Opposing Schools of Magic

[Manabi]

So, I've been trying to figure out how this works, and I cannot find anything of great detail on the FR wiki. I know that the image is from the second edition, but I imagine that it still applies to 3.5. (except for minor name changes. Enlighten me if there is more to the name differences than a simple, "this sounds better" deal.)


I'm also trying to figure out how (if) it applies to what happens when one picks the school focus on character creation. (I choose to excel in this school and gain some extra spells and also negate an entire spell school all together).

How were those schools selected? I know that when one focuses on evocation that they lose conjuration, but what about the rest? Is there a reason that "this" school was negated over "this" one lore-wise? Or is it simply for mechanical things to try and even things out?

Thanks in advance! Oh, this image can be found at

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Magic

[Lord_Phoenyx]

I'm not certain I agree with that layout... I always felt Illusion and Divination are opposed schools, due to the fact that Divination is the school that helps you "see" and illusion the school that helps obfuscate. With regards to forbidden schools, I believe specialists in 3.0/.5 were allowed to select their forbidden schools. I don't think that there is a chosen school that you have to drop. I think that's a 2.0 restriction. I'm not digging up my PHBs right now, so I might be wrong on the 3.0 situation, but I'm almost 100% certain that in 3.5 you do not have a "required" forbidden school.

[Urch]

NWN's opposing schools are these:

Abjuration - opposed by conjuration
Conjuration - opposed by transmutation
Divination - opposed by illusion
Enchantment - opposed by illusion
Evocation - opposed by conjuration
Illusion - opposed by enchantment
Necromancy - opposed by divination
Transmutation - opposed by conjuration

Taken from the NWN wiki . HOWEVER, they differ from traditional PnP purely because NWN has a limitation of spells in certain schools.

[msterswrdsmn]

^ Thats how it works in nwn. What the logic is behind it, I have no idea. I'm not even sure if there is an logic behind it.

In 3.5, if you chose a specialized school, you got to pick 2 forbidden schools. What these were were completley up to you. The exception was if you specalized in divination; then you only had to have one forbidden school.

As to why the school is forbidden, feel free to make up your own reasons. Terry had divination as a forbidden school. I played it off as focusing on the science of magic, most of which was vague or hard to explain with divination.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

So there's a lot of context that goes with that diagram from 2nd edition that's missing. I had to dig up my copy of the book. What it really boils down to is some RP fluff-n-stuff and some manual balancing tweaks that no longer apply after 2nd Edition- justify the change as alterations to the Weave during the Time of Troubles or however you must.

For relevance, in 2nd Ed. "lesser Divinations" referred to all Divinations of 4th level or lower, and greater Divinations referred to 5th and higher.

Not all wizards can become specialists. The player character must meet certain
requirements to become a specialist. Most specialist wizards must be single-classed;
multi-classed characters cannot become specialists, except for gnomes, who seem to have
more of a natural bent for the school of illusion than characters of any other race. Dual-
class humans canchoose to become specialists. The dedication to the particular school of
magic requires all the attention and concentration of the character. He does not have time
for other class-related pursuits.

In addition, each school has different restrictions on race, ability scores, and schools of
magic allowed. These restrictions are given on Table 22. Note that lesser divination is not
available as a specialty. The spells of this group, vital to the functioning of a wizard, are
available to all wizards.

Opposition School(s)always includes the school directly opposite the character's
school of study in the diagram. In addition, the schools to either side of this one may also
be disallowed due to the nature of the character's school. For example, an invoker/evoker
cannot learn enchantment/charm or conjuration/summoning spells and cannot use
magical items that duplicate spells from these schools.

Being a specialist does have significant advantages to balance the trade-offs the
character must make. These are listed here:

A specialist gains one additional spell per spell level, provided the additional spell is
taken in the specialist's school. Thus, a 1st-level illusionist could have two spells--one
being any spell he knows and the other limited to spells of the illusion school.

Because specialists have an enhanced understanding of spells within their school, they
receive a +1 bonus when making saving throws against those spells when cast by other
wizards. Likewise, other characters suffer a -1 penalty when making saving throws
against a specialist casting spells within his school. Both of these modifiers can be in
effect at the same time--for example, when an enchanter casts an enchantment spell at
another enchanter, the modifiers cancel each other out.

Specialists receive a bonus of +15% when learning spells from their school and a
penalty of -15% when learning spells from other schools. The bonus or penalty is applied
to the percentile dice roll the player must make when the character tries to learn a new
spell (see Table 4).

Whenever a specialist reaches a new spell level, he automatically gains one spell of his
school to add to his spell books. This spell can be selected by the DM or he can allow the
player to pick. No roll for learning the spell need be made. It is assumed that the
character has discovered this new spell during the course of his research and study.

When a specialist wizard attempts to create a new spell (using the rules given in the
DMG), the DM should count the new spell as one level less (for determining the
difficulty) if the spell falls within the school of the specialist. An enchanter attempting to
create a new enchantment spell would have an easier time of it than an illusionist
attempting to do the same.

[The Man of the Moon]

To me seems a good ocasion to start an IG research and end with a book explaining the results of your research!

Arcane Tower stuff!

[Faye]

The Arcane Tower?! Pff, try Thoramind's! They know the most about everything to do with magick and schools. And also, everything.

This message was programmed by E. Eliphet, AR 103.

[The Man of the Moon]

The Arcane Tower?! Pff, try Thoramind's! They know the most about everything to do with magick and schools. And also, everything.

This message was programmed by E. Eliphet, AR 103.

And who do you think founded the Arcane Tower? Thoramind himself... And it's rumoured that his genious inhabit the tower even when he left it several time ago...

There still marvelous things among the Arcane Walls...

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Conjuration: 3
Illusion: 2
Enchantment: 1
Divination: 1

Necromancy, Evocation and Abjuration never show up once as prohibited schools. Which is really annoying.

[Manabi]

Thank you everyone for the depth in this topic. I've enjoyed reading it.