Me, but I guess that I was unclear. My original point was that no one much was sitting around saying "oh boy, I can't wait to see what the 5E PHB has in store for the Diviner!"
That WotC stepped up to the plate with a good subclass ability is great, but I don't think Diviners historically have had the constituency that illusionists, necromancers and even enchanters have. If I had been in charge of the PHB, I might have had robust illusionist, necromancer and enchanter subclasses (the more I think about it, the more I think enchanters not having people remember being charmed is a great, subclass-defining ability) and then had a good generalist wizard subclass in the mix as well.
I guess I just don’t see why older editions matter, in this context? They made good subclasses for the schools. They feel distinct.
Maybe if each school had their own list of archetype spells and no other wizard could use them, that would help. You wanna cast fireball, be an evoker.
I’d be all for expanding the evokers access to evocations, but the iconic spells should remain available to all Wizards.
Maybe allow school Wizards to explicitly add spells to their spellbook without finding them, by researching them. Say it takes 1 day to research per hour to scribe the spell.
So I will re-ask my question: what specific archetypes should the wizard be getting?
An archer that delivers spells via ranged weapon attacks.
A shadow Wizard that makes their shadow into a “pet” that protects them and through which they can cast spells.
A Wizard focused on using a familiar. to be fair, conjurer could have been this.
An implement/spell focus specialist.
A dueling expert. (Abjurer comes close since Abjuration affects other magic)
A Wizard that shares space with the Monk, somehow? I’ve got a lot of ideas here, some of which are better as a monk subclass that is part Wizard.
A “Blue Mage” that steals abilities from enemies and turns them into “spells”.
A “White Mage” that doesn’t try to be half cleric, but gets restoration magic.
A tactician mage that can cast from allies’ space, and target a second creature with some single target buff spells, maybe also some sort of “Kings Gambit” swap like the conjurer has, but affecting two allies.
A Hermeticist, which would have elements of alchemy but would mostly be about ritual magic, including doing some rituals spells in much shorter time, and doing some non-ritual spells as rituals. This is another sort of “This could have been what the Wizard is as a class” subclass.
Part of the problem with the Warlock class is it is built heavily around eldritch blast and related shenanigans. Can you do a Warlock without eldritch blast? Absolutely! But most of the most effective stuff you can do revolves around eldritch blast so you're going to be missing out.
I really think they missed an opportunity to make the warlock play like you’re cheating at magic. Here are some abilities that could be base class, invocation, pact boon, or subclass, but regardless would make the class feel more like a shortcut taking gutsy fool who made a deal in order to be able to cheat at magic and tangle with creature they have no business tangling with.
- When you start you turn while concentrating on a spell that deals damage, you can cause one target of that spell to take an additional die of damage. You gain THP equal to the damage dealt in this way.
- X/day When you deal cold damage with a spell, you can choose up to your Cha modifier creatures within 10ft of the target. They and the initial target must succeed on a con save or take 1d10 cold damage and their speed is halved.
- When you deal damage to a creature within 60ft, as a bonus action you can create a link to them. At the start of your turns and once per round when you take damage, the target takes damage equal to your Cha mod. (Concentration, x/day)
- When you cast Chill Touch, you can target a second creature as a bonus action.
- When you cast Chill Touch, you can maintain the spectral hand on the same creature by maintaining concentration. If you do, they must save at the start of your turn or take necrotic damage equal to your Cha mod. If they are reduced to 0hp while under this effect, you can choose to either deal 1d6 necrotic damage to all creatures within 5ft of the target, or regain 1d6 hit point
You get the idea. Stuff similar to the EB invocation but some would be more broad while others would be specific to other spells. The effects would layer additional effects onto spells or otherwise make them function in ways that no one else has access to. Cheating at magic. Access to magic that other mortals cannot access.
Either they shouldn't be able to get all the spells or specialists should be straight-up better with their subschool than everyone else.
I’d go the other way on the spell list. They should have access to every spell of that school in the game.
I wouldn’t mind an ability to boost the DC or attack bonus of school spells a few times per day, but an at will bonus would take up too much power and leave the class vastly more bland than it is.
That said, most of them
are better at cast spell in their school.
- Evokers can shape their spells, and just get harder and harder hitting with evocations.
- Diviners get slots back when they cast divination spells.
- Conjurers can’t be made to lose concentration via damage on conjugation spells.
- Abjurers refresh their shield when they cast Abjurations and add proficiency bonus to Counterspell and Dispel Magic ability checks.
- Enchanters have Alter Memories and can target a second creature with single target enchantments! Why ever play any other enchantment focused character!? Maybe Whisper Bard?
- Illusionists get all sorts of stuff for illusions.
- Necromancer kinda sucks and Wizards dropped the ball in terms of letting them create some basic little skeleton servant at low levels. Like...come on. Give them a level 1 “make a skeleton that dies if sneezed at but scales with spell level” necromancy spell.
- Transmuters are kinda rad, but aren’t so much better at casting transmutation spells as they are able to just do transmutations without casting spells, which is disappointing. Could have used a rethink. Higher level Transmuters are really good, though. It’s just lame that they get no “be better at these spells” features except for one feature for polymorph that isn’t even actually better.
so, barring a couple duds in execution...what’s missing?
dnd.wizards.com
