Diversify Poison/VM Start
VM is easily the hardest book start. Sting be the strongest level 1 spell early and your start book likely will carry you until the lair. But, unlike any of the other 'pure mage' backgrounds; once you hit the lair, you must branch out immediately or die from the amount of deadly rPois+ creatures there are out there {Hydras, Spiny Frogs, and Black Mambas} and Poison get's worse and worse to focus on from there on out. It's a bit of a disgrace that's it's billed as a pure caster and unlike the other casters not only has to take up melee early; but has nothing to help in that early of a situation. Wizard also needs to take up melee early. No FE startbook spell to affect rF+++ creatures is more acceptable, because you won't see any early, unless you run into Asrael or go into a Volcano.
Then later, every other spell-school has -something- that will help you in every situation and none of the others crap out so early. You can't use fire to kill rF+++ creatures; which you won't see until Pan, Zot and Gehenna; but when you do see them, you can still use RoF for the cloud immunity and rF++. Nothing in poison will do you a lick of good without Natural holiness creatures around. (In that sense it's also closely comparable to Necromancy; but then Necro has Necromutation, DDoor, Regen and Borg's which are very helpful in hell.) All these other examples are late enough that branching isn't an issue; VM starts seeing immune creatures semi-commonly in lair; then, depending on which lair branches are selected may be near useless or good for the branches. More than half things in snake have rPois, [Salamanders, Shock Serpents, Adders and Anacondas are the only things that don't]; but in Spider most things have rPois- [Emperor Scorpions and Ghost Moths are the only things that have rPois+]; similar with Swamp/Shoals; with almost everything having rPois+ in Swamp and few things in Shoals. Which can mean; if trying to do a VM 'as intended' you might be unable to complete a lair branch because of getting Snake and Swamp (25% chance).
There's also a problem of unpredictability. Orcs, Elves, non-Green Draconians, Merfolk, etc. usually are affected by poison. But, since almost all the poison effects are blocked by one pip of resistance; there's a fair chance you'll randomly get one with a ring or rPois or a Chain mail of rPois and be unable to know why you aren't affecting them. This a chance of randomly resistant for all schools; but a single added pip of rF+ isn't going to keep you from killing the elf completely, just make it harder.
Poison doesn't really have much that unique to it. Cure Poison and Spider Form aren't direct copies of things in other spellschools.
- Meph is fireball targeted; but causes confusion, instead of damage. It's more popular than FBall, because it doesn't require good spellpower to get the confusion effect; being usable by characters with only Int and Spellcasting.
- Olgreb's Toxic Radiance and Ozocubu's Refrigeration are functionally identical; only Olgreb's is cheaper, weaker and damage over time, instead of instant.
- Poisonous Cloud == Freezing Cloud; pretty much functionally identical; except again, poison works over time instead of instant and different creatures resist it. Hell these spells are more identical than Fire Storm and (now defunct) Ice Storm; and Ice Storm was changed for being too identical to Fire Storm.
- Sting and P.Arrow are identical to each other. Single Target; long range. Most powerful spell single-target attack for the early game (Sting); late game (P.Arrow) not that good around rPois+ (Sting) non-Natural holiness (P.Arrow).
- Alistair's Intoxication == Mass Confusion. Only difference is Alistair's affects you too; takes less spell levels to be effective and checks Intelligence and rPois, instead of MR.
- Venom Bolt is the same as every other bolt; except probably the weakest total (fair since it's cheaper) and again damage over time instead of all immediate.
In all these cases the theme seems to be slower and weaker the other spell schools (usually ice) but available for less XP (exception being P.Arrow)'; there's nothing GOOD unique about starting as a VM.
If you tried to be a pure blaster mage with a VM start (it's in the pure caster column so that appears to be the intended playstyle); you may expect a rather early splat. And I realize a lot of the other starts require picking up melee too; but none of them leave you with no help to either escape or deal with a dangerous situation.
Also Fire and Poison Magics have the honors of being the only spell schools where almost every spell causes direct damage (save Ring of Flames for Fire and Cure Poison and Spider for Poison) Fire makes up for being pure damaging by having a lot of unique damage patterns and forms of damage. (And Fire Storm being in the echelons of 'most powerful attack spell in the game') Poison doesn't. Confusion, damage over time. Single Target; Cloud; Full LoS. Nothing else. It could stand to have different effects. I'm not saying what effects; but just...different.
My overall point is; despite the popularity of Meph. Cloud as a side spell [and Alistair's on Transmuters] the overall theme of poison is very VERY bad to focus; with VM being easily the worst bookstart...and I feel we need to do something to diversify the start and/or the spellschool to make the VM start more viable to play the way it appears to be intended to play. Course, a simple solution would be to switch VM to the Warrior Mage category and give it more weapon background to show that it's not a start that can play like the other elementalists; because it just can't.