5/28/2023 0 Comments Master spell focus![]() Because of this, any Illusion-focused mage will want their spell focuses. Because of this, Illusion is a 'go big or go home' school where you should either maximize your potential DC so the double-save is less of a hindrance. Weird and Phantasmal Killer are fine if you focus on maxing out their DC through Shadow Adept, but they're essentially Wail of the Banshee and Finger of Death that have two saves instead of one. Illusion: Great fluff abilities that can give a DM headaches if you know what you're doing and amazing on the tabletop, but Illusion on CD tends to be a combination of Enchantment and Necromancy that isn't as good as either of them alone. Can lead to hilarity, though, if you make an Evocation-specced cleric/heirophant, max out your DCs, and start dropping DC50+ Implosions that kill everything through death immunity. Still has a few spells that are good, and definitely benefits from a focus since almost all its spells have DCs, but it's still a poor choice of specialty. Occasionally useful for cleaning up a spawn if the rest of the party is dead, but buffed summons usually work better. On top of all this, the best Evocation spells don't even have saves because they're some variant of Magic Missile (or are Hellball). Why would you want to spend your valuable time and more valuable spell slots doing 90 damage to a group (which tends to include your own party members) one time when your fighter can easily put out twice that damage in one round with a few buffs that last hours? Would be useful against bosses, but most of them have mountains of HP and a few full heals thrown in too. ![]() ![]() Evocation is good at lower levels but becomes less useful as time goes on until it eventually becomes almost completely useless at epic levels because things just take forever to die. If you're going Enchantment, it never hurts to go big and take the focus feats so you can try landing Dominate Monster on bosses.Įvocation: Next! No, really. Sadly, the whole school is shut down by Mind Blank which every mage should know. Will is also the one save that is almost never buffed by DMs running quests, which means you can occasionally Dominate Monster their villain and have a good time. Mass Hold Monster is an instant-win card in gnolls since it will reliably stop everything but the shamans who have Freedom of Movement. Becomes a decent choice if you have DMs willing to work with you on it since you can learn a lot of information in a short time, but they won't look for a focus before doing this.Įnchantment: The inverse of Divination, it's a meh school in tabletop but a good one on CD because of the prevalence of epic monsters with terrible Will saves. For a school in this state, Spell Focus is obviously out of the question except for fluff. Has a few spells of questionable value, and almost nothing with a save except Feeblemind (which is supposed to be Enchantment anyway) which is only good against improperly-warded mages. With Nondetection items available in an infinite quantity from a local store, good luck trying to scry anyone that doesn't want to be found, and even without it PCs will get a notice in the form of a save when you start spying on them so they can immediately stop what they're doing if they want to be like that. I worry that having the focus boost the summons would make them overwhelming, especially given the power that higher-level summons like Greater Planar Binding, Gate, and Dragon Knight already have.ĭivination: Sorry Priya, but Divination is a pretty useless school on CD despite being one of if not the best school for tabletop. Not a good school to put Focuses into, though it does have some nifty spells like Web and Acid Arrow. Not as awesome for Evil characters because their summons are obviously evil and will get the character outed immediately, their summons tend to be weaker, and Gate has an extra hoop to jump through for CE or NE characters. Makes leveling a mage so much easier at every point in the game. Epic abjurers then become really good at dispelling things.Ĭonjuration: One of the best schools in the game due to the power of summons. Given Abjuration's main offensive purpose is dispelling, one may repurpose this feat to have some mechanical value by swapping its useless +2/4/6 spell DC bonus to a +2/4/6 caster level bonus for dispelling purposes. Spell Focus for abjuration is pretty much useless on everybody and should only be taken for fluff. ![]() Never specialize in it because it has no spells that benefit from it. My opinion on spell focus and spell schools, from a mostly-arcane perspective.Ībjuration: Never ban this or you lose most of your buffs.
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