I've been told by -more than one- person lately that Red Wizards simply can't focus/cast from more than one school of magic.

To me, this is bullshit of the highest degree. Not only does it say this nowhere in any sources I can find (Unapproachable East, DMG, FR wiki, etc.), but the class description does not say this at all either in pen and paper D&D. It never says they can't study more than one school, especially if they've left Thay and are elsewhere, where maybe their Zulkir has no authority (Amia).

This has been told to me by multiple people OOC and now they've taken it as fact ICly and I've had to argue with them about it. They basically say that my character is either messing with them ICly (lying), or not a real red wizard, because he has many spell foci (four schools of spell foci at the moment). I find this highly insulting, when they can't even provide sources for their reasoning. This exact stance they have leaked ICly and now they said my character is either lying about being a red wizard (he's not), or a criminally incompetent one (he wasn't). I am OOCly frustrated with this even if my character ICly is not, because they have taken it as lore fact, from other supposed Thayvian characters, meaning that either I'm horribly wrong and I can't find this information even in the sources they provided me, or there are lots of Thayvians that have no idea what they're talking about, and they're making it harder for me to have fun.


What is the official stance of the server, if there is one, on how many schools a Red Wizard character is allowed to cast from/focus in? What is FR lore, if it differs from the server lore, on this? What is the velocity of a snowflake as it hits the ground? Why am I asking these questions?

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Osiris Masud

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Red Wizards are highly specialized, and are even divided amongst the various schools of magic along political lines if I recall my lore correctly. But they are not limited to one school of magic. They would tend to be very arrogant about their own specialized school, and its superiority over the rest. But they are not limited to only their school of magic.

Mind, however, that others may perceive Red Wizards differently. Do not let in-character perceptions be misconstrued as out-of-character perceptions.

If I recall, the old Red Wizard faction had some guidelines for creating what would be best represented as a Red Wizard on Amia. Mulan subrace, and choosing to specialize in a preferred school of magic.

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Playing:
Marcus Valis

Pretty sure whomever is telling you Red Wizards only cast from one school of magic, period, is woefully misinformed.

Yups...there is also the novel: Red Magic as a nice source...and it is also a classic.

As a Red Wizard you are a paranoid fella too, because you all backstab eachother and stuff like that. Even if your wizard is a transmuter he would probably play extreme attention to be an expert in abjuration too as the Red Wizards are constantly warding their own homes.

I think you're just misunderstanding what's been said. No one that I've seen has suggested that a Red Wizard can't cast any spells other than his chosen school. However a Red Wizard does indeed have to choose a specialized school (which also gives him one school that is prohibited and he cannot cast from). That specialized school, whichever it may be, is what classification he is among the Red Wizards, a dividing line of politics as well as magic as Nivo touched on.

If he remains a Red Wizard (for example having been sent from Thay for some assignment, still considered part of their ranks) then he should follow that rule. If he has fled or otherwise left Thay and wishes to pursue other matters, then ya you can pretty much do whatever with his spell school selection, but he is no longer an actual Red Wizard. The Red Wizards are as much a political organization with certain requirements of its membership, as it as a description of an individual, so if you aren't a part of that factional structure, you can't (truthfully anyway, you're welcome to fib of course) claim to be a Red Wizard.

Thank you everyone for your replies - I knew Red Wizards were supposed to focus more than most, and in one preferred school, thus my Red Wizard has only one epic focus. He uses other schools and studies them, but focuses on one more than the rest.

And to clarify, someone mentioned that I'm misconstruing stuff that was said IC, but no, this was told to me by multiple people OOC. They honestly think this. I am glad I haven't been horribly misplaying my Red Wizard this entire time (though I did only have one prohibited school RP'd, Enchantment, so I should probably think of another.)


Thanks for all of your replies again!

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Osiris Masud

Well... you kinda misunderstood what was just said in this thread. You do need an actual specialization and an actual prohibited school, mechanically, to be an actual Red Wizard. So for example if you're a Red Wizard of Necromancy, then you would take not just the Spell Focus feats for that but the actual school Specialization as well and then you would consequently be unable to cast Divination spells (I think that's the matching prohibited school anyway).

Since it's a pnp class though, can't you just pick what school(s) you want to banish like it says in the DMG and Player's Handbook? In PnP (since this is a PnP discussion for the most part) you can't even choose to banish divination if you specialize, so how would one do this?

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Osiris Masud

Yes, but we're talking about a PnP class and PnP lore; if we're going to enforce things that, let's be honest, are mechanically crippling (no premonition or true seeing, amongst other things that are useful mechanically or in RP), without providing the mechanical advantage the prestige class allows (most significantly, a bonus to caster level or spell saves on focused schools), that seems somewhat ill thought-out. I feel like it would be way better, and way more consistent, to say that the character must choose the schools they will never use, and then never use them. This gives them the mechanical advantage of not having to go with schools they feel are useful to themselves (since they're getting no mechanical advantage out of saying "I'm a red wizard" and pretending to have class levels). If they pick evocation and transmutation for RP purposes then that's their business though, and can lead to interesting stuff.

What do you think?

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Osiris Masud

When it comes to Red Wizards one most consider the social climate in Thay as well.
Red Wizards are the highest caste in the entire nation. Zulkirs are usually referred to as "your omnipotence" and none dare challenge their authority. Mulani noble children are all tested at a young age to see if they have the talent to become a wizard. If yes, any family would then usher that child to try and become a Red Wizard

And I agree with you that since there is no official class for it on Amia enforcing all those penalties without any advantages seems harsh But, for the sake of adhering to canon lore there should be some middle ground to it.
Perhaps request for custom feats with DC could be one way to emulate the class?

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Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.

Let's clear that up. Thayvian noble children, not Mulani. Mulani would be the subset of peoples around the Alamber Sea, not inclusive to Thay... And everyone except Thay around there, hates Thay

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

Thayvian noble children yes, it is one of the greatest of honors to have a red wizard in your family, better even if you ARE the Red Wiazard.

What comes to the specialization, it is true regarding PnP: In order to be a Red Wizard, you must choose a school to specialized in. When you create the character you know it and only thing you should do, is to accept it.

Red Wizards can and will cast from other schools, however, not from the school that is prohibited to them. Due to this specialization in their school, they are stronger in their chosen school than in any else, it is a shame it can't be presented in NWN, but again.. Something you accept if you are wanting to play a red wizard. What you gain is the background and respectable status in Thay and possibly by DM supervision more potent spells in your chosen school, if they accept such. Whether real Red Wizards need to be requested as a special character is unknown to me, as such a character would have ties to Mother Land Thay and possibly some benefits IC:ly due to it. Red Wizards are the nobles in Thay.

And true, a trustful red wizard is a dead red wizard, the bunch is faster to work for personal gain like drows. However, going about it openly, would be equally foolish. They have ranks which they use and thus need to obey their higher ranking members, however, like drows, there is chaos behind the established scene. Very interesting concept in my mind. What comes to Zulkir's, none dare challenge their authority.. Openly. However, every red wizard wants to become a Zulkir, because the status marks you as very powerful and more likely to be able to defend yourself from assassinations or whatnot.

In my opinion a red wizard player should not just pick what they like about the class and what they don't. If you really want to play one, then you accept it as a whole and no middle ground needs to be created. I will share some of my experience as a Red Wizard of the Circle of Five, Crimson Arcanists, later known with bunch of other names. I hope it gives you some understanding of the red wizards and even the mechanical lacks.

As a former Red Wizard player, whether it was officially a red wizard or not will be left found out IC, we all made specialized wizards, or most of us. Wizards are preferred class and sorcerers are despised due to the fact they can't achieve the same extend over spells and the spell casting doesn't seem something they control entirely. I was specialized in Necromancy, thus I did not have divination spells, I still didn't complain about it but found ways to act as my char would lacking in such an important school. Even though he was a specialized wizard, he went to delve into pale mastery, even though his casting sucked, no one openly opposed him due to his extensive understanding over the school, plus the fact that Deathless Touch can be a pain among wizards combined with high AC and epic summon.

Understanding his lack in spellcasting, he wasn't about to go and challenge every mage he could find, rather work behind the scenes to get what he wanted. And in most occasions actually did get, a shadow member highly respected by the leader of the Enclave at that time. Due to having great respect from the leader, my characters thoughts upon matters and advice on course of actions were actually listened more, and I knew no one would openly start accusing him of anything in a Enclave meeting, due to having the leader at his side. I admit I was a follower of that leader, yet my char had no desire to be the leader, nor did I have the time for such. I merely supported the Enclave and did what my char would.

We as well established great amount of lore on the red wizards in order to give more flavor to the RP, we had ranks, titles, lessons, plans, duties, privileges and so on. I actually do think that considering the amount of time we had played, we were able to create a lot, but we were as well quickly brought down. The trip was worth it, whether we actually affected the Amia world, is debatable, but I do think we were able to offer something to other side for a moment.

Playing a red wizard is not easy, then again, it is not meant to be easy. I would advice you discussing red wizard matters with fellow RW players or with the DM's ,to find out if there is anything to be done. Red Wizards are widely hated in Amia for good reasons and I know entirely well what that means, sometimes it means dealing with very offensive sitution, IC:ly and sometimes, unfortunately, OOC:ly. Best of luck.

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http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm

It's fine that you as a player, or even multiples of you, chose to specialize in Necromancy mechanically and thus lost divination - but Vaaros ICly and I OOCly don't want to lose divination because of it's great RP and fun stuff to do, and PnP rules, which is what the Red Wizard class is a part of, do not force you to lose divination. You choose what you give up. I will not be giving up Divination for my Red Wizard, and if people feel like arguing with it OOCly that's fine, but ICly it is perfectly as acceptable - you chose to give up divination (which is only one school, when you should give up two for the class by PnP rules, which is -exactly- what govern the Red Wizard class), but I choose, for example, to give up conjuration and enchantment, and his enhanced specialization ability would be used to give up illusion at level 11 after he took his metamagic feats. If you can name a lore reason why this is a bad way to go about it, I'm all ears, but using what you did as evidence for what should be done isn't gonna fly, because that's more or less just your RP decision (which is perfectly valid for you, but not really a ruling/rule/evidence for why my idea wouldn't work).

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Osiris Masud

Well then he can't be a specialized Necromancer

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Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.

Not mechanically, but in lore he can indeed fulfill all requirements of being a Red Wizard who focuses in Necromancy.

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Osiris Masud

The mechanical requirement is that a Red Wizard must be a "specialist wizard able to cast 3rd level arcane spells." The lore requirement is that a Red Wizard, in order to participate in the Thayvian magocracy, must focus on one specific school of magic. The lore req and the mechanical req are in complete agreement. I'm not sure why this is even a question that's open for debate; it seems completely cut and dried to me.

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

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Because he doesn't want to be a mechanical spec'd necromancer because he'd be forced to lose Divination by NWN rules. Which does genuinely suck, yes. He is of the opinion that by willfully forbidding himself from certain spell schools, it should count as an equivalent. That's a legitimate opinion, which people may or may not disagree with.

However if he wants the setting to acknowledge that he's an actual Red Wizard with all the perks that come with it, he needs to take it up with DMs. IMO, he should be mechanically specialised and suffer through the Div loss if he wants to be called a Necro specialist, because that's the precedent - I played one myself, despite how difficult it was, and I can think of at least two highly developed Necromancer PCs who have gone through the same. But I'm not gonna get too broken up over it if their ruling happens to disagree with my interpretation. And if he doesn't seek DM approval for Red-wizardry then it's his business and not my problem.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

We weren't all specialized necromancers, but a group of specialized wizards focused in different schools mainly. If you want to be specialized wizard, then you know what you lose, not much debate there. The NWN mechanics force it, a simple fact.



And this, not much to add there, thank you for quoting a source Liz, as I assume that part is from the PrC Red Wizard. I did not bother to look into it at this stage. And Serbiris is correct, this seems more of a DM approval issue now than anything else, perhaps with good enough request the DM's might agree that you can be considered specialized wizard without taking the specialization in the creation and thus not basically have any mechanical flaws in your build and have access to all schools of magic.

My point sharing the experience was actually to show that it is possible to play specialized necromancer without divination spells, not a big trouble even. Especially taking into consideration the custom spells you can request.

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http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm

This seems pretty obvious to me. If you're a Red Wizard specializing in Necromancy, you are automatically barred from Divination, as per both the mechanic and PnP rules for specialization. Them's the breaks for being a Necromancy specialist. Unless there's something specific I've missed lorewise to contradict that (in which case please do point it out -along- with the source), then to be a Red Wizard specializing in Necromancy, you will need to bar yourself from Divination. That's my ruling on it.

Serbiris, the lore requirement isn't that the Red Wiz forego certain schools. It's that the Red Wiz specialize. The OP's argument comes at the requirement from the wrong direction.

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I didn't say anything about a lore requirement? I was talking about the mechanical one.

If you want the lore requirement, while qualifying to be a red wizard requires you to specialise, actually being one would require you to undergo further specialisation as part of the class. It wouldn't apply here because generally we don't emulate P&P abilities to that extent unless specifically sought and mechanically possible.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

Tattoo Focus is demanded for entry into the Red Wizard PrC and the feat itself has a pre-req of being specialized in a school of magic.



The wizard in question, nominates the two prohibited spell-schools, or one prohibited school if a specialist diviner. Upon taking the Red Wizard PrC the character in question nominates a third (or second if a diviner) prohibited spell school.

Importantly with regards to this lore bandy argument:

By lore and the core product a wizard can "never give up divination to fulfill this requirement."

^ The Red Wizard PrC must follow that rule.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

Exactly, thank you for pointing that out - I honestly thought everyone already knew that. That's literally straight from the Player's Handbook.

Illusion was his chosen third prohibited school, and per the description of the class, he can still cast the illusion spells he knew at 11th level (his first lore-wise level of Red Wizard). The schools he has chosen to give up just in general, are conjuration and enchantment. He is in complete agreement with PnP rules, which is why I'm not sure where everyone else is coming from.

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Osiris Masud

Sorry, I mistyped; I meant the *mechanical* requirement is specialization. (Actually, both. But I meant to directly respond to your point.) My point is: the foregoing of certain schools is a side-effect of the requirement; it's not sufficient on its own to meet the requirement. (Which is equally true for either the lore req or the mechanical req, in my opinion.)

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Wait, are you saying your guy is already mechanically a specialist wizard? If so, then I'm not sure I understand your question any more. Specialization is all I've been arguing should be required of you, since Tattoo Focus isn't available in NWN.

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He wants to give up Illusion, Conjuration, and Enchantment. Taking Necromancy specialization would give up Divination. I think that is the issue here.

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Merin Merbrook: Scribe of Bendir Dale
Monte Fergish: Gnomish Anthropologist, Explorer, and Linguist.
Eralos Feliwin: Scholar and Practitioner of the Arcane
La Gato Negra: Cat Burglar Extraordinaire
Total altaholic.

Oh, gotcha.

Yeah, the rule that dictates which schools have to be lost by which specialists is kind of a dumb rule. It's a rule NWN imported (in modified form) from 3rd Edition, while the rule quoted above that says a specialist can pick any non-divination school as the opposed school is a way better rule, but one that didn't come about until 3.5 Edition. I totally agree that the NWN rule as written is obsolete, arbitrary, and pointlessly restrictive. But, that doesn't really stop it from being the rule, ya know? If Red Wiz players in the past were held to it, it should be enforced consistently.

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I appreciate the people here that have helped make my point more clear - Mosh, Morgara, and others - but now that we're talking about "should we go with 3.0 or 3.5 rules, since it seems others already started using 3.0 rules", I'm now curious what rulings usually are from in Amia? 3.0 or 3.5? It seemed to me that most rulings and custom abilities are taken from 3.5 D&D, which is also the version I myself learned to play throughout my life (and perhaps a source of some of the misunderstandings I have with the lore of Amia from time to time, now that I think about it), but if 3.0 is actually what Amia is based on, then I guess I'll just have to remake my character completely (sadly).

Can anyone, preferably someone in-the-know or even a veteran DM, tell me if Amia typically holds to 3.0 or 3.5 edition? That's the consistency I think we should be worried about, more than some players that basically decided for themselves (which sounds like a bad idea for the rest of the server on principle - if I'm the first person to make a Samurai for example, I don't want to be dictating, because of my status as "first", how everyone else must do it.) I do appreciate others playing Red Wizards, and if we're 3.0 based, I will just have to suck it up and go with NwN's ruling, but if we're primarily 3.5 based... I'm much more open to the 3.5 school restriction rules.

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Osiris Masud

In my observation, when PnP rules are referenced, Amia is generally happy to work with 3.5 Ed rules. The problem you're encountering is that the situation in question (specialist wizards) is already mechanically embedded in NWN, so there's no mandate to invoke anything PnP, regardless of edition. Most of the character classes got tweaked between 3rd and 3.5, and NWN still uses (for example) the vastly inferior 3rd Edition ranger, so specialist wizards aren't alone in getting screwed by having to adhere to the NWN rules wherever they mechanically exist.

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Happy to help! Its good to be appreciated.

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Merin Merbrook: Scribe of Bendir Dale
Monte Fergish: Gnomish Anthropologist, Explorer, and Linguist.
Eralos Feliwin: Scholar and Practitioner of the Arcane
La Gato Negra: Cat Burglar Extraordinaire
Total altaholic.