Multiple school wizard spells

[NiGHTMARE]

There are eight wizard spells which are of two schools. Five of these exclude one school, two of them exclude two schools, and one of them excludes no schools. Doesn't quite seem logical, somehow .

 

SPWI325 (Melf's Minute Meteors) - Evocation, Alteration; excludes Enchanters

SPWI403 (Fireshield (Blue)) - Evocation, Alteration; excludes Enchanters

SPWI418 (Fireshield (Red)) - Evocation, Alteration; excludes Enchanters

SPWI425 (Wizard Eye) - Divination, Alteration; excludes Abjurers and Conjurers

SPWI514 (Lower Resistance) - Abjuration, Alteration; excludes Transmuters

SPWI722 (Limited Wish) - Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation; excludes Diviners and Enchanters

SPWI903 (Spellstrike) - Abjuration, Alteration; excludes Transmuters

SPWI919 (wish) - Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation; excludes nobody

[Kish]

Hm. Well, I understand why the developers wanted Wish, the archtypal D&D "ultimate spell," to be available to everyone, and so used different rules for it.

[NiGHTMARE]

Still, shouldn't Limited Wish and Wish have the same restrictions? Either none, or Diviners and Enchanters.

 

EDIT: heh, just realized: Lower Resistance and Spellstrike are (Abjuration, Alteration), yet they exclude Transmuters (=Alteration). What were Bioware smoking?

[icelus]

Is this really a bug, or just a breakaway from D&D rules?

[NiGHTMARE]

Some spells being excluded from both the opposition schools, while others are excluded from either one or none sounds very bug-like to me. Two spells which are pretty much identical - other than one being more powerful than the other - and are off the same two schools, having completely different exclusions sounds extremely bug-like.

 

If I were suggesting these spells should follow D&D rules, I would have said they should all be excluded from three or four schools (e.g. in pnp, Melf's Minute Meteors and the Fireshields are excluded from Abjurers, Conjurers, Enchanters and Necromancers). As it is, you'll notice I haven't even mentioned whether I think they should all be given one, two or no exclusions.

[CamDawg]

OK, help a brother out, especially one that rarely uses magic: if these schools are inconsistent, what should they look like when all is sorted? I agree this looks like a bug (but I'm with Kish and think Wish is probably intentional).

[NiGHTMARE]

Since the majority of them exclude one school, and opening up spells will lead to fewer complaints than blocking them, I'd say one exclusion is the way to go. The two spells that would be affected by this are Wizard Eye and Limited Wish. I'd say WE should be made available to Abjurers, and Limited Wish should be the same as whatever Wish ends up as.

 

Also, Lower Resistance and Spellstrike should IMO be made available to Transmuters, since they are after all Abjuration, Alteration spells .

[the bigg]

Question: since this is a PnP change (...or not?), wouldn't it fit in the 'cool but optional' section, or even in Arcane Remix?

[NiGHTMARE]

It's not a pnp change. In pnp, spells tend to be excluded from at least three schools (EDIT: which is being done in Arcane Remix), not one or two as is the case here. It's a "rules should be logical and consistent" change.

[CamDawg]

Actually, I may have to reverse myself here. I got the bright idea of checking the scrolls for unusabilities:

 

SPWI325 (Melf's Minute Meteors)

Evocation, Alteration; excludes Enchanters

Unusable by enchanters and abjurers

 

SPWI403 (Fireshield (Blue))

Evocation, Alteration; excludes Enchanters

Unusable by enchanters

 

SPWI418 (Fireshield (Red))

Evocation, Alteration; excludes Enchanters

Unusable by enchanters

 

SPWI425 (Wizard Eye)

Divination, Alteration; excludes Abjurers and Conjurers

Unusable by conjurers

 

SPWI514 (Lower Resistance)

Abjuration, Alteration; excludes Transmuters

Unusable by transmuters

 

SPWI722 (Limited Wish)

Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation; excludes Diviners and Enchanters

Unusable by diviners and enchanters

 

SPWI903 (Spellstrike)

Abjuration, Alteration; excludes Transmuters

Unusable by transmuters

 

SPWI919 (wish)

Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation; excludes nobody

Usable by all

 

So, far from being helpful, this muddies the waters a bit. It does reinforce that many of these, though inconsistent, may be intentional. The only two places where unusabilities and exclusions disagree are Melf's Minute Meteors and Wizard Eye. I'd go for the most lenient interpretations here and suggest making MMM scroll usable by abjurers and Wizard Eye castable by abjurers.

 

Given that the unusability flags agree with the exclusion schools of Wish and Limited Wish, I'm now pretty inclined not to change them (though it leaves them as the two dual-school anomalies). Thoughts?

[devSin]

Agree.

[devSin]

Can someone explain how a spell can have two schools that are mutually exclusive? Abjuration/Alteration, unusable by Abjurer/Transmuter? WTF?

[BigRob]

If I remember, Necromancy in PnP was bad for that too... Maybe it's because the spells were originally developed by non-specialist mages?

[CamDawg]

Reviving and slightly expanding an old topic, especially since it seems most of this work was never done, and some of it appears to be indirectly in opposition to what we said we were going to do. So, I'd like to reset the conversation with a current state (as of v3) of these spells, with an additional check of their casting animations:

• Bigby's Clenched Fist and Bigby's Crushing Hand are evocations but use enchantment casting animations.
  
• Chaos Shield and Improved Chaos Shield are abjurations but use illusion casting animations.
  
• Contagion is necromancy but uses the enchantment casting animation.
  
• Farsight is a divination but uses the invocation casting animation.
  
• Limited Wish is described as a conjuration/summoning and invocation/evocation, is actually set as schoolless, uses a conjuration casting animation, and is excluded from diviners and enchanters. Wish is the same way but without the exclusion flags. Yes, we've discussed this before.
  
• Lower Resistance is an abjuration/alteration--two opposition schools--and is excluded from transmuters but not abjurers.
  
• Mass Invisibility is an illusion but is set as an enchantment.
  
• Melf's Minute Meteors, Fire Shield (Blue), and Fire Shield (Red) are evocation/alteration but lack the abjurer exclusion flag (see scroll note below for MMM).
  
• Oracle is a divination but uses the abjuration casting animation.
  
• Shadow Door is an illusion but uses the alteration casting animation.
  
• Shield is an invocation but uses one of the non-school casting animations.
  
• Spellstrike is an abjuration/alteration but is not excluded from abjurers (see scroll note below).
  

Only scroll usability issues:

• Protection From Evil spell is excluded from transmuters, but scroll is usable by them
  
• Fixpack adds the abjurer restriction to Melf's Minute Meteors and Spellstrike scrolls but the exclusion flag is not set on the actual spells
  
• Fixpack adds the abjurer unusability flag to the Wizard Eye scroll
  

[Nythrun]

Of course, primary type is an integer and not a bitfield, so a spell really can't be of more than one school in BG2.