So only because apparently I live to be a different voice:
I don't think a new school needs to exist, but I do think some spells need to be moved around between schools to make more sense. Necromancy , negative(see what I did there?) connotations aside, has always been about manipulation of life energy. Good and bad, but still life energy. I wish the necromancer wizard subclass wasn't specifically about undead too, similar to this. I absolutely think Cure Wounds is a evocation spell, because you are using the energy to do something. Same thing, I think Inflict Wounds SHOULD be evocation, because its essentially the same thing just in reverse, and mechanically works exactly the same way as any 1st level attack spell like Chromatic Orb. I think if there were a secondary effect to Inflict Wounds, then it would make more sense to be in Necromancy, such as restoring 1/4 hit points to the caster. That being said, spells like Vampiric Touch I think are in the right school, because its all about taking the energy and doing something with it.
I like it being Evocation. Evocation is not Destruction. It's just creating and manipulating energy in a more direct way towards a particular effect, which is what evocation is - you're evoking life energy and supplying it to the target to restore health.
Some spells do exist in some schools because of how the effect is being created, not so much the effect itself. Warding Wind is a great example. The primary focus on it is defensive(abjuration), but because you are evoking the winds around you to create the ward, that's why its in evocation.
If I had my druthers the schools of magic would only apply to wizard magic, no one else is really as much about classification. But I do think healing spells fit oddly in Evocation. They feel more like Transmutation. The spells that remove conditions feel like Abjuration to me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I agree with this. I don't know why moved healing spells from Necromancy to begin with.
Because WotC wanted to make Necromancy exclusively about negative energy (what's referred to as necrotic damage in 5E) and undead when they wrote 3rd Edition.
Personally, I think that creating a new school of magic to stick healing spells in seems like a solution in search of a problem.
I'll agree mechanically I see no reason to put healing spells in a special school. I think the idea of re-ordering the schools to acknowledge some of the weirdness of healing magic being classified as necromancy. I mean necromancy, lore aside, literally translated into "death or dead stuff" magic. And the word outside of D&D lore overwhelming connotes something different from healing. So I think yes, mechanically this isn't really necessary, but it's an interesting exercise in D&D metaphysics or "weave-ology."
Healing magic being the domain of necromancy wasn't really weird though, because it was defining necromancy as being the power of life and death, being a mirror of each other. Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds, Raise Dead and Slay Living.
I actually like the idea of dumping healing spells into necromancy. It makes sense, since it involves manipulation of power from the positive energy plane, just like conventional necromancy uses the negative energy plane. The PEP is also what powers the Undying Court in Eberron. Plus, all the spells that bring people back to life are necromancy, from Revivify to True Resurrection. They all have to involve a certain amount of healing, or the body wouldn't be able to hold the soul stuffed back into it.
If anything does ever change though, it shouldn't happen until whatever next edition happens.
I agree with a lot of people here. I don't think that we need a new school, but the schools should make more sense.
Evocation plays with the laws of physics, which is completely different from the soul and health. That's why it supercharges the air into fire, or removes energy to form ice.
Healing magic should either be Necromancy as a lot here have said, since it specifically deals with souls and bodies, or Transmutation. Rather than making flesh appear, you'd be polymorphing a tiny bit of skin to cover the gap.
None of the other schools make sense, but I also feel like Enchantment being Mind Magic is weird... but I come from an M:tg background.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So only because apparently I live to be a different voice:
I don't think a new school needs to exist, but I do think some spells need to be moved around between schools to make more sense. Necromancy , negative(see what I did there?) connotations aside, has always been about manipulation of life energy. Good and bad, but still life energy. I wish the necromancer wizard subclass wasn't specifically about undead too, similar to this. I absolutely think Cure Wounds is a evocation spell, because you are using the energy to do something. Same thing, I think Inflict Wounds SHOULD be evocation, because its essentially the same thing just in reverse, and mechanically works exactly the same way as any 1st level attack spell like Chromatic Orb. I think if there were a secondary effect to Inflict Wounds, then it would make more sense to be in Necromancy, such as restoring 1/4 hit points to the caster. That being said, spells like Vampiric Touch I think are in the right school, because its all about taking the energy and doing something with it.
Some spells do exist in some schools because of how the effect is being created, not so much the effect itself. Warding Wind is a great example. The primary focus on it is defensive(abjuration), but because you are evoking the winds around you to create the ward, that's why its in evocation.
If I had my druthers the schools of magic would only apply to wizard magic, no one else is really as much about classification. But I do think healing spells fit oddly in Evocation. They feel more like Transmutation. The spells that remove conditions feel like Abjuration to me.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I actually like the idea of dumping healing spells into necromancy. It makes sense, since it involves manipulation of power from the positive energy plane, just like conventional necromancy uses the negative energy plane. The PEP is also what powers the Undying Court in Eberron. Plus, all the spells that bring people back to life are necromancy, from Revivify to True Resurrection. They all have to involve a certain amount of healing, or the body wouldn't be able to hold the soul stuffed back into it.
If anything does ever change though, it shouldn't happen until whatever next edition happens.
I agree with a lot of people here. I don't think that we need a new school, but the schools should make more sense.
Evocation plays with the laws of physics, which is completely different from the soul and health. That's why it supercharges the air into fire, or removes energy to form ice.
Healing magic should either be Necromancy as a lot here have said, since it specifically deals with souls and bodies, or Transmutation. Rather than making flesh appear, you'd be polymorphing a tiny bit of skin to cover the gap.
None of the other schools make sense, but I also feel like Enchantment being Mind Magic is weird... but I come from an M:tg background.