D&D 5E Why does Wizards of the Coast hate Wizards?

practicalm

Explorer
It would be interesting to have a few more bonus action options for wizards, but I don't think they need it since they have action to bonus action spells.
Also as mentioned Wizards are already quite good and the UA class modifications were to shore up some of the weaker parts.
 

log in or register to remove this ad





tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
I think there were two glaring omissions that the wizard class had in that UA.

The first is that there were no non-ritual spells that got the ritual tag. The wizard ritual caster is different from every other class granted ritual caster ability in that it only needs to be in the spellbook not prepared, this is great up ntil level 3 spells where a wizard could have pretty much every ritual spell available if they wanted. After third level spells they pretty much stop being ritual.That could be fixed by adding the ritual tag to some or adding a variant ritual tag like "greater ritual" or something that takes more time (ie hours instead of minutes)/possibly even resources.

There are plenty of spells that could easily be ritual under one of those two thoug... For example Darkvision, zone of truth, dispel magic, project image, astral projection, Knock, teleport, detect evil and good, sending, locate object, magic aura, scrying, find the path, create food and water, transport via plants, hallow, mighty fortress, magnificent mansion ,tongues, arcane eye. Yes some of those spells are also available to other classes & maing them ritual would be a boon for those classes too, but none of them are spells that are really balancing concern ones.

The second omission is more of an oddity & probably oversight rather than omission, unfortunately WotC continued with Scorrlock having most favored class "dating the GM" status by having the dramatically improved version. Multiple classes got "Whenever you gain a level in a class that has $feature, you can replace a $option of that $feature that you know with another spell/cantrip/fighting style available to your class. Classes with fighting styles can swap those, prepared spell classes (cleric/wizard) with cantrips can swap cantrips. The problem comes with sorcerer & warlock can replace a leveled spell during a long rest giving them limited access to the kind of versatility Grated by a wizard's spellbook; that is fine& reasonable since having their spells locked until level up was a bit too restrictive for inexperienced players & players subjected to dramatic gamestyle shifts. Bard Ranger & Pally got to replace a leveled spell during a long rest, also reasonable for reasons stated. Cleric got the ability to change a cantrip when they level, this is great as a divine caster who always has access to their entire spell list when preparing spells during a long rest. Wizards get the same thing as clerics but as a class that has the cost of scribing spells to their spellbook who already pretty much had a massively expensive & limited by treasure availability version of what everyone else is getting it's unreasonable to limit the wizard cantrip versatility to level rather than long rest like the scorlock spell versatility abilities.
 

Undrave

Legend
The lack of Arcana Expertise IS a bit weird for the Wizard. Seems like that would be his forte... aside from that the Wizard is fine.

The Wizard has EIGHT subclass in the PHB when I could EASILY convert all 8 'school specialist' into a single subclass with a school-based choice, but they went the extra way to create all 8 different ones. WOTC doesn't hate the Wizard.
 

Yaarel

He Mage
What is the Char Op assessment of the Wizard class?

Low-tiers (1-4, 5-8)
High-tiers (9-12, 13-16)
Legend (17-20)

?
 

Tony Vargas

Legend
What is the Char Op assessment of the Wizard class?
Low-tiers (1-4, 5-8)
High-tiers (9-12, 13-16)
Legend (17-20)

As an aside, I think it's funny that making 'Tiers' jargon for level bands has finally caught on enough to make it slightly harder to talk about Class Tiers. The Wizard is still solidly Class Tier 1, given the unprecedented versatility of prepping daily and casting spontaneously, it'd be Tier 0 if spells had proliferated in number & power the way they did in 3.x, but it's place on the top of the heap is the same as in 3e, either way. Really, the Bard is the only class that's dramatically changed in the rankings since 3e, though most boats have been floated on the rising tide of increased versatility, loosened restrictions, and spells for all. Like, it's hard to put any whole class at Tier 5. The Champion and Berserker may arguably languish there, as sub-classes, but they're pretty lonely. Nothing is so badly designed as to rate Tier 6, not even the Ranger.
 


Remove ads

Top