D&D (2024) Wizard (Playtest 7)

[Yaarel]

This thread is for any discussions about the Wizard class, as of playtest 7.


One thought is, I am surprised at the four choices for the Wizard subclasses:
• Evoker
• Illusionist
• Diviner
• Abjurer

According to current statistics, the most popular Wizard subclasses are: Evoker, Bladesinger, War Mage, and Necromancer. So the designer decisions dont follow whats popular. I took for granted that Bladesinger would be a Wizard subclass in the 2024 Players Handbook, but apparently that wont be the case.

Honestly, I am kinda glad they went with Illusionist, rather than Necromancer, because Illusionist is a nod to old school, and fits the "creator" archetype of the Wizard. Meanwhile, necromancy the kind of darker edgier thing that I feel the Warlock class should have. The Warlock and the Cleric should be the go-to classes to specialize in necromancy.

The Abjurer Wizard should have access to healing spells.

I see the Cleric and the Bard as the specialists in divination, but it works well enough for Wizard too.

 

[Bladesinger]

One thing I would have loved for them to lean into would be Signature Spells. Getting them earlier and advancing options there would be a better defining Wizard ability than the Memorize Spell ability they gave them.

Also, A5E did this a little better - A Specialist Archetype which can be any specialist type and a generalist Mage. From here you could add Bladesinger and War Mage to round it out.

 

[Neonchameleon]

According to current statistics, the most popular Wizard subclasses are: Evoker, Bladesinger, War Mage, and Necromancer. So the designer decisions dont follow whats popular. I took for granted that Bladesinger would be a Wizard subclass in the 2024 Players Handbook, but apparently that wont be the case.

Which statistics or what's popular? The key thing about wizard is that with the sole exception of Evoker nothing sticks as a subclass. This was released by D&D Beyond in 2019
View attachment 1694227142323.webp

Meanwhile this was D&D Beyond in 2020

So ... yeah. I have no idea what is going on with the wizard numbers without more data access than I have.

The thing is that I also want Illusion taken away from the wizards (or at least doubled down on for one of the other casters) for the simple reason that wizards by definition can learn any spell, and so you can't have a specialist illusionist who has to rely on illusions and bluff. There's always the possibility of learning fireball for a wizard (level permitting).

 

[Kobold Stew]

A few thoughts about Wizards:

• I like that the spellbook can be read by someone else with Identify. It's a spell many have but few prepare. Prepping it when you know you are going up against another wizard is now tactical.
• I like the removal of "cheap copying" from specialties and giving the reduction for costs when replacing the book.
• Change to Academic suggests maybe the Study action is being removed? That's too bad. Still, expertise in a single Intelligence Skill (Arcana for most) is explicable.
• Evoker. Swapping Sculpt Spell and Potent Cantrip makes sense.
• Diviner. They've taken Ethereal Sight away from the level 10 Third Eye ability. I never saw it used in play.
• They fixed the Invisibility loophole.
• Illusionist. I have never understood the wording of Malleable Illusion. What does "change the nature of that illusion" mean? You cast Minor Illusion and get a sound-and-image combination that takes an action to see as an illusion (same as if t was just an image), but now you can change its "nature". Does that mean like a slide show? Make it a real boy? Or what? Ugh, I wish they actually talked about illusions somewhere clearly.

 

[Parmandur]

Change to Academic suggests maybe the Study action is being removed? That's too bad. Still, expertise in a single Intelligence Skill (Arcana for most) is explicable.

I like that it allows for a Radagast the Brown style Hedge Mage to choose Nature instead, or a Mystic Theruge type to choose Religion, or a deep scholarto choose History. Allows a Wizard to be a world class wise-acre, and I appreciate that. I don't think Study is going anywhere, the Rules Glossary has not changed much in several packets now: but Expertise in one academic topic just feels...Wizard-y.

 

[James Gasik]

Which statistics or what's popular? The key thing about wizard is that with the sole exception of Evoker nothing sticks as a subclass. This was released by D&D Beyond in 2019
View attachment 294505

Meanwhile this was D&D Beyond in 2020

View attachment 294506

So ... yeah. I have no idea what is going on with the wizard numbers without more data access than I have.

The thing is that I also want Illusion taken away from the wizards (or at least doubled down on for one of the other casters) for the simple reason that wizards by definition can learn any spell, and so you can't have a specialist illusionist who has to rely on illusions and bluff. There's always the possibility of learning fireball for a wizard (level permitting).

One of my longstanding complaints about the entire illusionist archetype comes down to, "why are you wasting time creating pretend spells when real spells exist" and "if it's possible to conjure a horde of pixies out of thin air with one spell, why would anyone disbelieve you creating an illusion of a pixie horde?" (and yet, the NPC's seem to do it every time, lol). Even other game designers have noted this, AD&D Illusionists eventually learned real spells at their top spell levels so they had some real magic to use in case everyone figured out they were an illusionist and disbelieved everything, and the Earthdawn Illusionist similarly had a few spells with real effects to mess with people who had a similar thought process.

I mean, sure, in theory, you could fool people by disguising low level illusion spells as higher level real spells, but I've never seen that work out well in live play, only in stories about awesome illusionist characters, lol.

 

[Kurotowa]

• Diviner. They've taken Ethereal Sight away from the level 10 Third Eye ability. I never saw it used in play.

As mentioned by Crawford, the See Invisibility spell covers both invisible targets and peering into the Ethereal Plane. So subbing in the spell does both at once with less word count.

• Illusionist. I have never understood the wording of Malleable Illusion. What does "change the nature of that illusion" mean? You cast Minor Illusion and get a sound-and-image combination that takes an action to see as an illusion (same as if t was just an image), but now you can change its "nature". Does that mean like a slide show? Make it a real boy? Or what? Ugh, I wish they actually talked about illusions somewhere clearly.

What I think it means is that you can make major alterations to an illusion after it's cast. If you read the spells closely, most of them are fairly set once you've cast it. Silent Image and Major Image let you animate the illusion, where it makes the appropriate motions as it changes location, but you can't change what the illusion is. An illusionary bear will walk across the road, but it won't catch on fire or turn into a chicken. Meanwhile Hallucinatory Terrain is entirely set at the time of casting, with no ability to alter or adjust it once it's in place.

Malleable Illusion changes that. A true Illusionist can freely alter an ongoing illusion within the parameters of the original spell. The bear can be altered or transformed however you want, or "vanish into the trees" as an entirely different illusion takes the stage. Your Hallucinatory Terrain can be hit with a flash flood or a landslide. As long as the Illusionist spends the Bonus Action and remains within the limits of the spell, they can update or mold it however they please.

 

[TerraDave]

Evoker and Diviner are the ones I have seen the most.

And its good that bladesinger is not there, I would hate to buy a PHB just to burn it.

I kind of see that Memorize spell is trying to do, what its poorly worded at best. It could let you change a prepared spell. Or it could just go.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

One thing I would have loved for them to lean into would be Signature Spells. Getting them earlier and advancing options there would be a better defining Wizard ability than the Memorize Spell ability they gave them.

Also, A5E did this a little better - A Specialist Archetype which can be any specialist type and a generalist Mage. From here you could add Bladesinger and War Mage to round it out.

I for one would love this as a concept for all the specialists to be rolled into one archetype that just augments your spells of a certain school. It does open up for more development room, like making a wizard who specializes in staves or wands or something.

Which statistics or what's popular? The key thing about wizard is that with the sole exception of Evoker nothing sticks as a subclass. This was released by D&D Beyond in 2019
View attachment 294505

Meanwhile this was D&D Beyond in 2020

View attachment 294506

So ... yeah. I have no idea what is going on with the wizard numbers without more data access than I have.

The thing is that I also want Illusion taken away from the wizards (or at least doubled down on for one of the other casters) for the simple reason that wizards by definition can learn any spell, and so you can't have a specialist illusionist who has to rely on illusions and bluff. There's always the possibility of learning fireball for a wizard (level permitting).

This is all particularly frustrating when you consider that WoTC seems to be hellbent on making Sorcerer the "blaster" arcane caster when archetypically by most folklore it should be the beguiling enchanter or illusionist. Considering warlock also sort of eats into that design space while still also mainly being most viable as a magical force archer it sort of also compounds this all further. Your own players are "telling" you (allegedly) that they want Wizards to be evokers. Give illusion to sorcerers already!

Many rant over though, jokingly, looking at the top archetypes for Sorcerer (Dragon), Warlock (Fiend), Wizard (Evoker), and heck, even Artificer (Artillerist) it's highly likely that the memes may actually true: the only spell most players actually care about is fireball.

...an actual serious answer:
I think that picture is actually misleading. Look at the top subclass for each class. Without exception it is all the OGL / free options for D&D beyond. What says to me is not that Wizard players like the evoker, but more that there are likely a lot more free accounts for dnd beyond that do not have access to all of the class options than there are people who actually pay for their services. This, if actually true is a great thing for the tabletop industry as a whole, and is something that likely frustrates the heck out of WoTC (or more accurately Hasbro), especially if even 10% of the rumors of Hasbro wanting to turn the game into a digital only microtransaction hellscape through the VTT are actually true. I'd considering feeling pity for them, but frankly I couldn't care less the continued existence of DnD Beyond as I've been vehemently against it since its inception, nor I have forgotten the OGL scandal or 4e GSL scandal before that. Never forget that they have tried to shut down all of their competitors, not once, but TWICE. Even though much of their modern success was through 3rd party support. Hasbro, like any other corporation cares about only one thing: their bottom line.

 

[Yaarel]

Which statistics or what's popular?

There is an unofficial data scrape of the DnDBeyond character sheets, with more recent data points, including frequency of subclasses.