Change banned schools for wizards or add a non Conj PvE capable summon line

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Vangrave
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Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2020 3:49 am

Change banned schools for wizards or add a non Conj PvE capable summon line

Post by Vangrave »

The current wizard design is almost entirely centered around using summons - either Necromancy or Conjuration. The DC changes have further increased the wizard reliance on summons. One of the most flavorful aspects of wizards is to be a school specialist, and indeed the studied school is supposed to be the main point that differentiates one wizard from another. However, 3 of the 8 specialists are severely limited RP-wise by their banned schools.

Both of the options available to good and neutral wizards are entirely dependent on being able to use Conjuration. This means that these wizards are forced to used Necromancy and become reanimators, as the illusion summon set is not viable for PvE. This is a MASSIVE problem for wizard RP. It means that you simply can't make an effective Transmuter, Evoker, or Abjurer unless you're evil. This is severely limiting RP-wise and also does not match PnP at all, where you can freely choose your banned schools.

In the past, these wizards were able to use conduit, but this ability was taken away due to consistency and nothing was given in its place, leaving good or neutral transmuters, evokers, and abjurers basically unable to play their characters. I am not the only one who gave up a character due to this change.

I'd suggest either a new line of PvE capable summons that aren't part of the conjuration or necromancy school, a summon stream for necromancy that changes the model of some existing streams that isn't explicitly evil (i.e. living armor or golems that duplicate the existing necro streams but aren't undead), or simply changing the conjuration restriction on these three specialists to something else that isn't entirely crippling rp-wise, like enchantment or illusion, or even removing spell restrictions from specialist wizards entirely (generalist wizards don't exist in 5e, everyone is a specialist of some kind and gives up no spell schools).
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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Change banned schools for wizards or add a non Conj PvE capable summon line

Post by The GrumpyCat »

The current line of thinking is it's probably better to increase the perks for school(s) that dissalow summons, rather than redoing the system. Rejected.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)
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