Divination boosting

[Atropus]

The school of divination has little to offer beyond see invis, RP-conventional spells and the 10/1 DR gained from clairvoyance/clairaudience, which is albeit very good. Feeblemind is rarely used, though.

The arcane eye spell suggests that it's meant to last 10minutes/level, and at full PC speed. Instead, it's a tenth of its said duration, and the movement speed is halved even with GSF in divination.

Clairvoyance is great, were it not for the fact that it's erroneously at 2.88rounds/level instead of 8rounds/level with GSF in divination.

Could these recieve some pimpin'? At the very least I'd like arcane eye to be boosted through spell focuses!

[wcsherry]

The school of divination has little to offer beyond see invis, RP-conventional spells and the 10/1 DR gained from clairvoyance/clairaudience, which is albeit very good.

Seems like you pretty much justified taking feats to boost Divination. I see little need for this thread to remain open but will wait and see if anyone else posts something relevant before shutting it down.

[xXCrystal_Rose]

What matters is how you use divination ^^ You mentioned a lot of beneficial strengths to it, though it is true that Arcane Eye is sorta poo. A VanillaPudding wizard, Neerix, was a divination wizard and she rocked out pretty hard with it!

[Lord Byron]

Neerix was before the nerf to said spells AFAIK

[Atropus]

I refer to the DR, and that only being very good. The duration is bugged as it is,
and the GSF in divination does currently not reflect the efficiency that those two feats should entail. The only strength it gives lasts for such a short duration, and is pierced by a level 1 spell.

[lovethesuit]

Not all spell schools need to be equal or serve the same purpose. The fact that anything was given to boost the combat survivability of the Nerds of the Nerds (other wizards make fun of Diviners behind their back, for all the privacy that offers) is a blessing.

Divination is rewarding in other ways.

[Atropus]

I'm not necessarily suggesting that it should evoke ''powerful'' spells, but more along the lines of bolstering scrying and arcane eye, and of course fixing the duration.

[lovethesuit]

That's a fine idea and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Damien]

all of the durations with gsf divination is pretty messed up tbh, to the point where ebok's general wizard could arcane eye for longer than my gsf divination diviner, not to mention the lack of phk, blur, invis and II is beyond huge in this kind of setting

[Dillusionist]

Perhaps GSF divination could allow you to use Scrying a bit more liberally (or improve arcane eye duration)? Maybe the ability to do so without a focus or offer some chance of piercing wards, mist, etc.? In other words - actually improve your ability to find out stuff.

School Specialization is something I am not a fan of as implemented in D&D. The unfortunate end-result is that you're mechanically more defined by what you can't do, rather than what you're specialized in. While this cannot be implemented in NWN Pathfinder had a nice fix where you could choose to spend two slots to prepare a spell of an opposition school.

[mouldy hidden manuscripts]

The DR would only be useful if it lasted for a decent amount of time, akin to the time that blur lasts. As it stands, it is irrelevant using a spellslot to obtain the DR as you will get very little utility from it, compared to other spells of that level.

I do think Divination could do with being altered in such a way that it is on a par with other Spell Schools.

[Valo56]

Getting GSF divination is well worth it for any mage or priest, it doubles the duration of see invis, drastically improves the AB bonus from true strike, grants DR with Clairaudience if you have Specialization, mades Feeblemind truly deadly (it can instantly subdue people I believe). Diviners who are interesting practitioners of their craft have been handed things like scrying foci and other goodies regularly from what I have seen in the past.

Presently it is by far the most useful school to take spell focus feats for, even moreso than Conjuration.

[SilentForest]

I am inclined to agree but will say that if there are some actual bugs with spell durations, like griff mentioned, they should be fixed. No way should a Diviner with GSF: Div. have shorter durations than a generalist with no foci.

Still, not having II is indeed _huge_.

[Atropus]

Tbh, a 50% concealment shield would make for a better representation of foresight rather than 10/1 DR. Feeblemind does only drain 2d4 of the mental stats, and can't subdue instantaneously, and is limited to a very short time.
And true strike is rather ineffective unless you're martially-aligned.

[SilentForest]

Haste + True Strike + 3 * Scorching Ray (Empowered) will result in a guaranteed  36d6 damage against which there is no save at level 7/8.

Haste + True Strike + 3 * [Any] Orb will result in a guaranteed 24d6 damage (at level 8), no save, which also pierces spell resistance automatically.