question about wizards......

[mayrc]

You choose a school of magic. Does this have ANY point beside the tiny perks you get?

I mean has it ANY influence on actual spells? I mean to me it seems every wizard can cast any spells at the same strenght. Making schools totaly pointless.

aside from the smal perks (who vary alot in usefulness by the way) the whole schools of magic are entirely pointless? I mean the half cost to scribe scrolls are so pathetic you wont even notice at all.

[Konomi☆Nanasaki]

Tell me you haven't played wizards without telling me you haven't played wizards.
If you consider those traits "tiny" you either haven't played or you haven't understood wizards.
I do however agree that Illusion and Transmuation doesn't feel great to me, but the "tiny" traits definitely shape their entire playstyle.
With your argument you could also claim that a barbarian with a greatsword is the same as a fighter with a greatsword. They might be wielding the same weapon, so they're similar aswell, but they still have clear differences.

[Recjawjind]

Publicado originalmente por アンジェル:

Publicado originalmente por Recjawjind:

Evo wizards can do north of 800 damage per turn.
Abju wizards are quasi-immortal, the best tanks in this game by an astronomical margin.

It's not just "tiny perks"

Good luck trying to get that to someone who does not get wizard.

Abj wizards are probably the most underrated ones in Faerun

My gale has thousands of effective HP.
He has not taken a SINGLE point of damage after hitting level 10 (yes I kept track).

[Recjawjind]

Publicado originalmente por mayrc:

i was saying beside the smal quirks and yes evocation is one of the very few usefull. But ONLY the lvl 3 one.... all others are pointless in evocation.

Sure the empowered cantrips are worthless. But the level 10 feature is turbo broken for DPR optimizing.

[daveyfunk]

The answer to your question is that the school doesn't make the corresponding spells more powerful, apart from evocation, I think. I think the problem you're getting from replies is where you're saying 'tiny' perks, but as posters have said above those perks have significant advantage. If you run an abjuration wizard with a dip in sorc and cleric you can solo the game

I think learning spells from scrolls of your correlating school of magic makes them cheaper to learn

[LinkToReality.ttv]

Publicado originalmente por mayrc:

Publicado originalmente por DontMisunderstand:

You're quite mistaken. Just as an example, an Evocation Wizard can cast Fireball directly at their own ally and that ally will take 0 damage. Whereas any other caster will hurt their ally if they cast a fireball near them. The subclass features are almost more important than the spells you learn. Almost.

i was saying beside the smal quirks and yes evocation is one of the very few usefull. But ONLY the lvl 3 one.... all others are pointless in evocation.

My point where is the difference of wizards? any enchanment spell is cast the same... no matter if you are an enchanter. Every illusion spell is the same no matter if you are an illusionist..... and so on

Being able to Thunderwave with your allies next to the enemies is good early on too. There's a number of Evocation AoE spells that are affected.
Also, at lv6 their evocation cantrips always deal at least half damage, which is really good if you're low on spell slots but can't do a long rest at that moment.
And at lv10 you add your int modifier to the damage of evocation spells.

Divination can be really powerful, if you're willing to deal with the constant reaction pokes in combat (or turn it off as a combat reaction and use them solely for conversations). Though getting a couple of good rolls stored after a long rest can prevent a lot of save scumming if you're that kind of player. Or you can use it to make sure powerful attacks miss in combat.
At lv 6 you gain a third Portent dice and you can regain spent dice with a short rest as long as you fulfill the prophesy given to you when resting.
At lv 10 you can give yourself Darkvision or Use See Invisibility (which may or may not be useful to you).
Edit: I never actually checked, but I guess you can't use the Portent dice on Skill checks only Saving throws in conversation, making them a little less useful for that. But if that does work there's still plenty of interactions where you need to do saving throws against wisdom or constitution.

If you're planning on doing a bunch of Alchemy the Transmutation subclass can be really good to get you more elixirs and potions.

As for the Illusionist bit, they don't seem to get all that amazing in my opinion.

I haven't poked around much with the rest so I can't speak of their usefulness.

[=(FGR)=Sentinel]

To go over things in order:
Abjuration: you gain a ward that gains charges whenever you cast an abjuration spell, up to double your Wizard level and it reduces damage by the number of charges, then takes away one charge. Essentially, a level 12 Wizard is able to absorb 24 points of damage from a single attack. At level 6, the Wizard can use the ward to protect allies from damage and at level 10 short rests increase the number of charges by your Wizard level. This makes Abjuration Wizards, who already specialize in spells designed to improve survivability, much more capable tanks than most other characters.

Evocation: Sculpt Spells makes allies immune to damage and effects from AOE Evocation spells (Burning Hands, Thunder Wave, Gust of Wind, Shatter, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Ice Storm, Wall of Fire, Cone of Cold, Sunbeam, and Wall of Ice), which makes their spells safer for melee parties. Their evocation cantrips also become more likely to do damage and their evocation spells have their intelligence modifier added to their damage rolls. Where Abjuration Wizards focus on enduring damage that could probably kill a Paladin, Evocation Wizards are devastating offensive combatants.

Necromancy's not as useful: Grim Harvest sounds nice, but very few damage-dealing spells come from that school, so you're likely only going to heal double the value of the spell slot rather than triple. Necromancy Wizards get a better Animate Dead due to being able to raise an extra corpse and create more capable minions, though. Inured to Undeath is only useful if you're going up against enemies that use necrotic damage, which is another weak addition.

Conjuration: Create Water is useful for certain segments of the game where you have to deal with fire, but it's a once per short rest ability. Benign Transposition can let the Wizard swap places with an ally, which could theoretically have uses in combat. Focused Conjuration is a pretty powerful one that comes up at level 10 and means that you can't have your concentration broken by damage while concentrating on a Conjuration spell (and there's a lot of fairly useful Conjuration spells that require concentration). Overall, Conjuration is good for a support Wizard that focuses more on causing chaos indirectly than anything else.

Enchantment: Hypnotic Gaze is an action that makes an enemy more or less harmless. It can be extended by repeatedly using it and has infinite uses, which is useful, but requires you to be in melee range of your target. Instinctive Charm makes an enemy change attack targets if possible and forces them to spend their reaction to do so, which can be useful for dealing with mages that have counterspell. Split Enchantment means any Enchantment spell that targets one enemy can target two instead, which naturally makes them twice as useful if they work. All this makes Enchantment Wizards excel at suppressing and incapacitating enemies more than other spellcasters.

Divination: Portent is the obvious and truly powerful bonus here. Every Long Rest you get two random "Portent" dice that you can swap out for the result of an attack roll or saving throw rolled near the Wizard, turning a crit into a miss or perhaps allowing your tank to escape being knocked prone. Expert Divination gives a third Portent Die and gives a few ways to regain them outside long rests. Lastly, Divination gains access to Darkvision and see invisibility, making them a useful addition to a party going up against enemies that like to go invisible. The ability to manipulate dice rolls makes this a pretty powerful subclass overall, if you know the right times to use the Portent dice.

Illusion: better minor illusion at level 2, can be cast while silenced and as a bonus action. Of all the schools, this level 2 perk is probably the weakest on its own, though since Minor Illusion makes enemies turn to face it you can use it to give rogues like Astarion a better opening for a backstab in combat. At level 6 you get the See Invisibility spell for free. This is somewhat nice, I guess, but it can first be learned at level 3 by any Wizard and isn't as good as Divination's True Eye: See Invisibility. Illusory Self lets you force an enemy to miss an attack against you once per short rest. Overall Illusion wizards feel more underwhelming than any other Wizard subclass.

Transmutation: Experimental alchemy gives you the chance to make a second solution for free whenever you combine extracts. Not sure what that means off the top of my head but it's useful if you do a lot of alchemy. Transmuter's Stone lets you create a stone that provides an effect to the stone's holder. I'm not sure what the effect options are, however. Shapechanger lets you turn into a bird and gain the ability to fly. Essentially this is a free Fly spell that lasts half as long.

Overall Abjuration, Evocation, and Divination are the most obviously useful Wizard subclasses, Illusion is probably the worst, Necromancy is suboptimal compared to just having a healer or picking Abjuration, and the rest are pretty situational.

[=(FGR)=Sentinel]

To add to the above since I didn't consider it earlier, the subclasses don't specify that they specifically need to be Wizard spells in order to work. This means, for instance, an Abjuration Wizard multiclassed into a Cleric gets Arcane Ward charges whenever they heal someone, which means they'll more commonly have a stronger Ward. Evocation Wizards that multiclass into Sorcerer also gain the benefits of Metamagic that allow them to get the most out of Sculpt Spell, along with the ability to throw multiple spells per turn, making them even more deadly threats to their enemies.

[mayrc]

Well ok maybe its just me playing and reading too many DnD in my life. But Lorewise a enchanter ist called enchanter because he mainly uses Enchantment spells. A Illusionist is called this way because he specializes in Illusions, A conjurer is known for summoning and NOT throwing fireballs.

And yes i know the game has pathetic low amount of spells so you CANT play a magic specialist of certain schools (mabye evocation works). But i expectet that your subclass has at least SOME influence on the spells of that school.

It feels wrong that a Hold person works EXACTLY the same no matter if its cast by a Evoker or Enchanter. If noone else feels that is plain WRONG then well i guess DnD5e audience is just happy to throw fireballs.

I simply dont get why regarding spells its completly irrelevant what school you learned (aside from evoker).

[a.out]

Publicado originalmente por mayrc:

The only 2 that are usefull are divination and evocation. All others fall behind. And spells seem to be cast exactly the same no matter what wizard you are (aside from evocation).

... and Necromancy and Abjuration. 4 interesting and very much different subclasses.

You're not wrong in that some perks are rather lackluster, but I don't feel like your initial premise of subclasses being "entirely pointless" holds true.