A change in the absurd spell school system.

[I love cats]

Its utterly absurd that essentially a necromancer or an illusionist with GSF conjuration make better conjuror than specialized conjurors. Heck lack of empowered fox's cunning essentially gimps conjurors in alchemy. Its also utterly absurd if someone wants to be a badass covert necromancer all someone needs to know is find out they can't cast divinations/see invis.  Its silly that Enchanters even lack invisibility when casting enchantments out of invis is essentially what most other spell schools do. Meanwhile specialized conjurors will always be mocked by the server, and gimped for not having Transmutation spells. While Diviners essentially are a useless spellschool to spell focus, and are regarded as a weak school I still feel like they deserve more to compensate for it.

Why is Necromancy, Evocation, and  Abjuration unable from being prohibited? Makes utterly sense someone would prohibit one of those schools like in pen, and paper. I"m suggesting a revamp of the current BS spell school system that essentially says "Play an Illusionist generalist, or Necromancer.....Oh and of course have GSF conjuration, and outdo everyone."

Or with how absurds things are make an OOC disclaimer to simply play an illusionist.


Long story short if I ever play a wizard again in the current mechanical system exclusively necromancer, Illusionist or generalist with proper feats.  This is a balance issue that I hope can somehow can be solved/make Wizards more like Pen and Paper old school DND. While I love the spell changes they don't fix an underlying hole/flaw in the system, and even though from a story telling, and RP perspective I love certain spell schools, and do what I can to give support to certain ones I am tired of how mechanically gmped they are. This is a rant mainly against Bioware/NWN's developers. IF Dms can find a way to correct this system/work around Biowares flaws/half assed attempt at DND would be awesome. I can understand if the main factor is mechanic/bullshit hardcoding however considering we are now a hak server I have seen some amazing/crazy things done with Haks, and believe we can put to rest the absurd system that wizards have.


 

[zDark Shadowz]

There are ways for a creative wizard to get around the numerous issues and restrictions outlined above.

Certain familiars can cast transmutational spells.

Alchemy crafts can provide spell effects you might otherwise be restricted from.

Shadow Conjuration is awesome.

Crafted wands and potions can be consumed.

One thing I disagree with the above:
Spell School conjurers make the best conjurers. Differences in themes give different results in different situations.

One thing I agree with in the above:
It would be nice if the schools could be rewritten in the hardcode somehow to be opposed properly. It's understandable though that NWN wasn't done this way due to spell selection and balance.

[Pentaxius]

Illusionists top the food chain, it's always been this way.

And the spell school oppositions are all weird. Due to the lack of spell variety in the engine, some spell schools you simply cannot bare (e.g Abjuration). You simply can't rework the oppositions to be more in line with vanilla DnD. (In which the Wizard select 2 schools as prohibited of their choice, and his bonus spell slot can only be occupied by his specialized school)

I would suggest the following, cleaner rework.

All Wizards start as "Generalists". Specializations are disabled.

Choosing a specialization

In the starting area, you may select a spell school, and two schools of opposition.

Specialization bonus Spell slots

Bonus spells slots to match a specialized wizard are granted to your hide.

Upon resting, a script fires and check the first memorized spell per circle. (This is the "bonus spell slot"). If the spell memorized is NOT of your specialized school, it prevents the spell from being memorized. This is accompanied by an OOC message to make it clear for new players.

Prohibited schools

Upon resting, a script fires and removes all memorized spells from your two prohibited schools. You can technically still read scrolls to cast prohibited spells, and I think this is fine. This is accompanied by an OOC message to make it clear for new players.

Of course the cleaner way to do this is via Hak.

Also as a tangent, adding Protection from Neutrality is still very much needed, as to relax the taboos associated with neutrality (and obvious mechanical benefits that have been cited many times...)  


 

[Valo56]

If I were to change anything, I'd remove opposed schools entirely. All it does is unfairly punish wizard PC's for choosing certain schools, while giving others a free pass. It works fine in D&D where there's a huge number of spells to choose from, especially where utility spells (as opposed to damage, buff and debuffs) are far more abundant. Here in NWN the choices are few and far between, even with the custom spells we have on EfU. ALso, losing out on two schools would simply be terrible.

Having everyone start off as a generalist and then choosing a specialization to have the spellslots and other bonuses applied manually would be much better. It would encourage players to pick schools less for mechanical benefit (Illusion) and go toward schools that were previously terribly crippling (necromancy, for instance).