UA: Enchanter

 Looking at the last (at least in the order that I've done these) Wizard subclass to get a revision to the previous UA which itself was a revision of the 2014 PHB subclass, we've got the Enchanter.

I'll confess: this is one of those subclasses I've never been particularly drawn to, because I feel like if I wanted to be the character that charmed and beguiled by foes, a Bard seems like the obvious choice to go with. That said, I think you could make the argument that this is potentially a very sinister subclass (actually, come to think of it, I may have considered an Enchanter Wizard to play as a House Dimir character in Ravnica, which, you know, sinister). Indeed, while Necromancy gets all the heat for being gruesome, there's an argument to be made that raising soulless bodies of the dead isn't really harming anyone (well, except the monsters you have them fight) while Enchantment is a deep violation of a person's free will and autonomy.

That said, I think you can play this very whimsically, perhaps with a Fey theme (maybe you were instructed by an Archfey,) though again, that can also be quite sinister. Or, you could play this as kind of a psychologist - a student of the human(oid) mind.

Once again, because I'm too lazy to cross reference three versions of this subclass, but also to try to look at this with the freshest eyes, I'm going to, for the most part, take the UA subclass' features on their own terms.

Level 3:

Enchanting Conversationalist:

You gain proficiency in your choice of Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion. Additionally, when you make an ability check with the chosen skill, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the check (minimum of a +1 bonus).

    In effect, this sort of makes the chosen skill an Intelligence one - you still probably want a decent Charisma modifier. This is fine, but nothing huge.

Enchantment Savant:

This one works like all the 2024 Savant features.

Hypnotic Presence:

As a magic action, you can choose a creature that you can see within 10 feet. They make a Wisdom saving throw, and on a failure, they're charmed by you for 1 minute or until your Concentration ends, or if they are more than 10 feet away from you, or the target can neither see you nor hear you, or they take damage. While charmed, the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0.

You can use this once per long rest, but you can also restore a use by expending a 1st level or higher spell slot.

    Ok, this can be very powerful if it works. There are a lot of ways to break the effect, but we're basically treating it like a 1st level spell. It's crowd control, and the fact that they can't just repeat the save to break out of it is nice. Still, it's a bit fragile. Sure, you might effectively steal a monster's turn, but you've also spent one of your turns using this, so you'd better hope you can get more than one turn out of it.

Level 6:

Split Enchantment:

When you cast an Enchantment spell that can be cast with a higher level spell slot to target an additional creature, you raise the spell's effective level by 1.

You can use this Int mod times per long rest.

    A lot of enchantment spell work this way, which is pretty nice. I'm not sure this is very exciting for your only 6th level feature.

Level 10:

Instinctive Charm:

When a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use a reaction to force them to make a Wisdom save against your spell save DC. On a failure, the attack misses instead and if there's another creature in range of the attack other than the attacker, they target that creature with the same attack roll. If multiple creatures are within range, you pick which they go after.

You can do this once per long rest, but you regain your use when you cast an Enchantment spell with a spell slot.

    Ok, having played with a Rune Knight that uses the Cloud Rune, this sort of shenanigan is a lot of fun - turning a crit against an ally into a crit against a monster. However, there are multiple ways the Cloud Rune, which is one option of many that a Rune Knight can get earlier than this, is better: this one requires the attack to be against us, and it requires the target to fail a wisdom saving throw. Given that this is all that we get at level 10, I wonder if they could just let this automatically happen.

    You can potentially get a lot of uses out of this feature, if you're constantly refreshing it. But I also think it's notable that as a Wizard, you should be staying the hell away from foes that would attack you. In an ideal world, you're very rarely using this feature. And it's all you get at 10.

Level 14:

Alter Memories:

You always have Modify Memory prepared. When you cast the spell, you can target a second creature with it that is within range of the spell.

    Thematically, I love Modify Memory. And anyone who watched Critical Role's second campaign knows that it was behind maybe the most awesome moment in the entire campaign (the cupcake incident). But it's very situational. Now, granted, just having this spell prepared at all times means that you're likely to use it more often, and it is kind of the ultimate in enchantment/brainwashing. It can solve a lot of problems, narratively, allowing parties to get away from the mayhem they caused by tampering with the witnesses. But is modifying it to target two characters that exciting? How often do you have precisely two NPCs who need to get neuralyzed?

Overall Thoughts:

So, I don't think there's anything wrong with this subclass, per se. But I think it's kind of boring. Perhaps it's damning that I can't really think of much to say about it.