I did a rewrite of the School of Evocation Arcane Tradition for the Wizard. I really like the idea of playing an Evocation wizard but the vanilla subclass feels like it takes a long time for the power fantasy of specializing in Evocation to really come online. On top of that, it uses the Potent Cantrip feature, which for starters only affects cantrips and then has no use on cantrips with attack rolls, which seem to be higher in quantity than save effect cantrips. It really didn't make much sense to me.
To remedy this, I replaced the original 2nd-level feature with Arcane Well, which lets you amp up the power of a magical source of damage once per round. Since it's once per round you won't be able to stack the effect on a second spell or a reaction.
I've shuffled around Sculpt Spells to be a 10th level feature and rewritten Overchannel to be a 6th level feature. There is also a new capstone called Ultimate Evocation which lets you master an Evocation spell you know of 5th level or lower in a similar style to the Signature Spell features that the Wizard gets towards the end of their progression.
The general feedback I've gotten from other communities so far has been that this feels like a more natural progression of the power fantasy, combining risk and reward with eminent prowess so that you can become the greatest fireball or lightning bolt slinger around.
Arcane Well is unclear and OP (if I understand it correctly) for level 2. Adding damage to AoE spells is incredibly powerful which is why only Draconic Sorcerer is able to do it now and they can only do it for a handful of spells and only at level 6+.
Overchannel is likewise broken in terms of power, consider that the average Fireball typically hits 3-6 enemies. Adding +11 damage to that is doing 30-60 extra damage.
Same goes for Ultimate Evocation. Max damage on a 5th level Fireball is 180-360 damage total and that's before you add all the above.
On Arcane Well, damage added to AoE spells can still be halved on successful saves. It isn't added to the damage dealt individually to each affected creature but to the total damage rolled. Unless you roll an 18 for your Intelligence that's only going to be 2 - 3 damage added until you get an ASI. Even if you spent 2 ASI's maxing your Intelligence to 20 that's still only 5 damage added.
At level 5 you have 36 HP if your CON is flat. That's 12 damage you took to increase the damage of the fireball, and 2 hit dice that you can't spend on your short rest following the encounter. You're down to 24 HP if you haven't taken any damage from enemies yet and now must rely on your party to heal you or pop potions to stay relatively healthy. If all of the enemies in the encounter were clumped up in such a way that you could hit all of them with a single fireball then I would put that on the DM for not considering the player's skills, as a normal fireball would be very deadly for that anyway.
I am not sure how you did the math on the 5th level fireball. 10d6 is 60 damage to each creature affected. A smart DM is not going to let you hit more than 2-3 creatures with a fireball. By the time you get Ultimate Evocation the cost of using the Overchannel ability has gone up by more than your hit dice, which means that you don't have as much health left over to continue powering up the spell. Its usefulness starts to even out as you take increasingly dangerous amounts of damage.
I am curious if any of these thoughts change your opinion on the ability being OP, or if they give you an idea on how to adjust the ability so that it's not as broken.
I also considered while writing the Overchannel ability that you have to roll the d6 to determine the damage dealt and health lost as opposed to it being the flat 6.
It isn't added to the damage dealt individually to each affected creature but to the total damage rolled.
I don't understand... for AoE spells you roll the damage once and apply it to every creature. So under this build you could cast a 5th level Fireball that deals: 60+5 (Intelligence)+60 (10 hit dice) to every creature in a 20ft diameter circle, which ranges from 3-6 creatures, each of which take 1/2 on a success = 126*0.75*6 = 283-567 damage from a single spell every day that doesn't even cost you a spell slot. There is a ton of healing in 5e, and if you're a blaster then staying healthy to maintain concentration is irrelevant. You can just pop up and down throughout the combat throwing out spell after spell.
Hello,
I did a rewrite of the School of Evocation Arcane Tradition for the Wizard. I really like the idea of playing an Evocation wizard but the vanilla subclass feels like it takes a long time for the power fantasy of specializing in Evocation to really come online. On top of that, it uses the Potent Cantrip feature, which for starters only affects cantrips and then has no use on cantrips with attack rolls, which seem to be higher in quantity than save effect cantrips. It really didn't make much sense to me.
To remedy this, I replaced the original 2nd-level feature with Arcane Well, which lets you amp up the power of a magical source of damage once per round. Since it's once per round you won't be able to stack the effect on a second spell or a reaction.
I've shuffled around Sculpt Spells to be a 10th level feature and rewritten Overchannel to be a 6th level feature. There is also a new capstone called Ultimate Evocation which lets you master an Evocation spell you know of 5th level or lower in a similar style to the Signature Spell features that the Wizard gets towards the end of their progression.
The general feedback I've gotten from other communities so far has been that this feels like a more natural progression of the power fantasy, combining risk and reward with eminent prowess so that you can become the greatest fireball or lightning bolt slinger around.
See for yourself here: The Arcane Tradition: Evocation Class for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5e) - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts (or experiences if you playtest!)
- Zeehahaha
Arcane Well is unclear and OP (if I understand it correctly) for level 2. Adding damage to AoE spells is incredibly powerful which is why only Draconic Sorcerer is able to do it now and they can only do it for a handful of spells and only at level 6+.
Overchannel is likewise broken in terms of power, consider that the average Fireball typically hits 3-6 enemies. Adding +11 damage to that is doing 30-60 extra damage.
Same goes for Ultimate Evocation. Max damage on a 5th level Fireball is 180-360 damage total and that's before you add all the above.
On Arcane Well, damage added to AoE spells can still be halved on successful saves. It isn't added to the damage dealt individually to each affected creature but to the total damage rolled. Unless you roll an 18 for your Intelligence that's only going to be 2 - 3 damage added until you get an ASI. Even if you spent 2 ASI's maxing your Intelligence to 20 that's still only 5 damage added.
At level 5 you have 36 HP if your CON is flat. That's 12 damage you took to increase the damage of the fireball, and 2 hit dice that you can't spend on your short rest following the encounter. You're down to 24 HP if you haven't taken any damage from enemies yet and now must rely on your party to heal you or pop potions to stay relatively healthy. If all of the enemies in the encounter were clumped up in such a way that you could hit all of them with a single fireball then I would put that on the DM for not considering the player's skills, as a normal fireball would be very deadly for that anyway.
I am not sure how you did the math on the 5th level fireball. 10d6 is 60 damage to each creature affected. A smart DM is not going to let you hit more than 2-3 creatures with a fireball. By the time you get Ultimate Evocation the cost of using the Overchannel ability has gone up by more than your hit dice, which means that you don't have as much health left over to continue powering up the spell. Its usefulness starts to even out as you take increasingly dangerous amounts of damage.
I am curious if any of these thoughts change your opinion on the ability being OP, or if they give you an idea on how to adjust the ability so that it's not as broken.
I also considered while writing the Overchannel ability that you have to roll the d6 to determine the damage dealt and health lost as opposed to it being the flat 6.
Thanks
I don't understand... for AoE spells you roll the damage once and apply it to every creature. So under this build you could cast a 5th level Fireball that deals: 60+5 (Intelligence)+60 (10 hit dice) to every creature in a 20ft diameter circle, which ranges from 3-6 creatures, each of which take 1/2 on a success = 126*0.75*6 = 283-567 damage from a single spell every day that doesn't even cost you a spell slot. There is a ton of healing in 5e, and if you're a blaster then staying healthy to maintain concentration is irrelevant. You can just pop up and down throughout the combat throwing out spell after spell.
If it helps, here is a crowdsourced improvement to that subclass made by the community here on DDB: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/157857-fify-wotc-school-of-evocation):
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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