D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XIV: Wizard)

[doctorbadwolf]

@doctorbadwolf, I've noticed you've been upvoting the Bladesinging subclass. Sell us on it!

Lol okay.

First, it’s a swashbuckling wizard. Awesome.

Second, it is an intelligent swordfighter, and reminds me of things like the esoteric/hermetic sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibault, typified in the Magic Cirlce, or La Verdadera Destreza. The Bladesong itself calls to mind, for me, the idea of understanding the kinesiology of Your opponents, the geometry and geography of the battlefield, and how those all interact, and manipulating the battle accordingly.

It pairs extremely well with Rogues and Artificers.

Here's why I love the Abjuration wizard.

1. The Concept
In a world where literally everyone and their next door neighbor is a magic-user of some sort, anti-magic is extremely useful and powerful. Even the most powerful lich, mummy lord, and archmage will start hoarding their Reactions and spell slots as soon as you walk into the room. You can save the party countless debilitating effects and hundreds of points of damage with a single, well-timed Counterspell. Breaking curses, scrubbing invisibility from pesky rogues, shutting down magic items, it's all in your wheelhouse.

Abjuration spells don't often allow save throws, and are rarely subject to resistance and immunity, so your magic is almost always at full-strength no matter what you're fighting.

And nothing beats the feeling of successfully Counterspelling your DM's Meteor Storm. The thunderous cheer from your friends at the table, the sour hate-filled look on your DM's face...seriously, I needed a cigarette afterward.

2. The Arcane Ward
Every time you cast an Abjuration spell, you gain a buffer of protection that scales with your level and the spell level. So not only do you protect the party from incoming fireballs and invisible rogues, you replenish your own temp hit points in the process. Eventually you learn to share this forcefield with allies within 30 feet.

3. Spell-breaking
Counterspell is arguably one of the most powerful spells in the game, and it gets even easier at 10th level (you get to add your proficiency bonus to opposed caster level checks when you cast it, or when you cast Dispel Magic.) This has good synergy with your arcane ward, too, since spending that higher spell slot is now less risky and gives your Arcane Ward more juice.

Abjuration wizards are the best wizards.
Change my mind.

I love a (rural) abjurer.

Not necessarily, it's just the final is going to be a Survivor Thread and I'd rather options don't eat into each other's votes and are all as varied as possible. Having two 'Summoner' would split the vote of people who really love summoners.

Okay fair. I don’t think they two are as much in direct competition as they should be, but I get it.

Also shepherds summon boost mechanic should be a feat IMO. Worded to it helps BM rangers and Chain Warlocks, as well as proper summoners.

No no, I agree. I forgot what was the context for that musing but that was my point. a War Mage isn't a gish.

aaaahh, okay. That makes more sense, even without the specific context. I do think that Abjuration is just as good a war mage as the war mage, but war mage is fun. It’s like a mix of abjurer and evoker.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I sort of agree with you, but it's a fraught feeling. I deeply care about where power comes from and what does it mean.

Wizards are masters of the arcane. They "hack" reality to change the universe to their whim; the ultimate expression of this being the spell wish. They attain their powers through deep scholarship. If areas of magic are moved away from wizard, it is because these magical feats are not attainable by mortals - divine magic being a key example. You need a really good justification why the wizard couldn't do an illusion, for example. Niche protection isn't enough.

If this is true, then the Wizard needs the 13th Age Druid treatment.

That is, what you have said is effectively, "Wizards are supposed to be able to do EVERYTHING. So if Wizards can't do everything, they're bad Wizards and that shouldn't be allowed." That's a serious design fault, because a class that does everything is a class that destroys the game it's built into.

But if we make one little change, one small tweak, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can have a Wizard class that can "do everything" without having Wizard characters who "do everything."

We force them to specialize. And I don't just mean 3e-style specialist Wizards. I mean actually specializing, as in giving up the potential to do X and Y by picking up the potential to do Z.

In 13th Age, the Druid gets three talents at first level. You can spend those talents on six different fields: Terrain Caster, Elemental Caster, Wild Healer, Warrior Druid, Shifter, Animal Companion. Within these, you may spend one talent to be an Initiate or two talents to be an Adept. Adepts get the full range of a given talent's abilities, while Initiates get about half of that. So you can focus on one thing and get a second as a partial thing, or get partial advancement in three things. You can go broad-spectrum mystic (Terrain Caster, Elemental Caster, Wild Healer), warrior of the wild (Warrior Druid, Animal Companion, Shifter), or any number of other options. But even though the class collectively can "do everything," any individual Druid must do only two or three things--at most half the class's potential, and that only to a partial degree, not as a master.

Make the spell schools work that way, or at least something like that way, for the Wizard. The Wizard CAN do anything--as in, has the potential to do anything--but any given Wizard has only the things they've learned, which may be quite powerful, but cannot be ALL things to ALL people.

Edit:
To that end, I would propose the following schools.
Abjuration+War: The school of defense and the "fighting" wizard (not to be confused with a weapon-using wizard.)
Illusion+Enchantment: The school of trickery, deceit, and confusion, altering senses or the mind perceiving them.
Evocation+Conjuration: The school of creating, destroying, or moving energies and objects.
Transmutation+Artifice: The school of altering what already is, whether by magic alone or through tools and techniques.
Divination+Scribes: The school of knowledge itself, whether acquired through magical or mundane observation.
Necromancy+Chirurgy*: The school of undeath and of life, of manipulating the essence of beings alive and dead.
Bladesinging: The school that dabbles in a variety of niche magic for supporting its physical combat.

This reduces the veritable avalanche of subclasses down to a smooth, functional set of seven disciplines, which is nice because 7 is traditionally a magic number (outside of Discworld, anyway.) Then, give players 4 talents to distribute amongst these: one talent gets you Bachelor training, two gets you Master's training. So you could have a Wizard who covers nearly everything a classic Wizard can do (e.g. the first four schools) but who must necessarily lose out on some things (in this case, Divination and Necromancy; Chirurgy would be a new school dedicated to doing many things Wizards don't traditionally do, like limited forms of healing/resting/aiding, stuff like catnap that never made sense as "enchantments" to me.) Or you could go full-bore War Wizard with Abjuration+War x2 and Evocation+Conjuration x2, or a tricksy manipulator with Illusion+Echantment x2 and Divination+Scribes x2, or a variety of other choices.

 

[CleverNickName]

Okay, full disclosure: I've never played a Bladesinger. The name suggests it might be some kind of bard college or another bard-like character trope, so I never stopped to even read it. (I have a pretty severe bard allergy; I try to stay as far away from them as possible.) But one of the Bladesinger's fans assures me that this is not the case:

First, it’s a swashbuckling wizard. Awesome.

Second, it is an intelligent swordfighter, and reminds me of things like the esoteric/hermetic sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibault, typified in the Magic Cirlce, or La Verdadera Destreza. The Bladesong itself calls to mind, for me, the idea of understanding the kinesiology of Your opponents, the geometry and geography of the battlefield, and how those all interact, and manipulating the battle accordingly.

It pairs extremely well with Rogues and Artificers.

I won't lie, this sounds pretty bard-adjacent to me. But I'm intrigued enough by "the esoteric/hermetic sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibaut" reference, so I decided I should at least read it.

So in the spirit of the Survivor thread, let's take a look at the Bladesinging subclass for wizard.

Spoiler: Bladesinging Deep Dive

The Concept
(from "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything")
Bladesingers master a tradition of wizardry that incorporates swordplay and dance.
Originally created by the elves, and then adopted by non-elf practitioners.
In combat, a bladesinger uses maneuvers that fend off harm, channel magic into attacks.
Witnesses say the swordwork on display is beautiful, "a glorious dance accompanied by a singing blade."

2nd LEVEL FEATURES
Training in War and Song: you gain proficiency with light armor, one 1H melee weapon of your choice, and the Performance skill.

The extra armor proficiency is factory standard for mage subclasses nowadays. The one-handed weapon is pretty much always going to be the rapier, but I appreciate the optional flexibility. And I'm not sure why the Performance skill was included; it's not used by any of the class features. It would have made a lot more sense to replace it with Acrobatics, but whatever.

Bladesong: the namesake ability of the subclass is pretty cool, I won't lie. You spend a bonus action to activate this ability, and for the next minute (or until you don Medium or Heavy Armor or pick up a shield, or use two hands to make an attack with a weapon), you enjoy four benefits: (1) you add your Intelligence modifier to your Armor Class, (2) your base speed increases by 10 feet, (3) you have Advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks, and (4) you add your Intelligence modifier to concentration checks.

6th LEVEL FEATURE
Extra Attack: at 6th level, you can attack twice instead of once when you take the Attack action on your turn. Or you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks. If you have the Magic Initiate feat and selected the eldritch blast cantrip, you can unleash a truly impressive number of attack rolls every single round.

10th LEVEL FEATURE
Song of Defense: When you take damage, you can spend your reaction and one spell slot to reduce that damage by X, where X = (five times the spell slot's level). This is about as close to healing as a wizard can get without multiclassing.

14th LEVEL FEATURE
Song of Victory: add your Intelligence modifier to your melee weapon damage while your Bladesong is active.

And that's the Bladesinger in a nutshell. Despite the flavor text in Tasha's, there aren't any "maneuvers" and there's no ability to "channel magic into your attacks." Everything else is exactly what you would expect from reading the description.

I'm not really seeing the "sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibaut," but it's better than a fighter/wizard multiclass so...thumbs up.

 

[Undrave]

And that's the Bladesinger in a nutshell. Despite the flavor text in Tasha's, there aren't any "maneuvers" and there's no ability to "channel magic into your attacks." Everything else is exactly what you would expect from reading the description.

You're forgetting the melee cantrips in the book: Booming Blade, Green-flame Blade, Lightning Lure and Sword Burst.

EDIT: Oh wait, Sword Burst is just sword THEMED, it doesn't need a weapon to be cast.

 

[CleverNickName]

You're forgetting the melee cantrips in the book: Booming Blade, Green-flame Blade, Lightning Lure and Sword Burst.

I mean...yeah I guess. That is certainly one way of "channeling magic into your attacks." Its not unique to this particular subclass, not the way that the intro write-up made it sound anyway. But it counts.

Combining cantrips with an attack roll might be the only way to make True Strike fun for me, though. That's gotta count for something.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean...yeah I guess. That is certainly one way of "channeling magic into your attacks." Its not unique to this particular subclass, not the way that the intro write-up made it sound anyway. But it counts.

Combining cantrips with an attack roll might be the only way to make True Strike fun for me, though. That's gotta count for something.

What is unique to the subclass is being able to use Booming Blade as part of the attack action.

Okay, full disclosure: I've never played a Bladesinger. The name suggests it might be some kind of bard college or another bard-like character trope, so I never stopped to even read it. (I have a pretty severe bard allergy; I try to stay as far away from them as possible.) But one of the Bladesinger's fans assures me that this is not the case:

I won't lie, this sounds pretty bard-adjacent to me. But I'm intrigued enough by "the esoteric/hermetic sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibaut" reference, so I decided I should at least read it.

So in the spirit of the Survivor thread, let's take a look at the Bladesinging subclass for wizard.

Spoiler: Bladesinging Deep Dive

The Concept
(from "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything")
Bladesingers master a tradition of wizardry that incorporates swordplay and dance.
Originally created by the elves, and then adopted by non-elf practitioners.
In combat, a bladesinger uses maneuvers that fend off harm, channel magic into attacks.
Witnesses say the swordwork on display is beautiful, "a glorious dance accompanied by a singing blade."

2nd LEVEL FEATURES
Training in War and Song: you gain proficiency with light armor, one 1H melee weapon of your choice, and the Performance skill.

The extra armor proficiency is factory standard for mage subclasses nowadays. The one-handed weapon is pretty much always going to be the rapier, but I appreciate the optional flexibility. And I'm not sure why the Performance skill was included; it's not used by any of the class features. It would have made a lot more sense to replace it with Acrobatics, but whatever.

Bladesong: the namesake ability of the subclass is pretty cool, I won't lie. You spend a bonus action to activate this ability, and for the next minute (or until you don Medium or Heavy Armor or pick up a shield, or use two hands to make an attack with a weapon), you enjoy four benefits: (1) you add your Intelligence modifier to your Armor Class, (2) your base speed increases by 10 feet, (3) you have Advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks, and (4) you add your Intelligence modifier to concentration checks.

6th LEVEL FEATURE
Extra Attack: at 6th level, you can attack twice instead of once when you take the Attack action on your turn. Or you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks. If you have the Magic Initiate feat and selected the eldritch blast cantrip, you can unleash a truly impressive number of attack rolls every single round.

10th LEVEL FEATURE
Song of Defense: When you take damage, you can spend your reaction and one spell slot to reduce that damage by X, where X = (five times the spell slot's level). This is about as close to healing as a wizard can get without multiclassing.

14th LEVEL FEATURE
Song of Victory: add your Intelligence modifier to your melee weapon damage while your Bladesong is active.

And that's the Bladesinger in a nutshell. Despite the flavor text in Tasha's, there aren't any "maneuvers" and there's no ability to "channel magic into your attacks." Everything else is exactly what you would expect from reading the description.

I'm not really seeing the "sword manuals of Agrippa and Thibaut," but it's better than a fighter/wizard multiclass so...thumbs up.

Bladesong, to me, is a mystical application of science to swordplay. You add your intelligence to AC. I envision basically an arcane overlay in your field of vision that shows you the diagrams of one of those manuals shifting and adjusting in real time, telling you where the enemy will step next, allowing you to more easily counter them.

 

[Undrave]

That's the exact narrative I want to see the game evolve away from. I want wizardly magic to be the mastering of a specific sort of scholarly gnosis, but that there are many magical effects and techniques which don't fall under its remit.

Illusions should be more art than science and thus be a poor fit for the Wizard. And, like I said before, mind stuff should be kept away from the generalist so there's actual design space reserved for the Psionic classes.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Illusions should be more art than science and thus be a poor fit for the Wizard. And, like I said before, mind stuff should be kept away from the generalist so there's actual design space reserved for the Psionic classes.

illusions would be a socal science/humanities(what would that even be called in dnd)it works of psychology

 

[CleverNickName]

What's all the hype about the War Mage?

Spoiler: Let's Put It Under the Microscope

Concept:
(from "Xanathar's Guide to Everything")
Arcane colleges that specialize in training wizards for war.
Blends Evocation and Abjuration rather than specializing in either.
They see their magic as both a weapon and armor, superior to any piece of steel.
"What good is being able to throw a mighty Fireball if I die before I can cast it?"

Fireball is overrated, but otherwise? It's a good concept.

2nd LEVEL FEATURES
Arcane Deflection: when you're hit, you can use your Reaction to give yourself a +2 bonus to AC. When you fail a save throw, you can use your Reaction to give yourself a +4 to the save throw roll. If you do either, you can't cast spells other than cantrips until the end of your next turn (emphasis mine).

That "end of your next turn" bit is rare in 5E, and often overlooked. A good defensive ability all the same...not as good as the Shield spell, but at least it doesn't cost a spell slot.

Tactical Wit: Add your Intelligence modifier to initiative checks. Quick thinking and quick reflexes, nice.

Side note: I appreciate that there are no added weapon, armor, and/or shield proficiencies, like all of the other "I'm a sword-wizard!" subclasses. And I'm glad they resisted the urge to staple on some benign tool or skill proficiencies that will never be used. I don't think this is an accident; it looks like the devs wanted this to be the obvious choice of subclass for Wizards who plan to multiclass with Fighter.

6th LEVEL FEATURE
Power Surge: You get a new resource called "Power Surges." Management of this pool of Power Surges is tricky: when you finish a Long Rest it resets to 1. You add 1 to the pool every time you successfully end a spell with Dispel Magic or Counterspell, and you add 1 point to the pool if you have 0 and finish a Short Rest. Your pool can have a maximum number of Power Surges equal to your Intelligence modifier.

So what's a Power Surge? Once per turn you deal damage to a creature or object with a wizard spell, you can spend one power surge to deal extra force damage equal to half your wizard level.

I get what they were trying to do with the whole "stealing magic from other spellcasters and using it against them" bit, but it would be a lot more streamlined if they had just replaced that whole first paragraph with one sentence: "Once you use this ability, you cannot do so again until you finish a Long or Short Rest, or until you successfully end a spell with Dispel Magic or Counterspell." But I digress.

10th LEVEL FEATURE
Durable Magic: while concentrating on a spell, you get a +2 bonus to AC and all save throws. Pretty handy! But to me it feels a bit underpowered for a 10th level class feature.

14th LEVEL FEATURE
Deflecting Shroud: when you use your Arcane Deflection ability, you deal force damage to up to three creatures within 60 feet. The amount of damage is equal to half your wizard level. This is pretty awesome, but it's a long wait for this ability...not sure if it's worth it.

Looks like I'll have to choose between Bladesinging and War Magic soon, probably as early as tomorrow. I'll probably start downvoting whichever one has the lowest score (hopefully one can be eliminated early enough to prevent infighting from destroying both of them).

 

[Ancalagon]

But if we make one little change, one small tweak, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can have a Wizard class that can "do everything" without having Wizard characters who "do everything."

This I could get behind. In fact I sort of explored the idea in a previous thread D&D 5E - The warlock is a "better" wizard than a wizard

There are a LOT of systems where mages don't get this incredible arrays of spells at their disposal, and they work just fine.