D&D (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[Minigiant]

The Wizard is a young knight in training, or an accomplished lord at the height of power.

Because of magic extending life and maintaining youthfulness, the Wizard who CHOOSES to appear as an elder is rare.

I wouldn't say that.

I'd say a wizard who appears old is likely finished or never went adventuring and is firmly in NPC stage. D&D wizardry doesn't take decades of study like the inspirations the class is based on.

So it's highly unlikely to get old, a wizard, and actively adventuring. Even for a human.

 

[Cadence]

You mean the Pope? Roman Catholicism is just one religion amongst many, and in that Cardinals wear red and priests wear black. You going to ban wizards from wearing black and red as well for looking too religious?

Prediction: any cleric illustrations will avoid colours associated with real world religions.

That would deal with the Dragonlance ones though, right

 

[teitan]

What I was inferring was the difference between the image of a PC wizard and the image of the NPC wizard.

The old bearded man is more the image of the NPC wizard. This is because of the way D&D works or is structured, it is highly unlikely a PC wizard would get that old during play.

The young superhero wizard upstart is more likely what the players would play as PCs as adventuring by D&D's nature is a cheat over self study or academic training.

Depends on edition. In 1 or 2e, even 3e, healing & especially magic were different. Spells like Haste aged you. Healing was 1 point a day with rest and while the Realms had a plethora of healers it was generally assumed they were rarer in other settings and a cleric can only heal so much. You could very well be in your characters 40s even by the time you’re 9th level, let alone 15th or 20th.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

All this talk about old white-bearded wizards reminds me about how I wish the levelling (in setting-wise, it's fine session-wise) wouldn't be so quick. I mean it would be cool if during the campaign actually years and decades passed. Starting characters would be in their twenties, and high level ones would be grey-haired grizzled veterans.

 

[Yaarel]

I wouldn't say that.

I'd say a wizard who appears old is likely finished or never went adventuring and is firmly in NPC stage. D&D wizardry doesn't take decades of study like the inspirations the class is based on.

So it's highly unlikely to get old, a wizard, and actively adventuring. Even for a human.

If Wizards are already level 20 while youthful, why would they CHOOSE to stop being youthful?

Also, with one more level, even the Human Wizards can literally become immortal.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I wouldn't say that.

I'd say a wizard who appears old is likely finished or never went adventuring and is firmly in NPC stage. D&D wizardry doesn't take decades of study like the inspirations the class is based on.

So it's highly unlikely to get old, a wizard, and actively adventuring. Even for a human.

or the gods of magic and knowledge decided to gift people explanations on superior education and study techniques?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If Wizards are already level 20 while youthful, why would they CHOOSE to stop being youthful?

Also, with one more level, even the Human Wizards can literally become immortal.

You become immortal at level 15, when you can cast Clone. Makes me wonder why anyone would want to become a lich...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

All this talk about old white-bearded wizards reminds me about how I wish the levelling (in setting-wise, it's fine session-wise) wouldn't be so quick. I mean it would be cool if during the campaign actually years and decades passed. Starting characters would be in their twenties, and high level ones would be grey-haired grizzled veterans.

It's a cute idea that several games have taken a shot at but I have yet to see a game structure itself so as to make it plausible.

The trouble is, to make it work, you'd basically need to make adventurers take 1+ year breaks between each adventure, or like 10+ year breaks between each, say, chunk of a campaign, and it's just not very plausible that all the PCs would both get together again and get back into adventuring after such breaks. Life changes happen - people would settle down, marry, have/adopt kids, get real jobs, and so on. Then they wouldn't want to get back into adventuring.

You can amp up the threat to "APOCALYPSE" to potentially make them, but that's a trick you can't keep pulling, year after year

The other big problem is, with D&D's approach to races and aging, which is a sacred cow of the most unkillable kind, you'd have a human basically on their deathbed before most of the demihuman races even reached middle age (THANKS TOLKIEN!!!). Modern races like tieflings and dragonborn were thoughtfully given more human-like lifespans, but most of the older races are barely getting grey hairs at 100, if even that. And elves, popular as they are, just get to watch everyone age and die whilst they're still in the elf physical equivalent of their 20s (I believe there's even an anime about this - Frieren - I haven't watched it yet, I hear it's good though).

 

[Reef]

I really don't know why it keeps coming back to this when it has nothing to do with the original disccusion. I was never talking about what people want to play.

So, just to clear this up: I never said I want the old bearded man picture for the new PHB. I refuted a post claiming this image is more "wizard" than the old bearded man, which I argued is still more recognizable to most people of what a wizard would look like than this image. This image would make more people think of a superhero, which is one reason why it doesn't appeal to me. That's all.

Nothing at all about what people want to play.

I think why you’re getting pushback (at least from me) is the implications of what you’re saying (and I apologize in advance if I’ve completely misread the situation).

No one is denying that if you show the average person on the street a picture of a Gandalf-look-alike, that they would immediately say ‘Wizard’. My disagreement was that you seemed to think this wasn’t a wizard, despite hitting the three hallmarks that I look for in identifying a wizard: Spells, staff, and (most importantly) a spellbook. She has all of those.

It sounds like that you are saying she doesn’t look like a wizard because she’s not an old man with a beard.

Gandalf is for sure a famous archetype. But I’m sure posters could flood this thread with equally famous and recognizable wizards from the last 30 years who weren’t old men with beards and pointy hats.

And at the end of the day, the question isn’t whether she could win an “I look like a wizard!” contest with Gandalf. It’s whether people could pick her out as the wizard next to the other D&D class illustrations. I obviously haven’t seen the sorcerer or warlock images, but I have no doubt they each will be distinct in their own right.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

when did i ever mention this was specifically in relation to IRL religion or banning anything? it's just as, if not more prominent a thing in media, i didn't even say that wizards can't wear white and gold only that there is an existing thematic bias there

Well, no, you didn't give any actual examples, leaving us to make guesses as to what the heck you are talking about.