Specialist Wizards

[thimblegiant]

What COULD be relooked is which spell school is opposed to what.

This is a diagram of Arcane Spell Schools found from the internet.

Pretty sure this was intended to be only a suggestion of opposed schools, but it should be clarified that while this chart may be logical it doesn't represented any RAW version of D&D.

2e had an opposition circle similar to the above, but the schools were arranged differently and you would lose access to 1 - 3 opposing schools as defined by that system. And as mentioned earlier, 3.x changed the rules again to give players a choice and allow more flexibility.

Nevertheless, If the system is made free-to-pick, everyone will ban Enchantment and Necromancy. Then the power of the perks will need to be toned down, which waters down the flavour. Do we really want that?

Agreed. I've always been partial to rules that give the reasonable option of painful sacrifice for a later greater gain, but it's got to be worthwhile.

[Skibbles]

Further on the topic of the divination choice:

I'd suggest that the ESF portion of Divination not extend the scry duration but instead halve the cooldown so it can be used more often.

The reason being that I can imagine the buff actually being more punitive than helpful, maybe even the majority of the time, for example: scrying someone afk or otherwise quickly discovering you don't want to sit and watch, *intense moments where you just need a location to forward to your allies immediately but are now stuck for twice as long while the clock is ticking*, or simply scrying for a friend's location to go find them and don't need to actually spy on them.

I'm sure there are more reasons but if we combine this potential with true seeing being not-special-at-all via psuedodragon, and the loss of so many amazing illusion spells, divination could become kind of a 'noob-trap'.

Edit: In fact, upon further thought, I'm not sure how often people use scrying to actually spy versus gathering swift intelligence on simple locations and character's associations - especially as most of the time anyone talking about anything important isn't scryable but someone on the run or the rumors of a big army usually are (but are very time critical). Bearing in mind that scrying has been painfully increased in duration to 120 seconds with the update, we're looking at a whole 240 seconds for a specialist. I would very much want to actively avoid this, and I definitely wouldn't want to give up improved invisibility for this punishment!

Imagine most scenarios where people are trying to communicate the importance of needing a scryer but 'not too good of a scryer.'

Edit2: This idea just cracks me up so I have to throw it in before bed: imagine scrying a large invading army as the diviner for your own, and having to watch as the enemy army not only finds your own group idly waiting for your news but kills all of them, and you, all while you're still stuck watching. A lot can happen in four minutes.

[Xerah]

First off, I don't think picking your opposition schools is something that we're going to entertain nor changing them from default NWN. There was too much work put into scripting based upon designing the abilities around restricted schools they currently have.


That's a good suggestion to reduce the cooldown on scry instead, I'll do that.

Some good points were brought up about circle of death, so we'll add in the same scaling with PM. As is the issue with the early zombies, that I'll look into fixing.

Good points about conj, we'll look into that a bit more.

On another note is the auto maximize of the transmutation like the healer clerics auto empower? Do wands auto maximize? Because with the time change to hours spells that would be amazing, 5 irl hours of +8 to a stat from wands.

I didn't test it but it shouldn't work with wands.

GSF Already gives hours per caster level. So specialising literally does nothing here, you can just get GSF as a generalist for the same thing.

Crushing despair on a level 30 wizard would only Affected creatures takes a -5 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls for the duration of the spell. This is super underwhelming, I would highly recommend that anyone wanting to run an enchanter just going generalist, the specialisations here are not worth the loss of illusion spells if you want to remain competitive.

Also, the main fix for the domination bug requires illusion casting (invisibility) so not having it screws you over quite a bit.

Well, GSF doesn't give hr per level, it gives 2 + level/3 in HR; which given the time changes will be a moot thing anyway, so that might need to get adjusted.

I'm really confused how you think that -5 AB, saving throws, skill checks, and weapon damage is underwhelming. This is quite powerful.

I do plan to look into the dominate thing. And you can still use invisibility wands.

(Come to think of it - is it possible to sacrifice Conjuration for a specialization and simply retain the ability to Conjure PCs via Loremaster? This may need to be examined.)

As Nitro noted above - Sorcerer is typically viewed as superior. This is in line with my observations in the game, over a few years, where I've been playing one of the only wizards in a magical keep where by and large most of the others tend towards Sorcerers, Bards, Warlocks, Clerics, and Palemasters amongst plenty of melee/mundane (everyone is allowed, so this may not be an accurate assessment). I believe the numbers appear to back my observations up, though.

The numbers as of end of 2020: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5956&p=251203#p251203

It says there was 121 wizards active, but this seems deceptive as over half are Palemasters which I'd argue are certainly not Generalists and a mere twenty seem to be using the almost exclusively accepted wizard builds of wizard/bard and wizard/Ranger. I don't know how many shadow mages there are, but presumably those are the wizard/rogue and wizard/shadow dancer.

Comparing this to every other Arcane Class, including a staggering 73 true flames and 51 sorcerers, and... 12 Weave masters?! (a brand of sorcerer deleted like, four years ago, is nearly a match in numbers for the meta wizard?!) shows that the main Wizard suffers savagely if I'm reading these numbers right.

Wild mage accounting for almost triple the average wizard too. Even if we're generous on the numbers of general wizards (such as taking wizard/cleric seriously) and double up to 40 being presumed to be in play, it still doesn't seem to compete.

I expect, and hope very much, that the update brings more wizards into the game. However few of them, if any, are going to be Generalists and therin lies my concern and prediction.

I think you misunderstand those numbers. There are 121 pure wizards, plus 40-50 that look to be majority wizard. Then there are another 60-70 that are some flavour of palemaster plus 70ish wild mages. Generalist is still, by and large, the most popular (though there is some amount of shadow mages in those 170+).

I would imagine anyone who has played numerous wizards here will look to specialize now. The reason being is that it's new and different rather than it being extremely optimal to do so. Generalist is still in a fine place.

[Mattamue]

We’re currently looking into a Tenser’s rework to make this approach more interesting.

Trans: We're looking at changing tensors a bit but still working that out.

Some PGCC test I just did. I did get the minogon change:

Tensers works with EMA. Don't know if intended or not. Doesn't work with other polymorphs like Shapchange. This probably needs to be considered.

Didn't give extra APR.

[Gouge Away]

I want to suggest making Gate and the Planar Bindings agnostic to spell school. I don’t mind so many schools banning conjugation otherwise but the lack of any summons besides undead is overly punishing to non-evil. I think these spells that give away your alignment (or require maintenance otherwise) could still be available without power imbalance.

[thimblegiant]

Some PGCC test I just did. I did get the minogon change:

Tensers works with EMA. Don't know if intended or not. Doesn't work with other polymorphs like Shapchange. This probably needs to be considered.

Might be by design, from the wiki:

Epic Mage Armor: Cannot be used while in the effect of Polymorph Self or Shapechange. Casting either of these spells will dispel EMA - other polymorphing effects are fine to use

I also played around with Tenser's on the PGCC and noticed if you qualify for the Signature Spell but are not 80% wizard, you can't cast Tenser's at all, even as a normal 6th level spell. Once you hit 80% both methods will work again.

[Skarain]

A small suggestion regarding Enchantment. Good Hope is Turns/Level. Generally, Enchanter won't need to cast it more than once per venture. However, Crushing Despair is offensively used and will see much more frequent use.

Perhaps change the Signature Spell into Crushing Despair?

I want to suggest making Gate and the Planar Bindings agnostic to spell school. I don’t mind so many schools banning conjugation otherwise but the lack of any summons besides undead is overly punishing to non-evil. I think these spells that give away your alignment (or require maintenance otherwise) could still be available without power imbalance.

Mordekaine's Sword is Evocation and while not extremely powerful, it does have it own uses. So does Henchmen. I've been playing a Sorcerer with neither Conju nor Necro and manage with Henchmen just fine. Groupping up is also an option.

[Xerah]

Wizards can’t actually cast good hope.

Also the nice thing about it is when cycling dominates that you can refresh thus casting. I often did that with enchanters.

[Gouge Away]

"Grouping up" is always an option but there's an element of scolding solo activity when people say that so let's leave that out of it? Finding a party 100% of the time is not possible even for the most social of us.

Wizards need reliable access to a summon, that's an expected part of the class. Scroll up a little and you'll see a little discussion of how blocking conjuration currently heavily favors evil characters who can summon undead. Mord's Sword is mentioned and yes it is an option but it's not a great one. Wizards don't get access to leadership skill and henchmen are situational anyway. I don't think allowing access to planar binding would throws things out of whack.

[Skarain]

I will defend my point that "You can manage without conjuration/necromancy" as an Arcanist.

Henchmen are really good when buffed through the roof, and you have plenty of Arcane spells + Barkskin potions to do so. Surface Henchmen were specified of having Mundane weapons, which you should be able to buff with Flame Weapon/Stuff (I don't know whether that was actually implemented. I only have Underdark characters).

Leadership grants only +1 AB and +1 AC, and the APR does not stack with Haste. Sure, Wizard do not get Leadership as a class skill, but they do get 4x more feats and can easily afford Transmutation for +1 all stats, balancing this difference out between Sorcerer.

HOWEVER, I am unsure of the numbers of Leadership-locked Henchmen on the surface and whether there are enough level appropriate henchmen that Leadership-less Wizards can recruit and utilize in this way. Someone else needs to confirm that.

Also, if Golems do receive a rework that gets them up-to-par with other Henchmen, then you will have that option aswell.

Also, you miss the point of Mordekaine's Sword. The summon is not strong by itself, but it is there for the additional Attacks Per Round that stacks on top of having 2 Henchmen. It is compareable to having Mummies out; the amount of attack makes you kill things faster, so individual strength matters less.

[Skibbles]

Yikes that was a huge quote. I'll just go with ye olde snip.

Okay fair enough. I tried to address that palemasters are not really generalists simply because choosing palemaster takes a large portion of the actual wizard levels with a host of specialized toys and may be, possibly going forward, ubiquitously choosing necromancy to double down on the one thing a palemaster is good at and simply shoring up the weakness with infinite TS from a familiar.

It remains to be seen but my argument is mainly an attempt at prescience towards what may become the new norm.

Still though I guess these numbers make more sense that way but I'd just thought they were at least half upcoming palemasters as the list takes into account level four and up - with the wizard grind being probably the most intolerable experience of all the classes I've played (but this isn't relevent with numbers anyway lol), probably has a massive attrition rate of early onset shelf-syndrome as the creeping knowledge of pure impotence within the meta sets in which explains why I don't see them anywhere.

It makes me wonder where are these normal wizards are, because for many years all I can find are wild mages absolutely everywhere like some kind of invasive species consuming the native life while only being able to count, off the top of my head, the number of basic mid-level+ wizards I've met on one and a half hands. Maybe it's a surface thing, and on further reflection very probably is a surface thing since palemasters are probably almost exclusively underdark which is why I have the perceptive bias of only seeing palemasters or wildmages, because those are the only two distinctions in the UD if you see a wizard at all.

Either way - Okey doke, QED!

It wasn't addressed, so for fear of it being potentially overlooked, I would like to highlight the Psuedodragon issue as of vital importance that stamps out the hopes and dreams of Divination Spec's punishing price and hope to get a response on that just in case, as well as increased Scry duration being a huge penalty most characters will want to be feverishly avoiding - and again suggest a reduced cooldown (or better yet, given the immense cost, actually shorter duration scry but with a very low cooldown and no component cost to illustrate a true mastery of 'control' over the art of scrying instead of the complete lack of control they're getting in the current package.)

Worth brief mention: If the bug where the scryer is teleported to the subject still remains, usually on an area transition, this could just end up happening a lot more - potentially with death as a side effect. I haven't seen this in a long time so maybe it's fixed, but... just in case.

Personally, as someone who was about to take Scry via loremaster, I'm very much looking at a two min scry duration as a crippling nerf that makes my very recent excitement (I deleveled just eight hours before this update) to use it coincidentally bittersweet. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have to endure a gratuitous four entire minutes, must less two, when I'm most often going to only want 20-30 seconds. There's no way I can be alone in this, as nearly all scrying I've seen over many years has to do with locating people or groups under extremely time sensitive circumstances (people will absolutely use discord to convey the needed information while they await the end of their character's paralysis to shore up this weakness).

In these numerous cases it isn't just the caster being forced to sit and wait well in excess of their interest, but everyone else around them also waiting. That's a lot of waiting.

Divination really seems objectively bad in my opinion, when the attempt was clearly to make above the average of the rest because losing illusion is among the most crippling of all specializations. Notably, as sorcerer balance was mentioned earlier, they too can use psuedodragons which further compounds this unfortunate oversight.

[strong yeet]

I must chime in my agreement with at least one part of Skibbles' post above: I really am not so sold on the highly increased scrying duration. It is much nicer to have a short duration than a terribly long one; sometimes you just want to figure out where someone's at, not watch them run around for 2 minutes or however long it was.

[Ascended Mage]

Necromancy - Not a good bonus. Necromancy it is not only about animating dead. Neutra/Good necromancers absolutely have no use for these bonuses. Also was pointed very well what circle of death is joke-spell. As I personally see solution - give buffs for specific universal necromancy spells or add new spells and buffs them.

Illusion - your average hikikomori-wizard have negative or low charisma. Passive and GSF bonus applies (in my opinion) only to specific types of wizards. Mirror images or other illusion spells will be more universal.

[Skibbles]

I must chime in my agreement with at least one part of Skibbles' post above: I really am not so sold on the highly increased scrying duration. It is much nicer to have a short duration than a terribly long one; sometimes you just want to figure out where someone's at, not watch them run around for 2 minutes or however long it was.

Thanks! There just seems to be so many horrible scenarios, and I can imagine many right now, such as scrying someone who just performed a very public murder and hopelessly watching as they clear transition after transition and ultimately escape without even a chance at being intercepted for followup.

As I said before, as a point in humor, it'll be interesting to see characters explaining the dire need for a diviner - but that they absolutely don't want a specialist.

[Kalopsia]

Necromancy - Not a good bonus. Necromancy it is not only about animating dead. Neutra/Good necromancers absolutely have no use for these bonuses. Also was pointed very well what circle of death is joke-spell. As I personally see solution - give buffs for specific universal necromancy spells or add new spells and buffs them.

Illusion - your average hikikomori-wizard have negative or low charisma. Passive and GSF bonus applies (in my opinion) only to specific types of wizards. Mirror images or other illusion spells will be more universal.

I wouldn't want new spells to be added only for them to then be limited to one tiny group of specialist wizards. That's just a personal opinion, but I can imagine other wizard/sorcerer players will agree that it's better to make such new toys available for everyone.

What's your suggestion regarding these buffs for universal necromancer spells?

[Skarain]

A few thoughts on Scry Duration and functionality.

In the past, the Scry duration was 1 minutes. During that time the chances that you hear anything noteworthy are slim, thus it is used (almost) exclusively to find out:

a.) Where the target is?
b.) How does the target look like?
c.) Who do the target hang out with?

For such a purpose, 1 minutes or 45 seconds or 30 seconds would be enough, so understandably people are frustrated to be stuck in the Scrying view for "X" minutes.f

With the update, a Specialist Diviner with 4 minutes of scry has a LOT more time to get something interesting said, or actually follow the conversation. The Cooldown of Scry resets when you rests, too, so you could potentially line up 4-6 Scries with proper Alcohol use.

The longer duration also has downsides. What if the target is simply afk, resting or nothing interesting is happening. I recently scried a random person on an ordinary Diviner for 2 minutes. They sat in Cordor square and during the 2 minutes, all I got was one *nods* emote to a person passing by.

I think what Diviners (in general) would love is the ability to choose among a few different duration scries. Short one (to confirm whether the target is anywhere to be found and/or doing anything interesting) and a Long one (to properly spy upon a person for longer periods of time). Especially since you are not able to "end" a long-duration scry during the cutscene due to mechanical limitations.

However, since we probably can't get both, I will prefer 2 minutes over 1 minutes (base duration), with Specialist adjustments to either end. Both 4 minute duration and reduced cooldown will find its use.

Down to the bugs!
I recently did some testing on a Cleric with ESF: Divination. A few bugs I found with -scry.

• If the target is warded, your scry gets thwarted and the cooldown starts. Is this intended behaviour?
• After 10 minutes had passed and "Scry is once again available for use.* > * Scry Available*, when tried immediately after I got a <ci?1/2 > You need to rest before you can use this ability again. This DID fix itself when I tried again 4 Server Ticks later. Tried a second time after 10 minute cooldown, 4 times among 2 server ticks. Same error text. The later time it did not reset at all.

About Pseudodragon
Well, I think the issue with Pseudodragon is larger than the tiny dragon alone. Almost all familiars are overshadowed by Pixie and Pseudodragon in terms if their utility. Familiars aren't exactly the most fighting-capable, so beyond some niche confusion bolt or knockdown usage from faerie dragon and beholderkin, Pixie and Pseudodragon reign supreme.

I wouldn't touch the dragon True Sight before touching the collective lot. Either implementing each with some clear purpose or utility, or remove all perks from every familiar and have it be a purely thematic choise.

A Familiar is very fragile, so a Diviner's advantage is that their "eyes" can not be killed. You also do not need to have the pseudodragon out but can... more or less whenever decide it is "True Sight Time". Under normal circumstances, you do not even need to have True Sight prepared, which frees up 6th and 7th level spell slots for other things. That is a perk.

[Gouge Away]

There are times you want a long scrying session. Watching a meeting, for one.

Ideally specialists could just have a choice. Like "-scry" for the standing length, "-scry long" for extended.

[Skarain]

universal necromancer spells?

I'll toss a few things from Neverwinter Nights 2.

• (2nd lvl) False Life: Gain 1d10 temporary hp +1/level (max +10). https://nwn2.fandom.com/wiki/False_Life
• (3rd lvl) Vampiric Touch: Touch deals 1d8/two levels damage; caster gains damage as Temporary hp. https://nwn2.fandom.com/wiki/Vampiric_Touch

(I remember people summoning their familiar, just to cast Maximized Vampiric Touch for maximum Temp HP barrier, killing their familiar in the process)

D&D 5e also has "Life Transference", which does precisely what you think it does.

Necromancy in general deals with the powers of life and death. And Undeath. Obviously, Necromancy spells are really good at killing someone, but potentially also holding death away. Any form of Temporary HP or healing magic that scours the surroundings of life to undo damage do fit the bill.

No matter the way you look around this, "Life Magic" is still a Taboo among most societies. Just imagine a Necromancer draining the youth from another to remain beautiful forever and ever. A pretty evil thing to do. If you in turn surrender your life or transfer the life of someone else to save someone dying... that is the moral gray territory when Necromancy can be socially accepted in goodly socities.

However, some form of spell that allows you to stave off death? Akin to Healer's Lifeline ability. Someone should be dying but is saved instead. That could be an universally useful Necromancy spell. A buff that triggers a Heal-potion'esk effect cast on the Character the moment they are about to die, or a...... 50-200 Temp HP Barrier that lasts for 6, 12, 16 seconds. A bit akin to how Godsave saves from death but without loosing your buffs.

Potentially overpowered but I am just tossing ideas here.

[Gillesbreton]

GSF Already gives hours per caster level. So specialising literally does nothing here, you can just get GSF as a generalist for the same thing.

Crushing despair on a level 30 wizard would only Affected creatures takes a -5 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls for the duration of the spell. This is super underwhelming, I would highly recommend that anyone wanting to run an enchanter just going generalist, the specialisations here are not worth the loss of illusion spells if you want to remain competitive.

Also, the main fix for the domination bug requires illusion casting (invisibility) so not having it screws you over quite a bit.

Well, GSF doesn't give hr per level, it gives 2 + level/3 in HR; which given the time changes will be a moot thing anyway, so that might need to get adjusted.

I'm really confused how you think that -5 AB, saving throws, skill checks, and weapon damage is underwhelming. This is quite powerful.

I do plan to look into the dominate thing. And you can still use invisibility wands.

As it currently stands GSF allows you to dominate creatures for ages a more than enough time to fill an evenings session before expiring; the time change will only enhance this without specialisation.

I hate to put on my wargaming hat, but at level 30, yes, -5 AB and -5 damage and -5 save is an inefficient use of a spell as an enchanter with ESF Enchantment as Mind fog (level 5 spell) already gives -10 to will saves and provides an extremely long stun. So they already have a better option without specialisation, crowd control and they can still cast illusion spells.

Glad you are looking into it, really, it’s like it’s valentines day!

The wand thing works but still, you are requiring to buy wands from other wizards/bards (a little humiliating) and at 6-7k a pop for wands in PC stores it’s only really viable if you can make the wands yourself (and as it’s solely used to fix a bug, so it’s not really convenient - you might as well pick Conjuration for a more reliable ‘summon’ as it stands).

[Skarain]

What if Dominated Creatures would remain Henchmen even through resting? I remember one hurdle as an Enchanter was that once your extended turns/levels spells ran out, you would have to rest and kill your dominated creature. Sometimes it was hard to find a good replacement after that.

Unsure if this is the case, but do Dominated Creatures persist through server transition? I know they did not in the past.

Also oops! Forgot Good Hope was not a Wizard spell.

Regarding Crushing Despair, I remember there were creatures (Pit Fiends) that were hard to dominate even with Mind Fog. Stacking a malus on top of a malus to spare higher level Dominate Monster slots in case of a fail seem like a fair use. You migth be able to Wand Crushing Despair too, unsure.

[Gillesbreton]

Henchmen domination and carrying them across server does sound interesting but it would be really tricky to implement I think.

Stacking of Crushing Despair and Mind fog for a -15 to save might be hugely game breaking. Even against characters with high will saves I.e. level 20 clerics will save is +12 without modifiers.

[SkipiusEsq]

One thought I had in terms of enchanting is if the specialist could get a boosted enchanting basin chance. Maybe an increase in % based on CL.

[Salasker]

One thought I had in terms of enchanting is if the specialist could get a boosted enchanting basin chance. Maybe an increase in % based on CL.

There was something like this for SF Enchanting (10% per level of SF you took) before the Dweomer change, so I'm not sure the team would bring a bonus like that back.

[Gillesbreton]

One thought I had in terms of enchanting is if the specialist could get a boosted enchanting basin chance. Maybe an increase in % based on CL.

So, this is similar to what it was before, but it was decided by the server developers that magic item creation had nothing to do with the Enchantment School and it has now been renamed, added as it’s own separate feat for non-magical users, and 3 ranks (levels) of it added dependant on a few variants. This happened around 2 1/2 years ago. Im not sure if they would turn back the clock on that.

A bit of background: Before this change was added as there were very few Casters with feat focuses in Enchantment, so better magical items via enchanting were highly sought after due to the rarity of people picking ESF Enchantment.

[Xerah]

In my experience as a diviner (I played a fairly well known one), I felt that the 1 minute was way too short and felt extra lame every time I had to scry more than once in a row. I never felt I wanted to scry someone for only 20-30 seconds. I think I'll send it back to 1min but give the option for 2 minutes or 4 minutes (for diviners only).

If the cooldown of scry is resetting with rest, then that needs to be fixed.

Enchantment is not going to get anything changed for the basin; that's a non-starter.

Familars are outside the scope of this update but are due for a rework.

Necro will get a few modification as well as Garr working on something new for ESF. I'll work on the tyrantfog and I should probably just cut WoF since it never seems to do anything ever.

Trans is going to allow Empower, so you can get up to +10 on stats with that. There will be a few adjustments made on tensors as well (including removing the polymorph).

There'sa few things we're going over with conj. One option is like a Life Link type of thing between caster and the summon.