I am playing a level 3 forest gnome wizard, mage of lorehold in a 7 person party (moon Druid, hunter ranger, life cleric, mastermind rogue, way of mercy monk and draconic sorcerer) Had my first session with the class tonight. My first impression is that, no surprise, this is a strong class, I think the biggest reason why is the action economy. Ancient Companion gives wizard something super significant to do with its bonus action every single turn. This is the most powerful thing about the class, I thought telekinetic feat was powerful on wizard because you could do something every turn with your BA which is usually wasted on wizard. The summon had like 15 health and 16 AC. I was casting control spells and such with my action and using my bonus action to do damage and help teammates in melee. The summon walked ahead and triggered traps on a few occasions and the death save feature helped once too, he took 6 damage at 5HP and rolled a 17 on a con save to drop to 1 instead. Then I just used a level one slot to heal him to 11 after that. The times when I didn’t have the summon, I was still a Wizard. One thing I really appreciated was getting Sacred Flame as a cantrip, allowing me along with forest gnomes free minor illusion to load up on cantrips at level 3 without the need to take a firebolt for example. Getting to take stuff like shape water is nice (also went ahead without mage hand because the summon can solve some of those problems too). I think the expanded spell list is nice too, you get some nice extras although I think spirit guardians is wasted because it’s hard to image I’ll prepare that over haste, counterspell, fireball, dispel magical slow etc but it’s certainly good to have that as an option.
One question I have is that, unless I’m misunderstanding the subclass text, I have to find a statue to summon the Ancient Companion in the first place. Or does the spirit just take the form OF a statue? We went with finding a statue, and that was pretty fun. Summoning the warrior ancient companion into a statue of a 10 foot tall beautiful woman.
The summon was just all around super helpful, I don’t think that’s any surprise but the role play with this class was great. The DM got to play as Stone Cold VanClausen, an ancient dead come to aid in our adventures.
First impressions are that it’s at least as good as Divination Wizard, and very likely much better. I think it at low levels basically doubles your action economy. I don’t wanna make knee jerk reactions because I’m excited about the new material. If anyone has any questions about how the session went with the class or any comments about the subclass I would love to hear them.
I believe, as of how the UA currently functions, that you must actually find a statue for your companion to occupy, as it states “Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can call forth and bond with one such spirit, who comes to inhabit a Medium, freestanding statue within 10 feet of you to serve as your ancient companion.” To me the inclusion of a requirement to be within 10 of a freestanding statute makes it clear that you don’t just conjure the statue with the spirit.
This could give you a bit of an incentive to learn how to use Mason’s Tools or Smith’s Tools though, so you can spend the time to craft your own statues, customize their look.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
I mean its now anyway pointless as they scrapped it, but wrote as well in the feedback, that the free standing statue part was probably an error in the description. I can't imagine they wanted to put such a hard nerf on the class defining feature. Imagine being in the desert or some other place where you cannot build a statue especially at low levels?
Also thematically i found ia lot more sincematic if teh statue would build itself out of material around, somtimes its stone, sometimes would or water?
The only thing left to hope is that the feat alternative they seem to use lets you choose a feat where you get this companion? At least with all the 2nd level features or only one type and tehrefore with 2nd and 6th level features?
The whole UA was a mess and could have sunk a cool idea (floating subclasses) because of rushed UA scheduling.
Psioincs got the same raw deal in a way and they just can't seem to nail new concepts well in their design groups. Things they put out now are just "more of the same" or power creep.
They obviously want to take chances but it also feels somehow like they do not have a grasp of balance in their own system which is frustrating.
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I am playing a level 3 forest gnome wizard, mage of lorehold in a 7 person party (moon Druid, hunter ranger, life cleric, mastermind rogue, way of mercy monk and draconic sorcerer) Had my first session with the class tonight. My first impression is that, no surprise, this is a strong class, I think the biggest reason why is the action economy. Ancient Companion gives wizard something super significant to do with its bonus action every single turn. This is the most powerful thing about the class, I thought telekinetic feat was powerful on wizard because you could do something every turn with your BA which is usually wasted on wizard. The summon had like 15 health and 16 AC. I was casting control spells and such with my action and using my bonus action to do damage and help teammates in melee. The summon walked ahead and triggered traps on a few occasions and the death save feature helped once too, he took 6 damage at 5HP and rolled a 17 on a con save to drop to 1 instead. Then I just used a level one slot to heal him to 11 after that. The times when I didn’t have the summon, I was still a Wizard. One thing I really appreciated was getting Sacred Flame as a cantrip, allowing me along with forest gnomes free minor illusion to load up on cantrips at level 3 without the need to take a firebolt for example. Getting to take stuff like shape water is nice (also went ahead without mage hand because the summon can solve some of those problems too). I think the expanded spell list is nice too, you get some nice extras although I think spirit guardians is wasted because it’s hard to image I’ll prepare that over haste, counterspell, fireball, dispel magical slow etc but it’s certainly good to have that as an option.
One question I have is that, unless I’m misunderstanding the subclass text, I have to find a statue to summon the Ancient Companion in the first place. Or does the spirit just take the form OF a statue? We went with finding a statue, and that was pretty fun. Summoning the warrior ancient companion into a statue of a 10 foot tall beautiful woman.
The summon was just all around super helpful, I don’t think that’s any surprise but the role play with this class was great. The DM got to play as Stone Cold VanClausen, an ancient dead come to aid in our adventures.
First impressions are that it’s at least as good as Divination Wizard, and very likely much better. I think it at low levels basically doubles your action economy. I don’t wanna make knee jerk reactions because I’m excited about the new material. If anyone has any questions about how the session went with the class or any comments about the subclass I would love to hear them.
I believe, as of how the UA currently functions, that you must actually find a statue for your companion to occupy, as it states “Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can call forth and bond with one such spirit, who comes to inhabit a Medium, freestanding statue within 10 feet of you to serve as your ancient companion.” To me the inclusion of a requirement to be within 10 of a freestanding statute makes it clear that you don’t just conjure the statue with the spirit.
This could give you a bit of an incentive to learn how to use Mason’s Tools or Smith’s Tools though, so you can spend the time to craft your own statues, customize their look.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Yes what an idea! Making my own statue would be great role play.
Also that’s what I believe. I have the statue now so I can kind of bring him along and such.
I mean its now anyway pointless as they scrapped it, but wrote as well in the feedback, that the free standing statue part was probably an error in the description. I can't imagine they wanted to put such a hard nerf on the class defining feature. Imagine being in the desert or some other place where you cannot build a statue especially at low levels?
Also thematically i found ia lot more sincematic if teh statue would build itself out of material around, somtimes its stone, sometimes would or water?
The only thing left to hope is that the feat alternative they seem to use lets you choose a feat where you get this companion? At least with all the 2nd level features or only one type and tehrefore with 2nd and 6th level features?
The whole UA was a mess and could have sunk a cool idea (floating subclasses) because of rushed UA scheduling.
Psioincs got the same raw deal in a way and they just can't seem to nail new concepts well in their design groups. Things they put out now are just "more of the same" or power creep.
They obviously want to take chances but it also feels somehow like they do not have a grasp of balance in their own system which is frustrating.