D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: "New Wizard"

"The paramount collector of spells."

Open your spellbooks, everybody. Today we get a Wizard video.

​

The last version of the class was in the UA Playtest 7 package (PT7). It's not clear how much they'll say here. Of the base class, I am hoping that they have recanted the level 5 ability, Memorize Spell (or perhaps shifted it to needing a short rest). They've said that the PHB will get clearer rules for how illusions work -- maybe they'll talk about that? Other than that, I think the most they can do is show us some revised spells: Will the revised version of Counterspell be kept? Any surprise Necromancy reveals? Let's find out.

OVERVIEW

• "the paramount collector of spells": "many" of new spells are for the wizard.
• As in PT7: cantrip change after long rest (level 1); scholar -- expertise in an academic field (at 2)
• NO MENTION OF ARCANE RECOVERY
• NEW: Ritual Adept broken out as a new class feature. They can cast spells in their spellbook, as before, but here ID'd as a new feature.
• NEW: Memorize Spell at 5: you can swap a spell after short rest.
• Each subclass gets a new version of Savant: free spells in spellbook of preferred school. 2 free spells of favored class, and a new spell for each spell level (so every 2 levels, as in the playtest. This isn't what is said in the video, but has been corrected elsewhere.

SUBCLASSES
Abjurer

• new abjuration spells feeds back onto how subclass functions.
• NEW: Arcane Ward at 3: resistance, immunity applied before the Arcane Ward.
• NEW: Projected Ward a 6: your friend's resistance is applied before the ward for them.
• NEW: Spell breaker at level 10: Counterspell and Dispell Magic are both prepared (PT7 did not include Counterspell). Dispell Magic is a bonus action.

Diviner

• NEW: Third Eye at 10. As in PT7, bonus action to activate; 120' darkvision, see invisibility. NO MENTION of Greater Comprehension ("read any language")

Evoker -- "all about bringing the boom"

• As in PT7: Potent Cantrip at 3 applies to cantrips both with a saving throw or an attack roll.

Illusionist -- "we felt that the subclass needed more" (YAY)

• NEW: Improved Illusions at level 3:
  • cast illusion spells with no verbal components. (FUN)
  • illusions with range with at least 10' is increased to 60' (no-- by 60' to 70').
  • you get minor illusion cantrip, with both visual and audible
  • you cast minor illusion as a bonus action.
• NEW: Phantasmal Creatures
  • summon beast and summon fey spells always prepared. These MAY BE changed from conjuration to Illusion, and the illusory version can be cast without expending a spell slot, but the summoned version, only with half the hit points. ONCE PER DAY.
  • illusions can step on a trap to set it off (?!)
  • (replacing Malleable Illusions, which I complained about here. This is so exciting.)
• NEW: Illusory Self triggered by you being hit by an attack (not when you are targeted). As in PT7, you can get more uses by giving up a spell slot of level 2+.

SPECIFIC SPELLS

• NEW: school shift to Abjuration: no examples
• Counterspell as in PT7.
• GUIDANCE ON ILLUSIONS in Rules Glossary. E.g. How are they affected by environment?
  • spell descriptions also clarified. Rules Glossary to be discussed in future video (also conditions, areas of effects, guidance on teleportation, telepathy, "
• "being dead" to be discussed in Cleric Video. Tease...

So this gave much more than I was expecting, and it looks amazing. Playing an illusionist will now be much more clearly not a "mother may I?" situation, which (I feel) has long been the case. I think I got most of what I'd asked for in the PT feedback.

 

[mellored]

The devil is in the details. While there are going to be some gems, without scaling by caster level the vast majority of those spells that can tote this sort of label View attachment 373260 are going to be ones at the bottom of the trash tier grouping of spells like wall of sand.

how is having access to wall of sand worse than not having access to wall of sand?

Nearly all of the "wizard exclusive" spells that might be considered worth casting are spells granted to one or more sorcerer/warlock subclasses as

How is having access to one or two Wizard spells better than having access to all of them?

 

[Stalker0]

We don't know, neither of us has any information.... They might be all kinds of things, but unlike JC's excitement over how much GM's will hate a subclass in videos like the sorcerer video the wizard video didn't get that kind of excitement until talking about doing the cleric video. Without that excitement delving deeper the wizard & spells videos both skipped over spotlighting the goals with changes to rituals

Because we don't know anything of substance, rituals can't offer you the substance needed to support your efforts to spotlight them. What we can infer about whatever changes were made to the black box of 2024 rituals is that those changes are not changes that JC & TK were able to get excited about with details that would have provided substance like how much gm's will hate particular sorcerer subclasses or the various at will lockdown abilities.

I'm not sure I understand this post. My last post specifically said "if you think rituals are garbage that is just fine, there are tons of other spells your wizard can pick, and you still gain 5-15 more spells than teh sorc".

Now personally I think rituals are great, but you don't have to yourself to appreciate that having more spells than another caster is a benefit. It allows you to take more niche spells that a sorc would never consider because there spells known list is smaller and therefore more precious to them. Further, wizard has a lot more flexibility in what spells they want to take, whereas near half of the sorc spells known are dictated by the subclass.

For example, Alarm is on the clockwork sorc's spell list. You have already said you think alarm is hot garbage. Fair enough, so that's a spell known that is "totally worthless" for the sorc....but the wizard doesn't have to take it. If they think its bad, they pick something else.

 

[Stalker0]

This is an issue in general, and connected to WOTC's adventure offerings. Many of their adventures are large in scope, spanning multiple levels and with few if any opportunities for downtime. In addition, adventures tend not to include all that many found spellbooks, or even scrolls, and the rules are rather silent on the cost of acquiring spells to copy into your spellbook (they specify the cost of the copying itself, but not of acquiring something to copy). That means that one of the wizard's main abilities, that of expanding their spell selection, is extremely campaign-reliant.

This is probably the best counter-point I have seen in a while on this thread.

I've already made the statement that if your going to equip the fighter with 1500 gp of platemail, then its fair to give the wizard lots of gold for spell crafting. But is WOTC "teaching" new DMs this, or is there adventure design (which for some groups is all they play, or at least informs them on what a "proper" game should be) teaching them to ignore the wizard feature?

That's a fair concern, if WOTC is not showing dms how to highlight a core class feature in their adventures (especially for one of the "core 4" classes), then it might be getting ignored a fair amount in regular games.

 

[Amphytrion]

I would like to add the perspective of someone who almost never plays a Wizard (I almost never play anything, I'm a DM 99.9% of the time). I run games quite often: I have a couple of weekly home games, and I run additional ones in the game store and for other friends fairly frequently.

I am quite frustrated in the Wizard class design overall, and I think my players will be as well.

The Wizard is a popular class: people like the fantasy of the wise old man with great power accumulated through the years. People love Gandalf and Merlin. I have rarely DMed a game in which there were no wizards. Most of the time, the wizard's subclass is either evocation, necromancy, or bladesinger, and I think that is because those are the most evocative subclasses theme-wise, regardless of their power differences.

There is lots of talk online about how a Wizard, if played as a control caster, outpaces everyone else. I think this got started with a Treatmonk video about God-Wizard, and I've never actually watched it, so it might be true. That being said, I've never played with such a Wizard. It is not a popular choice in my experience, and it requires a certain player mastery and knowledge of spells that most players lack and aren't quite all that interested in achieving. I do not blame them for this -- memorizing scores of spells and their interplay is only fun for some of us.

Many (most?) players come to the game, have fun, and go home, and that's perfectly legitimate. No one should be barred from playing Wizard effectively because he, the player, is not intimately familiar with the overlaps and combinations of a long spell list, or doesn't want to rely on making combos of trap-spells -- I don't require the Rogue player this amount of knowledge to do anything similar, and it's often just not part of the fantasy.

If a player chose an Evocation Wizard as their subclass, that player expects to be very good at blasting, and I also think that's legitimate. I see no reason the Sorcerer should be better overall in combat than an Evocation Wizard, and I think the current power disparity between those casters will be frustrating at the table (if I ever switch). Rituals are nice, but they are also not often part of a class fantasy, and players use them well but fairly sparingly.

Overall, I imagine it might be true that if someone played a Wizard as Treantmonk plays one, he could outshine his companions, even though I've never experienced this in the flesh. The issue is that, by buffing everyone else and not buffing the Wizard, the game has somewhat restricted the Wizard playstyle to what a Treantmonk would do, and that's at the expense of many other Wizard playstyles at the table.

This approximates D&D to PF2e's design philosophy, in which there is a very clear but strict right way to play a class, and that's frankly the thing that I thought was most exhausting about that game, even beyond its rules being printed in small 8-sized font. When a class fantasy and its mechanics don't align, you get lots of frustration (as Wizard players always have been whenever I tried DMing PF2e, for good reason). I should not have to explain the meta of the game for a player to choose a class.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would like to add the perspective of someone who almost never plays a Wizard (I almost never play anything, I'm a DM 99.9% of the time). I run games quite often: I have a couple of weekly home games, and I run additional ones in the game store and for other friends fairly frequently.

I am quite frustrated in the Wizard class design overall, and I think my players will be as well.

The Wizard is a popular class: people like the fantasy of the wise old man with great power accumulated through the years. People love Gandalf and Merlin. I have rarely DMed a game in which there were no wizards. Most of the time, the wizard's subclass is either evocation, necromancy, or bladesinger, and I think that is because those are the most evocative subclasses theme-wise, regardless of their power differences.

There is lots of talk online about how a Wizard, if played as a control caster, outpaces everyone else. I think this got started with a Treatmonk video about God-Wizard, and I've never actually watched it, so it might be true. That being said, I've never played with such a Wizard. It is not a popular choice in my experience, and it requires a certain player mastery and knowledge of spells that most players lack and aren't quite all that interested in achieving. I do not blame them for this -- memorizing scores of spells and their interplay is only fun for some of us.

Many (most?) players come to the game, have fun, and go home, and that's perfectly legitimate. No one should be barred from playing Wizard effectively because he, the player, is not intimately familiar with the overlaps and combinations of a long spell list, or doesn't want to rely on making combos of trap-spells -- I don't require the Rogue player this amount of knowledge to do anything similar, and it's often just not part of the fantasy.

If a player chose an Evocation Wizard as their subclass, that player expects to be very good at blasting, and I also think that's legitimate. I see no reason the Sorcerer should be better overall in combat than an Evocation Wizard, and I think the current power disparity between those casters will be frustrating at the table (if I ever switch). Rituals are nice, but they are also not often part of a class fantasy, and players use them well but fairly sparingly.

Overall, I imagine it might be true that if someone played a Wizard as Treantmonk plays one, he could outshine his companions, even though I've never experienced this in the flesh. The issue is that, by buffing everyone else and not buffing the Wizard, the game has somewhat restricted the Wizard playstyle to what a Treantmonk would do, and that's at the expense of many other Wizard playstyles at the table.

This approximates D&D to PF2e's design philosophy, in which there is a very clear but strict right way to play a class, and that's frankly the thing that I thought was most exhausting about that game, even beyond its rules being printed in small 8-sized font. When a class fantasy and its mechanics don't align, you get lots of frustration (as Wizard players always have been whenever I tried DMing PF2e, for good reason). I should not have to explain the meta of the game for a player to choose a class.

I understand your concern. But an evocation wizard will have no problems blasting away. Are they a bit worse at blasting as a sorcerer? Maybe. But wizards are still the swiss army knife. So if your player wants to be a blaster, just suggest sorcerer.

I mean, do you recommend a fighter, if all your players want to do is rage and smash enemies?

 

[mellored]

If a player chose an Evocation Wizard as their subclass, that player expects to be very good at blasting, and I also think that's legitimate. I see no reason the Sorcerer should be better overall in combat than an Evocation Wizard,

Then what would sorcerer be better at?

Though a dragon sorcerer and evocation wizard are pretty comparable when tossing fireballs.

Sculpt spell = careful metamagic
Empowered Evocation = elemental affinity
Overchannel = Empowered spell

While there is more difference between the wizard and sorcerer now than ever. That's really not saying much.

 

[ECMO3]

One question about power levels is at which tier? I'm going to suggest the following things are all true:

• At tier 1 the Sorcerer is the weakest class in the game; they just don't have the spell slots to do that much that often. (The wizard is way stronger at tier 1 because of their abilities with ritual magic). (And far the best sorcerer at tier 1 was the Aberrant Mind because of twinning spells like Dissonant Whispers and Hideous Laughter for "budget second level" spells out of first level slots; this may well have changed)

You actually have to look at it by level.

If you consider the best subclasses I think Sorcerer is stronger than Wizard at most tier 1 levels. For example

A 1st level Wizard with a 16 intelligence can get up to 2 rituals in their book in addition to what spells they prepare, plus Arcane recovery for an extra slot, but a 1st level sorcerer gets more Cantrips (at least one and possibly two) and a subclass ability that is pretty darn good, usually substantially better than a 1st level spell slot. Strength of the Grave for example on a Shadow Sorcerer is extremely good at 1st level, arguably OP at this level and this is one of their two subclass abilities. Getting Healing Word and Guidance as a DS is also pretty awesome at 1st level. I don't think any Wizards with point buy are generally the equal of these two subclasses.

At 2nd level is where the Wizard can be better than a Sorcerer. The sorcerer gets flexible casting here, but does not have metamagic, a Wizard gets a subclass ability, which with a good subclass choice makes up for the lack of one at first level. At this level the best Wizard subclass abilities are still not the equal of the best sorcerer subclass abilities, but combined with Rituals they probably make up the ground and more than cover the gap if you are playing for example a War Magic, Divination, Abjuration or Enchantment Wizard. Not as much if you are playing most other Wizard subclasses.

At 3rd and 4th level though the Sorc has metamagic and is ahead again because of what this brings to the table, even when compared to the best Wizard subclasses.

• At tier 4 the Wizard is waaaay ahead of the sorcerer and almost certainly the strongest class in the game. The ability to mix up their ninth level spells from a great spell list (and have better high level spells than are on the cleric or druid lists) can be monstrous

I would disagree there because a high level spell is limited by slots and if cast with metamagic substantially enhances this very few uses available.

Twin Spell in particular gives you essentially double the combat power of your high level spells and you can trade your low level slots to do that every time you cast a high level spell if you want.

Add in subtle spell, heightened spell or empowered spell all of which make those high level slots more effective.

The Wizard does have more 9th level spell variety than any Sorcerer except Divine Soul, but the best Wizard spells of 9th level are available to Sorcerers and Sorcerers are more effective using them because of metamagic.

• At tier 3, especially low tier 3 the Warlock is the strongest class. The level 11 power spike from two fifth level spells per short rest to three fifth level spells per short rest plus a sixth per long rest (oh, and a third Eldritch Blast) is massive even if they don't then scale as well as the true full casters because Mystic Arcana are so inflexible.

Again flexible casting makes up for this.

A Warlock can cast 3 5th level spells per short rest. A Sorcerer at this level who optimizes for 5th level spells can cast 8 5th level spells per day (plus one 6th level spell). I would say that is generally going to outrun the Warlock, especially since the Sorcerer is more flexible (Sorc can use 4 5th level slots before the first short rest and none before the 2nd). The same sorcerer can also flex this to other levels and cast 31 1st level spells or cast 12 fireballs and still have 4 sorcery points left over or a combination using metamagic.

Eldritch Blast is the most powerful combat cantrip in the game and does give the 11th level Warlock an at-will damage option that the Sorcerer does not generally have, but that does not make up for the leveled spell diversity the Sorcerer does have, especially when Quickened spell comes into play, where the Sorcerer can cast a leveled spell and double dip with a Cantrip or even a twinned cantrip on top of a quickened spell. For example an 11th level Warlock using his bonus and action can go Hex-EB/AB and dole out 3d10+3d6+15 (42), but must burn a 5th level slot at some point to do that (maybe early in the day). An 11th level Sorcerer can spend 3 sorcery points (quicken spell, twin spell) and throw three Firebolts on their turn for 9d10 (49.5).

 

[Amphytrion]

I understand your concern. But an evocation wizard will have no problems blasting away. Are they a bit worse at blasting as a sorcerer? Maybe.

They were a bit worse before. Under the new rules, the difference will be quite stark.

In a random high-level one-shot, I can see the Wizard player getting quite frustrated that every other caster seems to be contributing much more than he is.

But wizards are still the swiss army knife.

A swiss army knife is only good if you both know all of its contents and have enough time to deploy most of them. The more compartments your swiss army knife has, the less likely it is that you will fulfill both of those requirements.

The Wizard's class fantasy is that he is a wizened and studious character, but I don't think it's reasonable to require that the player shares those qualities, just like I do not request that the fighter's player be in good physical shape. A casual player (which is most of them, at least for me) should be able to play a Wizard ably and not feel handicapped.

So if your player wants to be a blaster, just suggest sorcerer.

This sort of meta-discussion during character creation is exhausting to have at the table, especially when players aren't as intimately familiar with the workings of the game.

The player's fantasy is to play a Wizard. After he chooses that, he is offered some subclasses. If he picks one of its most popular variants, my standard answer simply cannot be "have you considered this entirely different class, which embodies an entirely different archetype and fantasy? It's simply better than this subclass". That's just absurd design.

The Sorcerer has an interesting fantasy around it (even if it has always been less popular than the Wizard's fantasy). Some players are excited about the narrative of having descended from dragons or other creatures and inheriting power from them. The capable design team at WotC certainly could and should make both classes equally competent by leaning onto features that highlight the differences of concept, rather than simply deciding that the Sorcerer should always outgun the Wizard in combat. This is especially true when the Wizard's most popular subclass -- and its SRD archetype -- is the School of Evocation.

I mean, do you recommend a fighter, if all your players want to do is rage and smash enemies?

I'm not certain what you mean. I don't actually recommend anything, unless prompted to do so. I describe the classes (or the players read their brief fluff descriptions from the PHB), and they choose what they think is most evocative. I am, however, fortunate that none of my players want to just rage and smash enemies.

Are you stating that the fighter outguns his companions? I've never had an issue with the 2014 fighter at my tables (and they are popular and frequent picks). They contribute well, but my only instance observing a Fighter actually outperforming his companions has been in my forays into PF2e (another frequent point of frustration with that system).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They were a bit worse before. Under the new rules, the difference will be quite stark.

In a random high-level one-shot, I can see the Wizard player getting quite frustrated that every other caster seems to be contributing much more than he is.


A swiss army knife is only good if you both know all of its contents and have enough time to deploy most of them. The more compartments your swiss army knife has, the less likely it is that you will fulfill both of those requirements.

The Wizard's class fantasy is that he is a wizened and studious character, but I don't think it's reasonable to require that the player shares those qualities, just like I do not request that the fighter's player be in good physical shape. A casual player (which is most of them, at least for me) should be able to play a Wizard ably and not feel handicapped.


This sort of meta-discussion during character creation is exhausting to have at the table, especially when players aren't as intimately familiar with the workings of the game.

The player's fantasy is to play a Wizard. After he chooses that, he is offered some subclasses. If he picks one of its most popular variants, my standard answer simply cannot be "have you considered this entirely different class, which embodies an entirely different archetype and fantasy? It's simply better than this subclass". That's just absurd design.

The Sorcerer has an interesting fantasy around it (even if it has always been less popular than the Wizard's fantasy). Some players are excited about the narrative of having descended from dragons or other creatures and inheriting power from them. The capable design team at WotC certainly could and should make both classes equally competent by leaning onto features that highlight the differences of concept, rather than simply deciding that the Sorcerer should always outgun the Wizard in combat. This is especially true when the Wizard's most popular subclass -- and its SRD archetype -- is the School of Evocation.



I'm not certain what you mean. I don't actually recommend anything, unless prompted to do so. I describe the classes (or the players read their brief fluff descriptions from the PHB), and they choose what they think is most evocative. I am, however, fortunate that none of my players want to just rage and smash enemies.

Are you stating that the fighter outguns his companions? I've never had an issue with the 2014 fighter at my tables (and they are popular and frequent picks). They contribute well, but my only instance observing a Fighter actually outperforming his companions has been in my forays into PF2e (another frequent point of frustration with that system).

Ok. I really don't get how the sorcerer leaves the wizard in the dust. If someone wants to play a wizard and blast things, you can do worse than taking the evoker subclass. Are they a bit less capable of blasting than the sorcerer? Maybe. But even if they never swap a songle spell, they do fine.

At level 6 for example, their careful spell does not cost them spell power. Rituals are always possible. A slight game play difference, like barbarian and greataxe champion, but not that much.

 

[Neonchameleon]

They were a bit worse before. Under the new rules, the difference will be quite stark.

I think you meant to write that evokers were a bit better at blasting than sorcerers before, as well as being better at literally everything else than pre-Tasha's sorcerers. The ability to fireball your party and not have them take damage was huge and something no sorcerer could match.

Meanwhile if there are going to be separate classes of wizard and sorcerer (and the wizard doesn't go where it belongs as the book-sorcerer) then the bookish character shouldn't be the blast mage. The evoker is the best wizard at blasting, but the wizard class is a scholar.

In a random high-level one-shot, I can see the Wizard player getting quite frustrated that every other caster seems to be contributing much more than he is.

I too can see a player getting frustrated when they take a powerful class and play them badly. In a random high level one shot the wizard has the best spell selection, not even having to spend low level spells on combat spells that are no longer useful.

A swiss army knife is only good if you both know all of its contents and have enough time to deploy most of them. The more compartments your swiss army knife has, the less likely it is that you will fulfill both of those requirements.

Tell me you've never regularly carried a swiss army knife without telling me you've never regularly carried a swiss army knife.

My swiss army knife is good even though I don't think I have ever used two of the functions. And I can't remember using more than three functions on the same day. The goal is to always have a good tool not to, for some bizarre reason, set yourself the challenge of using every single tool in the swiss army knife in a day.

The Wizard's class fantasy is that he is a wizened and studious character, but I don't think it's reasonable to require that the player shares those qualities, just like I do not request that the fighter's player be in good physical shape. A casual player (which is most of them, at least for me) should be able to play a Wizard ably and not feel handicapped.

I guess we should just discard all rules in that case and just have all outcomes as random. Except that randomness handicaps people. So does DM fiat. Are we playing a bidding game here?

A casual player can play a wizard and not feel handicapped. On the other hand a casual player who plays a wizard foolishly and against the class identity is going to find it doesn't work well. But they will be better off than the melee rogue who goes squish - or, worse yet, the 2014

The player's fantasy is to play a Wizard. After he chooses that, he is offered some subclasses. If he picks one of its most popular variants, my standard answer simply cannot be "have you considered this entirely different class, which embodies an entirely different archetype and fantasy? It's simply better than this subclass". That's just absurd design.

Indeed it's absurd. Because the sorcerer isn't "simply better" than the wizard even under 2024 rules. If you play a 2024 wizard as a bookish wizard, looking up things and casting rituals they are more than fine. If on the other hand you play them as a sorcerer-wannabe, just blasting things they are going to be a sorcerer-wannabe. The wizard fantasy, as you yourself admit, involves being studious rather than directly blasting. Unlike the sorcerer.

The problem is that the 2014 wizard was better than the 2014 sorcerer in just about every way. The sorcerer wasn't an unpopular class. But the wizard was just better. Better at wizard things and better at sorcerer things other than very niche cases involving twin and subtle spell. 2014 was absurd design.

The Sorcerer has an interesting fantasy around it (even if it has always been less popular than the Wizard's fantasy).

Only very slightly.

Some players are excited about the narrative of having descended from dragons or other creatures and inheriting power from them.

Bloodlines being the sorcerer thing are a Pathfinder thing. The Sorcerer's thing in D&D is that it's the "everything else" caster. Someone who was born on the night of the grand conjunction. Someone who was hit by lightning by the century storm. In many cases the sorcerer has taken absurd risks for their power.

The capable design team at WotC certainly could and should make both classes equally competent by leaning onto features that highlight the differences of concept, rather than simply deciding that the Sorcerer should always outgun the Wizard in combat. This is especially true when the Wizard's most popular subclass -- and its SRD archetype -- is the School of Evocation.

Under 2014 rules the wizard could outgun the sorcerer literally everywhere. And people used to joke that "The company is called Wizards of the Coast, not Sorcerers of the Coast".

Now the sorcerer that has magic burning in their veins can actually do what is in line with its power fantasy better than the wizard can you are complaining that the class that is explicitly the studious and bookish spellcaster doesn't get to crush the sorcerer where the sorcerer is supposed to be good. But is more studious than the sorcerer and more flexible. In short you want the wizard to be the best at everything rather than just better at what the wizard power fantasy covers while the sorcerer is at what the sorcerer power fantasy covers.

How would I change it? Demote the wizard to a sorcerer subclass (with spellbooks books and rituals) and strengthen the sorcerer subclasses.