The Problem with Wizards in D&D
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Wizards are the most iconic DnD class in... well all of D&D, but playing a wizard at low levels sure is something. How can we improve the feel of this class?
Go check out 12 DIFFERENT POINTY HAT CLASSES, MAGIC ITEMS, 3 ADVENTURES, AND MORE! You get a free pdf of the book with the purchase of any of the two physical Hexbound books until the end of April!
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And you can grab the Witch wizard subclass for free HERE!
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Clip at 0:35 by @ganglemanVA
Video Editing by the amazing Bia: / bnazf
Writing, Illustration, and Narration by me: / antodemico
Additional sketches by the amazing Fey: / feymilde
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If you went to get Hexbound and found that you had to pay 200 BUCKS for shipping, THAT WAS A WEBSITE MISTAKE! That has now been fixed! It's a flat flee of 30 now :) Sorry for the mistake!
Oh well, that's that then. Appreciate it! :D
The Witch Class is the Warlock Class.
I'm in Canada and it still says 95$ Shipping. Is that accurate?
I am sorry, but I always just grab PDF versions. That said, I didnt know you had a cooking book as well. So I got both, thank you.
@@MiitchKayI’m also in Canada and it’s still $95. I paid it, but I’d sure love if it was the standard 30 dollars. Any news on if this is gonna get fixed? :s
"who would not go for [divination] as a wizard?" spoken like someone who asks how big the room is before casting fireball
Sounds like you've never felt the raw power of denying the DMs attack because you didn't feel like it have a 2
Not my heals not my problem
We knew what we signed up for
Wait, there's people that ask about room size before casting fireball?
Fireball that's way too useless and not that very useful all you have to do is just have your DM throw monsters that are resistant to fire and you're the real threat now create water and shape water now those are extremely useful spells! Not to mention also cheaper and you get them sooner! water prison jutsu anyone! And with the right trickery you can even make it where it's destroys constructs!
You fool, do yeh not know the power of auto failing your Boss Monster’s saving throw?
"The grounds keeper, an old woman by the name of Olivina, saw something nobody else saw in Candela: ADHD. She was given Adderall, except the magical version, and Candela's grades went up."
The beginning of your description just reminded me of that.
HA! I did too!
😂 Same
AHDNJSG THIS WAS THE STORY OF MY LIFE. The more he said the more i was like "GET OUT OF MY HEAD"
Imagine if it were that easy.
A spellslot a day and all your weird reptilian brain nonsense calms down enough to read more than a couple paragraphs before getting a migraine.
the entire thing was the most ADHD coded thing ever I felt so called out there is no way that was not intentional 😂
I solved the spell scroll issue in my game by leaning into the fact that academics is inherently cooperative. You're not an isolated scholar, you gave regular contact with fellow wizards, subject experts, etc through magical owl post. Someone will be happy to trade you an extra spell scroll in return for components, information, a recommandation to a mentor, etc. Sooo many story hooks. And the wizard can request spell scrolls in-world.
Even after graduation, or in lew of a school, I would imagine most wizards would form guilds and share resources.
Neat! Definitely gonna put this in my notebook for if and when I GM a game. Thank you!
I'm surprised they don't have "personal research" options
It depends on how hard they are to make. If it just takes time and a little cash you can make them yourself. If a scroll costs xp as a minor magic item they are essentially very minor magic treasures.
@@erikschaal4124In Esoteric Enterprises they form street gangs because scrounging cash for books is expensive and selling crack together helps.
I played a Druid necromancer once. I would cast Speak with Plants and Speak with Dead. I COULD TALK TO FURNITURE!
"what the hell have you done on this couch, its begging for sweet release?"
I'd imagine speaking to furniture would be on par with casting a spell to talk to animals then having a conversation with a taxidermied Elk
Corpse of the plant is far too damaged and died way too long ago. Clearly ignoring all the rules... that'd be like finding a disembodied skeletal arm and talking to it...
@@Thromnabular nerd
Omg, that's great. I can't believe I've never thought of this. Def gonna try it sometime. XD
Imagine two divination wizards on opposing sides of an encounter, both recognizing the other has a grasp of the future. Each one trying to pull the weave I and manipulate events, trying to trick the other into using their divine Portant on something that is less impactful
I imagine it similar to the mind fight between Sherlock and Moriarty at Reichenbach falls in Game of Shadows
I've had this in a murder-mystery campaign I played in once! I was playing a halfling investigator who specialized in divination magic to be a Sherlock-esque character. Turned out, the killer was also a divination wizard, so we were baiting out each others' portents while trying to outsmart one another. Was super fun!
so, basically a good episode of _Leverage_.
sounds horrendously dull
This reminds me of the mistborn book series. Fights between two mistborn burning Atium, the metal that allows a mistborn to see into the future. When both of them burned it they basically canceled each other's usage out, because as one would predict what the other was going to do, the other was already predicting the counter just as fast. What resulted was about a million ghost images in both of their minds of all possibilities at once. It made for some pretty awesome fights.
"What about witches?"
*All of the PF players collectively enter the room*
tbf I am sure that flavor wise they just packed shaman and witch together to give us the warlock.
More like leave the room. As a PF2 player i once again find myself one step ahead. And i know i sound snobish but DnD has to step up.
*They all immediately start Cackle Spamming everyone in the room into submission*
Same with combining melee and spellcasting. Laughing in magus.
Ya I skipped from 3.5 to pf2e. System is awesome.
After finishing "Which Lich" comes "Which Witch"
What a twist!
And then we need a special episode: “Which Lich? Witch Lich!”
Not until "Witch Lich" comes out!
@@DBArtsCreators why do I hear Monty Python coconuts? :)
And after that we will get a series called "Which snitch" a series based on giving every character the ability to become a sneaky backstabbin bastard
Next is "Which bitch"
Seeing a Pointy Hat upload always makes my day. And a half hour one? Can’t wait to dive in!
THANK YOU FOR TALKING ABOUT ORDER OF SCRIBES! Everyone pays so much attention to bladesinger or divination that I never hear anyone talk about my favourite wizard subclass, so THANK YOU
Quick tip for arcane recovery. The amount of spell slots you recover is always equals to your highest spell slot available. At least until level 19 when you get an extra spell slot level to work with.
Take 2 levels in peace cleric to get channel divinity and recover proficiency level spell slots with harness divine power every short rest.
@@nathanschubert3048 Haness Divine Power is only ONE spell slot of a level equals to HALF your proficiency on a short rest per Long Rest.
@@someusername9591 I admit. I posted entirely off memory. I apologize. Harness Divine Power is half Proficiency (rounded UP though) and extra uses of it require more cleric levels. Not as good as I remembered, but still a wonderful synergy since you can regain wizard spells with it in addition to arcane recovery.
@@nathanschubert3048 lol, yeah, no worries. Tbf, I did have to go look it up to confirm.
Also, yeah, it's an alright synergy, I just don't know if I would personally want to slow down my Wizard spell progression for what would be 1 3rd level slot at best. I can definitely see how it could be useful in some campaigns though.
I always find merch plugs annoying, but he is so excited and you can see that he really loves this to the point that it is very refreshing.
It also helps that he's an artist and game designer first, his books are his passion rather than just merch for the channel! 😄
Right? I mostly don't even play 5e anymore but I'm pretty tempted to buy this book anyways.
And he is still giving you free stuff along with selling his book, what a legend
I feel this is very different from a normal merch plug. It’s not a branded T-shirt, it’s something he’s poured likely months or years of hard work into and, like you said, somethings he’s super excited about. I’m only sad that it’s sold out right now 😢
the thing to note about the ritual spells for the wizards, they have an additional advantage compared to others, since they can ritual cast spells they haven't prepared, so long as they have it in their spellbook. Other classes need to have the spell prepared to cast it as an ritual, but not wizards.
Bonus points for the scribe wizard, who can once per long rest can cast a ritual spell without the added time.
Edit: small mistake about the scribe wizard. while the scribe wizards quill doesn't need ink, it doesn't says that it reduces the cost of copying spells. So by Raw they still need 50 gold for each spell level, they are just quicker with copying, but as dm you can choose not to enforce that.
The gold cost is explicitly stated to be the price of ink, so it doesn't need to say that it reduces the cost, because of course it does
@@zokerovextis6768 "The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it."
Ink is only part of the gold cost
@@zokerovextis6768"Really high quality ink and paper", if I remember correctly. I think ink would be about two-thirds of that, but definitely not all.
@@thomasgeithus3996 Having an arcane focus or component pouch negates the other part though.
@@zokerovextis6768 Not by Rules as Written, Raw it needs to specifically state "The gold you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook are halved ", otherswise it's not reduced.
it does say "The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it"
You could explain this by saying that it need more paper or material, or specialized paper due to the nature of the quill and the spellbook hastely scribing things down, and leaving more waste, since the other half of the cost is paper. Another option is that the ink that the quill produces isn't "Fine ink" suitable for spells since it only says that it produces ink, not "Fine ink"
In fact the orginial UA version did mention a reduced cost, but they swapped it out for the reduced time instead, so if they wanted cost they could have done that, but they didn't mention it. If it was supposed to have a reduced cost, they would have left that part in.
You can as dm say reduced cost, But by Raw you need to have that text, otherwise it doesn't work by Raw.
Pointy Hat: "Wizards can't tank."
Bladesingers and Abjuration: "...are you sure about that?"
War Magic enters the chat
I'm actually inclined to agree with Pointy Hat here. Especially given the limited number of in-combat abjuration spells that an abjuration wizard can use to refresh their spell shield, and neither subclass does enough defensively to compensate for the incredibly low HP pool. Bladesinging, Shield and Absorb Elements are all great, but it's still very limiting.
@@Dracas42 Abjurer can take Eldritch Adept for Armor of Shadows, that will let them recharge their ward between encounters as long as they have a minute or so to spam Mage Armor.
@@Dracas42 as a bladesinger if you have a +2 in dex and a +3 in intelligence, with mage armor and bladesong active you can have an AC of 18 at level 2. That’s high even for martials
@@Kevin-fe4kp Okay, but martials pair that AC with a high HP pool. Bladesingers don't. You're not likely to have a really good CON score if your INT is +3 and DEX is +2 at level 2, and because your stats are so spread out it makes it harder to buy feats over taking the ASI as you level up. Not to mention, spending the spell slot on Mage Armor at that level means you can cast all of 2 spells for the entire adventuring day, and those two spells are probably going to be Shield.
I got soooo excited when you announced the book, but then I went to the website and found out it is already SOLD OUT! Sad for me, but dang, CONGRATULATIONS to you! So happy to see it is a succes. I love your illustrations, so I would get the book just for more of them!
My favorite use of wish (specifically as the 9th level spell) is to create a spell scroll of their own design, which they can inscribe into their spellbook, creating their very own spell.
Because, in my eyes, that's one of the greatest feats a wizard can put on their resume. A defining achievement that puts them in a tier of their own
Yes!!
AD&D had rules to make up a spell. You describe the spell you want and the DM arbitrates what level it might be.
I think this should be a wizard ability. Wizards are dedicated to the study of magic, and spells had to have come from somewhere. Make it their thesis for their wizard doctorate or something
@@oldylad The players describe the spell. I compare it to other spells and we give it a spell level. There is a roll for how many days it takes and how much cash they splurge.
In Carcosa, spells are rare. You must go to hex 1277 and read the serpent man stele. Other magicians will kill and sacrifice you for this knowledge.
With "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards", how I've described it is that:
• At low levels, a wizard is gimmicky while a fighter is practical
• At high levels, a fighter is a one-trick pony whereas a wizard is a whole toolkit.
A solution I came up with way back in 3.5 was spell description scroll. One of the problems that existed back then is that you could fail to scribe a scroll into your book despite spending the time and money. This led to wizard's not scribing scrolls but casting from scrolls more often than not. Basically wizards were the class with free spell slots all over the place. Replace acess to basic spell scrolls with spell description scrolls and hand them out like candy - but spell description scrolls can only be used to add to a spellbook. They were easier to add to spell books cost less and took less time to add to spell books, we're not destroyed by copying into spell books, and could be used to add many, many variants of spells without any problems. Suddenly wizards could go to hubs of magical learning and offer old scrolls already copied into books for access to new ones. You can excite a player by giving them access to ice ball separate from fireball. Next thing you know they're looking forward to Thunderball, acid ball, blue ball, whatever. Wizards could have access to a crazy bloated spell list without worrying about having them having an unreasonable number of casts per day. Theives got poison everywhere they looked. Fighters collected specialized weapons from any being that ever saw an anvil. And wizards overflowed with bit of paper. And clerics got healing scrolls so they could still cast without everyone complaining they weren't getting healed ALL the time. Thats how it works.
Blue ball LMAO
@@SimplexStorm the psychic damage version. Player named it.
I never played 3.5, and it's been forever ago since I played 3E, but wasn't the solution back then the same as in 5E where you just include spell books in loot, instead of only the spell scrolls, if you want a source of new learnable spells without the drawbacks of being consumable and fallible? Enemy Wizards should have those on their persons or in their living quarters anyway, so it's a very organic way to go about things. And you then you also still have the books to sell off and/or to keep as a backup resource.
@@Shalakor yes and no. Yes, you could have a spell book as loot (it wasn't on the list to remind you, but it should have been). And yes you could learn spells from another spell book. But you still had to "translate" a spell from a spell book too. With the massive failure chance considering time and materials were up front. And RAW you destroyed the spell when you copied it, so having two wizards would have required multiple books or for one of them to spend XP on making scrolls for the other back when wizards needed more XP to level than other classes. And you STILL felt like you needed to cast from the book instead. I mean, if a level 4 wizard got a spell book with fireball in it intended as a treat for the future, would they wait for level 5 to beg the party to spend 3 days and 300 gold to probably memorize it to be able to prepare it in the future or would they cast it now to make living to level 5 easier? The idea of the description scroll is that you couldn't cast it now. But because of that there was no balance issue of giving you MANY, MANY more of them. And that's also why I made spell books work like spell description scrolls not traditional scribed spell scrolls. And since they were built not to cast but to teach, you could legitimately claim that they took hours instead of days and silver instead of gold to learn. Wizards also have access to metamagic back then and so another popular use was to make a scroll specifically for "still" charm person or "silent" sleep or "empowered" burning hands. When you know charm person that can be cast with out waving your arms is in your book you think the problem is that you didn't prepare it, not that I tired your arms behind your back. And when you see how neat it is to just "roll better" on burning hands, you spend your feat being able to do it on other stuff too.
Yo!! Can I steal this? My setting has an ✨Institute of the Arcane✨ and I have a mechanic set up where anyone can take a few classes in the college and learn new spells (alongside selling magical services). Except the institute is incredibly classist _womp womp_ and it would be a peak into the underlying corruption that let the bbeg's cult take control of the city.
>Be wizard.
>Wake up in the morning.
>Go make more coffee.
>Put bread in the oven to make toasts.
>While you wait, cast Arcane Armor as ritual.
Basically every D&D5e wizard.
Arcane Armour is not a spell that exists in 5e
@@kieranmacneil3940Mage Armor
@@kieranmacneil3940he most likely meant Mage Armor.
@@nathanschubert3048 still not a ritual tho, if I'm not mistaking
@mariabulycheva7627 correct, not sure where he got the ritual part. You can "rest cast" It though.
Rest casting is where long duration spells (Mage armor lasts 8 hours) are cast just before the end of a long rest, so that you get the slot back and still have the spell up at the end of the rest.
Obviously, if you already burned all your spells for the previous day, you can't rest cast. And yes, this works as written in the DnD 5e rules dues to long rest only requireing 6 hours of sleeps and the remaining 2 hours can be light activity. Starfinder on the other hand, specifically prevents this.
5:05 "That would be Healing Word or Cure Wounds for free" Mark of Healing Hafling Wizards can learn those spells, though (and they count as wizard spells for them).
A variant human wizard that took the Gift of the Metallic Dragon as their bonus feat also gets Cure Wounds.
@@warlockghovat5745 It doesn't count as a wizard spell through that feature tho
i am SO excited!! i can tell you put so much work into the wizard-witch subclasses, and i can't wait to be able to get the book!
Bladesinger is great because of 1 thing: Extra attack. And it’s no ordinary extra attack. You can replace 1 attack with a Cantrip! If you cast Shadow Blade and duel wield it with a rapier, you can be making 3 attacks per round that deal 2d8 + your dex mod by level 6
Edit: to clarify, the idea is that you can attack as your action using the Shadowblade, then cast booming blade with the second attack, then bonus action two weapon fighting with the shadow blade. My mistake was that you either need a short sword or the duel wielder feat
Bladesinger sucks because it makes you think you have to invest into that trap playstyle of melee combat. Its much more effective to not go into melee and to treat bladesong as just an armor dip+concentration protection. Or use a hand crossbow.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is shadowblade is a summoned weapon, which you would use with extra attack anyway, so the rapier wouldn't be necessary unless using it to make a strike such as with booming blade / green flame blade (RAW shadowblade doesn't work), and you wouldn't actually use your bonus action to attack with shadow blade?
So on turn 1, you could cast shadowblade, and use your attack action twice with it as per extra attack. Turn 2 you'd still have your bonus action then, though shadow blade damage wouldn't apply to an offhand attack not made with the shadowblade. I'm just struggling to see the combo.
Multiclassing Bladesinger with warlock so I could attack+EB
@@N0Name_btw man, you can easy get 17 CA at level 2 and can use the shield spell to effectively have 23, with is stronger tham any figther, plus even if you get out of your big spells you still can figth.
@@N0Name_btwActually no it doesn’t make you do melee - just means you could. Look at the features. You don’t even get extra damage till it is irrelevant. That is game speak for don’t try to be a front liner.
What you DO GET is bonuses to AC and concentration. You don’t even have to pull out a sword to get the most out of the subclass. D4, Trentmonk and Dungeon Dudes all have channels and have good guides on how to play the subclass from most to slightly optimized!
The free content here has been absolutely top tier. I can only imagine what purchased content will be like. Purchased the delux. And we are test running the Fighter Subclass tomorrow!
The thing i love most about the Scribes Wizard's capstone ability is that it instantly turns all your useless spells like Detect Trap and Leomund's Secret Chest into an impenetrable shield.
If you're doing what your subclass is telling you to do (scribing every single spell you can get your grubby little hands on) it's a god-tier ability
It’s just a shame that it depends on your DM. Sure, you can _want_ to scribble as many spells as you can into your spellbook, but if you don’t find the scrolls and gold to do it…you’re just SOL.
@@liesdamnlies3372 Yeah, I've got a "wish list" (and yes, Wish is on that list) of spells that I would really like to find, which my DM has. When they generate loot, they will, if it makes sense (we just killed an Ancient Gold Dragon the other day, and I found a spellbook she had collected and got so many tasty spells from it) they will have spell books or scrolls, some with randomly rolled spells, and maybe one or two spells from my Wish List. A great DM.
Yes, but if you are trying for any organized play you will find that your quill has less use that a Ranger's Favorite terrain feature. As scribing spell rules say that the gold covers the Ink and reagents to learn the spells. Making scribes the dumbest wizard subclass because you have to experiment more for the same result all because you have a good pen as part of the subclass.
Add to this problem that the new stat block rewrites mean that where you had INT based casters that didn't have innate spell casting you could get your DM to agree they had a spellbook with the prepared spells on the stat block. This made it worth fighting wizards. Now casting is being rewritten as a creature feature so counter spell can't work and now you can't get spell books because features are not spell casting. So even Organized play has been forced to allow scroll purchase. You can't get anything over 5th lvl so you have to run very specific books/modules to get higher level spells.
@@nickm9102 Not getting to scribe anything above 5th level spells isn't an issue for this subclass tho? I'm not saying capstone turns good spells better, i'm saying it turns shitty spells actually useful.
And you mention the unlimited ink from the 2nd lvl feature being kinda useless, which it is, but fail to see the incredible utility of being able to copy spells into your spellbook at 1/60 the required time.
Lets say your wizard stumbles upon a spellbook with
3x 1st lvl spells
3x 2nd lvl spells
2x 3rd lvl spells
2x 4th lvl spells and
1x 5th lvl spell
With any other wizard, that'd take 56 hours to copy. 7 whole days of uninterupted downtime. If you're reeeeaaaally lucky maybe half of the spells are from your own school, then it'd only take 42 hours. Which is still more than 5 days of downtime. Good luck getting that much downtime in the middle of adventuring. With a Scribes Wizard that whole spellbook would take less than 1 hour to copy in it's entirety. Literally less than a single short rest. The revamped monster design isn't gonna delete spellbooks from the game, enemy wizards can still have spellbooks on them, you'll still find them in hoards or arcane ruins, etc. Even tho it doesn't reduce the cost the quill is still infinitely better than all the other 2nd lvl "Savant" features other wizards get.
well don't tell us what the capstone does or anything.
I tried offsetting the terrible low level wizard feeling by starting with a level of artificer, and it's SO GOOD I can't even begin to describe it. You get all the goodies including medium armor and shield proficiencies, proficiency in CON saves (HUGE for a wizard!) AND access to Cure Wounds and Faerie Fire AND your starting HP is 8 instead of 6. In return, you only lose Signature Spells, and who cares about that at level 20. My level 2 artificer/wizard had 18 base AC which could be bumped on-demand to 23 AC with Shield. Absolutely astonishing!
Even just a single level dip is excellent. Artificers round up their spellcasting level when you multiclass, meaning that one level gives you full spellcaster capabilities!
Wait till you discover peace cleric dip.
@@nia7558I feel like if a wizard muliclasses into cleric it would make more sense, in terms of roleplay, to go with knowledge domain.
@@AnnaMno1 Roleplay? Yes
Party optimisation? No
I did the same. Flavored healing as chronomancy
And got tinkering out of it as s a fun RP bonus
Pointy I've been watching you since you started and I'm so proud to see how far you've come!! You truly are one of the most creative creators I've seen and you always supply us with thorough, enjoyable, and useful content. I can't wait to get my hands on your book!!!!! I'm in love with the Witch concept!! Keep crushing it dude!!
You should've seen the grin on my face when I realized your wizard subclass was a tribute to Blue Mage. As someone who's almost hit free account level cap on BLU in FFXIV, I approve.
Lol I just hit 90 the other week…. On botanist.
My wizard just steals other wizards spellbooks, he never writes anything into his books because he just steals the ones of wizards who already did the hard work for him
That’s actually what the wizard in the party I dm for did to the party’s rival! He’s also a wizard (he’s a necromancer). It was actually a team effort. The sorcerer stole the book from him, and then the party played hot-potato with it. At the end of the encounter, when the players were fleeting, the wizard threw it back to him, but not before tearing out all the used pages. So she essentially handed him back a blank spellbook. It was so mean I gave her and the sorcerer inspiration points for it. The rival was not pleased next time he saw them.
Copying spells cost money because any spell you find anywhere is "encrypted." With how spellbooks were originally conceptualized, you wouldn't be able to use an enemies spell book without spending the same time and resources, since you would need to test the spell multiple times and decipher whatever the original user used to write his own book.
Magic isn't standardized so while one wizard would show y=mx+b, another wizard would use T as an equal sign, p to add. Instead of x and y they would use c and b
cTmcpb
It's the same math, but all of the symbols are different. Now imagine a math problem that covers an entire page. Every wizard would have some variations even if they studied under the same teacher. And your wizard would have spent their entire life studying one version, making things up to fill in gaps as new discoveries were made. Not to mention more wizards would go further to encrypt so their spells weren't stolen
That's explicitly forbidden by RAW, but if you're having fun at your table then w/e
New subclass: the plagiarist (Rouge + Wizard)
Wizard Multi-classing into Rogue so he can steal.
He basically made Witch a new class and I love it!
I just downloaded the wizard witch subclass and it’s already captivating me! The backstory potential and mechanics are impressive. Definitely will use this for a character.
Thanks so much Pointy Hat!
Muchas gracias por todo lo que haces pointy hat
As someone who loves the wizard class, I feel that their weakness at low levels is often overstated. Especially so since cantrips are now castable an unlimited number of times - a wizard's fire bolt is now the equivalent of a fighter swinging their sword, or a ranger firing their bow in the sense that it can be done an unlimited amount of times (though a bow can still run out of ammunition, a sword can still break, and a spellbook can still be stolen). With a bit of creativity and abuse of Prestidigitation and the environment, I feel like a lot of the weakness can be overcome.
It's just a matter of mindset a lot of the time - though I imagine some campaigns can be especially brutal for wizard and other squishy characters dependent on one gimmick.
Yeah, I definitely tend to pace my actual spellcasting; in the minor encounters I'll just toss firebolts or whatever most of the time, and it's not impressive but it contributes. Then at those important moments you've got the big guns to pull out. I also loooove Moonbeam. Smallish radius, but big enough to cover most of the enemies in a smaller fight, and it stays around for the whole fight and you can move it around with an action. So like you can contribute for the whole fight with one spell, conserving your slots.
@@purplelibraryguy8729 Unless you're homebrewing I thought moonbeam was a Druid only spell?
@@loggling5135 Ah, looks like you're quite right. Yeah, a while ago I was in a first edition campaign for nostalgia, with a multi-class Druid/Magic-User, and then we tried translating the campaign to 5th edition and I ended up with something a bit weird. My mistake.
@@purplelibraryguy8729 You're good. Moonbeam is a good spell
Honestly what I'd wish for for wizards is more indirect combat aid spells like grease. Illusions can fill that role, but only if the DM plays around it, as I've had several who will just ignore an illusion's existence.
I'm currently playing a Scribe Wizard in a campaign and I love what my DM does when it comes to scroll loot. Whenever the party gets magical/new gear, he has a short list of things that he homebrewed, thought would be cool, and/or we will need in the future. He also has a list of "choose your own" gear. For example, he'll say something like "there are also 3 uncommon magic items and 2 third level scrolls. Either y'all can pick what they are or I can." I know that it might break emersion for some people, but I love having a bit of say when it comes to what we get (within reason) and the DM doesn't have to figure out what your priorities as a player are
done something similar way back in the day: i had a small loot table written on a sheet of paper, and the player rolled a d100 to figure out what they get. had everthing there, usually, from money, potions to weapons and armor. of course, some chests had special items the player could get.
This also helped when the players killed random mobs i had not expected, and wanted to loot them. Made sure i did not have to improvise.
Letting players choose magic items can be a big issue if any of them are optimizers. There's a lot of swing in unncommon item power, and it can be hard to tell as a dm.
I did something similar. Asked my players "So, is there ANY kind of gear or item you're looking forward? Specific weapon types, spells, armors or whatever?".
I couldn't know at 1st session what their gameplan for their character build would be and giving a player that wanted to play 'big giant sword smash' fighters only bows would suck. So I made a list and used that as a reference. Sure, some of those I fiddled around a bit (one sword was cursed and removing that curse was part of clearing the dungeon while another one would get more powerful abilities the more they followed the questline for instance). But at least they always had the gear they 'needed' to complete the dungeon.
Did... did you just give wizards a G.E.D to become witches?
My first dnd character was a wizard that I just called a witch for fun, so it's really nice to see people trying to make it an actual subclass, especially a subclass that I would've loved to play.
Pirates, Trains, Creepy Circus, and Cowboys... sounds like my perfect game
Sounds like a Rifts sourcebook actually
Your art is truly my favorite in the entire community that I’ve seen. I would legitimately purchase a book that was just your art.
And I even like both styles you use. The lower detailed scratch style you use for videos, and the fully detailed you use in your final products.
20:33 It legit feels weird to see Human Familiar talking in Pointy Hat's voice.
Like, I know that's a fairly standard Eldritch Invocation, but I just associate that voice so much with Pointy Hat that it just looks wrong.
its like any other ventriloquist, like Ron Lucas or Nina Conti...the Hat throws its voice and makes the mouth of the Familiar move.
the singing part of blade singing is meant to be about how your blade clashing with others or it soaring through the air is a song.
Pointy Hat,
I love every all of your videos and your creative and Innovative ideas,
I really want to make a campaign for my family all around your D&D themes and creations.
Can't wait for the next twist.
The thing about Wizards' defences is that their AC is actually pretty decent. If you get a 16 in DEX (which there's not much of a reason not to) and cast mage armour, you get and AC of 16. That is higher or equal than Rogues and Monks before level 4. If you cast Shield, you get an AC of 21, which is higher than what any martial gets. If you take an armor dip for medium armor and shield, you have a base 19 AC which can go up to 24 AC with shield without magic items.
Or if you're bladesinger you could reach 23 AC
You get an AC 10 robe. A spell like Shield might arise your AC to around 16-18 for one skirmish. This means one less Sleep but sometimes you need to. In some games wizards have less armour limits, then you buy a kevlar vest.
@@SusCalvin 1) You get mage armor, meaning your AC is 13 minimu always, assuming point buy a +2 in dex isn't too unreasonable, putting you at 15, going up to 20 with shield, or 19 if we wanna be more conservative with dex and focus harder on CON instead.
@@xolotltolox7626 I'm playing a bladesinger rn, we're lvl 5, with mage armour, +4 INT and DEX, a homebrew +1 defender sword, haste and shield I can get to 29 AC, my DM hates me and uses a lot of strength saves lol
@@agustinvenegas5238 yeah, idk what he was expecting, or why he was handing out a +AC item to a bladesinger
THE PROBLEM WITH WIZARDS IS THAT THEY'RE NERDS
I SEE YOU AND I CAST CRUNCH!
KEEP THINE FORKED TONGUE BEHIND THY TEETH. THOU ART AN UNWASHED BARBARIAN AND A SIMPLETON
Watch out people, a Sorcerer player just came
@@dubucdark1280 the fact that I actually am makes me feel seen thank you
Says the guy watching a D&D video 😭
One thing that a lot of folks forget you can make a back-up Spellbook, the book itself costs 50 gp and RAW you can copy out of your current Spellbook for 10 gp and 1 hour per level. As an alternative there is a common magic item from Xanathar's called the Enduring Spellbook that cannot age and is fireproof and waterproof.
Bladesinging is great because it gives some VERY much needed defense. A +5 to AC is GLORIOUS. Plus wearing actual armor with a good Dex can you to a 20 AC at a very low level
I will say: Chronurgy Magic is one I really like because of the flavor and the feeling of being a time magus
A friend of mine solved the "Weak Wizard at low level" issue by creating a runic magic system. It worked very similarly to programming, meaning the skill floor and ceiling was the number of runes you knew, and your ability to CREATE spells. Which is the big issue I have in DnD and other similar tabletops, being tied down to "Fireball", "Chain Lighting", "Force Bolt" ect. I never felt like a scholar doing my own reaserch, I always felt like a plagarist using other peoples.
My favorite game of all time is Morrowind, and the Wizzard Fantasy in that game is superb. You can create all kinds of spells, with the only restrictions being which ones you learned (cant use fire effect withiut knowing a fire spells), your Intelligence/Willpower (Being your mana and chance to cast globally respectively), and your skill in the spell discipline (Destruction, Alteration, ect.). And... you know... money. But its not super hard to get money if you know what youre doing.
There is a game system I think you would find interesting, the problem is it's only in Hungarian, I don't know about a translation. It is called M.A.G.U.S.
The interesting part is, in this system this is the core ability of wizards: creating their own spells instead of using preexisting ones, like every other spellcaster class. There are lots of spell-pieces, called "mosaics", that you can combine however you like. Casting fireball would not just be like using an existing spell, but using elemental magic to summon fire, and then giving it the shape of an explosion. Casting Find Familiar would be much more customizable but complicated: you would need to create a body for it using transmutation, then drawing a bunch of runes on it - for unthinking loyalty, for telepathy, whatever you want - using time magic to make all of those permanent, and trapping a soul in it.
I have not mastered that game enough to try this class and see all the possibilties, but it seems really fun!
I agree with all of this, I (maybe mistakenly) went into this video thinking that it'd be a discussion specifically about this feeling of the wizard not feeling "technical" enough, not like a scholar of magic but rather someone who just remembers some popular spells.
Such a shame that spellcrafting wasn't in skyrim.
Mage the Ascension is also a game that allows for on the fly spell making too. Mages in that game blend different magic types together to make effects and stick to the ones they really like and slowly build a list of Rote Spells that they made on their journey.
Sounds like a tabletop Noita. You get a wand with a number of slots, you put different spells and modifiers in the slots, creating crazy unforeseen interactions between them. Best wizarding game so far
Speaking of bg3 and witches, I'm actually playing a Necomancer wizard, and the game does provide a neat use for the class: a medium.
When you arrive to the aftermath of Waukeens keep, you can save a man stuck under burning rubble. If you cast speak with dead on his dead wife with him present, he will actually make a comment, asking if you are a medium and can ask his wife a question.
And it makes sense; so many people die in the world of dnd and can't afford resurrections, so why not find a Necromancer to speak one last time to the deceased?
I really, really like this angle, and just makes me like the subclass even more.
They did necromancers so dirty in BG3, and nearly all of act 2 just rubs salt in the wound
@@Mare_Man I just got into act 2 myself, so I haven't seen much yet. But considering a lot of my spells are nullified already by the abbreviations, I could see myself having a bit of a hard time if I didn't also multiclass into a monk. If I went solely Necromancer Wizard, I could see this area sucking. If they do the flavor text dirty, then I will be quite miffed
@@lechecbb Act 2 is rough because there's _so much_ cool necromancy stuff happening, and you, the *necromancer,* can do precisely none of it.
Two words, War Magic. Int to initiative, +2 to AC and saves while concentrating on a spell (which is most of the time), +2 to AC or +4 to saves as a reaction (like shield), and later damage the person you reacted to.
2.5 years into playing a Githyanki War Mage, it's been a blast! I'm about 4 sessions from lvl 17. If you have a good DM who gives the Int character things to learn and find out, Wizards are a blast. It's a good time being the smartest person in the room.
The Wizard v. Witch dichotomy you identified at the end for your own custom Blue Mage-esqe Wizard subclass reminds me of the very similar dichotomy of Wizards v. Witches in Discworld. I love Terry Pratchett!! RIP to the realest one of them all
I honestly can’t wait for him to cover the Yuan-Ti.
And all of their totally fair and well-balanced abilities.
Yo same
I LOVE YUAN TI I LOVE BEING GREAT AT NOT LOSING
There's the new Yuan-Ti, then there's pre nerf Yian-Ti, which was just.... broken.
They are honestly just fine. Volo’s attribute increases were outright horrible with the upside being strong but situational abilities. The latest version dials back on those abilities and grants them the free choice of ability score increases. They don’t come even close in comparing to stuff like bugbears, shadar-kai or the classic variant human.
I just have to let you know- the second you said you’d written a book, I paused the video followed the link and put in an order for both. Your designs and illustrations are incredibly inspiring and I can’t wait to have my own physical tomes full of them! Keep up the great work 🧙🏻🧙🏽♀️
As soon at you mentioned monsters as a resource the DM can never leave out I knew where this is going. BLUE MAGE WIZARD! LET'S GOOO!!!
Olivina: "HEY! TEACHERS! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!"
Oh my god I want to play as a witch so bad that subclass looks so cool!
I also want to watch an entire show about Candela! I've only had her for a few minutes but I'm already obsessed!!!
>hmmm, cool subclass
>HOLY SHIT THAT'S SUCH A BOMB TO DROP AND I LOVE IT
I see pointy hat, i click. But also my fave class ❤❤❤ excited to hear your insight
I learned to play DnD with a wizard as my first character so i felt like i was playing on hard mode. But now spell casters are a breeze
New Pointy Hat video, hell yeah.
Have you ever considered doing drawing videos? Everything you make looks so cool and I’m sure more people than just me want to see your process
yes yes, please and thank you!
I resonated a lot with I’m Candela ❤️ and 12 subclasses?! You outdid yourself 😍
23:01 I have been screaming this into the ether since my crew picked up 5e. I'd love nothing more for the game than a fully fleshed out Witch class. Now we got a subclass for everything? Thank you so much for this.
Divination Wizards make great Gamblers too.
I played a Wizard Diviner with the Criminal Background. They’d also help divine scout potential heist locations - best Lookout you could hire
Thank you for the Scribe Wizard appreciation. I think at first people didn't know how the reduction in spell scribing worked when Tasha's came out. But yeah you have a spell book backup just in case 😅
I only discovered your content this month and I'm so sad i missed the free pdf! Def buying the pdf, though,, and a physical copy if they restock!
Best ad I seen lately
I'm sorry, I just gotta say, the human familiar bit is such a good bit. It gets me every time, I just adore it. Carry on. Also couldn't resist getting the book, very hyped for it!
Good luck not making a wizard lich
Would have been a good April fools video
Honestly, the current Lich statblock is basically just a boring unthematic high level wizard. Coming up with a Lich that actually ties in to the Wizard class in a cool way would be neat
But also a litch version of his own witch class would be a fun end to the “which litch” series because it’s be a “witch litch”
Edit: oh nvm. There’s a witch for every class
the important question is, how many kinds of wizard liches could be devised?
@@jacksongodwin837 hag lich? er, I mean hag witch? (or hag witch lich?)
In my experience, Song of Defense is outperformed by the Shield spell 9/10 times, as that’s less resource-devouring and also may block damage from more than one instance/discourage enemies from attacking you.
Shield and Absorb Elements basically make Song of Defence obsolete
I lost it at the Seagull handshake clip, did him dirty lmao
Every time I read or hear about blue mages I can't help but remembering 3.5e's Totemist with great fondness.
"Learning a new spell is EXPENSIVE" Also solved in Pathfinder.
Seriously, I know it's a meme at this point, but every single time I seem complaints about DnD, Pathfinder has solved it. And it's NOT owned by Hasbro.
The only huge downside that's made it hard for me to get into pathfinder is a lack of resources quite on the level of 5e dnd sobbing
@@M0nsterm0uth well there is literally every book posted online for free by Paizo. Archives of Nethys is a lifesaver.
@@M0nsterm0utharchive of nethys and pathbuilder
doesnt help that 99/100 campaigns run out there are so linear that there is no time for a wizard to sit down and add a spell to their book, let alone buy a scroll :P
thats not really a problem in D&D since the vast majority of ppl just ignore it. and nobody owns D&D except the D&D community, so it doesnt matter who holds the ip. D&D has its problems but its made to be simple to swap rules in and out, while pathfinder is a bloated middling convoluted mess comparatively imo. Thats why it doesnt have as many players, it has more technically but only after wading thtough the somehow more awkwardly written rules that are 10x more complicated and which provide super underwhelming results/gameplay.
And as far as fixing the core issues of the game, same as D&D, PF never holds a candle to most lesser-known ttrpg's which focus-fire their game design on fixing specific issues/accomodating specific playstyles perfectly.
With that title, I thought we were talking about the coastal wizards.
"Sitting down for hours on end, concentrating on a task she did not find particularly interesting was just impossible for her" So you made Wizard with adhd, Love it
Wizards don't really ever feel like they fit into the party. At low levels they're barely capable of having enough spells to last a combat encounter, at higher levels you're traveling with a demigod capable of soloing boss encounters. I'm not sure whether it's even possible to make a class that's entirely dependent on their spell slots fun without just making high-level spells so absurdly broken the party just exists as meat shields and moral support.
It’s plenty fun to play. It’s just much harder to plan encounters because you don’t know what spells the wizard will prepare, and you don’t want it to be insanely obvious that your encounter is entirely planned around the wizard. If a spell is nerfing your fun (force cage anyone?), just ban it or tweak it, e.g. force cage CAN be dispelled by magic with a high enough arcana check.
15:45 illusions! ✨️✨️✨️ we love a Natalie reference.
The Scribes feature that can temporarily burn out your spells for a few days seems like a really big cost, but just remember how easy it is for Scribes wizards to copy spells. So just copy literally as many spells as you can find and you'll be in great shape. It's DM dependant to make work, but if you communicate with your DM that that's what you want it's just a really good feature
When pointy hat said about witches not being in dnd I yelled so loudly Witches and Witchcraft are probably my favourite fantasy tropes ever and then he revealed the wizard subclass written and I got excited AND THEN REVEALED A WHOLE DAMN BOOK AND I ALMOST DROPPED MY DAMN LAPTOP. I seriously can't express my excitement that I can actually put on of my witch characters in a game without tedious multiclassing for the vibes.
might i recommend Mage the Ascension or Mage the Awakening? both are actually a little more complex than i'd usually recommend to someone, but they are TTRPGs about being magic. the entire magic system is free form (and is actually the hard part to learn, but it isn't that bad), you decide how your magic works and use the system provided to bring it to life. i am playing a witch in ascension, i use traditional elements, magic circles, the names of powerful creatures and more to cast spells. meanwhile i have a friend that used hyper technology like plasma rifles, nano machines and super drugs to do totally-not-magic. and both of us played mechanically different despite not having any kind of preset class or anything, if he was caught without his plasma gun he couldn't shoot you with it, if i didn't have enough fire near by i couldn't summon a fire spirit to animate it.
if you have a flavor of magic you want to see mechanically represented, use one of those systems.
Witches are not really my thing to begin with and an entire book of Witch subclasses is just too many witches for me.
I’m glad you’re excited about the book though. “Not my thing” doesn’t mean it’s invalid or I don’t want it to exist.
Dear lord in heaven.
I was literally just watching your Cleric anf Sorcerer videos, wondering: „hmm, i wonder if he would do a video about Dwarves“ and you then just uploaded a new video!
Well, not about dwarves, but still happy to watch it nonetheless
omg! A book! I love this, I hope to see more books you work on, I love your content and hope to support this kind of stuff you do!
23:16 Pointy hat asmr let’s goooo
28:50 even more asmr!
Friendly reminder that the safest wizard to be next to is evocation because of one ability.
Spell Sculptor: for when you (and everyone else) don’t care how big the room is, you cast fireball
Yup, that ability to ground zero the damage spells is just awesome. Face it, in most fights your people get mixed up with the enemy pretty quick.
"I'm aware my friends are inside the radius. I said, 'I cast Fireball.' " lol
Must say that as a french, when I heard the transition bit play ("Le pudding à l'arsenic" from Astérix et Cléopâtre) I laughed so much. Love your videos!
Hey pointy, a mild mistake at 8:50, Diviner's are the only wizard that can regain spell slots of their school type. Evokers get empowered cantrips and the other subclasses get other abilities.
Pointy Hat is single handedly my favorite dnd channel! keep it up!
A way to deal with the limitation around money and copying spells could be making the Mage Character still being tied up to the school until the second level (because he didn't graduate yet)
So he can use the school library to use the ink, gold and scrolls there. Like bicycle extra wheels for kids
"Wizards can do anything except tank"
*Bladesinger with Tenser's Transformation, Shield, and Absorb Elements has entered the chat*
I recommend you never do that because Tensors transformation prevents you casting spells ! No spells 🪄 means no joy for a Wizard. Get the Draconic Transformation because that gives you fight, a breath weapon and you can still cast your attack cantrip and instant spells.
Abjuration Wizard: And I took that personally
My favorite wizard has been my scribe wizard. Sprig,the young chef in training. Yes my spell book was a cookbook and yes all the spells were flavored as food. Trick rope - long strand of licorice appears. Posion spray - she grabs some spices from her bag and throws them (lol gng pepperspray)
I don't really enjoy playing spell casters in dnd, so the witch supplement doesn't interest me too much. HOWEVER, I really REALLY love all of the flavor and the mechanics and creativity that you put in all of your homebrew creations. Literally all of your things that you give to us at the end of your videos are incredible to me and I'm so stoked that you've finally put them in a book so you can get paid for the stuff that you've created! I'm looking forward to Antonio Domico's Guide to Everything when it comes out!
”…can do anything but heal and tank”
*wild bladesinger with AC 28 appears*
Abjurer subclass solves one of the early level problems by being slightly more tanky but it does seem like a partial waste because portent dice is such a cool ability when you have access to so many spells that require enemies to make saves.
The new subclass monster spell thing reminds me a lot of the incantations you get from Elden ring. Kill a boss? Boom, new incantation from dragons, or you get one from a quest, or maybe a boss drops them outright. Suuper cool concept, i love it!
The best gish ive seen is probably the pathfinder 2 Magus. Its a medium armor class that can cast spells thru a melee attack but still requires a spellbook to work. So you make a melee attack and pick an attack spell you have prepared or a cantrip and do both on a successful hit. Great stuff.
"Melee attack." The Starlit Span magus shooting an ignition arrow from their bow.
Scribes wizard is the best because it lets you copy an entire spellbook in a short rest instead of a week, you get a pet ghost, you can swap out just about any elemental damage type so long as you pick up a handful of key spells at certain levels, and you get always active magic graffiti that goes beyond what the basic graffiti cantrips can do.
As for blade singer... I prefer taking a bunch of levels in Echo Knight fighter and multiclassing into war wizard. Best summoner in the game.
Honestly, id love for you to put all of your classes into one book. I would absolutely buy it.
The School of Witchcraft is maybe my favorite subclass I've ever read! The flavor, the abilities, the thought of walking around with a gaggle of ghosts as your spellbook, the way each ability gives you something new in a way that builds on the stuff that came before rather than just being in the same vein of stuff!
Why the hate on how many spells a wizard knows? They end up with almost double the number sorcerers/bards know, with 45 just from leveling vs 22~ ish for the other two.
This will surely be a banger!
An idea I had for wizards is that instead of keeping all their spells in a book, they tattoo/scar themselves with the spell permanently on their body.
they’re gonna run out of skin eventually
Our party currently has no primary healer class, so the 1 level dip into Artificer was well worth it. The amount of times cure wounds and spare the dying has saved our bacon via familiar casting is amazing and well worth the slowed spell progression 😂
Really the problem of wizards can be summed up in one single word: *"fireball"*
I'm playing a scribes wizard (started out with 2 lvls in artificer). But the thing is, the concept of scribes wizard not needing to pay gold for spells isn't a consensus. It's up to the GM's interpretation. The issue is that the feature says you don't need ink in order to use the quill, but the wizard's copying spells feature states that the cost represents material components, as well as fine inks. So a GM could argue, that even though you might not need ink, you'd still need the material components. If there is a ruling that says clearly that scribes wizards completely waive the costs, I'd love to know about it and tell my GM 😁
"The spells components and magical inks" we take the inks out of the cost and are left with the spell's components which the game rules state are considered to be included ad infinitum in a compinent pouch unless the spell has specific material component with a stated cost
@@antoniodittman5820 well the quill doesn't say anything about magical inks. It just says you don't need ink to write, some GMs still rule that there are special expensive inks that you have to buy for the copying process
@@TheSimoFactor "The magic quill has the following properties: The quill doesn’t require ink... ...The time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook equals 2 minutes per spell level if you use the quill for the transcription."
The quill doesnt require ink and can be used in the transcription of spells. It seems pretty clear cut to me 🤷
Lol well tell that to my GM 🤣
Some people simply say since it's not written that spells are transcribed for free, they just aren't... @@antoniodittman5820
@@antoniodittman5820regardless my character moved on to a different campaign with a different GM, and he'll probably go with this interpretation