Spell Sword Imbue Selections

[RedGiant]

Maybe this has been addressed somewhere else, but now that Spellswords are back, is there any intention of looking at their imbue schematic?

First, there are some odd holes in the schematic. One tier is entirely activated by spells wizards don't actually get...i.e. Tier 2 Sonics. Other tiers don't even seem to have associated spells...ie. Tier 3 Cold, Acid, Electrical (save for certain metamagic gymnastics only poorly built spellswords would likely bother with).

Second, there is no real balance to forbidden schools. While discussed ad naseum in other posts on Spell Swords, all three negative tiers are completely tied to necromancy. If you choose necromancy as your forbidden school, this disallows the entire tier. The same is true for evocation and the electric tiers. Yet, several other tiers are accessibey by multiple schools (i.e. magic and fire).

Thirdly, this second point leads to a strange conundrum. Spellswords have an absolute ban on summoning, cannot pick conjuration as their forbidden school, but yet can and do imbue through the use of many conjuration spells. This is just weird.

Any chance of making the imbues uniformly wizard spells and revamping the activation schematic?

My personal opinion is that imbues are a function of the class, so a forbidden school shouldn't make you sit out entire swaths of imbue tiers. I also would like to see more balance in what choosing a forbidden school means to tier interaction, and over all, more spell choices to activate the tiers. (Right now you would literally be a fool to choose evocation as your forbidden school, while enchantment is almost a gimmee.)

Spellswords already pay a high price in simply not being able to cast an entire schools worth of spells, so seeing most (if not all) imbue tiers open to them through creative spell use would be a huge QoL update without vastly increasing their power. Many activation spells are all over the map already (i.e. fire is activated by evocation, conjuration, illusion), so really such a fix would just balance this across the board.

[Terenfel]

you use metamagic to get the tiers not normally accessed

[Peppermint]

Why wouldn't a spellsword take metamagic? It's literally half the point of the class. What you can't beat in melee, you burst down with spells. You need metamagic to do it. (Please don't tell me you're basing your analysis off of the ultra-dispel-bait spellsword/WM meme.)

I agree that there isn't much thought behind forbidden schools. This is kind of an issue with the entire specialization system in general, though. It's not unique to spellswords.

Why is it odd that they can't summon things but can cast other conjuration spells? Heck, summon spells even have their own subschool in D&D; it doesn't seem difficult to justify an in character explanation from there. Am I missing something here?

[RedGiant]

you use metamagic to get the tiers not normally accessed

Acknowledged in the OP.

Why wouldn't a spellsword take metamagic? It's literally half the point of the class. What you can't beat in melee, you burst down with spells. You need metamagic to do it. (Please don't tell me you're basing your analysis off of the ultra-dispel-bait spellsword/WM meme.)

I have several Spellswords in the works, the highest into mid-epics, but the only meta-magics I really considered essential is extend spell. As for the blast hypothesis, even with a base 18 wizard to start, who has enough spells to actually blast the HP off anything in Arelith? Our thread on all the problems and somewhat sad uselessness of arcane damage spells should suffice here. I think the class only shines if you focus on melee and the wizarding "tricks" that support it (i.e. greater sanc to heal up, bigbys to perchance immbolize, etc.). The class seems no way tuned to even make evocation a thing (no hellball or g.ruin), so feats thrown there are better served particularly toward transmutation and abjuration.

I agree that there isn't much thought behind forbidden schools. This is kind of an issue with the entire specialization system in general, though. It's not unique to spellswords...

Well, correct, the school aren't balanced at all in NWN, but in a custom class like spell sword, we could balance the imbues tiers we arbitrarily link to spells. Right now they make some sense thematically, but not at all in balance. I propose we be more intentional about adding imbues from the wide selection of wizard spells, if a tad more thematically arbitrary. Lets throw divination, enchantment, etc. into the mix.

Why is it odd that they can't summon things but can cast other conjuration spells? Heck, summon spells even have their own subschool in D&D; it doesn't seem difficult to justify an in character explanation from there. Am I missing something here?

Well, it just seems that there was a dog pile on most of us who were foolish enough to assume imbues were their own thing and not tied to specific school (i.e. necromancy). "You fools!" They said, "You should have seen it coming!" I dunno, when we're basing a class around staples such as barred schools, it just seems weird and arbitrary to me that you cant conjure anything else, but you can conjure pools of grease, flaming arrows and clouds of acid? It ends up being more like you have a school and a half forbidden...with a dash of transmutation thrown in for good measure?

With your sub-school explanation, maybe its fine like it is.

To me, the most thorny issue you didn't address is the non-wizard spells on the list. Its my turn to say "please". Please don't require the hideously over-done bard and or rogue dip to make the class function. Please?!?

[Hunter548]

I have several Spellswords in the works, the highest into mid-epics, but the only meta-magics I really considered essential is extend spell. As for the blast hypothesis, even with a base 18 wizard to start, who has enough spells to actually blast the HP off anything in Arelith? Our thread on all the problems and somewhat sad uselessness of arcane damage spells should suffice here. I think the class only shines if you focus on melee and the wizarding "tricks" that support it (i.e. greater sanc to heal up, bigbys to perchance immbolize, etc.). The class seems no way tuned to even make evocation a thing (no hellball or g.ruin), so feats thrown there are better served particularly toward transmutation and abjuration.

Sounds like you're basing this entire thing on a false premise, then: that the way you're building is the "optimal" way to do it. The idea of taking only 18 wizard levels on a spellsword and not bothering with maximize seems like very much an unforced error to me (For reasons in addition to the lack of metamagic).

Maximize helps you take more IGMS (Which is just as good at blasting on a spellsword as it is on a wizard) and makes them more effective, helps with your buffs for meleeing, and helps with this imbue problem you've given yourself.

Well, correct, the school aren't balanced at all in NWN, but in a custom class like spell sword, we could balance the imbues tiers we arbitrarily link to spells. Right now they make some sense thematically, but not at all in balance. I propose we be more intentional about adding imbues from the wide selection of wizard spells, if a tad more thematically arbitrary. Lets throw divination, enchantment, etc. into the mix.

What spells would you imbue from with divination/enchantment? What fire spells are there in each school? Cold, negative, etc? Where's the thematic sense in enchanting up a fireball, or divining one up, or w/e?

The way imbues work (channeling X inner plane) is obviously going to tend towards certain schools of magic over others. It seems to make sense to be that, therefore, a spellsword who bans those schools is going to do worse, not to mention the numerous caster classes in PnP that are flavored as "war mage", "wizard-fighter" or similar descriptors. Pretty universally, those schools have an over-abundance of certain schools and less of others.

Well, it just seems that there was a dog pile on most of us who were foolish enough to assume imbues were their own thing and not tied to specific school (i.e. necromancy). "You fools!" They said, "You should have seen it coming!" I dunno, when we're basing a class around staples such as barred schools, it just seems weird and arbitrary to me that you cant conjure anything else, but you can conjure pools of grease, flaming arrows and clouds of acid? It ends up being more like you have a school and a half forbidden...with a dash of transmutation thrown in for good measure?

With your sub-school explanation, maybe its fine like it is.

To me, the most thorny issue you didn't address is the non-wizard spells on the list. Its my turn to say "please". Please don't require the hideously over-done bard and or rogue dip to make the class function. Please?!?

My understanding is the imbue "list" on the wiki is a hypothetical one by and large, put together by Iceborn. You can very easily get imbues of all tiers, in all elements, with some metamagic, without having to do a bard dip. My spellsword did it. Others have too.

That aside; If you do things like make imbues more or less independant of school, which school you choose to ban has less meaning. Right now, if you choose to ban say, necromancy, you lose your negative imbue. That's a big choice to make, one to balance against whether there isn't a better school to give up, with its own sacrifices. That's kind of the point of allowing choices in character build, no?

I don't know why you'd assume that imbues wouldn't be linked to schools you can cast -- it's not like this has changed since imbues went in beyond letting people imbue off of items, which was kind of done to death in the thread that popped up when the change went in, and as Twily pointed out wasn't ever said to be anything other than an exploit people were taking advantage of.

Like I said earlier; A lot of the problems you seem to have with how imbues work seem to be self-inflicted. I can sympathize with that, sure, and if you want someone to bounce ideas on how to build a viable spellsword off of, I'll be glad to help (As will a lot of others). A character not being viable because you intentionally made bad choices is kind of a weird reason to demand a class be changed/buffed, though.

[RedGiant]

Sounds like you're basing this entire thing on a false premise, then: that the way you're building is the "optimal" way to do it. The idea of taking only 18 wizard levels on a spellsword and not bothering with maximize seems like very much an unforced error to me (For reasons in addition to the lack of metamagic).

The base 18 in Wizard I was referring to was the standard base 18 INT...not a class level. I'm my experience, I don't have tons of free spell slots to be the blasting wizard that you and Peppermint seem to suggest. I would still refute the entire concept, since even if you do breach my Spellsword's abjuratives, I can almost certainly just out-heal another Spellsword's IGMS spam.

What spells would you imbue from with divination/enchantment? What fire spells are there in each school? Cold, negative, etc? Where's the thematic sense in enchanting up a fireball, or divining one up, or w/e?

Well, lets start with the easy ones. Phantasmal Killer and Weird, which produce death effects albeit by the mind, somehow in the Spellsword class produce magic damage and abjurative sparkles? Does this make more sense than having them as alternates in the Negative tiers? I don't think so. These spells have much more thematic affinity with necromantic effects and the negative tier (which shouldn't be entirely synonymous IMO). Moreover, the magic tier, if it were to have any secondary imbues, should likely have them come from abjuration. Why not have dispel magic be an imbue for a tier that causes your weapon to dispel on hit? This makes much more thematic sense to me. This is just a sample of what I'm talking about.

The way imbues work (channeling X inner plane) is obviously going to tend towards certain schools of magic over others. It seems to make sense to be that, therefore, a spellsword who bans those schools is going to do worse, not to mention the numerous caster classes in PnP that are flavored as "war mage", "wizard-fighter" or similar descriptors. Pretty universally, those schools have an over-abundance of certain schools and less of others.

Agree here, I just think this needs relooked on current Spellswords imbue schematic...as above.

That aside; If you do things like make imbues more or less independant of school, which school you choose to ban has less meaning. Right now, if you choose to ban say, necromancy, you lose your negative imbue. That's a big choice to make, one to balance against whether there isn't a better school to give up, with its own sacrifices. That's kind of the point of allowing choices in character build, no?

Here I agree-disagree. While I agree builds choice should be significant (lest we get the warlock phenomenon), I disagree that we couldn't separate the imbue issue.

Independent of the imbues are the spells you lose in a forbidden school themselves, which are their own sacrifice and provide a color in themselves. To talk intelligently about this, we need to consider the sacrifices inherent at both levels. Right now, however, there isn't any balance in the choice of Spellsword forbidden schools, which I argue skews them in very particular ways. I'll try to sum this up in a future post, but I think they are being forced in a cookie-cutter direction currently. Bringing balance to the imbue list might actually encourage the choices in character builds you mention.

[RedGiant]

This I did quickly, so there may be errors, but is an illustration of what the forbidden school mean to Spellsword. Most imbues currently come from evocation, conjuration, illusion, and necromancy. Since no Spellsword can take conjuration as a forbidden school, ALL Spellswords can use the conjuration imbues and thus access the Acid, Cold, and Fire tiers. Of the three remaining schools that imbue, illusion closes no tier to the Spellsword, necromancy closes one entire tier, and evocation closes two entire tiers as well as largely gimping the class.

School-- Spell/Capability Sacrifice //\\Imbue Sacrifice\
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abjuration-- Protectives, Anti-Summons, Anti-Magic //\\None
Divination-- Detection, Offensives (PWs + TRUESTKE), Disabler (Feeblemind) //\\None
Enchantment-- Disablers, Dominations //\\ None
Evocation-- Offensives, Disablers //\\ Electric, Sonic, + Massive Gimping
Illusion-- Protectives, Offensives, Disablers //\\ None
Necromancy-- Offensives, Disablers //\\ Negative
Transmutation-- Stat Buffs, Weapon Buffs, Offensives, Transformations, Protections, Detection //\\ None


Based on the spells AND imbues, I would quickly rank the schools as follows.
Necessary: Evocation, Transmutation
Recommended: Divination, Illusion, Necromancy
Disposable: Enchantment

Literally the only thing that even stings a little about taking enchantment as the forbidden school is the loss of the single spell "Protection from Spells", but even here, spell mantle etc. will suffice in a pinch.

In short, I think the original schematic was done entirely thematically, with no eye to balancing the schools and sacrifices. If this is intentional, okay, I guess....but as I've pointed out above, even thematically I think there is room for improvement.

[Disciprine Come From Within]

I always got the feeling the idea of banning summons was a mechanical idea. You're better physically so you don't need a summon for support, so you don't get any. What I don't understand is why Black Blade of Disaster is also on that list since it's kind of a unique summon that makes the caster do nothing when summoned, preventing the scenarios of a well buffed warrior with a summon smacking things together.

And losing a school is a fair loss too. The only problem is that you're quickly encouraged to pick Enchantment since your DCs will probably be subpar anyway, and as stated above, your imbues require Necromancy and Evocation. You can't remove Conjuration fully, Divination has True Strike, See Invis, and True Seeing, Abjuration is required since you want defenses, Transmutation is required since you want buffs. Illusion has Shadow Shield and Improved Invisibility, two really powerful defenses. Enchantment loses you Mass Haste and Protection from Spells as useful buffs. You can adapt without those easier than the others.

I'll repeat the point that I don't understand why you wouldn't take at least Maximized Spell. I've also always been a fan of Extend Spell, but I know that there is a long debate on whether or not that metamagic is worth using. But with those two, you have everything but lightning set to level 7 slots, and level 8 is Ball Lightning Maximized. It's a little different with Empower Spell but has a similar result that you have everything in level 7-8 slots so I see one of those two feats as a necessity and worth taking. It's arguably more powerful for them than dedicated wizards due to the imbue system and the greater reliance on personal buffs.

If there is anything I don't like about the Imbue system, it would be that it's not balanced within itself very well. Arguably Negative and Sonic are the most powerful, followed by Cold. Fire and Lightning are about on the same tier in my opinion and Acid and Magic are probably the weakest imbue types to use. I really wish the all or nothing aspect of the save system was adjusted and the save DCs set closer to spells and less like Monk style ability saves. Like many other spells, I also want a half effect on fail/methods of negate imbue effects entirely with the right magical defenses/class features. Some of the weaker imbues could also do better starting weaker than they are but have a method to ramp up their effects the more often you hit someone with that imbue type. Acid IMO could even be ok saveless that way if it started low enough and had a fair damage cap after X amount of hits. There is a potential to do this right where it feels fair, it feels fun, and it encourages more of the Int spread to the DCs rather than a minimal cap of 19-20. I like the idea of playing a character that has a bunch of different weapons that are all buffed different ways and you use the right weapon for the situation. But it's just not quite there yet. It has aspects that are overpowered and some neat potentials that are thrown away because they aren't worth using yet.

Finally, the change to Blackstaff to encourage it to be used for Spellswords wasn't done well. It's DC is going to be WAY lower than the DCs you get on Imbues and the effect on failed save is a neat idea but that saving throw aspect really hurts the potential of using a level 8 spellslot to make a target more vulnerable to damage. I don't know what to do to fix it though because a saveless version of that same spell would be unfair. Something does need to be done with it though.

[RedGiant]

"You can imbue from scrolls and items with integrated spells, but the CL is based on the item and above restrictions still apply. " - wiki

"You may not imbue weapons using spells cast from scrolls, wands, or other items." - game

So, how again is one supposed to imbue utilizing wounding whispers or silence for example...without being a bard or cleric?

[Cortex]

perhaps non wizard spells were not meant to be used on a spellsword

and the wiki wasnt updated yet, given its about a day old

[RedGiant]

Doh...just discovered the update tied to this on the forums. The post above reflects only the frustration of discovery learning.

Still...all the more reason to rework the list! If there is any interest in such, I might cobble together a suggestion.

[yellowcateyes]

While elemental spells do not exist in all tiers, this was overcome by allowing metamagic to shift a spells' valuation up a tier or two. While I understand you might want to pick other feats in lieu of metamagic, the spellsword represents a balance between martial and arcane training. Neglecting one to focus more on the other should come at a cost.