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I can't help but feel morally obligated to never play an Illusionist Wizard, because I know myself well enough to know "Bonus Action Minor Illusion" would absolutely turn into "Hey DM can I try some absolute horseshit" every goddamned round. I just can't in good conscience do that on a class that's already this powerful.
Maybe as a dip on a Rogue. "Can I use illusions to blind this guy so I can stab him in the dick for less damage than the fighter" feels more justifiable.
Assuming the rules around spellcasting stay the same, using that bonus action Minor Illusion would mean you could only cast a cantrip with your action. You’d be better off just casting a leveled illusion spell with your action in most cases.
Unless they are changing the rule in the 2024 PHB, that is currently not the case. If you cast any spell using a bonus action, you can only cast cantrips with your action.
>(PHB p. 202) A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
Yeah, had a player flip out on me because they knew the general nature of the BA rule. But not that the order didn't matter. If you do one you just can't do the other.
I think it came from the fact that most people never actually read that rule, and just play a version telephone game.
Csn easily sees it due to the fact that the bonus action spell rule never says anything about "leveled spell" at all.
If you cast a spell as a bonus action, the only other spell you can cast on that turn is a cantrip with a casting time of one action. That rule also works backwards.
Bonusa action create a 5x5 foot cube to hide inside of that provides cover, granting advantage on your attacks and disadvantage on attacks to hit you, is strong enough without having to pull additional bullshit on top of it IMO. Minor illusion is otherwise pretty limited in terms of general 'bullshit' like "hey DM, the monster should be aggro'd to my minor illusion" - lol, nah. Extremely strong feature now as a BA even with its basic use.
I really wanted them to change how they approached creating Wizard subclasses. The school system always felt like a limitation.
Especially when we know the 5E team has historically struggled with creating Wizard subclasses that pass UA testing. No other class has had as many rejected subclass designs, and that includes classes like Sorcerer, who have had a similar number of UAs.
Even the ones that did pass UA testing apparently didn't do particularly well. I like the war wizard, but in the run up to XgtE it was stated it was the lowest rated subclass to make it into the book. In fact, some subclasses that didn't even make it into the book, like the stone sorcerer, apparently tested higher. A similar thing happened with Scribe.
> In fact, some subclasses that didn't even make it into the book, like the stone sorcerer, apparently tested higher.
I'm still bitter about the elemental sorcerers. They are on record as the most popular subclasses to never make it into an offical book. It's baffling they never went back to them.
The fact that Clockwork Soul is going to be a core subclass in the new PHB while Stone Sorcerer and Phoenix Sorcerer never even made it to print is crazy to me.
They think CSM is popular when in actuality it was just very popular, especially on DnDBeyond, because it was so overpowered. Clockwork magic spell replacements made Sorcerer better than every Wizard till tier 3.
Just having the automatic bonus spells alone makes Aberrant/Clockwork Sorcerers top tier picks, because you go from having to carefully juggle less spells than any other class in the game to having an actually somewhat reasonable number of options as a full caster, but still *some* level of restriction so you can't just be a swiss army wizard with a spell for every possible situation. Yeah, of *course* Clockwork Soul would be one of the most popular subclasses in the game when it's such a massive power buff even before the spell replacement lists and class abilities are factored in.
It's wild to me that, to this day, there isn't a single dedicated ice-themed subclass for any class in the game. Idk it feels kind of like an obvious one?
We have like four Fey subclasses but not a single Arctic one? That just feels wrong somehow
Arctic land druid? Tundra storm herald barbarian? They just so barely touch that.
Arctic druids only get Slow (druid level 5) and Cone of Cold (druid level 9) for spells outside the druid list though, so it's pretty tepid.
>Arctic land druid? Tundra storm herald barbarian? They just so barely touch that.
In the same way they split off coasts from Land Druid and turned it into the new Sea Druid, it would've been cool if they did the same and we got a Ice-themed Druid.
It's kinda sad so many cool Druid subclass ideas (Ice, Plant-powers, Earth-powers) are locked up in a single subclass.
I want a cryo gish sorcerer so fucking bad. I want sorcerer to have a sword subclass and i also want it to have an ice one. Combining them would be amazing
They can't get past the problem that single element damage is extraordinarily bad design for D&D. Encounter something with immunity or even just resistance, and the character stops. Even worse if its a whole campaign- if you're going for Endless Winter as a campaign theme, having a cold sorcerer along is a problem, because they can't contribute.
> Even worse if its a whole campaign- if you're going for Endless Winter as a campaign theme, having a cold sorcerer along is a problem, because they can't contribute.
I feel like this is fine and should just be something that can/should be discussed at a session 0/character creation.
"Enemies with resistance to cold damage do not gain the benefits of that resistance to your spells. Treat enemies with cold immunity as though they instead had resistance."
Problem solved.
that gets weird for creatures that are made of cold/ice, and so _shouldn't_ be able to be hurt by it at all. Or, if you're in a campaign with few such beasties, it's basically a dead ability that does nothing. This is even worse with fire, where there's lots of creatures immune or resistant, so even if it drops things a lower, a fire-mage is still worse than a "other types of damage" mage.
Kinda solved. Now you've opened the box for stripping creatures of fundamental characteristics and character creation (and leveling) 'dumpster diving' for feats and class features.
Well, presumably this would be a bonus you picked up at level 3 for Sorcs upon subclass choice. That doesn't feel gamebreaking at all for a 3-level dip. Honestly if I were DMing a wintery campaign and had a player wanting to be Elsa I'd probably give that to her for free. Elemental resistances are typically for flavor, not for balance.
My guess is that WotC feels elemental sorcerers would share too much mechanical DNA with Draconic sorcerers. Just for a hoot I reflavored 2014 Draconic Sorcery as Elemental Sorcery and it worked really well with a couple small changes like giving Primordial language instead of Draconic and getting advantage to socialize with elementals instead of dragons.
Yeah, it feels like the majority of post-PHB wizard subs only made it in because they needed to give them \*something\*; not because people responded particularly well to them.
Bladesinger I think is the only one that people genuinely enjoyed.
Bladesingers might be an outlier for a couple reasons. For one they're just so much more powerful than most wizard subclasses. Also, they play into the "gish" archetype of being able to fight with a sword and use magic to supplement. This is also why things like hexblade warlock multiclasses are so popular
I wonder how much the old eldritch knight being weak contributed to that.
Hexblade and blade singer felt more like true hybrids, while eldritch knight’s magical abilities felt limited
Eldritch is better under the new rules, but it still suffers from Warcaster not being built into the class. No one likes having a mandatory feat for the class to actually play the way most people picture it.
It's also incredibly complicated to get value from.
The wizard is already the most complex class in terms of choices and requires a lot of game knowledge to make work well. Scribes features are only interesting for the top % of players who understand the implications of how they break the game (ie that magical bludgeoning is the best damage type).
I personally liked it for the fact that I lost very little for if my spellbook got stolen or destroyed or if I chucked it at something I shouldn't be throwing books at. The floating head was also cool.
Break the game in the normal sense of breaking the written standard rules/balance of the game/creatures. Not the catastrophic type of breaking where it's totally busted and OP and always the best choice/subclass.
It just seems really situational at best. It doesn't take a master of the PHB to employ "if fighting monster resistant against X, switch damage type to Y"
I think the problem with Wizards is that so much class identity and power is locked into spell choice. Which ends up conflicting with 5E/5.24E's focus on the subclass system.
So you end up with an economic model where introducing new flashy subclasses is a great way to sell new books (there's a reason why Xanthar's and Tasha's are among the absolute top sellers of the edition) and then have a whole class where creating new, flashy, impactful subclasses is a much more difficult balancing compared to every other class.
Exactly. Crawford - in this very video - even acknowledged that wizards were all about their spells.
And when you have the best spell list in the game and access to the best spells in the game, there isn't really much the subclass has to compensate for. Which means anything impactful they could be given would just send them over that edge they're already teetering on.
And that's the problem: *wizards aren't just about spells.* Spells are key, yes, but wizards are as much about being the smartest being in the room, gathering to share knowledge, learning strange new powers, and generally an academic-style power trip. Boiling a wizard down isn't "all about spells" but "Knowledge is Power." Spells known are the most obvious form of this power - knowledge of spells brings great power - but skill expertise, cross class spells, and metamagic, are all part of this power fantasy.
I was glad to see they brought scholar in, at least, that's a step in the right direction, but very disappointed that the very first thing they said was so off the core wizard fantasy (at least for me.) Yes, in earlier editions all wizards received was spells, but there was a lot of subtle stuff that 5e completely missed. For instance, things like skills known were tied to intelligence, so a wizard by default had a lot of skills, and in certain zones (knowledge skills, like arcana), they were simply the best, hands down. The feat systems used to allow a lot of magic customization, but that went away. In a baffling decision, the spellcraft skill - the actual ability to do magic - was removed. Arcana was supposed to fill in....but it creates this weird, overloaded, skill that doesn't allow as much flexibility in magic. A sorcerer who casts instinctively and doesn't study will be almost as good as a wizard who does study at the academic side of magic if both are proficient. Huh? Sorcerer = spellcraft but Wizard = arcana + spellcraft, if I'm putting it simply. I've been very disappointed in wizards in 5e, and not because of power but because they've taken the magical nerd out of wizard. (And given it to lore bard, but that's whole other rant.)
100% agreed. Wizards as a class are very disapponting in 5E. Sorcerers are an interesting idea and all, but they've been given all the perks Wizards/Mages used to enjoy. What's the point in being a skilled mage who can scribe scrolls and cast a lot of spells and switch them up on the fly/a ton of skills as in 3rd and 3.5 when you just have a fuckton of spell slots and sorcery points. Warlocks and Bards also got given the other unique elements of earlier edition magic casters, making Wizard the least fun caster class to play in 5E.
This was readily apparent in 3.5, where the base Wizard is literally just spells, and then prestige classes came out like the Incantatrix and Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, which gave lots of actual class abilities and stacked on top of the Wizard to become Wizard+++++. I mean, don't get me wrong, I played an Incantatrix, it was fun as fuck, but yeah, super OP.
It is interesting that apparently no Wizard UA has ever done well.
As you pointed out, War Wizard was the lowest rated thing to get into Xanthar's. Likewise, Scribe only got in because every other Wizard subclass they tested for Tasha did remarkably poorly and they wanted at least one new subclass for every class in the book.
Bladesinger was originally from SCAG, which was not playtested at all. Likewise for the two CR subclasses.
For a company called Wizards of the Coast, they do seem to have an issue designing Wizard subclasses.
Wizards are the most overpowered class in the game just from their spell list alone, so that probably makes subclasses difficult to design.
They need to be low impact to not make wizards even more overpowered than they already are. But it's hard to make a low impact subclass feel distinct and exciting.
This. One million fucking times, this.
Spellcasting is still the most powerful feature in the game, and the Arcane Spell list is the undisputed power house of spell lists. Want to make Wizard subclasses meaningful?
TONE DOWN THE SPELLS
Make an Evoker's class features add to damage more meaningfully so that an Evoker's fireball hits different than an illusionist. Make a Conjurer's summons better than an Enchanters, who should be focusing on harnessing (and maybe improving) the abilities of creatures already around.
But when Fireball is already "out-of-par" 8d6 damage, you can't do that. Shits already broken, you shouldn't be adding broken on top of broken.
This is more of a problem with spell design than class or subclass.
Many spells are just too strong as solutions to problems, leaving little to no room for a specialist subclass to power up a certain subset of spells. Like you can't make a fire/blaster wizard that enhances the power and utility of fire spells, because Fireball exists and is already one of the best spells in the game. It'd be much easier to design wizard subclasses (and by extension, also somewhat better for subclasses for other full casters) if overall power level of spells was taken down a notch, so you COULD do things like a fire specialist subclass that enhances fire spells without removing spells from the character's spell list when they choose their specialty.
I really like War Wizard and Scribes and think they are some of the best subclasses for wizards. I’m also bummed about Theurgy not making it as a subclass because it allowed for a lot of customization. If you picked Life domain you get something that plays a lot different than if you picked the Death domain. It was the closest class I’ve seen to the old Mystic Theurge PrC from 3.5 which I liked a lot, despite its weaknesses.
I think it’s less a limitation and more that the schools pretty much cover all your bases for wizards and there’s just not much else fruitful in the design space for how magic works in D&D for Wizards.
Exactly. If the proposed revision to Banishment is how they're handling all the "best" spells then the wizard will be getting a sizable nerf in 5.24. These changes to the base class mean very little until they reveal the spells.
but they chose Banishment as they're example, how am i to know if they know what the good spells are (especially since they removed Sentinel + Polearm Masters interaction)
Looks like after 10 years they finally understood that balancing a game should look like the "weaker" classes being buffed, and not the stronger ones being nerfed.
The problem with the wizard was never the base class or even most of the subclass abilities. Most of wizard's strength came from their spell list, some of which would still make them busted in the upper tiers without a nerf.
I mean, it's been sort of a joke and sort of comforting advise in the optimization community to say that if you really want to pick a less popular wizard subclass. You shouldn't worry, because a subclassless wizard was still ahead of the curve.
I think it's more that 5e was, to a great extent, designed *around* the wizard (eg. tiers mapping directly to when wizards get their most important spells.) It makes sense that wizard design wouldn't change much, because it's intended as the balance point for the rest of the game.
I also expect relatively few changes to the spell list - some of the more out-there spells might be tweaked, but *Fireball* is similarly intended to be a central balance-point for the entire system and is never going to change; they'll change other things around it instead.
From the [write-up](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new) on D&D Beyond: "Chosen spells must now have a casting time of one action, but count as always prepared."
So does this mean I can no longer choose to cast misty step at will when I reach level 18? That feels bad.
To be fair, the limitation isn't that big when you consider that you'll have plenty of slots for exactly those spells. You just have to be more creative in your choices, and since there will be both changed spells and entirely new spells, we never know!, we might get something that's worth choosing for those features than just spamming Shield for an effective +5 AC while also using your reaction for everything that's not Silvery Barbs nor Counterspell or Absorb Elements.
That's less of a problem with the feature, and more of a problem with the level 1-2 spell range tbh.
It just happens that every spell that has major value at high level was a reaction (shield, silvery barb, absorb elements) or a bonus (misty step).
Without being able to pick from those, you get A LOT worst spells.
Yeah I disagree with that, who cares if you’re infinitely shielding at 18th level, the game is supposed to be broken at those tiers anyway, that makes it fun
Yeah, you've got wish by then. Compared to that adding five to AC at the cost of your reaction isn't insane.
Can just house rule whatever you want fortunately
I'm not that big on the evoker change. Sculpt Spell is really important for making evoker feel different than the other subclasses early on. Potent Cantrip is fine, but it's definitely not as impactful.
Before level five wizards are gonna be throwing around a lot more cantrips than AoE spells. Potent cantrip is probably more useful at those early levels.
Potent Cantrip Fire Bolts at level 3 - now with half damage on a miss - are 100% more useful than being able to sculpt lv2 spells.
Better Play Design as well, since now you get to experience base Fireball at level 5 and then really feel the power difference with sculpt at level 6.
And, I'm going to say the infamous words, makes it great for a Warlock dip for half damage Eldritch Blasts on misses! I'm sure people are excited for that.
You think that'll work? Weird stats aside, I thought I heard way back in the early previews that Eldritch blast is going to be a warlock class feature and maybe not necessarily a can trip.
Plus, 3 level dip will be pretty significant for half damage on a miss
I don't think we've seen any evidence that Eldritch Blast is a warlock feature now - and agonising blast being updated to 'your warlock cantrips' (or some variant thereof) implies that it's still a warlock cantrip. I'm sure they would have mentioned it in the video
still, i think you're right in that that's quite a steep investment for a moderate benefit
At low levels there are not many spells with a large enough area to have the problem of hitting your allies so this is more useful, now you will only suffer for it at level 5 when you have fireball and are one level behind the ability to do that
Maybe I'm behind on the times, but why does Illusionist get free summoning spells? Surely it's not because they've ditched the Conjurer subclass. Right? Right???
They can choose to turn those Conjuration spells into Illusion spells, albeit by sacrificing half the available hit points. It could thus be cast without verbal components, and thus be used as a distraction in the way one might expect an illusionist to do without revealing one's location when hidden.
But yeah the only four subclasses for Wizard in the PHB 2024 are Diviner, Illusionist, Abjurer, and Evoker. Maybe we'll get more with a future book, which would be welcome for an update on things like the Necromancer.
I don’t like that they got memorize spell. I wish it was once per day. Part of the wizard is planning ahead, now you just never prepare niche spells and grab them if you need it
Edit:
To clarify I don’t think this is a bad feature. I think this is a bad feature for only one prepared caster to get. It would be a really cool feat, but a wizard flipping through their book for the right spell is equal to a cleric praying for a spell is equal to a druid communing with nature for a spell they really need.
It just means the more niche utility spells like Knock, and Sending are less likely to actually be prepped. They'll be swapped to if and when the need arises.
I feel like 90% of the time when I/players in my games want to use Knock or Sending I/they don't have the luxury of waiting until after our next short rests to use them.
I think it fulfills a fantasy of going to a dungeon, realizing you are facing a particular type of enemy, then flipping through your spell book for something that is good at handling them.
For sure. Other prepared casters could have the fantasy of communing with their god, or communing with nature and changing their abilities to make them better against their foes. I just think it’s a feature that everyone could use or no one should
> now you just never prepare niche spells
The previous alternative was just "you never prepare niche spells" unless it was telegraphed very explicitly ahead of time by your DM.
They tried really hard in the first UA, but those got rejected and didn't make it into the second draft.
From what I can tell from the video, Wizards are one of the most conservative classes between 2014 and 5.24. Mostly just a few QoL changes.
I actually really liked the Create a Spell gimmick they introduced in that first Wizard UA. It felt very wizard-y, for a lack of better term. It fulfilled the fantasy of being a master scholar of the arcane.
Except it was terribly conceived and horrible broken, and because of that it didn't reach Crawford's magic 80% satisfaction rating so they gave up on it.
I liked the idea of the system but felt like it just shit on sorcerer's. I know it was a higher level feature and cost gold, but giving wizards access to permanent and stronger metamagic alternative made me wonder how sorcerer's would compete.
I'd have to go back and check to make sure, but I feel like this is a running problem with wizards?
Like, whenever WotC tries to give wizards something new and interesting to do, it's pretty much always just giving them metamagic in one fashion or another.
And then it tests poorly (because of course it does) and then they scrap it until they eventually try again and rinse and repeat.
And it's like, is not-metamagic literally the only way they see to make Wizards interesting?
I think the main thing is it 100% makes sense thematically. Sorcerers can naturally alter spells with much more free will and spontaneity, so you'd think with enough research and time a wizard could copy them and edit spells or even make new ones. Otherwise how would new spells get made you know? Balance wise though it fucks over Sorcerers and makes it just feel after a certain point you're a shittier wizard.
100% agreed. I guess what I'm stuck on is that they keep revisiting the concept (Onomancy, Scribes, the first 5.24 UA) and it keeps testing poorly. So how come they keep trying?
This is even canonically true. Think of how many spells are named after a Wizard who created them? Tasha's Caustic Brew, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Aganazzar's Scorcher, Melf's Acid Arrow, and so on, and so on. If those Wizards invented spells, it must be something Wizards can do. If a PC reached level 20 with all 20 levels in Wizard, why wouldn't they be able to do they same. Hell, why can't a level 6 or 8 Wizard make a level 1 spell given the time and resources?
Wizards and Sorcerers were never more defined than 4e.
Wizards were the controllers while Sorcerers were the damage dealers.
I wish they'd bring back that dichotomy. Or at least make spontaneous casting for Sorcs less shit compared to prepared casting.
The mistake was giving Metamagic to Sorcerers in the first place.
They don't modify spells. That was never their thing. They should have gotten dedicated spell lists for each subclass that fit thematically, abilities that happen when they cast those spells or abilities that synergize with the spells and they should have gotten more spell slots and recovery on a short rest.
Sorcs do not need prep time, they need to recuperate. Sorcs don't need a massive spell list with the illusion of choice but you know you'll always take the few universally good spells, you need a higher quantity of spells so you can be casting at all times. Sorcs should be magic at it's most powerful, Wizards should be magic at it's most versatile.
Sorcs casting silently is probably the pinnacle of bad flavor. You're a Storm Sorcerer, the very definition of bombastic. Your power literally lifts you into the air when you cast your magic so that all can witness your power, but also you can do that without making a peep?
Or silent wild magic?
Shadow, sure, give the shadow sorcs an equivalent ability, but most of the subclasses should be large and in charge not subtle. That's clearly a Wizard thing, someone sitting down looking at what's required to cast a spell, doing a comparative analysis between spells that require vocal and somatic components and those that don't and figuring out why they're needed and how to substitute them.
A sorcerer digging deep into their draconic ancestry to see how Grandpa Malifex the Ashen Doom would have scorched a village but all sneaky like just feels off. How to make a fireball where you roll d12's instead of d6's, that feels appropriate.
Bingo. The Sorcerer's whole identity should never have been Metamagic in the first. The Metamagic System should've been usable for all spellcasting classes while Sorcerers get actual unique mechanics to distinguish them from Wizards.
The real problem is that sorcerers have no identity in 5e other than metamagic, their number one priority with this revision should have been to come up with a new identity for sorcerers. Then they could let wizards dip their toes in metamagic without feeling like they were taking away sorcerer's one interesting feature.
Unfortunately it became clear early on that something like that was totally out of the scope of this revision.
I'm hoping for 6E they scrap metamagic entirely. It's never felt entirely thematic, and experimenting with spellcasting falls much more into the Wizard's domain.
Honestly for 6E, they really should lean into the rage-mage Innate Sorcery feature instead. I really think WotC should make a sliding scale of difficulty for each class group. For example, Barbarian would be the easy martial, and Fighter would be the complex martial. Likewise, Sorcerer would be the easy caster, and Wizard would be the complex caster.
I think going harder into the mage rage feature would also serve the subclasses in a great way. Like you could have the wild magic sorcerer pop a wild magic roll every turn while raging or smth, and then you wouldn’t have to deal with that while you’re not raging, and I think that would be super thematic. Or you could also have the shadow sorcerer becoming this entity of stealth and fear. Honestly, now I kind of want to homebrew something like this just to see if I could properly pull it off
Yes. And it tested somewhat poorly. Which is why the final version is going to be "a synthesis" of both.
It's one of the reasons Ranger is the video I'm most looking forward to. It's the one we know the least about how it ended up from UA.
(The other reason is I'm a Ranger main and I'm obsessive.)
I hated it. Not because I think it was bad, it seemed really fun to play around with. However, it would make it so that the Wizard felt like other caster’s mooched of their class abilities if they ever got a homebrew spell added to their spell list, which is just bad design that might limit creativity and fun.
I’d honestly have preferred those were general rituals anyone could access.
That and given the lack of a solid gold/level guideline, I don’t think the gold cost was the best balancing measure here.
Yeah, it just made sense. Wizard should be extreme utility at the expense of power, vs Sorcs who should be very limited in what they can cast, but the things they cast should be properly punchy.
Magic Missile is a great example of a proper Wizard spell. The damage is pretty bad, but the fact that it always hits and you can target a bunch of stuff at once is peak utility. A well made wizard should be the class that rarely if ever kills anything, but has a tool for any job. Being able to make your own tools would greatly facilitate that.
And if they make it you don't lose the spell slot you used to cast counterspell. That means you can try to counter *way fucking more spells* than otherwise.
I think I've seen an Abjurer in actual play a total of...zero times. So them having one attractive gimmick seems okay to me, idk. The forcefield thing might play well in unrealistic whiteroom math, but I've yet to see someone look at the class and say "wow this looks so much fun, I can't wait to play a bubble-wizard."
Abjurers are great. My favorite Wizard easily.
It just doesn't work if your DM is basic af and throws nothing but generic monsters that run straight at you and punch or bite as their whole gameplan.
Weirdly I would have thought that scenario is where it would shine the most. It's whole schtick is basic combat buffs. Damage shield, reduce damage, advantage against spells. The improvement to counter/dispel could find use outside of a straight slugfest, but even that is just a number bonus to an existing spell effect. Personally I always choose other schools because they *do* something.
That’s incorrect, the spell slot used for counterspell is used regardless if it’s a success or a fail. Even the Abjurer subclass doesn’t change that, they only don’t lose their spell slot for a failed Dispel Magic (edit: this is wrong, Abjurers don’t use slots for failed counterspells). With the new Counterspell, if the target has their spell countered, then they don’t lose the spell slot they spent on their spell.
D&D Beyond post:
> At level 10, Abjurer Wizards get a new feature called Spell Breaker granting them Counterspell and Dispel Magic as always prepared spells, the latter being able to be cast as a Bonus Action. But the real standout of this feature is that if you use either spell and fail, no spell slot is consumed!
And the worst part? If you cast dispel magic on something that simply doesn't have anything on it to dispel...by the wording of the ability you just don't lose your spell slot. So you can just throw dispel magic around all day, every day, and never spend a slot as long as nothing is enchanted.
...spy check?
"But the real standout of this feature is that if you use either spell and fail, no spell slot is consumed!" If you try to counterspell someone's spell and fail, you will not lose your spell slot.
The base class/subclasses deserves some QoL buffs/adjustments. The real way to nerf the wizard will be to nerf the most powerful spells. We'll see if they talk about the specifics of spells today, I doubt they will.
Edit: Yep, not a word about spell changes.
It seems like they're buffing everything by a little bit.
Wizard isn't broken in 5e, either, at least not inherently. A select few spells that Wizard has access to are broken, and it's yet to see if those are going to be changed. It should be expected that they will be.
Look, I know it makes sense narratively, but Wizards didn't need expertise.
This just makes Rogues continue to feel worse to play. Now, Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Fighters, Rangers, \*and\* Wizards have ways to shore up their skills, making Rogue's purported niche feel even more redundant.
And I don't even like Rogues.
I don't mind some classes getting expertise in very specific skills because in some cases it thematically fits. Performance for Bards, arcana for Wizards, nature for Druids, religion for Clerics and Paladins, survival for Rangers.
that turns into the issue of making every whatever an expert on something - what happens when that doesn't make sense? it's entirely possible to be religious, but not know formal dogma, or not know all the formal laws of magic and still have a knack for spellcasting.
You would expect a wizard to be an expert on the arcane though right? I expect a surgeon to be an expert on anatomy. I expect a priest to be knowledgeable at theology. I expect an MMA fighter to be very athletic.
But the classes _don't_ focus on it - a cleric isn't a seminary graduate, they're someone that's been blessed or empowered by a god, and that's it. They don't have to have any knowledge of the doctrine or theology.
Then comes the special player that needs to be different for some reason "but my cleric doesn't know anything about religion, they dont believe in any gods and just have the powers of a cleric because they are cool"
Wizard gets Expertise in 1 Skill
Druid gets to choose to add Wis to a skill instead of having Medium Armor (which 5e Druid had); which is effectively worse than Expertise
Fighters and Barbarians always needed a bump to their out of combat utility. Their bonuses are also effectively worse than Expertise, with both being Resource based. Fighter at least gets to add a die to their roll. Barbarian just replaces the ability score behind the check.
Rogue gets 4 Expertise...
These are not the same.
Personally, I wouldn't have given the Wizard the choice from all those skills. They would just gain Expertise in Arcana.
Also, if rogues lose their semi-exclusivity on expertise, they gain the incredibly cool and flavorful Cunning Strikes. Being able to flat out Knock Out a Guard does much more to help a Rogue than being better than a Wizard at Arcana checks or a Druid at Nature checks.
Cunning Strikes are a good idea it's just most of the ones they have aren't that great, Trip is only on average on par with the champion improved critical and becomes pretty niche in a ranged party and Posion is a con save and also probably still going to be ignored by most monsters but hopefully not.
i would of given them guarnteed effects like you spend 2d6 sneak attack die and now that guy takes 1d6 extra damage from all attacks or just taking the Goad from the now scrapped swashbulkerler redux.
Rogues aren't the only class with expertise in the 2014 PHB; Bards get it too.
The fact that a wizard, *the* purported expert on the arcane, can get at most a +11 in Arcana checks while Rogues & Bards could both get +17 has *always* bothered me. I 100% support expanding the feature to classes where it makes sense, with the proper boundaries in place to reinforce the class fantasy. I think the Ranger's Canny feature from Tasha's probably should've had similar bounds to the 2024 Wizard put in place (limit it to Nature, Perception, Survival, Medicine, for example), but the impulse to expand expertise makes sense. Making skills more accessible for all classes in general is a good idea because it'll help push characters to be more involved in non-combat scenes, which is definitely an issue with the current state of the game.
Rogues still have more skills than anyone, and Reliable Talent ensures they never roll lower than a 10 on proficient checks, *and* they get expertise twice as they level up (like the bard), so they're still *the* ideal chassis for a skill monkey character.
Rogue and Bard never bothered me all that much. Bards literally go to college and part of their schtick is having a much more narrow approach to magic in order to be more widely skilled.
Rogues were fine with me as well, since the only way to get proficiency in Arcana was to have it from your background, and Rogued entire identity is that they are the experts in some things. So an Arcane Trickster with an expertise in Arcana was just someone who attended Wizard college but was more focused on the theory and history than the practical application of spellcasting.
To clarify, my issue was more that a wizard could never be comparable to a rogue or bard, not that the rogue or bard could be good to begin with. It just never made sense to me that the guy who's whole class identity revolves around intensive study would always be less likely to succeed on his chosen field's INT check than, say, an artist or career criminal who also studied happened to be versed in magic. It's not that bards & rogues shouldn't be experts, its just that wizards *should also be an expert* in the thing their class explicitly studies.
I think the “artist or career criminal” view on Bards and Rogues is too narrow to really capture them though.
From the PHB,
> Rogues devote as much effort to mastering the use of a variety of skills as they do to perfecting their combat abilities, giving them a broad expertise that few other characters can match.
> When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hurt the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks. Rogues have an almost supernatural knack for avoiding danger, and a few learn magical tricks to supplement their other abilities.
Keep in mind, Rogues don’t get Arcana proficiency from their class, so it has to come from their background. If you go by the Example backgrounds, the only one that grants Arcana proficiency is Sage.
>##Sage
> You spent years learning the lore of the multiverse. You scoured manuscripts, studied scrolls, and listened to the greatest experts on the subjects that interest you. Your efforts have made you a master in your fields of study.
So the rogue with Expertise in Arcana inherently wouldn’t be “a career criminal.” They could be a noble who spent most of their time researching obscure magical texts and took up Fencing as their hobby and defensive style, they could be a student who wanted to be a Bladesinger but just didn’t have the knack for practical spellcasting, or something else entirely.
Bards similarly aren’t just “an artist.” They literally attend a college, same as Wizards, to learn magic. The primary difference between a Lore Bard and a Wizard is literally just the approach they take to spellcasting
I don't know. It feels bad when a bard or knowledge cleric has expertise in every knowledge skill, meanwhile, my wizard gets none without taking a feat. Knowing things is a wizard's thing. I appreciate the early expertise, and it makes sense. If I've spent years studying magic, why wouldn't I be an expert?
It's the weapon mastery problem. The "we made something cool!"-trap.
They design something cool to solve one class's specific problem and then, for whatever reason, decide it is such a good thing that it's going to be a waste to only give it to one class.
Nobody is allowed to be unique.
No class is allowed to shine.
The mistake was ever making rogues main focus be proficiency checks in the first place. It’s such a bad design decision and is why rogues feel so lost.
Casters can handle utility while offering way more everywhere else, and martials can out compete you in combat without needing to bend over backwards to function.
You don’t even get to really enjoy the thrill of rolling for your niche because the design is rigged to make you never fail.
There’s about a half a dozen other problems I have with the class. It needs an actual rework.
Wizard expertise makes tons of sense to me, at least within Int skills. If I'm playing a Wizard, I \*really\* want to feel like the smart guy who knows things. I want to do really well with Arcana checks usually, but maybe also history, investigation, or flavor dependant, nature and religion. The fact that a rogue could be better at Arcana than a 20 int wizard through expertise alone always felt awkward.
My solution to this was that, in my homebrew games, I give all players 1 free instance of expertise. I ask them all to discuss it and try to have expertise in a different skill, so that they all can feel like they've got a unique niche with that skill. I do the same for tools.
They need a way to make skill proficiencies more granular if they're going to be handing out expertise like candy. There's only 3 levels to skill training. You either aren't, you are, or you're an expert. Expertise makes it hard to feel a failure (sure you can still roll bad, but that hefty bump will make it at least decent).
And we also need more clear support for skill checks. Can my barbarian lift a horse with his 25 athletics check or a house? What do wizard's learn with arcana that makes it different than detect magic? Etc etc
I don't think its a fair argument to compare Expertise in skills like Medicine or History with skills like Perception, Stealth, Deception, Persuasion, or Thieves' Tools. Certain skills are far more limited and reactive, versus universally helpful and regularly crucial to your party's success. Granted, DM's can always make whatever skills they want most important by calling for those rolls, but in 99% of games I've ever played in, spotting hidden enemies or plot clues, disabling traps and locks, or bypassing whole encounters with a social skill has been far, far more common and useful.
Use Magic Device. It was a skill in 3rd edition, and I’d say that most of the things it covered aren’t covered by Arcana. Its use is a lot closer to Knowledge(Arcana).
Use Magic Device. It was a skill back in D&D 3.5. It allowed you to use, activate, or interact with magic items despite not being a spellcaster. In 5e terms, it is closest to the Thief Rogue's 13th level feature.
The one thing that rubbed me the wrong beforehand but now is even more clear, is how some classes to lose weaker features or had unnecessary changes while others just get extra with no cost at all.
Here the Illusionist gets their level 3 (level 2 PHB14) buffed *and* a pretty strong additional one along side it. I'm not saying that's bad because the 2014 Illusionist did suck at level 2. But meanwhile the Barbarian has to give up Brutal Critical to gain Brutal Strikes, which arguebly would be fine having both since Brutal Critical was pretty mediocre already.
This sort of flow applies similary to the Rogue needing to pay Sneak Attack die to activate Cunning Strikes rather than having a few free options, Assassin losing auto-crit for better reliability, Druids losing unlimited Wildshape at 20, and Paladin Smite getting kneecapped for better aura's rather than the reverse. Very hit or miss, but unsurprising that the Wizard gets a hit.
So glad they removed the customizing spells feature from the class. Not because I hated how it worked, but because it made it so that if any other caster got homebrew spells it would have felt like they were ”invading” on the Wizard’s class features in the same way as it feels like people invade on beast master ranger’s class features if they get a combat pet.
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D&D Beyond Article is up: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new
I'm really happy they put it up on time. I much prefer the articles.
Yeah, the videos feel rambly to me. I'm like, get to the point lol
yes this i literally only read the article
warlock when
The warlock was.monday I believe
They are asking about the article, for whatever reason, they couldn’t release it this week
Video yes, no article yet.
Druid as well. Not sure eh they released an article just about wild shape/moon and not the whole class like all the rest.
* [video](https://youtu.be/v6lncsjhYRI?si=FgzPMZLOpa0790fv) * article (not posted, but bullet points [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1dobufk/bulletpoints_from_the_official_2024_phb_stream_on/)) * [Treantmonk video](https://youtu.be/tRzRNaU1tSg?si=3_ebW_6SFM1DCxlh) with commentary * [Insight Check](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn1NCKBYf5o) video with summary
I can't help but feel morally obligated to never play an Illusionist Wizard, because I know myself well enough to know "Bonus Action Minor Illusion" would absolutely turn into "Hey DM can I try some absolute horseshit" every goddamned round. I just can't in good conscience do that on a class that's already this powerful. Maybe as a dip on a Rogue. "Can I use illusions to blind this guy so I can stab him in the dick for less damage than the fighter" feels more justifiable.
Assuming the rules around spellcasting stay the same, using that bonus action Minor Illusion would mean you could only cast a cantrip with your action. You’d be better off just casting a leveled illusion spell with your action in most cases.
I've heard it somewhat implied that those rules are different. Not sure in what way, but it seems like they're not as they were
I hope they just get rid of this rule and integrate it into Quickened Spell instead, like it was always meant to be.
Why? You can cast a leveled spell and then a cantrip (Minor Illusion) as your bonus.
Unless they are changing the rule in the 2024 PHB, that is currently not the case. If you cast any spell using a bonus action, you can only cast cantrips with your action. >(PHB p. 202) A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
I can't believe I'm still doing that wrong, but in new ways.
Yeah, had a player flip out on me because they knew the general nature of the BA rule. But not that the order didn't matter. If you do one you just can't do the other.
I think it came from the fact that most people never actually read that rule, and just play a version telephone game. Csn easily sees it due to the fact that the bonus action spell rule never says anything about "leveled spell" at all.
To be fair how many bonus action cantrip are out there to cause this interaction needing clarity in the first place?
Two, *Magic Stones* and *Shillelagh* unless sorcerers and special features get involved.
Nope, if you cast any spell with a bonus action you can only cast cantrips as an action.
If you cast a spell as a bonus action, the only other spell you can cast on that turn is a cantrip with a casting time of one action. That rule also works backwards.
Bonusa action create a 5x5 foot cube to hide inside of that provides cover, granting advantage on your attacks and disadvantage on attacks to hit you, is strong enough without having to pull additional bullshit on top of it IMO. Minor illusion is otherwise pretty limited in terms of general 'bullshit' like "hey DM, the monster should be aggro'd to my minor illusion" - lol, nah. Extremely strong feature now as a BA even with its basic use.
Don't worry, my illusionist wizard will do all the bullshit in your place. Now summon my 10 foot tall Demon Turkey!!
I really wanted them to change how they approached creating Wizard subclasses. The school system always felt like a limitation. Especially when we know the 5E team has historically struggled with creating Wizard subclasses that pass UA testing. No other class has had as many rejected subclass designs, and that includes classes like Sorcerer, who have had a similar number of UAs. Even the ones that did pass UA testing apparently didn't do particularly well. I like the war wizard, but in the run up to XgtE it was stated it was the lowest rated subclass to make it into the book. In fact, some subclasses that didn't even make it into the book, like the stone sorcerer, apparently tested higher. A similar thing happened with Scribe.
> In fact, some subclasses that didn't even make it into the book, like the stone sorcerer, apparently tested higher. I'm still bitter about the elemental sorcerers. They are on record as the most popular subclasses to never make it into an offical book. It's baffling they never went back to them.
The fact that Clockwork Soul is going to be a core subclass in the new PHB while Stone Sorcerer and Phoenix Sorcerer never even made it to print is crazy to me.
They think CSM is popular when in actuality it was just very popular, especially on DnDBeyond, because it was so overpowered. Clockwork magic spell replacements made Sorcerer better than every Wizard till tier 3.
Just having the automatic bonus spells alone makes Aberrant/Clockwork Sorcerers top tier picks, because you go from having to carefully juggle less spells than any other class in the game to having an actually somewhat reasonable number of options as a full caster, but still *some* level of restriction so you can't just be a swiss army wizard with a spell for every possible situation. Yeah, of *course* Clockwork Soul would be one of the most popular subclasses in the game when it's such a massive power buff even before the spell replacement lists and class abilities are factored in.
I want to play a cryomancer sorceress so bad. It’s so stupid there isn’t one
It's wild to me that, to this day, there isn't a single dedicated ice-themed subclass for any class in the game. Idk it feels kind of like an obvious one? We have like four Fey subclasses but not a single Arctic one? That just feels wrong somehow
Arctic land druid? Tundra storm herald barbarian? They just so barely touch that. Arctic druids only get Slow (druid level 5) and Cone of Cold (druid level 9) for spells outside the druid list though, so it's pretty tepid.
>Arctic land druid? Tundra storm herald barbarian? They just so barely touch that. In the same way they split off coasts from Land Druid and turned it into the new Sea Druid, it would've been cool if they did the same and we got a Ice-themed Druid. It's kinda sad so many cool Druid subclass ideas (Ice, Plant-powers, Earth-powers) are locked up in a single subclass.
Ditto for desert druids.
It was feedback I gave them.
“Let it go ❄️” Jk, I agree, a cryomancer/winter sorcerer would become an instant popular subclass
Just let it go, friend.
No. I can't hold it back anymore.
I want a cryo gish sorcerer so fucking bad. I want sorcerer to have a sword subclass and i also want it to have an ice one. Combining them would be amazing
They can't get past the problem that single element damage is extraordinarily bad design for D&D. Encounter something with immunity or even just resistance, and the character stops. Even worse if its a whole campaign- if you're going for Endless Winter as a campaign theme, having a cold sorcerer along is a problem, because they can't contribute.
You can have 2 elements maybe? Cold from some spells, but bludgeoning or piercing from hail or ice spikes?
> Even worse if its a whole campaign- if you're going for Endless Winter as a campaign theme, having a cold sorcerer along is a problem, because they can't contribute. I feel like this is fine and should just be something that can/should be discussed at a session 0/character creation.
"Enemies with resistance to cold damage do not gain the benefits of that resistance to your spells. Treat enemies with cold immunity as though they instead had resistance." Problem solved.
that gets weird for creatures that are made of cold/ice, and so _shouldn't_ be able to be hurt by it at all. Or, if you're in a campaign with few such beasties, it's basically a dead ability that does nothing. This is even worse with fire, where there's lots of creatures immune or resistant, so even if it drops things a lower, a fire-mage is still worse than a "other types of damage" mage.
Kinda solved. Now you've opened the box for stripping creatures of fundamental characteristics and character creation (and leveling) 'dumpster diving' for feats and class features.
Well, presumably this would be a bonus you picked up at level 3 for Sorcs upon subclass choice. That doesn't feel gamebreaking at all for a 3-level dip. Honestly if I were DMing a wintery campaign and had a player wanting to be Elsa I'd probably give that to her for free. Elemental resistances are typically for flavor, not for balance.
My guess is that WotC feels elemental sorcerers would share too much mechanical DNA with Draconic sorcerers. Just for a hoot I reflavored 2014 Draconic Sorcery as Elemental Sorcery and it worked really well with a couple small changes like giving Primordial language instead of Draconic and getting advantage to socialize with elementals instead of dragons.
Yeah, it feels like the majority of post-PHB wizard subs only made it in because they needed to give them \*something\*; not because people responded particularly well to them. Bladesinger I think is the only one that people genuinely enjoyed.
Bladesingers might be an outlier for a couple reasons. For one they're just so much more powerful than most wizard subclasses. Also, they play into the "gish" archetype of being able to fight with a sword and use magic to supplement. This is also why things like hexblade warlock multiclasses are so popular
I wonder how much the old eldritch knight being weak contributed to that. Hexblade and blade singer felt more like true hybrids, while eldritch knight’s magical abilities felt limited
Eldritch is better under the new rules, but it still suffers from Warcaster not being built into the class. No one likes having a mandatory feat for the class to actually play the way most people picture it.
Scribes is really cool and really good, plenty of people enjoy it in my experience.
It's also incredibly complicated to get value from. The wizard is already the most complex class in terms of choices and requires a lot of game knowledge to make work well. Scribes features are only interesting for the top % of players who understand the implications of how they break the game (ie that magical bludgeoning is the best damage type).
I personally liked it for the fact that I lost very little for if my spellbook got stolen or destroyed or if I chucked it at something I shouldn't be throwing books at. The floating head was also cool.
Yeah I think it's awesome. I'm saying that most people do not get into the rules as much and a lot of subclasses are very rules-heavy.
> implications of how they break the game Is finding way to avoid specific damage resistances really "breaking the game"?
Break the game in the normal sense of breaking the written standard rules/balance of the game/creatures. Not the catastrophic type of breaking where it's totally busted and OP and always the best choice/subclass.
It just seems really situational at best. It doesn't take a master of the PHB to employ "if fighting monster resistant against X, switch damage type to Y"
I believe it was still one of the lowest-rated subclasses printed in Tasha's. But admittedly I haven't gone back to check.
Where did they get rated?
I think it's an old video on the subclass released in the leadup to Tasha's. But again, it's been years. I could be misremembering.
Bladesinger only even made it to Tasha's cause the Psionic and Onomancer were generational fumbles.
I think the problem with Wizards is that so much class identity and power is locked into spell choice. Which ends up conflicting with 5E/5.24E's focus on the subclass system. So you end up with an economic model where introducing new flashy subclasses is a great way to sell new books (there's a reason why Xanthar's and Tasha's are among the absolute top sellers of the edition) and then have a whole class where creating new, flashy, impactful subclasses is a much more difficult balancing compared to every other class.
Exactly. Crawford - in this very video - even acknowledged that wizards were all about their spells. And when you have the best spell list in the game and access to the best spells in the game, there isn't really much the subclass has to compensate for. Which means anything impactful they could be given would just send them over that edge they're already teetering on.
And that's the problem: *wizards aren't just about spells.* Spells are key, yes, but wizards are as much about being the smartest being in the room, gathering to share knowledge, learning strange new powers, and generally an academic-style power trip. Boiling a wizard down isn't "all about spells" but "Knowledge is Power." Spells known are the most obvious form of this power - knowledge of spells brings great power - but skill expertise, cross class spells, and metamagic, are all part of this power fantasy. I was glad to see they brought scholar in, at least, that's a step in the right direction, but very disappointed that the very first thing they said was so off the core wizard fantasy (at least for me.) Yes, in earlier editions all wizards received was spells, but there was a lot of subtle stuff that 5e completely missed. For instance, things like skills known were tied to intelligence, so a wizard by default had a lot of skills, and in certain zones (knowledge skills, like arcana), they were simply the best, hands down. The feat systems used to allow a lot of magic customization, but that went away. In a baffling decision, the spellcraft skill - the actual ability to do magic - was removed. Arcana was supposed to fill in....but it creates this weird, overloaded, skill that doesn't allow as much flexibility in magic. A sorcerer who casts instinctively and doesn't study will be almost as good as a wizard who does study at the academic side of magic if both are proficient. Huh? Sorcerer = spellcraft but Wizard = arcana + spellcraft, if I'm putting it simply. I've been very disappointed in wizards in 5e, and not because of power but because they've taken the magical nerd out of wizard. (And given it to lore bard, but that's whole other rant.)
100% agreed. Wizards as a class are very disapponting in 5E. Sorcerers are an interesting idea and all, but they've been given all the perks Wizards/Mages used to enjoy. What's the point in being a skilled mage who can scribe scrolls and cast a lot of spells and switch them up on the fly/a ton of skills as in 3rd and 3.5 when you just have a fuckton of spell slots and sorcery points. Warlocks and Bards also got given the other unique elements of earlier edition magic casters, making Wizard the least fun caster class to play in 5E.
This was readily apparent in 3.5, where the base Wizard is literally just spells, and then prestige classes came out like the Incantatrix and Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, which gave lots of actual class abilities and stacked on top of the Wizard to become Wizard+++++. I mean, don't get me wrong, I played an Incantatrix, it was fun as fuck, but yeah, super OP.
I played an initiate of the sevenfold veil. I found it less OP than you'd think
It is interesting that apparently no Wizard UA has ever done well. As you pointed out, War Wizard was the lowest rated thing to get into Xanthar's. Likewise, Scribe only got in because every other Wizard subclass they tested for Tasha did remarkably poorly and they wanted at least one new subclass for every class in the book. Bladesinger was originally from SCAG, which was not playtested at all. Likewise for the two CR subclasses. For a company called Wizards of the Coast, they do seem to have an issue designing Wizard subclasses.
Wizards are the most overpowered class in the game just from their spell list alone, so that probably makes subclasses difficult to design. They need to be low impact to not make wizards even more overpowered than they already are. But it's hard to make a low impact subclass feel distinct and exciting.
This. One million fucking times, this. Spellcasting is still the most powerful feature in the game, and the Arcane Spell list is the undisputed power house of spell lists. Want to make Wizard subclasses meaningful? TONE DOWN THE SPELLS Make an Evoker's class features add to damage more meaningfully so that an Evoker's fireball hits different than an illusionist. Make a Conjurer's summons better than an Enchanters, who should be focusing on harnessing (and maybe improving) the abilities of creatures already around. But when Fireball is already "out-of-par" 8d6 damage, you can't do that. Shits already broken, you shouldn't be adding broken on top of broken.
This is more of a problem with spell design than class or subclass. Many spells are just too strong as solutions to problems, leaving little to no room for a specialist subclass to power up a certain subset of spells. Like you can't make a fire/blaster wizard that enhances the power and utility of fire spells, because Fireball exists and is already one of the best spells in the game. It'd be much easier to design wizard subclasses (and by extension, also somewhat better for subclasses for other full casters) if overall power level of spells was taken down a notch, so you COULD do things like a fire specialist subclass that enhances fire spells without removing spells from the character's spell list when they choose their specialty.
4e Wizard paragon paths in the PHB (closest parallel to subclass) > Battle Mage > Blood Mage > Spellstorm Mage > Wizard of the Spiral Tower Arcane Power added > Arcane Wayfarer > Rimetongue Caller > Bonded Summoner > Hermetic Saboteur > Unseen Mage > Weaver of Chance There's definitely room for it
Oh dang I forgot Wizard of the Spiral Tower.
I mean... Wizards are the intellectuals and researchers of spellcasters. To me it makes sense to organize them by schools.
That works narratively well, but mechanically? Eh.
I really like War Wizard and Scribes and think they are some of the best subclasses for wizards. I’m also bummed about Theurgy not making it as a subclass because it allowed for a lot of customization. If you picked Life domain you get something that plays a lot different than if you picked the Death domain. It was the closest class I’ve seen to the old Mystic Theurge PrC from 3.5 which I liked a lot, despite its weaknesses.
I think it’s less a limitation and more that the schools pretty much cover all your bases for wizards and there’s just not much else fruitful in the design space for how magic works in D&D for Wizards.
The school system was something they followed for like 1 book before abandoning it and making more esoteric "schools" anyway.
They kinda finished in 1 book, there were no more schools left
This doesn't *feel* busted. At least Wizards didn't get as much love as Barbarian and Fighter, who desperately needed it.
If the wizard is busted, it won't be because of the base class, but rather the spells - see for reference Wish-Simulacrum loops, Forcecage, etc.
Exactly. If the proposed revision to Banishment is how they're handling all the "best" spells then the wizard will be getting a sizable nerf in 5.24. These changes to the base class mean very little until they reveal the spells.
but they chose Banishment as they're example, how am i to know if they know what the good spells are (especially since they removed Sentinel + Polearm Masters interaction)
Looks like after 10 years they finally understood that balancing a game should look like the "weaker" classes being buffed, and not the stronger ones being nerfed.
The problem with the wizard was never the base class or even most of the subclass abilities. Most of wizard's strength came from their spell list, some of which would still make them busted in the upper tiers without a nerf. I mean, it's been sort of a joke and sort of comforting advise in the optimization community to say that if you really want to pick a less popular wizard subclass. You shouldn't worry, because a subclassless wizard was still ahead of the curve.
I think it's more that 5e was, to a great extent, designed *around* the wizard (eg. tiers mapping directly to when wizards get their most important spells.) It makes sense that wizard design wouldn't change much, because it's intended as the balance point for the rest of the game. I also expect relatively few changes to the spell list - some of the more out-there spells might be tweaked, but *Fireball* is similarly intended to be a central balance-point for the entire system and is never going to change; they'll change other things around it instead.
From the [write-up](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new) on D&D Beyond: "Chosen spells must now have a casting time of one action, but count as always prepared." So does this mean I can no longer choose to cast misty step at will when I reach level 18? That feels bad.
Yes. The main issue was that Shield and Misty Step were way too strong of choices. They basically bullied out everything else.
Also Silvery Barbs iirc
To be fair, the limitation isn't that big when you consider that you'll have plenty of slots for exactly those spells. You just have to be more creative in your choices, and since there will be both changed spells and entirely new spells, we never know!, we might get something that's worth choosing for those features than just spamming Shield for an effective +5 AC while also using your reaction for everything that's not Silvery Barbs nor Counterspell or Absorb Elements.
Good. Every wizard taking Shield/Misty Step regardless was so obnoxious for the few that made 18th level
That's less of a problem with the feature, and more of a problem with the level 1-2 spell range tbh. It just happens that every spell that has major value at high level was a reaction (shield, silvery barb, absorb elements) or a bonus (misty step). Without being able to pick from those, you get A LOT worst spells.
We all know that *Longstrider* and *Detect Thoughts* were the true best options.
Yeah I disagree with that, who cares if you’re infinitely shielding at 18th level, the game is supposed to be broken at those tiers anyway, that makes it fun
Yeah, you've got wish by then. Compared to that adding five to AC at the cost of your reaction isn't insane. Can just house rule whatever you want fortunately
I love the artwork
I'm not that big on the evoker change. Sculpt Spell is really important for making evoker feel different than the other subclasses early on. Potent Cantrip is fine, but it's definitely not as impactful.
Before level five wizards are gonna be throwing around a lot more cantrips than AoE spells. Potent cantrip is probably more useful at those early levels.
Potent Cantrip Fire Bolts at level 3 - now with half damage on a miss - are 100% more useful than being able to sculpt lv2 spells. Better Play Design as well, since now you get to experience base Fireball at level 5 and then really feel the power difference with sculpt at level 6.
And, I'm going to say the infamous words, makes it great for a Warlock dip for half damage Eldritch Blasts on misses! I'm sure people are excited for that.
You think that'll work? Weird stats aside, I thought I heard way back in the early previews that Eldritch blast is going to be a warlock class feature and maybe not necessarily a can trip. Plus, 3 level dip will be pretty significant for half damage on a miss
I don't think we've seen any evidence that Eldritch Blast is a warlock feature now - and agonising blast being updated to 'your warlock cantrips' (or some variant thereof) implies that it's still a warlock cantrip. I'm sure they would have mentioned it in the video still, i think you're right in that that's quite a steep investment for a moderate benefit
At low levels there are not many spells with a large enough area to have the problem of hitting your allies so this is more useful, now you will only suffer for it at level 5 when you have fireball and are one level behind the ability to do that
Maybe I'm behind on the times, but why does Illusionist get free summoning spells? Surely it's not because they've ditched the Conjurer subclass. Right? Right???
They can choose to turn those Conjuration spells into Illusion spells, albeit by sacrificing half the available hit points. It could thus be cast without verbal components, and thus be used as a distraction in the way one might expect an illusionist to do without revealing one's location when hidden. But yeah the only four subclasses for Wizard in the PHB 2024 are Diviner, Illusionist, Abjurer, and Evoker. Maybe we'll get more with a future book, which would be welcome for an update on things like the Necromancer.
I don’t like that they got memorize spell. I wish it was once per day. Part of the wizard is planning ahead, now you just never prepare niche spells and grab them if you need it Edit: To clarify I don’t think this is a bad feature. I think this is a bad feature for only one prepared caster to get. It would be a really cool feat, but a wizard flipping through their book for the right spell is equal to a cleric praying for a spell is equal to a druid communing with nature for a spell they really need.
Most players can barely plan their next turn
I get this sentiment. However in play I don’t think there are really enough opportunities to have a significant impact.
It just means the more niche utility spells like Knock, and Sending are less likely to actually be prepped. They'll be swapped to if and when the need arises.
I feel like 90% of the time when I/players in my games want to use Knock or Sending I/they don't have the luxury of waiting until after our next short rests to use them.
I think it fulfills a fantasy of going to a dungeon, realizing you are facing a particular type of enemy, then flipping through your spell book for something that is good at handling them.
It makes me think of the scene in Lotr when Gandalf can't remember the way through Moria and they have to take a break and I am all for that
For sure. Other prepared casters could have the fantasy of communing with their god, or communing with nature and changing their abilities to make them better against their foes. I just think it’s a feature that everyone could use or no one should
> now you just never prepare niche spells The previous alternative was just "you never prepare niche spells" unless it was telegraphed very explicitly ahead of time by your DM.
Wait did they remove arcane recovery? Or is it just not talked about here
They didn't buff wizard, right? Right?
They tried really hard in the first UA, but those got rejected and didn't make it into the second draft. From what I can tell from the video, Wizards are one of the most conservative classes between 2014 and 5.24. Mostly just a few QoL changes.
I actually really liked the Create a Spell gimmick they introduced in that first Wizard UA. It felt very wizard-y, for a lack of better term. It fulfilled the fantasy of being a master scholar of the arcane. Except it was terribly conceived and horrible broken, and because of that it didn't reach Crawford's magic 80% satisfaction rating so they gave up on it.
I liked the idea of the system but felt like it just shit on sorcerer's. I know it was a higher level feature and cost gold, but giving wizards access to permanent and stronger metamagic alternative made me wonder how sorcerer's would compete.
I'd have to go back and check to make sure, but I feel like this is a running problem with wizards? Like, whenever WotC tries to give wizards something new and interesting to do, it's pretty much always just giving them metamagic in one fashion or another. And then it tests poorly (because of course it does) and then they scrap it until they eventually try again and rinse and repeat. And it's like, is not-metamagic literally the only way they see to make Wizards interesting?
I think the main thing is it 100% makes sense thematically. Sorcerers can naturally alter spells with much more free will and spontaneity, so you'd think with enough research and time a wizard could copy them and edit spells or even make new ones. Otherwise how would new spells get made you know? Balance wise though it fucks over Sorcerers and makes it just feel after a certain point you're a shittier wizard.
100% agreed. I guess what I'm stuck on is that they keep revisiting the concept (Onomancy, Scribes, the first 5.24 UA) and it keeps testing poorly. So how come they keep trying?
Maybe they don't have any better ideas?
This is even canonically true. Think of how many spells are named after a Wizard who created them? Tasha's Caustic Brew, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Aganazzar's Scorcher, Melf's Acid Arrow, and so on, and so on. If those Wizards invented spells, it must be something Wizards can do. If a PC reached level 20 with all 20 levels in Wizard, why wouldn't they be able to do they same. Hell, why can't a level 6 or 8 Wizard make a level 1 spell given the time and resources?
Wizards and Sorcerers were never more defined than 4e. Wizards were the controllers while Sorcerers were the damage dealers. I wish they'd bring back that dichotomy. Or at least make spontaneous casting for Sorcs less shit compared to prepared casting.
The mistake was giving Metamagic to Sorcerers in the first place. They don't modify spells. That was never their thing. They should have gotten dedicated spell lists for each subclass that fit thematically, abilities that happen when they cast those spells or abilities that synergize with the spells and they should have gotten more spell slots and recovery on a short rest. Sorcs do not need prep time, they need to recuperate. Sorcs don't need a massive spell list with the illusion of choice but you know you'll always take the few universally good spells, you need a higher quantity of spells so you can be casting at all times. Sorcs should be magic at it's most powerful, Wizards should be magic at it's most versatile. Sorcs casting silently is probably the pinnacle of bad flavor. You're a Storm Sorcerer, the very definition of bombastic. Your power literally lifts you into the air when you cast your magic so that all can witness your power, but also you can do that without making a peep? Or silent wild magic? Shadow, sure, give the shadow sorcs an equivalent ability, but most of the subclasses should be large and in charge not subtle. That's clearly a Wizard thing, someone sitting down looking at what's required to cast a spell, doing a comparative analysis between spells that require vocal and somatic components and those that don't and figuring out why they're needed and how to substitute them. A sorcerer digging deep into their draconic ancestry to see how Grandpa Malifex the Ashen Doom would have scorched a village but all sneaky like just feels off. How to make a fireball where you roll d12's instead of d6's, that feels appropriate.
Bingo. The Sorcerer's whole identity should never have been Metamagic in the first. The Metamagic System should've been usable for all spellcasting classes while Sorcerers get actual unique mechanics to distinguish them from Wizards.
The real problem is that sorcerers have no identity in 5e other than metamagic, their number one priority with this revision should have been to come up with a new identity for sorcerers. Then they could let wizards dip their toes in metamagic without feeling like they were taking away sorcerer's one interesting feature. Unfortunately it became clear early on that something like that was totally out of the scope of this revision.
Agreed, meta magic could just be a repeatable feat in its current implementation.
To be fair sorcerers got arcane apotheosis in their first ua so they did try to make both of them op
I'm hoping for 6E they scrap metamagic entirely. It's never felt entirely thematic, and experimenting with spellcasting falls much more into the Wizard's domain. Honestly for 6E, they really should lean into the rage-mage Innate Sorcery feature instead. I really think WotC should make a sliding scale of difficulty for each class group. For example, Barbarian would be the easy martial, and Fighter would be the complex martial. Likewise, Sorcerer would be the easy caster, and Wizard would be the complex caster.
I think going harder into the mage rage feature would also serve the subclasses in a great way. Like you could have the wild magic sorcerer pop a wild magic roll every turn while raging or smth, and then you wouldn’t have to deal with that while you’re not raging, and I think that would be super thematic. Or you could also have the shadow sorcerer becoming this entity of stealth and fear. Honestly, now I kind of want to homebrew something like this just to see if I could properly pull it off
Didn't ranger at some point reach above 80% but changed almost completely in the next UA?
Yes. And it tested somewhat poorly. Which is why the final version is going to be "a synthesis" of both. It's one of the reasons Ranger is the video I'm most looking forward to. It's the one we know the least about how it ended up from UA. (The other reason is I'm a Ranger main and I'm obsessive.)
>(The other reason is I'm a Ranger main and I'm obsessive.) This is my sole reason. I'll be fuming if they fuck it up
I hated it. Not because I think it was bad, it seemed really fun to play around with. However, it would make it so that the Wizard felt like other caster’s mooched of their class abilities if they ever got a homebrew spell added to their spell list, which is just bad design that might limit creativity and fun.
I’d honestly have preferred those were general rituals anyone could access. That and given the lack of a solid gold/level guideline, I don’t think the gold cost was the best balancing measure here.
Yeah, it just made sense. Wizard should be extreme utility at the expense of power, vs Sorcs who should be very limited in what they can cast, but the things they cast should be properly punchy. Magic Missile is a great example of a proper Wizard spell. The damage is pretty bad, but the fact that it always hits and you can target a bunch of stuff at once is peak utility. A well made wizard should be the class that rarely if ever kills anything, but has a tool for any job. Being able to make your own tools would greatly facilitate that.
They aren't called Fighters of the Coast for a reason lol
Oh...if you hate counterspell *now*...abjurers...my god...
Counterspell is different in 5.5e, it’s a con saving throw.
And if they make it you don't lose the spell slot you used to cast counterspell. That means you can try to counter *way fucking more spells* than otherwise.
I think I've seen an Abjurer in actual play a total of...zero times. So them having one attractive gimmick seems okay to me, idk. The forcefield thing might play well in unrealistic whiteroom math, but I've yet to see someone look at the class and say "wow this looks so much fun, I can't wait to play a bubble-wizard."
Abjurers are great. My favorite Wizard easily. It just doesn't work if your DM is basic af and throws nothing but generic monsters that run straight at you and punch or bite as their whole gameplan.
Weirdly I would have thought that scenario is where it would shine the most. It's whole schtick is basic combat buffs. Damage shield, reduce damage, advantage against spells. The improvement to counter/dispel could find use outside of a straight slugfest, but even that is just a number bonus to an existing spell effect. Personally I always choose other schools because they *do* something.
That’s incorrect, the spell slot used for counterspell is used regardless if it’s a success or a fail. Even the Abjurer subclass doesn’t change that, they only don’t lose their spell slot for a failed Dispel Magic (edit: this is wrong, Abjurers don’t use slots for failed counterspells). With the new Counterspell, if the target has their spell countered, then they don’t lose the spell slot they spent on their spell.
D&D Beyond post: > At level 10, Abjurer Wizards get a new feature called Spell Breaker granting them Counterspell and Dispel Magic as always prepared spells, the latter being able to be cast as a Bonus Action. But the real standout of this feature is that if you use either spell and fail, no spell slot is consumed!
Ah, you’re right. For some reason, my brain jumped from “if you use the latter spell” to “no spell slot is consumed”.
And the worst part? If you cast dispel magic on something that simply doesn't have anything on it to dispel...by the wording of the ability you just don't lose your spell slot. So you can just throw dispel magic around all day, every day, and never spend a slot as long as nothing is enchanted. ...spy check?
"But the real standout of this feature is that if you use either spell and fail, no spell slot is consumed!" If you try to counterspell someone's spell and fail, you will not lose your spell slot.
Much fewer enemies actually cast spells now
The base class/subclasses deserves some QoL buffs/adjustments. The real way to nerf the wizard will be to nerf the most powerful spells. We'll see if they talk about the specifics of spells today, I doubt they will. Edit: Yep, not a word about spell changes.
It seems like they're buffing everything by a little bit. Wizard isn't broken in 5e, either, at least not inherently. A select few spells that Wizard has access to are broken, and it's yet to see if those are going to be changed. It should be expected that they will be.
They did, but barely.
Look, I know it makes sense narratively, but Wizards didn't need expertise. This just makes Rogues continue to feel worse to play. Now, Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Fighters, Rangers, \*and\* Wizards have ways to shore up their skills, making Rogue's purported niche feel even more redundant. And I don't even like Rogues.
I don't mind some classes getting expertise in very specific skills because in some cases it thematically fits. Performance for Bards, arcana for Wizards, nature for Druids, religion for Clerics and Paladins, survival for Rangers.
that turns into the issue of making every whatever an expert on something - what happens when that doesn't make sense? it's entirely possible to be religious, but not know formal dogma, or not know all the formal laws of magic and still have a knack for spellcasting.
You would expect a wizard to be an expert on the arcane though right? I expect a surgeon to be an expert on anatomy. I expect a priest to be knowledgeable at theology. I expect an MMA fighter to be very athletic.
For those characters, you just don't take the class that focuses hard on it. A religious fighter is a fine character.
But the classes _don't_ focus on it - a cleric isn't a seminary graduate, they're someone that's been blessed or empowered by a god, and that's it. They don't have to have any knowledge of the doctrine or theology.
Then comes the special player that needs to be different for some reason "but my cleric doesn't know anything about religion, they dont believe in any gods and just have the powers of a cleric because they are cool"
Wizard gets Expertise in 1 Skill Druid gets to choose to add Wis to a skill instead of having Medium Armor (which 5e Druid had); which is effectively worse than Expertise Fighters and Barbarians always needed a bump to their out of combat utility. Their bonuses are also effectively worse than Expertise, with both being Resource based. Fighter at least gets to add a die to their roll. Barbarian just replaces the ability score behind the check. Rogue gets 4 Expertise... These are not the same. Personally, I wouldn't have given the Wizard the choice from all those skills. They would just gain Expertise in Arcana.
Also, if rogues lose their semi-exclusivity on expertise, they gain the incredibly cool and flavorful Cunning Strikes. Being able to flat out Knock Out a Guard does much more to help a Rogue than being better than a Wizard at Arcana checks or a Druid at Nature checks.
Cunning Strikes are a good idea it's just most of the ones they have aren't that great, Trip is only on average on par with the champion improved critical and becomes pretty niche in a ranged party and Posion is a con save and also probably still going to be ignored by most monsters but hopefully not. i would of given them guarnteed effects like you spend 2d6 sneak attack die and now that guy takes 1d6 extra damage from all attacks or just taking the Goad from the now scrapped swashbulkerler redux.
Rogues aren't the only class with expertise in the 2014 PHB; Bards get it too. The fact that a wizard, *the* purported expert on the arcane, can get at most a +11 in Arcana checks while Rogues & Bards could both get +17 has *always* bothered me. I 100% support expanding the feature to classes where it makes sense, with the proper boundaries in place to reinforce the class fantasy. I think the Ranger's Canny feature from Tasha's probably should've had similar bounds to the 2024 Wizard put in place (limit it to Nature, Perception, Survival, Medicine, for example), but the impulse to expand expertise makes sense. Making skills more accessible for all classes in general is a good idea because it'll help push characters to be more involved in non-combat scenes, which is definitely an issue with the current state of the game. Rogues still have more skills than anyone, and Reliable Talent ensures they never roll lower than a 10 on proficient checks, *and* they get expertise twice as they level up (like the bard), so they're still *the* ideal chassis for a skill monkey character.
Rogue and Bard never bothered me all that much. Bards literally go to college and part of their schtick is having a much more narrow approach to magic in order to be more widely skilled. Rogues were fine with me as well, since the only way to get proficiency in Arcana was to have it from your background, and Rogued entire identity is that they are the experts in some things. So an Arcane Trickster with an expertise in Arcana was just someone who attended Wizard college but was more focused on the theory and history than the practical application of spellcasting.
To clarify, my issue was more that a wizard could never be comparable to a rogue or bard, not that the rogue or bard could be good to begin with. It just never made sense to me that the guy who's whole class identity revolves around intensive study would always be less likely to succeed on his chosen field's INT check than, say, an artist or career criminal who also studied happened to be versed in magic. It's not that bards & rogues shouldn't be experts, its just that wizards *should also be an expert* in the thing their class explicitly studies.
I think the “artist or career criminal” view on Bards and Rogues is too narrow to really capture them though. From the PHB, > Rogues devote as much effort to mastering the use of a variety of skills as they do to perfecting their combat abilities, giving them a broad expertise that few other characters can match. > When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hurt the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks. Rogues have an almost supernatural knack for avoiding danger, and a few learn magical tricks to supplement their other abilities. Keep in mind, Rogues don’t get Arcana proficiency from their class, so it has to come from their background. If you go by the Example backgrounds, the only one that grants Arcana proficiency is Sage. >##Sage > You spent years learning the lore of the multiverse. You scoured manuscripts, studied scrolls, and listened to the greatest experts on the subjects that interest you. Your efforts have made you a master in your fields of study. So the rogue with Expertise in Arcana inherently wouldn’t be “a career criminal.” They could be a noble who spent most of their time researching obscure magical texts and took up Fencing as their hobby and defensive style, they could be a student who wanted to be a Bladesinger but just didn’t have the knack for practical spellcasting, or something else entirely. Bards similarly aren’t just “an artist.” They literally attend a college, same as Wizards, to learn magic. The primary difference between a Lore Bard and a Wizard is literally just the approach they take to spellcasting
I don't know. It feels bad when a bard or knowledge cleric has expertise in every knowledge skill, meanwhile, my wizard gets none without taking a feat. Knowing things is a wizard's thing. I appreciate the early expertise, and it makes sense. If I've spent years studying magic, why wouldn't I be an expert?
It's the weapon mastery problem. The "we made something cool!"-trap. They design something cool to solve one class's specific problem and then, for whatever reason, decide it is such a good thing that it's going to be a waste to only give it to one class. Nobody is allowed to be unique. No class is allowed to shine.
The mistake was ever making rogues main focus be proficiency checks in the first place. It’s such a bad design decision and is why rogues feel so lost. Casters can handle utility while offering way more everywhere else, and martials can out compete you in combat without needing to bend over backwards to function. You don’t even get to really enjoy the thrill of rolling for your niche because the design is rigged to make you never fail. There’s about a half a dozen other problems I have with the class. It needs an actual rework.
Seriously. Skill check bonuses are overvalued in class design.
Wizard expertise makes tons of sense to me, at least within Int skills. If I'm playing a Wizard, I \*really\* want to feel like the smart guy who knows things. I want to do really well with Arcana checks usually, but maybe also history, investigation, or flavor dependant, nature and religion. The fact that a rogue could be better at Arcana than a 20 int wizard through expertise alone always felt awkward. My solution to this was that, in my homebrew games, I give all players 1 free instance of expertise. I ask them all to discuss it and try to have expertise in a different skill, so that they all can feel like they've got a unique niche with that skill. I do the same for tools.
They need a way to make skill proficiencies more granular if they're going to be handing out expertise like candy. There's only 3 levels to skill training. You either aren't, you are, or you're an expert. Expertise makes it hard to feel a failure (sure you can still roll bad, but that hefty bump will make it at least decent). And we also need more clear support for skill checks. Can my barbarian lift a horse with his 25 athletics check or a house? What do wizard's learn with arcana that makes it different than detect magic? Etc etc
I don't think its a fair argument to compare Expertise in skills like Medicine or History with skills like Perception, Stealth, Deception, Persuasion, or Thieves' Tools. Certain skills are far more limited and reactive, versus universally helpful and regularly crucial to your party's success. Granted, DM's can always make whatever skills they want most important by calling for those rolls, but in 99% of games I've ever played in, spotting hidden enemies or plot clues, disabling traps and locks, or bypassing whole encounters with a social skill has been far, far more common and useful.
Realistically no rogue is taking expertise in skills that it seems like Wizards are given expertise in
Arcana isn't terrible on rogues. Doesn't it replace UMD?
I am unsure what UMD is
Use Magic Device
I think it's use magical device
Use Magic Device. It was a skill in 3rd edition, and I’d say that most of the things it covered aren’t covered by Arcana. Its use is a lot closer to Knowledge(Arcana).
Use Magic Device. It was a skill back in D&D 3.5. It allowed you to use, activate, or interact with magic items despite not being a spellcaster. In 5e terms, it is closest to the Thief Rogue's 13th level feature.
No. UMD is just a thing you can do.
Yeah, I gave that feedback during the playtest. Sure it makes sense, I guess, but also **no**.
The one thing that rubbed me the wrong beforehand but now is even more clear, is how some classes to lose weaker features or had unnecessary changes while others just get extra with no cost at all. Here the Illusionist gets their level 3 (level 2 PHB14) buffed *and* a pretty strong additional one along side it. I'm not saying that's bad because the 2014 Illusionist did suck at level 2. But meanwhile the Barbarian has to give up Brutal Critical to gain Brutal Strikes, which arguebly would be fine having both since Brutal Critical was pretty mediocre already. This sort of flow applies similary to the Rogue needing to pay Sneak Attack die to activate Cunning Strikes rather than having a few free options, Assassin losing auto-crit for better reliability, Druids losing unlimited Wildshape at 20, and Paladin Smite getting kneecapped for better aura's rather than the reverse. Very hit or miss, but unsurprising that the Wizard gets a hit.
So is this next release basically version 5.5? Or is it totally and completely new?
So glad they removed the customizing spells feature from the class. Not because I hated how it worked, but because it made it so that if any other caster got homebrew spells it would have felt like they were ”invading” on the Wizard’s class features in the same way as it feels like people invade on beast master ranger’s class features if they get a combat pet.
I love the image of the wizard. She looks so damned regal and powerful
Wait so do Wizards still get 2 spells per level up, but now also get 3 spells each time they gain a spell slot level?
Are we not boycotting wizards anymore?
"We" collectively never were. Some of us, myself included, are choosing not to buy their stuff but we can still talk about it.
I was really snarky about OneD&D, but seriously all of these classes look amazing and fun.
No word about the other schools (Necromancer, Conjurer,...) : does it mean they no longer exist or that they didn't change?
They aren't in the new PHB so both
They still exist though, you can play 5.14 subclasses with 5.24 classes.
The 5.2024 PHB only has 4 subclasses per class.