After time talking back and forth with my DM, we've started to like the idea of having each wizard subclass to have their own "boosted cantrip" feature, similar to the School of Illusion's improved minor illusion. So I'm just curious if anyone has tried this and what your opinions are about this idea. With that said, here's a few idea for the PHB subclasses.
School of Abjuration - There's only two cantrips for abjuration, so there wasn't many options to choose from... but I decided to go with this; "You learn the Blade Ward cantrip, which you can now use as a bonus on a creature within 30 feet from you."
School of Conjuration - There where multiple cantrips I could've chosen, but I decided to boost Mage Hand since it's the only conjuration cantrip that isn't damage based. Ended up with; "You learn the Mage Hand cantrip, which you can cast and use as a bonus action."
School of Divination - It's sad there's only one divination cantrip, and that wizard's currently aren't allow to use it (completely ignoring the fact "the cantrip that shall not be named" is another option to boost). I decided to try this out; "You learn the Guidance cantrip, which you can cast without using your concentration, but it can only do so on one creature at a time.
School of Enchantment - I've actually spent quite a lot of time thinking on to revise the School of Enchantment, so this was something I already though about. "You learn Friends cantrip. Once the spell ends, the creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your spell DC to determine if it knew they was enchanted or not.
School of Evocation - This was actually the easiest for me, and it's quick and simple. "Choose one evocation cantrip to learn from any spell list. If the Cantrip isn't a wizard cantrip, it counts as a wizard cantrip for you. This cantrip doesn't count towards your number of cantrips known." Yes I understand that this opens of the opportunity for some players to pick up Eldritch Blast, but I think this would be a good option because it allows more than just the fire bolt option, plus with how their level 6 feature works, they might also choose to learn a saving throw spell instead.
School of Illusion - For this one, since it already has a feature that does this, thought it'd be better to make a new feature instead of a cantrip booster.
School of Necromancy - There isn't really any utility necromancy cantrips, so this could be a feature that works like a cantrip but that's not what I'm looking for. I decided to go the same route as the grave domain cleric by having Spare the Dying being able to be cast as a bonus action and at range.
School of Transmutation - This one I'm actually unsure about since their level 2 feature is already basically is a cantrip, but then again, it could be that they learn Prestidigitation then increases the duration/amount of non instantaneous effects it does.
The school of abjuration seems most interesting to me. You actually get the ability to consistently protect allies......... Why didn't WOTC think of that?
The Divination one is a little clunky in the wording and though it would be neat to have a Guidance based Wizard, why not actually makeTrue Strike viable?
School of Divination - 'You learn the True Strike cantrip and can use it as a bonus action that grants advantage on a number of attacks equal to your intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.'
Also, I would recommend avoiding the Friends as a key feature for a class. A lot of people, me being one of them, don't like the spell (along with similar spells like Charm Person) due to is potential insidious undertones. For example, gaslighting, removing agency from a person, manipulation, et cetera. Personally, I'd go with something like this:
School of Enchantment - 'You learn the [Tooltip Not Found] cantrip and until the end of your next turn, the target must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from all saving throws.'
Yes, I know Mind Sliver is in the UA, but I am like 95% certain it will make an appearance in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, considering all of the psychic based UA subclasses are being printed within it.
School of Evocation - This was actually the easiest for me, and it's quick and simple. "Choose one evocation cantrip to learn from any spell list. If the Cantrip isn't a wizard cantrip, it counts as a wizard cantrip for you. This cantrip doesn't count towards your number of cantrips known." Yes I understand that this opens of the opportunity for some players to pick up Eldritch Blast, but I think this would be a good option because it allows more than just the fire bolt option, plus with how their level 6 feature works, they might also choose to learn a saving throw spell instead.
After a little thought I see a problem with this. This puts Sacred Flame and Wall of Force on the same class spell list. Personally I might go with something like whenever you do damage with a cantrip that does fire, thunder, lightning or cold damage you can change its damage type to another of those types.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
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I tend to agree with crzyhawk, but I am disappointed that wizards can't prepare or swap out cantrips like other spells. I think that would be the most significant and thematic change to wizard cantrips.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
Extremely strong...... at the cost of living a tiny life ( or at least, with the lowest HP scores ). I like the Wizards, but I think I could make an Abjurer wiz, adding him/her the proficiency on the shields, and using that shield as a magic focus. Is it a double win ??
Yeah, I would ban that no questions asked. Completely not happening at my table.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
Extremely strong...... at the cost of living a tiny life ( or at least, with the lowest HP scores ). I like the Wizards, but I think I could make an Abjurer wiz, adding him/her the proficiency on the shields, and using that shield as a magic focus. Is it a double win ??
School of Evocation - This was actually the easiest for me, and it's quick and simple. "Choose one evocation cantrip to learn from any spell list. If the Cantrip isn't a wizard cantrip, it counts as a wizard cantrip for you. This cantrip doesn't count towards your number of cantrips known." Yes I understand that this opens of the opportunity for some players to pick up Eldritch Blast, but I think this would be a good option because it allows more than just the fire bolt option, plus with how their level 6 feature works, they might also choose to learn a saving throw spell instead.
After a little thought I see a problem with this. This puts Sacred Flame and Wall of Force on the same class spell list. Personally I might go with something like whenever you do damage with a cantrip that does fire, thunder, lightning or cold damage you can change its damage type to another of those types.
Yeah I agree with that, this was just a brain dump of ideas, after looking at the other options, it'd be better to limit this to learn a wizard evocation cantrip. Which would eliminate options of EB, sacred flame, and word of radiance.
The Divination one is a little clunky in the wording and though it would be neat to have a Guidance based Wizard, why not actually makeTrue Strike viable?
School of Divination - 'You learn the True Strike cantrip and can use it as a bonus action that grants advantage on a number of attacks equal to your intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.'
Also, I would recommend avoiding the Friends as a key feature for a class. A lot of people, me being one of them, don't like the spell (along with similar spells like Charm Person) due to is potential insidious undertones. For example, gaslighting, removing agency from a person, manipulation, et cetera. Personally, I'd go with something like this:
School of Enchantment - 'You learn the Mind Sliver (UA) cantrip and until the end of your next turn, the target must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from all saving throws.'
Yes, I know Mind Sliver is in the UA, but I am like 95% certain it will make an appearance in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, considering all of the psychic based UA subclasses are being printed within it.
Yeah, I agree the wording is a bit clunky and I could've gone with a true strike improvement but I thought that guidance made more sense for a divination wizard. As for friends, I can see that point but I tried to focus on spells that made sense and wasn't combat based (expect for evocation of course).
Instead of giving access more evocation cantrips you could add your spell casting mod to the damage of your wizard evocation cantrips. yeah at level 10 it would stack but that would also be thematic of evocation wizards. just food for thought.
Personally I wish they would have done this for potent cantrip to begin with...
I tend to agree with crzyhawk, but I am disappointed that wizards can't prepare or swap out cantrips like other spells. I think that would be the most significant and thematic change to wizard cantrips.
It seems like all spellcasters are going to gain that ability, in the 2019 class variants every class with direct access to cantrips has "Cantrip Versatility" which is really just a rule clarifying that cantrips are spells for the purpose of swapping spells in and out.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
What's so strong about wizards? they are one of the weakest full spellcaster class after sorcerers
In what way do you see wizards as weak? They have the highest level of versatility and utility of all the spell casters.
Yeah I was wondering that as well; they're physically the weakest, but that's not the point of Wizards at all. Spellcasting in D&D can be very powerful, and Wizards know (and can know) far more spells than a sorcerer will, so while the latter can cast their spells more times in combat, a Wizard can have spells for any occasion, and can optimise for any enemy you can gather some information about in advance.
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Spellcasting in D&D can be very powerful, and Wizards know (and can know) far more spells than a sorcerer will, so while the latter can cast their spells more times in combat, a Wizard can have spells for any occasion, and can optimise for any enemy you can gather some information about in advance.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
What's so strong about wizards? they are one of the weakest full spellcaster class after sorcerers
I'm not really sure how to answer this. Not only are they imo, the strongest spellcaster in the game, they are the strongest /character class/ in the game. The absolute flexibility in their spells is why. Wizards are one of the very few characters that you can completely change the playstyle on...not just between sessions, but on a long rest. Being able to completely change out their spell loadout is rivaled only by the Cleric, and the Cleric's spell list while impressive can't hold a candle to the Wizards. What do you want to do? There's usually a spell for it. The only thing a wizard can't /really/ do well out of the box is to heal. They can even melee depending on archetype although that tends to become less efficient at higher levels.
you want to blow things up? Wizards have the best selection of spells to do so. You want to tell the DM to get bent? You have the best selection of spells to do so. You want to be sneaky? Greater invisibility is a thing.
You get character ADD? You can set up different spell loadouts and completely change the playstyle of your character. When you want to be tricksy, pick illusion spells. When you want to make the DM cry, pick control spells. If you're feeling lazy, just pick out blasty spells and burn his monsters to a crisp. A good wizard can be a nightmare for a DM to prepare for because the DM can only guess at what spells will be prepared. It's like rock-paper-scissors every session for a DM because if he throws paper, and the wizard is running scissors that session, he's in trouble.
I'm sorry, I just can't agree that wizards are weaker than any spellcasters at all. Clerics are the only real challengers to the title, but their spell selection is far more limited.
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Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but yeah... wizards are definitely not weak, their strength comes in how versatile their casting it. Are there other casters that can do something better yeah and as it should be, but in regards to always having a spell they can use, they are the best. Especially when you take into consideration of, "oh I don't have X spell, guess I'll just get a scroll and add it to my spellbook" as compared to known casters. It can be argued that prepared casters are better in this way because they can also change their spells list via long rest and don't need to have their spells in a spellbook, but it comes at the cost of these casters having smaller spell lists than the wizards.
Instead of giving access more evocation cantrips you could add your spell casting mod to the damage of your wizard evocation cantrips. yeah at level 10 it would stack but that would also be thematic of evocation wizards. just food for thought.
Personally I wish they would have done this for potent cantrip to begin with...
I can see that, but I'd rather avoid doing stacking features like that, but I do agree that empowered spellcasting should of been the 2nd level feature instead, while moving sculpt spell to 6th and potent cantrip to 10th.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
What's so strong about wizards? they are one of the weakest full spellcaster class after sorcerers
I'm not really sure how to answer this. Not only are they imo, the strongest spellcaster in the game, they are the strongest /character class/ in the game. The absolute flexibility in their spells is why. Wizards are one of the very few characters that you can completely change the playstyle on...not just between sessions, but on a long rest. Being able to completely change out their spell loadout is rivaled only by the Cleric, and the Cleric's spell list while impressive can't hold a candle to the Wizards. What do you want to do? There's usually a spell for it. The only thing a wizard can't /really/ do well out of the box is to heal. They can even melee depending on archetype although that tends to become less efficient at higher levels.
I see this argument come up a lot and it's more than a little weak. The versatility argument depends on the wizard having 3 things in a campaign setting. Gold, Time, and Access to other spells and scribing components (Market or Loot). Take any one of those away and it really falls apart. Even in a setting with ample gold and a Magic mart right down the street it isn't so easy to get the rest of the party to agree with you delaying the next quest objective by 8 hours to scribe 2 second level spells into your spell-book; 12 hours if your making backups like you should be. Not to mention the plot of the story might not even allow for it. I'm not going to call wizards the weakest spell casters or anything, but I certainly wouldn't call them the strongest. When looking at the 3 different prepared spell casters Wizard, Cleric, and Druid which one comes out ahead is super situational.
Spell Versatility looks really great on paper, but in my personal experience it's kinda hit or miss.
I see this argument come up a lot and it's more than a little weak. The versatility argument depends on the wizard having 3 things in a campaign setting. Gold, Time, and Access to other spells and scribing components (Market or Loot). Take any one of those away and it really falls apart. Even in a setting with ample gold and a Magic mart right down the street it isn't so easy to get the rest of the party to agree with you delaying the next quest objective by 8 hours to scribe 2 second level spells into your spell-book; 12 hours if your making backups like you should be. Not to mention the plot of the story might not even allow for it. I'm not going to call wizards the weakest spell casters or anything, but I certainly wouldn't call them the strongest. When looking at the 3 different prepared spell casters Wizard, Cleric, and Druid which one comes out ahead is super situational.
Spell Versatility looks really great on paper, but in my personal experience it's kinda hit or miss.
I fully agree with this. In theory the wizard has access to all kinds of spells for each and every situation. In reality you will have to triage carefully which spells to choose at lvl up and which to hunt and scribe. The notion of a wizard being able to choose from his entire spell list every day is just not realistic in my experience. Getting access to the entire class list every single day is a huge advantage of Clerics and Druids over Wizards in terms of versatility.
Regarding the spell lists: I think wizards only really pull ahead of clerics and druids in terms of having a superior spell list at the higher level spells (spell level >5). Especially for the first few levels it's quite debatable which is the best one in my opinion.
I fully agree with this. In theory the wizard has access to all kinds of spells for each and every situation. In reality you will have to triage carefully which spells to choose at lvl up and which to hunt and scribe. The notion of a wizard being able to choose from his entire spell list every day is just not realistic in my experience. Getting access to the entire class list every single day is a huge advantage of Clerics and Druids over Wizards in terms of versatility.
Regarding the spell lists: I think wizards only really pull ahead of clerics and druids in terms of having a superior spell list at the higher level spells (spell level >5). Especially for the first few levels it's quite debatable which is the best one in my opinion.
Since most campaigns don't go past level 10 I just don't see why everyone makes such a big deal about spell versatility. And when you consider the main tropes that writers lean on to make adventure modules interesting. Namely limited resources and quest urgency; spell versatility really disappears from the equation. And don't get me wrong; it IS powerful in the right setting. But how often is a campaign set within a major city, with high gold rewards, and carefully paced plot points to allow for downtime to scribe spells? Basically......... How many people have Matthew Mercer as a DM?
I think more design weight was placed on spell versatility than was realistically warranted and there is a little more room for improvements at low levels than people realize.
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After time talking back and forth with my DM, we've started to like the idea of having each wizard subclass to have their own "boosted cantrip" feature, similar to the School of Illusion's improved minor illusion. So I'm just curious if anyone has tried this and what your opinions are about this idea. With that said, here's a few idea for the PHB subclasses.
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The school of abjuration seems most interesting to me. You actually get the ability to consistently protect allies......... Why didn't WOTC think of that?
The Divination one is a little clunky in the wording and though it would be neat to have a Guidance based Wizard, why not actually make True Strike viable?
School of Divination - 'You learn the True Strike cantrip and can use it as a bonus action that grants advantage on a number of attacks equal to your intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.'
Also, I would recommend avoiding the Friends as a key feature for a class. A lot of people, me being one of them, don't like the spell (along with similar spells like Charm Person) due to is potential insidious undertones. For example, gaslighting, removing agency from a person, manipulation, et cetera. Personally, I'd go with something like this:
School of Enchantment - 'You learn the [Tooltip Not Found] cantrip and until the end of your next turn, the target must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from all saving throws.'
Yes, I know Mind Sliver is in the UA, but I am like 95% certain it will make an appearance in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, considering all of the psychic based UA subclasses are being printed within it.
After a little thought I see a problem with this. This puts Sacred Flame and Wall of Force on the same class spell list. Personally I might go with something like whenever you do damage with a cantrip that does fire, thunder, lightning or cold damage you can change its damage type to another of those types.
My personal opinion is that wizards are already extremely strong and /any/ kind of boost should be very careful to not be too much.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I tend to agree with crzyhawk, but I am disappointed that wizards can't prepare or swap out cantrips like other spells. I think that would be the most significant and thematic change to wizard cantrips.
Extremely strong...... at the cost of living a tiny life ( or at least, with the lowest HP scores ). I like the Wizards, but I think I could make an Abjurer wiz, adding him/her the proficiency on the shields, and using that shield as a magic focus. Is it a double win ??
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Yeah, I would ban that no questions asked. Completely not happening at my table.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
There’s a feat for that:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/shield-training-ua
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Yeah I agree with that, this was just a brain dump of ideas, after looking at the other options, it'd be better to limit this to learn a wizard evocation cantrip. Which would eliminate options of EB, sacred flame, and word of radiance.
Yeah, I agree the wording is a bit clunky and I could've gone with a true strike improvement but I thought that guidance made more sense for a divination wizard. As for friends, I can see that point but I tried to focus on spells that made sense and wasn't combat based (expect for evocation of course).
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Instead of giving access more evocation cantrips you could add your spell casting mod to the damage of your wizard evocation cantrips. yeah at level 10 it would stack but that would also be thematic of evocation wizards. just food for thought.
Personally I wish they would have done this for potent cantrip to begin with...
What's so strong about wizards? they are one of the weakest full spellcaster class after sorcerers
In what way do you see wizards as weak? They have the highest level of versatility and utility of all the spell casters.
It seems like all spellcasters are going to gain that ability, in the 2019 class variants every class with direct access to cantrips has "Cantrip Versatility" which is really just a rule clarifying that cantrips are spells for the purpose of swapping spells in and out.
Yeah I was wondering that as well; they're physically the weakest, but that's not the point of Wizards at all. Spellcasting in D&D can be very powerful, and Wizards know (and can know) far more spells than a sorcerer will, so while the latter can cast their spells more times in combat, a Wizard can have spells for any occasion, and can optimise for any enemy you can gather some information about in advance.
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Between Arcane Recovery, and eventually if the campaign goes long enough Spell Mastery, even that is debatable.
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I'm not really sure how to answer this. Not only are they imo, the strongest spellcaster in the game, they are the strongest /character class/ in the game. The absolute flexibility in their spells is why. Wizards are one of the very few characters that you can completely change the playstyle on...not just between sessions, but on a long rest. Being able to completely change out their spell loadout is rivaled only by the Cleric, and the Cleric's spell list while impressive can't hold a candle to the Wizards. What do you want to do? There's usually a spell for it. The only thing a wizard can't /really/ do well out of the box is to heal. They can even melee depending on archetype although that tends to become less efficient at higher levels.
you want to blow things up? Wizards have the best selection of spells to do so. You want to tell the DM to get bent? You have the best selection of spells to do so. You want to be sneaky? Greater invisibility is a thing.
You get character ADD? You can set up different spell loadouts and completely change the playstyle of your character. When you want to be tricksy, pick illusion spells. When you want to make the DM cry, pick control spells. If you're feeling lazy, just pick out blasty spells and burn his monsters to a crisp. A good wizard can be a nightmare for a DM to prepare for because the DM can only guess at what spells will be prepared. It's like rock-paper-scissors every session for a DM because if he throws paper, and the wizard is running scissors that session, he's in trouble.
I'm sorry, I just can't agree that wizards are weaker than any spellcasters at all. Clerics are the only real challengers to the title, but their spell selection is far more limited.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but yeah... wizards are definitely not weak, their strength comes in how versatile their casting it. Are there other casters that can do something better yeah and as it should be, but in regards to always having a spell they can use, they are the best. Especially when you take into consideration of, "oh I don't have X spell, guess I'll just get a scroll and add it to my spellbook" as compared to known casters. It can be argued that prepared casters are better in this way because they can also change their spells list via long rest and don't need to have their spells in a spellbook, but it comes at the cost of these casters having smaller spell lists than the wizards.
I can see that, but I'd rather avoid doing stacking features like that, but I do agree that empowered spellcasting should of been the 2nd level feature instead, while moving sculpt spell to 6th and potent cantrip to 10th.
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I see this argument come up a lot and it's more than a little weak. The versatility argument depends on the wizard having 3 things in a campaign setting. Gold, Time, and Access to other spells and scribing components (Market or Loot). Take any one of those away and it really falls apart. Even in a setting with ample gold and a Magic mart right down the street it isn't so easy to get the rest of the party to agree with you delaying the next quest objective by 8 hours to scribe 2 second level spells into your spell-book; 12 hours if your making backups like you should be. Not to mention the plot of the story might not even allow for it. I'm not going to call wizards the weakest spell casters or anything, but I certainly wouldn't call them the strongest. When looking at the 3 different prepared spell casters Wizard, Cleric, and Druid which one comes out ahead is super situational.
Spell Versatility looks really great on paper, but in my personal experience it's kinda hit or miss.
I fully agree with this. In theory the wizard has access to all kinds of spells for each and every situation. In reality you will have to triage carefully which spells to choose at lvl up and which to hunt and scribe. The notion of a wizard being able to choose from his entire spell list every day is just not realistic in my experience. Getting access to the entire class list every single day is a huge advantage of Clerics and Druids over Wizards in terms of versatility.
Regarding the spell lists: I think wizards only really pull ahead of clerics and druids in terms of having a superior spell list at the higher level spells (spell level >5). Especially for the first few levels it's quite debatable which is the best one in my opinion.
Since most campaigns don't go past level 10 I just don't see why everyone makes such a big deal about spell versatility. And when you consider the main tropes that writers lean on to make adventure modules interesting. Namely limited resources and quest urgency; spell versatility really disappears from the equation. And don't get me wrong; it IS powerful in the right setting. But how often is a campaign set within a major city, with high gold rewards, and carefully paced plot points to allow for downtime to scribe spells? Basically......... How many people have Matthew Mercer as a DM?
I think more design weight was placed on spell versatility than was realistically warranted and there is a little more room for improvements at low levels than people realize.