If you look at the thread asking what classes need the most help you will see that a lot of people aren't happy with warlock & sorcerer. They all stem from the magic user's evolution through editions, but wizard unquestionably stays closest to the roots while the others branch into a more charismatic niche that have their own class specific toolbox like metamagic/flexible casting pact magic/invocations/eldritch blast & so on. Meanwhile all three share almost all of their spell lists, sure some have a smaller list than others & some spells are on one or two but not a third's list... but it's rare that you can tell what class Beth is playing entirely from the leveled spells she casts or how she casts them & that's a huge problem when one of the three's big thing as a class is pretty much that spell list alone.
it screws with long/short rest balance. Nobody cares that a barbarian resets the relentless rage dc on a short rest or that second wind & channel divinity do too but action surge warding flare & tranquility all need a long rest instead by comparison because those classes (fighter/monk)have significant differences in addition to those abilities that make telling them apart at the table trivial within a few rounds just how they act in a fight. By fixing the wizard to embrace what it is rather than holding it back so it doesn't outshine the poor clones with abilities of their own those dabblers are able to embrace their abilities with added designspace rather than being hobbled by keeping one hand on their big brother class.
- 1A: Get rid of costs to scribe spells. They served a purpose with the old wealth by level system & LFQW, but really they jut cause strife at the table. Scribing spells is the one thing really unique to wizards but they can't even use it unless they find a scroll or spellbook and they start taking way more than just an even split of gold.
- 1B: Wizards treat much more of their spellbook as always castable akin to how ritual/domain/archetype spells are: Suddenly wizard is not overshadowed by this when sorcerer is effectively given a spellbook with every spell on their class list already scribed & the limitation that they only swap out 1 spell/long rest pretty much no different from how most wizards actually play when swapping spells.
- 1C: give sorcerer that variant class feature letting them swap a spell/long rest or something else
- 2: Get rid of concentration as it is: It's a seriously overused mechanic that makes many spells never worth casting & other spells problematic. Instead allow any caster to use an action & 1arcana(int) vrs caster's arcana(int)check to counterspell an active buff/debuff spell. Alternately allow 2arcana($relevant casting stat of the dispeller) vrs caster's arcana(choice of int/wis/cha) & give wizards automatic arcana expertise if the second.
- 3: Rebuild the wizard spell list from the ground up. Seriously just throw it out entirely. Remove existing spells, change the level spells are gained at, etc. This should lean away from nukes or even raise/lower some of their levels gained & towards buffs,battlefield control, debuffs (especially save or suck & save or lose), & divination. Make a lot of these spells that a wizard can "concentrate cast" by simply having them in the spellbook over a few minutes & either cast them immediately on a party member or continue concentrating on it until ready to do the last verbal/somatic component & unleash it on a baddie
- 4A: split by changing some wording. Warlocks now know pact spells & sorcerers know bloodline spells to arcane/divine spells of cleric/ranger/pally/wizard/artificer.
- 4B: Sorcerers upcast nuke type bloodline spells. Not +cha, literally they use a level x spell slot & get a level x+Y slot effect.
- 4C: What about warlocks you ask? well if warlocks had a cohesive class identity it could be easy to do something, but they are more like a big deck of random& often unrelated casterific abilities masquerading as a class so there is lots that could be done now that they aren't restricted by what their big brother & sister shine at so can fully embrace their choice of pact, invocations, or whatever with extra room as long as that embrace is not simply to copy what now makes the wizard & sorcerer distinct.
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