The ritual text is specifically seperated out not because it gives them the ability to cast rituals but because: Everyone can cast ritually now but wizards can ritually cast spells without having them prepared which is very much a special feature of the wizards spell book that people new to the class could and would miss (or in my case read this ritual feature first, and think that was how ritual casting worked for years to then later realise that Clerics should not have access to that many rituals while still keeping their full combat suite).
I was going to say this exactly. It is a very key feature and important for them to address it the way they did. It is one of the things that makes Wizards unique, so it is great that it was clarified in the new PHB.
I'd rather they change the nature of ritual casting to emphasize difference in utility. The big problem with DnD overall is that spell selections, spell slots, and prepare spells are at too high of a premium to take most utility spells. Out of everyone, Wizards and Warlocks have the least need for ritual casting, due to their roles and easily recovered spell slots. Clerics and the Half Casters on the other hand are so stretched on spell slots (clerics issue is needing dedication to healing spells). Pathfinder 2 recognized the Clerics problem by giving them a side resource dedicated to healing spells as a base feature, to free up their other spell slots for class build purposes. DnD tried to do this in reverse with the Channel Divinity, and unless your subclass channel skill allows AOE healing, a notable chunk of your prepared spells get tied up by healing and recovery. Reworking the ritual mechanic can heavily alleviate this problem among half casters, and to lesser extent the other casters, by having the ritual casting of a spell cost more than just time, but operate more potently. The prepared casting of the spell gives more immediate, focused effects that have value in either combat or field work. Looking over the all the spells with ritual tags, it needs a top to bottom rethink of what should fall under ritual casting, and why. Potions should also get a similar review, for similar reasons. The disparity of cost and run time for many potions is a very similar problem to spells and ritual casting in general.
While I'm not surprised by the amount of changes for wizard, I still wish they were given more features that emphasize them being arcane scholars a bit more
@InsightCheck it does, but it also comes across as disingenuous game design to me. Like with the ranger, you get expertise in a single skill (gaining more later), so is all that you need to be a survivalist/explorer is to have expertise in survival? The same can be seen for being a scholarly wizard, is all that you need is an expertise in a single int skill and that's it?
I also don't like the hard limit on the number of spells prepared. The 2014 formula isn't hard to remember: your wizard level plus your INT modifier. This scales much better than what's on the new table and is easier to remember than having to reference said table every level-up.
The only quibble I can see with the Abjurer is that you are incentivised to take Counterspell and Dispel Magic at level 5, but then are given the spells for free at level 6, so it’s like do you take the spells at 5th and negate that subclass feature or hold off on those spells to make the subclass feature worth it? It’s like the 2014 Necromancer with Animate Dead. Taron Pounds suggested just making the savant features have an extra line like “At 5th level you learn the Counterspell spell” and that seems like a nice patch to me. It’s not a big issue by any stretch but it niggles at me
Also, these features that they switched from Action to Bonus Actions, seems like they should have been done so you could use either action type, regular Action or Bonus Action. If too many things are Bonus Actions it makes it harder to use many of the features as the player would want.
Thats a fundamental problem with making them distinct and exclusive in use. A few systems recognized this and let you convert you're highest value action into lesser value ones; but those are usually in the form of extra movement or take aim. Bonus action in DnD is weird because it doesn't follow a hierarchy. It started out as a simple low value resource (shoves, etc), but the way class and subclass features elevate into a second action is why its so inconsistent. Its also why so many new systems are changing how the action economy works, to avoid this problem of two BAs competing while the Action has lower value in comparison. Letting the Action become a Bonus Action would be a stop gap; but doesn't address the underlying problem of inconsistent workflow determining how each subclass is reigned in.
abjuration is the school of defense and warding necromancy is school of life and death aka all negative and positive healing should standard be necromancy like heal and harm
If you really care about the lore, necromancy isn't quite that exactly. What actually defines necromancy is the manipulation of anima in creatures. The anima is a weird glue that sticks bodies and souls together. Manipulating it can be used to, for example: - Returning a soul to it's original body. - Making bodies and souls harder to separate (temp HP or Death Ward in older editions). - Stitching non-matching bodies and souls together to create horrific monsters. - Temporarily detach your soul from your body to explore the Astral plane.
5:40 the reason being, in the lore, Evocation is the school that extracted energy (not creatures or things) from other planes; and that includes the Positive Energy plane, which is the ultimate source of all life energy and healing in all of reality. Not even the gods can heal without being connected to the Positive Energy plane.
The resistance applying to Arcane Ward is actually going to be kinda funny. Wild Heart Barb 5, Abjurer 3+ with Magic Initiate Warlock for Armor of Agathys is going to do some things.
I like the short rest feature with wizards now. I feel every class should get a short rest feature so that all classes benefit from a short rest. Scholar should gain additional expertise in new skills as they level.
Some calculation i made for "tanky" subclasses. At level 3: Abjurer wizard: 9 extra hp/long rest or 29 if you waste all resources on abjuration spells. No other defensive features. Moon druid: 36 extra hp/long rest. No ability to add more, also gives AC bonus. Fiend warlock: 6-144 extra hp/long rest. (depending on encounters) At level 6: Abjurer wizard: 16 extra hp/long rest or 60 if you waste all resources on abjuration spells. No other defensive features. Moon druid: 90 extra hp/long rest. Or 270 if you burn slots, also gives AC bonus. Fiend warlock: 10-240 extra hp/long rest. Give bonus to saves. At level 10: Abjurer wizard: 25 extra hp/long rest or 107 if you waste all resources on abjuration spells. No other defensive features. Moon druid: 180 extra hp/long rest. Or 630 if you burn slots, also gives AC bonus. Fiend warlock: 15-360 extra hp/long rest. Give bonus to saves. And give damage resistance of your choice. Abjurer just terrible option compare to any other 3 presented. He got weak feature at 3, literally nothing at 6 and a ribbon at 10th level. (dispel magic is flavor/rp spell with no use in modern dnd. You cant dispell spell-like abilities new monsters have)
No clue why they thought abjurer was okay as-is. The only thing that really made its defensive shield viable were features that let you refil it for free with at-will casting. And they've gutted that work around
@@MrSeals1000 i think that because majority of players didn't actually play tested it, and just filled survey based on assumption "wizard=op". And also wotc checked dnd-beyond stat and saw a lot of abjuration wizard, but ignored the fact that people were playing them because of the Eldritch Adept/Alert free ward recovery combo. And here we are. Also with backward compatibility Bladesinger and War wizard are better abjureres than abjurer. Also for the memes- Twilight domain with 2024 cleric gives 475 to WHOLE PARTY at level 6 or 1425 if you burn all slots. 475 to whole party vs 16... no comments honestly.
@@МаратГабдуллин-б5ф actually just about every wizard was salivating at the mouth about the initial changes to wizards in the UA... the reason they were removed is not because any wizard, not a single one, filled out the survey negatively... it was the overwhelming amount of other non-wizards who thought why give them anything that just makes them more powerful and thus they made a majority and squashed the new wizard in the survey (many of the those that filled out the survey negatively will never play a wizard they just wanted to stick it to those who like to play wizards)
The beast abilities feel like a trap. Assuming the summon spells are the same as tasha’s, that means the conjures have 10 if they’re a beast of air or 15 otherwise
@EpicRandomness555 yeah I’m not saying that they are lol I’m just saying that that’s what we saw most notably changed in the playtest. I don’t know what ultimately got moved in the final book.
Nice that the Illusionist got upgraded I will not be switching to 5.5 or whatever they aren't calling it. At least not until I can find the new books secondhand .
I am challenged by the fact that healing spells are Abjuration spells instead of Necromancy, (Yes, I am aware they were Evocation in 5E before & I disagreed with that also.) since that school is supposed to be about death & life, whereas it would seem like Temporary Hit Point granting should fall under Abjuration, maybe the Abjuration school should have a feature similar to the Illusionist where they can reschool a spell & grant temporary hit points in place of restoring hit points? That would have made the whole understanding of those spells more logical in my mind. Of course not everyone thinks like me, and I am unsure if the group I play with will even use the 2024 rules, at least one seems to be looking for a replacement, because currently we are playing Savage Rifts. The other 2 do not seem to plan to move away from the 2014+ rule set.
In one earlier edition they were transmutation, before that they were necromancy Necromancy specifically is soul magic, as in, the magic of dealing with the dead, ergo it's name, which pretty much originally meant someone who talks to dead people Transmutation because it restores flesh by twisting it, evocation because it channels positive energy, and abjuration because it is used to protect you
@@Erik-um1zn "A necromancer is just a late healer" is the phrase I keep thinking. Something that popped up in Dungeon Meshi is that Healing magic (at least Elf approach to magic) is manipulating flesh, and is insanely painful due to lack of anesthesia. The implication here is that its like surgery that 'forces' the flesh into an orientation and state, and not mimicking a more natural process. There was a 2e AD&D book about playable Fey characters, and one race was essentially a choromancer. Their healing magic worked by hyper accelerating a person's metabolism;, but required a large intake of calories to fuel the process, as the body is whats healing itself. If they bothered to go into that kind of detail, you can have healing magic from multiple schools. Each having a different approach to healing wounds, and secondary affects related to the methodology. Transmutation warps flesh back together; but higher level/upcasted spells come with side effects. Necromancy revitalizes flesh, and can counter necrotic effects, but suffers weakness on large heals. Abjuration healing is magical reinforcement of flesh, granting temp HP that converts to permanent HP upon meeting a secondary condition. What I think many TTRPGs lack is a manageable Healing over time class of spell effects. This adds a ton strategic complexity, and opens many doors for the off-healer and optimized healer builds to able to juggle healing and condition controls. The lack of in DnD I think stems from the mindset surrounding persistent damage. DoTs and HoTs effectively counter each other, which changes how threatening a DoT field can be as a map control tool.
The Wizard class changes were fine as were 3 of the 4 subclasses. I am unhappy with the Abjurer. Arcane Ward and Project Ward should have been combined into 1 feature. This was done for the War domain cleric's Guided Strike/War God's Blessing feature (and one other subclass that I cannot remember right now). It's using the same HP pool for both so its not actually more powerful to do this and limited spell slots means you can't repair the ward consistently. It feels like the Abjurer has only 3 features in the subclass. The level 10 feature seems ok but how good it is depends on whether or not the Bonus Action spellcasting rule remains in effect. If it does, then that part of the feature is little more than you can cast an additional cantrip on that turn or dash/ disengage/ dodge. That's fairly mediocre.
the 10th level feature is just a ribbon. Dispel magic is trash spell that only usable in rp situations. 1) You can stop the spell by breaking concentration and more efficiently with same spell slots 2) You cant dispel items 3) You cant dispel monster abilities, that replaced most spells in new stat blocks. So only use case left is "turning off some story related spell out of combat". But you can do it on any other subclass.
@@МаратГабдуллин-б5ф you can dispel buffs cast on someone like haste, enhance ability, protection from energy, mage armor, etc. It's not totally useless
@@fortunatus1 if D&D was a pvp wargame, than yes. But enemies don't cast those spells. Even in 2014th MM here the amount of monsters that know listed spells: haste- 0, enhance ability- 0, protection from energy- 0, mage armor- 3. And even outside of the monster manual there are only 2 extra monsters for each spell listed among 3k+. That all while they also removing spellcasting from statblocks and replacing it with spell-like abilities in newer books.
Memorize spell being a short rest is extremely lame. 1 minute meant you just need to have the spell in your book and you had access to it. It incentivized you to actually find spells to gather. Now? That short rest makes it so niche you will likely forget about it. Spell Mastery nerf imo was excessive. While I get reaction spells being removed…what was wrong with bonus actions exactly? Why not let me cast Misty step whenever? Overall, we know Wizard’s spells are likely to be nerfed in the final book, so why not compensate that with meaningful and thematic class features? Because rn the class still feels hollow. I say this as someone who plays a lot of Wizard too. They’re my favorite class thematically and they definitely have a lot of power behind them…but I don’t wanna just play 2014 Wizard but worse for the next 10 years
I couldn't agree more. What is the point of having a variety of spells when you have to have some crazy levels of foresight to know to prepare it at the beginning of the day? So many spells are not rituals and so incredibly situational that you would never prepare them. I guess the work around is scrolls. Lots of scrolls.
They removed Misty step from mastery, so you will have to take "epic boon of misty step", that is why. Play Sorcerer instead. They have build-in concentration and counterspell protection, twice as much spell prepared, they can boost spells not only with metamagic but with DC boost. And 1 level dip into warlock gives them giant sustained damage boost. The only weakness is less strong 5+ level spells, but those will be nerfed anyway.
The changes to the Evoker are a total nerf. Now they have to wait until level 6 to get their signature feature that's been available to all sorcerers since level 3. And Potent Cantrips is such a nothingburger of a feature. Evokers were already a mid-tier subclass and this revision makes them objectively worse.
While it sucks that you don't have spell sculpting right when you get fireball, overall you don't need to sculpt spells much at low levels. I'd rather have the little dpr boost at level 3, get fireball/lightning bolt at 5, and then get to look forward to a notable feature at 6. Old evoker, you had a feature at 2 that didn't feel notable until level 5 and then you got a level 6 feature that hardly saw use because it came too late. This scaling does a better job of keeping you looking forward to features and delivering them at a time that makes sense.
@@XThegamingcomedianX Didn't feel notable? Tell that to Burning Hands, Thunderwave, Frost Fingers, Rime's Binding Ice, and Shatter. Plus you have a whole level where sorcerers are better sculptors than evokers. And Potent Cantrips is such a minor boost that it really should come along with Sculpt Spells at Level 3 with something else coming at Level 6, oh and let's not forget the nothingburger of adding your INT mod to one damage roll at 10th level. Weaksauce.
Ya, some of these changes wont be kept in my games...or should I say restrictions. Its idiotic. Let a player use memorize more, and master any spell they want. Stupid.... And yet other classes that were perfectly fine, and that dear ole Jeremy said their goal was NOT to mess them up ie Paladin for one, got hit with unnecessary nerfs. And at the same time, classes that either were clamoring for substantial updates directly from players for from their own data were NOT addressed in the meaningful ways that they should have. Ranger is still pretty crappy...slightly better, but still the worst mechanical class by a far margin, Wild Shape (another set of changes that both idiotic and weakening of the feature...yes talking in wild shape is dumb..), and even Monk was (in UA 8) merely raised to a floor for martials but hardly put on a level one should be happy with. Starting with keeping the d8 HD, nerfing Stunning Strike, StILL keeping them starved for Ki points, etc. Hell Warlocks DID get some improvements, but they got some nerfs from what I understand from the UA, AND they didnt address the ACTUAL player request to give them more MEANINGFUL ability to cast spells. The level 1/2 feature is pathetically weak. Again relying on a given table to give several short rests rather than simply increase their pack slots over time, and/or make the recovery feature meaningful, 1 does not cut it... And dont get me started on not giving Monks Weapon Mastery and not having some form of WM for unarmed combat...two more misses that need to be corrected. And while WM is an improvement, it still pretty weak sauce when they could have really gone hard with it to give martials some real umph!
I will never understand why standard healing magic (excluding magic that summons healing spirits) isn't classified under necromancy. After all, necromancy is the magic of life, death, and undeath. My conspiracy theory is that good-aligned clerics and paladins might have run a smear campaign against necromancy and convinced everyone that healing magic belongs to a different school of magic. This way, they wouldn't be seen as using the same magic as necromancers, whether they're raising the dead or healing wounds. It would also explain why the classification of healing magic keeps changing - they can't keep their stories straight! lol
