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

[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 page 2

[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 page 2

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.