D&D 5e Powergamer's Tactics Room Deep Dive Series: Order of Scribes Wizard

[Bilbron]

A new wizard subdomain based on scrolls and a sentient spellbook! Let's see what we've got here...

8:30

https://youtu.be/z7LUBI9aviw


A new wizard subdomain based on scrolls and a sentient spellbook! Let's see what we've got here...

8:30

https://youtu.be/z7LUBI9aviw

No offended Scribe Wizards coming to their defense? Guess it's not as hot a take as I'd thought, lol.

[Snivlem]

I was opening this video hoping you had found something to actually "powergame" in this normally low regarded subclass. Your "stick" normally seems to be that you find power and usefull abilities in some areas that are commonly ignored or disregarded by the community. But no, you took 8 minutes to explain why this subclass is bad. I think the lack of comments reflect exactly that: This video was a waste of time.

[Bilbron]

I was opening this video hoping you had found something to actually "powergame" in this normally low regarded subclass. Your "stick" normally seems to be that you find power and usefull abilities in some areas that are commonly ignored or disregarded by the community. But no, you took 8 minutes to explain why this subclass is bad. I think the lack of comments reflect exactly that: This video was a waste of time.My intent is to focus on things useful to players and powergamers, and personally I thought it was of value to review this subdomain (and I intend to look at others). I seem to get a general sense of approval around the Scribe Wizard, which I see as unwarranted. I expected to have to defend this take, but I guess most agree that Order of Scribes is quite poor.

Thanks for checking it out, at least!

[bendking]

I could have sworn you were being sarcastic when you said the flavor on this subclass interesting. To me, it's the least interesting of all Wizard subclasses. It's literally just a more wizard-y wizard. It's like the Wizard Wizard subclass.


I was opening this video hoping you had found something to actually "powergame" in this normally low regarded subclass. Your "stick" normally seems to be that you find power and usefull abilities in some areas that are commonly ignored or disregarded by the community. But no, you took 8 minutes to explain why this subclass is bad. I think the lack of comments reflect exactly that: This video was a waste of time.
What's the issue in explaining why a subclass is bad? The video is meant for powergamers, and a part of powergaming is not using bad subclasses.
Also, you could have been more civil about it. The man has taken his time to make a video for the D&D community and your immediate response is "this video was a waste of time"? Seriously?

[Bilbron]

I could have sworn you were being sarcastic when you said the flavor on this subclass interesting. To me, it's the least interesting of all Wizard subclasses. It's literally just a more wizard-y wizard. It's like the Wizard Wizard subclass.
I didn't mention it in the video, but I've always been a fan of scrolls. I always carry tons and I've played characters that scribed them left and right. I truly was intrigued by the thematic idea of it as there aren't really any other "bookish" type subdomains, and I was kinda hoping they'd make it really scroll-y and have some cool powers, like maybe the Awakened Spellbook could concentrate on a spell for you (kinda like they gave Chronurgists). I really am kind of shocked in the direction they're pushing players with the power suite they created.

[Snivlem]

I could have sworn you were being sarcastic when you said the flavor on this subclass interesting. To me, it's the least interesting of all Wizard subclasses. It's literally just a more wizard-y wizard. It's like the Wizard Wizard subclass.


What's the issue in explaining why a subclass is bad? The video is meant for powergamers, and a part of powergaming is not using bad subclasses.
Also, you could have been more civil about it. The man has taken his time to make a video for the D&D community and your immediate response is "this video was a waste of time"? Seriously?

I am replying as someone who have enjoyed most, and responded positively on several , of Bilbrons videos. In other comments Bilbron has also expressed pride in offering consise content with substance, and a desire to keep doing that, and I think that is a strength in his videos. He also expressed that he preferes direct language over sugar coating.

So i told him, with out sugar coating, that I think this video is much less interesting than his other videos and IMO not true to his own principles. The entire substance could be summerized in one sentence: The subclass is bad. I can't say the same about any of his other videos.

Bilbron, if you plan to do more videos like this, I think it would be more interesting if you could try to find ways to make the most out of the sub-optimal abilities or optimize within a certain concept, rather than just explaining that something is bad. You can do what you want with your channel of course, i am just giving feedback. And i wouldn't bother giving feedback unless I actually enjoyed your channel.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also, you could have been more civil about it. Having finally stopped wasting my time on D&D youtube videos, after having viewed enough of them to discern what was bugging me the most as time went on, I will offer the observation, yet again, that most amateur youtube videos are just that, a waste of time. The ones covering D&D are no exception to this.

It takes less time for me to read and digest a well presented point. Youtube videos require me to put up with an abysmal signal to noise ratio. It is the rare video that isn't a waste of time.

[bendking]

I am replying as someone who have enjoyed most, and responded positively on several , of Bilbrons videos. In other comments Bilbron has also expressed pride in offering consise content with substance, and a desire to keep doing that, and I think that is a strength in his videos. He also expressed that he preferes direct language over sugar coating.

So i told him, with out sugar coating, that I think this video is much less interesting than his other videos and IMO not true to his own principles. The entire substance could be summerized in one sentence: The subclass is bad. I can't say the same about any of his other videos.

Bilbron, if you plan to do more videos like this, I think it would be more interesting if you could try to find ways to make the most out of the sub-optimal abilities or optimize within a certain concept, rather than just explaining that something is bad. You can do what you want with your channel of course, i am just giving feedback. And i wouldn't bother giving feedback unless I actually enjoyed your channel.

I don't think that telling someone his work is a "waste of time" is being 'direct'. Being direct that have been: "this subject matter does not interest me because of X, so I did not enjoy this video".
But hey, you do you.

[MaxWilson]

Having finally stopped wasting my time on D&D youtube videos, after having viewed enough of them to discern what was bugging me the most as time went on, I will offer the observation, yet again, that most amateur youtube videos are just that, a waste of time. The ones covering D&D are no exception to this.

It takes less time for me to read and digest a well presented point. Youtube videos require me to put up with an abysmal signal to noise ratio. It is the rare video that isn't a waste of time.

In theory this is true, but counterpoint: most of the text on the Internet is also a waste of time, including most text in this forum. (Including this post.)

I've gotten more usable material out of Bilbron's videos (a few ideas about DMG poisons and stone shape, from watching maybe forty five minutes of video total) than I have in the equivalent time investment in forum posts (typically around one or two usable ideas a month, most recently about Investment of the Chain Master and sprite familiars).

However, I haven't watched this video because I'm just not interested in Order of the Scribes. It seems dumb. Thanks Snivlem for the summary: apparently there are no surprises. I'm a little bit surprised Bilbron didn't make more out of the Rope Trick + spellcasting via spectral spellbook defensive combo actually, but either way I have no interest in adding the class even as an option to games I run, any more than I want to add the new Paladins and Bards. They have no reason to exist and neither does Scribe wizard.

[Bilbron]

I am replying as someone who have enjoyed most, and responded positively on several , of Bilbrons videos. In other comments Bilbron has also expressed pride in offering consise content with substance, and a desire to keep doing that, and I think that is a strength in his videos. He also expressed that he preferes direct language over sugar coating.

So i told him, with out sugar coating, that I think this video is much less interesting than his other videos and IMO not true to his own principles. The entire substance could be summerized in one sentence: The subclass is bad. I can't say the same about any of his other videos.

Bilbron, if you plan to do more videos like this, I think it would be more interesting if you could try to find ways to make the most out of the sub-optimal abilities or optimize within a certain concept, rather than just explaining that something is bad. You can do what you want with your channel of course, i am just giving feedback. And i wouldn't bother giving feedback unless I actually enjoyed your channel.I do appreciate it, bro. I rarely take things personally, and always prefer food for thought, even if its bitter. I also think drama is a waste of time.

And ultimately, I kind of think you're right. On reflection, I'm thinking I should start a "review" series because Deep Dives probably should be reserved for ways to optimize.

Update: Just changed Title and Thumbnail to reflect new "Review and Ratings Series"


I'm a little bit surprised Bilbron didn't make more out of the Rope Trick + spellcasting via spectral spellbook defensive combo I didn't because Rope Trick isn't really necessary to make it work, it's just a specialized form of cover, which I did mention. But I'm not impressed with that because you can already move in and out of cover, so the marginal benefit of not having to do that is just the ability to avoid readied attacks. For 2-5 spells.

And it glows, which largely ruins the scouting abilities as personally I don't like alerting enemies to my presence, plus wizards get familiars for scouting anyway.

[MaxWilson]

I didn't because Rope Trick isn't really necessary to make it work, it's just a specialized form of cover, which I did mention. But I'm not impressed with that because you can already move in and out of cover, so the marginal benefit of not having to do that is just the ability to avoid readied attacks. For 2-5 spells.

Regular cover doesn't give you the ability to weaponize long-casting spells like Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, Snare, Symbol (of Insanity or Death--note that the effect repeats every round!), Guards and Wards, and even Glyph of Warding. No dragon is going to sit there for a minute while you scribe a Symbol of Insanity all over its hoard, but combine that with remote casting and Rope Trick and what alternative does it have but it move its hoard? (Even if it's a MM spellcasting variant and can cast Dispel Magic and to the spectral spellbook, you haven't actually used up any spell slots so you can just do it again until it runs out of Dispels. It could wait until the Symbol is ready and then try to Dispel that, but then it would run the risk of letting the Symbol go off.)

But I'm still not letting it in my games because the concept is dumb.

[Bilbron]

Regular cover doesn't give you the ability to weaponize long-casting spells like Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, Snare, Symbol (of Insanity or Death--note that the effect repeats every round!), Guards and Wards, and even Glyph of Warding. No dragon is going to sit there for a minute while you scribe a Symbol of Insanity all over its hoard, but combine that with remote casting and Rope Trick and what alternative does it have but it move its hoard? (Even if it's a MM spellcasting variant and can cast Dispel Magic and to the spectral spellbook, you haven't actually used up any spell slots so you can just do it again until it runs out of Dispels. It could wait until the Symbol is ready and then try to Dispel that, but then it would run the risk of letting the Symbol go off.)

But I'm still not letting it in my games because the concept is dumb.
Well, if it's a smart dragon, with a hoard of magic items, he probably has the experience to know he should have a few options to create a Dispel Magic effect. Though I also cast RT in Heavy Obscurement so unless he succeeds on a reaction to know what I'm casting, it's less likely that he'll know to cast that. But maybe he's been scrying me and knows that tactic. Layers on layers, but I don't think it's necessarily a slam dunk.

Haven't fought a dragon in 5e so just looked at them and didn't realize they had Blindsight. So the HO thing won't work. I'm not really that familiar with monsters since I try not to look at the MM to keep battles interesting. That's an excellent use of Manifest Mind, to be sure.

But yeah, it's solid. I mean, I rated it average, it's not like I think it can do nothing. But unless you're willing to say that you'd move it above one of the competing subdomain abilities, pointing out that abilities do stuff doesn't really address my argument.

[MaxWilson]

But yeah, it's solid. I mean, I rated it average, it's not like I think it can do nothing. But unless you're willing to say that you'd move it above one of the competing subdomain abilities, pointing out that abilities do stuff doesn't really address my argument.

Again, I haven't watched this video because I'm not interested enough in Scribe flavor. I'm just going off of words written in this thread here, and I wanted to make a point about the one mechanical trick it has, even though I still dislike the class. IMO sharing tricks is the whole point--ratings per se don't matter. You pick the class if you like the flavor and the shtick.

I guess the other shtick it has is damage replacement, but it's hard for me to think of uses for that beyond the obvious (e.g. turning a Fireball IV into bludgeoning damage like Ice Storm so the friendly Barbarian takes half damage and the enemy demons take full damage instead of none), and I still hate the spellbook-infused flavor.

[stoutstien]

I am torn. On one hand I find the scribe to be overly worded, bland, and falls on the lower side of the average as far as power. Yet I like it. It's the first wizard I would not mind playing. It has a nice combination of stuff that feels like you are actually a wizard instead of a caster with a few special abilities and a spell list.

[Snivlem]

No offended Scribe Wizards coming to their defense? Guess it's not as hot a take as I'd thought, lol.

Here is someone for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhK1UDsOsA

Treantmonk rates it as the 2nd best wizard subclass, only beaten by the chronorgist.

Personally I think his argument is solid (diaregarding that he is somwhat overselling manifest mind compared to arcane eye. I think he makes a strong argument why AM is great, but it won't do the job arcane eye is doing for you)

[MaxWilson]

Here is someone for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhK1UDsOsA

Personally I think his argument is solid (diaregarding that he is somwhat overselling manifest mind compared to arcane eye. I think he makes a strong argument why AM is great, but it won't do the job arcane job is doing for you)

Treantmonk's claim: Wizardly Quill's faster copying is comparable to any 2nd level wizard ability in the game.

Me: "Seriously? You compare that to even Minor Conjuration or Arcane Deflection, let alone Portent?"

Spell copying time just isn't a bottleneck except in a very particular kind of game with free magical libraries and no downtime.

[Unoriginal]

Treantmonk's claim: Wizardly Quill's faster copying is faster to any 2nd level wizard ability in the game.

Me: "Seriously? You compare that to even Minor Conjuration or Arcane Deflection, let alone Portent?"

Spell copying time just isn't a bottleneck except in a very particular kind of game with free magical libraries and no downtime.

Agreed, it's a thematic ribbon.

Haven't watched the video, but claiming that the Scribe is second to the Chronurgist is straight up outlandish.

[stoutstien]

Treantmonk's claim: Wizardly Quill's faster copying is faster to any 2nd level wizard ability in the game.

Me: "Seriously? You compare that to even Minor Conjuration or Arcane Deflection, let alone Portent?"

Spell copying time just isn't a bottleneck except in a very particular kind of game with free magical libraries and no downtime.

Aye. The ability to never lose your spell book is more useful than speedy spell coping.

[MaxWilson]

Agreed, it's a thematic ribbon.

Haven't watched the video, but claiming that the Scribe is second to the Chronurgist is straight up outlandish.

Well... the one thing I do agree with Treantmonk on is that Awakened Mind is quite strong for its range, durability and remote spellcasting. I can certainly imagine a specific type of dungeon crawling campaign where Order of Scribes really is that exciting: scout out the whole dungeon, and then since in this type of game monsters rarely or never leave their rooms, selectively disable certain monsters via spells like Fear before any PCs enter the room.

So, it's not an outlandish claim (I can't think of a non-Chronurgist wizard subclass that is clearly better in this scenario), but it's a revealing one. E.g. this won't work in dungeons with doors, so if you find this exciting you probably play in natural dungeons like caves and the Underdark.

[Snivlem]

Agreed, it's a thematic ribbon.

Haven't watched the video, but claiming that the Scribe is second to the Chronurgist is straight up outlandish.

Tbf i think his exact claim was "strong contender for" 2nd best. The bulk of the argument really is that it is a very strong subclass, and the level 6 ability is borderline broken. He also has a good point why the level 14 ability is actually quite strong for this subclass because of its synergy with the level 2 ability.

[MaxWilson]

Aye. The ability to never lose your spell book is more useful than speedy spell coping.

Yeah, especially when you're waving your spellbook around in front of everybody as an Arcane Focus. :)

[Merudo]

Spell copying time just isn't a bottleneck except in a very particular kind of game with free magical libraries and no downtime.

In most of the adventures I've been in, there was little to no pure "downtime". Even when visiting cities and villages, each party member spent time productively, be it collecting information from libraries, shopping for supplies, or talking to NPCs.

Of course, the Wizard can always stay at the inn and transcribe for the day, but it sucks to miss out a fun roleplay encounter because your Wizard wanted to add Clairvoyance or something to their spellbook.

Working at night is an option, but it is not very productive: you can only transcribe for 2 hours per rest (elves get 4). If you found a scroll of, say, Bigby’s Hand, it would take you 10 nights to learn it. That's a very long time, and often a significant chunk of the campaign.

Your best bet is probably to transcribe spells between campaigns. It might work well if your DM loves short homebrew adventures that only last 1 or 2 levels. However, many players mostly play hardcover adventures, and those typically last between 5 to 10 levels. You might have to wait 20 or more sessions before being allowed to transcribe the spells you want.

Finally, for many adventures, gold and spellbooks are readily available. Curse of Strahd has multiple NPC wizards carrying spell books, and even one location with enough spell books to learn every spell in the PHB. Tomb of Annihilation has a shop with every 1st and 2nd spell in the game, plus many spell books. Storm King's Thunder has few spellbooks, but gives tons of gold to the PCs.

[Dork_Forge]

Treantmonk's claim: Wizardly Quill's faster copying is comparable to any 2nd level wizard ability in the game.

Me: "Seriously? You compare that to even Minor Conjuration or Arcane Deflection, let alone Portent?"

Spell copying time just isn't a bottleneck except in a very particular kind of game with free magical libraries and no downtime.


Agreed, it's a thematic ribbon.

Haven't watched the video, but claiming that the Scribe is second to the Chronurgist is straight up outlandish.


Aye. The ability to never lose your spell book is more useful than speedy spell coping.

Okay I'm not a fan of Treantmonk's opinions but this seemed so ridiculous that I did watch the video enough for this part. This isn't what he seems to be claiming at all, he's comparing the quill to what other Wizard subclasses get at 2nd level: Some form of Savant that reduces gold etc. for copying their own school.

Now that is something I can agree with, time can be a much bigger factor than money (and one less within your control), so comparing x_Savant to Wizardly Quill I think the WQ comes out on top every time, the thematic ribbons actually add something to your character at least.

[Corran]

Manifest mind does not thrill me as a scouting ability. It's too obvious and easy to spot in darkness, so I am thinking that as a scouting tool it's mostly going to be good against enemies who already know of your presence (combined with the ability to cast spells through its space, it could be great for not even foiling ambushes, but potentially making them backfire, assuming you suspect an ambush in the first place), or against low int enemies like beasts (in which case it could also be a very good distraction). I'd value it a lot more on a wizard that does not get arcane eye, but I am having trouble imagining dropping arcane eye (enter bias; arcane eye is probably my favorite 4th level spell) just because of manifest mind.

I wonder if manifest mind interacts with magical darkness. I think it does. It's a magical light but at the same time it's not a spell, so technically it should negate magical darkness where they overlap. Situational (assuming it's even true), but might be useful.

[stoutstien]

Okay I'm not a fan of Treantmonk's opinions but this seemed so ridiculous that I did watch the video enough for this part. This isn't what he seems to be claiming at all, he's comparing the quill to what other Wizard subclasses get at 2nd level: Some form of Savant that reduces gold etc. for copying their own school.

Now that is something I can agree with, time can be a much bigger factor than money (and one less within your control), so comparing x_Savant to Wizardly Quill I think the WQ comes out on top every time, the thematic ribbons actually add something to your character at least.

My comments were more directed towards the formatting of the lv 2 feature as printed. Which could be extended across the whole class really. It jumps from block text to bullet points then drops it all for wall of text.

[MaxWilson]

Okay I'm not a fan of Treantmonk's opinions but this seemed so ridiculous that I did watch the video enough for this part. This isn't what he seems to be claiming at all, he's comparing the quill to what other Wizard subclasses get at 2nd level: Some form of Savant that reduces gold etc. for copying their own school.

"This is comparable to any 2nd level ability that wizards get in this game." Then he spends several minutes expounding its awesomeness for rapidly acquiring spells without downtime.

I don't think I'm misinterpreting Treantmonk's enthusiasm here. He really does apparently think it's comparable to Portent, etc.

[Dork_Forge]

"This is comparable to any 2nd level ability that wizards get in this game." Then he spends several minutes expounding its awesomeness for rapidly acquiring spells without downtime.

I don't think I'm misinterpreting Treantmonk's enthusiasm here. He really does apparently think it's comparable to Portent, etc.

Here's the rest of what he says in that quote: "I just want to make it clear how much better this is than the ability it is replacing for most Wizards because if you are one of the schools of magic Wizards, you get the Savant ability."

Then he spends several minutes expounding its awesomeness in comparison to the savant ability.

He never compares, or even mentions a core subclass ability like portent, he only talks about and refers to x_Savant. So whilst he probably could have been more clear in specifying that was the point of comparison in the opening sentence, it is very clear what he is referring to and what he is comparing it to.

Again, I've not (and unless something else comes up in this or another thread that warrants me looking at it, won't) watch(ed) the entire video, Treantmonk isn't for me and I hope people don't take his opinion as the be all end all truth, because it's often flawed and heavily biased. If there is another section of the video where he makes that claim more clearly, then please just point it out or provide a quote from it. But that initial portion about Wizardly Quill is not making the claim that it's better than Portent etc. in the least outside of that one very clipped snippet you quoted (which very much does seem to misrepresent his views in the video).

[MaxWilson]

Here's the rest of what he says in that quote: "I just want to make it clear how much better this is than the ability it is replacing for most Wizards because if you are one of the schools of magic Wizards, you get the Savant ability."

Then he spends several minutes expounding its awesomeness in comparison to the savant ability.

He never compares, or even mentions a core subclass ability like portent, he only talks about and refers to x_Savant. So whilst he probably could have been more clear in specifying that was the point of comparison in the opening sentence, it is very clear what he is referring to and what he is comparing it to.


So, what then do you think is the "REALLY amazing ability" for 2nd level referred to in the summary at 28:45? Damage replacement? If so why does he spend so much more time talking about Wizard's Quill fast copy?

(Now that he also is apparently referring to fast copy when he says that One With the Word wouldn't be as good for any other wizard tradition, apparently believing that Scribes will have far more spells than other wizards.)

[Dork_Forge]

(A)So, what then do you think is the "REALLY amazing ability" for 2nd level referred to in the summary at 28:45? Damage replacement? (B) If so why does he spend so much more time talking about Wizard's Quill fast copy?

(C)(Now that he also is apparently referring to fast copy when he says that One With the Word wouldn't be as good for any other wizard tradition, apparently believing that Scribes will have far more spells than other wizards.)

A) Listening to him talk about Awakened Spell book, he probably is talking about Wizardly Quill, he likes AS a lot still but is more enthusiastic about WQ, him saying it is an amazing ability does not confirm or independently state he was saying WQ is better than Portent etc., especially inlight of the context the sentence is said originally

(B) I think it's WQ, but if it isn't I'd assume it's because the benefits to AS are far more clear cut and he feels WQ is underappreciated because it's impact is not fully understood yet

(C) From the WQ section he thinks that the biggest thing about getting additional spells into your book if they're already in the game is the sheer amount of time scribing takes, rather than the gold cost. That's what I think his stance is, I'm not saying I agree with it.

Again I don't like TM's content and I don't like or share the majority of his heavily biased opinions (and clashed with him in the thread he did appear in), however I do think that it is not what he intended when he was talking about WQ and everyone deserves a voice against misrepresentation, accidental or otherwise.

[MaxWilson]

I do think that it is not what he intended when he was talking about WQ and everyone deserves a voice against misrepresentation, accidental or otherwise.

I agree and appreciate that you're doing this, even if I don't agree with your interpretation in this specific instance.

[Bilbron]

Here is someone for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhK1UDsOsA

Treantmonk rates it as the 2nd best wizard subclass, only beaten by the chronorgist.

Personally I think his argument is solid (diaregarding that he is somwhat overselling manifest mind compared to arcane eye. I think he makes a strong argument why AM is great, but it won't do the job arcane eye is doing for you)

Thanks! Just watched. I disagreed and left a comment explaining some of my reasoning.

Calling Wizardly Quill one of the best abilities in the game when it's totally niche and only has an impact if you have lots of scrolls/spellbooks available makes me want to join him for a smoking session, lol. And I don't think he meant in relation to Savant because it's pretty obvious how much better it is than Savant. The "feel" of his statement was, to me, that he was comparing it to 2nd level abilities in general. This is unclear enough to call for a directed question, I think, and speculaton doesn't help much.


In most of the adventures I've been in, there was little to no pure "downtime". Even when visiting cities and villages, each party member spent time productively, be it collecting information from libraries, shopping for supplies, or talking to NPCs.

Of course, the Wizard can always stay at the inn and transcribe for the day, but it sucks to miss out a fun roleplay encounter because your Wizard wanted to add Clairvoyance or something to their spellbook.

Working at night is an option, but it is not very productive: you can only transcribe for 2 hours per rest (elves get 4). If you found a scroll of, say, Bigby’s Hand, it would take you 10 nights to learn it. That's a very long time, and often a significant chunk of the campaign.This is my experience in D&D (not just 5e)... downtime is hard to come by, and there are no RAW about crafting while adventuring, so a lot of this will be campaign dependent. I personally think you should be able to throw in a few of hours of crafting every night, but I'm assuming 8 hours of work, 8 hours of play, and 8 hours of sleep per day so you can craft during "playtime". Not every campaign would allow it, but if so, I do think being able to knock out one 1st level scroll every 4 hours of work would be pretty sweet. But it's definitely something your DM would have to be down with.

[Witty Username]

My points,
1. Can possibly copy spells for free because of the ink generation
2. Copying spells in minutes instead of hours makes working new spells into an adventure easier.
3. Casting Rituals during combat may be situational but is less situational depending on the rituals the wizard has.
4. A permanent, visible, spell casting arcane eye is very good for a 6th level ability. (how many wizards can cast arcane eye at 6th level). Also, visibility means it can be used to distract, or intimidate given it behaves like a ghost wizard.
5. dud spell are hit points because of the 14th level ability, meaning this is the only wizard where every spell is useful.
6. On the verge of death is depending on the campaign, and the 14th level ability can also block extreme damage events like meteor swarm or a dragon breath attack.

This class is the king of rituals and situational spells. This class will have twice as many scrolls as the runner up, and if you find a spell book in a dungeon can copy it in under an hour and use the benefits during the adventure, and will never have to expose themselves to the danger on the other side of a door. Also is much more dangerous with more than a day or two of downtime given the number of spells they can acquire.

Edit: A brief aside, on a scribe stockpiling high level spells is actually advantages given the higher level the spell the more you can use the 14th level ability. This may be the only wizard encouraged to take more than a couple of the 9th level spells.

[MrCharlie]

So the abilities are absolutely situational, but the question is if it's situations come up often enough to be strong.

Situations where the Scribe is good-

A spell needs to do a damage type it does not normally do.

A ritual spell needs to be cast in its normal time.

You need to scribe a spell quickly, scribe lots of spells, or make scrolls.

You need to replace your spellbook.

You need to cast spells from another location that you can reach via flight, which is glowing and obviously magical.

You need to use a 1st or 2nd level spell with a casting time of an action at 2nd or 3rd level, without using a spell slot.

You need to negate damage.

Now, situation 1 is uncommon, situation 2 is uncommon, situation 3 is incredibly DM dependent but generally rare, situation 4 is nearly unheard of (But crippling if it does occur), situation 5 is uncommon and requires some thought to use effectively, situation 6 is hard to judge, and situation 7 is common (damage is bad).

Situation 7-you want to cast a 1st or 2nd level action spell-is generally uncommon because by the level you get it those spell levels don't cut it anymore, except as bonus actions or reactions. On the other hand there are a few interesting spells that I can absolutely imagine using, and some like hold person that are actually quite good, but in general it's common but weak.

Given that only your last feature will ever commonly occur, and that all these uncommon features except feature 1 are limited use (sometimes cripplingly so), it's entirely accurate to say that the subclass is mechanically underpowered. The problem with it is, in essence, that it's likely that you won't find a use for any of the features without really pushing them and thus that the subclass won't do anything at all. Even then, most of the features can be duplicated by another effect. The one ability you can use constantly is to change damage type, and resistance just isn't common enough, and neither is vulnerability, for this to matter. Sure you can really annihilate something that is vulnerable to damage, but almost all vulnerabilities are to fire. Some are vulnerable to bludgeoning or radiant, but even then that's rare as hell. And resistance matters for sure, but you can usually bypass resistance by picking spells to avoid it.

The one feature that does excite me is the awakened spellbooks ability to cast from a different location, but outside of some RP opportunities and the ability to cast from relative safety, it's hard to think of situations where this actually changed the result of a combat. Maybe you can make wall of force or forcecage even more of a "lose" button by trapping something in with your spellbook and slowly killing it, but you really don't need to make those spells better to win encounters. Also, the fact that the mind is visible makes it much less useful out of combat-it can't exactly float up the king in his throne room and charm him unnoticed.

[Witty Username]

The big in combat think of awakened mind is that it blunts losing initiative.
Example, you want to check the next room
1. without awakened mind, you open the door. spot an enemy, no surprise. roll initiative. how the encounter goes from here is a toss-up, maybe the party fighter takes some damage or the fight becomes cluttered as enemy try to surround your front line.

2. with awakened mind, you send your awakened mind into the room, with the door still closed. spot an enemy, no surprise. roll initiative. even if the enemy wins it will likely waste its turn attacking a ghost or becoming confused. Even raising the alarm is not the worst given luring more enemies into the room doesn't put the party directly in danger and bunches up enemies for aoe spells like hypnotic pattern or fireball. Even after a few spells are cast the outcomes are they attack the ghost or flee. The only outs are if the enemy realizes a wizard is nearby, or if the alarm is raised and enemies use the corridor the PC's are in to enter the room. But remember range is 300ft. This could be used to scout the first floor of a dungeon and cause this effect before the party has even started moving in.

I have an illustration.page 1 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0214.html) page 2 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0215.html)

[MaxWilson]

The big in combat think of awakened mind is that it blunts losing initiative.
Example, you want to check the next room
1. without awakened mind, you open the door. spot an enemy, no surprise. roll initiative. how the encounter goes from here is a toss-up, maybe the party fighter takes some damage or the fight becomes cluttered as enemy try to surround your front line.

2. with awakened mind, you send your awakened mind into the room, with the door still closed. spot an enemy, no surprise. roll initiative. even if the enemy wins it will likely waste its turn attacking a ghost or becoming confused. Even raising the alarm is not the worst given luring more enemies into the room doesn't put the party directly in danger and bunches up enemies for aoe spells like hypnotic pattern or fireball. Even after a few spells are cast the outcomes are they attack the ghost or flee. The only outs are if the enemy realizes a wizard is nearby, or if the alarm is raised and enemies use the corridor the PC's are in to enter the room. But remember range is 300ft. This could be used to scout the first floor of a dungeon and cause this effect before the party has even started moving in.

I have an illustration.page 1 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0214.html) page 2 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0215.html)

Nitpick: Awakened Mind can't go through closed doors.

Ignoring that though...

...what you say about initiative not mattering much is true, but it's equally true of any kind of scouting, whether it's Arcane Eye, an Owl or Sprite familiar, a Shadow Monk, a Rogue, a Hexblade's Spectre, or Awakened Mind. And the Awakened Mind is less stealthy than the other options on the list actually.

It's one of the reasons initiative is overrated, at least outside of railroadey games where the DM makes e.g. Githyanki Warriors "just happen" to Plane Shift out of nowhere right on top of you, less than 30' away with no warning. Otherwise there are ways to mitigate low initiative rolls with pre-planning and/or stealth.

[Willowhelm]

Thanks! Just watched. I disagreed and left a comment explaining some of my reasoning.

Calling Wizardly Quill one of the best abilities in the game when it's totally niche and only has an impact if you have lots of scrolls/spellbooks available makes me want to join him for a smoking session, lol. And I don't think he meant in relation to Savant because it's pretty obvious how much better it is than Savant. The "feel" of his statement was, to me, that he was comparing it to 2nd level abilities in general. This is unclear enough to call for a directed question, I think, and speculaton doesn't help much.

This is my experience in D&D (not just 5e)... downtime is hard to come by, and there are no RAW about crafting while adventuring, so a lot of this will be campaign dependent. I personally think you should be able to throw in a few of hours of crafting every night, but I'm assuming 8 hours of work, 8 hours of play, and 8 hours of sleep per day so you can craft during "playtime". Not every campaign would allow it, but if so, I do think being able to knock out one 1st level scroll every 4 hours of work would be pretty sweet. But it's definitely something your DM would have to be down with.


I've bolded two parts above. This seems like some cognitive dissonance on your part but perhaps i am misunderstanding you.

In my current campaign I am playing a wizard and we're playing official published adventures. I have come across spellbooks (and entire libraries) that i would like to copy and i don't have time. A single spellbook was going to take roughly 10 days of downtime for me to copy and I couldn't take it from it's owner (without risking a tpk and other fallout). One book! One of the main draws (for me) with a wizard is the ability to fill up my spellbook with the entire wizard spell list. If you play with almost no downtime then you're never going to be able to do that without this "niche" ability. Just that single "niche" ability would be a game changer in the right campaign. If it was a feat i would take it every time with a wizard.

Take a skim through DotMM and see how many spellbooks and scrolls you come across. This ability would be great and get way too much use for me to consider it "niche". Combine it with the damage type switching and you can pick up all sorts of spells you normally wouldn't bother with just to get some mix and match benefits - the synergy is great.

I get that it may not be why some people play wizards, or the kind of game they play in, but it doesn't make the class weak or bad - it just makes it a bad match for that campaign. Your fighter is going to have a tough time if the DM says there are no weapons or decent armour available. Your assassin is missing out if they never let you have surprise. Your warlock will be in trouble with no short rests. Gloomstalker's OP invisibility is useless if the entire campaign is bright sunshine. Your cleric's destroy undead is useless if you never fight any etc etc.

Just like your other build discussions and "deep dive" opinions rely on certain interpretations of the rules, certain play styles, and groups - so does this subclass. YMMV and mine puts me much closer to treantmonk's view than the supposed consensus.

[CMCC]

Hmm why is there so much hate for this subclass? It’s pretty damn good. One of the better wizard classes possibly.

[MaxWilson]

In my current campaign I am playing a wizard and we're playing official published adventures. I have come across spellbooks (and entire libraries) that i would like to copy and i don't have time. A single spellbook was going to take roughly 10 days of downtime for me to copy and I couldn't take it from it's owner (without risking a tpk and other fallout).

To me this is exactly why Wizardly Quill isn't worth much: the bottleneck is the owner, not finding enough time to copy spells. Either you have to persuade the owner to give you one of his backup spellbooks (which are 5x quicker for him to make, remember, and also cheaper) or you need to persuade the owner to give you his actual spellbook, which... there's not a chance.

I tend to buy-and-not-run the official adventures but from what I remember I can't think of any where you'd have serious issues finding 48 hours to copy 24 spell levels of spells from a spellbook you found. Finding the 1200 gp necessary might be an issue, but not so much the time. Frankly the more common complaint I hear at least on these forums is about Five Minute Work-Days and how WotC's adventures do nothing whatsoever to prevent it, so it seems that downtime typically is in fact ample. Which adventure are you playing?

[Witty Username]

I would argue the at will (kinda) and low risk in comparison to party members make this ability more useful for scouting. With the caveat of being obvious that something is going on. If this gets caught it doesn't cost 10g, or a dead rogue. Also, since this doubles as a range extender/target finder it opens up some other tactics.

Feels like a side grade with arcane eye. Especially given Mind is usable all day as apposed to 1 hour per 4th level slot.

side question, how small a space can tiny size get though?


Ninja conversation: I feel like "Gimme an hour, that's all I ask?" in your vision range is a radically different question to "mind if I borrow your book for a month?" and then disappearing from active view. even 10 min is enough for a couple decent spells.

[Bilbron]

I would argue the at will (kinda) and low risk in comparison to party members make this ability more useful for scouting. With the caveat of being obvious that something is going on. If this gets caught it doesn't cost 10g, or a dead rogue. Also, since this doubles as a range extender/target finder it opens up some other tactics.

Feels like a side grade with arcane eye. Especially given Mind is usable all day as apposed to 1 hour per 4th level slot.

side question, how small a space can tiny size get though?


Ninja conversation: I feel like "Gimme an hour, thats all I ask?" in your vision range is a radically different question to "mind if I borrow your book for a month?" and then disappearing from active view. even 10 min is enough for a couple decent spells.

People keep pointing out how the abilities are good in certain situations, but we have to consider opportunity costs. Defensively this subdomain has no consistently reliable reactions like War Wizards, Enchanters, or Abjurers (at best OwtW is once per day, gained at 14th level, unlike say Portent or Chronal Shift which are 2x per day gained at 2nd level), and will have trouble dipping for armor as many like to do because they require the spellbook in hand so using a shield can be problematic. Offensively they have no tricks except better blast damage and an ability to long-range bomb proficiency/day, which are not nothing but other abilities can have more impact and we have to remember that any wizard can also long-range bomb with particular spells/approaches to similar effect (albeit MM is certainly superior, but I think only marginally so). Their utility capabilities seem only marginally better than Find Familiar because the fact that MM glows is tactically problematic in a large number of scenarios.

In a vacuum, of course its better than nothing. If you actually sit down and compare their abilities with other subdomain powers, and the context of the powerset as a whole relative to other subdomain powersets, I think it's hard to rank it super highly.

[MaxWilson]

I would argue the at will (kinda) and low risk in comparison to party members make this ability more useful for scouting. With the caveat of being obvious that something is going on. If this gets caught it doesn't cost 10g, or a dead rogue. Also, since this doubles as a range extender/target finder it opens up some other tactics.

Feels like a side grade with arcane eye. Especially given Mind is usable all day as apposed to 1 hour per 4th level slot.

side question, how small a space can tiny size get though?


Ninja conversation: I feel like "Gimme an hour, thats all I ask?" in your vision range is a radically different question to "mind if I borrow your book for a month?" and then disappearing from active view. even 10 min is enough for a couple decent spells.

How valuable is a class ability that can potentially save you 10 gp? IMO not all that valuable. And remember that it can't open doors unless you cast a spell to let it do so, so in many scenarios it will be relatively useless at scouting dungeons and moderately poor at scouting buildings (can look through windows but that's it). At least a Sprite familiar can turn a doorknob without needing a Mage Hand assist, which eats up one of your proficiency-times-per-day spell casts, and the Sprite is invisible and has Stealth +8.

Not everyone has Sprites, and while a Sprite is clearly superior (at scouting) I'll agree that an Owl or Bat is merely comparable to an Awakened Mind (neither can open doors, but Owl is sneakier while Awakened Mind has better range on C&C with the wizard and is more invulnerable). But the killer app of Awakened Mind really is the spellcasting bit, and it's quite powerful in the right scenarios. E.g. there's nothing per se stopping you from carving a Glyph of Sickening Radiance right in front of a monster (1 minute), then letting that Symbol go off right on the monster and immediately casting a Wall of Force on the monster to trap it there until it's dead. You can't do that in person or the monster will kill you while you're carving the Glyph, but an Awakened Mind is relatively impervious to attack.

I still dislike the flavor though, even if its remote casting ability is fairly powerful.


Ninja conversation: I feel like "Gimme an hour, that's all I ask?" in your vision range is a radically different question to "mind if I borrow your book for a month?" and then disappearing from active view. even 10 min is enough for a couple decent spells.

That's a bit like "Gimme an hour alone with your source code/intellectual property." The owner is going to want some compensation. That being said, "I'll pay you 2000 gp for a backup spellbook with Phantom Steed and Fear in it" might get a favorable reception, and it only takes the owner 6 hours and 60 gp to copy those spells in. 1940 gp is not a bad profit for a day's work--if it's a friendly NPC I personally would agree to that exchange, although I'd still prefer a spell swap to a spell sale. (E.g. if you can give me a backup spellbook of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, Snare, and Blur, I'll give you mine of Phantom Steed and Blur.)

[Willowhelm]

To me this is exactly why Wizardly Quill isn't worth much: the bottleneck is the owner, not finding enough time to copy spells. Either you have to persuade the owner to give you one of his backup spellbooks (which are 5x quicker for him to make, remember, and also cheaper) or you need to persuade the owner to give you his actual spellbook, which... there's not a chance.

I tend to buy-and-not-run the official adventures but from what I remember I can't think of any where you'd have serious issues finding 48 hours to copy 24 spell levels of spells from a spellbook you found. Finding the 1200 gp necessary might be an issue, but not so much the time. Frankly the more common complaint I hear at least on these forums is about Five Minute Work-Days and how WotC's adventures do nothing whatsoever to prevent it, so it seems that downtime typically is in fact ample. Which adventure are you playing?

That particular book was on level 13 of DotMM. Downtime is pretty much up to the DM but most adventures have some time pressure to keep things moving. In any case, the strength of the wizardly quill is not that you can do it faster in your extended downtime, it is that you can do it so fast that you don't need downtime. Finding 48 hours is going to take upward of 4 days reasonably. That's 48 minutes with wizardly quill! You can take a short rest and do arcane recovery... or get an entire spellbook worth of new spells! You might not be willing to get them to part with their spellbook but they are far more likely to let you look at it over the course of a nice meal or a cup of tea. It's so fast you can even sneak into the lich's library and copy that one spell in a matter of minutes - no need to take the tome itself! Just claim you got lost looking for the lavatory! It isn't just faster. It is more than an order of magnitude faster and changes what options are available to you on the fly.

[Bilbron]

I've bolded two parts above. This seems like some cognitive dissonance on your part but perhaps i am misunderstanding you.
It's niche because it's dependent on encountering a lot of spellbooks without the time to transcribe them. I also think the value of a ton of spells in your book is marginal, as one tends to consistently use the same spells because it optimizes their playstyle, except to provide fuel for the 14th level ability OwtW (which is pretty bad relative to other 14th level subdomain abilities even at its maximum 1x/day).

Many campaigns not having copious downtime is a knock against the Master Scrivener ability to scribe scrolls quickly, not against Wizardly Quill which would benefit by this (if the niche situation of having a lot of spells to transcribe arises).

[MaxWilson]

That particular book was on level 13 of DotMM. Downtime is pretty much up to the DM but most adventures have some time pressure to keep things moving. In any case, the strength of the wizardly quill is not that you can do it faster in your extended downtime, it is that you can do it so fast that you don't need downtime. Finding 48 hours is going to take upward of 4 days reasonably. That's 48 minutes with wizardly quill! You can take a short rest and do arcane recovery... or get an entire spellbook worth of new spells! You might not be willing to get them to part with their spellbook but they are far more likely to let you look at it over the course of a nice meal or a cup of tea. It's so fast you can even sneak into the lich's library and copy that one spell in a matter of minutes - no need to take the tome itself! Just claim you got lost looking for the lavatory! It isn't just faster. It is more than an order of magnitude faster and changes what options are available to you on the fly.

If you can spend several minutes copying spells in the lich's library, you can potentailly take all of the spellbooks and leave his library. Why is the lich letting you hang out in his library? (What kind of a lich lets strangers get their hands on MOST IMPORTANT THING IN ITS EXISTENCE, its knowledge?)

Saving 4 days just doesn't strike me as a big deal, especially for a wizard. You can use those 4 days to other things too: renew your Contingency, do some Planar Binding, recon other dungeon levels by proxy with Invisible Stalkers, making Clones of all the PCs, have the healer create some Glyphs of Raise Dead just in case, etc. I don't own Dungeon of the Mad Mage (skimmed it, had no interest, put it back on the shelf) so maybe some specifics of this prep wouldn't work, but if you're a well-prepared proactive wizard you're going to find SOMETHING useful to do with that time. Even if you don't take 4 days, it's probably because you weren't going to prepare all of those new spells yet anyway--you can still take it home and study it after the adventure. Remember, no matter how fast you are with a quill, it's 8 to 24 hours before the end of your next long rest anyway. 48 minutes to copy a bunch of spells does not equate to a bunch of new spells already prepared--and you probably already picked the ones you wanted most to prepare.

[Witty Username]

If you can spend several minutes copying spells in the lich's library, you can potentailly take all of the spellbooks and leave his library. Why is the lich letting you hang out in his library? (What kind of a lich lets strangers get their hands on MOST IMPORTANT THING IN ITS EXISTENCE, its knowledge?)

Saving 4 days just doesn't strike me as a big deal, especially for a wizard. You can use those 4 days to other things too: renew your Contingency, do some Planar Binding, recon other dungeon levels by proxy with Invisible Stalkers, making Clones of all the PCs, have the healer create some Glyphs of Raise Dead just in case, etc. I don't own Dungeon of the Mad Mage (skimmed it, had no interest, put it back on the shelf) so maybe some specifics of this prep wouldn't work, but if you're a well-prepared proactive wizard you're going to find SOMETHING useful to do with that time. Even if you don't take 4 days, it's probably because you weren't going to prepare all of those new spells yet anyway--you can still take it home and study it after the adventure. Remember, no matter how fast you are with a quill, it's 8 to 24 hours before the end of your next long rest anyway. 48 minutes to copy a bunch of spells does not equate to a bunch of new spells already prepared--and you probably already picked the ones you wanted most to prepare.


Wouldn't you want to do all those thinks and also get your copying done?


It's niche because it's dependent on encountering a lot of spellbooks without the time to transcribe them. I also think the value of a ton of spells in your book is marginal, as one tends to consistently use the same spells because it optimizes their playstyle, except to provide fuel for the 14th level ability OwtW (which is pretty bad relative to other 14th level subdomain abilities even at its maximum 1x/day).

Many campaigns not having copious downtime is a knock against the Master Scrivener ability to scribe scrolls quickly, not against Wizardly Quill which would benefit by this (if the niche situation of having a lot of spells to transcribe arises).

So I am curious which 14th level abilities your referring to. Sure this is no illusory reality, but it is also no Master Transmuter, or Command Undead and it is definitively better than the hole in a character sheet Deflecting Shroud.

[MaxWilson]

Wouldn't you want to do all those thinks and also get your copying done?

Sure, but not if I have to give up unique capabilities like Portent or Malleable Illusion to do so.

[Witty Username]

Sure, but not if I have to give up unique capabilities like Portent or Malleable Illusion to do so.

I suppose that brings us back to Awakened (actually Manifest, I take responsibility for this flub) Mind. And mix and match damage, which is not very powerful but is fun and gives a reason to have subpar spells for their damage types, even if I would still balk at having Vampire touch in my book despite being able to Necro ball.

[Bilbron]

So I am curious which 14th level abilities your referring to. Sure this is no illusory reality, but it is also no Master Transmuter, or Command Undead and it is definitively better than the hole in a character sheet Deflecting Shroud.Basically all of them except MT and DS? I thought CU was good because you can have a powerful permanent pet undead at your command.

[Witty Username]

Basically all of them except MT and DS? I thought CU was good because you can have a powerful permanent pet undead at your command.

Good in campaigns with undead, and undead powerful enough to use and weak minded enough to control. About as rare as finding a spellbook in a dungeon I would say. That being said Nightwalker, if you find a Nightwalker you are golden.

[Bilbron]

Good in campaigns with undead, and undead powerful enough to use and weak minded enough to control. About as rare as finding a spellbook in a dungeon I would say. That being said Nightwalker, if you find a Nightwalker you are golden.Wow, that thing is incredible. Would definitely quest to find one ASAP!

[MaxWilson]

I suppose that brings us back to Awakened (actually Manifest, I take responsibility for this flub) Mind. And mix and match damage, which is not very powerful but is fun and gives a reason to have subpar spells for their damage types, even if I would still balk at having Vampire touch in my book despite being able to Necro ball.

Agreed, those are the Scribe's value proposition.

Mechanically it's not terrible, but I find the flavor irredeemable. It's so totally out of left field.

[Merudo]

Frankly the more common complaint I hear at least on these forums is about Five Minute Work-Days and how WotC's adventures do nothing whatsoever to prevent it, so it seems that downtime typically is in fact ample.

A lot of "Five Minute Work-Days" occur when the party has a single random encounter while traveling. Although the players only act out five minutes or so of such days, the rest of the day is spent walking or riding to the next destination. In these cases, there is no time to transcribe spells.

[MaxWilson]

A lot of "Five Minute Work-Days" occur when the party has a single random encounter while traveling. Although the players only act out five minutes or so of such days, the rest of the day is spent walking or riding to the next destination. In these cases, there is no time to transcribe spells.

AFB but IIRC, traveling only takes up ten or so hours of the day by PHB/DMG rules.

[Merudo]

AFB but IIRC, traveling only takes up ten or so hours of the day by PHB/DMG rules.

You are right, you can only travel up to 8 hours a day before having to roll exhaustion checks.

[Bilbron]

New video on optimizing the Scribe Wizard. New format from the Bladesinger video that I took down, now focused entirely on synergies for subdomain abilities.

Still not a fan of the subclass, but you may as well get the most out of it.

********************

Did you realize the Order of Scribe Wizards actually have a use for Witch Bolt in combat? No, not just to fuel their One with the Word! Watch to find out why, and learn further ways to optimize your Scribe Wizard!

14:23

https://youtu.be/arVQCuip1H8

[Meichrob7]

I dunno this subclass to me seems the very definition of a mid tier subclass.

I definitely don’t think it’s the best but I also don’t think it’s by any means the worst.

It’s abilities are often gonna get some use and in certain situations will just entirely break encounters. If a subclass is reliably solid or regularly decent and occasionally encounter warping, I consider those both average.

If I was gonna use a traditional letter grade tier list I’d probably give this subclass a high C or a low B.

I disagree that this subclass overly encourages blasting, I think it gives some support to blasting yes, but not in a way that I think pushes the player to overly lean into it.

Because wizards have high int it’s not unreasonable to get proficiency and a high bonus in all the int checks, and most DMs are perfectly fine with you taking a free action to try and recall knowledge about creatures, this means you’re always targeting vulnerability and dodging resistances when you have to start blasting.

And despite what some people may say, wizards do need to blast. Control spells may be the priority but once you’ve cast your buffs and messed with the terrain, your concentration is being used up and there’s usually nothing else to do besides start chucking fireballs.

I also don’t see how the argument of the familiar vs the mind, for scouting, is entirely relevant. There’s a degree of redundancy there sure but you can very much just use them both. The mind is spectral and can let you blast away for three rounds, which is as long as a lot of encounters so that’s nothing to scoff at, while the familiar can go undetected because it’s not glowing, and can have some other utility depending on its form.

[Merudo]

Did you realize the Order of Scribe Wizards actually have a use for Witch Bolt in combat? No, not just to fuel their One with the Word! Watch to find out why, and learn further ways to optimize your Scribe Wizard!

14:23

https://youtu.be/arVQCuip1H8

Repeating Witch Bolt via Manifest Mind isn't RAW: the spell ends immediately unless the Wizard itself is 30 or less feet away from the target.

Master Scriviner with Misty Step doesn't work either, as the spell must have a casting time of 1 action.

[Bilbron]

Repeating Witch Bolt via Manifest Mind isn't RAW: the spell ends immediately unless the Wizard itself is 30 or less feet away from the target.

Master Scriviner with Misty Step doesn't work either, as the spell must have a casting time of 1 action.Nice catch on Master Scriviner, thanks!

In regards to Witch Bolt, doesn't the MM become the "caster" in such cases? Otherwise you wouldn't be able to cast pretty much any spell from 300' away as almost none of them have that sort of range.

[Merudo]

Nice catch on Master Scriviner, thanks!

In regards to Witch Bolt, doesn't the MM become the "caster" in such cases? Otherwise you wouldn't be able to cast pretty much any spell from 300' away as almost none of them have that sort of range.

Not so. From the description of Manifest Mind,


Whenever you cast a wizard spell on your turn, you can cast it as if you were in the spectral mind's space, instead of your own, using its senses.

The spell is cast "as if" the Wizard was in the spectral mind's space. The caster doesn't change. Once cast, the rest of the spell depends on the actual location of the Wizard, not on the Manifest Mind's.

Even if you are right, the target can simply take the dash action and move more than 30 feet away, canceling out the effect. Witch Bolt is still a junk spell.

[Valmark]

Nice catch on Master Scriviner, thanks!

In regards to Witch Bolt, doesn't the MM become the "caster" in such cases? Otherwise you wouldn't be able to cast pretty much any spell from 300' away as almost none of them have that sort of range.

Kinda depends on how you interpret it- "Whenever you cast a wizard spell on your turn, you can cast it as if you were in the spectral mind's space, instead of your own, using its senses" means to me that you could cast it from 300 feet through the book, but you cast it still. Any further effect would depend on you, not the book.

[MaxWilson]

Also, even if the DM rules that staying within 30' of the Manifest Mind is sufficient to keep Witch Bolt up, Witch Bolt is still garbage because the spell still ends immediately if the target is ever more than 30' away from you or behind total cover. It doesn't even have to Dash away from you, it can just do a regular Move.

I really like the updated Bilbron's Order of Scribes video. Good signal-to-noise ratio. The "Savant not Portent" note made me laugh when it flashed on screen--I thought that was a nice way to "footnote" the dialogue.

Another thing occurs to me: Scribes could be useful in intrigue scenarios. There could be a dinner party with the king, and there's a manifest mind hiding under the table while the wizard is 300' away casting Modify Memory on the king--and no one near the king can see or hear the spellcasting because the wizard isn't even in the room! The manifest mind sheds dim light, but in broad daylight that might not be such a giveaway. It may even (ask your DM) be possible to disguise the mind or have someone else cast Invisibility on it.

[Merudo]

Another thing occurs to me: Scribes could be useful in intrigue scenarios. There could be a dinner party with the king, and there's a manifest mind hiding under the table while the wizard is 300' away casting Modify Memory on the king--and no one near the king can see or hear the spellcasting because the wizard isn't even in the room! The manifest mind sheds dim light, but in broad daylight that might not be such a giveaway. It may even (ask your DM) be possible to disguise the mind or have someone else cast Invisibility on it.

I wonder if you could stick the spectral mind in a hooded lantern, and pass it off as a plain light source.

[Klorox]

Also, even if the DM rules that staying within 30' of the Manifest Mind is sufficient to keep Witch Bolt up, Witch Bolt is still garbage because the spell still ends immediately if the target is ever more than 30' away from you or behind total cover. It doesn't even have to Dash away from you, it can just do a regular Move.


Very true, but would it make sense that most victims of witch bolt would know that all they need to do is get some distance and they'll be ok?

[MaxWilson]

Very true, but would it make sense that most victims of witch bolt would know that all they need to do is get some distance and they'll be ok?

Maybe not right away--maybe they'll try to destroy the "attacker" first--but at some point they're going to try running away or hiding behind total cover, and all it takes is a single moment when they're 31' away or behind a wall or something and Witch Bolt ends.

In other words, "run away" isn't exactly counterintuitive. It works against most things in 5E.

[Vorenus]

I thought the whole point of the Order of the Scribe is that no one can ever steal the Wizard's spell book--because he/she can just make a new one. Other Wizards risk losing all/most of their spells if their spell books are taken. Some DMs like to take things from players--like magic items, or even spell books--to increase the difficulty of the adventure. This ability makes it so that the Wizard can never lose his/her spell book. That right there is a reason why some players would take this sub-class, if they are playing at a table hosted by a DM who is willing to take away their pretty things.

[MaxWilson]

I thought the whole point of the Order of the Scribe is that no one can ever steal the Wizard's spell book--because he/she can just make a new one. Other Wizards risk losing all/most of their spells if their spell books are taken. Some DMs like to take things from players--like magic items, or even spell books--to increase the difficulty of the adventure. This ability makes it so that the Wizard can never lose his/her spell book. That right there is a reason why some players would take this sub-class, if they are playing at a table hosted by a DM who is willing to take away their pretty things.

Not a bad point. Backup spellbooks are possible, but they're a hassle especially when you acquire new spells, and they're only a mitigation not an absolute protection. Being able to regenerate your spellbook is a significant advantage.

I just wish there wasn't such a huge clash between the class's mechanics and flavor. Aside from the quill, it's a random grab-bag of abilities (divination, evocation, damage mitigation) which IMO doesn't feel like it has anything to do with research and study.

[Dork_Forge]

I just wish there wasn't such a huge clash between the class's mechanics and flavor. Aside from the quill, it's a random grab-bag of abilities (divination, evocation, damage mitigation) which IMO doesn't feel like it has anything to do with research and study.

I feel like a design principle (or maybe just something subconscious on the part of the designers) was to make this the most Wizard of Wizards, and that's why there's such a bleed through of across the board general power ups. X school is still better at x spells, but the Order of the Scribes is a bit better than the other Wizards at it.

[MaxWilson]

I feel like a design principle (or maybe just something subconscious on the part of the designers) was to make this the most Wizard of Wizards, and that's why there's such a bleed through of across the board general power ups. X school is still better at x spells, but the Order of the Scribes is a bit better than the other Wizards at it.

I agree about the likely principle, but the execution feels clunky. It's not a general powerup, it's several weirdly specific powerups to specific tasks. 2nd edition-style metamagic (extend range/duration, expand AoEs, etc.) would IMO be more appropriate for a wizard's wizard. E.g. pick one spell of each spell level to get +50% to its range or duration, or +30ish% to its AoE radius. Unexciting per se but makes specific spells more exciting.

[Merudo]

X school is still better at x spells, but the Order of the Scribes is a bit better than the other Wizards at it.

I thought that the "generalist" Wizard was supposed to be the War Caster...

[Ovarwa]

So,

I think it's situational.

This subclass fares well to the extent that -

* The character has access to many spells. These spells can be expended to fuel the level 14 ability, and can be taken to use the level 2 damage type change ability.

* The GM likes to threaten wizards' spellbooks.

* The GM encourages the use of a visible Arcane Eye without having NPCs being able to act upon that knowledge.

A high level Scribe Wizard with lots of spells to burn laughs at damage and virtually never loses concentration. Even at low levels, he always has the right damage type. For much of the game, he can sit back and scout from afar, and either pet his familiar like Blofeld or send it off to minion. That's pretty great.... in some games.

But scribe wizards are unworthy in games where they don't get extra spells. The damage change feature becomes almost unusable because there is little room to take spells solely for their damage type, and there are few spells he can afford to burn, though it remains an option in extremis.

Either way, he doesn't care about armor if he's a Dwarf with +2 Int and +2 Dex or Con... and medium armor.

Anyway,

Ken

[MaxWilson]

* The character has access to many spells. These spells can be expended to fuel the level 14 ability, and can be taken to use the level 2 damage type change ability... A high level Scribe Wizard with lots of spells to burn laughs at damage and virtually never loses concentration.

No matter how many spells you have, it's still a once a day reaction which doesn't protect you from conditions. It's nice in the same way as Death Ward, but it's still just one attack/AoE.

And BTW you'll lose concentration just like anybody else from incapacitation/stun/paralyzation/etc. IME incapacitation, not damage, is the hardest type of concentration failure to prevent.

[Dork_Forge]

I agree about the likely principle, but the execution feels clunky. It's not a general powerup, it's several weirdly specific powerups to specific tasks. 2nd edition-style metamagic (extend range/duration, expand AoEs, etc.) would IMO be more appropriate for a wizard's wizard. E.g. pick one spell of each spell level to get +50% to its range or duration, or +30ish% to its AoE radius. Unexciting per se but makes specific spells more exciting.

Oh I'm not saying that the execution to that effect was well done. I think that the metamagic approach wouldn't sit well in 5e as that is what little of a mechanical identity the Sorcerer has (imo this would be less of a problem if Wizards didn't get Arcane Recovery to begin with).



I thought that the "generalist" Wizard was supposed to be the War Caster...

No, the War Wizard is focused on battle magic, so a split between Evocation and Abjuration. More diverse than the schools, but still a well defined niche.

[MaxWilson]

Oh I'm not saying that the execution to that effect was well done. I think that the metamagic approach wouldn't sit well in 5e as that is what little of a mechanical identity the Sorcerer has (imo this would be less of a problem if Wizards didn't get Arcane Recovery to begin with).

Perhaps, although sorcerers get a completely different style of metamagic too (Subtle, Quickened, Empowered, Twin, damage-transforming) and they get to do it on the fly, to any spell, not just one specific prechosen wizard spell. IMO, you might have to tinker with how many spells the generalist/metamagician gets to enhance (maybe only one per tier?) but sorcerers would still feel like sorcerers even if both kinds of casters were in the same party.

Metamage might have an 2-hour Conjure Elemental and a 26'-radius Fireball, but sorc has Quicken ANYTHING (almost) and Twin ANYTHING (almost) and Extended duration ANYTHING. To me that feels different. I wish the limits on sorcerer Extend Spell metamagic weren't so petty though. I honestly see nothing wrong with 2-round Command, 2-round Tasha's Mind Whip, 2-round Blade Ward, or even 2-round Shield.

[Dork_Forge]

Perhaps, although sorcerers get a completely different style of metamagic too (Subtle, Quickened, Empowered, Twin, damage-transforming) and they get to do it on the fly, to any spell, not just one specific prechosen wizard spell. IMO, you might have to tinker with how many spells the generalist/metamagician gets to enhance (maybe only one per tier?) but sorcerers would still feel like sorcerers even if both kinds of casters were in the same party.

Metamage might have an 2-hour Conjure Elemental and a 26'-radius Fireball, but sorc has Quicken ANYTHING (almost) and Twin ANYTHING (almost) and Extended duration ANYTHING. To me that feels different. I wish the limits on sorcerer Extend Spell metamagic weren't so petty though. I honestly see nothing wrong with 2-round Command, 2-round Tasha's Mind Whip, 2-round Blade Ward, or even 2-round Shield.

I think the natural limits of the Sorcerer's spells known take a lot of the oomph out of doing it to anything on the fly.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hello.

Some thoughts on the details of this subclass.

I would probably sic my Manifest Mind on some random wizard NPC. It will follow him around. If I learn of the location of his spellbook or if I still have it active while he's studying spells for the day, then I just copy down whatever spells I can see through the Mind while he's doing that. I can copy at what is likely a similar rate to their ability to study their spell. Once they figure out what the strange glowing ball is, they might dispel it, but it costs them a 3rd level slot or higher to dispel what costs me any level slot to replace. Mundane barriers are defeated by an Unseen Servant through the Mind, or Mage Hand. Actually, having an Unseen Servant--cast remotely--following the Mind around really gets around a lot of the things that would otherwise cause problems. That's even a ritual spell, so you can just replace it should the Unseen Servant get dispelled itself.

Heck, if some wizard ritual casts any spell of 5th level or lower from his book, and my Manifest Mind is around? I just copied down that spell. That's the casting time of the spell plus ten minutes, after all, and they need the book to do it.

Got down to the last room in the dungeon and the big boss is on the other side? Send in the Mind. The boss sees it? Great! What is he going to do? Dispel it? Send it in again. I'll trade my spells for the big boss's spells one-for-one with mine coming from my entire spell pool and his coming only from level 3 spells and up. Will he start preparing for the coming fight? Great. Wait. He's got all his spells up, huh? Now start dispelling things. Or, just wall them in until they run out. Will he just come rushing out? Great. You get to choose the battlefield. That makes a pretty big difference.

This thing is flying 250 feet up when I'm traveling and is constantly getting a bird's eye view of whatever's around my party. It telepathically communicates whatever it sees with me. 250 feet of altitude pushes the horizon back to six times what it is at a person's height. Now I can roughly see 30 km around me. Doesn't let me see details, sure. Not without some sort of a check. But it's visible. It's nearly as good at keeping you from getting lost as having a ranger in the party. Then you throw in Mirage Arcana which affects everything in sight...

The free scroll is useful for a couple of things, although the level is a bit late for this effect. Spell scrolls are cast ignoring the components of the spell. So, being able to get a free level 1-2 spell scroll lets you... everburning torch and arcane lock a bunch of stuff for free. Every day. Heck, Arcane Lock one random door in town every day. Got a rival or villain you really want to frustrate? Arcane Lock their stuff. Start small. Start with things that they think are already locked and secure. Those are the things they won't necessarily notice right away. Then, when there are a bunch of those, move on to other, more noticeable stuff. Arcane Lock the flue of their chimney. Arcane Lock the box where they keep their spellbook (remember how you spent all those spell slots on Manifest Mind just burning through their Dispel Magics until you learned where they keep it? Is it in a backpack? Arcane Lock that. Good luck getting through it without Knock. Did they prepare Knock? Oh, it's in their spellbook? Sorry, that's behind an Arcane Lock... It's not a big, scary combat ability, that's true. But it's fun. It's like how in 3.5 people would do a lot to get Animate Dead as a spell-like ability... because they ignored the material components. What is annoying when it has a cost attached becomes nothing when you remove it. I admit... once a day limits the shenanigans. But you can still provide everburning light to a pile of coins for the party to use as persistent light effects.

Actually, the whole free Arcane Lock thing makes me want to make my next character a Mark of Warding dwarf. Hell, overlapping that with Scribes wizard sounds like a whole lot of fun.

Nystul's Magic Aura can be used to even make the Manifest Mind register as undead to relevant abilities. If you flipped this on players, I practically guarantee that you'd have them spend a wide variety of resources trying to attack/banish/turn the... ghostly specter? Will-o-wisp? Will-o-wisp might be the best comparison.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Here is someone for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhK1UDsOsA

Treantmonk rates it as the 2nd best wizard subclass, only beaten by the chronorgist.

Personally I think his argument is solid (diaregarding that he is somwhat overselling manifest mind compared to arcane eye. I think he makes a strong argument why AM is great, but it won't do the job arcane eye is doing for you)

I was Scooped!!

[Thunderous Mojo]

Manifest Mind being susceptible to Dispel Magic, is a noticeable liability.
That the best part of One with the Word requires Manifest Mind to be active, is going to lead to a massive headache.

Any CR 12 Archmage can cast Time Stop and then use Dispel Magic to
de-manifest Manifest Mind. As a tiny object, that can be neither carried nor worn, the Manifest Mind can be affected by spells and not cancel the Time Stop spell.

Wizardly Quill is a great ability, especial for a spell thief character.
Scrying can net you a 5th level spell...or five 1st level spells.
If your familiar can get into a scriptorium, you can see through their senses.

(The Keen Mind feat might come in handy, to remember all the juicy, juicy spells.)

Master Scrivener would be fun with a Mark of Healing Halfling.
One free 3d8 Prayer of Healing, per day.

Manifest Mind, really needs a dimmer switch....the constant dim light, complicates stealth. You can disguise the MM manifestation through an Image spell.
As someone that loves Arcane Eye...MM + Arcane Eye means you can look forward and back, simultaneously.

Manifest Mind can keep an on eye on you, and let you still see your immediate surroundings, while you use the senses of your familiar...that's cool!

I don't think the abilities hold up to T4, but for an adventuring Wizard, this is a decently easy to play subclass. It is the Champion fighter of Wizards...and I mean that not as a pejorative.

[MaxWilson]

I think the natural limits of the Sorcerer's spells known take a lot of the oomph out of doing it to anything on the fly.

Depends which sorcerer. Clockwork Soul can get a lot of mileage out of Quicken/Extended/Subtle, especially the revised Extended I was suggesting.

[MrCharlie]

Hmm why is there so much hate for this subclass? It’s pretty damn good. One of the better wizard classes possibly.
I want to clarify that it's still a good subclass-it's just not a strong one. It's got tons of flavor, the abilities reward cleverness, and it fits my wizard playstyle perfectly.

But it's not going to outperform an abjurer, evoker, divine, illusionist, etc. in terms of winning wizard awards. It either doesn't shore up a weakness, play to a strength, or apply in enough situations (or impact those situations) enough to compare to the powerhouse schools.

It's also just isn't liable to do anything a lot of the time, while the combat oriented schools are basically always relevant and the non-combat oriented schools are either relatively broad in their use or shockingly powerful in their specific niche.

But is it fun, a much more important quantity for a DnD archetype? Hell yeah! Freezing fireballs, distant casting, spellbooks oozing with spells, the potential to carry a dozen scrolls at half the cost, and shenanigan's with ritual spells are all fantastically fun. They just don't compare to an illusionist turning the game into looney toons, an enchanter completely unmaking a political structure with three spell slots and a bottle of wine, a Diviner telling a dragon that "No, you rolled a natural 1 to save against disintegrate, goodbye", or an abjurer casually face-tanking three liches.

[MaxWilson]

an abjurer casually face-tanking three liches.

That seems unlikely. If it happened in your game then fine, it happened, but if it did you got lucky and I wouldn't call that success "casual."

E.g. one Lich can Meteor Swam you, another can Power Word Kill you, one can paralyze you with its touch just for LOLs, and all three can Counterspell your attempts to Counterspell these spells, while using their Legendary Actions for more Paralyzing Touches.

[Evaar]

That seems unlikely.

My tone here is intended to be friendly: Max, you're in too deep. It was clearly hyperbole. Look at the other examples. Illusionists do not "turn the game into looney tunes." Dragons have legendary saves. One doesn't cast 3 spells against every relevant, politically powerful NPC without interference or consequence. Their point remains valid.

[CMCC]

I want to clarify that it's still a good subclass-it's just not a strong one. It's got tons of flavor, the abilities reward cleverness, and it fits my wizard playstyle perfectly.

But it's not going to outperform an abjurer, evoker, divine, illusionist, etc. in terms of winning wizard awards. It either doesn't shore up a weakness, play to a strength, or apply in enough situations (or impact those situations) enough to compare to the powerhouse schools.

It's also just isn't liable to do anything a lot of the time, while the combat oriented schools are basically always relevant and the non-combat oriented schools are either relatively broad in their use or shockingly powerful in their specific niche.

But is it fun, a much more important quantity for a DnD archetype? Hell yeah! Freezing fireballs, distant casting, spellbooks oozing with spells, the potential to carry a dozen scrolls at half the cost, and shenanigan's with ritual spells are all fantastically fun. They just don't compare to an illusionist turning the game into looney toons, an enchanter completely unmaking a political structure with three spell slots and a bottle of wine, a Diviner telling a dragon that "No, you rolled a natural 1 to save against disintegrate, goodbye", or an abjurer casually face-tanking three liches.

The diviner has a shot of equaling scribes. The others do not. The level 2 and 6 abilities are really really good. The level 2 ability of the diviner is certainly better. The level 6? No.

Mechanically this class is much better than thematically/flavor (for me).

[MaxWilson]

My tone here is intended to be friendly: Max, you're in too deep. It was clearly hyperbole. Look at the other examples. Illusionists do not "turn the game into looney tunes." Dragons have legendary saves. One doesn't cast 3 spells against every relevant, politically powerful NPC without interference or consequence. Their point remains valid.

At least I can see the value of Illusionists/Enchanters/Diviners, and I can imagine a scenario where those things happen. Abjurors aren't trash but IMO they're comparable to Scribes or worse.


The diviner has a shot of equaling scribes. The others do not. The level 2 and 6 abilities are really really good. The level 2 ability of the diviner is certainly better. The level 6? No.

Mechanically this class is much better than thematically/flavor (for me).

You're underestimating Illusionists and Enchanters.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Just to add a personal experience that is something really specific to my current campaign and perhaps could benefit a lot from the Wizardly Quill feature. My PC is a Diviner, not a Scriber. Just throwing some food for thought.

First and foremost, we have a really planned downtime in the city and almost no railroad. It’s basically the loose concept of getting couple special missions with the local authorities, then we go to the wilderness to save the day — dungeons, castles and stuff like that. Since my DM have been super generous with scrolls, both by giving as a treasure or basically allowing us to buy some at the local shop by fair prices, my spellbook is really complete. My current privileged pain point is to chose which spells to prepare each day — Slow, Sleet Storm or Hypnotic Pattern; Dispel Magic or Counterspell.

So whenever I’m going back to town, aware that we will have heavy social interaction, some spy / infiltration work and probably almost no combat, I prepare spells accordingly (Charm Person, Disguise Self, Sleep, Silent Image, Detect Thoughts, Invisibility, Suggestion, etc). Whenever real action is needed and we know a new dangerous mission requires the local heroes to clear some dungeons, I prepare the basic “combat spells” (Absorb Elements, Shield, Tasha’s Hideous Laugher, Grease, Levitate, Web, Misty Step, etc). If we are able to collect intel in order to do a better planning, and for instance, I know we will fight lots of Humanoids, of course I’ll prepare Hold Person. Or if we know we’ll fight some elves or undeads, I’ll probably go with Slow instead of Hypnotic Pattern. Next mission is on the top of a hill? Ok, why not Feather Fall this time just for safety.

TLDR: Wizardly Quill can be a huge force multiplier for Wizards with well planned downtimes, no railroads and good access to scrolls — you can pretty much emulate a Cleric way of preparing spells and be super versatile.

[MrCharlie]

The diviner has a shot of equaling scribes. The others do not. The level 2 and 6 abilities are really really good. The level 2 ability of the diviner is certainly better. The level 6? No.

Mechanically this class is much better than thematically/flavor (for me).
The diviner level 6 ability is better than the scribe level 6 ability. The scribe level 6 ability is not subtle and has a range restraint (a large one, yes, but not "I'm on the other side of the city" large), which nixes the best potential uses of remote spellcasting. It's possible to imagine situations where you would use it-but those situations are generally situations crafted for the ability rather than situations the ability is crafted to help with. As such, the diviner level 6 ability-while not good-is more likely to actually end up changing the course of a game.

Scribe abilities are flashy and fun, but not effective. They don't impact combat much, nor are they game-changing out of combat like other schools. An illusionist or enchanter can completely change the narrative of an arc, such that I've had games that basically consisted of the players deciding to make their own plot-aided by abilities such as theirs.

That said I suspect you mentioned levels 2 and 6 because you're ignoring the higher levels. Scribe falls off a cliff at levels 10+ compared to illusionists, enchanters, evokers, abjurers, and diviners. Probably Necromancers too, but I have a soft spot for them. And, heck, at low levels scribe is even less likely to matter-enemies with resistance tend to increase as a campaign progresses, access to spellbooks and scrolls as well, and that's what a Scribe is working with.

At least I can see the value of Illusionists/Enchanters/Diviners, and I can imagine a scenario where those things happen. Abjurors aren't trash but IMO they're comparable to Scribes or worse.
Abjurers are very, very good. In general, I feel that you are underrating straight combat abilities in favor of abilities which have out of combat uses. While these abilities are more impactful in general, they rely on a DM to basically allow them to matter-in many campaigns the world (or more precisely, the DM) simply isn't set up to let an enchanter or illusionist use their abilities fully, to say nothing of campaigns where 90% of divination spells are worthless because plotlines they can engage with never come up and a Diviner is somewhat weaker. Point being, anything that adds to combat, such as more HP, better damage spells, or abilities which impact saving throws (enemy or ally) are stronger than I feel you are giving them credit for.

But I'll leave it at that-this isn't the place for this debate, and my point was more broad than "compare scribe to abjurer". It was also hyperbolic.

[MaxWilson]

Abjurers are very, very good. In general, I feel that you are underrating straight combat abilities in favor of abilities which have out of combat uses. While these abilities are more impactful in general, they rely on a DM to basically allow them to matter-in many campaigns the world (or more precisely, the DM) simply isn't set up to let an enchanter or illusionist use their abilities fully, to say nothing of campaigns where 90% of divination spells are worthless because plotlines they can engage with never come up and a Diviner is somewhat weaker. Point being, anything that adds to combat, such as more HP, better damage spells, or abilities which impact saving throws (enemy or ally) are stronger than I feel you are giving them credit for.

But I'll leave it at that-this isn't the place for this debate, and my point was more broad than "compare scribe to abjurer". It was also hyperbolic.

Out of combat abilities matter, yes, and so do out-of-combat abilities which create terrific in-combat opportunities (such as Necromancer abilities). Abjuror abilities aren't fantastic even in combat, and they tend to work only against a small subset of monsters: those which rely on spells. Even against spellcasting monsters like Spirit Nagas there are action economy issues and spell slot issues: you still only have one reaction, and each Counterspell costs you spell points/slots even if you're just countering a Hold Person III (for which Abjurors get no bonus because ANY Counterspell will shut it down).

Abjurors do get an Arcane Ward, but meh, it's a small amount of extra HP, only slightly better than Clockwork Soul's Bastion of Law. Bastion of Law gets effectively 4d8 (18) HP from an hour of short rest by a warlock 3/clockwork soul 6+; an Abjuror gets ~10 from an hour of repeat-casting Alarm, but he also starts off with up to 40ish HP for "free"; using Arcane Ward HP on someone else costs a reaction but doesn't have to be declared in advance. Overall, Arcane Ward is better but neither is better than decent, at best comparable to an Inspiring Leader feat on someone in the party and muuuch worse than e.g. Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity.

Advantage on saves vs. spells is great for the small fraction of the time you're facing spells, but unlike e.g. Yuan-ti Magic Resistance it doesn't even work against stuff like Medusa gazes, Mind Blast, Yeti freezing gazes, Neogi Charm, Ghost possession, etc., etc. In fact the best thing about Abjurors is their relative imperviousness to Hold Person spam from low-CR monsters, but a Ring of Protection will do that for you too (or Freedom of Movement spell, or Globe of Invulnerability, or even a Darkness spell, if you happen to know in advance that you'll be facing spellcasters soon).

It's not that I don't enjoy combat abilities, more that the Abjuror's combat abilities are either modest (Arcane Ward) or quite niche (advantage and resistance vs. spells) or both (+prof to Dispel/Counterspell). Contrast with something like a Hexvoker's Magic Missile trick or Overchanneled Sickening Radiance trick, which are both powerful and widely-applicable to many kinds of adventures, not to mention the regular good old Sculped Fireball trick to save on party HP. Or a Necromancer's ability to take control of undead creatures the party fights, possibly permanently, with no concentration requirement, in addition of course to having more and better undead minions if you're into that. Abjurors are strong against spellcasting blasters, but spellcasting blaster monsters are weak in 5E compared to monsters' natural abilities.

TL;DR no really, even in combat Abjurors are not impressive.

P.S. You're underestimating Enchanters. They are at least as impressive as Abjurors in combat if you bother to acquire armor and shield proficiency, which you should do anyway. (They're much less fun as AC 14ish squishies than AC 19ish tanks, and I say that as someone whose first 5E character ever was an Enchanter.) Hypnotic Gaze is almost comparable to at-will Hold Monster once you fully understand it, and it doesn't take concentration! Hypnotic Gaze should be your go-to on Round 2ish+ of almost any fight. It even works while you're invisible without breaking invisibility.

[Dork_Forge]

P.S. You're underestimating Enchanters. They are at least as impressive as Abjurors in combat if you bother to acquire armor and shield proficiency, which you should do anyway. (They're much less fun as AC 14ish squishies than AC 19ish tanks, and I say that as someone whose first 5E character ever was an Enchanter.) Hypnotic Gaze is almost comparable to at-will Hold Monster once you fully understand it, and it doesn't take concentration! Hypnotic Gaze should be your go-to on Round 2ish+ of almost any fight. It even works while you're invisible without breaking invisibility.

There may be some rose tinted glasses here...

Enchanter's Gaze is not particularly similar to Hold Monster at all:

-You have to be within 5ft of the creature, good AC or not, that is not where a Wizard wants to be (especially a non Abjuror)
-It doesn't take concentration, but it does take your full turn every round to maintain it
-The effect ends on damage
-It's limited to once per creature per long rest
-Charmed + 0 speed + incapacitated isn't as good as Paralyzed

I've no doubt that it can be a useful tool in a Wizard's kit, but it really doesn't seem all that. Is there something I'm missing?

[MaxWilson]

There may be some rose tinted glasses here...

Enchanter's Gaze is not particularly similar to Hold Monster at all:

-You have to be within 5ft of the creature, good AC or not, that is not where a Wizard wants to be (especially a non Abjuror)
-It doesn't take concentration, but it does take your full turn every round to maintain it
-The effect ends on damage
-It's limited to once per creature per long rest
-Charmed + 0 speed + incapacitated isn't as good as Paralyzed

I've no doubt that it can be a useful tool in a Wizard's kit, but it really doesn't seem all that. Is there something I'm missing?

Yeah, you're seeing individual details but not the whole picture--I suspect you've never seriously tried to use the features together because those limitations really aren't serious in practice on an AC 19ish+ Enchanter, due in part to what I outlined above: no concentration, invisibility-compatible, use on round 2+.

There's basically two ways to use Hypnotic Gaze: as a low-resource investment that lets you contribute safely to multiple medium-hard-ish fights while saving spell slots for deadly fights, and as an auxiliary to serious concentration spells like Fear/Hypnotic Pattern to disable "leakers" who made their save against the crowd control spell.

In the first case, you pair Hypnotic Gaze with (usually) Invisibility, and now not only are you quasi-immune to opportunity attacks (only blindsight and truesight can target you), but attacks also have disadvantage on you. Together with your high AC and Instinctive Charm (to avoid needing to Shield, although you still can if you really want to) this keeps you safe on the front lines, and being safe on the front lines means you can pick out a big tough dumb monster in every fight and try to Hypnotize it. If you fail the first round, then you try the second-dumbest-looking tough monster in the fight and so on. Typically you'll hook something pretty juicy. Since fights where the PCs outnumber the monsters are generally easy fights, you generally don't need to worry about running out of potential monster targets, so this is one of the senses in which it behaves approximately like at-will Hold Monster. Once a monster does fail its save, yes, you need to spend your action instead of your concentration to hold it in place--I regard that as a wash. You can't auto-crit the monster like you can against Hold Monster, but the monster can't escape either--unlike Hold Monster, it gets no repeated saves! This is why it doesn't really matter that the effect ends on damage--because you're a tanky wizard with AC 19ish + disadvantage to enemies + Instinctive Charm to make bad guys hit each other instead of you (sometimes), in a medium-hard-ish fight you can reliable just hold that bad guy prone with your action until someone else has time to grapple him (autosuccess because he's incapacitated), restrain him in a net, potentially tie him up in manacles, shove him prone if there aren't too many ranged-primary PCs (also autosuccess for incapacitation), and ready a bunch of attacks to go off with advantage simultaneously right after his turn (if you're using PHB initiative, although I don't). In effect, once the enemy is hypnotized, it's game over for most enemies--only an enemy with a ton of HP and/or special abilities has any prayer of breaking the grapple, breaking out of the net, and killing the PCs before they can focus fire him into oblivion.

And Invisibility lasts an hour so you can do this over and over again to little patrols and whatnot (e.g. 5 hobgoblins and a hill giant, Hypnotize the Hill Giant, and if that fails then you can still try to hypnotize the apparent patrol leader) without spending a ton of spell points. That way when the big fights come, you still have ample spell points for your Wall of Force/Animate Objects/Polymorph/Fireballs/whatever.

Now, the other way to use Hypnotic Gaze is when you're actually in a big fight, and the reason you use it is because it's a stronger effect than cantrips and it plays nicely with bonus action spellcasting because it's not a spell. You don't necessarily want to always use it in a big fight because if you're busy concentrating on something important like Animate Objects/Wall of Force/Fear/whatever, you don't really want to give enemies a chance to take you out, but sometime there are leakers. Let's say you're an Artificer 1/Enchanter 9 in that Tactical Challenge (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623150-Tactical-Challenge-5-10th-level-party-of-four-in-a-subterranean-deadly-fight) with the Star Spawns, and you've got e.g. Wall of Force up on a Star Spawn Hulk + Mangler from last round, but at the start of your turn there's another Mangler only 20' away from you and your squishy-ish AC 17 Sharpshooter buddy who just got bitten by a Grue and is giving enemies advantage. Under these conditions, you can't afford to just ignore the Mangler and Dodge while someone else does the killing or your Sharpshooter buddy might die, and shooting a cantrip like Fire Bolt would be an utter waste, while a spell like Fireball would be overkill for not that much more damage.

This is the scenario where you'd like to take the enemy out of play immediately. (Note: this is also a good scenario for Tasha's Mind Whip, which incidentally works with Enchanters' Split Spell at 10th level.) Your concentration is busy so you can't Tasha's Hideous Laughter it, but what you can do is attempt to Hypnotize the Mangler, and if you fail you can still Sanctuary yourself, and if the Mangler manages to save against Sanctuary as well you can still Shield. This is functionally the same effect (protecting the Fighter by eliminating the Mangler from play) as you'd otherwise get out of Hold Monster. If you don't want to spend the rest of the combat keeping the Mangler grappled you could always have a couple of armored zombies or something whose job is to grapple and prone incapacitated enemies while you have them Hypnotized--incapacitated targets auto-fail, and then even once you switch your action to something else the hitherto-Hypnotized enemies now has to waste action economy breaking the grapple and/or killing the zombies before it can return to the fight.

So anyway, that's it. In practice it feels like you're getting to use Hold Monster a lot, as you remove big monsters from play. There might be three big monsters in a fight, say a Fire Giant, a Mind Flayer, and a Gloom Weaver, and if you can change it from a 3-monster fight into a 2-monster fight without giving up your concentration (e.g. maybe you're concentrating on keeping an Earth Elemental on your team, or a bunch of animated spoons), you are that much closer to winning.

Note: I wouldn't say the Enchanter is exceptionally strong in a fight, and I'm not telling you to use this tactic blindly of course. The main thing Hypnotic Gaze is is cheap, and effective, but it's not as effective as something like Wall of Force. When it's time to spend power like water, spend it. In terms of actual power I'd say Enchanter is middle of the pack, slightly above average, maybe somewhat more so now that Tasha's Mind Whip is published because they can Split it.

[Dork_Forge]

Yeah, you're seeing individual details but not the whole picture--I suspect you've never seriously tried to use the features together because those limitations really aren't serious in practice on an AC 19ish+ Enchanter, due in part to what I outlined above: no concentration, invisibility-compatible, use on round 2+.

There's basically two ways to use Hypnotic Gaze: as a low-resource investment that lets you contribute safely to multiple medium-hard-ish fights while saving spell slots for deadly fights, and as an auxiliary to serious concentration spells like Fear/Hypnotic Pattern to disable "leakers" who made their save against the crowd control spell.

In the first case, you pair Hypnotic Gaze with (usually) Invisibility, and now not only are you quasi-immune to opportunity attacks (only blindsight and truesight can target you), but attacks also have disadvantage on you. Together with your high AC and Instinctive Charm (to avoid needing to Shield, although you still can if you really want to) this keeps you safe on the front lines, and being safe on the front lines means you can pick out a big tough dumb monster in every fight and try to Hypnotize it. If you fail the first round, then you try the second-dumbest-looking tough monster in the fight and so on. Typically you'll hook something pretty juicy. Since fights where the PCs outnumber the monsters are generally easy fights, you generally don't need to worry about running out of potential monster targets, so this is one of the senses in which it behaves approximately like at-will Hold Monster. Once a monster does fail its save, yes, you need to spend your action instead of your concentration to hold it in place--I regard that as a wash. You can't auto-crit the monster like you can against Hold Monster, but the monster can't escape either--unlike Hold Monster, it gets no repeated saves! This is why it doesn't really matter that the effect ends on damage--because you're a tanky wizard with AC 19ish + disadvantage to enemies + Instinctive Charm to make bad guys hit each other instead of you (sometimes), in a medium-hard-ish fight you can reliable just hold that bad guy prone with your action until someone else has time to grapple him (autosuccess because he's incapacitated), restrain him in a net, potentially tie him up in manacles, shove him prone if there aren't too many ranged-primary PCs (also autosuccess for incapacitation), and ready a bunch of attacks to go off with advantage simultaneously right after his turn (if you're using PHB initiative, although I don't). In effect, once the enemy is hypnotized, it's game over for most enemies--only an enemy with a ton of HP and/or special abilities has any prayer of breaking the grapple, breaking out of the net, and killing the PCs before they can focus fire him into oblivion.

And Invisibility lasts an hour so you can do this over and over again to little patrols and whatnot (e.g. 5 hobgoblins and a hill giant, Hypnotize the Hill Giant, and if that fails then you can still try to hypnotize the apparent patrol leader) without spending a ton of spell points. That way when the big fights come, you still have ample spell points for your Wall of Force/Animate Objects/Polymorph/Fireballs/whatever.

Now, the other way to use Hypnotic Pattern is when you're actually in a big fight, and the reason you use it is because it's a stronger effect than cantrips and it plays nicely with bonus action spellcasting because it's not a spell. You don't necessarily want to always use it in a big fight because if you're busy concentrating on something important like Animate Objects/Wall of Force/Fear/whatever, you don't really want to give enemies a chance to take you out, but sometime there are leakers. Let's say you're an Artificer 1/Enchanter 9 in that Tactical Challenge (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623150-Tactical-Challenge-5-10th-level-party-of-four-in-a-subterranean-deadly-fight) with the Star Spawns, and you've got e.g. Wall of Force up on a Star Spawn Hulk + Mangler from last round, but at the start of your turn there's another Mangler only 20' away from you and your squishy-ish AC 17 Sharpshooter buddy who just got bitten by a Grue and is giving enemies advantage. Under these conditions, you can't afford to just ignore the Mangler and Dodge while someone else does the killing or your Sharpshooter buddy might die, and shooting a cantrip like Fire Bolt would be an utter waste, while a spell like Fireball would be overkill for not that much more damage.

This is the scenario where you'd like to take the enemy out of play immediately. (Note: this is also a good scenario for Tasha's Mind Whip, which incidentally works with Enchanters' Split Spell at 10th level.) Your concentration is busy so you can't Tasha's Hideous Laughter it, but what you can do is attempt to Hypnotize the Mangler, and if you fail you can still Sanctuary yourself, and if the Mangler manages to save against Sanctuary as well you can still Shield. This is functionally the same effect (protecting the Fighter by eliminating the Mangler from play) as you'd otherwise get out of Hold Monster. If you don't want to spend the rest of the combat keeping the Mangler grappled you could always have a couple of armored zombies or something whose job is to grapple and prone incapacitated enemies while you have them Hypnotized--incapacitated targets auto-fail, and then even once you switch your action to something else the hitherto-Hypnotized enemies now has to waste action economy breaking the grapple and/or killing the zombies before it can return to the fight.

So anyway, that's it. In practice it feels like you're getting to use Hold Monster a lot, as you remove big monsters from play. There might be three big monsters in a fight, say a Fire Giant, a Mind Flayer, and a Gloom Weaver, and if you can change it from a 3-monster fight into a 2-monster fight without giving up your concentration (e.g. maybe you're concentrating on keeping an Earth Elemental on your team, or a bunch of animated spoons), you are that much closer to winning.

Note: I wouldn't say the Enchanter is exceptionally strong in a fight, and I'm not telling you to use this tactic blindly of course. The main thing Hypnotic Gaze is is cheap, and effective, but it's not as effective as something like Wall of Force. When it's time to spend power like water, spend it. In terms of actual power I'd say Enchanter is middle of the pack, slightly above average, maybe somewhat more so now that Tasha's Mind Whip is published because they can Split it.

Okay, thank you for explaining your position on the ability. I don't think for a second that I would change your mind on this, but partially to air my thoughts and otherwise provide counter points for others reading this exchange:

-What level do you have in mind when you're talking about this? It sounds like upper tier 2 at the very least

-Concentration and tying up your action are not a wash, one ties up your concentration slot the other effectively removes you from combat as anything but a target. If you can pull this off you can remove a single target (and hope that your party are organised enough to not haphazardly attack the creature), but you've also removed a PC at the same time. That seems like an abyssmal trade unless you've managed to pull this off against an incredibly high value target. You can mitigate this by getting a reliable bonus action, but the investment to that end will likely be a high cost.

-You seem to put EG and Invisibility hand in hand, now that is a wash. Your concentration is free because of EG, but it is then consumed by Invisibility, which you're only casting in the first place because of EG. It gives you disadvantage to be hit which is great, but it's not like you're a threat at all at this point and that's largely just a countermeasure against the situation EG forces you into for it to be used. To top it off if this tactic is ingrained then EG isn't free, it comes along with the burning of a 2nd level slot and your concentration (and set up).

-Maybe I'm missing a rules interaction, maybe my PHB is missing an errata, but there appears to be no clause in incapacitated whatsoever that gives an autosuccess on a grapple. Once grappled the creature wouldn't be able to try and escape, but it would still be an opposed check to initiate it.

-Building on the last point, these additional means of debuff (Grapple, Manacle, Net) are only useful against Large or smaller (maybe not a huge consideration, but worthy of note)

-This entire thing seems contingent on dipping something (I assume Artificer or Cleric)

-This one is the primary weakness of the Enchanter: Charmed. D&D Beyond lists 341 monsters with Charmed as an immune condition, this doesn't factor in Magic Resistance (I don't see a way to filter that) or other factors like the Gnome and Elven races that would otherwise be difficult to charm. Add on to that any creature that doesn't fall into a previous category but has a good Wis save mod and any creature that flies or is otherwise particularly mobile.

This tactic seems to work for you and that's great, I would just caution anyone thinking this is a good go to in general (and the tone of your posts come across, at least to me, as look how under appreciated/awesome the Enchanter is, which seems in contention with "I'm not saying that Enchanter's are strong in combat."

[Witty Username]

Maybe not right away--maybe they'll try to destroy the "attacker" first--but at some point they're going to try running away or hiding behind total cover, and all it takes is a single moment when they're 31' away or behind a wall or something and Witch Bolt ends.

In other words, "run away" isn't exactly counterintuitive. It works against most things in 5E.

I agree.
Realistically there are 3 cases: run, charge, or ignore. Run, effect ends. Charge, they can break concentration. Ignore, the ongoing damage is low and uses your actions.
Ignore will never happen casting though manifest mind, and charge will give maybe a round of ongoing effect. Use witch bolt for cheap fuel.

I also agree with hypnotic gaze being good, at will makes it easy to justify. AC of mage armor will get you though Tier 1.
I think I saw misty step as the spell of choice in one guide because it assumes you will be concentrating on another enchantment most of the time, and you only spend the spell slot in response to failure.

[Bilbron]

Yeah, you're seeing individual details but not the whole picture--I suspect you've never seriously tried to use the features together because those limitations really aren't serious in practice on an AC 19ish+ Enchanter, due in part to what I outlined above: no concentration, invisibility-compatible, use on round 2+.Nice analysis! Bilbron was an Enchanter for a year (just switched to Chronurgy but have had no sessions as such) and I quite agree. It's amazing if you're already invisible, and I've used it a few times when encountering a single big monster... just HG them and the whole party moves past. In combat, it's great to tie up the BBEG while concentrating on something else and letting the party clean up minions. It also pairs well with Sanctuary as a bonus action so you can stick the HG and then Sanctuary if you're not already Invisible (and can even Misty Step if the HG doesn't stick and you don't want to be exposed). And I would do it in Heavy Obscurement + Alert so the same benefits of Invisible, and I could do it all in one round (Familiar drops Obscurement, Action to HG, Bonus Action to Sanctuary). I also liked it as a "big gun" against anything that managed to find me and get in my face.

The downside is the ubiquity of Charm Resistance/Immunity, particularly in the Underdark (frickin' Drow).


I agree.
Realistically there are 3 cases: run, charge, or ignore. Run, effect ends. Charge, they can break concentration. Ignore, the ongoing damage is low and uses your actions.
Ignore will never happen casting though manifest mind, and charge will give maybe a round of ongoing effect. Use witch bolt for cheap fuel..Keep in mind that the WB would be cast from Manifest Mind, so they really have only option 1 to defeat the effect. And this might be what they do, but I have my doubts that it's their instantly employed 1st option... my guess is that they would first try to attack the MM, in most cases absent intel. I also presume you're casting it opportunistically so it's got the lowest opportunity cost based on the scenario (perhaps a constrained environment for enemies; or perhaps a single exit that the MM can position itself in front of so that the enemy must run through it and thusly unlikely to exceed the 30' range).

It's actually such a common theme that I'd add this to my sig if I wasn't trying to popularize my channel... "all suggestions presume the option is the lowest opportunity cost based on scenario and would obviously not be deployed in suboptimal conditions or in ignorance of resource management".

[Evaar]

-Concentration and tying up your action are not a wash, one ties up your concentration slot the other effectively removes you from combat as anything but a target. If you can pull this off you can remove a single target (and hope that your party are organized enough to not haphazardly attack the creature), but you've also removed a PC at the same time. That seems like an abysmal trade unless you've managed to pull this off against an incredibly high value target. You can mitigate this by getting a reliable bonus action, but the investment to that end will likely be a high cost.


Just wanted to add a little more nuance here - you're not really trading one PC for one creature if the PC is already maintaining concentration on a battlefield-altering spell like Hypnotic Gaze. If you've reached the stage of the fight where you'd mostly just be throwing Firebolts, Hypnotic Gaze is quite valuable.

Think of it as a unique, bonus cantrip. When used like that, it works quite well.

[Dork_Forge]

Just wanted to add a little more nuance here - you're not really trading one PC for one creature if the PC is already maintaining concentration on a battlefield-altering spell like Hypnotic Gaze. If you've reached the stage of the fight where you'd mostly just be throwing Firebolts, Hypnotic Gaze is quite valuable.

Think of it as a unique, bonus cantrip. When used like that, it works quite well.

If Hypnotic Pattern is in effective use, with overflow to warrant a gaze, then I'd wager by and large you'd be better off AOEing them to begin with and polishing off survivors with actual cantrips. There may be some niche scenarios where this is a good tactic, but you have to go out of your way to pull it off (putting yourself in danger to do so, regardless of any mitigating factors). It can be useful, but it also felt like it was heavily being oversold.

[MaxWilson]

Okay, thank you for explaining your position on the ability. I don't think for a second that I would change your mind on this, but partially to air my thoughts and otherwise provide counter points for others reading this exchange:

-(A) What level do you have in mind when you're talking about this? It sounds like upper tier 2 at the very least

-(B) Concentration and tying up your action are not a wash, one ties up your concentration slot the other effectively removes you from combat as anything but a target. If you can pull this off you can remove a single target (and hope that your party are organised enough to not haphazardly attack the creature), but you've also removed a PC at the same time. That seems like an abyssmal trade unless you've managed to pull this off against an incredibly high value target. You can mitigate this by getting a reliable bonus action, but the investment to that end will likely be a high cost.

-(C) You seem to put EG and Invisibility hand in hand, now that is a wash. Your concentration is free because of EG, but it is then consumed by Invisibility, which you're only casting in the first place because of EG. It gives you disadvantage to be hit which is great, but it's not like you're a threat at all at this point and that's largely just a countermeasure against the situation EG forces you into for it to be used. To top it off if this tactic is ingrained then EG isn't free, it comes along with the burning of a 2nd level slot and your concentration (and set up).

-(D) Maybe I'm missing a rules interaction, maybe my PHB is missing an errata, but there appears to be no clause in incapacitated whatsoever that gives an autosuccess on a grapple. Once grappled the creature wouldn't be able to try and escape, but it would still be an opposed check to initiate it.

-(E) Building on the last point, these additional means of debuff (Grapple, Manacle, Net) are only useful against Large or smaller (maybe not a huge consideration, but worthy of note)

-(F) This entire thing seems contingent on dipping something (I assume Artificer or Cleric)

-(G) This one is the primary weakness of the Enchanter: Charmed. D&D Beyond lists 341 monsters with Charmed as an immune condition, this doesn't factor in Magic Resistance (I don't see a way to filter that) or other factors like the Gnome and Elven races that would otherwise be difficult to charm. Add on to that any creature that doesn't fall into a previous category but has a good Wis save mod and any creature that flies or is otherwise particularly mobile.

(H) This tactic seems to work for you and that's great, I would just caution anyone thinking this is a good go to in general (and the tone of your posts come across, at least to me, as look how under appreciated/awesome the Enchanter is, which seems in contention with "I'm not saying that Enchanter's are strong in combat."

(A) Tier 1 onwards, especially levels 4-8ish before really awesome spells come online. Obviously the Star Spawn vs. Wall of Force example is upper Tier 2 or you wouldn't have Wall of Force, but the Invisibility combo comes online at level 4: Artificer 1/Enchanter 3, or Cleric instead of Artificer if you prefer. At this level it matters quite a lot that one Invisibility spell can last for multiple combats due to Hypnotic Gaze not breaking Invisibility (or Sanctuary actually, but Sanctuary does break Invisibility so only Sanctuary if you lost concentration on Invisibility and are in danger).

(B) I tried to address this already with examples, and maybe I'm getting confused by your hyperbole in "incredibly high value target" and "abyssmal trade", but basically no, I don't agree. You're trading away non-concentration actions like cantrips for removing an enemy whom you chose from play. With the way 5E's math works out that's worthwhile in and of itself in many medium/hard-ish fights (where you use your concentration to protect yourself while neutralizing an enemy), and in deadly fights you're not "effectively removing yourself from combat" because you don't do this until after you've already deployed your concentration offensively to create summons or crowd control effects which remain in play even while your action is busy.

(C) Dumb question: what's EG? I can't tell. And you're making some bad assumptions about why Invisibility is in use. Invisibility is useful for scouting, tanking, avoiding opportunity attacks, avoiding spells, etc. Its biggest limitation is that it also neuters you offensively; except that for Enchanters it doesn't.

(D) It's an errata from 2018. Was very exciting for monks when it happened. See e.g. https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf errata for pp. 195-6.

(E) Yes, obviously. Only use tactics in situations where they are applicable. You know me well enough to know that I'm not telling you to deploy the same tool in precisely the same way in every fight regardless of the circumstances. But frankly, Huge enemies are not that common, especially at low levels (4ish-8ish) where the Enchanter is the most fun because most other wizard subclass tricks would not be online yet.

(F) Yes.

(G) Those numbers seem wrong. It should be closer to about 100, roughly 10% of published monsters. In most cases it should be fairly obvious which kinds of creatures cannot be charmed (golems, animated objects, many undead-ish types although some of them like zombies and skeletons are vulnerable for some reason). If you guess wrong and try to charm an ineligible target, oh well.

BTW Tasha's really helps out Enchanters because, as I mentioned earlier, now at 10th level you can take advantage of Split Spell: Tasha's Mind Whip to disable targets that can't be charmed. Later on it's even eligible for Spell Mastery. Think of Tasha's Mind Whip as sort of the physical equivalent of Counterspell: neuter a melee enemy for a round (assuming other PCs are bright enough to move out of its reach) in exchange for a spell slot and part of its action economy. Yes, obviously if there are lots of targets (a dozen Drow) you're still going to AoE them with Fireball/Hypnotic Pattern instead, but if there's only a few (a couple of Wraiths and two Specters), getting a disable attempt on two of them for only 3 spell points (one 2nd level slot) is nice.

(H) I don't now how to respond. You KNOW I'm not saying that Enchanters are particularly strong per se in combat because I said so, and you paraphrased it. What I'm telling you is how to take advantage of their existing strengths so you don't miss out on the scenarios where they shine. If we were talking about illusionists or something I'd be telling you different things, and there would be different caveats: instead of "obviously don't try to hypnotize a golem, and if you have a Fire Giant hypnotized your buddy still can't grapple him because he's Huge" it would be "don't try to fool an Arcanaloth at close range, or any other creature with Truesight".

But the context of this conversation was somebody mistakenly telling me that value Enchanters only for their out-of-combat shenanigans, and in that context it's absolutely correct for me to say "you're underestimating Enchanters." I do value their combat shenanigans, especially for their cost-effectiveness.

If you're still confused about the fact that I'm not claiming Enchanters to be particularly powerful per se, just think about Necromancers. A dungeon where a Tier 2 Artificer 1/Enchanter is fun and useful, either in the medium/hard-ish sense of re-using an Invisibility in a series of small fights, or a deadly-ish scenario where he throws down a crowd control spell (or animates Tiny Servants and throws down a Darkness/Fog Cloud if he's got Alert) and then catches leakers with Hypnotic Gaze, would be curb stomped by a Necromancer simply throwing skeleton archers at the problem (assuming competent necromancy, avoiding Fireball Formation, etc.). The Necromancer at that level is clearly more powerful, partly because ranged combat trumps melee combat in 5E due to various factors (like getting to avoid Fireball Formation). But the Artificer 1/Enchanter is still plenty powerful, and he doesn't have to deal with rotting corpses, and he is forced to take more risks than the Necromancer, and that makes the game more challenging which for me is one source of fun. There's a tension there between what's good for the PC (winning without risk) and what's good for the player (possibility of losing, having something to learn), and maybe part of the enthusiasm you're sensing as I talk about this is because in the process of taking those risks and learning from failures and successes I've been far more successful than I initially expected!

Analogy time: Indiana Jones' whip isn't particularly powerful (in clutch situations he prefers his gun) but his whip is surprisingly not-weak and also fun, which is why the filmmakers often arrange for the gun to be unavailable.



Keep in mind that the WB would be cast from Manifest Mind, so they really have only option 1 to defeat the effect. And this might be what they do, but (J) I have my doubts that it's their instantly employed 1st option... my guess is that they would first try to attack the MM, in most cases absent intel. I also presume you're casting it opportunistically so it's got the lowest opportunity cost based on the scenario (perhaps a constrained environment for enemies; or (K) perhaps a single exit that the MM can position itself in front of so that the enemy must run through it and thusly unlikely to exceed the 30' range).

It's actually such a common theme that I'd add this to my sig if I wasn't trying to popularize my channel... "all suggestions presume the option is the lowest opportunity cost based on scenario and would obviously not be deployed in suboptimal conditions or in ignorance of resource management".

(J) The thing about Witch Bolt is that even if the enemy doesn't catch on instantly, even if they take multiple rounds to give up and make a tactical withdrawal instead of attacking the invulnerable Mind--you're still only getting 1d12 damage per round, so the return on your investment is still poor. If you use Witch Bolt II and one of your limited number of remote spells per day to remotely inflict 4d12 damage on some poor Ogre... yay? HP are so inflated in 5E that blasting spells are already usually bad, and single-target low-damage easily-broken Witch Bolt is not worth a remote casting usage under any circumstance that I can think of.

Fireballing a room full of drow warriors, yes! This would have worked well in Billbron's Underdark-against-the-drow campaign, although Chronurgist is obviously amazing too.

Witch Bolting the Drow Captain for a round and a half before he gets wise and breaks the connection, no!

(K) I don't think this works. The Manifest Mind doesn't block movement, and a Dashing enemy moves 60' per round, so if the enemy is starting off within Witch Bolt Range (say 20'), how is the Mind going to prevent the enemy from running under it (30') and winding up 5' away on the other side, and then Dashing for another 35' to break the link? And the Scribe can only move the Mind 30' per round, so even if you get one round of damage this way (1d12) how will you get a second 1d12 next round? It's just an incredible amount of hassle and planning to get even minimal damage out of Witch Bolt this way.


If Hypnotic Pattern is in effective use, with overflow to warrant a gaze, then I'd wager by and large you'd be better off AOEing them to begin with and (L) polishing off survivors with actual cantrips. There may be some niche scenarios where this is a good tactic, but you have to go out of your way to pull it off (putting yourself in danger to do so, regardless of any mitigating factors). It can be useful, but it also felt like it was heavily being oversold.

As stated repeatedly, yes, in big fights you open with an AoE or crowd control and use Hypnotic Gaze only on round 2+ in lieu of cantrips. (L) What kind of scenario are you imagining in your head here that makes cantrip damage so much more desirable than spending your action to disable a specific monster? What level/party/monsters/tactics? I want to avoid guessing your assumptions since you haven't given any examples or responded to my examples (like the Star Spawn fight--would you really want to cantrip the Mangler?).