I am planning to make an Order of Scribes wizard. I have heard so many people talk about making a ForceBall, but my reading seems to show this cannot be done?
When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook, which magically alters the spell’s formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.
So looking at the spells, there doesn't appear to be any 3rd level Force spells? Am I overlooking something? Even if you could upcast Magic Missile, it doesn't exist in your spellbook as a 3rd level spell. I suppose it is possible to upcast the fireball to something like 5th, where you do have a force spell and could change the fireball then to a forceball.
Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
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Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
Yeah, but pulse wave is technically only allowed for Dunamancy wizards, so your Scribes wizard is out of luck without still bending some rules.
Are the spells from that book considered canon now? Have they been vetted and balanced sufficiently so that while it is technically a Dunamancy spell, could others perhaps learn an alternative method for casting that makes it a bog standard wizard spell and used in other campaign worlds?
Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
Yeah, but pulse wave is technically only allowed for Dunamancy wizards, so your Scribes wizard is out of luck without still bending some rules.
Are the spells from that book considered canon now? Have they been vetted and balanced sufficiently so that while it is technically a Dunamancy spell, could others perhaps learn an alternative method for casting that makes it a bog standard wizard spell and used in other campaign worlds?
are you saying this sarcastically because it's really hard to tell
Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
Yeah, but pulse wave is technically only allowed for Dunamancy wizards, so your Scribes wizard is out of luck without still bending some rules.
Are the spells from that book considered canon now? Have they been vetted and balanced sufficiently so that while it is technically a Dunamancy spell, could others perhaps learn an alternative method for casting that makes it a bog standard wizard spell and used in other campaign worlds?
Canon as in official? Yes.
Canon to forgotten realms? No. But then, any spells specific to a setting book instead of a general/FR book would also not be.
Even in the Wildemount book, any wizard could learn the spells without taking the specific subclasses, it just required a lot more discussion with the DM on how they acquired it.
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Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
Yeah, but pulse wave is technically only allowed for Dunamancy wizards, so your Scribes wizard is out of luck without still bending some rules.
Are the spells from that book considered canon now? Have they been vetted and balanced sufficiently so that while it is technically a Dunamancy spell, could others perhaps learn an alternative method for casting that makes it a bog standard wizard spell and used in other campaign worlds?
Canon as in official? Yes.
Canon to forgotten realms? No. But then, any spells specific to a setting book instead of a general/FR book would also not be.
Even in the Wildemount book, any wizard could learn the spells without taking the specific subclasses, it just required a lot more discussion with the DM on how they acquired it.
So in Other Words. Even Matt Mercer doesn't strictly say never but more that if you do try to get it, then it should be a small number of them and they should be basically handed out as basically boon rewards in place of monetary equipment rewards.
I'm loving reading this feature, because it forces you to go "How.. how does... How does that work?" A fireball that does bludgeoning damage? AND STILL SETS THINGS ON FIRE? (Talk about order of the flaming fist, amirite?) But seriously, a giant fist, that is ON FIRE, just hammers down on the area and bludgeons them. Or maybe it's just a pulse of blunt damage, maybe the earth cracks and fissures violently in the effected area.
MY favorite, that I've thought of so far, anyway, is the combination at level 4. Where you can cause your Wall of Fire to do Bludgeoning damage because you have Storm Sphere in your spellbook. Just an opaque wall of fists that Punch anyone who gets to close or tries to move through it. Blunt damage to spells that shouldn't have blunt damage is just funny to me. But you COULDN'T have Lightning sphere do pure bludgeoning damage itself just by having that one spell, you'd need Black Tentacles to do that, as it would need to come from ANOTHER spell
What other dumb, silly combinations can you get? Level 7, prismatic spray, but it just does one damage type... Just always. Force, necrotic, radiant, fire, bludgeoning, all in the level 7 slot. It's also a great spell to reference other damage dealing spells, as it puts most of the elemental damages in your arsenal at that level.
But yea, why go for boring force ball when you could literally make "Hammer down: It's like fireball, but every just gets pummeled by fists... a lot..
You don't even need to dip into Dunamancy. Summon Fey provides force damage and is on the base wizard list.
I'd take this up with the DM because spell is everything that isn't the fey spirit stat block. The stat block is it's own thing for a separate creature, not exactly from the spell itself. That being said, I can see arguements for either side, but I don't actually believe that's spell damage, but creature damage.
You don't even need to dip into Dunamancy. Summon Fey provides force damage and is on the base wizard list.
I'd take this up with the DM because spell is everything that isn't the fey spirit stat block. The stat block is it's own thing for a separate creature, not exactly from the spell itself. That being said, I can see arguements for either side, but I don't actually believe that's spell damage, but creature damage.
Totally fair. This was a long played out debate in a different Order of Scribes thread. My stance is that the stat blocks for the new summon spells from Tasha's are only found with the spell entry and nowhere else. They are not sequestered on some different page with a reference. This is different from the old guard of summoning spells like conjure animals that are formatted completely differently and I believe these older summoning spells would not work for this purpose.
This line from Awakened Spellbook is super key to my reasoning:
When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook...
The word "appears" is everything here. What an incredibly vague qualifying word. The statblock only appears attached to the spell entry, and there is no precedence to rule that a statblock included with the spell, and nowhere else, is not part of the spell entry. Therefore I find it quite logical to say that the damage type in the statblock appears in the spell.
But no doubt many DMs will see this differently. Scribes is very poorly worded and opens up multiple grey areas like this that the rules simply aren't prepared for.
Appears is indeed quite a broad category. You can technically use the faulty teleport recoil from a potentially failed Dimension Door to get level 4 force spells.
I am planning to make an Order of Scribes wizard. I have heard so many people talk about making a ForceBall, but my reading seems to show this cannot be done?
When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook, which magically alters the spell’s formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.
So looking at the spells, there doesn't appear to be any 3rd level Force spells? Am I overlooking something? Even if you could upcast Magic Missile, it doesn't exist in your spellbook as a 3rd level spell. I suppose it is possible to upcast the fireball to something like 5th, where you do have a force spell and could change the fireball then to a forceball.
No you can't but you really dont need to, the issue would be fire resistance so use something like acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder from protection from energy
You don't even need to dip into Dunamancy. Summon Fey provides force damage and is on the base wizard list.
I'd take this up with the DM because spell is everything that isn't the fey spirit stat block. The stat block is it's own thing for a separate creature, not exactly from the spell itself. That being said, I can see arguements for either side, but I don't actually believe that's spell damage, but creature damage.
Totally fair. This was a long played out debate in a different Order of Scribes thread. My stance is that the stat blocks for the new summon spells from Tasha's are only found with the spell entry and nowhere else. They are not sequestered on some different page with a reference. This is different from the old guard of summoning spells like conjure animals that are formatted completely differently and I believe these older summoning spells would not work for this purpose.
This line from Awakened Spellbook is super key to my reasoning:
When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook...
The word "appears" is everything here. What an incredibly vague qualifying word. The statblock only appears attached to the spell entry, and there is no precedence to rule that a statblock included with the spell, and nowhere else, is not part of the spell entry. Therefore I find it quite logical to say that the damage type in the statblock appears in the spell.
But no doubt many DMs will see this differently. Scribes is very poorly worded and opens up multiple grey areas like this that the rules simply aren't prepared for.
Appears is indeed quite a broad category. You can technically use the faulty teleport recoil from a potentially failed Dimension Door to get level 4 force spells.
Huh, you're not wrong, I guess. I mean, it does "appear" in the spell. Even if it's from a mishap, or on a creature's stat block that also "appears" in said spell. I'd PROBABLY still rule it as it being a creature stat block, and not explicitly part of the spell (more a biproduct, really), but would probably allow it if asked nicely. It would be like saying you can use piercing damage from the "Create homunculus" spell at level 6, since the homunculus's bite does piercing damage. Yet I would also argue to include it if I were a player as well, as it is the only instance of the creature popping up, and it technically does "appear" in only the spell. Definitely something to hammer out with individual DM's.
As per the Dimension Door force damage thing? That's just clever, if you ask me. Technically it is correct, it does do force damage. It says so right there... So it technically is free to use. Fun for when you want to do Fire walls that do force damage. Still might want to bring it up with the DM, though... It's just, to me, an easier case to argue in the favor of the player.
Ultimately, D&D is a game where a group of people should be having fun. If having a fireball do force damage, because summon fey has force damage "appear" in the spell, would cause the player to have fun, it might just be a clever enough catch in the rules for the DM to go "sure, I guess." Gives the players what they want, and the ability to feel a little smart, and it probably won't ruin the encounter or future encounters, because if it's not force, then it's just something that bypasses the resistance of the creature anyway, so who cares, yea?
Yeah it's definitely one of those "I guess that's a thing" moments. WotC's fault for putting stupidly vague words like "appear" in an intricate ability.
Changing the damage types of fireball or whatever else is easily the most benign part of what the Scribes brings to the table. Blasting isn't even what a smart wizard should be doing with most of their time. Not to mention Glyph of Warding is far superior to Summon Fey as the companion spell for fireball. Glyph provides all the elemental types you would need at 3rd level and is ripe for abuse with Manifest Mind in its own right.
Yeah it's definitely one of those "I guess that's a thing" moments. WotC's fault for putting stupidly vague words like "appear" in an intricate ability.
Changing the damage types of fireball or whatever else is easily the most benign part of what the Scribes brings to the table. Blasting isn't even what a smart wizard should be doing with most of their time. Not to mention Glyph of Warding is far superior to Summon Fey as the companion spell for fireball. Glyph provides all the elemental types you would need at 3rd level and is ripe for abuse with Manifest Mind in its own right.
Yea, force may be a great damage type, but in all actuality, you're just trying to bypass damage resistance, so when up against a flame skeleton (or something), and you want to fireball... Cold damage does just as well in comparison. And I agree with the idea that wizards shouldn't be blasting... To an extent. Sometimes a wizard is the blaster because the group needs it. But with the huge amount of spells at their disposal, spells like haste, slow, sleet storm, hold person... Just a great amount of control spells. It's surprising how much more effective these types of spells are, rather than just pure damage. Don't get me wrong, the best status effect is "dead," I get that, but battlefield, and battle map control are just as effective if used creatively. As well as their utility spells outside of combat! The illusion spells, or some of the protective abjuration spells, divination spells, a bunch of "Hey DM, how about I give you a spell slot, and you give me information I want to know?" kind of spells (identify, detect thoughts, clairvoyance), I usually only have 1 damage spell per spell level prepared at a time, utilizing my other spell slots for a wide range of things, and since I have a large group, fireball usually isn't one of them!
Oh trust me. I had fireball on my wizard. I love a good blast. But those control and utility effects are the bread and butter of a strong wizard. The amount of memorable moments I stacked up with just grease was astounding. Let the sword swingers and bow shooters worry about damage output, we've got more important things on our mind lol
Oh trust me. I had fireball on my wizard. I love a good blast. But those control and utility effects are the bread and butter of a strong wizard. The amount of memorable moments I stacked up with just grease was astounding. Let the sword swingers and bow shooters worry about damage output, we've got more important things on our mind lol
Grease is such an underrated spell. It's amazing when you blow a monsters legendary resistance on a well placed grease. It's great when it's any first level spell, but grease is just one of those "kicker" spells where is like "really? Grease?"
This isn't saying AoE spells aren't a form of "control," either, it's just not always explicitly stated. When there's a wizard on the battlefield, the opposition truly needs to respect the damage one wizard can inflict on them. "Fireball formation," is definitely a thing, and it's a good formation to be in.
Oh trust me. I had fireball on my wizard. I love a good blast. But those control and utility effects are the bread and butter of a strong wizard. The amount of memorable moments I stacked up with just grease was astounding. Let the sword swingers and bow shooters worry about damage output, we've got more important things on our mind lol
Grease is such an underrated spell. It's amazing when you blow a monsters legendary resistance on a well placed grease. It's great when it's any first level spell, but grease is just one of those "kicker" spells where is like "really? Grease?"
This isn't saying AoE spells aren't a form of "control," either, it's just not always explicitly stated. When there's a wizard on the battlefield, the opposition truly needs to respect the damage one wizard can inflict on them. "Fireball formation," is definitely a thing, and it's a good formation to be in.
I've had my wizard and wildfire druid throw down some nasty combos with grease and fire bolt. The 2 of them basically single handedly took out a horde of zombies, it was beautiful.
But I agree on the control spells. I play a Necromancer built as a controller, I've focused on save-or-suck spells. There are few things I've found more satisfying than watching our monk get 4 auto-crits on some poor paralyzed bugger that failed his save against my hold person (or similar spell). The DM in me likes those spells better as those combos empower 2 players, making both feel powerful.
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I am planning to make an Order of Scribes wizard. I have heard so many people talk about making a ForceBall, but my reading seems to show this cannot be done?
So looking at the spells, there doesn't appear to be any 3rd level Force spells? Am I overlooking something? Even if you could upcast Magic Missile, it doesn't exist in your spellbook as a 3rd level spell. I suppose it is possible to upcast the fireball to something like 5th, where you do have a force spell and could change the fireball then to a forceball.
Correct. There are no 3rd level spells that deal force damage, you would have to upcast it at 5th level and have Bigby's Hand or Steel Wind Strike. However, at 3rd level, you can learn erupting earth and make your fireball magical bludgeoning damage. There are very few monsters that resist magical bludgeoning, most of which are low CR swarms, in which case classic fireball would do the trick.
pulse wave
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Can't wait to cast my mighty Dirtball spell.
Yeah, but pulse wave is technically only allowed for Dunamancy wizards, so your Scribes wizard is out of luck without still bending some rules.
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Are the spells from that book considered canon now? Have they been vetted and balanced sufficiently so that while it is technically a Dunamancy spell, could others perhaps learn an alternative method for casting that makes it a bog standard wizard spell and used in other campaign worlds?
are you saying this sarcastically because it's really hard to tell
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My homebrew stuff:
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I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
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Canon as in official? Yes.
Canon to forgotten realms? No. But then, any spells specific to a setting book instead of a general/FR book would also not be.
Even in the Wildemount book, any wizard could learn the spells without taking the specific subclasses, it just required a lot more discussion with the DM on how they acquired it.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
So in Other Words. Even Matt Mercer doesn't strictly say never but more that if you do try to get it, then it should be a small number of them and they should be basically handed out as basically boon rewards in place of monetary equipment rewards.
You don't even need to dip into Dunamancy. Summon Fey provides force damage and is on the base wizard list.
I'm loving reading this feature, because it forces you to go "How.. how does... How does that work?" A fireball that does bludgeoning damage? AND STILL SETS THINGS ON FIRE? (Talk about order of the flaming fist, amirite?) But seriously, a giant fist, that is ON FIRE, just hammers down on the area and bludgeons them. Or maybe it's just a pulse of blunt damage, maybe the earth cracks and fissures violently in the effected area.
MY favorite, that I've thought of so far, anyway, is the combination at level 4. Where you can cause your Wall of Fire to do Bludgeoning damage because you have Storm Sphere in your spellbook. Just an opaque wall of fists that Punch anyone who gets to close or tries to move through it. Blunt damage to spells that shouldn't have blunt damage is just funny to me. But you COULDN'T have Lightning sphere do pure bludgeoning damage itself just by having that one spell, you'd need Black Tentacles to do that, as it would need to come from ANOTHER spell
What other dumb, silly combinations can you get? Level 7, prismatic spray, but it just does one damage type... Just always. Force, necrotic, radiant, fire, bludgeoning, all in the level 7 slot. It's also a great spell to reference other damage dealing spells, as it puts most of the elemental damages in your arsenal at that level.
But yea, why go for boring force ball when you could literally make "Hammer down: It's like fireball, but every just gets pummeled by fists... a lot..
I'd take this up with the DM because spell is everything that isn't the fey spirit stat block. The stat block is it's own thing for a separate creature, not exactly from the spell itself. That being said, I can see arguements for either side, but I don't actually believe that's spell damage, but creature damage.
Totally fair. This was a long played out debate in a different Order of Scribes thread. My stance is that the stat blocks for the new summon spells from Tasha's are only found with the spell entry and nowhere else. They are not sequestered on some different page with a reference. This is different from the old guard of summoning spells like conjure animals that are formatted completely differently and I believe these older summoning spells would not work for this purpose.
This line from Awakened Spellbook is super key to my reasoning:
The word "appears" is everything here. What an incredibly vague qualifying word. The statblock only appears attached to the spell entry, and there is no precedence to rule that a statblock included with the spell, and nowhere else, is not part of the spell entry. Therefore I find it quite logical to say that the damage type in the statblock appears in the spell.
But no doubt many DMs will see this differently. Scribes is very poorly worded and opens up multiple grey areas like this that the rules simply aren't prepared for.
Appears is indeed quite a broad category. You can technically use the faulty teleport recoil from a potentially failed Dimension Door to get level 4 force spells.
No you can't but you really dont need to, the issue would be fire resistance so use something like acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder from protection from energy
Huh, you're not wrong, I guess. I mean, it does "appear" in the spell. Even if it's from a mishap, or on a creature's stat block that also "appears" in said spell. I'd PROBABLY still rule it as it being a creature stat block, and not explicitly part of the spell (more a biproduct, really), but would probably allow it if asked nicely. It would be like saying you can use piercing damage from the "Create homunculus" spell at level 6, since the homunculus's bite does piercing damage. Yet I would also argue to include it if I were a player as well, as it is the only instance of the creature popping up, and it technically does "appear" in only the spell. Definitely something to hammer out with individual DM's.
As per the Dimension Door force damage thing? That's just clever, if you ask me. Technically it is correct, it does do force damage. It says so right there... So it technically is free to use. Fun for when you want to do Fire walls that do force damage. Still might want to bring it up with the DM, though... It's just, to me, an easier case to argue in the favor of the player.
Ultimately, D&D is a game where a group of people should be having fun. If having a fireball do force damage, because summon fey has force damage "appear" in the spell, would cause the player to have fun, it might just be a clever enough catch in the rules for the DM to go "sure, I guess." Gives the players what they want, and the ability to feel a little smart, and it probably won't ruin the encounter or future encounters, because if it's not force, then it's just something that bypasses the resistance of the creature anyway, so who cares, yea?
Yeah it's definitely one of those "I guess that's a thing" moments. WotC's fault for putting stupidly vague words like "appear" in an intricate ability.
Changing the damage types of fireball or whatever else is easily the most benign part of what the Scribes brings to the table. Blasting isn't even what a smart wizard should be doing with most of their time. Not to mention Glyph of Warding is far superior to Summon Fey as the companion spell for fireball. Glyph provides all the elemental types you would need at 3rd level and is ripe for abuse with Manifest Mind in its own right.
Yea, force may be a great damage type, but in all actuality, you're just trying to bypass damage resistance, so when up against a flame skeleton (or something), and you want to fireball... Cold damage does just as well in comparison. And I agree with the idea that wizards shouldn't be blasting... To an extent. Sometimes a wizard is the blaster because the group needs it. But with the huge amount of spells at their disposal, spells like haste, slow, sleet storm, hold person... Just a great amount of control spells. It's surprising how much more effective these types of spells are, rather than just pure damage. Don't get me wrong, the best status effect is "dead," I get that, but battlefield, and battle map control are just as effective if used creatively. As well as their utility spells outside of combat! The illusion spells, or some of the protective abjuration spells, divination spells, a bunch of "Hey DM, how about I give you a spell slot, and you give me information I want to know?" kind of spells (identify, detect thoughts, clairvoyance), I usually only have 1 damage spell per spell level prepared at a time, utilizing my other spell slots for a wide range of things, and since I have a large group, fireball usually isn't one of them!
Oh trust me. I had fireball on my wizard. I love a good blast. But those control and utility effects are the bread and butter of a strong wizard. The amount of memorable moments I stacked up with just grease was astounding. Let the sword swingers and bow shooters worry about damage output, we've got more important things on our mind lol
Grease is such an underrated spell. It's amazing when you blow a monsters legendary resistance on a well placed grease. It's great when it's any first level spell, but grease is just one of those "kicker" spells where is like "really? Grease?"
This isn't saying AoE spells aren't a form of "control," either, it's just not always explicitly stated. When there's a wizard on the battlefield, the opposition truly needs to respect the damage one wizard can inflict on them. "Fireball formation," is definitely a thing, and it's a good formation to be in.
I've had my wizard and wildfire druid throw down some nasty combos with grease and fire bolt. The 2 of them basically single handedly took out a horde of zombies, it was beautiful.
But I agree on the control spells. I play a Necromancer built as a controller, I've focused on save-or-suck spells. There are few things I've found more satisfying than watching our monk get 4 auto-crits on some poor paralyzed bugger that failed his save against my hold person (or similar spell). The DM in me likes those spells better as those combos empower 2 players, making both feel powerful.