@nostupidquestions Roleplaying aside, is there a point in Gnomes and Spell Focus (Illusion) in core DnD 3.5 or at most the expanded 3.5 SRD? There seems to be a dearth of relevant useful illusion spells.
So for reference:
Spell focus gives +1 to save DC for the chosen school, in this case illusion. Looking at the spells listed under illusion school and filtering on those useful in combat we have:
- lv 1: color spray: unconscious, blinded and stunned, will save negates (similarly hypnotic pattern and their higher level variants are all great crowd control spells)
- lv 4: phantasmal killer: will disbelief, then fortitude or die (3d6 on successfull save)
- the series of https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Shadow_Evocation and shadow conjuration and all similar spells are pretty good too, they allow you to cast any other evocation/conjuration spell of lower level, at the cost of an extra potential will save to disbelieve (but also at the DC of the shadow spell, which is higher level) (insert “mom says we have heighten spell at home” meme)
And that’s just at first sight a couple good ones.
Sure, you won’t be throwing around +1 save dc fireballs with this (except shadow evocation gives you heightened fireballs, at the cost of an extra will save), but CC is often more useful than direct damage. Especially out of combat (depends on what you mean with “roleplaying aside”), there’s lots of good options: hiding behind a silent image is a cheap mass invisibility spell, or distracting guards with ghost sound for sneaky infiltration.
Good luck!
@NightFantom Maybe it is just the shadow spells then. Video game implementations don’t exist for those spells and also even if they do means no creative solutions for those spells unfortunately. I guess illusion becoming mundane once you typify it into a concrete system inevitably makes illusion weaker, then. I also read the school tier list for illusion in this guide. https://rpgbot.net/dnd35/characters/classes/wizard
Oh yeah definitely, game systems are rarely a good implementation outside of the combat. Many DnD games are definitely good (I’ve played neverwinter nights series, baldur’s gate series, dungeons and dragons online), but the real charm in DnD is playing with your friends and having a good time (as well as hyperoptimising your character at the same time, if you like that) (honestly I believe that’s one of the realisations WotC made with 3.5e that led them to make 4e, and subsequently 5e, a lot simpler: making it easier to get your friends into it was more important than having myriads of options for breaking the game)
@NightFantom But wasn’t Pathfinder 1e which has 50% more content than 3e equally popular during 4e? Also wasn’t simplicity the point of the old school renaissance movement with even simpler rules from the good old days which doesn’t seem to be as popular as DnD or Pathfinder
Yeah. I’m not high level enough to fully know if it’s good enough in ToEE but it seems only Color Spray is a good gnome illusion specialist spell I see and other spells like mirror image and invisibility don’t need speccing
Yeah but those are different niches. The people that already played 3/3.5 didn’t feel like 4e was for them (and in a way, it wasn’t), so they moved on to pathfinder etc. Some newer players got into dnd with 4e but it alienated the older minmaxer types that liked 3(.5)e. (I have not done any research and this is all gut feeling and 2nd hand accounts by the way). In 5e they struck the right balance to get a kind of 3.5e “light”, that can attract new players as well as satisfy older players, though of course you can’t ever satisfy everyone.
You’re right of course that mirror image and invisibility are super strong spells that don’t benefit from a higher save DC, but the pattern series of spells (of which I consider colour spray the single target version) are still super good.
In the end, don’t forget that “fun” is different for everyone, and with experience you might find yourself wanting to challenge yourself with “suboptimal” choices because it’s more fun to play your first gnome paladin than the tenth halfling rogue.
You can try [email protected] there is some D&D player there, not sure whether there is a living D&D community, but considering the main rpg community has like one post a week, I doubt a game specific magazine is alive
Why roleplaying aside? Isn’t that the game?
I find illusion spells to be fun, reasonably varied, and useful both in and out of combat. I cant say the same about most other schools.
There could be more variety sure, but i’d say that about every school.
