UA: Conjurer (Again)

 Like we did with the Necromancer, I'm going to look at the Conjurer Wizard in the revised Arcane Subclasses UA without comparing it to what came before (for the most part) and just try to look at it on its own terms as if it were brand new.

That said, I'll mention again that this subclass holds a special place for me, as it was the subclass my best friend chose for his wizard in my very first D&D campaign. Sadly, that campaign fell apart - I dream of reviving it at some point, though of the original players, he's the only one I still play with, so it would require a big re-tool. Boy, though, I had some crazy plans (involving his wizarding role-model uncle whom I always conceived as being basically a high elf David Bowie - not a stretch - and the idea that he had traveled to the Far Plane and became split into multiple versions of himself, so that my friend's character would have gotten a jeweled skull like the one in the music video for Blackstar as a magic item that was his uncle's skull, but also there was a version of him he would be able to meet get help from as well).

Ahem.

Of course, the 2024 PHB saw a massive redesign to a lot of classic conjuration spells, making it far harder to put a lot of bodies on the battlefield (ironically, the ones that can still do that are either Necromancy or Transmutation spells). Still, as a big fan of the Summon spells, most of these will work great for your Conjurer, and of course, you can also focus on the other aspect of Conjuration, namely teleportation. Let's look at the features.

Level 3:

Benign Transposition:

As a bonus action, you can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see, or alternatively, you can choose a space occupied by a willing Medium or smaller creature and both teleport to swap places.

You can use this Int times (minimum 1) per long rest.

    Let's first point out that this, at worst, an uncounterable, free Misty Step. And with no components, you will never be stuck in a jail cell. That's already very good (it does have the odd consequence of potentially making you not want to take Misty Step). While I don't think the subclass builds on it like the Archfey Warlock, this is a spell that I take on basically any character who can get it, because it's such amazing mobility and insurance against grapples and restraints. Being able to swap with a friend is a great bit of extra utility. (You could even use it twice to get both you and a friend through a pinhole crack in a wall.)

Conjuration Savant:

This is updated like all the other Savant features, giving you a free spell of your chosen school every other level.

Level 6:

Distant Transposition:

Your Benign Transposition now has a range of 60 feet, and you regain all uses on a short or long rest.

    Hot damn. A good feature gets a buff. Not much to say about it except that it's good. This would be underwhelming if this were all you got at 6, but as an improvement to the 3rd level feature, this is simple but great.

Durable Summons:

When you use a spell slot to summon or create a creature with a Conjuration spell, they get Temp HP equal to twice your Wizard level. While these temp HP remain, they have resistance to all damage except Force, Necrotic, Psychic, and Radiant.

    Ok, so this is 12 temp HP minimum, and eventually 40, which is not a small amount. Furthermore, against most monsters, you're going to be able to effectively double those Temp HP thanks to the resistance.

    Notably, this would be insanely powerful using old Conjuration spells - giving all 8 of your Pixies 12 temp HP that is going to look like 24 temp HP in most fights would be insane. Instead, we should consider this in the context of a spell like Summon Fey. These guys have 10 HP per spell level (base 30 HP, though you're casting this at 4th level, right?) Thus, if we're fighting things that are doing, say slashing damage, you're effectively adding 24 on top of that. That's certainly a durable summon.

    Now, it does say "these temporary hit points," so I don't know if you can refresh them with some other spell or feature that adds more and still retain the damage resistance. But even with an hour duration, these summoned minions are still relatively disposable - this is going to make it more likely that they actually last the full hour duration.

Level 10:

Focused Conjuration:

Taking damage can't break your concentration on Conjuration spells.

    I think this is unchanged, but even if it's very simple, it's really great. You're still vulnerable to getting incapacitated or losing concentration in other ways, but especially at these levels, where you can start taking dragon breaths that would call for a DC 30 Con save or something, being able to just maintain that concentration regardless is really nice. Does it devalue War Caster? Sure. You might consider if you can afford not to take it. That said, given that this doesn't come online until level 10, you might have wanted to take that for the earlier levels (and it's still useful if you have non-Conjuration spells you might want to maintain or even to get your spell-opportunity attacks.

Level 14:

Splintered Summons:

When you cast Summon Aberration, Summon Construct, Summon Dragon, Summon Elemental, or Summon Fey (notably not Summon Fiend, nor Summon Undead, though the later is actually a Necromancy spell. Also, did they not reprint Summon Shadowspawn? Huh) with a spell slot, you can modify the spell to summon two creatures instead of one. The creatures have to be the same kind (I assume meaning you can't have a Fire Elemental and a Water Elemental, for example) and the creatures' Hit Points are halved.

You can modify a spell this way once per long rest for free, or can expend a 5th level spell slot to restore your use of the feature (no action requried).

    This is... honestly it might be too powerful. And it hurts to say that because it's so freaking cool.

    Consider, for instance, that the halving of the HP is actually not as bad as you'd think because of Durable Summons. If you conjure two Beholderkin Aberrations at 6th level, they'll have 30 HP apiece, but if I do this at level 14, they're getting 28 temp HP each, already basically putting them back to what a single creature would have gotten, and they're resistant to most damage while they have those 28, meaning that, outside of AoE, monsters are going to actually have to do more damage to these than they would against a single conjured aberrant spirit. Then, each of them is doing three Eye Ray attacks, each of which deal 1d8+9. Before accounting for miss chances, that's 6d8+54 per round, or 83 damage per turn. And next turn, you get to do whatever else you were going to do with your action. (Once again, it's not quite 83 DPR, because you're probably going to miss some attacks. But it's six attacks.)

Overall Thoughts:

    I think this looks pretty good to me. There's a lot of powerful Conjuration spells to consider here. I do think that if you had any interest in casting any of the heavily-revised "Conjure" spells, this subclass will strongly encourage you toward the Summon spells instead.

    While there's not a ton of mechanical emphasis on the teleportation/transportation aspects of Conjuration, I also don't know if there's much design space there. Benign Transposition's redesign I think basically covers you there. While you no longer recharge the feature by casting a Conjuration spell, I think in most cases this version will give you more uses per day, especially after the level 6 upgrade.

    I think it's neat! While Splintered Summons could be too powerful, I otherwise didn't spot any big mechanical problems here, and I would be fairly happy to see this version of it. It's thematically on point and feels powerful.