Specialized Wizards VS Generalist Wizards. Which one you prefer?

[Cryomancer]

Generalist wizards are wizards capable of learning any type of spell in game with no restriction. Specialized Wizards are those only capable of casting a portion of the spells.

Among retroclones, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is the most iconic example of Generalist Casters. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is the most iconic example of Specialized Wizards. A Cryomancer can't cast fireball for example, a Pyromancer can. Cryomancers also can't cast invisibility, illusionists can.

Some games are "hybrid". Gothic 3 for eg, you can learn most basic spells regardless of a path. But powerful high level spells like Hailstorm,and Time bubble(Water), Army of Darkness(Dark) and Meteor(Fire) being locked till you side with a deity and his "agenda". Gothic 2 locks you as a Fire mage and you can't become a necromancer under Xardas apprenticeship nor a Water Mage under Saturas apprenticeship. However, the game allows fire mages to learn how to cast high level dark magic like Army of Darkness in Innos monastery(don't ask me how Pyrokar is OK with it) which makes spell casters in G2 "generalist". The mod Returning 2.0 "breaks" the magic, and you as a necromancer, guru or water mage, can't learn how to cast powerful fire spells like Fire Rain. Each faction has unique spell lists.

Some games allow both. You can play Baldur's Gate 1/2 as a specialized caster or as a generalist caster.

 

[Haba]

Me prefer dead wizards.

 

[Shaki]

Any caster as long as it's a chad charisma based caster, and not a nerdy fag int one.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I prefer psionicists (as in KotC 2/Dark Sun) or Bishops (as in Wizardry 8).
They don't specialize.

 

[Nortar]

Clerics.
More "specialized" - dwarven clerics.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

And, ofc, thread attracted people who don't play wizards yet trying to act witty and funny...*yawn*

About question of thread - it's depends on the game and my mood.
The problem with many games is that some specializations really lacking in usefulness (aka broken balance) or interesting presentation.
One of main victims of later is illusionist, I mean, what game is allows to summon your own illusions like images of object/creature, instead of some sparkly shit/status effect on enemy characters (which somehow does damage if target believes in vision)?
Illusionist supposed to be fun specialization with different play-style, than average fireball thrower and yet it's mostly "throw sparkly save-or-suck shit one enemies and pray that dices will be on your side, because otherwise it's reload or let martial classes suffer consequences" type of gameplay.
Same with divination wizards, in games they either suck or just buff machines without any interesting mechanics connected to looking in past/present/future.
Elemental specializations always suffer from balance issues and (as Meredoth mentioned in one of his previous threads) Water suffers the most.
And so on and so forth.

 

[Cryomancer]

Divination magic is very hard to "port" from tabletop into a CRPG and in table, is very DM dependent. Illusion despite not being great in combat, has 1001 utilities outside of combat. As for school specialization, having a caster which excels in a situation and is weaker in another is cool. Limitations and drawbacks are fun. In fact, necromancy in kingmaker is very powerful but would't be in Wrath not due nerfs. But because most spells necromancer spells(boneshatter, boneshake, finger of death, wail of the banshee) require fort save and most enemies are fey with poor fort save in kingmaker. Now in wrath, demons tends to have high FORT save.

Can be seem as a "trivial" thing, but the name of specialized magic users in BG1/2 better. "The Conjurer", "The Necromancer", "The Evoker"(...) is more more cool than "The Mage".

I will try to make a Water Elemental Specialist dhampir trickster as my first character in Wrath, I don't care if will be "optimal" or not. Seems interesting and that is enough for me.

 

[Tao]

From a power gamer perspective Specialist Mages nowdays just beat any Generalist at any lever so i play specialist. But i am a firm defender that Mage as a class should be a generalist at it's core. And maybe later be more specialized at one or two schools.

I feel that kind of "i just do one thing" should feel in the sorceres class. And balance that class from that perspective (if you have red dragon blood then you only cast fire spells). Sadly we are going to the everyone is a superhero that have power anime trope.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Illusion despite not being great in combat, has 1001 utilities outside of combat.

Ok, can you suggest any game which allows to use illusion outside of combat in interesting way? And no, lines of dialogue such as "[Illusion 100] Look, a living Unicorn! *steals shit* " does not count. And scripted events does not count too.
I did not said that Illusion is not great in combat, my point was that it's mostly about damage and status effects akin evocation instead being something more creative.

My English is not ideal, but I will try to convey a situation with cool opportunity for illusionists to shine.

Player's party is tasked to retrieve an magical idol from group of nobles, who spent last few weeks poaching rare beasts in forests nearby.

After some time player locates a hut with hunters inside, playing cards and drinking. Now there is many ways to deal with them, but two things clear from intelligence obtained during the search:

a) it is impossible to ignite hut with torch or fireball, because idol enchanted with an aura that consumes any flames (torch or fireball - does not matter) in specific radius around it (it's how it was discovered in first place) and in return warms up air to the comforting temperature for human senses ( in hot summer day it does not heat up at all). Hunters brought it with them because this idol does not glow and not produces any smoke - a very helpful magical heater with protection from fireballs (and they do not need any torches, since they have magical lanterns which can be turned on/off with gesture, being rich can be helpful).

b) Cost on Unicorn blood is up on market again (fucking scalpers again at their shitty business) and poachers sitting on their asses without any prey, because bad luck and weather.

c) Despite sucking at tracking beasts - poachers actually formidable warriors, so direct confrontation could be costly and painful.

All this player discovered after poacher's serf (they had only one) betrayed his masters for sizeable sum of gold and perspectives of living in city, instead of wandering around forest with group of idiots.

So there are many creative and interesting ways to solve encounter with poachers, BUT party's illusionist could just do his/her thing - casting create illusion *insert funny noise when illusion appears on screen* and lure poachers out of building. After sending illusion to run from hut into horizon together with pursuers (until spell wears off), its time to loot idol and maybe even setting hut on fire to cover up evidence.

And before some smart-asses will rush to deconstruct my example - point of this story wasn't about creating ideal situation for illusion. It was about illusion being visible on screen and not only as stat change or dialogue choice.
Want to spook someone to death/damage to internal organs? You should create illusion of some demon/monster/dangerous predator/adversary/whatever target will find spooky and see illusion on screen. Want to entertain/charm/trick your way to goal? Create illusion of something more pleasant and enjoy this on your screen. Maybe I am are in minority, but when I think about illusionist magician - the last thing that comes to mind is too spam Color spray or whatever boring shit that available to illusionist in CRPG, because devs lack of ambition/fantasy.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

NO NECROMANCER NO CARE

 

[Harthwain]

Generalist wizards are wizards capable of learning any type of spell in game with no restriction. Specialized Wizards are those only capable of casting a portion of the spells.

This sounds wrong. The generalist should have access to wider selection, while specialist should be able to get more powerful spells concering his specialization (at cost of being less flexible outside of his field).

Illusion despite not being great in combat, has 1001 utilities outside of combat.

Ok, can you suggest any game which allows to use illusion outside of combat in interesting way? And no, lines of dialogue such as "[Illusion 100] Look, a living Unicorn! *steals shit* " does not count. And scripted events does not count too. I did not said that Illusion is not great in combat, my point was that it's mostly about damage and status effects akin evocation instead being something more creative.

Indeed. Magic ought to be a very powerful tool in hands of the player (and I don't mean high level spells here - even something basic can have a tremendous impact when someone is clever and the in-game systems allow for various interactions), but most games are utterly uncreative in this regard.

 

[anvi]

I want both, and yeah Necro and stuff too... But most devs can't make any of these classes worth playing now anyway. Boo. I just started Solasta and went with 2 wizards, one picked all the offensive spells, magic missiles, etc. The second wizard picks all the control stuff, like grease, etc.

 

[Delterius]

Conjuration Wizard who can do everything anyways.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Any caster as long as it's a chad charisma based caster, and not a nerdy fag int one.

Any caster a long as it's an alpha muscle based caster, not a nerdy int one or gay ass charisma one.

 

[deuxhero]

Specialist casters rarely work in computer games since the only usable magic tends to be (de)buff, blast, battlefield control, healing and some very limited utility if you're lucky. No sense in further dividing the spell list.

 

[Shaki]

Any caster as long as it's a chad charisma based caster, and not a nerdy fag int one.

Any caster a long as it's an alpha muscle based caster, not a nerdy int one or gay ass charisma one.

Ahhh, a Pillars of Eternity fan?

 

[oldmanpaco]

Any caster as long as it's a chad charisma based caster, and not a nerdy fag int one.

Any caster a long as it's an alpha muscle based caster, not a nerdy int one or gay ass charisma one.

Ahhh, a Pillars of Eternity fan?

Muh muscle wizard got me the Frozen Crown chivo. He was a dude.

 

[mondblut]

A dualclass Abjurer/Conjurer/Diviner/Enchanter/Illusionist/Invoker/Necromancer/Transmuter. With a few levels of fighter and cleric thrown in for a good measure.

 

[Poseidon00]

I just knew by the thread title the OP would be our old pal Victor

I use Transmuters nowadays. Nobody gives enough love to em.

 

[Pink Eye]

Enchantment specialist for me. Love me sleep. Love me Chaos in Knights of the Chalice.

 

[Pink Eye]

Specialist should be able to get more powerful spells concerning his specialization (at cost of being less flexible outside of his field).

Not always. Specialist just means their spell DC is much higher than generalist. For example, in Knights of the Chalice. A Blue Wizard who has Spell Focus + Greater Spell Focus + INT; will have much higher DC on sleep. The cool thing about Chalice casters though is that they can still take whatever spells they want.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Enchantment specialist for me. Love me sleep. Love me Chaos in Knights of the Chalice.

Temple+ adds a beguiler class to ToEE which specialize in enchantment spells, gets them earlier and with better DC with the drawback of not having direct damage spells, the beguiler is also a CHA class specialized in social skills.

 

[Cryomancer]

I feel that kind of "i just do one thing" should feel in the sorceres class. And balance that class from that perspective (if you have red dragon blood then you only cast fire spells). Sadly we are going to the everyone is a superhero that have power anime trope.

I think that BG2 specialized wizards still has a lot of variety. For eg, a necromancer can make the enemy have -2 penalty in saves if casting skull trap, but he still can prepare a fireball. The cost is losing access to illusion school which lets be honest has a lot of really powerful spells. Mirror image is the best low level defensive spell in the game. Note that the "spontaneous caster" sorcerers are a thing which was not present in original D&D, nor in 2nd edition. What we had in The Complete Wizard handbook is the "Amazon Sorceress" and the "Witch" kits which are not separated classes. A Wizard CAN focus his research and study into a specific spell school or element.

In fact, it can make interesting characters. For example, a water elementarist who focused his life studding water based spells so he can solve the "desertification" problem on his home country. That can be a interesting character to play.

Enchantment specialist for me. Love me sleep. Love me Chaos in Knights of the Chalice.

Enchantment is slavery. Necromancy is just recycling. jk.

Mind affecting spells are amazing sadly, a lot of powerful foes are immune to it.

I use Transmuters nowadays.

Transmutation is amazing. Is in the line of alchemy and arcane magic. You should check KoTC2. It has amazing transmutation/alteration spells and abilities.

With my old 3E group, about 10 years ago, I played a one shot of a Dark Sun campaign as a 12th level Transmuter wanting to learn how to transmute sand into water and craft constructs to replace slavery. His alignment was CG. Sadly the group decided to move back to our old campaign after a single one shot and I din't played Dark Sun much.

 

[Crispy]

Specialist wizards and sorcerers shine early and mid-game.

But true wizards have the last laugh towards end-game when their higher spell levels leave the amateurs behind.

 

[Poseidon00]

I think that BG2 specialized wizards still has a lot of variety. For eg, a necromancer can make the enemy have -2 penalty in saves if casting skull trap, but he still can prepare a fireball. The cost is losing access to illusion school which lets be honest has a lot of really powerful spells. Mirror image is the best low level defensive spell in the game. Note that the "spontaneous caster" sorcerers are a thing which was not present in original D&D, nor in 2nd edition. What we had in The Complete Wizard handbook is the "Amazon Sorceress" and the "Witch" kits which are not separated classes. A Wizard CAN focus his research and study into a specific spell school or element.

In fact, it can make interesting characters. For example, a water elementarist who focused his life studding water based spells so he can solve the "desertification" problem on his home country. That can be a interesting character to play.



Enchantment is slavery. Necromancy is just recycling. jk.

Mind affecting spells are amazing sadly, a lot of powerful foes are immune to it.



Transmutation is amazing. Is in the line of alchemy and arcane magic. You should check KoTC2. It has amazing transmutation/alteration spells and abilities.

With my old 3E group, about 10 years ago, I played a one shot of a Dark Sun campaign as a 12th level Transmuter wanting to learn how to transmute sand into water and craft constructs to replace slavery. His alignment was CG. Sadly the group decided to move back to our old campaign after a single one shot and I din't played Dark Sun much.

In BG2 sometimes I go Necromancer/Cleric just to take advantage of the save bonuses on your divine and arcane spells from being a specialist wizard. Having access to high level arcane scrolls later on doesn't help too.

PoE2 gives Transmuters the most love of any game though. A unique and at will shapeshifting spell is exactly what they need.