A couple corrections: 28:47 I say that Hypnotic Gaze is not casting a spell so it bypasses magic resistance. This is an error, it bypasses Spell Resistance, such as gained by the Abjurer or through a Mantle of Spell Resistance, but the Magic Resistance of monsters includes magical effects, which will provide advantage on their saving throw. 1:17:04 I say you can use a Bow while using Bladesong, this will end your bladesong, so better to use a bow in combats where Bladesong is not available, which is probably when you want to be hanging back out of melee anyways.
I’m curious as to why you feel that Necromancy is the weakest. An army of 8 Zombies who each try to grapple your enemy will likely hold it in place, you then have one of them use Dragon’s Breath Poison as they’re all immune to it. As long as your enemy stays grappled, all of your Zombies can just pile on the attacks while the target struggles to get away and takes poison damage every turn for 10 rounds (assuming you don’t lose concentration). Assuming your zombies hit 50% of the time, as they only get a +3 but have a rather large number you would still get 3d6+5 a turn just from their attacks hitting. Let alone they take damage away from you and the party, they don’t require concentration, one spell slot keeps them for the whole day, and they can guard over you and your party at night as they don’t need to sleep or eat. Am I missing something? Or did you mean simply the school doesn’t add much to what you can already do as a Wizard who summons those creatures anyways?
@@keeganmbg6999 the standard optimization of a necromancer is much how you describe it, but in practice I think there are massive quantities of pitfalls. Too many for a RUclips comment. I'll list a few highlights though:. Room sizes/hallway sizes can make large numbers of zombies difficult to manuever effectively. You will find large number of slow stupid followers a nightmare for navigation of typical dungeons. One area of effect damage and they are all destroyed. Lots and lots more. I agree though, in a perfect scenario, very effective.
30:09 - you can actually use Instinctive Charm repeatedly against the same target, so long as they keep failing their save against it. It only stops working on a target on a successful save.
Until ten seconds ago you were a faceless mythical figure. You, sir, have made great contributions to the community. I have you to thank for my illusion wizard pirate, Oliander. Well met, sir. You have my subscription.
Treantmonk: I think Enchantment School has a fairly evil aspect to it. School of Enchantment: "Who Me?" "Look into my eyes!" Treantmonk: Enchantment is so cool!
Using Suggestion to send one bandit running away while the rest of his friends are massacred makes that bandit the lucky one. He probably won’t be complaining about free will too much. ;)
Summary: Wizard subclasses Abjuration: Green Conjuration: Green Divination: Sky blue Enchantment: Sky blue Evocation: Green Illusion: Green Necromancy: (low) Purple Transmutation: Purple Blade Singer: Green Warmage: Sky blue
If your DM allows multiclassing - have your Blade Singer multiclass into a Monk. Now you have a bonus of up to +5 to your armor from your Bladesong, plus a bonus from the monk's armor calculation which is dexterity+wisdom. If you are rolling for stats and get high to insane stats for your INT, WIS and DEX, then you can have up to a 25 AC (without the Shield spell or other AC enhancing spells). If your campaign is reaching epic proportions, like for instance, you can increase your stats above your natural maximum (due to magic items etc.) Then you can gain an even higher AC.
War mage really gives you what you need for good battlefield control. A good initiative and good concentration saving throws with the wizard spell list.
If it wasn't clear on the video, the two things in life that make me the happiest are the love of my family and initiative bonuses on my wizard. Don't make me rank them.
You have underrated Minor Alchemy, it should be purple or at least orange. The primary power of the ability is when it says “wood” it doesn’t specify the type of wood. My personal favorite is balsa wood, extremely light and fragile if you’ve ever worked with it. The main limitation to this is time, but you can break into or out of most things using this. You can: • Transform the iron bars of your prison cell into balsa wood letting even you easily break the bars. • Transform stone walls into balsa wood allowing you to dig through them. It also doesn’t specify what type of stone you transform it into. The uses for this are much more niche but there are types of stone with interesting properties like obsidian, sandstone, and marble is useful sometimes. • Transform a wooden object made of tough wood into balsa wood to break it more easily. Finally two more unrelated but very relevant uses: • Reinforcing wooden doors by turning them into iron. The effect lasts for an hour so is perfect for securing an area for a short rest without having to use a spell slot on Rope Trick. • Transforming allied weapons to silver for use against werewolves. This is a pretty orange use but its a good one. EDIT: Notably, a DM may choose to not allow players to pick a specific type of wood or perhaps not changing the DCs for balsa wood. That’s still okay. Transforming Iron to Wood at the very least reduces the AC of the item by 4. Reinforcing a door or silvering weapons works regardless.
Could you point me to the places in the Forgotten Realms that are known for their balsa wood? Of course, since today, my character is an expert on balsa wood, even more so than the DM. (He's also an expert on enchanted magic wood.)
nikkienisis there is always a very light wood. In rl every continent has something like it. There are even baboo woods that can be very light so his point seem very en*light*ened
Sorry to respond to an older post, but these ideas are brilliant compared to just trying to fool people. I am very surprised Treantmonk hasn't responded to this yet!
i think you explained perfectly why the bladesinger is super interesting to me: at early levels, when wizards do very little (you cast 2 spells, then what? cantrips and watch?), you can decently fight in melee (and most importantly, defend yourself, which may be key in a smallish party where you don't have 5 "bodyguards"). At later levels it certainly tapers, but so what, you're now a full wizard, and everyone knows wizards are already broken at high level in D&D, who cares if you're losing a small amount of additional spellcasting traits which would come from another specialization. In fact, you could even say this is a more fun, more balanced mage which is stronger early on and *slightly* less stupidly powerful at high levels. Plus the concept is just super cool, which is always nice.
I think malleable illusion would have to move with whatever the player attaches it to. If it just sat in the space it wouldn't just float in the air. It would disappear the moment it was cast purely due to the movement of the planet through space.
Grim harvest starts off fairly weak, but once you start getting into spells like fire ball, vitrolic sphere and circle of death you can easily dispatch any weak mobs and drastically increase the chance of getting a kill. If you really want to be evil non combatants are also creatures. Inure to undeath is there for when your own undead inevitably turn on you, Im talking the create undead ones, and for helping you hunt down things for command undead. You can also use inured to undeath to lower the risk of casting life transference. Sure you take less damage and thus heal for less but its still healing. The max damage you can take from lv3 life transference with resistance is 16. 32 hp recovery is nothing to scoff at for a wizard and the spell can be up cast. You can then blast out a circle of death and if you get a kill you gain 18hp. You can also use vampiric touch on your own undead and enervation to regen hp. Because of how animate and create undead work necromancers have their concentration freed up. This allows them to toss out a strong control spell like cause fear, blindness, hold person or cloud kill, then start blasting with their attack spells. All other wizards have to pick between battle field control and minions. A lot of people focus too heavily on the minion aspect of necromancy. They expect the zombies to do all of the heavy lifting and they end up making this huge hard to control army. The real strength of the necromancer is the ability to have minions, concentration spells and attack spells at the same time. You can do stuff like cast a high level hold person, then move in the undead to attack the affected targets for crits then on your next turn blast the survivors with a strong attack spell like fire ball.
Additionally, I think most people aren't using their minions creatively enough. Why just have them rush in and attack? instead, have a 2-4 zombies which are pretty durable, grapple/aid in grappling an enemy or two, then cast cloudkill which they are immune to poison damage, and them have skeleton archers pepper the enemy with arrows. The creative combinations are mind boggling if done right. Also, in regards to life transference, try combining it with magic jar, take control of an enemy's body and use THEIR hp to heal your party members.
@@Branboy00 I agree. That sentiment goes with all minion spells. More than dealing damage can effect the outcome of a fight. Any time an enemy targets a minion its basically wasting its turn as it is not effecting the original combat strength of the party. If a couple of zombies can soak up a bunch of attacks they have done their job. Even a zombie on 1hp can do some work. Skeletons can make use of cover when launching ranged attacks. I can spend hours going on about all of the ways you can use minions more effectively. A lot of people have this notion that damage is king, but its not. I have seen many a bard do powerful things with out a single damage die rolled and the same can be used for minions.
Life transference specifically says that the damage cannot be reduced in any way. I think that everything you said about how creating undead working is true and great, but it's much more a function of how Animate Dead works than the Necromancy subclass. You're also not getting an extra summon out of Create Undead. The necromancy subclass just isn't getting you all that much more out of creating undead, so I think his ranking is pretty fair. Necromancy school as a whole is "decent" and undead thralls is "good."
Hey Treantmonk, just wanted to say, you taught me so much about playing Wizard in Pathfinder, and your guide made it my favorite class to play by far. I'm glad to see you're doing the same for 5e. Much love!
Unless I am mistaken, once a Transmuter gets simulacrum, the simulacrum could create another transmuter stone. I don't think these stones disappear upon death and as such, for 1500g of snow and Ruby, you could give everyone in your party a nice buff of a transmuter stone (proficiency in CON saving throws is like a half feat for some time and 1.5k gold). I think this makes transmuter pretty nice.
Heck, remaking an alchemy stone doesn't consume spell slots or anything, it just takes 8 hours of time, so it seems like they could remake their transmuters stones if they use them up on a Master Transmutation as well.
As one of the people who gave the example about blocking 800+ damage on an Abjurer by level 10, I think it's important to clarify that I would almost never prioritize this archetype IF you cannot refill your ward without using spell slots or ritual spells, just because be able to do so makes the class absurdly potent. The two best ways to do this are either a Warlock 2 dip for Armor of Shadows or (and this is personal favourite, and I think may be one of the strongest control mage options in 5e) playing a Deep Gnome and taking Svirfneblin Magic for Nondetection at will, and 6 temp HP to the ward with each casting. Allows you to walk into almost every encounter with your ward full, and I've had countless encounters where I can freely spend my ward on my allies or just on myself since I know I'll have it maxed out for next encounter. Highly recommend Svirfneblin Magic Abjurer. Awesome guide, Chris, keep it up!
and if you ever get to level 18, you can cast a 1st level spell and a 2nd level spell at will. Stuff like shield and a 2nd level abjuration would be ideal for that.
@@mathieulapointe261 Deep Gnome by a mile. +2 Int +1 Dex is great, especially for a Mage Armor Wizard. Advantage on stealth in most dungeons, advantage on mental saves vs magic, the ability to recharge your ward WAY faster with a feat that also gives you free casting of other relevant spells, while making you immune to targeting by divination magic. In addition to not slowing your wizard progression, it allows you to dip fighter 2 at 18 if you prefer getting action surge to capping out wizard. I'm opting to cap out wizard 20, get the extra feat and finish strong with another 6th level slot. All in all it lets you be more versatile with the option for cleric/fighter/rogue/etc dips, keeps your progression more consistent and one feat is less of a cost than a 2 level dip for a control wizard, in my eyes.
One time when we were at a low level, Minor Alchemy became our standard method of getting through locked doors: I (the Transmutation wizard) would Minor Alchemy the area around the lock to turn it into wood, and then the Barbarian would bash through it. It worked pretty well!
Issue is, its against the RAW. You must change whole objects. If dm lets you partial tranformation as house rule , then its a decent utility. As written its just not practical.
RE: Durable Summons, I don't understand your comments. Both summon lesser demons and conjure minor elementals allow the caster to summon multiple creatures, up to 24. Also, the savings in material components for find familiar . . .
Durable summons is ok. Summoning hordes of lesser creatures that are small and weaker at higher levels makes them just meat bags, their combat effectiveness isn’t really good. It is MUCH better in mass combat situations, you can make whole platoons of things. There is also the table issue, it’s just annoying to summon a horde and then have to go through all their turns for everyone else.
Treantmonk's Temple Durable Summon applies to your familiar also. The spell doesn’t say you summon anything, but I play that it does. It’s not much but it helps.
To be fair. One would think flock of familiars work the same as normal find familiar. "You temporarily summon three familiars. Spirits that take animal forms of your choice. Each familiar uses the same rules and options for a familiar conjured by the find familiar spell." __________________________ 14 levels conjuration wizard, chain warlock 3, extended spell sorcerer 3. Now you have all sorts of options for what type of familiar army you want to send out into the world. You would at most have a level 7 spell slot sadly, so a total of 9 familiars if I am not wrong. A nice little army of birds flying all around you searching up and down the place. >.> I wonder how much ground they could cover in 2 hours. If there is anything of interest around, it sure will not escape you. :3 I suppose they may be too weak, or you could put the 9 imps to work building you a house.
The ability to transmute one material to another is often over looked for it's utility, lets say you need to get into a locked door, and the Rogue can't pick it, or you cant bash it down, whats the lock made of? It's usually steel, so transmute it to wood, now it's easy to bash or cut.
Just keep in mind, white dracolich isn't in any book, only the blue dracolich is. So if your DM won't let you apply the dracolich template to a white dragon, you may not be allowed to do this.
@@roamingthereal4060 you just wait until the DM sends a white dracolich at you. I have the gargantuan white dracolich from rage of demons so they certainly exist in many a game.
@@roamingthereal4060 But it's specifically mentioned to be a Template, which by the nature of Templates, is meant to be added to multiple examples. Just like Half Dragon and Shadow Dragon.
Respectfully, I believe what Transmutation Wizard's 14th Lvl ability of restore youth, in that the wording strictly says it physically returns the body to a younger state, is something one could use to great effect in a campaign. Granted, the caveat is that this doesn't change the time they would die of natural old age, however if one were to say use it on an old man who is skinny from age, going back a decade or two would return him back to his actual old strength and clearness of mind. If one did it on an adult they would have the actual physical body of a child. This means that something like detect magic won't work to discover them as opposed to using a spell to put an illusion on oneself if one wanted to sneak in somewhere as a child for some reason. Granted, this isn't as good as turning the clock back from when death would normally come for you, as one can do with the clone spell, and still not all that great of a 14th lvl ability, however, I'd place it as a Orange in the same way I'd rank glibness as a blue, and that's in character to character interactions. It would be highly specific, but, using the transmuter stone to turn an ailing old elder of a village to his former strength and let him know that while the gods will still call for him at his apointed time, he will no longer need to fear being infirm in his golden years. That I can see as a great way of ingratiating someone with a town, clan, or even a kingdom if one does this with say an old king. Again, highly specific orange, but one that can do some extreme good for ones credit in a non-combat way.
How to take control of a lich: Step 1: Be a Necromancer with a diviner friend. Step 2: One way or another, get rid of those pesky legendary resistances. Step 3: Have the diviner cast feeblemind and give the lich a 1 for the roll. Step 4: Have the necromancer assume control of the lich. Step 5: Profit (or terrorize villages, whatever works for you). Step 6: Die when the lich repeats that save for feeblemind.
do this on a vampire instead of a lich because a feeble minded lich can't cast spells. plus if you control a vampire you can by proxy control thousands of lesser vampires.
Okay, first: I'm loving the deep dive into wizard so much; it's my favourite class. Also: subscribed. Question tho (sorry if this has been answered before, I'm still new-ish): @1.24 you state that "with Shield you don't know if they hit you or not", but on D&D Beyond it specifies that it's "[a reaction] which you take when you are HIT by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell". The language on D&DB very clearly separates out the difference between a hit and the auto-targeting of MM, suggesting the reaction happens after the PC knows it'll do damage. The PHB also doesn't specify anything about what happens if you use it and fail, as it generally does with so many other spells, implying the expectation of an auto -success. Has there been some online errata, or conversation with the devs, I've missed or are people just really bent out of shape about how good this spell is and want to nerf it? In my experience DM's don't track PC AC anyway and will announce most npc attack roll totals to the group. Why would this suddenly change for wizards? Seems both unfair to the PC and a ball ache for the DM.
Not mentioning Bladesinger's Extra Attack + Shadow Blade combo is criminal. It puts to rest the question of whether a Bladesinger should even get in melee.
Unfortunately Power Surge is even worse than you might think, because you only get one at the end of a short rest if you don’t have one already! That means on days when you’re not facing spellcasting NPCs, you’ll have no surges at all; unless your companions want to burn spell slots to cast spells for you to immediately get rid of with your own spell slots. Maybe this makes the wizard capstone a tiny bit better? At level 20, you have your other spellcasting buddy cast two level 1 spells, and with dispel magic and counterspell as your signature spells, you basically begin the day with 3 power surges.
Only downside to Song of Defence and arcane deflection is that as a reaction they don't stack with Shield. Under arcane deflection you say you don't know if you've been hit but it is triggered when you "are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell".
I finally figured out what the savant ability is supposed to help with. It's helpful when making a backup spell book, it's significantly reduces the time and gold for your subclass of spells.
Necromancy Command Undead(lvl 14) becomes way less circumstantial as soon as you get True Polymorph(lvl17) and can turn any CR creature into any undead of the same CR. If your DM is nice, you can get an Adult White Dracolich or Mummy Lord.
Very interesting. Adult White Dracolich has a high int though right? So it would have the ability to break free every hour? Mummy Lord would probably work though. It can even raise undead for you. It is still pretty smart though. Could it work around your control, by making its own undead attack you? If not it would be a wonderful way to add to your won army.
So just to point something out that deserves an underline. When you use Portent you can change your own ability rolls. So if you are a forger, and you eventually get a 20 you can apply it the quality of your new forgery. Based on Xanthars description of skill, the roll becomes the DC of the document. Also, its use in legendary resistance, you still need to burn their resistances down and if they make the save normally they wouldn't have to burn it.
You are probably correct. If you are fighting a monster with LR and its hitting hard a wizard needs at least 3 LR knocked down and may not have help...time might be an issue.
Minor Conjuration could be used to create a "Travel" copy of your spellbook, assuming that you have a secure place to keep the real one. That would also mean that if something happened to your spellbook, you could easily replace it. One thing that is too vague to me: How many bones make a pile? I mean, you need a "Pile of Bones" to make a skeleton, so how many/what weight of bones make a pile? If it is just a few bones, can they be a few mouse bones? Do you still get a medium sized skeleton, complete with short bow and arrows? Obviously, WOTC (or even earlier publishers) never considered PC necromancers. I always thought that the minor alchemy power was for doing things like turning a wax copy of a key into iron, so it can be used to open a lock. After you're done with it, you just toss it into a fire. Actually, if you polymorph yourself into a fly, you won't remember to concentrate on the spell. Poof, fly, poof transmuter; shortest spell ever! The first use of the Master Transmuter power doesn't take into account perceived value. If you make a wax copy of a rare item and transmute it into the same material as that collectable item, the absolute value wouldn't change, but the perceived value could increase enormously! As Master Transmuter would never have to work again in his life. Just imagine how much any rich person would pay to feel (and actually BE) an average of 16.5 years younger. Who cares if they'd still die at one hundred, they would physically live their life in their twenty's and thirty's for the most part; no more arthritis, their younger body would feel great and they'd look better. I mean, that is what science is trying to provide for us today - not eternal life, but eternal youth!
I dissagree with two abilities: Minor alchemy is fantastic - change iron bars for rooting wood, pick up iron bar, change it to wooden, than cut the pointing end with your knife on it and you have iron spear. Change the stone wall to wooden one and burn it. Second one is grim harvest - I have character 1 level fighter and rest in necromancy wizard (i call it Dead knight). You have base AC 21, can use shield, CON saves prof. and you fight using vampiric touch. 3d6 every round or one more d6 for every higher level doesnt seem like too much, but you heal for half dmg dealt and if you kill anything with it, you are healed for 9 more. Technicaly, on 5th level, when you kill 10 goblins, one every turn, you will be healed for total of 130 HP with one 3rd level slot!!!
Savant is useful for Adventure League wizards. Choose your spell picks from non-school options and use treasure points for scrolls of your school if the option presents itself. Given season 8 constraints on gold this is a wee bit useful.
The Transmuter 2 ability is decent in exploration settings, to bypass traps and locks and such. Being able to turn a chunk of wood or stone into sand is a great way to bypass a door, and creating a shape in sand that can then be turned into wood, silver or stone. This isn't game changing, and like illusions relies heavily on DM interpretation. But it's a flexible feature that a creative player can get some decent mileage from. Also, on Bladesinger, I don't think they can use bows. I don't have a book with me to check, but I think the bladesong ends of you use 2 hands on a weapon, or use a shield.
Where's the trust? ;). Honestly though, I double checked before I recorded and saw the restriction on shields and medium armor, then missed the other part attacking with a 2h weapon.
By Treansmuter 2 are you referring to the second level ability? Because I'm pretty sure sand isn't one of the things it can turn stuff into. Sand is made from stone sure, but its stone which has been broken into tiny bits, and the ability is just about changing the material. It doesn't say anything about shattering the object or changing its shape. "Starting at 2nd level when you select this school, you can temporarily alter the physical properties of one nonmagical object, changing it from one substance into another. You perform a special alchemical procedure on one object composed entirely of wood, stone (but not a gemstone), iron, copper, or silver, transforming it into a different one of those materials. For each 10 minutes you spend performing the procedure, you can transform up to 1 cubic foot of material. After 1 hour, or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), the material reverts to its original substance."
@@planetfall5056yup. I remembered sand, for some reason, and it's not on the list. Not sure why I remembered it that way. On the other hand, I also didn't remember iron (a very useful material to be able to transmute), which IS on the list.
Yup. Or imagine taking a piece of high grade steel, turning it into a soft wood to carve into a tool or weapon, and then let it resume it's original material. Create jewellery from a soft metal like lead or copper, then turn it into silver to sell it.
What an amazing resource for new players. I love that you don't just go through and rate all the features but also give examples of how each can be used. It gives me a much better picture of their role in a group and how you'd play them. It also makes it much easier for me to describe the subclasses to other players if they want to play wizards in the future.
If you're willing a burn a feat on it, An Abjurer can take Eldritch Adept (Armor of Shadows) and cast mage armor at will without using slots. Out of combat you can just spam it and replenish your shield to full every time. The number of HP per day that replenishes on the ward is massive that way and might be enough to justify the feat tax.
If you are willing to take a 2 level dip into warlock, you can get the armour of shadows invocation, which allows you to cast mage armour at will. This is a very quick way to replenish your arcane ward, as opposed to ritual casting alarm.
The Transmuter 2 ability is really freaking good if you have a bit of imagination. All nonmagical locks can now be turned to wood and just bashed or burned, any stone wall will no longer be a problem given enough time and an ax, you can turn the bars on your cell window into twigs, you can give someone extra damage against creatures susceptible to silver weapons and you can turn any stick into a lethal weapon. Let's also not forget how much heavier iron is than wood, turn a chair into a huge chunk of iron and chuck it out a window unto some guard's now demolished head to ease your escape or something. A bit situational sure but there are sooo many possibilities and just those two first ones alone can be worth it.
@@sharkforce8147 The lock on the door is much smaller than a cubic foot so it would take less than 10 minutes to transmute. There wouldn't be much point in transmuting the door itself, its likely made of wood anyway. But the nails holding it together, the hings attaching it to the walls, those would be quite good.
@@sharkforce8147 It says it takes ten minutes per cubic foot, there is no mention of it being in batches. "and of course, this all presumes you have access to any of those parts of the door." You would be in a bit of trouble if you didn't have access to the door knob. "and it still doesn't acknowledge the fact that with a tool proficiency you could probably get through that door quicker and easier if you have your equipment." Sure, this would be for if the rogue had already failed picking the lock or was in some other room. "if you don't have your equipment, again: how are you performing alchemy with absolutely nothing?" Since when did wizards need alchemical equipment to transmute stuff? Its a temporary magical effect, they're wizards not alchemists. Do wizards need alchemical equipment to cast polymorph?
>be me, a month ago >"i like all the spellcasters better, i dont think ill play a wizard." MONTH >be me now, about to play a wizard multiclass >" i kinda like the wizard." > be the wizard class > "You couldnt live with the other casters. and where did that bring you? back to me."
Lvl 2 spell shadow blade and elven accuracy feat adds alot of dmg potential for bladesinger wizard. 17 lvl bladesinger wizard and 3 fighter or 3 rogue can be quite powerful.
The guide was awesome as expected, but I was wondering what are your thoughts on Diviner spamming Mind Spike? Upcasting it gives the Wizard a ton of slots per day, because using a 4th level slot regains a 3rd level slot, which in turn gives a 2nd level slot. Throw in a Shield for extra value.
The problem is Mind Spike is concentration. Whatever you are concentrating on before casting this, you are losing that. So ends up competing too much for your action-economy. Makes you just a dps source, at which you aren't great.
@@CondemnedGuy Then that's probably not a good Wizard. Concentration is usually put on spells that can not be allowed to have multiples up, because they are so strong. Consistent ranged dps is not what Wizards excel at anyways, and rarely will they need that from you. It's basically a slightly upgraded cantrip, that locks you out of spells that can be really high-value.
and this may have been implied, but messing with you fellow pc's... flubbing a bards performance or seduction roll can be funny, and over all reduce the number of half-monsters in the world.
Enchantment would greatly benefit from the 2-lv Fighter dip, for armor and Action Surge, as you'll often be 5' from foes and may wish to lock down multiple foes early on. Enchanter with Gaze, Split, & Surge can devastate any DM encounter. Especially if you know your DM won't take things to Lv 20.
Good call. Of course you probably won't be proficient with a hand crossbow. I guess bow is better to use in the battles where you can't use bladesong, which is actually probably appropriate, as those are the battles you want to stay out of melee
@@TreantmonksTemple I believe a Half-elf of Drow descent can start with Drow Weapon training, which gives you hand crossbow, while still starting with 16 Int and 16 Dex.
I think one thing that is often overlooked with a Bladesinger is the Shadow Blade spell. With a 7th level spell slot, one can do 5d8+dex+int damage per attack. With two attacks, that is not something to scoff at. Especially when you don't have a lot of spell slots remaining, Bladesong+ShadowBlade is an awesome combo. If you have dual wielder feat, a couple of levels in fighter with two-weapon fighting, you can also wield a rapier at the same time doing 1d8+dex+int damage; not great but still pretty good for an offhand attack.. I know there are better uses for a 7th level spell slot, but saying Bladesingers are bad with melee is probably not correct
Hey so something to consider for the diviner, you can upcast mind spike to do good damage once you’ve used some slots. So cast at 5th level and regain a 4th.
Problem with this exploit is the concentration requirement of mind spike. makes it hard to do the standard drop a control spell and then blast with mind spikes
Howard Yan Ah good point I hadn’t considered that, but could still work when you aren’t concentrating yet or do it before then casting a concentration spell.
Re: war wizard arcane deflection is better than shield because you know if you're hit; not true. Shield spell specifically states the trigger is being hit by an attack :)
As someone who has played the Necromancer I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment. I love how you expound the value of "adding actions" with spells like find familiar and create homunculus but when you are confronted with a wizard who creates resilient action economy breaking minions you think the one feature that makes that sustainable is anything but light blue. Describing Undead Thralls as making undead minions "just a little bit better...." Even at level 6 it's adding 50% to a skeleton's HP and 50% more damage (+3 on a 1d6+2 is 54%). One level 3 spell to have four 19hp skeleton archers follow you around means you've essentially turned yourself into a squad with by spending a level 3 slot before or after you long rest. And as the necromancer levels up this feature gets better and better. I've seen it trivialize tier 2 (that tier that sees the most amount of play) and keep undead minions contentious into tier 3. It's a light blue feature without question. Oh, and getting that squad would've normally cost a regular wizard four level 3 spell slots to build up to but costs the Necromancer two because they can target an additional pile of bones to animate when they cast the spell. The creatures can also expend hit dice to heal, so long as you play safe with them they will be able to survive and recover during short rests. Even at only +4 to hit you have a whole host of spells which grant advantage against targets and in many cases restraining them. Grim Harvest by the way, it's once per turn not once per round. So any spell which deals damage on another creature's turn and functions in a large area of effect makes regaining HP trivial on the necromancer: Sickening Radiance, Wall of Fire, Evard's Black Tentacles etc. High level spells that can kill multiple creatures have the potential to help you rebound from half to full hp for free. This is arguably better than temp hp in many circumstances because unlike temp HP, this effect can occur multiple times (where as temp hp doesn't stack). The necromancer is so broken, my long time DM won't let me play them anymore because of how radically it shifts the balance of a 4 man group and forces crazy increases in CR. That one character overshadowed an entire adventuring party with a handful of skeleton archers.
@@sharkforce8147 For players, much of the time taking damage is rarely a choice...if you're in combat with enemies with 8+ int they will prioritize a squishy caster when possible. You can only cower behind full cover for so long...
@@sharkforce8147 well, if the healer is down you can be a great trump card with life transference and your resistance to necrotic would make it so you're dealt half damage.
A conjuration wizard can create weapons. Maybe not a great axe, but a short sword should be within the size limits. Technically that weapon is magical, so you can bypass non-magic weapon resistance at level 2.
Started a new campaing with enchantment Wizard. By level 2, I manipulated group of orc bandits to attack a small village for easy money. We agreed that I will sabotage the defences and then send a signal to attack by launching firebolt to sky. But instead, I warned the villagers and told them to prepare for a bandits. Then I shot firebolt in the sky, and as the orc bandits charged, they faced an hail of arrows. Easy experience, revered by the villagers as a hero. It was love at first sight.
Want to add that minor alchemy is more useful the more creative you are. Turn wood into metal and smelt it then it reverts back into an impossible work of art. My favourite is stone or metal into wood specifically balsa wood, you know - the stuff that is used to make breakaway props? You can literally dig/break through a castle wall or an iron vault this way...
Necromancers aren't necessarily evil, though given the names of the spells, they are possibly unwell. Undead Thrall stacks with Danse Macabre, or at least I've not seen anything that says it doesn't. 'Pro tip': carry large sacks filled with bones.
The best use for major transformation with transmutation wizard's 14th level is to saunter on up to a wall, take 10 minutes while people prep and just turn it into sand so you can walk through.
Evocation: Potent Cantrip is absolutely terrible for a 6th level subclass ability. If you made your character with the PHB (no extra books) then there are two cantrips that this applies to: Acid Splash and Poison Spray. If you decided to play an evoker, you most likely took a damaging cantrip of Fire Bolt. If you took a second one, maybe you went with one of these two, or maybe with Ray of Frost. I did the latter, so this sixth level subclass ability does zero for me. But of course if I had happened to study this ahead of time I would have taken Acid Splash or Poison Spray. However that would have net me about 3 extra points of damage on failed saves. But instead this has zero applicability to an otherwise archetypical evoker.
Thank you for the awesome guides over the years! This is a question I've had forever since first read your 5e guide to wizards: There you recommend dipping 1 level of cleric. Are you going to discuss this in a future video? What does this look like? What spells are we getting? What domains is the best? In combination with what arcane tradition? And again, thank you!
Yes, when I do my character builds (I will do one for every subclass), I'll be using some multiclassing with some of those builds and discuss the value of those multiclasses. I still like the 1 level cleric dip, a lot of value in that.
Jeremy Crawford has confirmed that empowered evocation affects magic missile because the roll should be (1d4+int mod+1) * (spell level + 2 darts). Eg. Lv. 7 magic missile (assume int mod of 5) 1d4+5+1 * 9 = I don't know the average of a d4 but still quite a lot of damage as you are guaranteed a minimum of 63 force damage that requires no attack rolls or saves
This is in contrast with what it is written in the updated version of the PHB of November 2018, where it is specified that Empowered Evocation applies to one damage roll per spell: maybe he did not check it at all? So far, only warlocks with Agonizing Blast add their main characteristic more than once per spell.
@@kazebaret Jeremy Crawford's tweet basically says that for magic missile you are rolling one damage die and then multiplying it by the number of shots. Depends on how your DM would rule it if it would only apply to one dart or one damage roll.
@@Krownen I "kind of" understand this reasoning, but if we follow it through, just any spell can become a "1 damage die roll times whatever". This means that a draconic (red) sorcerer of level 6+, when casting a fireball, will roll a "d6+Cha", and then multiplies it by 8 (for a typical 3rd level fireball). Delayed blast fireball becomes so much.... deadly, and Meteor Swarm will be a massive "I win button" (70+70+100 HP dmg): I really hope to play once with him as a DM!!!!!! My dark-power gaming side just turned on!!!!
@@kazebaret In the spell magic missile it says specifically that "A dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage to its target." Where as the fire ball spell says "A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save," not allowing you to split that up. So I don't believe you can do that. I think this is all stemming from how the spell magic missile is worded.
@@Krownen Maybe you are right, the wording of the spell could give rise to multiple interpretations, especially for powergamers: but what about scorching ray? Empowered evoc would apply to it as well, but not the draconic bonus (as it was nerfed): it does not seem coherent at all. And in both powers it is written the same in the description text (once per damage roll): would you apply one and the other no? Moreover, don't you think that a magic missile would outclass any other single target spell in the wizard list? It can be overchanneled, it can be spammable. It becomes de facto the best option for any evoker, his personal eldritch blast!
I disagree with your assessment of potent cantrips. As a spellcaster, the worst thing about cantrips is if they save, nothing happens. This gives you the satisfaction of still doing something. I also think your underselling cantrips. Maybe in tier 3 they are not important but in tier 2 (when you get the ability), you just don't have enough spell slots to blast every round. At sixth level, you have 2 third level slots. Even with arcane recovery, with two combats or maybe three before your next long rest, you still need to rely on cantrips to do something on your turn. It's important to contribute. Melee and archer classes can do something every turn, even if it's not much. Cantrips allow you to save slots for utility castings instead of mopping up the last couple enemies. Rituals only get you so far.
Potent cantrip has several problems. 1. It does nothing if the enemy fails the save; or, in other words, it gets worse the better you are as a wizard. 2. There are only nine damaging cantrips which call for a saving throw available to wizards. If you exclusively use the PHB, there are two. 3. If you really want to do damage with a cantrip, the ones with attack rolls deal more raw damage by and large, and they are better bets for cantrip selections for general use (because there is no such thing as proficiency in AC). 4. Cantrips do not have their secondary effects (frostbite's disadvantage, lightning lure's repositioning) on a successful save, even if they deal half damage. 5. Because of rounding, "half damage" is actually less than half. 6. As written, the half damage is not optional. You can sculpt to protect one ally [edit: IF it's an evocation spell], but any others caught in the area will take damage. 7. Wizards cap out at five cantrips, and generally some will be non-damage or attack-roll damage. To get maximal value from potent cantrip, the player has to make some sub-optimal selections. 8. I'll admit that this is a matter of taste, but potent cantrip is passive, boring, and adds no real considerations to a player's decision-making. Altogether, it's a subclass feature that affects only a very small number of optimal spells and only in very specific circumstances.
Hey there, for necromancer, have you considered the danse macabre + undead thrall combo for necromancers. It works in practice a bit like a summon, except with the prerequisite of having your party murder people (or drag cadavers in your bag of holding). Get to dungeon entrance Have 5 cadavers Cast Danse Macabre Have 5 skeleton archers that shoot at 1d20+4+INT to hit and 1d8+2+INT+PROF to damage. Overall an attack for a level 9 necromancer will be 1d8+11 damage *5. It probably trails off at higher levels, but basically undead thralls is all undead you raise, not just animate dead, so it also works with create undead for crazy shenanigans.
At 6th level Bladesinger, I'd attack twice with a Shadow Blade, relying on Mirror Image and Bladesong to ward off attacks and then using Booming Blade only as an AoO using War Caster feat from level 4 so my dance partner won't leave.
Technicality clarification - divination portent doesn't 'set their saving throw score' (27:25) - a portent die sets their d20 roll, not the score - their modifiers will still apply to that portent roll
Regarding the shield spell, according to D&D Beyond the trigger is when you are hit by an attack or targeted by a magic missile spell, and the defense applies to the triggering attack. So you do know if you are going to be hit. Am I missing something? (I do still think Arcane Deflection is a great ability, for the record.)
Here is a fun fact. Charisma is not totally useless for a wizard this edition like it was in 3.5e., and not an auto-dump depending on your school. Most schools still want to dump it, but the Enchanter and Necromancer can get a good bit of milage from having a mildly good Cha score. The enchanter uses it for their capstone, obviously, but what people don't see is that its also useful for Necromancers due to the fact that Inspiring Leader by RAW can be used on your undead pets. You don't need a ton of Cha, mind you, just the 13 needed to eventually pick up the feat. Bumping your undead's HP by TWICE your level, even if you just have a smaller cha mod, seems worth it for a necromancer over wisdom, at least if you want to go all-in on pets. Any extra Cha you may get as you level past the 13-14 you start with is only icing on the cake, though I'd look at other feats before I'd ever consider taking more Cha. If you have enough feats into concentration however (Resilient Con + Warcaster) you might even want to pump Cha over con in this build, though I don't recommend that unless your in a more RP/social heavy game. Just thought I'd let you know about this trick with Inspiring Leader if you didn't know it, as you might want to incorporate it into your necromancer build when you get there since I've used it on a necromancer and its worked out exceptionally well. Anyway, just thought I'd share that trick with you. Feel free to incorporate it into your future necromancer build...and you don't even have to credit me if you don't want to. Regardless, you get my sub.
A 13 in charisma also allows an Evoker to multiclass into Hexblade, allowing the character to add both INTmod and Proficiency Bonus to their Magic Missile for a sick amount of auto-hit damage.
@@M0ebius Yeah, my necromancer wizard had stats of Str 8 Dex 14 Con 14 (13 + resilient (Con), as she was a variant human) Int 16 Wis 9 Cha 14 at 1st and she got a lot of mileage out of throwing Inspiring Leader on her undead minions. Not only that, but with her +2 charisma mod and proficiency in deception and persuasion she was actually solid in social situations, and once she got that spell from xanathar's (I forget the name, but it gives you expertise in skill(s) for its duration) she was actually rolling better social rolls than a warlock or sorcerer, since she was adding double her proficiency bonus to her +2 cha mod when making relevant social checks due to that spell. So while she was not the only talker in the party she was plenty manipulative when she wanted to be, and could hold her own in social scenarios/non-combat interactions...and in combat being able to buff her pet's health by 2 + double her level made them a lot more survivable than they would be normally with only her level added to their HP.
Joseph Cittadino To be honest I think Inspiring Leader on skeletons is kind of a waste, as tempHP on other PCs tend to much more valuable. But yes, charisma in generally just tends to be the best stat in roleplaying situations. Especially when you can sprinkle a bit of faerie dust and use magic to boost your skills.
@@M0ebius You know you can inspiring leader both your fellow party members and your undead hoard, right? The only limit is is that the feat can only hit 3 creatures with a single use, but there is no limit to how many times you can use it.. Thus, with enough downtime you can easily keep it up on both your party and your pets, especially if your not trying to make a giant army and just keeping a few pets around while using most of your slots for other spells.
Joseph Cittadino It’s six creatures at a time. But my table does not get unlimited downtimes, and the DM would definitely make me act it out each time I stand there trying to “inspire” a bunch of mindless undead slaves.
Hi Chris, Notice that Empowered Evocation adds your Intelligence modifier to all magic missiles - as you only roll one damage roll, which you use for all magic missiles. This means that for the evoker - magic missile becomes very viable.
The same applies to Hexblade’s Curse+Magic Missile on Sorlocks, although you can access it as early as level 2 at +2 damage and end at +6 damage. A great way to open the fight before layering on Hex+EB on round 2. If the Evoker have the charisma to MC just one level of Hexblade, you can turn your Magic Missile into Magic Warhead while casting in armor and shield.
Yes, to my knowledge, that's where JC ended that insane flip flopping. Nobody I've played with does that. It's always 3d4+3. I think (although technically not following JCs tweets), that's pretty much standard practice.
@@TreantmonksTemple I currently DM a game where we use the 1d4+1+Int mod. per magic missile. And it does not ruin the game. On the contrary, it seems to be very well balanced. The Wizard still does not out-damage the paladin (they are level 14 at the moment). But he has a very reliable source of damage - for when it matters. In many cases, casting the magic missile spell is not the optimal choice. Because - as YOU know - the evoker is still a wizard - which means that good spells (see treantmonk's guide to the spells ;) are still a better option in most cases. But then WHEN damage is a viable option, the improved magic missile is a nice option to "clean up" encounters.
As an Abjurer, would recommend you take Eldritch Adept and pick up Armor of Shadows (basically gives you at-will mage armor) Every time you cast Armor of Shadows, your Arcane Ward regains 2 temporary HP, up to your usual maximum (level + INT MOD) At the end of every combat, you can take a minute or two to recharge your Arcane Ward to its maximum with Armor of Shadows
For Minor Alchemy (lvl 2 Transmutter) the main use I can see is to change the hinges or a lock of a cell into a wood, so that you can break it more easily.
@@sharkforce8147 I don't see any requirements for equipments, but I've forgot that it takes 10 minutes. Still You can get lock for the night so You'll have time. This could be just some bars in the dungeon or sewers.
@@sharkforce8147 I'm not sure how I would rule that, but I'm always trying to make the PCs' skills fun and usefull. It's alchemical process, but You can say it's magical alchemy, so no equipment is needed. (transmutter don't get this tool + proficiency) I never said that it's something wonderfull, but on a rare ocasion you can find it valuable. Everyone runs their game the way they like, I try to make sure everyone has equal opportunities to use their traits, skills and wits.
I agree breaking into or out for somewhere might be the best use of this. Out of curiosity - would you allow the player to change an arrow tip into silver in the sense that it would still deal normal damage? What I'm thinking about would be a plot where were-creatures would be featured early and relatively heavily - a 2nd lvl party can't easily come up with silvered weapons... Or how about this idea - changing a metal rod into wood and using a knife to make its tip pointy - would you allow the players to make makeshift spears that way (maybe even a full spear?) -> could maaaaaybe be useful in a survival heavy campaign (though somehow they need to get to a metal object that could be made into a weapon with a few modifications, so this probably isn't even that usefull in that case...)
I'm currently playing an Abjuration Wizard, and one of the downsides of Projected Ward is that it's sacrifices your reaction. If you are facing magic users, your likely to save your reactions for Counterspell.
As an Abjurer, would recommend you take Eldritch Adept and pick up Armor of Shadows (basically gives you at-will mage armor) Every time you cast Armor of Shadows, your Arcane Ward regains 2 temporary HP, up to your usual maximum (level + INT MOD) At the end of every combat, you can take a minute or two to recharge your Arcane Ward to its maximum with Armor of Shadows
Interesting to see your rating of Transmuter has gone down. I loved the transmuters stone but was never sold hardcore on some of their other stuff. Gotta watch war wizard and blade singer afted work or on break.
A necromamcr at lvl 9 can cast danse macabre, mid combat, or before a fight on some bodies their undead are dragging behind. And with a +5 int you can get 5 skeles with a +9 to hit 1d6+11 each. At range with the shortbows as well. Plus the undead squad that follows them. Necromancers can seriously rack up damage. And they can up cast create undead and get whights mummies etc. If ur dm allows the danse macabre skeles to grab extra shortswords it would be (1d6 +11)×5 + (1d6+9)×5 . Thats like 130 avg dmg
An undead minion army is indeed situationally crazy strong. So strong in fact that I think most DMs will be forced to actively mess up your plans or else they’d have to completely warp the campaign around your minions. My Divine Soul Sorcerer has a tacit understanding with the DM that a handful of skeletons that’s once in awhile boosted by Crusader’s Mantle from the party Paladin is the extent to which I’d push that spell without being metagamed. We also have an in-world solution set up where much of the menial labor, particularly in large cities, are done by literal skeleton crews. It’s the main way the necromancer guilds make their money, and as such corpses are tightly controlled and regulated, and rogue necromancers are immediately hunted down and prosecuted. PCs either need to dismantle his minions before entering city/town limits, or to pay a weekly fee in gold if the corpses are legal and registered.
Durable magic is blue in my opinion, especially combined with the +4 we're already likely getting. I also don't think deflecting shroud is that bad, it's 30 guaranteed damage, no save, no nothing. You attack me, you and your allies get extra damage. It just combines with your potentially insane AC and saving throws to make you a very unalluring target. Which you wanna be as a wizard. My wizard is a feral winged tiefling with shield proficiency, absolutely insane. Take 1 lvl fighter, for shield prof and con saves, maximize dex and int and you have +10 initiative, 22-25 ac, and will never lose a con save. Even if someone wants to break your save with a disintegrate or whatever, counterspell and throw it back just a little bit stronger.
In some ways, I actually loathe the way 5E handles subclasses for Wizards. I'm old school, so the specialist wizards of old was a hard push option. You made sacrifices for serious gains in a specific school. Otherwise, you could be a generalist. The 5E way pretty much shoves you off a cliff into a specialization. I dislike that. There should have been a viable (not underpowered) option for a generalist mage.
I think the Bladesinger’s martial attacks were designed to replace Cantrip attacks. If you do the math, other than some oddness at 5th level, the Bladesinger’s weapon attacks are as good or better than a Cantrip such as Fire Bolt. Of course as you level up, you’ll use less Cantrips but I believe this is one of those disconnects where the designers thought groups would run 6-8 encounters per day when in actuality, unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, most groups run far fewer encounters. Bladesinger isn’t the worst to suffer from this bad assumption, (I’m looking at you, Warlock, with your 2 spells per short rest) but as long as you understand weapon attacks are something you should be using instead of Cantrips, you’ll do fine as a Bladesinger.
One problem I see with the necro wizard. If they have used most of their spells... Well crap right? You have to make sure you keep x amount of spell slots to keep your the undead under control. If you for some reason is robbed of sleep. >.> Wonderful now stuff is falling apart. I suppose you could use the earth cantrip. Make a cave, block the cave off with all your undead in there and come back to retake control over them later. I like the Idea of contracts. Magical that is. Binding and all that wonderful stuffs. If you could chain a couple of necromancers under your command. Put them in charge of defending your fort. Have special... armories filled with undead, ready to protect the castle in case of an enemy attack. Keeping as many living civilians and so on alive as possible. That could be cool. Perhaps your wizard tower could have some buffing effect on allied undead? Enchanting their weapons perhaps. Or if you are the necromancer yourself. Perhaps have all the undead basically work under your wizard tower. With the tower automatically keeping them bound to you, getting rid of the need to keep casting the spells. The people may not be the biggest fan of their... owner? Messing around with the undead at first. But when they have gone to safety, their young males been taken and armed in case they are needed. But few if any of them have to die thanks to those already dead taking their place. Perhaps they would fint that it leaves a less horrible taste in their mouth. It may even give them pride and make them feel very safe. Feel you are sacrificing doing dark arts to keep them safe. It would also be pretty epic, as you would basically get rearmed with troops after any battle that takes place. :D Lost all 100 skelingtons? No problem. Your 100 skelingtons killed 200 enemies. Including those skelingtons you could reuse, you now have 250 skelingtons and those who attacked you are green in anger, but can do little but cry as he just made you stronger. :3 If my city where mainly human, I would probably make sure my undead start out as orc or elf skelingtons though. Humans do tend to have a strange distaste for human bones being messed with. Probably less so though, when those human undead where people who originally tried to kill you and your friends, and rape your wife and daughters. :3
Evocation Wiz - RAW Sculpt Spell with persistent AOE effects is amazing. It says "automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell." "throws" Plural. Great for spells like web (Fix: Evocation school spells only) etc...
Empowered Evocation is kinda more powerful than you might think, for AoE spells: that's 5 extra damage to every target in the area of effect, which can add up to a tidy little sum for lower level spells. Take Fireball as an example. That's a 17% increase in damage if you're casting it as a 3rd level spell. Fireball was already a powerful spell for its level. Now, with Sculpt Spells and Empowered Evocation, it's become an amazingly potent spell for 3rd level slots.
Hmm, I've thought of some possible uses of master alchemy. You could use it to swap spell components, like turning a 300gp ruby into a 300gp diamond. Another thing you can do is make materials to craft with. The size, mass and price limits are rather ristrictive since it means the two things need to be of similar mass, density and less than or equal price per pound, which at first glance seems to indicate you can't really change an object's material unless you're willing to lose money. However, that doesn't take into consideration that crafted items are more valuable per pound then raw materials. While you couldn't turn block of lead to a block of gold, since the gold is more expensive, you could turn a masterwork lead statue into a block of gold. Now you might think turning finished goods into rarer raw materials isn't particularly useful, but this let's you increase the objects price, since you can then craft something from that raw material. The mundane crafting rules, terrible as they are, at least make some mention of the different prices between raw material and finished goods, by saying the raw material to craft an item is half the price of the finished good, which in many cases is pretty low. However, even using the base games rather low price increase between finished goods and materials, it means if you fabricate something from that raw material you doubles its price per pound. You could take that block of gold you made and fabricate a fine gold statue, then transmute it into a block of platinum, fabricate it into a fine platinum statue, then turn that into a block of adimantine, so on and so forth, each step doubling the price. Its slow since each transmutation requires a day of prep for the stone, but major alchemy can effect quite a large amount of material. It essentially let's you halve the price of any non magical item for each day you are willing to spend transmuting and crafting it. For really pricey stuff like diamonds or adimantine spending a couple of days to quarter or more the price could be worth it. It also just let's you make obseen amounts of money, if you spend 100 gold on a bunch of lead then spend a week doubling its worth each day by the end you would have 12,800 gold pieces of platinum or diamonds or what have you. Now I realize money is already not much of a challenge in most DnD games by 14 level, but still, being able to ammass a large fortune is neat and can be somewhat useful, especially if you are doing things like influencing politics or settlement building. Couple that with being able to do things like making your own spell components or non magical equipment far from civilization this is definitely a powerful ability in some situations.
Malleable illusion has some very interesting interactions: - Malleable illusion + Illusory reality - Malleable illusion + Creation - Malleable illusion + Simulacrum Definitely worth talking to your DM about those. Also ask how Dispel Magic and Antimagic Field will interact with your illusory reality.
I listen to what he has to say, in a lot of cases I think he has good insight, and he occassionally reminds me of how rule wordings might not be as simple as I originally thought. On the other hand, I think it's important to remember that he talks about D&D ALOT, so he's going to screw up occassionally, and sometimes it's clear he's trying to shut down a loophole, but he just creates a bigger one, or throws stuff out there that makes no sense at all. So a bullshit filter is needed.
Great video, Treantmonk. One question though: what about the UA subclasses? I love the Theurgist. A shame we didn't include those subclasses in this video, though it probably would've gone on for 2+ hrs.
A couple corrections:
28:47 I say that Hypnotic Gaze is not casting a spell so it bypasses magic resistance. This is an error, it bypasses Spell Resistance, such as gained by the Abjurer or through a Mantle of Spell Resistance, but the Magic Resistance of monsters includes magical effects, which will provide advantage on their saving throw.
1:17:04 I say you can use a Bow while using Bladesong, this will end your bladesong, so better to use a bow in combats where Bladesong is not available, which is probably when you want to be hanging back out of melee anyways.
I’m curious as to why you feel that Necromancy is the weakest. An army of 8 Zombies who each try to grapple your enemy will likely hold it in place, you then have one of them use Dragon’s Breath Poison as they’re all immune to it.
As long as your enemy stays grappled, all of your Zombies can just pile on the attacks while the target struggles to get away and takes poison damage every turn for 10 rounds (assuming you don’t lose concentration). Assuming your zombies hit 50% of the time, as they only get a +3 but have a rather large number you would still get 3d6+5 a turn just from their attacks hitting. Let alone they take damage away from you and the party, they don’t require concentration, one spell slot keeps them for the whole day, and they can guard over you and your party at night as they don’t need to sleep or eat.
Am I missing something?
Or did you mean simply the school doesn’t add much to what you can already do as a Wizard who summons those creatures anyways?
@@keeganmbg6999 the standard optimization of a necromancer is much how you describe it, but in practice I think there are massive quantities of pitfalls. Too many for a RUclips comment. I'll list a few highlights though:. Room sizes/hallway sizes can make large numbers of zombies difficult to manuever effectively. You will find large number of slow stupid followers a nightmare for navigation of typical dungeons. One area of effect damage and they are all destroyed. Lots and lots more. I agree though, in a perfect scenario, very effective.
I see. You mean in practically, not in potential.
Yeah, I try to rate by what I expect you to get in gameplay, not just the numbers. That's probably something I should clarify on video, thanks!
30:09 - you can actually use Instinctive Charm repeatedly against the same target, so long as they keep failing their save against it. It only stops working on a target on a successful save.
Until ten seconds ago you were a faceless mythical figure. You, sir, have made great contributions to the community. I have you to thank for my illusion wizard pirate, Oliander. Well met, sir. You have my subscription.
Welcome Caleb! Glad to have you here.
Treantmonk: I think Enchantment School has a fairly evil aspect to it.
School of Enchantment: "Who Me?" "Look into my eyes!"
Treantmonk: Enchantment is so cool!
This is what I always think when I see it, definitely a good toolbox of someone who is evil. Also, I can't stop thinking about Jafar when I read it.
@@Duranous1 you see Kilgrave in Jessica Jones on Netflix? 🤔
You're absolutely right; stripping a creature of free will is rape pure and simple. That being said, fireballing someone aint exactly friendly (grin).
@@Billman66 I've actually considered making an enhanctress who was a victim and said "no. It's my turn to take control"
Using Suggestion to send one bandit running away while the rest of his friends are massacred makes that bandit the lucky one. He probably won’t be complaining about free will too much. ;)
Summary: Wizard subclasses
Abjuration: Green
Conjuration: Green
Divination: Sky blue
Enchantment: Sky blue
Evocation: Green
Illusion: Green
Necromancy: (low) Purple
Transmutation: Purple
Blade Singer: Green
Warmage: Sky blue
If your DM allows multiclassing - have your Blade Singer multiclass into a Monk. Now you have a bonus of up to +5 to your armor from your Bladesong, plus a bonus from the monk's armor calculation which is dexterity+wisdom. If you are rolling for stats and get high to insane stats for your INT, WIS and DEX, then you can have up to a 25 AC (without the Shield spell or other AC enhancing spells). If your campaign is reaching epic proportions, like for instance, you can increase your stats above your natural maximum (due to magic items etc.) Then you can gain an even higher AC.
Not sure if the pun was intentional or not, but exclaiming how illusory reality is unreal was pretty hilarious.
Lol, I didn't even notice!
Caught this as well
War mage really gives you what you need for good battlefield control. A good initiative and good concentration saving throws with the wizard spell list.
If it wasn't clear on the video, the two things in life that make me the happiest are the love of my family and initiative bonuses on my wizard. Don't make me rank them.
@@TreantmonksTemple 2 years later you're doing your sub class rating for all classes.
You have underrated Minor Alchemy, it should be purple or at least orange. The primary power of the ability is when it says “wood” it doesn’t specify the type of wood. My personal favorite is balsa wood, extremely light and fragile if you’ve ever worked with it. The main limitation to this is time, but you can break into or out of most things using this. You can:
• Transform the iron bars of your prison cell into balsa wood letting even you easily break the bars.
• Transform stone walls into balsa wood allowing you to dig through them.
It also doesn’t specify what type of stone you transform it into. The uses for this are much more niche but there are types of stone with interesting properties like obsidian, sandstone, and marble is useful sometimes.
• Transform a wooden object made of tough wood into balsa wood to break it more easily.
Finally two more unrelated but very relevant uses:
• Reinforcing wooden doors by turning them into iron. The effect lasts for an hour so is perfect for securing an area for a short rest without having to use a spell slot on Rope Trick.
• Transforming allied weapons to silver for use against werewolves. This is a pretty orange use but its a good one.
EDIT: Notably, a DM may choose to not allow players to pick a specific type of wood or perhaps not changing the DCs for balsa wood. That’s still okay. Transforming Iron to Wood at the very least reduces the AC of the item by 4. Reinforcing a door or silvering weapons works regardless.
Could you point me to the places in the Forgotten Realms that are known for their balsa wood? Of course, since today, my character is an expert on balsa wood, even more so than the DM. (He's also an expert on enchanted magic wood.)
nikkienisis there is always a very light wood. In rl every continent has something like it. There are even baboo woods that can be very light so his point seem very en*light*ened
Sorry to respond to an older post, but these ideas are brilliant compared to just trying to fool people. I am very surprised Treantmonk hasn't responded to this yet!
A rock of Clay or Chalk are Stones.
• you can turn a metal into chalk to dilute in water, use predigitization to flavor and give someone else a drink.
@@TheGbitte OUCH! lol
Table of Content:
5:05 Abjuration
11:42 Conjuration
20:44 Divination
27:50 Enchantment
35:10 Evocation
44:15 Illusion
54:00 Necromancy
01:02:00 Transmutation
01:12:30 Bladesinger
01:22:52 War Magic
Also in video description. Yeah, this was a long one...
@@TreantmonksTemple Im watching from my phone, video description links dont work :(. great video btw
Blue- Divination, Enchantment, War Magic
Green- Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Illusion, Bladesinger
Purple- Necromancy, Transmutation
LEGEND!
Minor alchemy can be used to destroy dungeons. By transformung the stone to somethung more flamable :3
i think you explained perfectly why the bladesinger is super interesting to me: at early levels, when wizards do very little (you cast 2 spells, then what? cantrips and watch?), you can decently fight in melee (and most importantly, defend yourself, which may be key in a smallish party where you don't have 5 "bodyguards"). At later levels it certainly tapers, but so what, you're now a full wizard, and everyone knows wizards are already broken at high level in D&D, who cares if you're losing a small amount of additional spellcasting traits which would come from another specialization. In fact, you could even say this is a more fun, more balanced mage which is stronger early on and *slightly* less stupidly powerful at high levels.
Plus the concept is just super cool, which is always nice.
I think malleable illusion would have to move with whatever the player attaches it to. If it just sat in the space it wouldn't just float in the air. It would disappear the moment it was cast purely due to the movement of the planet through space.
Grim harvest starts off fairly weak, but once you start getting into spells like fire ball, vitrolic sphere and circle of death you can easily dispatch any weak mobs and drastically increase the chance of getting a kill. If you really want to be evil non combatants are also creatures. Inure to undeath is there for when your own undead inevitably turn on you, Im talking the create undead ones, and for helping you hunt down things for command undead. You can also use inured to undeath to lower the risk of casting life transference. Sure you take less damage and thus heal for less but its still healing. The max damage you can take from lv3 life transference with resistance is 16. 32 hp recovery is nothing to scoff at for a wizard and the spell can be up cast. You can then blast out a circle of death and if you get a kill you gain 18hp. You can also use vampiric touch on your own undead and enervation to regen hp.
Because of how animate and create undead work necromancers have their concentration freed up. This allows them to toss out a strong control spell like cause fear, blindness, hold person or cloud kill, then start blasting with their attack spells. All other wizards have to pick between battle field control and minions. A lot of people focus too heavily on the minion aspect of necromancy. They expect the zombies to do all of the heavy lifting and they end up making this huge hard to control army. The real strength of the necromancer is the ability to have minions, concentration spells and attack spells at the same time. You can do stuff like cast a high level hold person, then move in the undead to attack the affected targets for crits then on your next turn blast the survivors with a strong attack spell like fire ball.
Additionally, I think most people aren't using their minions creatively enough. Why just have them rush in and attack? instead, have a 2-4 zombies which are pretty durable, grapple/aid in grappling an enemy or two, then cast cloudkill which they are immune to poison damage, and them have skeleton archers pepper the enemy with arrows. The creative combinations are mind boggling if done right. Also, in regards to life transference, try combining it with magic jar, take control of an enemy's body and use THEIR hp to heal your party members.
@@Branboy00 I agree. That sentiment goes with all minion spells. More than dealing damage can effect the outcome of a fight. Any time an enemy targets a minion its basically wasting its turn as it is not effecting the original combat strength of the party. If a couple of zombies can soak up a bunch of attacks they have done their job. Even a zombie on 1hp can do some work. Skeletons can make use of cover when launching ranged attacks. I can spend hours going on about all of the ways you can use minions more effectively. A lot of people have this notion that damage is king, but its not. I have seen many a bard do powerful things with out a single damage die rolled and the same can be used for minions.
Life transference specifically says that the damage cannot be reduced in any way.
I think that everything you said about how creating undead working is true and great, but it's much more a function of how Animate Dead works than the Necromancy subclass. You're also not getting an extra summon out of Create Undead. The necromancy subclass just isn't getting you all that much more out of creating undead, so I think his ranking is pretty fair. Necromancy school as a whole is "decent" and undead thralls is "good."
At 13th level, you can also use Create Magen as many times as you want, assuming you have the material components.
Hey Treantmonk, just wanted to say, you taught me so much about playing Wizard in Pathfinder, and your guide made it my favorite class to play by far. I'm glad to see you're doing the same for 5e. Much love!
Treantmonk, I just stumbled upon your youtube after referencing your handbooks for many years for 3.5e. Instant Sub.
Unless I am mistaken, once a Transmuter gets simulacrum, the simulacrum could create another transmuter stone. I don't think these stones disappear upon death and as such, for 1500g of snow and Ruby, you could give everyone in your party a nice buff of a transmuter stone (proficiency in CON saving throws is like a half feat for some time and 1.5k gold). I think this makes transmuter pretty nice.
Simulacrum is broken in so many ways!
Heck, remaking an alchemy stone doesn't consume spell slots or anything, it just takes 8 hours of time, so it seems like they could remake their transmuters stones if they use them up on a Master Transmutation as well.
As one of the people who gave the example about blocking 800+ damage on an Abjurer by level 10, I think it's important to clarify that I would almost never prioritize this archetype IF you cannot refill your ward without using spell slots or ritual spells, just because be able to do so makes the class absurdly potent. The two best ways to do this are either a Warlock 2 dip for Armor of Shadows or (and this is personal favourite, and I think may be one of the strongest control mage options in 5e) playing a Deep Gnome and taking Svirfneblin Magic for Nondetection at will, and 6 temp HP to the ward with each casting. Allows you to walk into almost every encounter with your ward full, and I've had countless encounters where I can freely spend my ward on my allies or just on myself since I know I'll have it maxed out for next encounter. Highly recommend Svirfneblin Magic Abjurer.
Awesome guide, Chris, keep it up!
Thank you. I will forward your deep gnome advice in my races video!
Which one would you say is your favorite? Deep gnome or warlock 2 / abjurer X?
and if you ever get to level 18, you can cast a 1st level spell and a 2nd level spell at will. Stuff like shield and a 2nd level abjuration would be ideal for that.
Mathieu Lapointe I imagine Gnome if you dont want to delay Wizard progression. Though Hexblade proficincies and two invocations would be sweet
@@mathieulapointe261 Deep Gnome by a mile. +2 Int +1 Dex is great, especially for a Mage Armor Wizard. Advantage on stealth in most dungeons, advantage on mental saves vs magic, the ability to recharge your ward WAY faster with a feat that also gives you free casting of other relevant spells, while making you immune to targeting by divination magic. In addition to not slowing your wizard progression, it allows you to dip fighter 2 at 18 if you prefer getting action surge to capping out wizard. I'm opting to cap out wizard 20, get the extra feat and finish strong with another 6th level slot.
All in all it lets you be more versatile with the option for cleric/fighter/rogue/etc dips, keeps your progression more consistent and one feat is less of a cost than a 2 level dip for a control wizard, in my eyes.
One time when we were at a low level, Minor Alchemy became our standard method of getting through locked doors: I (the Transmutation wizard) would Minor Alchemy the area around the lock to turn it into wood, and then the Barbarian would bash through it. It worked pretty well!
Issue is, its against the RAW. You must change whole objects. If dm lets you partial tranformation as house rule , then its a decent utility. As written its just not practical.
Okay, change the lock.
Why not just light it on fire?
I did this on the bolt of a prison door during my first ever session
RE: Durable Summons, I don't understand your comments. Both summon lesser demons and conjure minor elementals allow the caster to summon multiple creatures, up to 24. Also, the savings in material components for find familiar . . .
My mistake, I was looking at the summoning spells I usually cast. I'll have to look at DS + the lesser summon spells.
Durable summons is ok. Summoning hordes of lesser creatures that are small and weaker at higher levels makes them just meat bags, their combat effectiveness isn’t really good. It is MUCH better in mass combat situations, you can make whole platoons of things.
There is also the table issue, it’s just annoying to summon a horde and then have to go through all their turns for everyone else.
Treantmonk's Temple Durable Summon applies to your familiar also. The spell doesn’t say you summon anything, but I play that it does. It’s not much but it helps.
To be fair. One would think flock of familiars work the same as normal find familiar. "You temporarily summon three familiars. Spirits that take animal forms of your choice. Each familiar uses the same rules and options for a familiar conjured by the find familiar spell."
__________________________
14 levels conjuration wizard, chain warlock 3, extended spell sorcerer 3.
Now you have all sorts of options for what type of familiar army you want to send out into the world. You would at most have a level 7 spell slot sadly, so a total of 9 familiars if I am not wrong. A nice little army of birds flying all around you searching up and down the place. >.> I wonder how much ground they could cover in 2 hours. If there is anything of interest around, it sure will not escape you. :3 I suppose they may be too weak, or you could put the 9 imps to work building you a house.
Yea I'm loving the RP and backstory of my Necromancer but after looking at the other arcane traditions I feel cheated
I am expecting to be rickrolled for an hour and a half, considering this is April's fools.
Nope, I hate all that April 1 gag material, so I would not inflict it on my viewers.
Yes! I was looking forward to the subclasses analysis.
Shield says that you can activate it when HIT by an attack, so you DO know if they hit you before you cast it.
The ability to transmute one material to another is often over looked for it's utility, lets say you need to get into a locked door, and the Rogue can't pick it, or you cant bash it down, whats the lock made of? It's usually steel, so transmute it to wood, now it's easy to bash or cut.
59:46 Common liches have too much int to be controlled for a long time. A white Dracolich , though. They can be controlled permanently.
My boner is maximum.
That’s why I like it
Just keep in mind, white dracolich isn't in any book, only the blue dracolich is. So if your DM won't let you apply the dracolich template to a white dragon, you may not be allowed to do this.
@@roamingthereal4060 you just wait until the DM sends a white dracolich at you. I have the gargantuan white dracolich from rage of demons so they certainly exist in many a game.
@@roamingthereal4060 But it's specifically mentioned to be a Template, which by the nature of Templates, is meant to be added to multiple examples. Just like Half Dragon and Shadow Dragon.
Respectfully, I believe what Transmutation Wizard's 14th Lvl ability of restore youth, in that the wording strictly says it physically returns the body to a younger state, is something one could use to great effect in a campaign. Granted, the caveat is that this doesn't change the time they would die of natural old age, however if one were to say use it on an old man who is skinny from age, going back a decade or two would return him back to his actual old strength and clearness of mind. If one did it on an adult they would have the actual physical body of a child. This means that something like detect magic won't work to discover them as opposed to using a spell to put an illusion on oneself if one wanted to sneak in somewhere as a child for some reason.
Granted, this isn't as good as turning the clock back from when death would normally come for you, as one can do with the clone spell, and still not all that great of a 14th lvl ability, however, I'd place it as a Orange in the same way I'd rank glibness as a blue, and that's in character to character interactions. It would be highly specific, but, using the transmuter stone to turn an ailing old elder of a village to his former strength and let him know that while the gods will still call for him at his apointed time, he will no longer need to fear being infirm in his golden years. That I can see as a great way of ingratiating someone with a town, clan, or even a kingdom if one does this with say an old king. Again, highly specific orange, but one that can do some extreme good for ones credit in a non-combat way.
How to take control of a lich:
Step 1: Be a Necromancer with a diviner friend.
Step 2: One way or another, get rid of those pesky legendary resistances.
Step 3: Have the diviner cast feeblemind and give the lich a 1 for the roll.
Step 4: Have the necromancer assume control of the lich.
Step 5: Profit (or terrorize villages, whatever works for you).
Step 6: Die when the lich repeats that save for feeblemind.
do this on a vampire instead of a lich because a feeble minded lich can't cast spells. plus if you control a vampire you can by proxy control thousands of lesser vampires.
Ain The Brain one month later.
I like step 6 - made me laugh.
Okay, first: I'm loving the deep dive into wizard so much; it's my favourite class.
Also: subscribed.
Question tho (sorry if this has been answered before, I'm still new-ish):
@1.24 you state that "with Shield you don't know if they hit you or not", but on D&D Beyond it specifies that it's "[a reaction] which you take when you are HIT by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell". The language on D&DB very clearly separates out the difference between a hit and the auto-targeting of MM, suggesting the reaction happens after the PC knows it'll do damage. The PHB also doesn't specify anything about what happens if you use it and fail, as it generally does with so many other spells, implying the expectation of an auto -success.
Has there been some online errata, or conversation with the devs, I've missed or are people just really bent out of shape about how good this spell is and want to nerf it?
In my experience DM's don't track PC AC anyway and will announce most npc attack roll totals to the group. Why would this suddenly change for wizards? Seems both unfair to the PC and a ball ache for the DM.
Not mentioning Bladesinger's Extra Attack + Shadow Blade combo is criminal. It puts to rest the question of whether a Bladesinger should even get in melee.
Unfortunately Power Surge is even worse than you might think, because you only get one at the end of a short rest if you don’t have one already! That means on days when you’re not facing spellcasting NPCs, you’ll have no surges at all; unless your companions want to burn spell slots to cast spells for you to immediately get rid of with your own spell slots.
Maybe this makes the wizard capstone a tiny bit better? At level 20, you have your other spellcasting buddy cast two level 1 spells, and with dispel magic and counterspell as your signature spells, you basically begin the day with 3 power surges.
Only downside to Song of Defence and arcane deflection is that as a reaction they don't stack with Shield.
Under arcane deflection you say you don't know if you've been hit but it is triggered when you "are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell".
I finally figured out what the savant ability is supposed to help with. It's helpful when making a backup spell book, it's significantly reduces the time and gold for your subclass of spells.
Necromancy Command Undead(lvl 14) becomes way less circumstantial as soon as you get True Polymorph(lvl17) and can turn any CR creature into any undead of the same CR. If your DM is nice, you can get an Adult White Dracolich or Mummy Lord.
Very interesting. Adult White Dracolich has a high int though right? So it would have the ability to break free every hour? Mummy Lord would probably work though. It can even raise undead for you. It is still pretty smart though. Could it work around your control, by making its own undead attack you?
If not it would be a wonderful way to add to your won army.
White dragons are dumb as a box of rocks.
So just to point something out that deserves an underline. When you use Portent you can change your own ability rolls. So if you are a forger, and you eventually get a 20 you can apply it the quality of your new forgery. Based on Xanthars description of skill, the roll becomes the DC of the document. Also, its use in legendary resistance, you still need to burn their resistances down and if they make the save normally they wouldn't have to burn it.
A portent for a single legendary res is a bad deal IMO
You are probably correct. If you are fighting a monster with LR and its hitting hard a wizard needs at least 3 LR knocked down and may not have help...time might be an issue.
Minor Conjuration could be used to create a "Travel" copy of your spellbook, assuming that you have a secure place to keep the real one. That would also mean that if something happened to your spellbook, you could easily replace it.
One thing that is too vague to me: How many bones make a pile? I mean, you need a "Pile of Bones" to make a skeleton, so how many/what weight of bones make a pile? If it is just a few bones, can they be a few mouse bones? Do you still get a medium sized skeleton, complete with short bow and arrows? Obviously, WOTC (or even earlier publishers) never considered PC necromancers.
I always thought that the minor alchemy power was for doing things like turning a wax copy of a key into iron, so it can be used to open a lock. After you're done with it, you just toss it into a fire.
Actually, if you polymorph yourself into a fly, you won't remember to concentrate on the spell. Poof, fly, poof transmuter; shortest spell ever!
The first use of the Master Transmuter power doesn't take into account perceived value. If you make a wax copy of a rare item and transmute it into the same material as that collectable item, the absolute value wouldn't change, but the perceived value could increase enormously!
As Master Transmuter would never have to work again in his life. Just imagine how much any rich person would pay to feel (and actually BE) an average of 16.5 years younger. Who cares if they'd still die at one hundred, they would physically live their life in their twenty's and thirty's for the most part; no more arthritis, their younger body would feel great and they'd look better. I mean, that is what science is trying to provide for us today - not eternal life, but eternal youth!
I dissagree with two abilities:
Minor alchemy is fantastic - change iron bars for rooting wood, pick up iron bar, change it to wooden, than cut the pointing end with your knife on it and you have iron spear.
Change the stone wall to wooden one and burn it.
Second one is grim harvest - I have character 1 level fighter and rest in necromancy wizard (i call it Dead knight). You have base AC 21, can use shield, CON saves prof. and you fight using vampiric touch. 3d6 every round or one more d6 for every higher level doesnt seem like too much, but you heal for half dmg dealt and if you kill anything with it, you are healed for 9 more. Technicaly, on 5th level, when you kill 10 goblins, one every turn, you will be healed for total of 130 HP with one 3rd level slot!!!
Sickening Radiance is something to consider for evocation. for the long and drawn out battles.
Savant is useful for Adventure League wizards. Choose your spell picks from non-school options and use treasure points for scrolls of your school if the option presents itself. Given season 8 constraints on gold this is a wee bit useful.
The Transmuter 2 ability is decent in exploration settings, to bypass traps and locks and such. Being able to turn a chunk of wood or stone into sand is a great way to bypass a door, and creating a shape in sand that can then be turned into wood, silver or stone.
This isn't game changing, and like illusions relies heavily on DM interpretation. But it's a flexible feature that a creative player can get some decent mileage from.
Also, on Bladesinger, I don't think they can use bows. I don't have a book with me to check, but I think the bladesong ends of you use 2 hands on a weapon, or use a shield.
Where's the trust? ;). Honestly though, I double checked before I recorded and saw the restriction on shields and medium armor, then missed the other part attacking with a 2h weapon.
By Treansmuter 2 are you referring to the second level ability? Because I'm pretty sure sand isn't one of the things it can turn stuff into. Sand is made from stone sure, but its stone which has been broken into tiny bits, and the ability is just about changing the material. It doesn't say anything about shattering the object or changing its shape.
"Starting at 2nd level when you select this school, you can temporarily alter the physical properties of one nonmagical object, changing it from one substance into another. You perform a special alchemical procedure on one object composed entirely of wood, stone (but not a gemstone), iron, copper, or silver, transforming it into a different one of those materials. For each 10 minutes you spend performing the procedure, you can transform up to 1 cubic foot of material. After 1 hour, or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), the material reverts to its original substance."
@@planetfall5056yup. I remembered sand, for some reason, and it's not on the list. Not sure why I remembered it that way. On the other hand, I also didn't remember iron (a very useful material to be able to transmute), which IS on the list.
@@ChristnThms Yeah, it makes it way easier to break out of prison if the bars and handcuffs are suddenly made of wood.
Yup. Or imagine taking a piece of high grade steel, turning it into a soft wood to carve into a tool or weapon, and then let it resume it's original material.
Create jewellery from a soft metal like lead or copper, then turn it into silver to sell it.
With Illusory Reality, I'm envisioning something akin to Wile E. Coyote painting a tunnel on the wall of a mountain. A minute later... .
I feel like I am going to Professor Treantmonk’s College Of Wizardry. Best degree I’ll ever get. Haha
What an amazing resource for new players. I love that you don't just go through and rate all the features but also give examples of how each can be used. It gives me a much better picture of their role in a group and how you'd play them. It also makes it much easier for me to describe the subclasses to other players if they want to play wizards in the future.
If you're willing a burn a feat on it, An Abjurer can take Eldritch Adept (Armor of Shadows) and cast mage armor at will without using slots. Out of combat you can just spam it and replenish your shield to full every time. The number of HP per day that replenishes on the ward is massive that way and might be enough to justify the feat tax.
If you are willing to take a 2 level dip into warlock, you can get the armour of shadows invocation, which allows you to cast mage armour at will. This is a very quick way to replenish your arcane ward, as opposed to ritual casting alarm.
Just FYI, if you type timestamps like XX:XX they will link to a certain time in the video without making you reload the page.
Got it, thanks!
The Transmuter 2 ability is really freaking good if you have a bit of imagination. All nonmagical locks can now be turned to wood and just bashed or burned, any stone wall will no longer be a problem given enough time and an ax, you can turn the bars on your cell window into twigs, you can give someone extra damage against creatures susceptible to silver weapons and you can turn any stick into a lethal weapon. Let's also not forget how much heavier iron is than wood, turn a chair into a huge chunk of iron and chuck it out a window unto some guard's now demolished head to ease your escape or something. A bit situational sure but there are sooo many possibilities and just those two first ones alone can be worth it.
I like cork and chalk.
@@sharkforce8147 The lock on the door is much smaller than a cubic foot so it would take less than 10 minutes to transmute. There wouldn't be much point in transmuting the door itself, its likely made of wood anyway. But the nails holding it together, the hings attaching it to the walls, those would be quite good.
@@sharkforce8147 It says it takes ten minutes per cubic foot, there is no mention of it being in batches.
"and of course, this all presumes you have access to any of those parts of the door." You would be in a bit of trouble if you didn't have access to the door knob.
"and it still doesn't acknowledge the fact that with a tool proficiency you could probably get through that door quicker and easier if you have your equipment." Sure, this would be for if the rogue had already failed picking the lock or was in some other room.
"if you don't have your equipment, again: how are you performing alchemy with absolutely nothing?" Since when did wizards need alchemical equipment to transmute stuff? Its a temporary magical effect, they're wizards not alchemists. Do wizards need alchemical equipment to cast polymorph?
Sneak up on a guard Transmute their clothes to iron.
Edit: as most clothes don't take up much space it would be super fast.
>be me, a month ago
>"i like all the spellcasters better, i dont think ill play a wizard."
MONTH
>be me now, about to play a wizard multiclass
>" i kinda like the wizard."
> be the wizard class
> "You couldnt live with the other casters. and where did that bring you? back to me."
That's a great compliment!
Just joining the chorus. These are super helpful. Thanks!
Lvl 2 spell shadow blade and elven accuracy feat adds alot of dmg potential for bladesinger wizard.
17 lvl bladesinger wizard and 3 fighter or 3 rogue can be quite powerful.
Especially if you take Swashbuckler to get more consistent sneak attacks
The guide was awesome as expected, but I was wondering what are your thoughts on Diviner spamming Mind Spike? Upcasting it gives the Wizard a ton of slots per day, because using a 4th level slot regains a 3rd level slot, which in turn gives a 2nd level slot. Throw in a Shield for extra value.
Treantmonk, any ideas on this?
The problem is Mind Spike is concentration. Whatever you are concentrating on before casting this, you are losing that. So ends up competing too much for your action-economy. Makes you just a dps source, at which you aren't great.
What it does give is longevity. And not all wizards use concentration spells.
@@CondemnedGuy Then that's probably not a good Wizard. Concentration is usually put on spells that can not be allowed to have multiples up, because they are so strong. Consistent ranged dps is not what Wizards excel at anyways, and rarely will they need that from you. It's basically a slightly upgraded cantrip, that locks you out of spells that can be really high-value.
and this may have been implied, but messing with you fellow pc's... flubbing a bards performance or seduction roll can be funny, and over all reduce the number of half-monsters in the world.
But I love half-monsters...
Step 1: Transmute a stone door or wall into wood.
Step 2: Fire Bolt
Dungeons no longer have walls, if you have enough time to concentrate on the work.
Watch out for cave-ins though.
@@RokuroCarisu I mean, if you just need someone dead...
Enchantment would greatly benefit from the 2-lv Fighter dip, for armor and Action Surge, as you'll often be 5' from foes and may wish to lock down multiple foes early on. Enchanter with Gaze, Split, & Surge can devastate any DM encounter. Especially if you know your DM won't take things to Lv 20.
Remember that bladesong drops if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. You can use a Hand Crossbow with it, but not a bow.
Good call. Of course you probably won't be proficient with a hand crossbow. I guess bow is better to use in the battles where you can't use bladesong, which is actually probably appropriate, as those are the battles you want to stay out of melee
@@TreantmonksTemple I believe a Half-elf of Drow descent can start with Drow Weapon training, which gives you hand crossbow, while still starting with 16 Int and 16 Dex.
Evocation Wizard: '..so anyway I started blasting'
I think one thing that is often overlooked with a Bladesinger is the Shadow Blade spell. With a 7th level spell slot, one can do 5d8+dex+int damage per attack. With two attacks, that is not something to scoff at. Especially when you don't have a lot of spell slots remaining, Bladesong+ShadowBlade is an awesome combo. If you have dual wielder feat, a couple of levels in fighter with two-weapon fighting, you can also wield a rapier at the same time doing 1d8+dex+int damage; not great but still pretty good for an offhand attack..
I know there are better uses for a 7th level spell slot, but saying Bladesingers are bad with melee is probably not correct
Hey so something to consider for the diviner, you can upcast mind spike to do good damage once you’ve used some slots. So cast at 5th level and regain a 4th.
Problem with this exploit is the concentration requirement of mind spike. makes it hard to do the standard drop a control spell and then blast with mind spikes
Howard Yan Ah good point I hadn’t considered that, but could still work when you aren’t concentrating yet or do it before then casting a concentration spell.
Re: war wizard arcane deflection is better than shield because you know if you're hit; not true. Shield spell specifically states the trigger is being hit by an attack :)
As someone who has played the Necromancer I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment.
I love how you expound the value of "adding actions" with spells like find familiar and create homunculus but when you are confronted with a wizard who creates resilient action economy breaking minions you think the one feature that makes that sustainable is anything but light blue.
Describing Undead Thralls as making undead minions "just a little bit better...."
Even at level 6 it's adding 50% to a skeleton's HP and 50% more damage (+3 on a 1d6+2 is 54%). One level 3 spell to have four 19hp skeleton archers follow you around means you've essentially turned yourself into a squad with by spending a level 3 slot before or after you long rest. And as the necromancer levels up this feature gets better and better.
I've seen it trivialize tier 2 (that tier that sees the most amount of play) and keep undead minions contentious into tier 3. It's a light blue feature without question.
Oh, and getting that squad would've normally cost a regular wizard four level 3 spell slots to build up to but costs the Necromancer two because they can target an additional pile of bones to animate when they cast the spell.
The creatures can also expend hit dice to heal, so long as you play safe with them they will be able to survive and recover during short rests.
Even at only +4 to hit you have a whole host of spells which grant advantage against targets and in many cases restraining them.
Grim Harvest by the way, it's once per turn not once per round. So any spell which deals damage on another creature's turn and functions in a large area of effect makes regaining HP trivial on the necromancer: Sickening Radiance, Wall of Fire, Evard's Black Tentacles etc. High level spells that can kill multiple creatures have the potential to help you rebound from half to full hp for free. This is arguably better than temp hp in many circumstances because unlike temp HP, this effect can occur multiple times (where as temp hp doesn't stack).
The necromancer is so broken, my long time DM won't let me play them anymore because of how radically it shifts the balance of a 4 man group and forces crazy increases in CR. That one character overshadowed an entire adventuring party with a handful of skeleton archers.
@@sharkforce8147 For players, much of the time taking damage is rarely a choice...if you're in combat with enemies with 8+ int they will prioritize a squishy caster when possible. You can only cower behind full cover for so long...
@@sharkforce8147 well, if the healer is down you can be a great trump card with life transference and your resistance to necrotic would make it so you're dealt half damage.
@@sharkforce8147 yeah, but it makes it so there's no risk of dying and you can still heal a decent amount
A conjuration wizard can create weapons. Maybe not a great axe, but a short sword should be within the size limits. Technically that weapon is magical, so you can bypass non-magic weapon resistance at level 2.
Sadly they changed it in the errata: The item now disappears if it deals damage, ruining this trick :(
Started a new campaing with enchantment Wizard. By level 2, I manipulated group of orc bandits to attack a small village for easy money. We agreed that I will sabotage the defences and then send a signal to attack by launching firebolt to sky.
But instead, I warned the villagers and told them to prepare for a bandits. Then I shot firebolt in the sky, and as the orc bandits charged, they faced an hail of arrows. Easy experience, revered by the villagers as a hero.
It was love at first sight.
Want to add that minor alchemy is more useful the more creative you are. Turn wood into metal and smelt it then it reverts back into an impossible work of art. My favourite is stone or metal into wood specifically balsa wood, you know - the stuff that is used to make breakaway props? You can literally dig/break through a castle wall or an iron vault this way...
Necromancers aren't necessarily evil, though given the names of the spells, they are possibly unwell.
Undead Thrall stacks with Danse Macabre, or at least I've not seen anything that says it doesn't. 'Pro tip': carry large sacks filled with bones.
The best use for major transformation with transmutation wizard's 14th level is to saunter on up to a wall, take 10 minutes while people prep and just turn it into sand so you can walk through.
Evocation: Potent Cantrip is absolutely terrible for a 6th level subclass ability. If you made your character with the PHB (no extra books) then there are two cantrips that this applies to: Acid Splash and Poison Spray. If you decided to play an evoker, you most likely took a damaging cantrip of Fire Bolt. If you took a second one, maybe you went with one of these two, or maybe with Ray of Frost. I did the latter, so this sixth level subclass ability does zero for me. But of course if I had happened to study this ahead of time I would have taken Acid Splash or Poison Spray. However that would have net me about 3 extra points of damage on failed saves. But instead this has zero applicability to an otherwise archetypical evoker.
Thank you for the awesome guides over the years! This is a question I've had forever since first read your 5e guide to wizards: There you recommend dipping 1 level of cleric. Are you going to discuss this in a future video? What does this look like? What spells are we getting? What domains is the best? In combination with what arcane tradition? And again, thank you!
Yes, when I do my character builds (I will do one for every subclass), I'll be using some multiclassing with some of those builds and discuss the value of those multiclasses. I still like the 1 level cleric dip, a lot of value in that.
Jeremy Crawford has confirmed that empowered evocation affects magic missile because the roll should be (1d4+int mod+1) * (spell level + 2 darts).
Eg. Lv. 7 magic missile (assume int mod of 5)
1d4+5+1 * 9 = I don't know the average of a d4 but still quite a lot of damage as you are guaranteed a minimum of 63 force damage that requires no attack rolls or saves
This is in contrast with what it is written in the updated version of the PHB of November 2018, where it is specified that Empowered Evocation applies to one damage roll per spell: maybe he did not check it at all? So far, only warlocks with Agonizing Blast add their main characteristic more than once per spell.
@@kazebaret Jeremy Crawford's tweet basically says that for magic missile you are rolling one damage die and then multiplying it by the number of shots. Depends on how your DM would rule it if it would only apply to one dart or one damage roll.
@@Krownen I "kind of" understand this reasoning, but if we follow it through, just any spell can become a "1 damage die roll times whatever". This means that a draconic (red) sorcerer of level 6+, when casting a fireball, will roll a "d6+Cha", and then multiplies it by 8 (for a typical 3rd level fireball). Delayed blast fireball becomes so much.... deadly, and Meteor Swarm will be a massive "I win button" (70+70+100 HP dmg): I really hope to play once with him as a DM!!!!!! My dark-power gaming side just turned on!!!!
@@kazebaret In the spell magic missile it says specifically that "A dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage to its target." Where as the fire ball spell says "A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save," not allowing you to split that up. So I don't believe you can do that. I think this is all stemming from how the spell magic missile is worded.
@@Krownen Maybe you are right, the wording of the spell could give rise to multiple interpretations, especially for powergamers: but what about scorching ray? Empowered evoc would apply to it as well, but not the draconic bonus (as it was nerfed): it does not seem coherent at all. And in both powers it is written the same in the description text (once per damage roll): would you apply one and the other no? Moreover, don't you think that a magic missile would outclass any other single target spell in the wizard list? It can be overchanneled, it can be spammable. It becomes de facto the best option for any evoker, his personal eldritch blast!
Bladesong ends if you use two hands to make an attack with a weapon. Does this invalidate the comment that you can use bows with Bladesong?
Yes, see my pinned comment for corrections
I disagree with your assessment of potent cantrips. As a spellcaster, the worst thing about cantrips is if they save, nothing happens. This gives you the satisfaction of still doing something. I also think your underselling cantrips. Maybe in tier 3 they are not important but in tier 2 (when you get the ability), you just don't have enough spell slots to blast every round. At sixth level, you have 2 third level slots. Even with arcane recovery, with two combats or maybe three before your next long rest, you still need to rely on cantrips to do something on your turn. It's important to contribute. Melee and archer classes can do something every turn, even if it's not much. Cantrips allow you to save slots for utility castings instead of mopping up the last couple enemies. Rituals only get you so far.
Potent cantrip has several problems.
1. It does nothing if the enemy fails the save; or, in other words, it gets worse the better you are as a wizard.
2. There are only nine damaging cantrips which call for a saving throw available to wizards. If you exclusively use the PHB, there are two.
3. If you really want to do damage with a cantrip, the ones with attack rolls deal more raw damage by and large, and they are better bets for cantrip selections for general use (because there is no such thing as proficiency in AC).
4. Cantrips do not have their secondary effects (frostbite's disadvantage, lightning lure's repositioning) on a successful save, even if they deal half damage.
5. Because of rounding, "half damage" is actually less than half.
6. As written, the half damage is not optional. You can sculpt to protect one ally [edit: IF it's an evocation spell], but any others caught in the area will take damage.
7. Wizards cap out at five cantrips, and generally some will be non-damage or attack-roll damage. To get maximal value from potent cantrip, the player has to make some sub-optimal selections.
8. I'll admit that this is a matter of taste, but potent cantrip is passive, boring, and adds no real considerations to a player's decision-making.
Altogether, it's a subclass feature that affects only a very small number of optimal spells and only in very specific circumstances.
Hey there, for necromancer, have you considered the danse macabre + undead thrall combo for necromancers.
It works in practice a bit like a summon, except with the prerequisite of having your party murder people (or drag cadavers in your bag of holding).
Get to dungeon entrance
Have 5 cadavers
Cast Danse Macabre
Have 5 skeleton archers that shoot at 1d20+4+INT to hit and 1d8+2+INT+PROF to damage.
Overall an attack for a level 9 necromancer will be 1d8+11 damage *5.
It probably trails off at higher levels, but basically undead thralls is all undead you raise, not just animate dead, so it also works with create undead for crazy shenanigans.
At 6th level Bladesinger, I'd attack twice with a Shadow Blade, relying on Mirror Image and Bladesong to ward off attacks and then using Booming Blade only as an AoO using War Caster feat from level 4 so my dance partner won't leave.
Technicality clarification - divination portent doesn't 'set their saving throw score' (27:25) - a portent die sets their d20 roll, not the score - their modifiers will still apply to that portent roll
Have two folks in the party play Divination Wizards. Have both pick the Lucky Feat. Become the DM's enemy :)
Regarding the shield spell, according to D&D Beyond the trigger is when you are hit by an attack or targeted by a magic missile spell, and the defense applies to the triggering attack. So you do know if you are going to be hit. Am I missing something? (I do still think Arcane Deflection is a great ability, for the record.)
No, you are not missing anything, I was thinking it was one of those, "after you see the die roll but before you know the result" mechanisms.
Here is a fun fact. Charisma is not totally useless for a wizard this edition like it was in 3.5e., and not an auto-dump depending on your school. Most schools still want to dump it, but the Enchanter and Necromancer can get a good bit of milage from having a mildly good Cha score. The enchanter uses it for their capstone, obviously, but what people don't see is that its also useful for Necromancers due to the fact that Inspiring Leader by RAW can be used on your undead pets. You don't need a ton of Cha, mind you, just the 13 needed to eventually pick up the feat. Bumping your undead's HP by TWICE your level, even if you just have a smaller cha mod, seems worth it for a necromancer over wisdom, at least if you want to go all-in on pets. Any extra Cha you may get as you level past the 13-14 you start with is only icing on the cake, though I'd look at other feats before I'd ever consider taking more Cha. If you have enough feats into concentration however (Resilient Con + Warcaster) you might even want to pump Cha over con in this build, though I don't recommend that unless your in a more RP/social heavy game. Just thought I'd let you know about this trick with Inspiring Leader if you didn't know it, as you might want to incorporate it into your necromancer build when you get there since I've used it on a necromancer and its worked out exceptionally well.
Anyway, just thought I'd share that trick with you. Feel free to incorporate it into your future necromancer build...and you don't even have to credit me if you don't want to. Regardless, you get my sub.
A 13 in charisma also allows an Evoker to multiclass into Hexblade, allowing the character to add both INTmod and Proficiency Bonus to their Magic Missile for a sick amount of auto-hit damage.
@@M0ebius Yeah, my necromancer wizard had stats of Str 8 Dex 14 Con 14 (13 + resilient (Con), as she was a variant human) Int 16 Wis 9 Cha 14 at 1st and she got a lot of mileage out of throwing Inspiring Leader on her undead minions. Not only that, but with her +2 charisma mod and proficiency in deception and persuasion she was actually solid in social situations, and once she got that spell from xanathar's (I forget the name, but it gives you expertise in skill(s) for its duration) she was actually rolling better social rolls than a warlock or sorcerer, since she was adding double her proficiency bonus to her +2 cha mod when making relevant social checks due to that spell. So while she was not the only talker in the party she was plenty manipulative when she wanted to be, and could hold her own in social scenarios/non-combat interactions...and in combat being able to buff her pet's health by 2 + double her level made them a lot more survivable than they would be normally with only her level added to their HP.
Joseph Cittadino To be honest I think Inspiring Leader on skeletons is kind of a waste, as tempHP on other PCs tend to much more valuable.
But yes, charisma in generally just tends to be the best stat in roleplaying situations. Especially when you can sprinkle a bit of faerie dust and use magic to boost your skills.
@@M0ebius You know you can inspiring leader both your fellow party members and your undead hoard, right? The only limit is is that the feat can only hit 3 creatures with a single use, but there is no limit to how many times you can use it.. Thus, with enough downtime you can easily keep it up on both your party and your pets, especially if your not trying to make a giant army and just keeping a few pets around while using most of your slots for other spells.
Joseph Cittadino It’s six creatures at a time. But my table does not get unlimited downtimes, and the DM would definitely make me act it out each time I stand there trying to “inspire” a bunch of mindless undead slaves.
1:02:00 turn normal weapons into silver weapons for fighting some undead, lycanthropes, devils?
Hi Chris,
Notice that Empowered Evocation adds your Intelligence modifier to all magic missiles - as you only roll one damage roll, which you use for all magic missiles. This means that for the evoker - magic missile becomes very viable.
So, to me, this ability gives the evoker the single-target damage ability that it was lacking a little
Almost no one knows you roll middle damage once for all missiles.
The same applies to Hexblade’s Curse+Magic Missile on Sorlocks, although you can access it as early as level 2 at +2 damage and end at +6 damage. A great way to open the fight before layering on Hex+EB on round 2. If the Evoker have the charisma to MC just one level of Hexblade, you can turn your Magic Missile into Magic Warhead while casting in armor and shield.
Yes, to my knowledge, that's where JC ended that insane flip flopping. Nobody I've played with does that. It's always 3d4+3. I think (although technically not following JCs tweets), that's pretty much standard practice.
@@TreantmonksTemple I currently DM a game where we use the 1d4+1+Int mod. per magic missile. And it does not ruin the game. On the contrary, it seems to be very well balanced. The Wizard still does not out-damage the paladin (they are level 14 at the moment). But he has a very reliable source of damage - for when it matters. In many cases, casting the magic missile spell is not the optimal choice. Because - as YOU know - the evoker is still a wizard - which means that good spells (see treantmonk's guide to the spells ;) are still a better option in most cases. But then WHEN damage is a viable option, the improved magic missile is a nice option to "clean up" encounters.
Favorite Wizard archetype for a dungeon crawl styled game? I imagine Abjuration or War might get a lot of mileage out of encounter after encounter.
As an Abjurer, would recommend you take Eldritch Adept and pick up Armor of Shadows (basically gives you at-will mage armor)
Every time you cast Armor of Shadows, your Arcane Ward regains 2 temporary HP, up to your usual maximum (level + INT MOD)
At the end of every combat, you can take a minute or two to recharge your Arcane Ward to its maximum with Armor of Shadows
Magic missile + empowered evocation = 1d4 +1 + 5 per missile. That packs a massive punch.
Chris, the worst part of my day is when RUclips tries to tell me you have a new video and it's not there:( Keep up the good work!
Illusory Reality is unreal, eh? I see what you did there.
For Minor Alchemy (lvl 2 Transmutter) the main use I can see is to change the hinges or a lock of a cell into a wood, so that you can break it more easily.
Could use it in gambling as well. Just dont get caught.
@@sharkforce8147 I don't see any requirements for equipments, but I've forgot that it takes 10 minutes. Still You can get lock for the night so You'll have time. This could be just some bars in the dungeon or sewers.
@@sharkforce8147 I'm not sure how I would rule that, but I'm always trying to make the PCs' skills fun and usefull. It's alchemical process, but You can say it's magical alchemy, so no equipment is needed. (transmutter don't get this tool + proficiency)
I never said that it's something wonderfull, but on a rare ocasion you can find it valuable.
Everyone runs their game the way they like, I try to make sure everyone has equal opportunities to use their traits, skills and wits.
I agree breaking into or out for somewhere might be the best use of this.
Out of curiosity - would you allow the player to change an arrow tip into silver in the sense that it would still deal normal damage? What I'm thinking about would be a plot where were-creatures would be featured early and relatively heavily - a 2nd lvl party can't easily come up with silvered weapons...
Or how about this idea - changing a metal rod into wood and using a knife to make its tip pointy - would you allow the players to make makeshift spears that way (maybe even a full spear?) -> could maaaaaybe be useful in a survival heavy campaign (though somehow they need to get to a metal object that could be made into a weapon with a few modifications, so this probably isn't even that usefull in that case...)
I'm currently playing an Abjuration Wizard, and one of the downsides of Projected Ward is that it's sacrifices your reaction.
If you are facing magic users, your likely to save your reactions for Counterspell.
As an Abjurer, would recommend you take Eldritch Adept and pick up Armor of Shadows (basically gives you at-will mage armor)
Every time you cast Armor of Shadows, your Arcane Ward regains 2 temporary HP, up to your usual maximum (level + INT MOD)
At the end of every combat, you can take a minute or two to recharge your Arcane Ward to its maximum with Armor of Shadows
Optimization wise i think diviners are best but i really like the concept of transmuter.
I'm making a Tabaxi Rogue/Transmuter 6 for the speed bonus you can get from the stone. :P
Thank you Chris. Very cool.
cast mage armor before combat and recover the the slot by casting mind spike in combat.
Kapitän JadeDejavu then you can use the recycled slot for shield if needed.
Interesting to see your rating of Transmuter has gone down. I loved the transmuters stone but was never sold hardcore on some of their other stuff. Gotta watch war wizard and blade singer afted work or on break.
A use for the level 2 transmuter ability is to turn weapons into silver.
A necromamcr at lvl 9 can cast danse macabre, mid combat, or before a fight on some bodies their undead are dragging behind. And with a +5 int you can get 5 skeles with a +9 to hit 1d6+11 each. At range with the shortbows as well. Plus the undead squad that follows them. Necromancers can seriously rack up damage. And they can up cast create undead and get whights mummies etc.
If ur dm allows the danse macabre skeles to grab extra shortswords it would be (1d6 +11)×5 + (1d6+9)×5 . Thats like 130 avg dmg
An undead minion army is indeed situationally crazy strong. So strong in fact that I think most DMs will be forced to actively mess up your plans or else they’d have to completely warp the campaign around your minions.
My Divine Soul Sorcerer has a tacit understanding with the DM that a handful of skeletons that’s once in awhile boosted by Crusader’s Mantle from the party Paladin is the extent to which I’d push that spell without being metagamed.
We also have an in-world solution set up where much of the menial labor, particularly in large cities, are done by literal skeleton crews. It’s the main way the necromancer guilds make their money, and as such corpses are tightly controlled and regulated, and rogue necromancers are immediately hunted down and prosecuted. PCs either need to dismantle his minions before entering city/town limits, or to pay a weekly fee in gold if the corpses are legal and registered.
Stone to wood. Most buildings are made of either wood or stone.
One of the few videos released to day that isn’t a joke.
Every year I think I hate April Fool's day a bit more. Maybe I'm getting bitter in my old age.
Durable magic is blue in my opinion, especially combined with the +4 we're already likely getting. I also don't think deflecting shroud is that bad, it's 30 guaranteed damage, no save, no nothing. You attack me, you and your allies get extra damage. It just combines with your potentially insane AC and saving throws to make you a very unalluring target. Which you wanna be as a wizard.
My wizard is a feral winged tiefling with shield proficiency, absolutely insane. Take 1 lvl fighter, for shield prof and con saves, maximize dex and int and you have +10 initiative, 22-25 ac, and will never lose a con save. Even if someone wants to break your save with a disintegrate or whatever, counterspell and throw it back just a little bit stronger.
In some ways, I actually loathe the way 5E handles subclasses for Wizards. I'm old school, so the specialist wizards of old was a hard push option. You made sacrifices for serious gains in a specific school. Otherwise, you could be a generalist. The 5E way pretty much shoves you off a cliff into a specialization. I dislike that. There should have been a viable (not underpowered) option for a generalist mage.
I think the Bladesinger’s martial attacks were designed to replace Cantrip attacks. If you do the math, other than some oddness at 5th level, the Bladesinger’s weapon attacks are as good or better than a Cantrip such as Fire Bolt. Of course as you level up, you’ll use less Cantrips but I believe this is one of those disconnects where the designers thought groups would run 6-8 encounters per day when in actuality, unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, most groups run far fewer encounters. Bladesinger isn’t the worst to suffer from this bad assumption, (I’m looking at you, Warlock, with your 2 spells per short rest) but as long as you understand weapon attacks are something you should be using instead of Cantrips, you’ll do fine as a Bladesinger.
One problem I see with the necro wizard. If they have used most of their spells... Well crap right? You have to make sure you keep x amount of spell slots to keep your the undead under control. If you for some reason is robbed of sleep. >.> Wonderful now stuff is falling apart.
I suppose you could use the earth cantrip. Make a cave, block the cave off with all your undead in there and come back to retake control over them later.
I like the Idea of contracts. Magical that is. Binding and all that wonderful stuffs. If you could chain a couple of necromancers under your command. Put them in charge of defending your fort. Have special... armories filled with undead, ready to protect the castle in case of an enemy attack. Keeping as many living civilians and so on alive as possible. That could be cool. Perhaps your wizard tower could have some buffing effect on allied undead? Enchanting their weapons perhaps.
Or if you are the necromancer yourself. Perhaps have all the undead basically work under your wizard tower. With the tower automatically keeping them bound to you, getting rid of the need to keep casting the spells.
The people may not be the biggest fan of their... owner? Messing around with the undead at first. But when they have gone to safety, their young males been taken and armed in case they are needed. But few if any of them have to die thanks to those already dead taking their place. Perhaps they would fint that it leaves a less horrible taste in their mouth. It may even give them pride and make them feel very safe. Feel you are sacrificing doing dark arts to keep them safe.
It would also be pretty epic, as you would basically get rearmed with troops after any battle that takes place. :D Lost all 100 skelingtons? No problem. Your 100 skelingtons killed 200 enemies. Including those skelingtons you could reuse, you now have 250 skelingtons and those who attacked you are green in anger, but can do little but cry as he just made you stronger. :3
If my city where mainly human, I would probably make sure my undead start out as orc or elf skelingtons though. Humans do tend to have a strange distaste for human bones being messed with. Probably less so though, when those human undead where people who originally tried to kill you and your friends, and rape your wife and daughters. :3
Evocation Wiz - RAW Sculpt Spell with persistent AOE effects is amazing. It says "automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell." "throws" Plural. Great for spells like web (Fix: Evocation school spells only) etc...
I should point out that Sculpt Spell only works on evocation spells, so spells like Web (conjuration) are not applicable.
@@TreantmonksTemple Fixed
Empowered Evocation is kinda more powerful than you might think, for AoE spells: that's 5 extra damage to every target in the area of effect, which can add up to a tidy little sum for lower level spells. Take Fireball as an example. That's a 17% increase in damage if you're casting it as a 3rd level spell. Fireball was already a powerful spell for its level. Now, with Sculpt Spells and Empowered Evocation, it's become an amazingly potent spell for 3rd level slots.
Hmm, I've thought of some possible uses of master alchemy. You could use it to swap spell components, like turning a 300gp ruby into a 300gp diamond.
Another thing you can do is make materials to craft with. The size, mass and price limits are rather ristrictive since it means the two things need to be of similar mass, density and less than or equal price per pound, which at first glance seems to indicate you can't really change an object's material unless you're willing to lose money. However, that doesn't take into consideration that crafted items are more valuable per pound then raw materials. While you couldn't turn block of lead to a block of gold, since the gold is more expensive, you could turn a masterwork lead statue into a block of gold.
Now you might think turning finished goods into rarer raw materials isn't particularly useful, but this let's you increase the objects price, since you can then craft something from that raw material. The mundane crafting rules, terrible as they are, at least make some mention of the different prices between raw material and finished goods, by saying the raw material to craft an item is half the price of the finished good, which in many cases is pretty low. However, even using the base games rather low price increase between finished goods and materials, it means if you fabricate something from that raw material you doubles its price per pound. You could take that block of gold you made and fabricate a fine gold statue, then transmute it into a block of platinum, fabricate it into a fine platinum statue, then turn that into a block of adimantine, so on and so forth, each step doubling the price.
Its slow since each transmutation requires a day of prep for the stone, but major alchemy can effect quite a large amount of material. It essentially let's you halve the price of any non magical item for each day you are willing to spend transmuting and crafting it. For really pricey stuff like diamonds or adimantine spending a couple of days to quarter or more the price could be worth it. It also just let's you make obseen amounts of money, if you spend 100 gold on a bunch of lead then spend a week doubling its worth each day by the end you would have 12,800 gold pieces of platinum or diamonds or what have you. Now I realize money is already not much of a challenge in most DnD games by 14 level, but still, being able to ammass a large fortune is neat and can be somewhat useful, especially if you are doing things like influencing politics or settlement building. Couple that with being able to do things like making your own spell components or non magical equipment far from civilization this is definitely a powerful ability in some situations.
Malleable illusion has some very interesting interactions:
- Malleable illusion + Illusory reality
- Malleable illusion + Creation
- Malleable illusion + Simulacrum
Definitely worth talking to your DM about those. Also ask how Dispel Magic and Antimagic Field will interact with your illusory reality.
Crawford has said that illusion school does not necessarily mean the spell is an illusion
I listen to what he has to say, in a lot of cases I think he has good insight, and he occassionally reminds me of how rule wordings might not be as simple as I originally thought. On the other hand, I think it's important to remember that he talks about D&D ALOT, so he's going to screw up occassionally, and sometimes it's clear he's trying to shut down a loophole, but he just creates a bigger one, or throws stuff out there that makes no sense at all. So a bullshit filter is needed.
I love your videos and have learned so much from you. Thanks!
1:32:49. You weren't joking about deep diving.
Next week's vid (roles) should be mercifully much shorter - not sure my marriage would survive the neglect my family had over this past week!
@@TreantmonksTemple This was exactly what I wanted. 1:32:49 of info. Also, you had me at Portent.
Great video, Treantmonk. One question though: what about the UA subclasses? I love the Theurgist. A shame we didn't include those subclasses in this video, though it probably would've gone on for 2+ hrs.
Couldn't say, I don't even read the UA stuff.