POLL: Spell Schools

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What is your favoured schools?
Also this is nothing to do with mage kits

I havn't included All School, because they're too overpowered

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 14 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Spell Schools (14 votes.)

Spell Schools (Choose 1)
* Conjuration/Summoning - 21% (3)
* Abjuration - 21% (3)
* Illusion/Phantasm - 7% (1)
* Alteration - 7% (1)
* Enchantment/Charm - 0% (0)
* Necromancy - 29% (4)
* Evocation/Invocation - 14% (2)
* Divination - 0% (0)

 

Necromancy is very powerful in offense in HIGH levels only. Finger of Deaths and Abi Dalzim's really HURT! Skull trap and Animate Dead is good in high lvls too! Death spell comes VERY handy! Wail of the Banshee is weak, but VERY useful against mages whose save vs deaths suck hard. Plus it bypasses most of protections too! Though this school is so evil and corrupting! (by RP standarts o'course)

Alteration is nifty, Slow, Haste, Disintegrate, Flesh to Stone, AND TIME STOP are cool beyond words!

Evocation is bread and butter of low levels, nothing is as dreadful as a fireball in low levels. In high levels they are less efficient though Incendiary Cloud can do INSANE damage in one turn. 20-80 per rpund for 10 rounds! It hurts packs of tough monsters! Sunfire is especially good as it bypasses MR. Mordenkainen Swords is a very useful summon too!

These are the schools I CAN NOT live without!!!

Then again I would always choose Conjurer as specialist, as the opposition school is weak. Identify and TS is good but High Lore, Glasses of Identification and a cleric can do these! Conjurers RULE!

 

Alteration - i think the abilities you could get are way better than other schools.

 

Abjuration - They have the coolest spells, which are VERY useful, especially when playing a Fighter/Mage etc.

 

Conjuration/Summoning - Gotta love cannon fodder!

Conjurers may rule in Baldur's Gate, but in PnP 2e they can't cast Invocation/Evocation spells, limiting their usefulness as an offensive mage. However, they (and all other specialist wizards) can cast divination spells of 4th level or lower, as some spells (like Detect Magic and Read Magic) are necessary for a wizard's craft.

In fact, ALL specialists have two schools that are forbidden, with the exceptions of Diviners having only one (Conj./Summ.) and Illusionists having three [3] (Necromancy, Invoc./Evoc., & Abjuration)!

 

Yes I know P&P rules are alittle more strict in this subject. Still...

Are you sure Illusionists have three banned schools? Why the injustice? Because gnomes can be MC illusionists?

 

I don't know why they did it, but I am sure; I checked the PHB before making the above post. It makes Illusionists little more than charlatans by taking out the best offensive school and the best defensive school at the same time, not to mention Necromancy. It's really rather sickening that they would handicap a specialist so, but I think the handicapping is probably the only reason gnomes are allowed to have it at all.

 

Conjuration. Summoning stuff is nice, very nice.

That's only in BG though; I cut myself bad taking it in IWD2

 

Conjuration. Obviously, since Edwin is one.

BG II really made life very easy for specialist mages by restricting debarred schools to just one. In IWD:HoW you had restrictions similar to what Felnoid described. An being a specialist was a pain in the ass.

 

The most dangerous and versatile spellcaster in 2e is probably a well played illusionist. In PnP properly played illusion spells can do nearly anything, so an intelligently played illusionist will never encounter a situation where he just doesn't have the right spells memorized. An illusionists school bonuses are also really helpful since it makes his illusions tougher to disbelieve. There are few things in 2e deadlier than hitting the enemy with an illusionary attack and allowing the enemy to identify it as an illusion and following it up with the real version. An enemy disbelieving a real attack gets no saving throw against it.

 

I agree with Felinoid, completely!

I love the conjuration school, but in PnP, I just could never play a Conjuror. I'd miss my magic missile too much!

 

Haha... too late.

For me, it depends on the game. In the old games, I loved Necromancy spells, even though they were limited. Poison, Slay Living, Harm, Disintegrate, Death Spell were all amusing when they worked.

Enchantment / Charm was great fun too. Paralyzation (especially cheap level 2 hold persons), charm, confuse is really funny when half the enemy ends up fighting on your side. The problem is that it works better against hordes of "decent" monsters. ie: no point against lousy goblins, or a smaller number of opponents. Which doesn't suit BG2 much.

For BG2, evocation is my favorite. Lots of damage spells, many with fancy animation like magic missile, lightning bolt, ice storm, sunfire, fire storm, Sunray!!!

 

My favourite is evo/invo(lots of offensive ones)

 

@Blog

Disintegrate is Alteration, although it is rather cool (and cruel! BRR!) type of one shot killing spell! (Liches DO love disintegrating Minsc and Boo for some reason! )

EDIT:So necromancy is first for now. I wonder if these spells do suit a good aligned caster? Is there alignment restrictions in mage spells too? (I think there WERE restrictions on priest spells in original P&P)
Geez, watching the victims of a AbiDalzim's Horrid Wilting as they are slowly drained of their water, their skins twist and still councious bodies are turned into mummy like corpses, screaming in total terror, agony and despair... does this suit a good aligned mage RPG wise?

Still I will use it! It is cool!