Todd Kenreck: The War Wizard is the opposite of a glass cannon. They feel perfectly at home at the front lines of any battle. I talked to Jeremy Crawford about this new subclass in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

Jeremy Crawford: War Magic is a new arcane tradition for wizards in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, that really, in a way, weaves together elements of the School of Evocation and the School of Abjuration, both of which appear in the player's handbook. What we were doing with War Magic is exploring that intersection between two different schools.

Because, in the player's handbook each wizard focuses on a single school, granted a wizard can cast spells from any school of magic but they are each essentially a specialist so we decided what would a wizard look like who is actually good at several of these different types of magic. And specifically, a wizard who is all about being on a battlefield and being this, well you could call a war mage; someone who is at home next to an army. And not only has the ability to lay waste to the other side, but who also is resilient, who can survive.

Even one of the little story bits in the War Magic section in Xanathar's Guide, there's this little bit where a war mage is saying sort of, "Of an Evoker, what good is it for me to be able to lay waste to my foes, if I'm dead." You know, so again, this person who values their ability to stay alive as much as they value defeating their opponents.

We also wanted this to be, in some ways, a less bookish wizard. Now, wizards are all at heart bookish. I mean, they are the class that are partially defined by the fact that they carry around this book of spells. And they add spells to it. I mean, in a way, they are the game's, you know, academic. They are the game's librarian. They're the game's sage. They're the guy, or female character in the party who's gathering strange bits of lore. And many of those strange bits of lore are bits of magic that go into their books.

But we wanted to branch out a little bit, and have a wizard, who again, is a bit more active. And again, would feel at home right in the thick of things, when battle breaks out. The war mage, in addition to being able to deal a certain amount of extra damage with these things called power surges, also has a chance of acting faster in battle than other characters. The war mage gets to add their intelligence modifier to their initiative roles in addition to their dexterity modifier.

And this is representing sort of their tactical genius. That, in addition to their physical reaction contributing to when they get to act in battle, it's also the quickness of their wits. This actually, is sort of a little side note, is something we have toyed around with over the years, of doing with the initiative system itself. Of actually working in wits along with your physical agility. Obviously, we did not do it with the fifth edition initiative system. But there's a glimmer of it here in the war mage.

The war mage, also, is a little bit of an evolution of an earlier wizard that we toyed around with in Unearthed Arcana, and that was the lore wizard. That was a wizard who was also very good at dealing damage, but also at manipulating spells. That wizard, frankly, had a mixed response. There were many people who really loved it, but also many people who rightly pointed out that it was so powerful that it had the potential to eclipse other wizards in the game.

We basically went back to the drawing board. Took some of the concepts we liked about that wizard, and incorporated them into the tradition of war magic. War magic, also one of fun things about it is these wizard have essentially an innate shield spell. It's not the shield spell itself, but an ability to suddenly deflect damage coming in.

In stories, it's often been one of my favorite things, visually, whenever wizards shield things, I don't know why there's something visually satisfying about it. Something Doctor Strange does a ton of in the old Doctor Strange. Gandalf, of course, does it on the Bridge of Khazad-dum. It is actually a visual troupe associated with wizard that I find always just appealing. There's something nice, if you're playing the wizard, to basically be able to go, "Nope. You're not getting me. And you're not getting my friends."

And so, war mages have this innate ability to do that. And once they get to higher level, they're able to then, even turn that incoming damage against the person who attacked them. So they not only say, "Nope," but deflect it back at the other person, which I think is just sort of an exciting, visceral way of being a wizard. And that was again, our goal with the subclass, is this is in a way the wizard of action.

Now, some people might wonder how, in the end is it really different from the School of Evocation, Evokers, who are all about dealing lots of damage? You can almost imagine Evokers, especially on a battlefield, as being the artillery wizards way back, you know, back with the general, you know, calling down fire on the opposing forces. Whereas the war mage is going to be the one down there near the front line, standing beside the fighter, and the paladin and others; right there deflecting the foes attacks.

And also breaking the spells of their opponents, because the other element that's really fun about the war mage, is, if they counter spell, or dis-spell other people's magic, they can take that energy, and use it for a power surge, which they can then use to power up another spell and cause it to deal more damage. So they're also, kind of great at fighting other wizards, and other spell casters, and using their magic against them. So, again, basically, these are the fighty wizards.

The tradition of war magic is, I think, story wise, particularly good. If you're playing a character who might be a dwarf, for instance, or a member of a culture that values martial prowess far more than book-learning, it also is a strong choice if you use the multi-classing rules. And you might be playing a fighter, or some other character who's not a magic user, who decides to become a wizard and weave that magic in with their martial abilities.

So, again, this is really for the person who wants to play that wizard who feels less like an academic, and more the person of action who wields spells as weapons in dungeons, on battlefields, and elsewhere. It's a tweak of the wizard. Honestly, the wizard more than any of our other classes, has fantastic and pretty comprehensive subclass coverage in the player's handbook. I mean, the wizard has a lot of subclasses that cover many different thematic bases from conjuring creatures from other dimensions, to altering the physical form of things, to foreseeing the future, to raining fire down on other people, to teleportation, to raising the dead.

We run the gambit, because we have a subclass in the player's handbook for every school of magic in the game. So, this really is sort of getting at a really sort of a niche type of wizard, this warrior type mage, and delving into that. And that is a combination of elements. The warrior and the mage, that D&D players have been fascinated with since the game originally came out. It goes all the way back to the original elf character, back when elf wasn't a race, but was in fact a class.

It combined elements of fighting and magic use. And also, you know, influenced by like the Elrick Stories, where you have somebody who has magical ability, but is also wielding a sword. People are always fascinated by mixing these two together. Now, the war mage has no particular special ability with weapon use, but it's going into that same aesthetic realm of the magic user who is at home on a battlefield. That, again, D&D players have been fascinated by going back to the 70s.

Todd Kenreck: You can find the war wizard in Xanathor's Guide to Everything. You can purchase that book on D&D Beyond.com and earn pre-order bonuses as well. I'm Todd Kenreck, thank you for watching.