D&D 5E (2014) Two wizard homebrew mechanics: any unintended consequences?

[DeviousQuail]

Marked as 5e 2014, but if you see anything that applies to 5e 2024 feel free to include it.

I've got two mechanical changes for wizards that I like. I'm putting this out there incase anyone can think of anything that would make these changes broken.

1. Spell Prep
At 1st level wizards are able to prepare a number of spells equal to their Int Mod (min 1). This removes the "plus wizard spell level" part from the normal wizard.

At 2nd level the school based casters gain "X Savant". Wizards with this feature always treat spells of their school, that are in their spell books, as prepared. Potentially way more prepared spells than 5e wizard, but with a thematic list.

At 2nd level other wizard subclasses gain the "Magic Adept" feature. Wizards with this feature choose two spell schools. They can prepare a number of spells from these schools equal to their wizard level. You can change one of these schools at level up. Effectively the same number of prepared spells as a 5e wizard, but with a bit more of a theme than the 5e grab bag.

2. Book Casting
At 1st level, as an action you open your spellbook to a spell of your choice and make an Arcana check equal to 10 + the spells base level. On a success you temporarily treat the spell as prepared. If you do not cast or begin casting the spell by the end of your next turn you lose the preparation. Once you have cast the spell the spell is no longer prepared. Book Casting isn't a great name, but it gets the idea of the feature across. Open your spell book and try to cast a spell that you haven't prepared. I wasn't sure if it's powerful enough to need a use limit. I figure it's too slow of a feature to see any kind of regular use in combat.

 

[TigerDude]

Having all the school's spells automatically prepared is a massive buff. Playing a wizard is always about choosing which spells to prepare and which to leave out. Book casting is also super-powerful, what's to stop me from doing this 3 or 4 times until I make the check? And 2025 Wizards get Arcana Expertise.

Surely you didn't think the best class in the game needed such a significant glow-up?

 

[Deset Gled]

Book Casting means you never have to prepare a utility spell, a precombat buff, or any out-of-combat spell ever again. It may seem balanced in combat. But it's ridiculously overpowered out of combat, and gives wizards that much more freedom to focus on combat spells.

Also, as @TigerDude said, automatically prepping all spells from one school is huge. These two abilities combined are powerful enough you might as well just say "screw it, let the wizard just cast anything in their book".

 

[DeviousQuail]

I don't mind if they fail a few times before succeeding at book casting. The idea was to give some utility with enough of an action economy cost that it's probably not worth it in combat or fast enough for split second decisions. But it sounds like a use limit is needed. I figured as much but wasn't sure.

As for the spell prep, I didn't think X Savant was OP. Some schools like evocation, conjuration, and transmutation have way more spells than others, but you still have to get the spells into your spell book and can never have more than 1-5 other spells prepped. My main goal was to make wizards feel a bit more distinct instead of having every wizard prepare the same set of spells.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't mind if they fail a few times before succeeding at book casting. The idea was to give some utility with enough of an action economy cost that it's probably not worth it in combat or fast enough for split second decisions. But it sounds like a use limit is needed. I figured as much but wasn't sure.

As for the spell prep, I didn't think X Savant was OP. Some schools like evocation, conjuration, and transmutation have way more spells than others, but you still have to get the spells into your spell book and can never have more than 1-5 other spells prepped. My main goal was to make wizards feel a bit more distinct instead of having every wizard prepare the same set of spells.

The main problem with the proposed Savant feature is not that it is thematic, it's that it will push players even more to focus on the very best spell schools. Divination would be pretty thoroughly nerfed, I'll give you that, but the three you mention would be an enormous buff. You'll get a crapload of cookie-cutter blaster wizards, for example, because anyone who wants to be a blaster can just take Evocation (which they were almost certainly going to take anyway), and now they'll have every spell they could want at their fingertips so long as they can learn it by levelling up.

More or less, in your desire to make Wizards more thematic, this will most likely just mean you never see the less-useful options like Necromancy or Divination.

The main problem with "Book Casting" is that you've now made every Wizard legit actually Batman Wizard. Sure, they can only cast 3-5 spells "naturally", but literally every spell they ever learn is, at most, 30 seconds away. Even for 9th-level spells, assuming proficiency and +5 Int mod, that's a minimum skill roll of 1+5+6=12, meaning you succeed 13/20 = 65% of the time, so you'll need more than 5 rounds to cast it only 0.35^5 = ~0.525% of the time, and 2nd level spells are guaranteed.

So...yeah. A usage limit is absolutely required if you want to avoid turning every Wizard into "I'm Batman" outside of combat.

 

[aco175]

My main goal was to make wizards feel a bit more distinct instead of having every wizard prepare the same set of spells.

Other than this, what are you trying to achieve? Everything is frontloaded to level 1 and 2 which go by vest fast. What is stopping people from just taking these 2 levels and then multi-classing to get these bonusses? What would this look like with other spells from other classes? These look like just for wizard spells though, so likely not much cross over.

Could new spells be implemented for thematic purposes. Warlocks have Eldritch Blast. It's kinda a big deal. Maybe just give evokers Fire Bolt, or just them deal the d10 damage and others only 1d6 or d8 to not make it look so good. The books seem to have thematic cantrips now for everyone.

Can you change the theme or feel without changing the spell. Magic Missile might just look like tiny purple skulls coming from a necromancer and black cats jumping towards you coming from an illusionist.

 

[DeviousQuail]

Updated:
-"X Savant" let's you prep up to wizard level spells from your chosen school. Effectively the same as a 5e wizard. Also, we use a few divination spells from 3rd parties to ensure divination wizard have more than 20 spells to choose from.
-"Book Casting" is limited to 1 use and recharges on a short or long rest. Since it is limited to only spells in your spellbook I'm not really worried about multiclassing abuse.