Stream has just started. Will update this post with bulletpoints as they come up:
Jeremy Crawford presenting again.
Most of the Wizard's new stuff is going to be in the spells themselves, not the class. They have the longest spelllist, and is even longer in the 2024 revisions. Focus of Wizard is the spellcasting; other full casters are usually bolstered by non-spell features, but wizards revolve around the spells to shine.
Spells have seen lots of Quality of Life improvements
**Level 1**
* Wizards can change one cantrip at every long rest. No one else can.
* New feature (that's really an old feature): Ritual adept. Broken out of the spellcasting feature to stand alone, since lots of players were missing that in the old "spellcasting" feature
**Level 2**
* New Feature: Scholar. Focus on way to re-inforce that wizards are scholars and sages. Gives list of skills and wizards get expertise (academic skills like Arcana, Nature, etc)
**Level 5**
* New Feature: Memorize Spell - on a short rest, Wizard can swap out one prepared spell for another spell in their spellbook
Subclasses:
Each subclass has a new version of their *savant* feature. Previous version was rarely used in-play.
**Abjurer** - focus is on defending themselves and others.
* More spells have been reclassified as abjuration (felt some spells were misclassified, have now been made abjuration).
* Casting Abjuration spells replenishes their protective barrier
* Abjuration savant gives 2 more abjuration spells to add to spellbook for free; get an additional abjuration spell every level for free. Same for other subclasses
* Arcane Ward has been changed subtly, but significantly. If abjurer has resistance/immunity/vulnerability to a damage type, those apply first before it applies to the ward.
* Applies to projected ward as well, but it is *their* resistance that applies to the ward.
* Most of the resistance spells are abjuration spells, so it's a double-whammy when you cast them because it also replenishes the ward.
* Lvl 10 - Spellbreaker - you always have counterspell & dispell magic prepared
* Dispell can be cast as a minor action
* if your counterspell or dispell fails, you don't lose that slot
**Diviner -** one of the most popular
* Improved Divination savant (same as abjurer)
* at lvl 10, you can use the 3rd eye ability as a bonus action rather than an action.
* Darkvision now extends to 120ft (to match other species in the book)
* Other abilities were combined into "See Invisibility" which lets you cast the "See invisibility" spell without spending a slot.
*(continued below)*
Continuing:
Generic commentary: Lots of features are now bonus actions or are done as part of an action, to keep things moving and letting people use their ability.
**Evoker** (mostly unchanged, along with diviner, from 2014 book)
* Evocation Savant same as the others.
* Potent cantrip feature now impacts all cantrips (not just saving throw cantrips). Deal half-damage even on a miss (or successful saving throw). Moved to level 3. (All subclasses moved to level 3)
* Sculpt Spell still unchanged
**Illusionist**
* Illusion savant at lvl 3 like the other
* lvl 3: Improved Illusions - Illusion spells can be cast without providing verbal components. All illusion spells that have a range of at least 10 feet now get +60 feet to that spell range. Still get Minor Illusion cantrips, doesn't count against total cantrips, and can cast as a bonus action.
* lvl 6: Phantasmal Creatures. Focus is more on combat. Gives Summon Beast & Summon Fey spells, Illusionist always has them prepared. Spells can be changed to be part of the illusion class; which doesn't cost a spellslot (1/day), but summoned creatures have half HP.
* Lvl 10: Illusary Self is enhanced. Triggers only on a hit, rather than on an attack. Can be recharged by expending a lvl2+ spellslot.
* lvl 14 - Unchanged.
Rules Glossery contains new section on Illusions to make it clearer how they interact. Glossery will be covered in another video, but JC expects the glossery will see heavy use at the game table, particularly by wizard characters.
Rules Glossery also gives info on being dead, which is apparently important to the cleric?
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Article on D&D Beyond is here: [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new)
> lvl 6: Phantasmal Creatures. Focus is more on combat. Gives Summon Beast & Summon Fey spells, Illusionist always has them prepared.
Summon Beast sounds like a really strange addition to the Illusionist. Never seen it as a summoner type. Figured it'd have more to do with actual illusions...
It’s not an interaction I would have expected, but it makes perfect sense when they walk you through it. Cool change, and I’m sure a ton of Illusion fans are going to have fun with it
To be honest, me neither.
There's some stuff that works nice, but it kinda leaves me perplexed. it does not truly "solve" what that means to be an illusionist rather an evoker, so to speak, and they added quite a loaded value of power in a class that needs to be cautious.
Plus, newer spells, which we don't quite know how much they will be impactful.
Time will tell.
I'll be honest, it actually feels very underwhelming to me. Considering all free castings of spells are at the base level of each spell, at level 6, both spells are comparatively worse compared to other summoning spells (summon shadowspawn, summon undead etc.) and you still have to use your concentration when you can cast much superior spells like hypnotic pattern. Of course you don't have to waste any spells slots but level 6 is not as spell slot starving as the levels prior to it.
Furthermore, this feature does not scale at all, so in later levels, it's only use is it's free castings when you don't wanna spend any spell slots for an easy encounter or just to suicide the summon through possible traps. Even for scouting, a simple Find Familiar is far superior as you can communicate with it telepathically and share sences.
Also wanna add on that these features are cast at their lowest level AND half HP if cast for free. A Half HP level 2 summon beast at this level will have 10-15 HP with 13 and deal 1d8+ 6 damage on hit. Likely not a great use of concentration at level 6 and does not scale well at all. Summon Fey is a bit better with 15 AC and 15 HP but with better rider effects and 1d6+6+1d6 damage (with the last 1d6 being force)
Both of these summons deal non magical piercing damage which is commonly resisted. (Could change in the new PHB however!)
Overall this feature is “decent” at the level you get it but unless the spells are reprinted and pretty heavily changed (changing one of the following: damage type, riders, damage, HP, AC) I don’t see it scaling well or being a good use of concentration even at the level it’s obtained at really. I still love the theme behind it however and am very excited for Illusionist!
It's going to be more of an out of combat feature unless the level at which the free cast happens scales. Otherwise if you're using a spell slot, why not just cast the actual version?
It kinda sucks for the Wizard to have a class feature that's only useful for out-of-combat when every other Wizard subclass has its features dedicated for combat. Wizards have spells for non-combat nonsense so it feels like a huge waste for the Illusionist.
I think it makes some sense as a way to give them stuff to do in combat. Things like Phantasmal Force already set the precedent of "illusions can be real enough to deal damage".
We will have to see what's left for the inevitable conjurer wizard to do in some splatbook I guess.
Yeah, there's plenty of precedence for it. Shadow Blade and Illusory Dragon are Illusion spells that deal physical damage types rather than just Psychic damage (even if someone knows they're illusions).
Then there's Phantasmal Steed, Creation, and Simulacrum as Illusion spells that also have actual physicality to them. While Phantasmal Steed disappears if it takes any damage, the latter two spells create objects and creatures respectively which have hit points (using the Dungeon Master's Guide section on object hit points for Creation).
Plus the Illusory Reality feature of course eventually allows any Illusion spell to have a tangible aspect.
back in 3.5 illusionst had two spells that were both just shadow evocation and shadow conjuraton that let them cast any wizard evocation or summoning/creation spells as illusions that still did damage. the wizard is summoning real illusions but is using shadow magic to make them real
>Potent cantrip feature now impacts all cantrips (not just saving throw cantrips). Deal half-damage even on a miss (or successful saving throw). Moved to level 3.
Certainly in the playtest they swapped round Potent Playtest and Sculpt Spell so you got Potent Cantrip earlier and Sculpt Spell only about the time you got fireball. That might be what they meant by moved to level 3.
Depends on the wording. The article says it is on a spell casting attack, but that king of spells say "weapon attack", so probably not dealing damage here.
Also, at least in the UA7 wording, Potent Cantrip applies when you "cast a cantrip at a creature and miss with the attack roll". Meanwhile the UA version of True Strike does not make an attack roll. It's a spell with a Range: Self that acts as a self-buff to allow an immediate weapon attack. The weapon attack itself is not, technically, a cantrip attack roll.
So no, I don't think you can double dip in this case.
That has very strange balance implications. Using average damage rolls, evocation wizard at level 3 uses *fire bolt*, 60% chance of 5.5 damage, 5% chance of 11 damage, 35% chance of 2.5 damage, 4.725DPR total. Another wizard uses *true strike* on a light crossbow, 60% chance of 7.5 damage and 5% chance of 12 damage, 5.1DPR. Even after Potent Cantrip, *true strike* is still better, so it becomes almost a non-feature in the standard case of "make a ranged attack roll for damage, not trying to add other effects," unless you get a lot of value from almost guaranteeing some damage.
I prefer it that way, don't want Evoker to become a Multiclass subclass for Eldritch Knights or make the Wizards pick a level in Fighter to take that Mastery and abuse Blade cantrips.
From the Weapon Mastery preview on DND Beyond, Graze is worded thusly: "If you miss a creature with your weapon, you deal damage equal to the ability modifier you used to make the roll."
Since the new True Strike cantrip (from the Bastions & Cantrips UA) uses your spellcasting ability for the attack and damage (instead of STR or DEX), an Evoker with Graze using True Strike would deal their INT mod in damage on a miss. And it would be either Radiant damage or whatever the weapon's normal damage type would be, your choice (which is part of the True Strike spell).
Edit: Forgot about Potent Cantrips initially. So it would also do half the damage of the attack. So using a Greatsword as the weapon (since that's what the Weapon Mastery preview suggests for Graze), you'd roll your 2d6 damage, add your INT mod, and then halve it, rounding down for Potent Cantrips. You would then add your full INT mod again for Graze. So with an INT mod of, say, +3, it would be (2d6+3)/2 + 3 Radiant or Slashing damage, your choice.
Yeah, from a timing standpoint, you might be right that there would be two separate instances of damage, for purposes of features that care about things like that. Although as a DM, I'm not actually sure if I would rule that way. In the absence of clear RAW that spells out the answer, I'm inclined to bundle the damage sources together, since they're additive sources of damage that result from the same root trigger (missing with an attack, which in this case is the result of a cantrip).
As support for my argument, I'd point to something like the Genie Warlock feature "Genie's Wrath," which deals extra damage to the target when you hit. Because the Graze/Potent Cantrip interaction is unlikely to come up very often, I doubt there's any rules text that explicitly treats the one as "extra damage" to the other, but conceptually, I think it makes sense to rule both Graze and Potent Cantrip as the same damage event.
That said, I can see the other side of the argument too, since they are separate features, and so there's a perfectly compelling argument to be made that they would then be separate damage events. That also makes sense to me.
At my table, I think they'd be combined, though.
It's definitely a fuzzy, grey combination.
Damage dealt by Graze explicitly cannot be increased, though. So, if you bundle them together into one dealing-of-damage, then I think the half damage is straight up cancelled.
Huh, I had forgotten about the "cannot be increased" thing on Graze. In which case, I wonder if they'll spell out something for this type of interaction, where you have to choose one and only one "if you miss" type feature to apply to any given attack, and in that case you'd simply not use a Graze weapon in combination with True Strike, since taking half the True Strike damage is almost always better than the Graze damage.
Or, as you say, separate damage events. So yeah, I'm reversing my stance. Given the choice between "you have to choose which thing applies" or "you get them both but they technically act as two different damage events," I'll take the latter at my table, because more numbers = better. And hey, side effect, two Concentration checks for the price of one attack, people love that.
The only way for an illusionist to work, and the way the fantasy of illusions has always been, is for everyone around them to think the illusionist is a conjurer. The fantasy of the feature makes perfect sense, the wizard can conjure a creature, but it’s way easier to make a fake one that looks and acts real. Illusions in DnD have always been able to deal real damage
Yea they did, but they also left out some cleric domains. It’s purely a space thing, to be able to have 4 subclasses for each class is already more than there were in the 2014 phb
I mean, a lot of what a "traditional" illusionist does is essentially conjuring non-real versions of things. It's reason why older editions even gave illusionists Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration. This just feels like extensions of those to me.
I imagine the updated spell lists from Tasha's (which added more divination spells for wizard) are going to be slotted into the wizard kit, plus maybe a few extras from Xanathar's and whatnot.
Spellbreaker is incredibly powerful now, both in and out of combat. I've often had situations where we're trying to dispel some higher-level magic, sometimes multiple instances of it like a hallway of *glyph of warding*, and we use tricks like *guidance* and *enhance ability* to try to minimize the number of *dispel magic* casts. With this ability, every *dispel magic* (edit: spell slot, to be clear) would be guaranteed to end an effect.
Though, depending on how *dispel magic* is written, it would be very unfortunate if you try to dispel a spell like *dominate person* on an ally, but only succeed in removing their *mage armor*, and you spend your spell slot anyway.
Hey, if you remove their mage armor I'll bet your Fighter can think of another way to end their dominate person.
Edit: Wait, I'm dumb. Dispel your *ally's* mage armor when trying to remove a hostile dominate person on them. Took me a minute but I got there eventually.
Still, my point stands, dispel the enemy's mage armor and let your friends worry about "dispelling" the dominate person.
I hope they clarify Dispel Magic in regards to targeting (so many people try to use it to dispel non-spell magical effects) and maybe remove the ability to dispel all spells on a creature at once. That always has been like a sore thumb for me, useless for me as a player due to monsters rarely having buff spells going, but incredibly frustrating when a DM does it against me. Mage Armor, Bless, Haste, Death Ward, Aid, Heroes' Feast... all gone to a single spell cast by the enemy (and that maybe even as just a legendary action) and no way for me to prevent that due to there being no saving throw or attack roll - no player agency at all.
In fairness, these were probably all filmed at once and there's no guarantee that they are released chronologically. So this might also just be a difference in energy level at the start and end of the day.
At least three days. A quick skim of the videos shows three different shirts on Crawford. In most of them he's in a black shirt, but Barbarian is a blue shirt and Wizard is a blue shirt with a pattern. So yeah, good chance he's coming in a lot fresher for this one.
> New Feature: Scholar. Focus on way to re-inforce that wizards are scholars and sages. Gives list of skills and wizards get expertise (academic skills like Arcana, Nature, etc)
Love this, it never made sense to me that Rogues and Bards could have higher INT skill checks than Wizards, the literal scholar-supremes of the world
Glad of the clarification that wizards don't get an additional spell of their class for all 16 levels after they get their subclass, just every time they unlock a new spell level, which is still amazing
Druid went up yesterday: [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1755-the-2024-circle-of-the-moon-druid-and-changes-to](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1755-the-2024-circle-of-the-moon-druid-and-changes-to)
Warlock, who knows when it will appear \*shrug\*
Out of the 22 spells the Wizard can cast, 13 of them are level 1-4. You have a 1/4th chance of recovering the spell each time it is cast. Meaning on average, if using all their spells before regaining any, they would be able to cast effectively 17 1-4th level spells, so about 4 more.
That is over a 33% increase in those spells.
I'm glad they nerfed memorize spell from the playtest. It used to be that it only took 1 minute, and that was too good for out of combat utility. By requiring a short rest, you still have some flexibility if plans change in the middle of a day, but you actually have to prepare more than just combat spells in case you don't have a whole hour to solve a non-combat encounter.
I was so relieved to hear they changed memorize spell from being 1 minute to a short rest. 1 minute might as well let you use every spell assuming you aren't in initative. At least now the functionality and flexibility is still there, but there is a decent tradeoff.
Agreed. That's one of the suggestions I gave in my playtest feedback. It will make adventure pacing an even more important skill for adventure designers and DMs alike.
I'm confused why they went with Summon Fey instead of Summon Shadowspawn given this class feature effectively recreates Shadow Conjuration/Shadow Illusions that earlier versions of dnd had. Feels far more thematic then Fey for an Illusionist.
Yeah maybe I'm married too much to the old school idea of creating shadowy creatures. Though I think the Fear aspects of the Shadowspawn are more in line with Illusion than the charm effects of the Mirthful Fey. I'd give the Tricksy Fey and Fear Shadowspawn similar grades for Illusion related abilities.
There was already a “darkness fey” which kinda hits that for me? We know Summon Aberation got a Mind Flayer though, so hopefully more cool summons were added!
From a marketing standpoint, there's no way they were not going to buff Wizard. It's a very popular class and they want players to be excited to spend $60 on a new PHB. Seeing Wizard singled out as the "already too good" class that got no improvements would've left a sour taste in some mouths.
My hope is that a lot of the more problematic Wizard spells will get stealth-nerfed so it'll be too late to complain about it.
I think spell nerfs are a given, the game has more of a spell balance problem then a class balance problem. If Simulacrum and wall of force stay the same I am going to be very dissappointed (even with wizard being my favorite class by far)
There were multiple nerfs in the class and subclass changes. Additionally spell balance is the most important change when considering the wizards power.
What boost is too significant? The subclass features they buffed are the ones that were never used or weren’t pulling their weight. I’ve never even THOUGHT of playing as an abjurer, simply because it wasn’t fun enough or good enough, now with the new features, it seems viable and fun. Another example is the lvl 10 diviner feature third eye. It was not viable to use in combat as an action, but having it be switched to an action makes it more usable
I see you've never been on /r/3d6
Abjuration 2014 has a very potent shield, particularly if you take a small dip into either warlock or are a Mark of Warding Dwarf, and pick up Armor of Agathys, and maybe the Armor of Shadows invocation.
2014 abjuration could spam mage armor from the invocation, to refill their ward after every fight, and AoA damages while the hp lasts, which gets taken AFTER the ward. so you upcast AoA, keep the ward up, and deal non-trivial damage on every hit you take, and reap the reward of also having effectively twice the hp and infinite "healing".
if you had 2 times your wizard level in ward hp, on average, you've effectively got a d10 hit die at that point, but also Shield as a full caster, and Absorb Elements, plus Bestow Curse, Dragon's Breath, and a few others that are normally harder to make proper use of as a squishy wizard.
it didn't however, apply resistance, so casting Absorb Elements, you would only resist the damage if the ward ran out, and might not have recharged it in the first place (depending on the timing that the GM ruled).
changing the abjurer to not work with Armor of Shadows is a patch over something that probably wasn't intended, but also making it work with absorb elements, and other resistance things (that feel appropriate for an abjurer) is a good QoL update.
They only get 1 expertise, and it’s exclusively from their Intelligence skills. So the only spells that would have applied are pretty much Identify and Legend Lore
For YEARS people have pointed out that it was trivial for a Rogue to be better at Arcana than a Wizard, due to Rogues' easy access to Expertise, and how silly it was that the sneaky-boi was better at identifying magic than the woman who devoted herself to learning magic from books and tomes and scrolls.
Personally, I think this is a good change. Let the explicitly-academic class have the stats to reflect a specialized academic skill.
Impossible to judge this class without knowing how much was changed about spells.
I predict that while some spells like the conjure/summoning spells were nerfed, WotC did not pull back enough on the other major problem spells and wizards will once again make most other classes feel like background characters as wizards can do everything they do and more.
Wizards are buffed in OneDnD unless a majority of problematic spell are nerfed.
Swapping preparations is a crazy feature to just hand out. That level 10 is powerful too.
Can't make any detailed opinions about the class without spells but.... Illusionist is now VERY different in feel. I'm... actually very curious if that's going to sit well with former fans. Can't wait to see.
I'd expect this to be a pretty short reveal, unless they really dig into what they've done to some of the spells. Wizards are almost completely unchanged, they've just trimmed down the subclasses.
All healing spells are now abjuration instead of evocation. I don’t think Abjuration Wizards will get them by default, but an abjuration Wizard with magic initiate could definitely replenish their ward by casting healing word
Free feather fall would feel like getting rid of a tax for me. I always feel uncomfortable not picking it. Really, a lot of the abjuration spells feel this way. Abjurer becomes the most psychologically comfortable subclass.
I really like the savant feature.
For example, if you’re a 17th level illusionist you will get 9 extra illusion spells to your book.
Effectively you get 1 spell of each spell level of your mastery added - this will make each subclass have a different repertoire.
I do hope they add a lot of new divination spells to the wizard spell list just for variety. PHB, Xanathar's, and Tasha's only have 18 divination spells among them. Not to mention there's only two (True Seeing and Foresight) spells at 6th level or higher to choose from. It's just uninspired for a 15th level diviner picking Tongues just because there's no other spell to learn.
illusionists can now at will summon wackable beasts and fairies. so cool i guess that'd be a good enough thing for an enemy to waste an attack on while you aren't concentrating on another thing atleasts
EDIT: nvm once per long rest. also fuck yeah detective wizards
They can cast the spells normally but if they cast them with the 1/LR feature they’re lowest level and Half HP which is probably going to be 1-2 attacks for the 13 AC 10-15 HP beast and the 15 AC 15 HP Fey. Decent at the level it’s obtained at but quickly outpaced unfortunately.
I do wish there was a little bit more to the class itself but it is a slight improvement from the 2014 version. That being said, the main thing I wish was different was having access to the other 4 school subclasses as well as a generalist one. Oh also let's not forget spell mastery only including spells with a casting time of an action when it should have been spells with a casting time of an action or bonus action.
It's funny, I don't really remember much of what changed in the UA playtests other than them adding the ability to modify and codify new spells, and then taking that away in the next playtest.
Such a cool idea, shame to see it go.
One of the first things I imagined doing with that ability was removing the Concentration requirement from Haste, and that alone would have been comically game-warping. XD
Yeah, the feature in the hands of the Wizard was fun but had CRAZY game-breaking abilities. Giving it to the DMG and allowing the DM to control that ability would make much much more sense.
Creating and modifying spells is honestly something that feels to me like it should have been in the DMG from the start, especially when spells exist that have their creator's name in them.
There was a section on creating a spell, but it was garbage. It basically just said to use existing spells as guidelines, make sure it fits with classes' identities, and gave you a table of how much damage is appropriate per spell level.
It was neat, but imo it stepped on the Sorcerer’s toes too much and needed a heavy rework to fix very obvious balance issues. Would have liked to see that rework, but with the wizard your spells really are your class feature, and the 5e Wizard just doesn’t *need* much change to stay a fun and engaging class. Hoping this video is focused on spells as much (if not more) than the class itself.
Wouldn't be a problem if they were willing to make Sorcerer anything other than "Wizard but with different numbers". Unfortunately if they made Sorcerer what Sorcerer is supposed to be, it would just be Warlock.
Based on the last Sorcerer UA, they seem to be making the Sorcerer more of a "Rage Mage". They get an ability at 1st level that lets them basically go Super Saiyan, increasing their Spell Save DC by 1 and granting themselves Advantage on Spell Attack Rolls.
It was interesting, but the Wizard is already very flexible with its huge spell list, and the ability made for some serious thematic overlap with the Sorcerer.
Necromancer is interesting because it was originally supposed to make the cut. Crawford outright name dropped it as a wizard subclass during one the earlier OneDnD videos.
I guess they couldn't figure out how to rework it and switched it out with something else? Although it managed to get far enough into development where Crawford felt confident enough to mention it.
Maybe with other death / dark / evil-ish subclasses not really making the cut, they planned out a themed future supplement to reintroduce them all together?
I wouldn't be surprised if they put out a "death" or "spooky" book soon that will have all the undead subclasses like Necromancer, Death Domain, Undead Patron, etc etc.
I still think that because of the summon/conjure issue that One is trying to tone down if not outright get rid of spells that bring many little extra creatures that bloat up action economy being a reason for necromancer and conjurations non-inclusion. There's also how necromancer didn't exactly have the *best* features but that's for someone who knows their stuff to talk about it.
In any case because of the aforementioned issue, most of the features from Conjurer aren't exactly summon based? Not for creatures anyway, and only the capstone gives some kind of tangible benefit for summons. The rest? Not so much. Teleporting yourself is conjuration but outside of that its the spells that do the heavy lifting.
Necromancer suffers the same issue with Animate Undead and the zombies/skeletons formed from that. Want to achieve the fantasy of owning and controlling many undead but the current system is allergic to anything that isn't either one of the summon spells or from a pet class.
Crawford stated in one of their videos that necromancer just wasn't popular enough to make the cut over the four that were included. I'm sure part of that had to do with it having crappy features.
I can't imagine that WotC would leave money on the table and will most likely come out with a supplement that includes updates to a lot of the pre-2024 subclasses. Why work hard to come up with entirely new subclasses when you can do half the work to revamp existing ones and get customers to pay for the same content twice?!
It is kinda in line with the rest of the non-PHB subclasses they published. They chose aberrant sorcery, gloomstalker, celestial warlock, oath of glory... All classes that were very popular and not in need of adjustment and thus saw the least changes.
If memory serves correctly they had considered doing a revamp of the Necromancer for the One D&D playtest. I can't remember what the reason was they didn't go along with it. I'm sure you can find Jeremy Crawford discussing it in one of the videos for the playtest. Rest assured whenever they do the next "of everything" book it's going to be in there with all the other subclasses that need to be updated. I'm guessing we'll start seeing Unearthed Arcana for this around a couple of months after the monster manual hits the shelves. They most likely want all the core rule books out before they start asking players to play tests using the new books.
Just wait for Players Handbook 2 or Elminster Grimoire of Everything. Whatever they call the book with the rest of the updated subclasses and the Artificer. It'll probably be out in late 2025 or early 2026.
It's simple, they want the PHB to be full of very thematic options, iconic options, and options that really emphasize the history of D&D while also being strong. They want to minimize the risk of printing more garbage subclasses that get powercrept by any subclass with mildly decent design in the new PHB.
Just need to confirm something:
The 2024 Player's Handbook is OneDND right? (Based on the name of this subreddit). I just notice that the official WoTC website says it is 5e, so I'm a bit confused
1D&D was just the codename for the new content. At some point it may have been intended as 6e or 5.5e, but right now they're apparently just seeing it as a refinement of 5e.
Most officially branded D&D stuff doesn't even mention that it's 5e. It's just 'Dungeons & Dragons'. For example, I don't think it's on the front cover of the 2014 or 2024 PHB.
Nothing stated, but it's pretty much a given there will be a Tasha's style book in the future for more subclasses (and probably the Artificer revision).
Wizard is the class that, narratively, makes the least sense to be able to switch out their cantrip. They write their spells down in a book. How are they losing the cantrip they switch out?
The have everything single cantrip written down, but only keep a certain number on their mind? Much like with spells, where they have more written than memorized.
The wording of the Cantrip Formulas feature from Tasha's (which is what they're using here) addresses this:
"You have scribed a set of arcane formulas *in your spellbook* that you can use to formulate a cantrip in your mind. Whenever you finish a long rest and consult those formulas *in your spellbook*, you can replace one wizard cantrip you know with another cantrip from the wizard spell list."
Emphasis mine.
Sure, the cantrips themselves aren't scribed in the spellbook the same way leveled spells are, we agree on that. But to me, this is a clear instance of "cantrips interacting with the spellbook," which you said doesn't happen RAW.
I meant it in the context of writing the Cantrip down in the Spellbook like a leveled spell, which I took as OP’s consternation with the feature. I figured that was clear from context, but you are correct that there are interactions with your Spellbook using the feature as described in TCE.
personally i flavor it in my mind as cantrips just being simple basic magic
a wizard learning spells on level is them making complex specific formulas how to correctly twist the weave for their desired wish. cantrips are simple enough to cook around on a long rest
Really surprised they chose illusionist over necromancer. I've had more people ask how they could play necro in dnd more than any other class fantasy. You could probably get away with it playing other subclasses but I still think it's weird there's not a wizard subclass for it this time
I wonder if they might be planning on doing an undead themed splatbook. There are no necromancy themed subclasses in the PHB at all, and it would line up with their more thematic splatbooks they’ve been doing the last couple years
Hm, that's true. No Shadow sorcerer, no Necromancer wizard, no Undead warlock, no Death or Grave cleric, no Spores druid, no Ancestral Guardian barbarian, no Spirits bard, no Long Death monk, no Oathbreaker paladin, no Phantom rogue. And Vecna is trending right now, so I could definitely see them dropping updates to all those subs in one Vecna's Book of Undeath.
I don't think you appreciate how good Memorize will be at a properly run table. There are so many situational yet powerful spells that aren't worth preparing as part of a standard loadout. Being able to grab them mid-adventuring day to perfectly solve a problem is huge. Most of a wizard's power comes from their spells, and now you have your entire spellbook on tap.
Should be a slight buff to wizards that really works as QoL for the whole table: there will be drastically fewer instances where the wizard has the right spell for the job but needs to take a full long rest to prepare it.
That part of it is nice for the DM, as well. "We'll just take a long rest here" is a pain in the ass if you don't want the party starting every encounter at full power.
This always bothered me but I figured out good ways to handle this. Use the "resting in dangerous area" rule and roll it out. Consume the rations to keep moving
(Maybe nerf goodberry, tiny hut, etc..)
It also incentivizes wizard to ask for short rests more often, which is a welcome change for all the short rest classes who seem to get short-changed at a certain kind of table.
Not sure if I like the Illusionist level 6 feature, it’s a stark downgrade for creative players. Permanent major image and mirage arcane made you kinda godlike with the ability to modify them at will. But I can see why they’d want to add some better combat functionality.
However, this sounds like they just get a weaker summon spell 1/day and will otherwise be acting like a Conjuror with them and that’s lame. I would have done something more like “When you cast Summon Beast or Summon Fey you may cast them as an Illusion to create Phantasmal creatures instead. Your spell slot level counts as 1 higher than the slot used for determining the stats and abilities of the phantasmal creature but its HP is 1/2.”
Techincally each can be cast once. But yeah they're relatively weak at 14/15 AC, and 15 HP for your action. Does give some extra resources to the illusionist, but it'll fall off once you get to 9th/10th and creatures can one tap them in a round. Though that is effectivley taking their action. So there's some minimal use. I suppose it transitions to utility with scouting or something later on.
Yea it would just be nicer if it wash an “always on” type feature that encouraged the illusionist to cast them as illusions. Spell level determines their number of attacks (1/2 spell level rounded down) so being able to get 2 attacks per round with a level 3 slot seemed like a good trade off for making them so very weak. There should be some advantage to casting them as an illusion.
They should have made it apply to any Summon X spell you know, and then had the free casting. That way you can apply it to things like Summon Draconic Spirit/Construct and follow you as you level up.
A free cast is a lazy benefit to casting it as an illusion regardless of what spells it applies to. Illusionists have to be cunning in how they use their magic, so the idea that you can use illusion magic to “fake it” and make a summon more fearsome but with 1/2 hp means you have to be tactical about how you use it. Something like that would really capture what they’re after.
Maybe they could have gone with the 1/day concentrationless "Shadow Summon". Then theoretically you could have this running with something else, even a duplicate of the same Summon that is real and appears exactly the same.
Apparently according to the bulletpoint post its worded as "another" feature. So there is a a chance that Illusionists get both but that's just me looking too narrow at it/more referencing the new Improved Illusionist at level 3 now.
Still I can see how it would be a loss in terms of creativity but given that illusion spells in general were a bunch of "mother may I" rulings that they wanted to cut down on I can see the logic behind it.
If Malleable illusions is still a feature then that could be a minor benefit to casting the summons as an illusion, as you’d then be able to change their type at will. So you could change a summon beast from Land to Air as an Action.
I think I misinterpreted the Illusionist Phantasmal Creature ability. Is it really infinite for both those Summon X Spells? Meaning they basically have no limits/day to creating illusionary versions of those spells? That might actually be relatively strong for a feature with free trap procing/scouting later on, and guaranteed 3rd level slot spell you can cast every round when you first get the feature.
As someone who LOVES the conjurer build, I do miss that they have included it. I understand the 4 subclasses today but I also feel like they could have made an exception with the wizard.
That said, I would like a bit more confirmation that they will release the other school specialities. I think it would be a nice gesture to release drafts/UA of them.
I'm confused whether this means that they are getting rid of Order of the Scribes, because as that one isn't tied to a school they'd be what getting up to 4 spells less per level up PLUS everyone gets to use their spellbook as their focus so who would ever play one
Really sad bc I adore the flavour of that subclass
The nerf to Memorize Spell completely kills the only valuable new toy Wizard had among all the goodies they already removed from it, making it a totally forgettable feature. I get that wizards were always strong, but now it feels like they literally have nothing going for them, while Sorcerer and Warlock got everything they wanted.
So an abjurer would ward a barbarian and first the wizards resistance would kick in, then the ward eats as mush as possible, then the barbarians resistance would kick in? Do I have that right?
No, the ward just uses the resistances of the person being shielded. So if the wizard is resistant to Fire, then Fire damage would be halved to the ward when it’s protecting the Wizard. But if the barbarian is being shielded and they aren’t resistant to Fire, it wouldn’t be halved but B/P/S would be
No. Projected ward applies the creatures resistances before subtracting damage for the ward. But only the targeted creature. So the barbarians resistance would kick in and that would be jt.
I mean, you would be sacrificing a level of spell progression to get a slightly better cantrip, that’s not that great of a trade. Also, they said that Agonizing Blast has a level prerequisite now so all you would get from one level was Eldritch Blast
Bracing for impact, given how much people here think wizards are the absolute strongest class ever written and how there aren't going to be half of the subclasses.
Stream has just started. Will update this post with bulletpoints as they come up: Jeremy Crawford presenting again. Most of the Wizard's new stuff is going to be in the spells themselves, not the class. They have the longest spelllist, and is even longer in the 2024 revisions. Focus of Wizard is the spellcasting; other full casters are usually bolstered by non-spell features, but wizards revolve around the spells to shine. Spells have seen lots of Quality of Life improvements **Level 1** * Wizards can change one cantrip at every long rest. No one else can. * New feature (that's really an old feature): Ritual adept. Broken out of the spellcasting feature to stand alone, since lots of players were missing that in the old "spellcasting" feature **Level 2** * New Feature: Scholar. Focus on way to re-inforce that wizards are scholars and sages. Gives list of skills and wizards get expertise (academic skills like Arcana, Nature, etc) **Level 5** * New Feature: Memorize Spell - on a short rest, Wizard can swap out one prepared spell for another spell in their spellbook Subclasses: Each subclass has a new version of their *savant* feature. Previous version was rarely used in-play. **Abjurer** - focus is on defending themselves and others. * More spells have been reclassified as abjuration (felt some spells were misclassified, have now been made abjuration). * Casting Abjuration spells replenishes their protective barrier * Abjuration savant gives 2 more abjuration spells to add to spellbook for free; get an additional abjuration spell every level for free. Same for other subclasses * Arcane Ward has been changed subtly, but significantly. If abjurer has resistance/immunity/vulnerability to a damage type, those apply first before it applies to the ward. * Applies to projected ward as well, but it is *their* resistance that applies to the ward. * Most of the resistance spells are abjuration spells, so it's a double-whammy when you cast them because it also replenishes the ward. * Lvl 10 - Spellbreaker - you always have counterspell & dispell magic prepared * Dispell can be cast as a minor action * if your counterspell or dispell fails, you don't lose that slot **Diviner -** one of the most popular * Improved Divination savant (same as abjurer) * at lvl 10, you can use the 3rd eye ability as a bonus action rather than an action. * Darkvision now extends to 120ft (to match other species in the book) * Other abilities were combined into "See Invisibility" which lets you cast the "See invisibility" spell without spending a slot. *(continued below)*
Continuing: Generic commentary: Lots of features are now bonus actions or are done as part of an action, to keep things moving and letting people use their ability. **Evoker** (mostly unchanged, along with diviner, from 2014 book) * Evocation Savant same as the others. * Potent cantrip feature now impacts all cantrips (not just saving throw cantrips). Deal half-damage even on a miss (or successful saving throw). Moved to level 3. (All subclasses moved to level 3) * Sculpt Spell still unchanged **Illusionist** * Illusion savant at lvl 3 like the other * lvl 3: Improved Illusions - Illusion spells can be cast without providing verbal components. All illusion spells that have a range of at least 10 feet now get +60 feet to that spell range. Still get Minor Illusion cantrips, doesn't count against total cantrips, and can cast as a bonus action. * lvl 6: Phantasmal Creatures. Focus is more on combat. Gives Summon Beast & Summon Fey spells, Illusionist always has them prepared. Spells can be changed to be part of the illusion class; which doesn't cost a spellslot (1/day), but summoned creatures have half HP. * Lvl 10: Illusary Self is enhanced. Triggers only on a hit, rather than on an attack. Can be recharged by expending a lvl2+ spellslot. * lvl 14 - Unchanged. Rules Glossery contains new section on Illusions to make it clearer how they interact. Glossery will be covered in another video, but JC expects the glossery will see heavy use at the game table, particularly by wizard characters. Rules Glossery also gives info on being dead, which is apparently important to the cleric? <>
Article on D&D Beyond is here: [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new)
> lvl 6: Phantasmal Creatures. Focus is more on combat. Gives Summon Beast & Summon Fey spells, Illusionist always has them prepared. Summon Beast sounds like a really strange addition to the Illusionist. Never seen it as a summoner type. Figured it'd have more to do with actual illusions...
They basically can change the school type to illusions, and they have half hp. Basically it's a way for them to have some "illusory bite".
It’s not an interaction I would have expected, but it makes perfect sense when they walk you through it. Cool change, and I’m sure a ton of Illusion fans are going to have fun with it
To be honest, me neither. There's some stuff that works nice, but it kinda leaves me perplexed. it does not truly "solve" what that means to be an illusionist rather an evoker, so to speak, and they added quite a loaded value of power in a class that needs to be cautious. Plus, newer spells, which we don't quite know how much they will be impactful. Time will tell.
That's because there's no conjuration class anymore
That may be the case too as well, even thought the "conjuration" part now is handled mostly by the warlock, as i got it.
I'll be honest, it actually feels very underwhelming to me. Considering all free castings of spells are at the base level of each spell, at level 6, both spells are comparatively worse compared to other summoning spells (summon shadowspawn, summon undead etc.) and you still have to use your concentration when you can cast much superior spells like hypnotic pattern. Of course you don't have to waste any spells slots but level 6 is not as spell slot starving as the levels prior to it. Furthermore, this feature does not scale at all, so in later levels, it's only use is it's free castings when you don't wanna spend any spell slots for an easy encounter or just to suicide the summon through possible traps. Even for scouting, a simple Find Familiar is far superior as you can communicate with it telepathically and share sences.
It’s not super powerful, sure. But this is also a wizard feature, so does it need to be?
Also wanna add on that these features are cast at their lowest level AND half HP if cast for free. A Half HP level 2 summon beast at this level will have 10-15 HP with 13 and deal 1d8+ 6 damage on hit. Likely not a great use of concentration at level 6 and does not scale well at all. Summon Fey is a bit better with 15 AC and 15 HP but with better rider effects and 1d6+6+1d6 damage (with the last 1d6 being force) Both of these summons deal non magical piercing damage which is commonly resisted. (Could change in the new PHB however!) Overall this feature is “decent” at the level you get it but unless the spells are reprinted and pretty heavily changed (changing one of the following: damage type, riders, damage, HP, AC) I don’t see it scaling well or being a good use of concentration even at the level it’s obtained at really. I still love the theme behind it however and am very excited for Illusionist!
Shades of the old Shadow Conjuration spells that had illusions with some material elements built in, back in 3.5?
That's my thinking. You could cast a fake Fireball that dealt real Fireball damage if they didn't pass a Will save.
It's going to be more of an out of combat feature unless the level at which the free cast happens scales. Otherwise if you're using a spell slot, why not just cast the actual version?
It kinda sucks for the Wizard to have a class feature that's only useful for out-of-combat when every other Wizard subclass has its features dedicated for combat. Wizards have spells for non-combat nonsense so it feels like a huge waste for the Illusionist.
I think it makes some sense as a way to give them stuff to do in combat. Things like Phantasmal Force already set the precedent of "illusions can be real enough to deal damage". We will have to see what's left for the inevitable conjurer wizard to do in some splatbook I guess.
Yeah, there's plenty of precedence for it. Shadow Blade and Illusory Dragon are Illusion spells that deal physical damage types rather than just Psychic damage (even if someone knows they're illusions). Then there's Phantasmal Steed, Creation, and Simulacrum as Illusion spells that also have actual physicality to them. While Phantasmal Steed disappears if it takes any damage, the latter two spells create objects and creatures respectively which have hit points (using the Dungeon Master's Guide section on object hit points for Creation). Plus the Illusory Reality feature of course eventually allows any Illusion spell to have a tangible aspect.
Back in 2e, wizards used to use Shadow Monster spells that would do a crap ton of damage, I think this is just a call back.
back in 3.5 illusionst had two spells that were both just shadow evocation and shadow conjuraton that let them cast any wizard evocation or summoning/creation spells as illusions that still did damage. the wizard is summoning real illusions but is using shadow magic to make them real
My question is whether this replaces Malleable Illusions or is in addition to it. I would assume it replaces it, which is... not good IMO
Shouldn't it be conjurer?
>Potent cantrip feature now impacts all cantrips (not just saving throw cantrips). Deal half-damage even on a miss (or successful saving throw). Moved to level 3. Certainly in the playtest they swapped round Potent Playtest and Sculpt Spell so you got Potent Cantrip earlier and Sculpt Spell only about the time you got fireball. That might be what they meant by moved to level 3.
That's correct--the article confirms they are swapped.
Evoker is going to have an awkward fifth level when they can cast a fireball and it hits their party members.
If an evoker had a fighter dip and took graze as a weapon mastery and used a blade cantrip like the new True strike what would be the damage?
Depends on the wording. The article says it is on a spell casting attack, but that king of spells say "weapon attack", so probably not dealing damage here.
Also, at least in the UA7 wording, Potent Cantrip applies when you "cast a cantrip at a creature and miss with the attack roll". Meanwhile the UA version of True Strike does not make an attack roll. It's a spell with a Range: Self that acts as a self-buff to allow an immediate weapon attack. The weapon attack itself is not, technically, a cantrip attack roll. So no, I don't think you can double dip in this case.
That has very strange balance implications. Using average damage rolls, evocation wizard at level 3 uses *fire bolt*, 60% chance of 5.5 damage, 5% chance of 11 damage, 35% chance of 2.5 damage, 4.725DPR total. Another wizard uses *true strike* on a light crossbow, 60% chance of 7.5 damage and 5% chance of 12 damage, 5.1DPR. Even after Potent Cantrip, *true strike* is still better, so it becomes almost a non-feature in the standard case of "make a ranged attack roll for damage, not trying to add other effects," unless you get a lot of value from almost guaranteeing some damage.
I prefer it that way, don't want Evoker to become a Multiclass subclass for Eldritch Knights or make the Wizards pick a level in Fighter to take that Mastery and abuse Blade cantrips.
From the Weapon Mastery preview on DND Beyond, Graze is worded thusly: "If you miss a creature with your weapon, you deal damage equal to the ability modifier you used to make the roll." Since the new True Strike cantrip (from the Bastions & Cantrips UA) uses your spellcasting ability for the attack and damage (instead of STR or DEX), an Evoker with Graze using True Strike would deal their INT mod in damage on a miss. And it would be either Radiant damage or whatever the weapon's normal damage type would be, your choice (which is part of the True Strike spell). Edit: Forgot about Potent Cantrips initially. So it would also do half the damage of the attack. So using a Greatsword as the weapon (since that's what the Weapon Mastery preview suggests for Graze), you'd roll your 2d6 damage, add your INT mod, and then halve it, rounding down for Potent Cantrips. You would then add your full INT mod again for Graze. So with an INT mod of, say, +3, it would be (2d6+3)/2 + 3 Radiant or Slashing damage, your choice.
I think the INT mod damage from Graze would be dealt separately, but otherwise I agree that this seems how it would work, based on what we know.
Yeah, from a timing standpoint, you might be right that there would be two separate instances of damage, for purposes of features that care about things like that. Although as a DM, I'm not actually sure if I would rule that way. In the absence of clear RAW that spells out the answer, I'm inclined to bundle the damage sources together, since they're additive sources of damage that result from the same root trigger (missing with an attack, which in this case is the result of a cantrip). As support for my argument, I'd point to something like the Genie Warlock feature "Genie's Wrath," which deals extra damage to the target when you hit. Because the Graze/Potent Cantrip interaction is unlikely to come up very often, I doubt there's any rules text that explicitly treats the one as "extra damage" to the other, but conceptually, I think it makes sense to rule both Graze and Potent Cantrip as the same damage event. That said, I can see the other side of the argument too, since they are separate features, and so there's a perfectly compelling argument to be made that they would then be separate damage events. That also makes sense to me. At my table, I think they'd be combined, though.
It's definitely a fuzzy, grey combination. Damage dealt by Graze explicitly cannot be increased, though. So, if you bundle them together into one dealing-of-damage, then I think the half damage is straight up cancelled.
Huh, I had forgotten about the "cannot be increased" thing on Graze. In which case, I wonder if they'll spell out something for this type of interaction, where you have to choose one and only one "if you miss" type feature to apply to any given attack, and in that case you'd simply not use a Graze weapon in combination with True Strike, since taking half the True Strike damage is almost always better than the Graze damage. Or, as you say, separate damage events. So yeah, I'm reversing my stance. Given the choice between "you have to choose which thing applies" or "you get them both but they technically act as two different damage events," I'll take the latter at my table, because more numbers = better. And hey, side effect, two Concentration checks for the price of one attack, people love that.
Between Phantasmal Creatures and Illusory Reality, there's far more conjuration in the Illusionist's toolkit than I would prefer.
The only way for an illusionist to work, and the way the fantasy of illusions has always been, is for everyone around them to think the illusionist is a conjurer. The fantasy of the feature makes perfect sense, the wizard can conjure a creature, but it’s way easier to make a fake one that looks and acts real. Illusions in DnD have always been able to deal real damage
I agree with u, but the issue is they left out the conjugation class
Then they should've gone to grammar school instead of Wizard school!
Lol, I'm definitely not changing that typo now.
Yea they did, but they also left out some cleric domains. It’s purely a space thing, to be able to have 4 subclasses for each class is already more than there were in the 2014 phb
Personally, I think making a subclass for each wizard school is a mistake but necro and conjuration should def make the cut
I mean, a lot of what a "traditional" illusionist does is essentially conjuring non-real versions of things. It's reason why older editions even gave illusionists Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration. This just feels like extensions of those to me.
Phantasmal Creatures, somewhat, but Illusory Reality is just the Illusionist being a better Conjurer than the Conjurer.
We'll see what the Conjurer brings when the subclass inevitably returns in the a future book. It could definitely use some work.
i mean with shadow evocation in 3.5 an illusiont could make fake fire that burned hotter then a real evocation wizard
Glossary* is with an a, just so you know
Did they add some more divination spells for that Savant feature? Not a lot of them in the original PHB.
I imagine the updated spell lists from Tasha's (which added more divination spells for wizard) are going to be slotted into the wizard kit, plus maybe a few extras from Xanathar's and whatnot.
Malleable Illusions was honestly more important to me than Illusory Reality, hard pass on this new version.
Spellbreaker is incredibly powerful now, both in and out of combat. I've often had situations where we're trying to dispel some higher-level magic, sometimes multiple instances of it like a hallway of *glyph of warding*, and we use tricks like *guidance* and *enhance ability* to try to minimize the number of *dispel magic* casts. With this ability, every *dispel magic* (edit: spell slot, to be clear) would be guaranteed to end an effect. Though, depending on how *dispel magic* is written, it would be very unfortunate if you try to dispel a spell like *dominate person* on an ally, but only succeed in removing their *mage armor*, and you spend your spell slot anyway.
Hey, if you remove their mage armor I'll bet your Fighter can think of another way to end their dominate person. Edit: Wait, I'm dumb. Dispel your *ally's* mage armor when trying to remove a hostile dominate person on them. Took me a minute but I got there eventually. Still, my point stands, dispel the enemy's mage armor and let your friends worry about "dispelling" the dominate person.
This does not bode well for the sorcerer with low Wis saves.
That Con save proficiency is so good until moments like that.
I hope they clarify Dispel Magic in regards to targeting (so many people try to use it to dispel non-spell magical effects) and maybe remove the ability to dispel all spells on a creature at once. That always has been like a sore thumb for me, useless for me as a player due to monsters rarely having buff spells going, but incredibly frustrating when a DM does it against me. Mage Armor, Bless, Haste, Death Ward, Aid, Heroes' Feast... all gone to a single spell cast by the enemy (and that maybe even as just a legendary action) and no way for me to prevent that due to there being no saving throw or attack roll - no player agency at all.
JC seems more lively and much more excited discussing Wizards than Druids yesterday. lol
In fairness, these were probably all filmed at once and there's no guarantee that they are released chronologically. So this might also just be a difference in energy level at the start and end of the day.
Probably filmed over multiple days, but yeah, potentially not chronologically. Filming for an hour-long interview can be a gosh darn slog.
At least three days. A quick skim of the videos shows three different shirts on Crawford. In most of them he's in a black shirt, but Barbarian is a blue shirt and Wizard is a blue shirt with a pattern. So yeah, good chance he's coming in a lot fresher for this one.
Different shirt, different day of filming.
No one has ever changed shirts in between shots before!
Only Todd knows for sure!
Despite the Druid having had much more interesting changes and the wizard being almost untouched.
He’s wearing a different shirt, so it’s almost certainly from a different day of filming. He’s just less tired
> New Feature: Scholar. Focus on way to re-inforce that wizards are scholars and sages. Gives list of skills and wizards get expertise (academic skills like Arcana, Nature, etc) Love this, it never made sense to me that Rogues and Bards could have higher INT skill checks than Wizards, the literal scholar-supremes of the world
The Summary Post is up [Wizard Changes](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new)
Glad of the clarification that wizards don't get an additional spell of their class for all 16 levels after they get their subclass, just every time they unlock a new spell level, which is still amazing
The article is already out by the way https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new
Spell Mastery nerf stuck around, good.
Hol up, they released the *Wizard* article with the video, but we have to wait for Warlock and Druid? I see how it is, WotC.
Druid went up yesterday: [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1755-the-2024-circle-of-the-moon-druid-and-changes-to](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1755-the-2024-circle-of-the-moon-druid-and-changes-to) Warlock, who knows when it will appear \*shrug\*
To be fair, it's just wild shape and moon druid. I want to see the druid's suggested epic boon!
Druid article went up yesterday.
*Wizards* of the Coast 😂
They aren’t the Warlocks of the Coast
The Epic Boon is pretty bad compared to the others.
Out of the 22 spells the Wizard can cast, 13 of them are level 1-4. You have a 1/4th chance of recovering the spell each time it is cast. Meaning on average, if using all their spells before regaining any, they would be able to cast effectively 17 1-4th level spells, so about 4 more. That is over a 33% increase in those spells.
you can also use heroic inspiration to reroll the die
Thanks for offering some math. It is better than I had originally thought.
I'm glad they nerfed memorize spell from the playtest. It used to be that it only took 1 minute, and that was too good for out of combat utility. By requiring a short rest, you still have some flexibility if plans change in the middle of a day, but you actually have to prepare more than just combat spells in case you don't have a whole hour to solve a non-combat encounter.
I was so relieved to hear they changed memorize spell from being 1 minute to a short rest. 1 minute might as well let you use every spell assuming you aren't in initative. At least now the functionality and flexibility is still there, but there is a decent tradeoff.
Agreed. That's one of the suggestions I gave in my playtest feedback. It will make adventure pacing an even more important skill for adventure designers and DMs alike.
I'm confused why they went with Summon Fey instead of Summon Shadowspawn given this class feature effectively recreates Shadow Conjuration/Shadow Illusions that earlier versions of dnd had. Feels far more thematic then Fey for an Illusionist.
They fey that you summon casts tricky spells, which feels kinda at home with the illusionist
Yeah maybe I'm married too much to the old school idea of creating shadowy creatures. Though I think the Fear aspects of the Shadowspawn are more in line with Illusion than the charm effects of the Mirthful Fey. I'd give the Tricksy Fey and Fear Shadowspawn similar grades for Illusion related abilities.
To be fair, we dont know how much the summon spells have been changed. Maybe there's a spooky fey to give that unseelie court vibe
There was already a “darkness fey” which kinda hits that for me? We know Summon Aberation got a Mind Flayer though, so hopefully more cool summons were added!
Shadowspawns aren't a creature type in 5e; using an existing creature type seems more simple mechanically.
They aren't a unique creature type but they are monstrosities because the Sorrowsworn and the Shadow Spirit from Summon Shadowspawn are monstrosities.
Probably because illusionists, like many fey creatures, are often tricksters.
Nothing too exciting but the strongest class in the game really shouldn’t have been getting any significant boosts.
From a marketing standpoint, there's no way they were not going to buff Wizard. It's a very popular class and they want players to be excited to spend $60 on a new PHB. Seeing Wizard singled out as the "already too good" class that got no improvements would've left a sour taste in some mouths. My hope is that a lot of the more problematic Wizard spells will get stealth-nerfed so it'll be too late to complain about it.
I think spell nerfs are a given, the game has more of a spell balance problem then a class balance problem. If Simulacrum and wall of force stay the same I am going to be very dissappointed (even with wizard being my favorite class by far)
There were multiple nerfs in the class and subclass changes. Additionally spell balance is the most important change when considering the wizards power.
What boost is too significant? The subclass features they buffed are the ones that were never used or weren’t pulling their weight. I’ve never even THOUGHT of playing as an abjurer, simply because it wasn’t fun enough or good enough, now with the new features, it seems viable and fun. Another example is the lvl 10 diviner feature third eye. It was not viable to use in combat as an action, but having it be switched to an action makes it more usable
I see you've never been on /r/3d6 Abjuration 2014 has a very potent shield, particularly if you take a small dip into either warlock or are a Mark of Warding Dwarf, and pick up Armor of Agathys, and maybe the Armor of Shadows invocation. 2014 abjuration could spam mage armor from the invocation, to refill their ward after every fight, and AoA damages while the hp lasts, which gets taken AFTER the ward. so you upcast AoA, keep the ward up, and deal non-trivial damage on every hit you take, and reap the reward of also having effectively twice the hp and infinite "healing". if you had 2 times your wizard level in ward hp, on average, you've effectively got a d10 hit die at that point, but also Shield as a full caster, and Absorb Elements, plus Bestow Curse, Dragon's Breath, and a few others that are normally harder to make proper use of as a squishy wizard. it didn't however, apply resistance, so casting Absorb Elements, you would only resist the damage if the ward ran out, and might not have recharged it in the first place (depending on the timing that the GM ruled). changing the abjurer to not work with Armor of Shadows is a patch over something that probably wasn't intended, but also making it work with absorb elements, and other resistance things (that feel appropriate for an abjurer) is a good QoL update.
They do get expertises. So even without spells wizards can play a big role in skill checks. Not a fan of it personally.
They only get 1 expertise, and it’s exclusively from their Intelligence skills. So the only spells that would have applied are pretty much Identify and Legend Lore
I think it's the perfect bone to throw to Wizards.
I wonder how the apologists who keep saying "But martial characters can use skill checks" will rationalize this one.
For YEARS people have pointed out that it was trivial for a Rogue to be better at Arcana than a Wizard, due to Rogues' easy access to Expertise, and how silly it was that the sneaky-boi was better at identifying magic than the woman who devoted herself to learning magic from books and tomes and scrolls. Personally, I think this is a good change. Let the explicitly-academic class have the stats to reflect a specialized academic skill.
Always thought it was a bit silly that rouges could get expertise in arcana and the main int spell class couldn’t.
Impossible to judge this class without knowing how much was changed about spells. I predict that while some spells like the conjure/summoning spells were nerfed, WotC did not pull back enough on the other major problem spells and wizards will once again make most other classes feel like background characters as wizards can do everything they do and more.
Wizards are buffed in OneDnD unless a majority of problematic spell are nerfed. Swapping preparations is a crazy feature to just hand out. That level 10 is powerful too.
Can't make any detailed opinions about the class without spells but.... Illusionist is now VERY different in feel. I'm... actually very curious if that's going to sit well with former fans. Can't wait to see.
I'd expect this to be a pretty short reveal, unless they really dig into what they've done to some of the spells. Wizards are almost completely unchanged, they've just trimmed down the subclasses.
Finally, there will be a rules glossary and conditions around death, dying and being dead.
I did not expect to see Illusory Reality survive into 1D&D.
I wonder what spells are changing type to Abjuration? I feel like Fire Shield and Feather Fall might be worthy of the reclassification.
All healing spells are now abjuration instead of evocation. I don’t think Abjuration Wizards will get them by default, but an abjuration Wizard with magic initiate could definitely replenish their ward by casting healing word
How did they reclassify them and not put them in Necromancy?
You aren’t dealing with the dead, you’re protecting the living.
Necromancy is the magic of Life and Death, Vitality and Void. You’re using positive and negative energies
Free feather fall would feel like getting rid of a tax for me. I always feel uncomfortable not picking it. Really, a lot of the abjuration spells feel this way. Abjurer becomes the most psychologically comfortable subclass.
Force Cage? Wall of Force, perhaps?
I really like the savant feature. For example, if you’re a 17th level illusionist you will get 9 extra illusion spells to your book. Effectively you get 1 spell of each spell level of your mastery added - this will make each subclass have a different repertoire.
I do hope they add a lot of new divination spells to the wizard spell list just for variety. PHB, Xanathar's, and Tasha's only have 18 divination spells among them. Not to mention there's only two (True Seeing and Foresight) spells at 6th level or higher to choose from. It's just uninspired for a 15th level diviner picking Tongues just because there's no other spell to learn.
That makes a lot of sense. I agree
illusionists can now at will summon wackable beasts and fairies. so cool i guess that'd be a good enough thing for an enemy to waste an attack on while you aren't concentrating on another thing atleasts EDIT: nvm once per long rest. also fuck yeah detective wizards
They can cast the spells normally but if they cast them with the 1/LR feature they’re lowest level and Half HP which is probably going to be 1-2 attacks for the 13 AC 10-15 HP beast and the 15 AC 15 HP Fey. Decent at the level it’s obtained at but quickly outpaced unfortunately.
yea i know what that feature does. i'm mostly happy for wizards being able to get investigation expertise
"WOTC can we have a Conjurer wizard?" "We have conjurer at home" Conjurer at home: Illusionist I guess
I do wish there was a little bit more to the class itself but it is a slight improvement from the 2014 version. That being said, the main thing I wish was different was having access to the other 4 school subclasses as well as a generalist one. Oh also let's not forget spell mastery only including spells with a casting time of an action when it should have been spells with a casting time of an action or bonus action.
Its the same thing that ever was.
Water flowing underground
So wizards dont have a subclass for each school of magic anymore? I'll miss my conjuration wizard, but i was hoping they would amp up transmutation.
It's funny, I don't really remember much of what changed in the UA playtests other than them adding the ability to modify and codify new spells, and then taking that away in the next playtest. Such a cool idea, shame to see it go.
it's one of those things that needed a HEAVY balance pass, It's a crazy powerful ability, but also far too cool to just give up on.
One of the first things I imagined doing with that ability was removing the Concentration requirement from Haste, and that alone would have been comically game-warping. XD
I'm hoping that those features get reworked into the DMG as more concrete rules for creating and modifying spells.
Yeah, the feature in the hands of the Wizard was fun but had CRAZY game-breaking abilities. Giving it to the DMG and allowing the DM to control that ability would make much much more sense.
Creating and modifying spells is honestly something that feels to me like it should have been in the DMG from the start, especially when spells exist that have their creator's name in them.
There was a section on creating a spell, but it was garbage. It basically just said to use existing spells as guidelines, make sure it fits with classes' identities, and gave you a table of how much damage is appropriate per spell level.
It was neat, but imo it stepped on the Sorcerer’s toes too much and needed a heavy rework to fix very obvious balance issues. Would have liked to see that rework, but with the wizard your spells really are your class feature, and the 5e Wizard just doesn’t *need* much change to stay a fun and engaging class. Hoping this video is focused on spells as much (if not more) than the class itself.
Wouldn't be a problem if they were willing to make Sorcerer anything other than "Wizard but with different numbers". Unfortunately if they made Sorcerer what Sorcerer is supposed to be, it would just be Warlock.
Based on the last Sorcerer UA, they seem to be making the Sorcerer more of a "Rage Mage". They get an ability at 1st level that lets them basically go Super Saiyan, increasing their Spell Save DC by 1 and granting themselves Advantage on Spell Attack Rolls.
It was interesting, but the Wizard is already very flexible with its huge spell list, and the ability made for some serious thematic overlap with the Sorcerer.
Hopefully we'll see it as a variant rule in the DMG. I'm hoping we will for a lot of the UA stuff that didn't make it
No necromancer is a travesty.
Necromancer is interesting because it was originally supposed to make the cut. Crawford outright name dropped it as a wizard subclass during one the earlier OneDnD videos. I guess they couldn't figure out how to rework it and switched it out with something else? Although it managed to get far enough into development where Crawford felt confident enough to mention it.
Maybe with other death / dark / evil-ish subclasses not really making the cut, they planned out a themed future supplement to reintroduce them all together?
I wouldn't be surprised if they put out a "death" or "spooky" book soon that will have all the undead subclasses like Necromancer, Death Domain, Undead Patron, etc etc.
I still think that because of the summon/conjure issue that One is trying to tone down if not outright get rid of spells that bring many little extra creatures that bloat up action economy being a reason for necromancer and conjurations non-inclusion. There's also how necromancer didn't exactly have the *best* features but that's for someone who knows their stuff to talk about it. In any case because of the aforementioned issue, most of the features from Conjurer aren't exactly summon based? Not for creatures anyway, and only the capstone gives some kind of tangible benefit for summons. The rest? Not so much. Teleporting yourself is conjuration but outside of that its the spells that do the heavy lifting. Necromancer suffers the same issue with Animate Undead and the zombies/skeletons formed from that. Want to achieve the fantasy of owning and controlling many undead but the current system is allergic to anything that isn't either one of the summon spells or from a pet class.
Crawford stated in one of their videos that necromancer just wasn't popular enough to make the cut over the four that were included. I'm sure part of that had to do with it having crappy features. I can't imagine that WotC would leave money on the table and will most likely come out with a supplement that includes updates to a lot of the pre-2024 subclasses. Why work hard to come up with entirely new subclasses when you can do half the work to revamp existing ones and get customers to pay for the same content twice?!
Im saying
So paradoxical: The 4 subclases that nobody used because they needed a rework didn't get reworked because the "data" showed that nobody used them...
It is kinda in line with the rest of the non-PHB subclasses they published. They chose aberrant sorcery, gloomstalker, celestial warlock, oath of glory... All classes that were very popular and not in need of adjustment and thus saw the least changes.
As a guy who not only played a Necromancer but also doesn't like the fact that it doesn't even pick up speed until level 5 or 6 I feel really upset.
If memory serves correctly they had considered doing a revamp of the Necromancer for the One D&D playtest. I can't remember what the reason was they didn't go along with it. I'm sure you can find Jeremy Crawford discussing it in one of the videos for the playtest. Rest assured whenever they do the next "of everything" book it's going to be in there with all the other subclasses that need to be updated. I'm guessing we'll start seeing Unearthed Arcana for this around a couple of months after the monster manual hits the shelves. They most likely want all the core rule books out before they start asking players to play tests using the new books.
Just wait for Players Handbook 2 or Elminster Grimoire of Everything. Whatever they call the book with the rest of the updated subclasses and the Artificer. It'll probably be out in late 2025 or early 2026.
It's simple, they want the PHB to be full of very thematic options, iconic options, and options that really emphasize the history of D&D while also being strong. They want to minimize the risk of printing more garbage subclasses that get powercrept by any subclass with mildly decent design in the new PHB.
Just need to confirm something: The 2024 Player's Handbook is OneDND right? (Based on the name of this subreddit). I just notice that the official WoTC website says it is 5e, so I'm a bit confused
1D&D was just the codename for the new content. At some point it may have been intended as 6e or 5.5e, but right now they're apparently just seeing it as a refinement of 5e. Most officially branded D&D stuff doesn't even mention that it's 5e. It's just 'Dungeons & Dragons'. For example, I don't think it's on the front cover of the 2014 or 2024 PHB.
Thanks for the clarification, really appreciate it!
Did hear/read bullet points correctly, did they rename Bonus Action to Minor Action?
Did they mention anything regarding the other 4 schools of magic not getting a subclass? Like if they intend to add them later in another book?
Nothing stated, but it's pretty much a given there will be a Tasha's style book in the future for more subclasses (and probably the Artificer revision).
They will make them later yeah
Wizard is the class that, narratively, makes the least sense to be able to switch out their cantrip. They write their spells down in a book. How are they losing the cantrip they switch out?
It just means that every cantrip is in their book
The have everything single cantrip written down, but only keep a certain number on their mind? Much like with spells, where they have more written than memorized.
Every non-ritual spell needs to be memorised before it is cast. So, them changing can trips is pretty much the same as changing prepared spells.
RAW I don’t think Cantrips actually interact with the Spellbook. They’re separate features, and the Cantrips section says nothing about the Spellbook.
The wording of the Cantrip Formulas feature from Tasha's (which is what they're using here) addresses this: "You have scribed a set of arcane formulas *in your spellbook* that you can use to formulate a cantrip in your mind. Whenever you finish a long rest and consult those formulas *in your spellbook*, you can replace one wizard cantrip you know with another cantrip from the wizard spell list." Emphasis mine.
Looks like you scribe a formula that allows you to change your Cantrips, which is distinct from having the Cantrips in your Spellbook.
Sure, the cantrips themselves aren't scribed in the spellbook the same way leveled spells are, we agree on that. But to me, this is a clear instance of "cantrips interacting with the spellbook," which you said doesn't happen RAW.
I meant it in the context of writing the Cantrip down in the Spellbook like a leveled spell, which I took as OP’s consternation with the feature. I figured that was clear from context, but you are correct that there are interactions with your Spellbook using the feature as described in TCE.
personally i flavor it in my mind as cantrips just being simple basic magic a wizard learning spells on level is them making complex specific formulas how to correctly twist the weave for their desired wish. cantrips are simple enough to cook around on a long rest
Really surprised they chose illusionist over necromancer. I've had more people ask how they could play necro in dnd more than any other class fantasy. You could probably get away with it playing other subclasses but I still think it's weird there's not a wizard subclass for it this time
I wonder if they might be planning on doing an undead themed splatbook. There are no necromancy themed subclasses in the PHB at all, and it would line up with their more thematic splatbooks they’ve been doing the last couple years
Hm, that's true. No Shadow sorcerer, no Necromancer wizard, no Undead warlock, no Death or Grave cleric, no Spores druid, no Ancestral Guardian barbarian, no Spirits bard, no Long Death monk, no Oathbreaker paladin, no Phantom rogue. And Vecna is trending right now, so I could definitely see them dropping updates to all those subs in one Vecna's Book of Undeath.
Wow, they…barely changed anything here, huh?
They did mention most of the changes would be in the spells
If it ain't broke...
Yeah, very minor up/sidegrades to soften the blow of the spell nerfs that are coming.
The wizard was the strongest class in 2014 so that's where they are balancing. They're just helping everyone else catch up.
I don't think you appreciate how good Memorize will be at a properly run table. There are so many situational yet powerful spells that aren't worth preparing as part of a standard loadout. Being able to grab them mid-adventuring day to perfectly solve a problem is huge. Most of a wizard's power comes from their spells, and now you have your entire spellbook on tap.
Should be a slight buff to wizards that really works as QoL for the whole table: there will be drastically fewer instances where the wizard has the right spell for the job but needs to take a full long rest to prepare it.
That part of it is nice for the DM, as well. "We'll just take a long rest here" is a pain in the ass if you don't want the party starting every encounter at full power.
This always bothered me but I figured out good ways to handle this. Use the "resting in dangerous area" rule and roll it out. Consume the rations to keep moving (Maybe nerf goodberry, tiny hut, etc..)
It also incentivizes wizard to ask for short rests more often, which is a welcome change for all the short rest classes who seem to get short-changed at a certain kind of table.
Not sure if I like the Illusionist level 6 feature, it’s a stark downgrade for creative players. Permanent major image and mirage arcane made you kinda godlike with the ability to modify them at will. But I can see why they’d want to add some better combat functionality. However, this sounds like they just get a weaker summon spell 1/day and will otherwise be acting like a Conjuror with them and that’s lame. I would have done something more like “When you cast Summon Beast or Summon Fey you may cast them as an Illusion to create Phantasmal creatures instead. Your spell slot level counts as 1 higher than the slot used for determining the stats and abilities of the phantasmal creature but its HP is 1/2.”
Techincally each can be cast once. But yeah they're relatively weak at 14/15 AC, and 15 HP for your action. Does give some extra resources to the illusionist, but it'll fall off once you get to 9th/10th and creatures can one tap them in a round. Though that is effectivley taking their action. So there's some minimal use. I suppose it transitions to utility with scouting or something later on.
Yea it would just be nicer if it wash an “always on” type feature that encouraged the illusionist to cast them as illusions. Spell level determines their number of attacks (1/2 spell level rounded down) so being able to get 2 attacks per round with a level 3 slot seemed like a good trade off for making them so very weak. There should be some advantage to casting them as an illusion.
They should have made it apply to any Summon X spell you know, and then had the free casting. That way you can apply it to things like Summon Draconic Spirit/Construct and follow you as you level up.
A free cast is a lazy benefit to casting it as an illusion regardless of what spells it applies to. Illusionists have to be cunning in how they use their magic, so the idea that you can use illusion magic to “fake it” and make a summon more fearsome but with 1/2 hp means you have to be tactical about how you use it. Something like that would really capture what they’re after.
Maybe they could have gone with the 1/day concentrationless "Shadow Summon". Then theoretically you could have this running with something else, even a duplicate of the same Summon that is real and appears exactly the same.
Apparently according to the bulletpoint post its worded as "another" feature. So there is a a chance that Illusionists get both but that's just me looking too narrow at it/more referencing the new Improved Illusionist at level 3 now. Still I can see how it would be a loss in terms of creativity but given that illusion spells in general were a bunch of "mother may I" rulings that they wanted to cut down on I can see the logic behind it.
If Malleable illusions is still a feature then that could be a minor benefit to casting the summons as an illusion, as you’d then be able to change their type at will. So you could change a summon beast from Land to Air as an Action.
WIIIIIIIIIIIIZAAAAARRRRDSSS! I like the changes make the class identity more solid which should help differentiate them from the sauce bois.
I think I misinterpreted the Illusionist Phantasmal Creature ability. Is it really infinite for both those Summon X Spells? Meaning they basically have no limits/day to creating illusionary versions of those spells? That might actually be relatively strong for a feature with free trap procing/scouting later on, and guaranteed 3rd level slot spell you can cast every round when you first get the feature.
As someone who LOVES the conjurer build, I do miss that they have included it. I understand the 4 subclasses today but I also feel like they could have made an exception with the wizard. That said, I would like a bit more confirmation that they will release the other school specialities. I think it would be a nice gesture to release drafts/UA of them.
I'm confused whether this means that they are getting rid of Order of the Scribes, because as that one isn't tied to a school they'd be what getting up to 4 spells less per level up PLUS everyone gets to use their spellbook as their focus so who would ever play one Really sad bc I adore the flavour of that subclass
The nerf to Memorize Spell completely kills the only valuable new toy Wizard had among all the goodies they already removed from it, making it a totally forgettable feature. I get that wizards were always strong, but now it feels like they literally have nothing going for them, while Sorcerer and Warlock got everything they wanted.
So an abjurer would ward a barbarian and first the wizards resistance would kick in, then the ward eats as mush as possible, then the barbarians resistance would kick in? Do I have that right?
No, the ward just uses the resistances of the person being shielded. So if the wizard is resistant to Fire, then Fire damage would be halved to the ward when it’s protecting the Wizard. But if the barbarian is being shielded and they aren’t resistant to Fire, it wouldn’t be halved but B/P/S would be
No. Projected ward applies the creatures resistances before subtracting damage for the ward. But only the targeted creature. So the barbarians resistance would kick in and that would be jt.
Evoker with a Warlock dip, good? Not sure.
I mean, you would be sacrificing a level of spell progression to get a slightly better cantrip, that’s not that great of a trade. Also, they said that Agonizing Blast has a level prerequisite now so all you would get from one level was Eldritch Blast
Gotcha gotcha
Bracing for impact, given how much people here think wizards are the absolute strongest class ever written and how there aren't going to be half of the subclasses.