Conjurers BEFORE the universal school??

[garhkal]

Since BTB PHB, Conjurers do not gain access to the school of Divination (it wasn't till later, in Skills and powers that certain spells were shifted to being 'lesser divination/greater', and certain others got shifted to being in the universal school of magic, HOW do they gain access to the Read magic or Detect magic spells??

[McDeath]

Lol... good question.

[garhkal]

I am specifically asking in relation to creating a conjurer via the CRE program..

[McDeath]

Damn, I never really explored specialty mages all that much. I suppose its a pity they didn't each get their own books like necromancers. Does the complete book of wizards mention anything?

So CWHB says they cannot learn from Greater Divinitation and Invocation/Evocation. Isn't that two schools of magic?

Ugh! Honestly I think D&D has magic schools really screwed up. Invoking and evoking are a bit different at least in occultism. I suppose the force to invoke and evoke that magic energy might be the same but seems invoking is to bring inside and evoke is to put forth into a target. I'll have to compare the descriptions in D&D to the occult.

So Divinitation is now divided into lesser/greater as of CWHB printing (maybe earlier).

[McDeath]

wizard handbook

Seems lesser divinition can be learned at standard penalty cost to learn other schools. Lesser divin is 4th level or less as per description. There's evrn options to do this to other schools...

Ie lesser necromancy, lesser conjuration, lesser evocation etc.

I guess in some games and occult it's be divided by Low Magic and High Magic.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I didn't care for the Wizard Handbook - it seemed pretty generic. But the Complete Book of Necromancers - now that was an amazing resource book!

[garhkal]

I didn't care for the Wizard Handbook - it seemed pretty generic. But the Complete Book of Necromancers - now that was an amazing resource book!

From th power levels of some of the stuff, it seemed more geared for NPCs, than players...

[McDeath]

They were pumping out product like toy lines; they were bound to screw up. Take a look at old netbooks and bloat and munchkin. Shit needs testing, refining, and balance.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

So much of the late 2E stuff was just crap. I've ripped the Barbarian Handbook, the Fighter Handbook, and quite a few of the other "kits" books as garbage over the years. The Necromancer Handbook (or Complete Book of, or whatever it was called) though, was very well done. The Vikings Campaign book was good with the rune system and all that. Giantcraft was good for fleshing out giants and I liked that. Which brings to mind a conversation I had with an old gaming friend that I should post on the site. New topic time!

[Tawnos76]

I recently purchased a complete copy of Chronomancer and it seems like a very good read on how time and magic work. Very good specialist school as it is set off from the others. I had a PDF of it but wanted an actual copy as well as I prefer that over ebook format.

I do like the Complete Necromancer as well as the Wizard Handbook over the Fighter's. There seems to be some good handbook and others feel like they just quickly thrown together to get them all out.

[McDeath]

We never did get that complete illusionist project off the ground much. But then..... wouldn't one be compelled to do "COMPLETES" of the other schools. Magic in 2e and the schools/priest spheres i feel need rearranging. Can't say i feel inspired to do such though. Playtesting is where its at and some books upon initial creation bt tsr/wotc/hasbro I feel weren't thoroughly explored/tested.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I wish we had been able to do the Complete Illusionist's Handbook. Maybe we should try to finish it. What I liked about it was the idea of brining back the original illusionists from 1E, essentially. As much as I thought the 2E method of having specialty priests made far more sense than the 1E "generic cleric", I was never fond of wizard specialists.

With priests/clerics, it made sense to have specialty priests as opposed to a generic "cleric". The only way the cleric works is if you have a medieval/Christian type setting where "the church" is an ambiguous (and singular) church of goodness, opposed to evil. Having different religions forces you to define each one. I suppose you could have numerous "good" churches or religions, as well as numerous "evil" churches or religions, and not deal with portfolios or areas of interest or pantheons of gods. But it's a very vanilla, generic type bland use of the class.

With numerous religions and churches - and by that I mean, for example, an Egyptian religion where you have separate churches of Ra, Horus, Osiris, Isis, Set, etc, i.e. a pantheon of what we might call sub-religions under the umbrella of a single regional "religion" (the Egyptian religion, the church of Ra, the church of Horus) - then you really have to give differing priesthoods different spells and powers.

2E hit it out of the ballpark with not only the specialty priest but also the 3 "gods" book for the Forgotten Realms - Powers & Pantheons, Demihuman Deities, and Faiths & Avatars.

As for wizards, I really never saw the need for "specialist classes". I mean, if you have a wizard who likes elemental spells, sure, he will study and use mainly elemental spells. But giving them perks for specializing while also denying them other entire schools of magic just never felt good to me. Why can't a necromancer specialist cast any illusion spells? Why can't an alterationist cast abjuration spells? Some specialist wizards lose two schools, such as the enchanter who cannot cast invocation/evocation or necromancy spells.

I liked 1E better, where you had wizards and you had illusionists. Illusions always seemed to make more sense to me as its own separate school of magic, unique from all the others. Illusionists did not cast fireballs or turn stone to flesh or summon monsters - he simply made you believe he had done those things and turned your own body/mind connection against itself.

I also liked more how druids were a separate class from clerics in 1E. They had their own spell list. They were different because unlike clerics (or priests in 2E), they did not worship a god. They worshiped nature. I always felt that made them more unique. I prefer the various classes being unique.

Anyway, that got a bit off topic!

But yeah, I really would like to complete the Illusionist Handbook someday. Most of the material is done. All that's left is creating some new spells and magic items and assembling it all. I wish I could retire and just work on the game. Right now I have a new job (lost the other one during the fake Wuhan virus hysteria), building my business, training, working on finishing up Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels, writing my current campaign I'm running, and working on Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu, which I'll also be running soon. So it's been bits and pieces here and there.

How I dream of winning the lottery. I don't even need $60 million to be happy. If I won even $100,000 or so I would take a solid year off, finish Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels, Temple of Elemental Evil (my version), The Complete Illusionists Handbook, Legendary Curse of Lemora, and do a lot of gaming as well!

[garhkal]

I'd have loved it, if 2e had adapted the separate spell list, for EVERY specialist mage..