Specialist Wizard and the Enchantment School

[Scraps]

Specialist Wizard is kinda broken.

I mean it's always been kind of broken in NWN. You're not specializing in anything. Picking a school to 'specialize' in does nothing for that school. The spell-slots you gain are for any school of magic.

So what Specialist Wizard actually, is you picking which school to ban to be an overall better Wizard. Which is in itself kind of weird design, but that's how Bioware did it for whatever reason.

All Eight Schools could be Specialized in, but that's not important because the school you Specialize in doesn't matter. What does matter is out the eight possible choices you were offered five schools that could be chosen for banning. Enchantment, Conjuration, Divination, Illusion, and Transmutation.

Each of these schools had -at least- one important utility spell, so even if you had 19 Int and no Focus Feats, there was something useful to cast in it. Something that made banning it a sacrifice.

Illusion has Invisibility Spells, Transmutation has Animal Buffs and Timestop, Divination has your largest source of Damage Reduction and See Invisibility, Conjuration has a multitude of summoning spells, and Enchantment had Balagarns Horn, Protection from Spells, and Mass Haste.

Balagarns Horn, Protection From Spells, and Mass Haste are not Enchantment spells. They have nothing to do with the school in theme or usage. But they were there for a reason, as stated above. They were utility spells that kept Enchantment useful enough for any wizard to strongly consider keeping the school unbanned.

As it currently stands, there's no reason not to Ban Enchantment(The Illusion "Specialization" officially) and pick up your free spell-slots. It's a school that's filled with nothing but DC focused Crowd Controls. So unless your are specifically interested in actively putting feats into Enchantment Foci it's not worth casting anything in there. And the school has it's own problems, like it's Epic Spell Focus perk of 2 Dominations being broken for 10 months now. -And the Epic Spell that was in development seemingly buried in the wake of HAKS, or possibly even scrapped.

For every other Wizard in the game, you lose practically nothing just wiping your spellbook clean of Enchantment as a school for a significant power spike. More spells per day is great.

Sorry. Long rant. Almost done.

I'm not saying that things need to be reverted. I agree those spells didn't need to be in that school. All I ask is that as all these new spells are added, please consider some sort of utility spell for Enchantment to put it on some sort of useful parity with the other 4 bannable schools.

Or, if that's not possible perhaps remove it as an option for "Specialist" banning. -Necromancy would be a likely easy ban for a lot of players too, which is why it probably it wasn't an option at all.

[Peppermint]

Truth to tell, a reversion seems the easiest solution.

Putting Mass Haste and Protection from Spells in that school had no practical effect save to make banning enchantment not a freebie.

While I agree with the school adjustments from a thematic standpoint, I don't feel the side effects were worth the change.

[Scraps]

I'd rather Enchantment be replaced by Divination as a banned school for Illusion "Specialists" instead of a reversion.

At least in the event adding utility is too problematic. That would also fix the problem while keeping spells that have no sense being in Enchantment out of Enchantment.

It'd also make it so the four remaining banned schools are each represented twice for the 8 "Specialist" choices.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I'd rather Enchantment be replaced by Divination as a banned school for Illusion "Specialists" instead of a reversion.

At least in the event adding utility is too problematic. That would also fix the problem while keeping spells that have no sense being in Enchantment out of Enchantment.

It'd also make it so the four remaining banned schools are each represented twice for the 8 "Specialist" choices.

In 3.x DnD, banning divination literally is not sn option.

Not saying arelith can't. That being said rather than reversing, id prefer more spells got added to more schools and more things got added to to specialists.

I tried starting a discussion here:

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=25628&p=205061&sid ... 58#p205061

That being said, the suggestion, without specifics to add more to specialists has already been approved. A passionate dev or two just needs to work on it.

[Scraps]

Absolutely Divination can't be banned in PnP, you also need to ban two schools in PnP.


However, in Neverwinter Nights banning Divination has always been an option. Necromancy Specilization bans it already. That's why I listed it under the 5 possible bans in my post.

[Red Ropes]

They should just disable playing a base NWN school wizard.

(and then make specialist paths later)

p eazy to do

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Absolutely Divination can't be banned in PnP, you also need to ban two schools in PnP.


However, in Neverwinter Nights banning Divination has always been an option. Necromancy Specilization bans it already. That's why I listed it under the 5 possible bans in my post.

Banning is also partial in pnp. You can still use wands scrolls etc
It just takes double spell slot for opposing school. (Something i also brought up in other thread)

[Sea Shanties]

They should just disable playing a base NWN school wizard.

(and then make specialist paths later)

p eazy to do

Considering what they're giving up specialists should also get a +2 to DC in your selected school and maybe even require 1 less spell component (8th would take 1, 9 would 2, 7 is free)

[Scraps]

Absolutely Divination can't be banned in PnP, you also need to ban two schools in PnP.


However, in Neverwinter Nights banning Divination has always been an option. Necromancy Specilization bans it already. That's why I listed it under the 5 possible bans in my post.

Banning is also partial in pnp. You can still use wands scrolls etc
It just takes double spell slot for opposing school. (Something i also brought up in other thread)

I think you might be thinking of how Pathfinder handles Specialization. IIRC 3e has been like:

https://gyazo.com/a6a149bf7fca8c104c92f88c5d1e3c8f

Where you're unable to learn the spells, cast them from scrolls, or activate wands with them. (Though potions still worked.)

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Absolutely Divination can't be banned in PnP, you also need to ban two schools in PnP.


However, in Neverwinter Nights banning Divination has always been an option. Necromancy Specilization bans it already. That's why I listed it under the 5 possible bans in my post.

Banning is also partial in pnp. You can still use wands scrolls etc
It just takes double spell slot for opposing school. (Something i also brought up in other thread)

I think you might be thinking of how Pathfinder handles Specialization. IIRC 3e has been like:

https://gyazo.com/a6a149bf7fca8c104c92f88c5d1e3c8f

Where you're unable to learn the spells, cast them from scrolls, or activate wands with them. (Though potions still worked.)

Looks like you are right, oddly i had other fron this community telling me the same thing i falsely assumed about speciality schools.

That being said, there are a lot of things pathfinder does right, abd it seems our recent weapons groups update was inspired by it too. (I dont pathfinder handled balance of base damage and crit range properly and inherited/magnified problems of 3.5 in that regard) but that is another discussion.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I'd like to see a few changes regarding wizard specialists.

1: Selecting specialization allows you to choose two prohibited schools. Divination specialists continue to pick a single school.
2: Wizards must past a spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level) to add new spells to their spellbook via scroll. They normally cannot attempt again for the same spell until they gain a new rank in spellcraft (although I suspect the coding gymnastics for this restriction would be prohibitive).
3: Specialists get +2 on this spellcraft check for their chosen school.
4: Last specialist slot must be filled with the chosen school (it may be easier to make the requirement one spell of chosen school at each spell level).

[Peppermint]

Aelryn, this is not PnP. That would obviously make specialization even worse than it was a couple months ago.

Pathfinder offers some good inspiration, however. Specializations offering new abilities is unique, interesting, and does much to set specialist apart.

Not that we should do that now, since with the current model specialization is meta.

[Scylon]

I have been thinking about this in conjunction with the recent changes to UMD.

One of the larger scenarios I have seen stated is the spells Time stop and GS being a heavy part of the reason Wizards dominate.

My line of thinking is each Specialist should get access to spells the other schools can't (asumeing you follow through with GSP and EPC etc), with Time Stop being only available to Divination Wizards for example. Each school would have hard choices for wizards to gain access to something awesome with a price attached and would make a reason to pick one or the other. I think it might also level the playing field and ad RP paths for Casters.

Just an idea.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Aelryn, this is not PnP. That would obviously make specialization even worse than it was a couple months ago.

Pathfinder offers some good inspiration, however. Specializations offering new abilities is unique, interesting, and does much to set specialist apart.

Not that we should do that now, since with the current model specialization is meta.

Specific specializations are meta, if all specialties were done right, they would all have their unique appeal. And if two schools were restrictrd, even with pathfinder boons, a generalist would still have its own appeal especially if it got free crafting feats like in pathfinder too.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Aelryn, this is not PnP. That would obviously make specialization even worse than it was a couple months ago.

Pathfinder offers some good inspiration, however. Specializations offering new abilities is unique, interesting, and does much to set specialist apart.

Not that we should do that now, since with the current model specialization is meta.

Specialization isn't bad. It's an extra spell per spell level per rest base (so 5 per level instead of 4, making up half the difference between you and a sorcerer, plus all the metamagic feats they still don't get) and you "sacrifice" one school. Those quotation marks are there because if you do the math, no matter which school you give up, you're giving up around Edit: 20 or so spells at most, which means your great sacrifice is actually less of a sacrifice than being a sorcerer, whom you will still easily have twice the spell diversity of.

This holds true even if you select two schools, and doing so gives you the option to specialize as an evoker (for example, or any other school of magic) without giving up conjuration if you want both- which you should be able to do in a 3.x universe.


It's arguably worse in PnP because in PnP when you give up a school, you're literally losing access to hundreds of spells from various materials depending on what your DM allows- but like you said, this isn't PnP.

On top of the above, making a wizard and not specializing (in Arelith/NWN) is a waste, because you're more than likely not going to take epic foci in every spell school, which means at high level play you aren't going to memorize those spells anyway unless they're no-save or buff-oriented. The tradeoff is an easy decision in most cases- access to lower dc spells you won't use much of, or more of the ones you will use at each spell level. I'll take that fifth spell slot every time.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Aelryn, this is not PnP. That would obviously make specialization even worse than it was a couple months ago.

Pathfinder offers some good inspiration, however. Specializations offering new abilities is unique, interesting, and does much to set specialist apart.

Not that we should do that now, since with the current model specialization is meta.

Specialization isn't bad. It's an extra spell per spell level per rest base (so 5 per level instead of 4, making up half the difference between you and a sorcerer, plus all the metamagic feats they still don't get) and you "sacrifice" one school. Those quotation marks are there because if you do the math, no matter which school you give up, you're giving up around Edit: 20 or so spells at most, which means your great sacrifice is actually less of a sacrifice than being a sorcerer, whom you will still easily have twice the spell diversity of.

This holds true even if you select two schools, and doing so gives you the option to specialize as an evoker (for example, or any other school of magic) without giving up conjuration if you want both- which you should be able to do in a 3.x universe.


It's arguably worse in PnP because in PnP when you give up a school, you're literally losing access to hundreds of spells from various materials depending on what your DM allows- but like you said, this isn't PnP.

On top of the above, making a wizard and not specializing (in Arelith/NWN) is a waste, because you're more than likely not going to take epic foci in every spell school, which means at high level play you aren't going to memorize those spells anyway unless they're no-save or buff-oriented. The tradeoff is an easy decision in most cases- access to lower dc spells you won't use much of, or more of the ones you will use at each spell level. I'll take that fifth spell slot every time.

I use to hold that opinion, but prior to recent spell changes (mass haste going from enchantment to transmutation), every school one can choose to sacrifice has a critical realy good spell. Because there is less spells in a single school you rely more on all the schools.


Like greater shadow evocation and the shadow conjursriom spells in pnp can allow giving up conjuration and and evocation for an illusionist.

Heck in pathfinder i play a sin mage of evocation who can't use abjuration or conjuration (so jo spells to go around SR or spells to lower SR and not dispelling) which would gimp you 50 feet under on arelith's mets but works fine in in Pen and Paper because i dont have to worry about constantly buff/dispel meta and im so specialized that i can pump over 500 fire damage to 20 targets in a single turn and never run out of said spell along with changing the element to my choice. In situations in gimpy my party is there.

in arelith being flexible is way more valuable because you will be with random parties, have countless ways too add spell slots through items, erc. and the sorcerors only have to worry about picking the best critical spells nwn/arelith has to offer with no school restrictions. Right now specialist wizards that forsake enchantment are good but the other ones are not. A sorceoror with spontaneous metamagic in nwn also have extremely good spell slot flexibility and thus dont need as many damaging spells to pick.

[Sea Shanties]

The nature of a persistent world is figuring out what works in a given dungeon or situation then doing it a thousand more times in exactly the same way. A generalist wizard works well here because it's better to have all possible tools in your kit instead of a few more spells to cast.

Giving up one spell per level a day isn't such a big deal because you'll know how to optimize your spellbook for whatever situation you're about to face. It's very rare you have some spontaneous event come up (whether PVE or PVP) and even then you can be reasonably sure what to have prepared for it.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Giving up one spell per level a day isn't such a big deal because you'll know how to optimize your spellbook for whatever situation you're about to face. It's very rare you have some spontaneous event come up (whether PVE or PVP) and even then you can be reasonably sure what to have prepared for it.

I use the same logic as you to arrive at an opposite conclusion - because you can prepare in advance for each dungeon, it doesn't matter that you don't have that one spell school, because there are spells from the schools you DO have (and more of them) that will also solve your problem.

in arelith being flexible is way more valuable because you will be with random parties, have countless ways too add spell slots through items, erc. and the sorcerors only have to worry about picking the best critical spells nwn/arelith has to offer with no school restrictions. Right now specialist wizards that forsake enchantment are good but the other ones are not. A sorceoror with spontaneous metamagic in nwn also have extremely good spell slot flexibility and thus dont need as many damaging spells to pick.

I also believe that due to the nature of a persistent world, that this is flawed logic- see below.

A wizard is exactly as potent as the spells they have left. A wizard with no spells left (regardless of what spells they have prepared) is useless, save for the fact that on Arelith they can spam their GSF spells infinitely. That's nice, but at level 30 it's more cute than effective, and simply keeps them from standing around doing nothing once they're out of spells until they can rest.

Specialization is 25% more spells for a wizard per rest. That's 25% more utility, 25% more damage, 25% more saves, an extra timestop to save your party from wiping, etc. This remains true despite losing access to some of the extra spells that have been added to Arelith depending on which school you specialize in.

The new spell additions to Arelith are nice (note, I think some of them need tweaks or should be implemented as their PnP variants, but that's not the point).

However, we have not reached anywhere close to the number of additional spells necessary to make the above logic less true. Moving mass haste out of enchantment makes enchantment one of the most optimal choices to sacrifice for specialization, but the extra spells still don't make specialization worse than not taking it. If you go through the game's spell library plus the arelith specific spells you are only giving up a mere token of spell access in comparison to sorcerers.

An epic level sorcerer knows 35 spells and 7 cantrips in total. They get some flexibility on the casting, but since most of their metamagic tends to be empower and maximize, you don't really need the ability to do that on the fly- you're probably going to maximize your missile storms and extend your haste spells. Since you know the dungeon content, you can do this in advance and really gain very little by having the ability to do so on the fly.

A wizard knows 2 spells x wizard level, meaning a specialist wizard that never learns a single extra spell from a scroll knows more spells than the sorcerer. The sorcerer might get one or two spells out of the school the wizard gave up, but the wizard still gets every other spell the sorcerer will never cast, Edit: 4 additional metamagic feats and scribe scroll, access to higher level spells one level earlier than the sorcerer all the way up to 20 17, and enough skill points to compete with a bard as a skill monkey.

Finally, almost every single necessary buff you might ever lose from your casting list due to specialization is available in-game through items. There is not one dungeon in Arelith that you will find yourself unable to complete because you specialized in a spell school - although you may find yourself in an encounter where you prepared the wrong kind of spell, you will never not have access to some kind of spell on your list of epic foci schools that can resolve your encounter unless the monsters in question have SR outside your CL range or are outright immune to magic, meaning mages probably aren't meant to solo that location in the first place by design directive.

IN SUMMARY:

Specialist wizards will know, without scrolls, by level 16 (because they start with more level 1 spells than a sorcerer at level 1) more spells than a max level sorcerer will know for their entire life. They will double this diversity with the addition of scrolls.

A regular wizard has 66% of the spell output of a sorcerer- a specialist wizard has 83% of the output of a sorcerer (and 4 extra metamagic feats + scribe scroll), and a 25% increase over a generalist mage.

The generalist will cast spells from the school he has no foci in, wasting potential damage output/crowd control with lower DC spells, while the specialist will cast almost exclusively from schools he has epic foci in, and 25% more of them, making him the more effective mage over-all.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Giving up one spell per level a day isn't such a big deal because you'll know how to optimize your spellbook for whatever situation you're about to face. It's very rare you have some spontaneous event come up (whether PVE or PVP) and even then you can be reasonably sure what to have prepared for it.

I use the same logic as you to arrive at an opposite conclusion - because you can prepare in advance for each dungeon, it doesn't matter that you don't have that one spell school, because there are spells from the schools you DO have (and more of them) that will also solve your problem.

in arelith being flexible is way more valuable because you will be with random parties, have countless ways too add spell slots through items, erc. and the sorcerors only have to worry about picking the best critical spells nwn/arelith has to offer with no school restrictions. Right now specialist wizards that forsake enchantment are good but the other ones are not. A sorceoror with spontaneous metamagic in nwn also have extremely good spell slot flexibility and thus dont need as many damaging spells to pick.

I also believe that due to the nature of a persistent world, that this is flawed logic- see below.

A wizard is exactly as potent as the spells they have left. A wizard with no spells left (regardless of what spells they have prepared) is useless, save for the fact that on Arelith they can spam their GSF spells infinitely. That's nice, but at level 30 it's more cute than effective, and simply keeps them from standing around doing nothing once they're out of spells until they can rest.

Specialization is 25% more spells for a wizard per rest. That's 25% more utility, 25% more damage, 25% more saves, an extra timestop to save your party from wiping, etc. This remains true despite losing access to some of the extra spells that have been added to Arelith depending on which school you specialize in.

The new spell additions to Arelith are nice (note, I think some of them need tweaks or should be implemented as their PnP variants, but that's not the point).

However, we have not reached anywhere close to the number of additional spells necessary to make the above logic less true. Moving mass haste out of enchantment makes enchantment one of the most optimal choices to sacrifice for specialization, but the extra spells still don't make specialization worse than not taking it. If you go through the game's spell library plus the arelith specific spells you are only giving up a mere token of spell access in comparison to sorcerers.

An epic level sorcerer knows 35 spells and 7 cantrips in total. They get some flexibility on the casting, but since most of their metamagic tends to be empower and maximize, you don't really need the ability to do that on the fly- you're probably going to maximize your missile storms and extend your haste spells. Since you know the dungeon content, you can do this in advance and really gain very little by having the ability to do so on the fly.

A wizard knows 2 spells x wizard level, meaning a specialist wizard that never learns a single extra spell from a scroll knows more spells than the sorcerer. The sorcerer might get one or two spells out of the school the wizard gave up, but the wizard still gets every other spell the sorcerer will never cast, Edit: 4 additional metamagic feats and scribe scroll, access to higher level spells one level earlier than the sorcerer all the way up to 20, and enough skill points to compete with a bard as a skill monkey.

Finally, almost every single necessary buff you might ever lose from your casting list due to specialization is available in-game through items. There is not one dungeon in Arelith that you will find yourself unable to complete because you specialized in a spell school - although you may find yourself in an encounter where you prepared the wrong kind of spell, you will never not have access to some kind of spell on your list of epic foci schools that can resolve your encounter unless the monsters in question have SR outside your CL range or are outright immune to magic, meaning mages probably aren't meant to solo that location in the first place by design directive.

IN SUMMARY:

Specialist wizards will know, without scrolls, by level 16 (because they start with more level 1 spells than a sorcerer at level 1) more spells than a max level sorcerer will know for their entire life. They will double this diversity with the addition of scrolls.

A regular wizard has 66% of the spell output of a sorcerer- a specialist wizard has 83% of the output of a sorcerer, and a 25% increase over a generalist mage.

The generalist will cast spells from the school he has no foci in, wasting potential damage output/crowd control with lower DC spells, while the specialist will cast almost exclusively from schools he has epic foci in, and 25% more of them, making him the more effective mage over-all.

Did your math percentage include bonus slots from both maxed out int and bonus spell slots from various things like rings and staffs?

In a pw world money is no question for maxing out equipment.

[Peppermint]

In short:

There are no remaining utility spells in Enchantment. Every useful spell is DC-based; if you're not focused in Enchantment, there is no reason to prepare an Enchantment spell.

Assuming all schools are of equal value, then focusing in Enchantment is no better than any other school, and comes with the unique detriment of foregoing specialization.

Ergo, you should never focus in Enchantment and should always forego it.

This has not always been the case. This has only been the case since spells were moved from Enchantment into other schools.

[monkeywithstick]

Did your math percentage include bonus slots from both maxed out int and bonus spell slots from various things like rings and staffs?

In a pw world money is no question for maxing out equipment.

That only differentiates if you are hellbent on focusing on percentages. The specialist wizard gets 9 extra spells. Unless the loss of the enchantment school will prevent him acquiring gold at the same rate, the maxed int and extra spell slots are equally available to both.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

In short:

There are no remaining utility spells in Enchantment. Every useful spell is DC-based; if you're not focused in Enchantment, there is no reason to prepare an Enchantment spell.

Assuming all schools are of equal value, then focusing in Enchantment is no better than any other school, and comes with the unique detriment of foregoing specialization.

Ergo, you should never focus in Enchantment and should always forego it.

This has not always been the case. This has only been the case since spells were moved from Enchantment into other schools.

This I absolutely and whole-heartedly agree with- I apologize for frothing at the mouth about specialists vs. non-specialists. It's an argument near and dear to my heart from multiple occasions over the years.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Did your math percentage include bonus slots from both maxed out int and bonus spell slots from various things like rings and staffs?

In a pw world money is no question for maxing out equipment.

That only differentiates if you are hellbent on focusing on percentages. The specialist wizard gets 9 extra spells. Unless the loss of the enchantment school will prevent him acquiring gold at the same rate, the maxed int and extra spell slots are equally available to both.

I am bent when the percentage spell power difference is greatly exaggerated

Circlet of logic + 1 lvl 3 slot + 2 int
Some wizard staff i forget does olusb2 int and plus 5 and 6 slots.
You can enchant anything plain to have plus int and a bonus slot up to lvl 3 spells.


Initiate's vest. Bonus slot for tier 3 and 4 and plus 1 int

Int mod of 16 does

Bonus 2 lvl 9 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 8 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 7 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 6 slots
Binus 3 lvl 5 slots
Bonus 4 lvl 4 and lower slots

Yes a specialist wizard adds one more slot to all of that, but its not 25% more slots. Also a wizard can always carry a few scrolls on them for emergencies.

Specialist is only worth it when giving up enchanting. I hope for all specialists to be viable.

[monkeywithstick]

Did your math percentage include bonus slots from both maxed out int and bonus spell slots from various things like rings and staffs?

In a pw world money is no question for maxing out equipment.

That only differentiates if you are hellbent on focusing on percentages. The specialist wizard gets 9 extra spells. Unless the loss of the enchantment school will prevent him acquiring gold at the same rate, the maxed int and extra spell slots are equally available to both.

I am bent when the percentage spell power difference is greatly exaggerated

Circlet of logic + 1 lvl 3 slot + 2 int
Some wizard staff i forget does olusb2 int and plus 5 and 6 slots.
You can enchant anything plain to have plus int and a bonus slot up to lvl 3 spells.


Initiate's vest. Bonus slot for tier 3 and 4 and plus 1 int

Int mod of 16 does

Bonus 2 lvl 9 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 8 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 7 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 6 slots
Binus 3 lvl 5 slots
Bonus 4 lvl 4 and lower slots

Yes a specialist wizard adds one more slot to all of that, but its not 25% more slots. Also a wizard can always carry a few scrolls on them for emergencies.

Specialist is only worth it when giving up enchanting. I hope for all specialists to be viable.

The archmage staff gives a lvl 6 spell slot and +2 int

I've no arguments with other specialists not being worth it. My point was re: Enchantment loss, as per the thread.

On a different note: I'm not sure I'd even recommend building specialist minus enchantment school right now based on all this anyway. It might be rather tricky to roll back with a rebuild as it's set at level 1, and I think it likely further changes are coming to casters in general.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Did your math percentage include bonus slots from both maxed out int and bonus spell slots from various things like rings and staffs?

In a pw world money is no question for maxing out equipment.

That only differentiates if you are hellbent on focusing on percentages. The specialist wizard gets 9 extra spells. Unless the loss of the enchantment school will prevent him acquiring gold at the same rate, the maxed int and extra spell slots are equally available to both.

I am bent when the percentage spell power difference is greatly exaggerated

Circlet of logic + 1 lvl 3 slot + 2 int
Some wizard staff i forget does olusb2 int and plus 5 and 6 slots.
You can enchant anything plain to have plus int and a bonus slot up to lvl 3 spells.


Initiate's vest. Bonus slot for tier 3 and 4 and plus 1 int

Int mod of 16 does

Bonus 2 lvl 9 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 8 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 7 slots
Bonus 3 lvl 6 slots
Binus 3 lvl 5 slots
Bonus 4 lvl 4 and lower slots

Yes a specialist wizard adds one more slot to all of that, but its not 25% more slots. Also a wizard can always carry a few scrolls on them for emergencies.

Specialist is only worth it when giving up enchanting. I hope for all specialists to be viable.

You're right that my percentages only include the paper value of the class, but it wasn't meant to be misleading- I was discussing the classes on paper. I still believe those nine extra spells, utilized correctly, can be useful in up to nine different encounters in meaningful ways, which is still less time you're standing around waiting to rest for more spells.

I will, however, say that it is still possible to get epic spell focus in enchantment, and another school (in fact I don't know of a single epic wizard with only one epic spell focus), specialize in that school, and still not give up enchantment. I have a mage (epic evocation specialist) that gave up conjuration (heresy, I know), and has epic foci in abjuration, enchantment, and evocation. I throw enchantments at things with evasion and I blast everything else. It works out well, and dominate makes up for the lack of summons. There's a mundane book of summons to use that goes up to summon monster IV, which covers you until you learn dominate person at 5th spell level.

I agree with the general assessment of enchantment being the go-to for forsaking, which should be looked at, but I also still believe that a better solution than trying to shift all the spells into schools just so rather than going with lore/game logic is allowing specialists to choose their prohibited schools, so that they aren't rail-roaded in a single direction for taking their intended specialization.