Just uploaded a new video where I build a Scribe Wizard from levels 1-20! Check it out here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6TVRwuIQV7c.html
I just want to clarify my understanding of something. Starting at level 2, if I find another spell book, I can make that my new spellbook and have all the spells in the new spellbook plus my old ones at no cost, correct?
@@quonomonna8126 Potentially yes if the new spellbook contains the exact same spells as the old spellbook. If there are different spells you will still have to pay the 50gp/2hrs per level of the spells
@@rmiller_nub but it wouldn't be 2 hours per level of the spell, its only 2 minutes with an order of the scribes wizard...plus I didn't see that stipulation when it talked about transferring your spell book to another spell book...if it has to have all your existing spells in it and you still have to pay to add the new spells, what's the point of transferring the spell book and why even add the feature? I think you're wrong
One of my favorte wizards was a Scribe, but I reskinned his spellbook as a deck of magical CCG cards so I flavored everything like it was MTG/Yugioh and in accodance with the Yugioh anime, I just made up rules as I went along. "I summon Iggy's Ice Knife, and trigger my Incendiary Rabbits to make it a fire-blade!" or "Ha, trying to cast at me? You just triggered my mind-trap! Counterspell!" It was great fun.
I'd just like to add that although the "eye" can't open doors, nothing is stopping the wizard from casting a unseen server or Mage hand, having that open the door and the eye/mind continues on its merry way. Or a knock (300 ft loud sound be damned I'm 330 feet away). And if someone comes to investigate great! Dominate person, fireball etc... u really have to think these things through guys...
wizardly quill has some edge case uses such as replacing chalk or whatnot that you might use to leave marks in a maze, deface something, recolor something. as its ink is magic you can even set harmless false positives for what few opponents might use detect-magic. might even be able to get deceptive with it if you can wave your feather in secret in order to back out of signed contracts
I really appreciate how dense your videos are so I’m glad that’s something you’re making a conscious effort to maintain. I’ve seen an endless number of dnd channels who put out videos on interesting topics that I’d be tempted to watch, only to indefinitely put off ever actually sitting down to watch them because I don’t have 40+ minutes to spare. Or even if I did have that time to spare, I’d rather not sit through the 3/4 of rambling to get to the meaty stuff that ends up being only 1/4 of the video.
Piercer Feat +Awakened Spellbook +Manifest Mind = Witch Bolt as 1d10 Piercing damage, reroll damage die, add a die on a critical. Another fun Feat is Telekinetic: have your Spellbook cast an invisible Mage Hand that can cause fights to break out!
Wizardry quill is so strong. Quick scribing means you can copy another wizards spellbook in a short rest. And being able to write on anything any color.
With materials on hand, one of your companions could distract a wizard in his labratory for 10 minutes and you could scribe 1 3rd level and 2 1st level spells of your choice without him even knowing. You could pickpocket a wizard, scribe a few spells out of their book, and then return it to them and probably be rewarded for your "good deed".
@@laneiee3547 not just concentration free. It’s intangible so the only way to get rid of it is kill you or dispel magic which isn’t a common ability for enemies. It’s nearly unkillable.
@ The bullet point which explains that the Quill provides free magical inks seems to imply that the primary monetary expense is already accounted for. Maybe you need to spend some money on a few unique components, but the magical inks - which has always been thought to be the most expensive component - is free.
Here's a piece of debate with your first take in this video that you might find interesting to think about--I'd wager that a lot of people who think Wizardly Quill is very strong are people who frequently have time crunch in game as a wizard. Players who require multiple sessions over weeks and weeks of game time to get the required amount of hours to copy over spells, because their game is designed or run in such a way that doesn't leave them many in-game days of downtime, would probably see a lot more inherent value in the ability. Such as myself, in my current game. I defeated an evil wizard once a month ago, in May. Since then, I've had the down time to copy two spells over from his spell book, just two. I understand that it's a busy period of time in the game, with constant travel and sleep cycles balanced around social and combat encounters alike, but it's been tough working towards the full thing, and requiring a mere 1.6% of that time would have really come in handy.
It also matters how many captured spellbooks you encounter! I've only captured one, and honestly didn't have much of an issue finding a few hours a day for transcription. I think an "adventuring day" is about 8 hours of work (as per travel rules where more than 8 hours of travel starts gaining exhaustion levels), so there is about 8 hours of "playtime" per gameday that is often just waved away, but can be leveraged if you ask the DM about it and really sit down to determine how much of your 24-hour day is devoted to adventuring. If it's 16 hours, that's pretty unrealistic and harsh, IMO. More than 8 hours of overland travel starts to add exhaustion levels, and I think adventuring should be approximately the same level of exertion.
imo it'll be cool to combined awakened spellbook with piercer/slasher, scorching ray and assassin/hold person or monster. scorching ray to magical piercing on auto-crits gives you additional 1d6 per ray. scorching ray to magical slashing on auto-crits allows you to spread your rays around providing disadvantage to attack rolls to multiple enemies. as usual tempest clerics can also turn that scorching ray to multiple pushes if you transmute to lightning.
Manifest Mind + Tiny Hut? Cast TH well before a fight, let your party scout who was inside with you when you cast it lure enemies to you, then you cast to kill them via the MM, without leaving the dome or having your spells blocked by trying to cast through the dome.
I had that idea! You can also use the spell book to quicken the ritual cast time if you need to- another use it to place it in a door way/choke point in a dungeon- one way road block.
Great video and excellent list! You can also get Psychic damage at 3rd level from Intellect Fortress, Force at 4th level from Dimension Door, and concentration free resistance to any damage type from Fire Shield cast at the appropriate level.
The role play scenarios can range from really badass to thematic to really chaotic. Here are some of my favorite concepts. Dragons Breath + Cloud of Daggers: Woman shouting knives meme. (I should point out that familiars can benefit from breath weapons). Fireball + Erupting Earth: Zhongli’s Burst from Genshin Impact. *I WILL HAVE ORDER* Investiture of Wind + Circle of Death: Floating Boy Chasing Running Boy meme while chucking blobs of necrotic darkness.
Just found your channel and I must say I'm really impressed with your consideration for your viewers that you have shown in the intro, absolutely earned a sub
I would say that the quil isn't that niche. Given that almost all of the mainstream modules give very little down time. So when you defeat that enemy wizard and get his spell book 2min per level of spell is a god sent. I like to give my players powerful 3rd party spells as treasure but it is hard to stop the flow of the campaign just so they can have quiet time to copy a few spells.
For this subclass, I’d suggest using the Kenku race for the mimicry trait. Then, pair that with linguist feat for being able to understand other languages to learn spells. Finally, I’d recommend the “Rune Carver” background from Bigby presents “Glory of the Giants”, implying that you can use runes to create spell scrolls for your tomes.
I think the Wizardly Quill depends on the DM. My main question concerning it is how it interacts with the optional rule for scribing scrolls. I don't think it's mentioned in the base feature information *because* scribing scrolls is an optional rule. To me, it makes no sense that I can write a spell into my spellbook that much faster, but it doesn't impact my speed of scribing a scroll.
I look at it as a spell in a spellbook being the source code of a program. It explains how the spell works, what is required, and how to cast it. A spell scroll on the other hand, is an executable of the program. You pretty much just have to double click for it to work. That's why copying a spell from a scroll requires an arcana check; you're reverse engineering the source code from the exe. It's also why scribing a scroll isn't as fast as copying a spell: it doesn't matter how fast you can decipher and copy a source code, you need time to compile.
the 10th level feature impacts your speed scribing a scroll.... read the features... "You are also adept at crafting spell scrolls, which are described in the treasure chapter of the Dungeon Master's Guide. The gold and time you must spend to make such a scroll are halved if you use your Wizardly Quill." you literally get this feature at level 10, like... wut...
I didn't notice until just now that the quill lets you copy spells in only a few minutes. Now I'm picturing a wizard browsing the local magic item shop and just stealthily copying stuff into his spellbook instead of buying the scroll lol. Sure, it destroys the scroll, but what does he care? He's not the one trying to sell them.
I tend to agree with Indestructoboy and Treantmonk that it's a subclass that is both powerful AND flavorful. There are hundreds of enemies in 5e that have resistance or immunity to damage and the game is built so high damage spells like Fireball and Meteor Swarm are resisted by or do no damage at all to many higher powered enemies, like Fiends, some of which are downright immune to fire and resist cold and lightning and hundreds of enemies have resistance and immunity to poison for example. Just taking Fireball and preparing it at level 5 and putting Spirit Shroud in your spell book solves a lot of problems for you, permanently. If upcasting Firewall to 4th or 5th level is an option that you are interested in you can put two spells in your spell book and be set for all the blasting you want until higher levels. You can even get Scorching Ray and put Cloud of Daggers in your spell book and be able to selectively target with the Scorching Ray doing a better damage type! A well timed Water Breathing cast without the added ten minutes may save you from drowning in the right campaign! And the Manifest Mind opens up options for remote access and casting. You can have a Sleet Storm and the Manifest Mind on the other side of it watching your enemies and targeting them while they can't see through the Sleet Storm. Similarly Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum can block vision in and out and make Divination and Teleportation impossible for enemies but the Manifest Mind sees for you and again can cast spells. You have to ask your DM regarding several spells like Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Wall of Force, Forcecage, Prismatic Wall and so on but for several like Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice and so on you can have a way to block enemies from seeing you while you see and attack them. You occasionally get to see them and realize you are overmatched and have an orderly retreat. I really think of Scribes Wizard as a pet class and compare the indestructible and unkillable Manifest Mind to other pets and find it generally better than a Wildfire Spirit or Hound of Ill Omen or something a Warlock can use as a familiar. The damage swapping makes fighting even tough enemies like Fiends more manageable.
I think people also like the quill for RP reasons .. mark your way in a dungeon with symbols and colors, write up contracts with the quill and you get signed with a real quill and then brush away the scribe and write something new (you already have the signature) opposite to that .. sign a contract, wave the feather (maybe a little slight of hand check) and signature disappears. The cost and time of copying a spell to your book is based on the need to collect special inks, but the quill requires no ink (arcane focus eliminates most all material components so the practicing Material component (if it has one) is taken care of for free. I think this is the controversy. Do you still need the special Inks? (50gp/level or 0gp/level to copy with quill)
I think your point of the DM helping you with more spells does apply. I am currently playing this subclass pure for thematics as my wizard is a member of Candlekeep so him being an order of Scribe Wizard made total sense. Now I do think I bamboozled my DM a bit. we had a quest where we had to save an ambushed wizard and i found his spellbook (he was an 8th lvl caster) and decieved him into believing we didnt actually find his spellbook. So now my lvl 3 wizard has the spellbook of a lvl 15 or 16 wizard with more than 8000 gold worth of spell levels in the book. Now this is going to be great for me to fuel my abilities but without this i would not be able to pick spells to change my damage type at all. now i just need to make some gold as i haven't even got 50 gold to my name Edit: I do think my guy would have been able to learn spells of this guy anyway but I just rolled a nat20 -1 deception contested by a 12 insight check so i just got lucky.
I play some evil characters sometimes, and Order of Scribes Wizard seems to me to be an amazing option for those of a more nefarious and cunning sort. I'm imagining playing something like...with the new build options, take Skilled Expertise at level 1 with expertise in Stealth, and with some decent DEX. At 4th level, Metamagic Adept, taking Extend and Subtle. Now we have a wizard that can do some incredible hiding tricks, using skill and extended illusion spells to keep themselves safe as well as to limit how many slots have to be used defensively, leaving them the rest to go after their targets at a distance too with the Manifest Mind ability. (Got me thinking about Light in Death Note haha! Killing from a distance, using your book, and leaving no evidence behind!)
I have played the Scribes Wizard now for a long time. I will say that each subclass provides something the others do not and your enjoyment of the subclass often will go hand in glove with your ability to envision how to use those abilities in game. I am huge Harry Dresden fan so I roleplay my spellbook exactly like Bob the skull. Throws people off at times. But you know it's fine piece of fluff that I enjoy just for enjoyment sake. No mechanical advantage to it. I often will make an arcana check and pretend that Bob is providing me the information as he is an ancient soul that knows more magic than I do. I don't give myself advantage like the help action I just roleplay it that way. It's fun. However, I also use those abilities. The extra spell per day has come up from time to time. I like enlarge / reduce so I often make that my scroll. Lately though I have been using Vortex Warp, which, happily enough, benefits from the free level up. But man, being able to change damage types is clutch especially as we are in avernus. Fireball made of force coming right at ya. Radiant Cloudkills. And a Prismatic Wall where the damage on each level is force. Oh man. That is fun. And yeah, I sometimes use manifest mind to reach around a corner and blast someone but really I just love changing that damage type. The 14th level ability doesn't come up much but it has come up. I got targeted with 2 fingers of death. Would have killed me but Bob jumped in front of me and took it. ;- ) Yeah, Scribes is cool.. I especially love it when I do come across a scroll and the dm tells me "well, you can add it to your spellbook but you have to do that in downtime" and my response is "that would be true for a lesser wizard" LOL. Fun subclass
HOLY HELL DUDE what is your audio setup?! Your voice came through cleaner and clearer than RU-vid channels with 1 million subscribers. Seriously, what kind of mic do you have?! The powergaming was pretty sweet too, thank you for that
I played around with a Blue Yeti in my first videos, and also have a Tonor, but it was super sensitive and created this massive hiss that I couldn't remove entirely in editing. So I stopped using it and now I just use the mic on my phone, which is what I shoot these on (Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra). Kinda funny but I don't really need all this stuff I bought for the channel like my GoPro Hero Black and Blue Yeti, lol.
if you dipped to use shields, you don't need to carry the book, it just needs to be on your person for manifest mind. If you want to carry a staff and shield (assuming staff is your focus instead of the book) I don't think it's really an issue. Also, I'm playing a scribe wiz in my current campaign, discovered 2 spell books and took a short rest, so I copied loads of lvl 1 and 2 spells in that time since they took 2 and 4 mins each respectively.
Dwarven scribe here , use my race and you get up to medium armor and multiple weapon proficiencies plus poison resistance, and don’t forget the great con bonus !!!!!
The reason the quill is controversial is because it’s DM/campaign-dependent, so it has a huge variance ranging from utterly useless to potentially game changing. There’s also a bit of ambiguity regarding whether the quill eliminate or reduce the gold cost of copying spells, which is again DM/campaign-dependent (for the record RAW I read it as it does not). Speaking of ambiguity, it’s also not clear to me how spells with continuous effects interact with Manifest Mind. All it says is you can CAST the spell as if you are in that space. So what happens if I am say, Cleric 5 Scribe 6 and cast Spirit Guardians through the Manifest Mind? I dunno...it’s weird. Edit: Wizard spells only so no SG but the point stands. RAW it reads to me that Witch Bolt could auto-fail as soon as you cast it if the target is out of range.
Sorry I missed this comment for so long! Yes, MM defnitely calls for a talk with the DM about its limitations and such, a lot of this is currently ambiguous. I presume spells use the MM as the "caster" in terms of range and effect, but YMMV.
Lovely video. Happy I stumbled upon this. Earned a new sub. When I saw that you listed the new summon spells from Tasha's as sources of damage types for Awakened Spellbook I had to check the comments to see if there was backlash. I was part of a very frustrating debate on DnDBeyond about the legality of doing such. Very happy to see that seems to be a non issue. I'm curious how you feel about the legality of switching damage types for spells that do not deal damage. Awakened Spellbook never mentions the spell having its damage type being swapped needing to deal damage, and the rules on defining spell to damage type relationship are basically non-existent. The big synergy here is changing the immunities you get through Tasha's Otherworldly Guise. Adding Investiture of Stone allows you to curate immunities between 7 different types, including bludgeoning, piercing and slashing. If this is a legal use for the ability, I think it ends up scaling quite well into later levels. I personally think Manifest Mind is straight up broken. A concentration-free Arcane Eye (close enough in function) that doesn't use concentration, is a conduit for spells, and is free to use once and "recharges" with any level spell slot. At level 6. I really like your analysis of the sub, but I disagree with your conclusion. I think this class could be in the running for top 3 wizard subs (alongside diviner and chronurgist) if its only ability was manifest mind. Every time I come back to thinking about it, my mind is blown a little more. Using MM to get around casting times of 1 minute or longer for combat purposes has crazy potential. Glyph of Warding is my favorite, especially with Leomund's Tiny Hut to set up a surprise fortress in the middle of an enemy encampment. There's a reason it's so hard to cast that spell in combat. Sorry for the wall of a comment, this sub fascinates me. Loved the vid. Excited to watch more of your content.
Thanks, glad to have you on board! I really appreciate the lengthy comment, many thanks. Note that the following is said in a jovial, light-hearted tone (I get a little analytical at times and then people seem to think I'm upset or something, lol). Regarding Awakened Spellbook, it seems to me that you can replace damage from attack spells but not immunities from defensive spells, the way the spell is written (i.e. replacing "its damage type" seems to make sense when applied to attack damage but not when applied to defense damage... just my intuitive interpretation). It's ambiguous enough that I wouldn't protest any DM interpretation though, and would love to get a clarification from JC, because if it also applies to immunity types, my impression of the subclass would drastically improve. In regards to Manifest Mind, I do get a lot of pushback from people who are very impressed with it. But the real deal is that there is one small problem with MM and two huge ones: The small one is that people just ignore me when I point out that the fact that it glows makes it virtually useless as a scout relative to your familiar, so this "it's a quasi-Arcane Eye!" stuff is extremely misplaced. But that doesn't make it untrue, sorry, folks. The marginal value of MM over your familiar as a scout is very low. As an economist I am trained to look only at marginal value in an opportunity cost analysis (because total value is often misleadingly impressive). Big one #1 is tactical: I ALREADY PLAY a nigh-invincible Hide Wizard and do literally everything that people brag that MM can do, except I don't need the MM. I already just drop spells from complete and total safety while they wreck things, and see no reason why including the MM in this chain of events would improve matters. In fact, the opposite, because it's like drawing line ABC when line AC is just as good if not shorter! Inefficient, as I see it, again because of low marginal value due to high opportunity cost. The best thing about MM is its ability to cast 1 minute and 10 minute spells relatively safely, if the enemy can't retreat and can't Dispel the MM. But how often is that going to happen, realistically? Campaign dependent, to be sure, but the answer in my own campaign is "basically never." (Which, as a metaphysical aside, means that I see MM as a trap just like Awakened Spellbook. AS tempts you into a bad blasting playstyle, and MM tempts you into a playstyle that you don't need it for. And you can't ignore that the level 10 and 14 powers are just terrible, I think, even though you claim MM is enough by itself. The fact is that Rope Trick works whether you have MM or not, and that's 99% of the combo. So when the only 2 "good" abilities of a subclass are traps, I really don't see the appeal.) Big one #2 is metaphysical: Imagine 1000 tables where the party's plan A is for the Scribe Wizard to send in his MM to wreck things safely from distance while no one in the party is threatened. I'm going to guess that in at least 800 of those the other party members aren't going to be too happy with just twiddling their thumbs most battles. Meaning that... 1. they're going to engage anyway, and then you're going to need to be somewhat close to them so you can back them up if you run out of MM spells or it's dispelled, which means you're not going to be 300' away. And now, invoking marginal utility, we're forced to recall that your Phantom Steed has a 200' per round movement (you ARE on a Phantom Steed, right?), which means you're kiting from that distance anyway without needing to use MM. So it's basically a showy way to replace a 3rd level Ritual Spell, yet people say this holds up against Portent, Chronal Shift, or Bladesong? I must disagree, sorry. And... 2. the DM will just naturally starting crafting his encounters such that you can't use the MM to disrupt party harmony in this way, meaning one will in practice get only a fraction of the value it gets in theory (if one disregards my tactical objection above that it offers only total value and little marginal value). I think fans of MM are assuming a very favorable DM and party PC response to this that isn't actually all that likely to manifest. So yeah, I have considered all of the counterarguments that I've encountered, but find them unpersuasive when viewed in terms of opportunity cost and marginal value, and stand by my opinion in regards to the subdomain as a whole and MM in particular. However, despite my personal opinions about the subdomain, I did try to optimize it in another video, so I'd be curious to see what you think of it! Thanks again for your substantive engagement!
Wow what a well structured and thought out response. Thank you. Don't worry, I'm not one of the many on the internet that confuse passionate and well argued opinions with personal affronts. On Awakened Spellbook: After doing research I could find virtually nothing on how the game defines damage types and how they pertain to spells. And again, awakened spellbook makes no claim for the spell being cast needing to deal damage. I think that it was most likely their intent to have it only effect spells that deal damage, I just think the scribes wizard touches on some rules interactions they never had to worry about before and therefore don't have strict guidelines on. I also think the verbiage on this and manifest mind is alarmingly open and vague at points. I agree this feature is mostly a trap that promotes a suboptimal style, but if it enables double immunity through Guise then that is a different story. You could be immune to most of an encounter in many situations. On Manifest Mind: I understand the light makes the mind worse at stealth, but I still think it makes a good scout. The mind is crazy hard to interact with. If an enemy caster is wasting a dispel on it talk about a favorable exchange. Not only is it hard to interact with but how many enemies will realistically be familiar with what it is? Will they know that it means an enemy wizard is somewhere nearby scouting them out? I doubt it. Some enemies may retreat, but some may flock around the mind. Perfect for setting up an AOE trap. Getting enemies to evacuate an area can be a tactical boon as well. I don't think find familiar makes MM redundant, I think it makes it better. You can scout with the familiar and find the perfect opportunities to send in the mind. You can scout in two directions by sending out both at once. If your table is okay with you scouting with the familiar ahead of the party on a regular basis, then using MM to engage enemies first is not much of a stretch. That being said, I think your criticisms of MM promoting a play style that will rub players and DMs wrong is spot on. Not every campaign will be friendly to such tactics, especially if they are used ad nauseum. I'm ignoring that as an issue to try and understand what is possible with the class. But, it's probably the biggest thing standing in the way of Manifest Mind being used to its fullest. I certainly wouldn't subject my table to this kind of gameplay. Campaign tempo is definitely another issue. Having time to scout things out is not a given. I just don't think that means strong scouting options (of which I hold MM as one) lose their value. As for the higher level scribe abilities, yes they are not good. Even though I'm an optimizer at heart I tend to not care what wizard abilities look like past 10. Their power curve is not linear, and I'm fine with the world bending a wizard can get up to with its spells alone at those levels. I'll have to check out your Scribes build video. @@Bilbrons-and-Dragons
How about this for a good use of Master Scrivener? You have a spell that you like to cast everyday in preparation for the day's adventuring like Mage Armor or Nystul's Magic Aura. But, it really irks you that you have to expend a spell slot to do so. Just make a scroll and cast it that way instead. You've prepared and still have all your spell slots.
1:45 unless someone is getting into the spelljamming business and wants to start compiling and exchanging spell sets from different cultures planes and planets. then you might find a scribes wizard stationed on any particular exploration ship your party happens to book passage on. rear line npc ally in a pinch, vehicle for exposition regardless
Quill is very DM based. Most of the games I've been in there have been no chances to copy spells. The DM does not introduce any NPC wizards nor do they have any spellbooks lying around to copy from. So quill would be useless. If the DM introduces spellbooks then it becomes a big thing.
The weakest of the subclass’s features imo is master scrivener. It’s basically just a bonus spell slot that you have to predetermine the spell. That’s pretty weak at that point imo.
A year later ... but nobody can answer this: can the scribe use a protection spell to change damage of an offensive spell? For example 2nd level protection from energy to change the damage of a scorching ray?
Finally somebody on my side. Took like 6 scribe wizards videos.😅 and you finally sold me on the 6th level feature. I always thought like using it like a drone strike but the summon demon is a great idea. Subscribed :)
Treantmonk now considers the Scribe to be the second most optimal Wizard tradition (and the most optimal which isn't broken). Here is his breakdown: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gXhK1UDsOsA.html
@@tantalus_complex yeah am subscibed as well. Still not agreeing. :) i dont how your party is but when solbody who plays the party tank actually stands in the door and tanks i am already joyfull. The scenario that the whole party sits around and waits while i drone strike is ridicolous? Even if they do i imagine the dm counter measuring this tactic else the game becomes boring for everybody? All the other things i agree are not bad but i dont like the flavor. Even change damage type can be usefull but could aslo be useless if you dont meet resistances and you must play a blaster which i think also treantmonk showd the math how suboptimal that in itself is? ;)
@@CaitSith87 Yeah, I'm not a fan of the drone strike idea, except perhaps for rare edge cases. Very much agreed there. On the other hand, I do really like the flavor of this subclass. Perhaps part of the reason is that I have a background in professional literary criticism, so the book nerd shtick feels very comfy.
@@tantalus_complex yeah i love the flavor. I find the phb subclasses far to specific. I play a wizard for the magic and i feel like this is the first subclass with this idea behind. But to be honest i prefer the forst iteration the lore master. Not so a fan of the speaking book eventhough i like the litrpg which they probably read while creating this subclass. Dakota krouts bibliomancer. The original story ritualist (completionist chroncles) is far better in my opinion.
@@CaitSith87 Bibliomancer was only released in 2019. Given the half-century of D&D history in which sentient spellbooks have been a thing, I would suspect that Bibliomancy was more likely inspired by D&D than the other way round. In fact, in 2011, a D&D Forgotten Realms book, called "Brimstone Angels," featured the same concept.
I noticed that you had Necrotic damage as a type for Wish. I know Wish can replicate any spell but it does not have necrotic damage in its spell description. I would like to know your reasoning for this. Thanks.
The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell.
Very good video. Lots of great info ideas. I may have misheard but did you say the quill was better than Portent? Misty step cast from a scroll makes it an action so it becomes worse cast that way. I really like your damage over time explanation. That alone would have made the video worth watching. Thanks for all you do?
Yes, I meant "Savant", lol (I did put a brief correction on the screen as I said it). Misty Step doesn't lose its bonus action cast just because it's a scroll... As per Sage Advice, you can even cast reactions with scrolls! Thanks for your engagement and support! :-)
Great video dissecting the intricacies of the Scribe Wizard. One question though, so I understand you chose spells like Witch Bolt and other damage over time abilities to make efficient use of Manifest Mind, but I’m curious on the interaction for spells like Breath Weapon. Since the RAW ruling is a bit vague on this, how would you tackle this issue, since Manifest mind allows you to cast spells originating from the book as if you were there. Would you be able to cast Breath Weapon on yourself with the book as the origin and use the the action of Breath Weapon from the book while concentrating? Would this ruling just be up to the DMs discretion or is there some concrete interpretation to this?
It's less a dip either way and more a build but what about 9 arcane trickster 6 scribes wizard to use manifest mind and magical ambush for automatic advantage?
You could pop your manifest mind out in the middle of an enemy group and then just start blasting AOE spells at close range. Or deploy it behind an enemy and use life drain or paralysing touch
I really dig these tactics. I believe that Order of Scribes is basically the Wizard's wizard. It fits the theme of the class and is right now my favorite. Thanks for this. Any thoughts on the optimizing Genie Warlock?
I just stumbled across your channel. I like the screens you do with spells by damage type and synergies. Might be cool to link a download option for that type of thing. I'm looking to build one of these and that would be a handy print out.
Something you missed, dimension door says you take force damage if you teleport inside an object so you can replace 4th level spells with force damage.
I don’t think wizardly quill is a real strong ability. It’s just better than the equivalent Savant abilities. And it does play into the One With the Word ability. What makes this a strong class truly is Manifest Mind. You can impact the battlefield without being anywhere near the danger. And you can also use it if you are near combat and get blinded by a fog cloud or something.
I would say no because the target of a teleport spell is the caster (which is why these spells can bypass "line of effect"), so casting it from the MM space would only teleport the MM and not the caster. But your DM may think otherwise, of course.
There is a raging debate on the Beyond forum regarding this interaction. As stated the spell would work as a 330’ teleport but the RAI definitely would make this not the case as a 330 teleport without line of sight is pretty potent for a second level spell. As a DM I play by the “rule of cool” and feel this is well within how the feature is written. You want to teleport your wizard with squishy HP and low AC 330 feet from any support? Have at it.
Wizardly Quill would be fine if the intent behind it was consistent and fully fleshed out. Scribes don't get all the cool advantages that other wizards get with their natural affinities for evocation, illusion, necromancy, etc. What they ARE good at is learning things better than anyone else. They learn so fast that they can learn in minutes what other wizards need hours for. They can eschew the need for 'fine inks' cos they've got a Rita Skeeter Quill that has infinite ink in whatever color you want that you can actually erase with afterward. One would think that if they can learn a spell as fast, they're running simulations of how the reagents and components will react in their heads based on previous research. Employing mnemonic methods to memorize and learn to the degree that experimentation to master a spell THAT FAST wouldn't only be unnecessary, but logistically impossible in the field. But apparently you still need 50g per level for fine inks and materials so you can scribe a new spell in your super duper awakened spell book. Why? You don't need the ink. You'd still have to learn the things in your down-time to pay the 50g to buy, or otherwise collect the material components you need for 'experimentation & mastery' of the spell in question. Why should the 50G per level still be necessary when clearly the intent of the quill was to be able to scribe spells in the field in a hurry? At best, for the moment, all the ability to scribe spells quickly is good for is writing the spell down physically. Unless you have an artifact that provides all the mats you ever need any time, and the money, you still have to do the other required parts in town where you can pay for the privilege of doing something you can already do yourself better than any other kind of Wizard in the world. You scribe better than anyone else. You are a SCRIBE. And one thing, stereotypically that archivists are not is RICH. If the money and material requirement is still there, the ability to learn fast offers zero utility. WotC didn't actually bother to say whether there's still a spell cost involved for Scribes when learning spells. When they were playtesting it, they played around with the cost being halved for Scribes in the Unearthed Arcana. But in Tasha's Cauldron of Knowledge where this class is officially rolled out, any mention of spell learning costs is ignored entirely. Which if you're playing with Rules as Written, defaults you to 50g Per Level like in the Wizard class description in the PHB. Which with a Scribe's abilities or brief, makes no sense.
Hi. I know it's been a while but.. If you're learning faster than every other wizard you probably need to make more, faster, testing, so, you don't need the ink but you need more material for experimenting with the spell, because you don't have actually the time to deduce things by pure reasoning, you just go for trial and error. Also, WotC removed the gold reduction for balance purposes, the subclass is really really strong already, reducing the gold cost for every school of magic would be overkill.
I was thinking of ways to sneak the Manifest Mind into a building, and wreck baddies inside from a safe distance. Now, it can't pass through objects so it almost needs to be escorted by a physical party member to get a door or window open (or smashed open). This is a downside, but also the fact that the mind produces dim light is also pretty conspicuous. But then I thought about placing the mind inside of an opaque container, like a small box, or a pot, or something that traps the light in. Presumably, the mind can't really move of the wizard's own accord because you can't see anything outside the container, and it's trapped within the confines of the container. However, someone could carry the container to a building, and either open it inside or deliver it as a "gift" without any passersby suspecting foul play. You might say "Well, technically the mind may only move under the wizard's power, toward a space it can see." That's fine. Write the word "FRONT" on the front face of the box it's in. That mark represents the direction the box will be carried. And the mind can easily see within the confines of the box's space, as it produces light and has darkvision anyway. The wizard will continually move the mind towards that mark, as much as it's able to, keeping up with the carrier's movement up to 30 feet at a time. At worst, the movement might be a little stilted and awkward, but it should get the job done. If you're delivering the box as a package, or knocking on the door and leaving it on the doorstep, then the wizard will listen for when someone finds it and picks it up. Now, it's time to move in the opposite direction, away from the "FRONT" marking. After all, when someone receives a package, they take it, turn around, and head back the opposite way (assuming the receiver doesn't randomly rotate the box needlessly, but even so an observant wizard with decent sense of direction could compensate for this on the fly as they watch the rotations from within). If they set the box down and stop moving, no problem, you can't move outside the box by accident if you overshoot the movement, so you can take some time to listen in on what people are saying in the vicinity. And when the box does get opened, you can let loose with whatever spells you want, or opt to dismiss the mind if the situation warrants.
The Mind is intangible. I wonder whether it is possible for ANY external force of physics to move or guide its movement directly. And the Scribe can't even move it faster than 30 ft. - no matter what, RAW. I expect this was intended as the balancing factor of the feature.
You forgot to include cantrips in the type changer. A lorehold moon marked elf can have a ton of cantrips at lvl2 for example thamaturgy minor illusion sacred flame fire bolt sword burst and ray of frost/mind sliver. This lets you retype them all around so u can have your firbolt be force or radient or psychic this is really useful.
Requires a Spell Slot to be used for the altering of the damage type making cantrips unable to benefit from this feature. If that were the case this would be extremely overpowered in nature.
What are your thoughts on a two level dip in tempest domain cleric for its channel divinity ability to maximize thunder and lightning damage in conjunction with the scribes ability to change the damage type? It also gives you heavy armor proficiency and access to limited healing. The ability scores are a little MAD, but with point buy and the new custom lineage you can get Str 13 Int 18 Con 12 Wis 13 Dex 10 and Cha 10 while taking the telekinetic feat for additional battlefield control
I love Cleric dip for wizards and that one makes a lot of sense with a blasting oriented subdomain like OoS, for sure. I, myself, have 2 level Trickster Cleric dip on Bilbron Bafflestone!
For this subclass, I’d suggest using the Kenku race for the mimicry trait. Then, pair that with linguist feat for being able to understand other languages to learn spells. Finally, I’d recommend the “Rune Carver” background from Bigby presents “Glory of the Giants”, implying that you can use runes to create spell scrolls for your tomes.
