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Seeing as NWN mechanics limit players who specialize in a spell school to have a set school stripped from them even though it's likely not the spell your character would want. Would you be able to take a specialization in a school with the forbidden spell school your character would ICly take and RP as specialized in another school? I asked one DM and he said no, better to play as a generalist and just pretend, not learn spells from that school. Would this be along the same line of thought for the other DMs? I don't see any harm in it personally, we have to work with what NWN mechanics allow and make the best of it.

But then you lose the +spell per slots from doing that and are still a generalist, so I think you should be able to take the school and RP as another imo.

I think that we should be allowed to diverge from the opposition schools that NWN sticks us with only once Amia has tweaked every school so that they're all equally useful and powerful. They gave us the oppositions they did for legitimate balance reasons. Until then, I'd argue that we're obligated to abide by the system NWN gave us.

There's nothing balanced about it, I never saw that as a driving factor for those set forbidden schools. All you get out of it mechanically is a extra spellslot for each level, no matter what you specialize in. As well as a bonus to save vs your specialized school and penalty against the forbidden.

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

What wizard in their right mind would want to specialize in evocation, abjuration, or transmutation if it meant they couldn't cast any spells summoning spells? People that specialize are taking a hit mechanically just so they can properly RP their character. Why kick them while they are down, they went ahead and did this for RP let them at least decide what spell school abandon what school they would normally. If there was some kind of amia specific bonus specialists get to their school I could understand.

I concur, since, I mean, it's obviously flawed since you can lose the one spellschool you cannot otherwise under any circumstance lose. The system innately flawed and so people should be allowed to choose whichever they wish, unless a work around is made to let you choose your prohibitted school or get some other bonus beyond just a + save vs your school, - from the opposing school, and +1 spell slot per spell level.

While I understand the idea that it is annoying that by choosing a specialty you are penalized greatly (losing the broken summons for example), and that it is therefore more or less enticing players to stick to generalist only, I will have to ask the following question:

Is that really a necessity to find ways for a caster to be even stronger?

Moreover, from my understanding, if someone goes (for example) necromancy as their favored school, therefore screwing their divination branch (meh), that necromancy specialist is more likely to be able to successfully request special spells in that branch. Because of that, the specialists already do get a pretty big bonus that other servers would not normally have due to the custum spell requests being allowed on Amia.

I understand the sentiment, and I would like to see more specialists (or be able to recognize them, makes for more unique characters), but I really doubt that casters need to be made stronger AND the "Rp / specialness bonus" you get by going specialist is that requesting your custum spells will be much easier. So they already get an indirect bonus/buff by going specialist - that buff is when you request custum spells.

To be honest we have a huge number of fixes for school specializations in the wings Draco.

To give a preview:

More offensive spells for shit schools like Divination, Transmutation and Illusion
Free Spell Focus for Specializations
Fixing summons from the Shadow Conjuration and Shade Summon lines to actually be more Illusory and not Undead.
Changing how the spell school oppositions are, dependent on filling out the the shit schools

I would have preferred to be able to give characters a choice in their opposition schools but there is no way to do this in NwN. Believe me I've looked, tried and FAILED.

Positively no way to change them ever-ever-ever? Are you capable of switching people's focii around? Or would those require rebuilds? How soon will these changes take to be implemented? How will they be affected for pre existing characters?

Strict NWN software issue.

No way in order to override or change it post-decision?

Kamina wrote:

Strict NWN software issue.

No.

Literally nothing.

Strawberry Stallion wrote:

Positively no way to change them ever-ever-ever? Are you capable of switching people's focii around? Or would those require rebuilds? How soon will these changes take to be implemented? How will they be affected for pre existing characters?

The Amian adage of done when it's done, sorry I can't be more precise than this, it's just the way it is. Changing opposition schools requires a HAK update, and my current list of HAK changes is huge and then I have to also take into account aesthetic additions from other people. Giving the spell focus for spell specialization would require rebuilds, and those rebuilds would be free, but only for those who were already specialists.

The Shadow/Shades are incoming, essentially just waiting on a script and some balance discussion

The essential change to schools will be simple:

Every school will have a an opposition school and no school will be in opposition twice. These aren't finalized mind but you'd be looking at something along these lines;

Divination opposing Illusion
Conjuration opposing Abjuration
Enchantment opposing Necromancy
Evocation opposing Transmutation

Or a wheel model;

Abjuration > Conjuration > Evocation > Transmutation > Illusion > Divination > Necromancy > Enchantment > Abjuration. (I didn't really think this one through very well, so it is off after a fashion)

Its a difficult topic. Red Wizards for example will specialize i one school and lose two spell schools along the way. With out the mechanic to give such a PC the buff needed for the sacrifice its seems harsh to enforce.

MoshingChris wrote:

Every school will have a an opposition school and no school will be in opposition twice. These aren't finalized mind but you'd be looking at something along these lines;

Divination opposing Illusion
Conjuration opposing Abjuration
Enchantment opposing Necromancy
Evocation opposing Transmutation

Or a wheel model;

Abjuration > Conjuration > Evocation > Transmutation > Illusion > Divination > Necromancy > Enchantment > Abjuration. (I didn't really think this one through very well, so it is off after a fashion)

This will really affect excisting characters. I made an illusionist with the understanding I couldnt cast mass haste but no divination will hurt rp a lot.

I know it isnt final but I really hope excisting specialized wizard characters won't be ruined by this. I think the idea behind the changes otherwise is really awesome and its a pity we can't choose opposing schools.

I do understand that, but the reality is, school focus just isn't up to scratch no matter how you look at it; abjurers, evokers, and transmuters all oppose a single valuable school.

Something like this may work better with regards to a wheel model:

Necromancy prohibited school Divination (same)
Divination prohibited school Illusion (same)
Illusion prohibited school Enchantment (same)
Enchantment prohibited school Evocation
Evocation prohibited school Transmutation
Transmutation prohibited school Abjuration
Abjuration prohibited school Conjuration (same)
Conjuration prohibited school Necromancy

I can't please everyone sadly, so if this were to happen, some people are going to be unhappy, specifically me with regards to the above because I have specialist transmuter who could no longer strip protections or use dispels.

I won't hold it against you Mosh (or anyone) as the change in itsself is awesome and makes sense.

But if Harold's opposite school got radically switched I'd appreciate it if affected spellcasters got some assistance in getting their stories right again. You can't really say ic 'Yes, I was a divination specialist yesterday but today I everything beyond detect magic seems such a bother.' I think others would feel the same.

As for changes, I have no real idea whats best. Part of me would say whatever improvement made the least players thoroughly unhappy. A wheel structure seems like a good idea to me.
One thing that would help it a lot would all schools be roughly in balance in terms of usefullness (Tall order, I know and I also know you realised this as well) so no specialist type gets the short straw.

In short, this would be a wonderful change for many including all new arcane spellcasters but it might not be so wonderful for excisting toons.

It's fine the way it is now.

I think Conjuration as it stands is the only opposing school who really gets the shaft if you select other schools. It takes a read dedicated summoner to commit to being a summoner, and maybe that's fine. A lot of arcanists swear of Conjuration much more than other schools, but I am not sure it's a logical shoe in.

I think the enchantment-Illusion polarization does make a good deal of sense though. Logic, Choice, and Will V. Belief, Perception, and Phantasm just seems to go right, in my brain.

I also agree less mechanically sound schools can be beefed up, but let's not call them shit schools. I mean, Transmutation, Divination, these are awesome for select reasons. Not against the other ideas so much, but if you are going to suggest a new counter schools, I would like to see more rationale as to why the schools should be opposed though.

Quote:

I also agree less mechanically sound schools can be beefed up, but let's not call them shit schools.

Why quibble over wording, they are shit mechanically when compared to other schools.

Paladin Araelin wrote:

It's fine the way it is now.

No, it's really not. If people want improvements to spell schools that currently lack a combat dynamic then by necessity things are going to change with regards to how school opposition works, because the need to avoid a dump school is of paramount importance.

Is this something you are going to have to custom script anyway? If so, you could use some other systems like, instead of a specialist prohibiting an apparently opposed school that seems to be universally abhorrent, instead the specialist chooses two schools of their choice to have poor focus in (for a specialist winds up neglecting something in their narrow focus) and then have penalties to those schools. Like lower spell DCs, limitations on the number of spells per day that can be memorized from those schools, inability to go epic in the schools, spell memorization take up two slots instead of one, or some combination of the above. If the system you are working on makes access to all of the schools useful and there is no longer a "junk school" (like divination), then such an approach becomes a little more feasible.

It's not a script change the way I want to do it, it's merely changing a couple of numbers in columns in the .2da and playing around with nwnx to supply the "bonus" feats. The way you are describing would require;

nwnx hooks
Scripting for every single spell in the spellbook
Probably wouldn't work anyway (at least there is nothing on the vault or on the lexicon about it)

Essentially you're suggestion is a many tons of hours of work

My change is 15 minutes initially, some Terra work with nwnx and some spell scripting for the new spells which would happen in either case.

That's cool. If it requires that much work it really isn't necessary and is best to stick with what you can reasonably do to spice up the specialists.

Let me caveat that though;

If I could confirm 100 percent that it would work, I would do it, but as it stands I can't, and my HAK change list is growing larger by the day.

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