The Wizard got four times as many subclasses as several other classes in the 2014 PHB. That's actually kind of insane. And yet, there was a certain logic to it: D&D has eight schools of magic, and Wizards simply had a subclass associated with each of those schools. In 2024, they standardized the number of subclasses each class got in the PHB, which was a net gain for the overall number of subclasses printed there, but it meant that Clerics and Wizards each lost a few.
Of the pure-WotC-released books, Wizards got the fewest new subclasses, but with two coming in their Critical Role collaboration, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, they're still quite well-off when it comes to options.
Of all of these supplementary subclasses, one of them was recently reprinted in Heroes of Faerun, the Bladesinger (also probably the most popular non-PHB subclass). Thus, the subclasses we'll be looking at are the Schools of Conjuration, Enchantment, Necromancy, and Transmutation, as well as War Magic, Chronurgy, Graviturgy, and the Order of Scribes. (Note that the naming convention would likely see all of these changed to be, like "Chronurgist" or "Scribe.")
Before we get into these, there's an interesting question: are they obligated to reprint the four missing 2014 PHB subclasses? These are tied so directly to the core idea of magic in D&D, after all. I strongly suspect that WotC feels that obligation, but I'm going to be harsher and more discerning in my judgment here, and act as if the eight schools of magic weren't a thing and that we were purely looking at this from whether this type of wizard seems like a cool archetype to explore.
Conjurer: Yes
WotC decided, in the PHB design, to have kind of symmetrical pairs of opposites for their subclasses. In the case of Wizards, you had Evokers (offense) and Abjurers (defense), and Divination (truth) and Illusion (lies). I actually think this symmetrical design, as thematically cool as it was, wasn't actually best for the game. The Conjurer, to me, is among the most classic Wizard archetypes. Given the changes to Conjuration spells, we do probably need an update on this one.
Enchanter: No
When I think of a character who's going to do a lot of mind-manipulation, I really think of a Bard well before I think of an Enchanter. And given that we already have the Illusionist as the "befuddle and confuse your foes" subclass, Enchanter feels kind of redundant.
Necromancer: Yes
I mean... you knew I was going to say this. But beyond always liking the "dark" subclasses, I genuinely think that the Necromancer is a really core fantasy archetype. While we have things like the Undead Warlock to kinda fit this, I think the "not a Lich yet, but might be one day" subclass deserves to have a fully updated version if itself. Frankly, it's another subclass I would have pushed to get into the 2024 PHB.
Transmuter: Yes
Boy, I'm really leaning yes here. While the Transmuter has never excited me, personally, all that much, I think that the representation of a real Alchemist (a far better one than the Artificer subclass) is a truly classic Wizard archetype. This is also straight up the kind of magic that Merlin from Disney's Sword in the Stone uses, which at least to me is more or less the quintessential "Wizard Classic."
War Magic: No
Did anyone play this subclass? Did you remember that it was a thing? Also, you'd think that a subclass called War Magic would let you be a bit more of a battlemage, wielding weapons and spells in equal parts. The Bladesinger does that far more effectively, while this is focused on reactive magic like counterspell and dispel magic. No, bin it.
Chronurgist: No
Had I not come up with a very Scribes-focused backstory for my wizard I've been playing nearly five years now, I would have almost certainly gone with Chronurgy. But then, the other wizard in our group did, so I get to enjoy that vicariously. This, like the next one, has the issue of being tied to the Exandria setting. I think there's absolutely a place for a time-wizard in D&D, though one could argue that the Diviner is kind of that already. But also, this is probably fine as is anyway.
Graviturgist: No
Almost precisely the same reasoning. I love a cosmic/space-themed Wizard (which is not as explicit with this subclass, but certainly seems like it could work that way). It's A: owned by CR and B: works fine enough as it is. If WotC wants to do their own space-themed subclass, I'd be totally down.
Scribe: No
I have now been playing an Order of Scribes Wizard longer than any other character I've played (though he's only level 9). The subclass does have features that can be pretty situational. But I really enjoy it (I also profoundly enjoy copying spells at 60x speed! 2 minutes per spell level rather than 2 hours means I can easily copy them as part of a short or long rest. If I ever play another Wizard, I'm going to really miss this). Anyway, it's a cool subclass that's a little outside the box, and so I think it both works and is also weird enough that we don't desperately need to see a new version of it.
And there we have it, all the subclasses that haven't had an officially announced revision now reviewed. I might do a brief post with just a list of the subclasses that I chose.
The intent, here, was to just register (in the aether of the internet) my opinions on how backwards-looking D&D's design should be. To reiterate: the whole point of making 5.5e rather than a full new edition of the game was that the makers can look forward, rather than having to recreate everything all over again (ok, to be fair, the real reason was that they didn't want to alienate the enormous 5E fanbase). I'm sure there's a lot of pressure to re-release everything, given that it will be easier (thus faster and thus cheaper) to develop than brand-new options. But I think if WotC wants to build up some good will (something they sure could use) they really need to give us some exciting new stuff to play with.
No comments:
Post a Comment