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[Naryar]

i know i am double posting, but request for the roll20 link.

[TheBiggerFish]

I...may or may not be able to make this weekend's session.
My grandfather is dying, soon, so I'm going down to spend possibly the last weekend I will ever spend with him on Friday.  I just...Don't know.
I'll try, but I'm really not sure if I will come or not.
Sorry.
If we level, tell me and I will at the very least update my character sheet.

Oh, on that character sheet, I completely forgot to update my base stats.  Dang it.
((How does that even work?))

[Flying Dice]

Here's my updated sheet for after the level-up. I ended up going Divination School because Portent is just too sweet.

[TheBiggerFish]

Do I have to pick a school...Blargh.  Neon, I'd appreciate a bit of help parsing this stuff.

Seriously.  Would it kill them to include an Essential Gameplay Mechanics version, and then reference the lored pages?

[Flying Dice]

If you're a 5e Wizard, your school is three quarters or so of your class features. Basically here's how they break down:

Great:
Divination: After each long rest roll 2d20 (later 3d20). At any point until your next long rest, you can force one of those rolls to be used in place of any attack, save, or skill check made by you or any creature you can see. Force the BBEG to fail a critical save on your nasty spell? No problem! Squishy ally about to get pulped? Not any more! Absolutely, positively need the BSF to hit something? There ya go! Also comes with a bit of extra spell slot regaining and a decent variable buff.

Illusion: ILLUSORY REALITY ILLUSORY REALITY ILLUSORY REALITY. Silent Image is now horribly broken. Also you get a free escape every day or something.

Conjuration: Good early utility; wall off a door or make yourself a pillbox. Benign Transposition is troll. Shitty buff to summoning spells. Unbreakable concentration, but only for Conjuration.

Good:
Transmutation: Get proficiency on Con saves or one of several other, inferior features. Get to give up that proficiency until you long-rest for moderately good one-time effects. Free low-quality utility polymorph.

Abjuration: Pros: Nothing will hurt you, enemy casters will hate you. Cons: You contribute nothing except for not dying when you're killed.

Meh:
Enchantment: Sort of limited single-target abilities. The only half decent one is Hypnotic Gaze, and that only because you get it at 2nd level.

Shit:
Necromancy: Eventually makes you sort of better at being a necromancer/blaster, kinda? Necromancy is a pain in the ass in 5e anyways.

Evocation: Why aren't you a Sorcerer? Sculpt Spells is the best thing you get until the very end of the line, and it's only decent. Overchannel's pretty decent (max damage on one 5th level or lower spell per day, yes please), but you're still going to be a lackluster blaster. This school was a lot better until errata nerfed most of it. You'll do decent damage, but other classes could do it better. At least you still get the bonus damage on each missile when you cast Magic Missile, so sayeth Jeremy Crawford.

[TheBiggerFish]

Sorcerer.  So I guess not?

[My Name is Immaterial]

No, sorcerers don't choose a school. IIRC, all you have to do with a sorcerer is choose an origin and metamagic.

[Neonivek]

Evocation is pretty good in my opinion. Sorcerer only gets Draconic to attempt to go into the same area but that only affects spells of their chosen element.... But a Wizard just continuously gets their full bonus over and over again.

So, you might be saying "But that is very little damage" but... Then you calculate Magic Missiles. Which automatically hit, and hit multiple times... and they all get your evocation bonus.

Sorcerers do not get that.

Necromancy is something I'd want to see in play before I write it off... But there are certainly quite a few ways to make this shine brightly. For example... Get a Beholder Zombie. Full stop actually...

As for Enchantment... Ignoring that its 14th level ability can be easily abused... Casting two Enchantments at the price of one is pretty mighty. Especially in this game where Peons aren't useless.
---

I'll put it another way... Necromancy and Enchantment are schools you have to make good. Versus the others that beat you over the head with their obvious uses.

[Naryar]

can't find the roll20 campaign... or does it not have a LFG ?

[Neonivek]

can't find the roll20 campaign... or does it not have a LFG ?

Doesn't have a LFG. If you need a link I can PM you it.

[Naryar]

Am in. I need to finish my character sheet, though.

[TheBiggerFish]

Re:Difference between wizard/sorcerer:
I thought so.

[kilakan]

Yeah, I am going to attempt to make necromancy work.  Mostly it'll have to rely on very careful playing I'd imagine but personally I feel it can be done.... that and you get bonuses on raising allies from the dead so you fit in as a sudo-restoration cleric.  Also immunity to a lot of the effects that come from undead, plus health regeneration when you kill things and do damage is nice.

[TheBiggerFish]

Yeah, I am going to attempt to make necromancy work.  Mostly it'll have to rely on very careful playing I'd imagine but personally I feel it can be done.... that and you get bonuses on raising allies from the dead so you fit in as a sudo-restoration cleric.  Also immunity to a lot of the effects that come from undead, plus health regeneration when you kill things and do damage is nice.

*pseudo, not sudo.
One is "not quite like", one is "do as superuser" for Linux.  Or something.

[Flying Dice]

So, you might be saying "But that is very little damage" but... Then you calculate Magic Missiles. Which automatically hit, and hit multiple times... and they all get your evocation bonus.


Necromancy is something I'd want to see in play before I write it off... But there are certainly quite a few ways to make this shine brightly. For example... Get a Beholder Zombie. Full stop actually...

Oh, like I said, Evocation was a solid choice before a bunch of aspects of it got nerfed. The bonus damage on every projectile/ray is one of the parts that didn't, and it pretty good as blasting goes, but...

You're still a 5e Wizard with heavily limited spellslots who has now dedicated their entire build towards doing something that any martial character can do all day every day. I'm not certain, but I think they even nerfed the good ol' Flaming Sphere -> Pyrotechnics combo by not distinguishing magical from nonmagical fires in the latter's description.

Being a necromancer in 5e flat out sucks. Here's why:

1. Your spells are limited to small/medium creatures only.

2. You can't animate/create undead in battle.

3. YOU HAVE TO CAST THE FUCKING SPELLS EVERY DAY TO KEEP CONTROL. Those are 3rd and 6th level spell slots respectively that you are never going to get to use (or, for a change, all of your 3rd-9th level slots you'll never use if you go full bore), in exchange for some mediocre Medium-sized minions. The more undead you have, the fewer spells you have (and here's hoping you're never locked up or knocked unconscious longer than 24 hours, eh?).

4. I did the math a while back, and what it comes down to is that even at 20th level, even giving up as many spell slots as possible, even with all of your School features, you're still commanding at best a platoon worth of shitty undead and a relative handful of slightly better undead. It's faster, cheaper, and more effective to hire minions.

I was shitting on Evocation now that it's half-useless as opposed to decent, but that's still a better choice than Necromancy. Playing a 5e Necromancer is like playing a deliberately unoptimized Healer in a campaign where the rest of the party can heal themselves and rarely takes damage: your skillset is narrow, removes the potential for doing anything else, and is rarely useful.