Basically how thematic and balanced would it be to make a feat or feats that allow a wizard once the have achieved a certain level in one of the original 8 schools of magic, to be able to essentially minor in a second school? Instead of an ASI or other feat they can pick another one of them8 schools and take the 2nd level ability from that school no earlier than level 4 and the 6th level ability no earlier than level 8? Would this be cool or way too much? Im posting this in 3 separate forums to get different perspectives. Im posting it in the Wizards forum, the Home-brew forum and the Mechanics forum. My concerns are story/thematic relevance and balance. thought… Lets discuss :)
I can see similar abilities. But do not dupe the existing subclass abilities, make a feat. That way the main class can choose to take it too.
An example,
Infectious Undead
Pre-req: can cast at least one spell that creates undead.
When you create undead with a spell slot, you can expend an extra spell slot of the same level to make the undead "Infectious". Infectious undead can spend an action to create more undead identical to them. The total number of extra undead created by infectious undead can not exceed the original # of undead you created.
Nice little action economy feat that lets you create upto twice the number of undead via a single action.
Alternative way to do this: 5E's multiclassing rules are actually so flexible that (were it not so clearly not allowed), multiclassing in the same class would be pretty easy to accomplish. So many of the obvious problems with doing so actually have quite clear answers:
What do a Wizard (Enchantment) 10/Wizard (Evoaction) 10's spell slots and known spells look like? He has the spell slots of a 20-caster-level multiclass character, but the known spells of two tenth level wizards!
What happens when a character picks up the same feature twice? If its feature that provides a bonus, bonuses that share a name don't stack! If it's a feature that provides an ability with a set number of uses per short rest or long rest... you now have twice that number of uses!
What happens if you're granted proficiency a second time in something by a class feature? The same thing as usual, either its a wasted proficiency, or use the overly-charitable dndbeyond approach for redundant skill proficiencies and let the character pick a new one (note: don't do this with save proficiencies)
What about starting proficiencies? You get your starting proficiencies as normal, but if you then "multiclass" back into the class again, just pick up whatever you would normally get for multiclassing into the class.
Multiclass stat restrictions apply? Yep, why wouldn't they!
When do you get ASI's? Every 4 levels within one of your Wizard "tracks" (e.g., a Wizard 3/Wizard 3 has no ASI's, a Wizard 4/Wizard 4 has two)
Now, it would be a terrible waste for most characters, but I can imagine a kooky 16th level Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2 "specializing" in each school being a kind of fun character to run, in its own weird way. You'd know... 64 first level spells just by class features alone (I think there's only 41 to choose from), and 24 cantrips (I think there's 31 to choose from)... but spells slots all the way up to 8th level for upcasting them :P
Im not talking about full on multi classing in the same class with different subclasses, im talking about making say, Portent, Sculpt Spell, Potent Cantrip, Transmuter stone, etc subclass abilities as feats so a wizard who is in one of the original 8 schools, can "minor" in a other subclass for an ability or 2 at most. The are still a necromancer, or an illusionist but they have spent sometime studying the underlying principles of another wizard subclass enough to gain a class feature or 2 over time.
And what I am saying is, no: class features are balanced so that you have to "invest" a certain number of levels as that class to unlock them while also paying the opportunity cost of not taking a different subclass whose features you also want. Turning them into feats would be very very unbalanced. But allowing a character to multiclass as a different subclass of a class they've already taken really doesn't unbalance very much at all, if anything it's underpowered.
Maybe a watered down version of another subclass's feature, or a thematically similar bonus that is different from the feature... I dunno, homebrew is tough, you can't always weigh in on whether it would work until you see it. You kind of are onto something that the idea of minoring in a second field of study is a theme of academia, could be cute to bring it into 5E.
Considering the power of a lot of second level abilities I did consider making it one ability instead of the option of 2 and making it the 6th level ability. Al lot of those are good but not least and potatoes good. I really like things to be thematic and balanced. I like to allow things I create in games I run and to not be afraid to ask a DM if I can use it when I’m a player too. Plus I like contributing good content and ideas to the community.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Basically how thematic and balanced would it be to make a feat or feats that allow a wizard once the have achieved a certain level in one of the original 8 schools of magic, to be able to essentially minor in a second school? Instead of an ASI or other feat they can pick another one of them8 schools and take the 2nd level ability from that school no earlier than level 4 and the 6th level ability no earlier than level 8? Would this be cool or way too much? Im posting this in 3 separate forums to get different perspectives. Im posting it in the Wizards forum, the Home-brew forum and the Mechanics forum. My concerns are story/thematic relevance and balance. thought… Lets discuss :)
Feats. Look at Elemental Adept.
I can see similar abilities. But do not dupe the existing subclass abilities, make a feat. That way the main class can choose to take it too.
An example,
Infectious Undead
Pre-req: can cast at least one spell that creates undead.
When you create undead with a spell slot, you can expend an extra spell slot of the same level to make the undead "Infectious". Infectious undead can spend an action to create more undead identical to them. The total number of extra undead created by infectious undead can not exceed the original # of undead you created.
Nice little action economy feat that lets you create upto twice the number of undead via a single action.
Alternative way to do this: 5E's multiclassing rules are actually so flexible that (were it not so clearly not allowed), multiclassing in the same class would be pretty easy to accomplish. So many of the obvious problems with doing so actually have quite clear answers:
Now, it would be a terrible waste for most characters, but I can imagine a kooky 16th level Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2/Wizard 2 "specializing" in each school being a kind of fun character to run, in its own weird way. You'd know... 64 first level spells just by class features alone (I think there's only 41 to choose from), and 24 cantrips (I think there's 31 to choose from)... but spells slots all the way up to 8th level for upcasting them :P
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Im not talking about full on multi classing in the same class with different subclasses, im talking about making say, Portent, Sculpt Spell, Potent Cantrip, Transmuter stone, etc subclass abilities as feats so a wizard who is in one of the original 8 schools, can "minor" in a other subclass for an ability or 2 at most. The are still a necromancer, or an illusionist but they have spent sometime studying the underlying principles of another wizard subclass enough to gain a class feature or 2 over time.
And what I am saying is, no: class features are balanced so that you have to "invest" a certain number of levels as that class to unlock them while also paying the opportunity cost of not taking a different subclass whose features you also want. Turning them into feats would be very very unbalanced. But allowing a character to multiclass as a different subclass of a class they've already taken really doesn't unbalance very much at all, if anything it's underpowered.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
gotcha.
Maybe a watered down version of another subclass's feature, or a thematically similar bonus that is different from the feature... I dunno, homebrew is tough, you can't always weigh in on whether it would work until you see it. You kind of are onto something that the idea of minoring in a second field of study is a theme of academia, could be cute to bring it into 5E.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Considering the power of a lot of second level abilities I did consider making it one ability instead of the option of 2 and making it the 6th level ability. Al lot of those are good but not least and potatoes good. I really like things to be thematic and balanced. I like to allow things I create in games I run and to not be afraid to ask a DM if I can use it when I’m a player too. Plus I like contributing good content and ideas to the community.