D&D 5E Rituals and Wizard Traditions: the Scholar

[hbarsquared]

I have always enjoyed playing the knowledgeable wizard, or the one that is somehow prepared for anything. One of the reasons that I love the ritual mechanic, so far, in Next.

I'm posting this because I think this has been a great implementation of Rituals. Not only do I not want to see it disappear in future iterations, but I would like to see more spells with a "ritual" implementation.

That, and I haven't seen much discussion on the small, subtle difference that Scholarly Wizards offer.

Here's the wizard class text:

You  can  cast  any  spell  you  have  prepared  as  a  ritual,  provided  that  the  spell  has  a  ritual  version.

...and here's the Scholarly Tradition text:

You  can  cast  any  spell  in  your  spellbook  as  a  ritual,  provided  that  the  spell  has  a  ritual  version.

Please keep this!

I know I'm probably in a super small sub-group, and very few people care, but this has been one of my favorite parts of the wizards. Thank you, and I hope it remains through the final publication.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Can you explain why you like it?

 

[Nagol]

I see massive out-of-danger flexibility in the difference. The Scholarly Tradition Wizard becomes the go-to person for preparation, things being done in camp/town/safe room since he can get the rituals off without sacrificing a spell slot for the spell ahead of time. He becomes the guy with the really thick spell book full of 'just-in-case' spells.

 

[gyor]

I never noticed that difference. Honestly the Scholar beats both the Illusionist and Evoker for awesome.

People saw Wizard Traditions give so little, but the truth is its not a problem with Traditions, although some more stuff at later levels would be awesome, its a problem with specific traditions, illusionist especially, although the envoker needs some work.

The Illusionists needs benifits that are both more thematic and powerful. Plus he needs an illusion cantrip that deals damage like certain 4e atwills.

And seeing invisible people fits diviners not illusionists. An example of a cool illusionist ablity would be to say allow him to control more then one concertration spell at a time if one or both are illusions. Or being able to use intelligence for stealth and bluff checks when using an illusion spell in suport of that activity.

Or best of all giving your illusions a chance to save against true seeing spells, instead of automatically being seen through. True Seeing needs some kind of counter or nerf anyways.

 

[Li Shenron]

It can end up being a massive difference, given the small number of prepared spells after they changed Wizard's spellcasting from vancian to "can cast any combination of their prepared spells".

ALL WIZARDS:

- Spells known are 2 + 1/level + extras (from found scrolls and spellbooks).

- Spells prepared are 1 + 1/level.

- Rituals are unlimited i.e. don't use spells slots. Chosen from prepared spells only.

SCHOLARLY WIZARD:

- Extra spells known 1/level

- Extra spells prepared ~1/2 levels

- Chooses rituals from all known spells.

There are some variables involved: how many of your known spells can be cast as rituals and how many extra spells you will find in your adventures.

If we assume that the Wizard manages to learn all ritual-izable spells, the Scholarly Wizard always has about TWICE the number of rituals to choose from (plus all the extra spells learned) on a given day.

However there is also an additional variable: the non-scholarly Wizard can prepare different spells tomorrow, so on the long term he has effectively the same amount of rituals to choose from. It will then all depends on which rituals she can afford to wait for next day VS which she cannot afford to wait that long.

All in all, so many variables mean that we cannot safely assume there cannot be some extreme case of overpoweredness, but very roughly the numbers are not completely off.

 

[Rune]

I very much enjoyed (and got good mileage out of) the original playtest illusionists's ability to use minor image at will with two effects!. That and, if I recall, the illusionist in that packet had the same ability to cast rituals straight from the book.

This was also, awesome, because the character was a witch. In the current (and last) packets, the illusionist is just boring. It's been more effective to build her as a scholarly wizard who happens to have a lot of illusions.

 

[Li Shenron]

This was also, awesome, because the character was a witch. In the current (and last) packets, the illusionist is just boring. It's been more effective to build her as a scholarly wizard who happens to have a lot of illusions.

I haven't checked the difference between packets, but this is a good point. It reminds me that in 3ed my preference for making a specialist was always... to make a non-specialist and just pick the spells I wanted! The 3e specializations seemed to be more effective at giving you a small extra firepower in exchange for flexibility, like the first step of a bridge towards Sorcerer.

I think the 5e traditions are much better already because they started off with the right foot i.e. making them different. I hope they recall also some of the good ideas in 3ed Unearthed Arcana!

 

[Falling Icicle]

I think all wizards should be able to cast rituals out of their spellbook without preparing them. It helps make up for the fact that wizards have to have a spellbook and pay to learn their spells, while divine classes get access to their entire spell list automatically and for free.