making it feel like a half-fix trying to get back to square zero rather than a real upgrade. The focus spells don’t feel very exciting compared to those of classes like the druid, bard, or witch. Wizards get only two focus spells, and unlike the druid’s, these aren’t improved by feats. There also don’t seem to be any major or capstone feats connected to these schools. Overall, the class feels basic and not very interesting. It would be good to see more work done in these areas to make the schools feel more useful and rewarding.

[Xenocrat]

The Gates rank 1 spell is like the Wizard’s “we have Four Winds Kineticist impulse at home,” it lets you spend a whole round shifting three martials into or out of flanks/attack range they can’t do with their own actions. Or do it once or twice, for as long as the whole combat. It’s crazy strong party support, especially as it heightens. Even at level 1 it allows you to lift the entire party up a sheer 30’ cliff or wall one at a time per round.

The rank 4 not only gives you resistance (a lot of it if they have bonus energy damage to resist twice), it interrupts multiattack routines like draconic frenzy or at the least trades your reaction for one of their actions to chase you down. It’s great.

The curriculum avoids levels with totally dead/useless spells. Even if you don’t want the utility mid level mobility stuff you can heighten the force damage AOE plus short range teleport that is essentially “small slightly weak emanation force fireball plus a stride,” or the slot spell that does for allies what the rank 4 focus does for you - reaction reduce their damage, disrupt a multiattack, and move them away from a follow on strike.

[Witch of Miracles]

Okay, yeah, this school is actually good.

Does the forced movement from the focus spell break grapples?

[R3st8]

Xenocrat wrote:

The Gates rank 1 spell is like the Wizard’s “we have Four Winds Kineticist impulse at home,” it lets you spend a whole round shifting three martials into or out of flanks/attack range they can’t do with their own actions. Or do it once or twice, for as long as the whole combat. It’s crazy strong party support, especially as it heightens. Even at level 1 it allows you to lift the entire party up a sheer 30’ cliff or wall one at a time per round.

The rank 4 not only gives you resistance (a lot of it if they have bonus energy damage to resist twice), it interrupts multiattack routines like draconic frenzy or at the least trades your reaction for one of their actions to chase you down. It’s great.

The curriculum avoids levels with totally dead/useless spells. Even if you don’t want the utility mid level mobility stuff you can heighten the force damage AOE plus short range teleport that is essentially “small slightly weak emanation force fireball plus a stride,” or the slot spell that does for allies what the rank 4 focus does for you - reaction reduce their damage, disrupt a multiattack, and move them away from a follow on strike.

I’ve previously complained about spell slot limitations, the rarity system, wizards often being relegated to support roles, their effectiveness being mostly against weaker enemies, heavy reliance on the GM, situational spells, huge table variance, underwhelming feats, weak capstones, and the overall feeling that the class could be better.

With that in mind, Paizo introduced a school system that seems to further narrow spell choices, added uncommon schools with spells that GMs might choose to ban, and created a school centered on flanking and positioning. This approach seems to reinforce the wizard’s support role, which might only shine in specific scenarios like near a chasm—and potentially mostly against weaker foes. It feels like this is even more dependent on the GM and subject to table variance.

I feel like my feedback has been ineffective.

[Xenocrat]

Witch of Miracles wrote:

Okay, yeah, this school is actually good.

Does the forced movement from the focus spell break grapples?

I've seen discussion of this on a discord, consensus that I agree with is that it's not actually forced movement, given that it's a willing target. They call out a special exemption for unconscious allies to get moved without triggering reactions.

Late game when Effortless Concentration comes online Friendly Push is basically equivalent to a quickened stride (that stacks with real quickened) that you can use yourself or gift to an ally on your turn.

[QuidEst]

I'm really happy with all three additions thematically.

We have a teleportation-focused arcane school, a very wizardly thing to be able to do, and an important niche to have covered now that it's not a weird conjuration insert. For reflavors of mechanics, it's an excellent tactician-lite, scooting people around to where they need to be. The spells are tons of different ways to use magical teleportation and movement, which is a lot of fun- it will let you really feel like a specialist applying their specialty in a variety of ways.

We have a luxury arcane school, something I've wanted since we got the remaster details. Loading down an enemy with your treasure is a flex- it's not the most practical spell, but at least a speed and AC penalty are always functional. The advanced school spell being get-out-of-death-free with a recovery perk (on arcane, no less!) is fantastic, though. The spells are an excellent selection of rich person magic- my only major suggestion would be asking the GM for the addition of Planar Palace. Excellent for playing a rich jerk of any sort.

And, last but not least, we've got a crafting arcane school- something for the construct manufacturers and other more technically-focused mages. The versatile focus spell is great both in and out of combat, fitting the theme nicely. Spells are a nice blend of combat and utility, with plenty of options that lend themselves to creative applications.

These are all the sorts of things I hoped we would be getting when they introduced the remaster, and I'm glad to see it happening. I'd be a little happier if they were a tad more general in the presented flavor and common instead, but level one subclass choices are especially easy to talk to the GM about, so I'm not too bothered by that.

[Xenocrat]

Another amazing use of the Rapid Retreat gates school focus 4 spell is that it prevents a monster (improved) grab/knockdown/push from triggering — you teleport away as soon as the strike damage hits.

[Xenocrat]

Shining Kingdoms is on Nethys now.