Domain Wizards in UA

[Marshall]

Other variants, like letting Clerics spontaneously trade their prepared spells for a Domain spell instead of a Cure, also do not work well side-by-side with the standard class.

The Battle Sorcerer is another. The loss of 1 spell each level (both known and usable per day) to a minimum of 1 is arguably a small price to pay for d8 HD, Cleric BAB, Proficiency in 1 Martial Weapon, and the ability to wear Light armor without Arcane Spell Failure. Some would say it is clearly a "better" Sorcerer, and outmodes the standard PH Sorcerer.

And for those who find the SOR list overly restricitve to begin with, the BS is just that. In fact, if you made all those changes and left the SOR casting intact, you'd still just have a class thats only competitive with the WIZ.

 

[Li Shenron]

Other variants, like letting Clerics spontaneously trade their prepared spells for a Domain spell instead of a Cure, also do not work well side-by-side with the standard class.

The Battle Sorcerer is another. The loss of 1 spell each level (both known and usable per day) to a minimum of 1 is arguably a small price to pay for d8 HD, Cleric BAB, Proficiency in 1 Martial Weapon, and the ability to wear Light armor without Arcane Spell Failure. Some would say it is clearly a "better" Sorcerer, and outmodes the standard PH Sorcerer.

My point is that the Domain Wizard is not the only variant that does not co-exist well with its standard version; it is just the most obvious one. However, a lot still depends on how the DM chooses to bring it into the campaign.

The point of the original poster may be resumed as the following: it may debatable that some class variants in UA look better or "don't work well together" with the PHB versions; it is NOT debatable that the Domain Wizard is deterministically better than the core wizard.

I didn't want to talk if other variants are too good to be ignored. At least they always have a downside, and even if it is small enough to say that it is far better than the original class, at least there is always the chance that some specific player looking for an optimised build will still choose the core class. That is untrue for the Domain Wizard. You said yourself that your player has declined the option, but that was only because you house ruled that it costed a feat, in which case he still had one reason not to take the option (and use the feat for something else). If there hasn't been that feat, no reasons in the world would have made him miss the option, beside a strong modesty of not wanting to play something me maybe believed to be too good, which is a honorable choice but not a strategy.

 

[Silveras]

The point of the original poster may be resumed as the following: it may debatable that some class variants in UA look better or "don't work well together" with the PHB versions; it is NOT debatable that the Domain Wizard is deterministically better than the core wizard.

I didn't want to talk if other variants are too good to be ignored. At least they always have a downside, and even if it is small enough to say that it is far better than the original class, at least there is always the chance that some specific player looking for an optimised build will still choose the core class. That is untrue for the Domain Wizard. You said yourself that your player has declined the option, but that was only because you house ruled that it costed a feat, in which case he still had one reason not to take the option (and use the feat for something else). If there hasn't been that feat, no reasons in the world would have made him miss the option, beside a strong modesty of not wanting to play something me maybe believed to be too good, which is a honorable choice but not a strategy.

If the Domain Wizard is available with the unrestricted choice of any of the Domains in Unearthed Arcana, there is no question that 99.9% of the players would choose to play one over the "standard" non-specialist Wizard. There is always the occasional player who just has to be different, but that's about the only reason I can see for someone choosing the "standard" Wizard in that situation.

I am not arguing. If it is put into play with free choice of any Domain, there is no reason to play a standard Wizard at all.