Order of Scribe Wizard Optimization

[Mandarin]

I have a few questions and some thoughts.

First... how useful do you all think this ability is for the Scribe?

When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook, which magically alters the spell’s formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.

To me... that is SUPER STRONG. Being able to pick what damage type, within the confines of the spell... makes it SO STRONG. We were playing with spell combos last night on discord and came up with some pretty fun combos. Basically ensuring you are bypassing "MOST" resistances. What fun combos have you thought up?

Also: Having an invincible familiar that you can cast from it's position up to your proficiency every day while staying up to 300 ft away is highly abusable. Any thoughts on that?



Now the REAL question: Pretend you can level up to 20 as a Scribe Wizard and also level up to 10 as ANOTHER multiclass, essentially leveling to 30. What class would gel well with the Scribe wizard with the above abilities being taken into consideration? Sorcerer for some meta magic and more spell slots? Cleric for heavy armor, shield and spell slots? Artificer artillerist for some bonus action use? Warlock for some replenishing spell slots? Discuss!

[Ir0ns0ul]

Honestly, I don’t think that their signature ability is not even lightly strong. It’s ok. Damage types are important to avoid Resistance or Immunity, which are more prevalent in damage types like Fire, Cold or Poison. We have several terrific blast spells causing Lightning, Force, Radiant and etc.

To your second question, though, for sure being able to use this ability in conjunction with a Tempest Cleric would be awesome, like a Lightning Fireball maximized.

[Hellpyre]

A big thing that reduces the value of the Scribe's substitution effect vs. something like the (elemental half of) the Lore Wizard's similar ability is the requirement to prepare for it ahead of time. Generally, unless you have access to magical shops to get extra spells scribed from, you don't want to add several blasting spells of the same level.

And even the original UA version, where the other spell didn't need to share a level, the ability to bypass resistance is...kinda moot.

[Evaar]

Realistically I don’t think it’s a huge deal. A Wizard’s most powerful options rarely center around blasting, and that’s not because of an assumption of resistance.

It’s nice that blasting is always an option for a Scribe, and with Magic Missile and Thunderwave in your book you can pretty much assume you’ll never be resisted. But Fireball with force damage isn’t going to do anything to an encounter you couldn’t also accomplish with Hypnotic Pattern. If you go with two levels of Tempest Cleric you can make it a Thunderball and maximize its damage, that’s pretty nice... but that’s once per short rest and it cost you a two level dip. You got heavy armor as well from that dip, but these are options that already exist, just with different spell shapes. So I’m just not convinced that being able to Fireball instead of Lightning Bolt with this combo is really that much more powerful.

Though by all means, share any crazy combos you have in mind. Maybe I’m just not being imaginative enough.

[Klorox]

When I saw this subclass I was immediately drawn to it.

I'm not sure of any power potential, but it's damn cool.


Plus, my DM was talking about running us through Out of the Abyss, which I've played one session of before. Summoning my spellbook would be an awesome little perk.

[Hael]

I don’t think this subclass is mechanically very good. Even the UA version was meh compared to the higher tier wizard subclasses like the Chronurgist. It’s closest rival is the evoker for the blasting aspect, and it seems clear to me that it’s inferior in that regard.

Hard pass.

[Bilbron]

I have a few questions and some thoughts.

First... how useful do you all think this ability is for the Scribe?

When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook, which magically alters the spell’s formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.

To me... that is SUPER STRONG. Being able to pick what damage type, within the confines of the spell... makes it SO STRONG. We were playing with spell combos last night on discord and came up with some pretty fun combos. Basically ensuring you are bypassing "MOST" resistances. What fun combos have you thought up?

Also: Having an invincible familiar that you can cast from it's position up to your proficiency every day while staying up to 300 ft away is highly abusable. Any thoughts on that?


It's good for blasting, but if you're blasting, why not evoker? I see this as marginally appealing generally, and to me not at all as I don't blast.

Nothing "highly abusable" comes immediately to my mind... what strikes you as overpoweringly debilitating?

[Witty Username]

I think most damage types are overrated, and as such changing damage types is not as good as people make it out to be. Resistance/Immunity is just not very common.

[Melphizard]

I shall go through my top picks for every level to optimize the good big damage spells.

S: Spell you want optimized O: Spell you use to gain different damage type *: I don't know if this is in Tasha's &: I don't know if it functions with this system

Lv1: O- Chromatic Orb / Magic Missile S- Any damage spell. Chromatic Orb gets you every form of element you could need to capitalize on weaknesses.

Lv 2: O- Mind Spike S- Scorching Ray or Shatter. Psychic is a solid option that not a ton of enemies are resistant to. If Mind Spike isn't an option, use phantasmal force.

Lv 3: O- (*Psionic Blast) Erupting Earth / Vampiric Touch S- FIREBALL / lightning bolt. The all beloved fireball is the best choice to optimize here and you can either use Erupting earth for bludgeoning, which as magical has nearly no resistances, or Vampiric touch for necrotic. If Psionic blast is in Tasha's, psychic damage is once again a great choice.

lv 4: O- Phantasmal Killer / Evard's Black Tentacles S- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There aren't many great 4th level damage spells in my opinion so you're better off just going banishment or polymorph with this.

lv 5: O- Bigby's Hand or &Animate Objects / Synaptic Static / Steel Wind Strike S- Animate Objects / Negative Energy Flood / Steel Wind Strike. The good spells of level 5 that do damage are already quite good with their damage types. I expect some argument over whether or not animate objects gets affected by this ability but for the time being, making them psychic wouldn't be horrible if your DM lovessss helmed horrors.

lv 6: O- Investiture of (Flame/Ice/Stone/Wind) / Sunbeam / Disintegrate S- Disintegrate / Chain Lightning. I love the prospect of chain radiance, destroying the undead, and this allows for it. The investitures allow for each of the four elements so they cover those grounds while disintegrate provides the customary force damage.

Lv 7: O- &Prismatic Spray / Mordenkainen's Sword S- &Prismatic Spray / Delayed Fireball. Prismatic Spray may be able to be completely force damage with the Scribe wizard's feature, and if so that would be beautiful to see though if not, then we still have force damage delayed fireballs. If you are somebody who likes delayed fireball, now you can do the nuclear time bomb on those pesky fire immune enemies.

Lv 8: O-Sun Burst / Illusory Dragon S- Incendiary Cloud / Sun Burst. Sun Burst allows a swap to radiant for radiant clouds of pain, while Illusory dragon gives the elemental special, covering all the grounds you could need in that regard.

LV 9: O- Blades of Disaster / Psychic Scream S- METEOR STORM. With Blades of Disaster in Tasha's we can create the unholy........ the horrendously feared ........ the allmighty legend that only Thayan Wizards can bring to reality... until now. FORCE DAMAGE METEOR STORMS!!!!!! If you feel like your enemies need their mind hurt a lot more, try swapping it to psychic fireballs to add insult to injury. Even greater, use meteor storm to make meteor storm do pure bludgeoning. No fires on these rocks. Blades of Disaster can also be converted to Bludgeoning, Fire, or Psychic, allowing for weakness exploitation and thematic Hammers of Disaster for the mountain dwarf wizards.

In conclusion those are just the examples I found and some may not work depending on how it chooses typing. It may only allow spells with one specific type which could cancel out chromatic orb and illusory dragon, but until such time those spells are great choices for elemental swapping.

So that's how the UA subclass I feared the second I saw will attempt to destroy my RFM campaign. poor Yeti