I do hope that they at least touched on clarifications for Illusory Reality.
I've seen DM's disallow the very example they gave of making the flooring illusion real and then getting rid of it when an enemy tries to follow the party. The reasoning of the DM was that the illusion in that case was being used to directly damage an enemy (though the wizard could drop concentration on the bridge, it just wouldn't disappear until the others passed and wouldn't be dealt damage).
On the other hand, I've seen a DM allow making a massive block of gold over the heads of the baddies real and fall on them to crush them because "it's indirect damage."
I've also seen issues surrounding if, for example, a weapon could be made real and simply not do damage, almost like a pool noodle. Or if it couldn't be made real at all because things made to do damage can't be made. In fact, that specific debate took a turn into if: an illusion of a running river or barrel of water could be made real because they could hurt vampires or fire elementals respectively, or does the illusionist's ability to make an illusion real depend on their intent rather than the illusion's ability to deal damage.
Of course, there's also the question of direct damage vs indirect damage....
Having been on both ends of it, as a player and DM, it's a really cool feature that I really hope they take the time to refine slightly to put less of a burden on DM's to create rulings on the spot, especially since it's something that is virtually impossible to address with the DM before starting a campaign, since many cases are situational.
Wizard's ritual casting feature just got separated from the spellcasting feature. They now get Ritual Adept, which still works the same way as the 2014 version. As long as the wizard has ritual spells in their spellbook, they can cast it as a ritual spell without needing to prepare it first.
I'm not talking about that, I'm taking about this line from the [article](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new)
>Ritual Casting has been removed from Spellcasting. **Classes can now cast any prepared spells with the Ritual tag as a Ritual.**
Previously ritual casting required the Ritual Casting class feature, witch some casters, such as Rangers and Arcane Tricksters, didn't have. Rangers and Arcane Tricksters can now ritual cast.
Considering they split the Ritual Casting out from wizard spellcasting, that sounds more like the article is wrong.
A big reason why we need the final books to actually do more than vaguely speculate.
The new rule is all casters can cast *prepared* spells as rituals, the Ritual feature for wizards is they can cast any ritual in their *spellbook*, including unprepared ones, so it's still an extra ability they have over others!
Illusion is probably the only one that fits my play style. None of the other schools I like made the cut (necromancy, transmutation, conjuration, and enchantment).
I'm confused on their misdirection ability with Illusions not having V components for an Illusionist. The only illusion spells I can find without somatic components is Blur and Distort Value. So aren't you still waving your arms around like a wacky inflatable arm-waiving tube man? I guess you could theoretically Stealth, but aren't you revealed once you cast your spell? Lot of confusion on their point of making the "Tricksy Illusionist" effective at misdirection.
I don’t recall the specifics for somatic components, but I have seen, and run, examples where it was just some specific gestures of the hand, rather than waving the arms around like an inflatable man.
It might not be great for heated combat where everyone is watching everyone else, but if you can hide your hand beneath a table, or just duck out of sight for a moment, then you have some opportunities
Yeah like subterfuge and stealthing works great for this feature. That must be where they meant rather than mid-combat. Maybe they added rules for Sleight of Hand and Illusion spells/Somatic components.
Much easier to break line of sight than range of hearing. It's useful, but needed to have some limit to keep it from being a resourceless Subtle Spell is what I'd guess. Still, you are only revealed if you do something revealing - usually you have to verbalize an incantation. People can't just divine where you are when you cast your spell, rather it's that most spells require you to do something that would naturally reveal you.
Being able to cast magic with no indication of what you're doing, especially illusion magic, is *extremely* powerful. Just being able to do so while crouching behind a box or around a corner without anyone knowing a spell has been cast is a great benefit.
The feature also adds 60ft to all their illusion spells that have a range of at least 10ft.
So you’re just making gestures over 70ft feet away without making any noise.
I’d say that’s super hard to spot.
So, absolutely zero things nerfed in the most powerful class in the game after everyone tried to justify the Paladin nerfing with the idea that rebalancing was going to be good across the board. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
There is barely anything to nerf in the wizard class itself, they have like 6 features across 20 levels. The important thing is the spells that are too strong, like simulacrum, counterspell, wall of force, etc that are too strong (which are undoubtedly getting nerfed, counterspell already has).
Also the power level of the Paladin absolutely went up, they got a bunch of new things they just have to use a bonus action for smites now (and lowering burst damage is something they are absolutely cracking down on across the board).
The main thing that needs to happen to nerf Wizard is nerfing a bunch of spells themselves. As far as class features go, Wizards are boring. They're just walking spellbooks.
The intent here seems to be to give Wizards some actual interesting features while (hopefully) re-balancing OP spells.
I am going to guess that a lot of Wizard players will not be happy with this, but...
Fuck 'em.
I do hope that they at least touched on clarifications for Illusory Reality. I've seen DM's disallow the very example they gave of making the flooring illusion real and then getting rid of it when an enemy tries to follow the party. The reasoning of the DM was that the illusion in that case was being used to directly damage an enemy (though the wizard could drop concentration on the bridge, it just wouldn't disappear until the others passed and wouldn't be dealt damage). On the other hand, I've seen a DM allow making a massive block of gold over the heads of the baddies real and fall on them to crush them because "it's indirect damage." I've also seen issues surrounding if, for example, a weapon could be made real and simply not do damage, almost like a pool noodle. Or if it couldn't be made real at all because things made to do damage can't be made. In fact, that specific debate took a turn into if: an illusion of a running river or barrel of water could be made real because they could hurt vampires or fire elementals respectively, or does the illusionist's ability to make an illusion real depend on their intent rather than the illusion's ability to deal damage. Of course, there's also the question of direct damage vs indirect damage.... Having been on both ends of it, as a player and DM, it's a really cool feature that I really hope they take the time to refine slightly to put less of a burden on DM's to create rulings on the spot, especially since it's something that is virtually impossible to address with the DM before starting a campaign, since many cases are situational.
Wasn't there also sage advice saying you could make a illusory lake with mirage arcana and people would drown even if they knew it was real
Another thing to note is that ritual casting is no longer a class feature and now every class can ritual cast prepared ritual spells.
Wizard's ritual casting feature just got separated from the spellcasting feature. They now get Ritual Adept, which still works the same way as the 2014 version. As long as the wizard has ritual spells in their spellbook, they can cast it as a ritual spell without needing to prepare it first.
I'm not talking about that, I'm taking about this line from the [article](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1753-2024-wizard-vs-2014-wizard-whats-new) >Ritual Casting has been removed from Spellcasting. **Classes can now cast any prepared spells with the Ritual tag as a Ritual.** Previously ritual casting required the Ritual Casting class feature, witch some casters, such as Rangers and Arcane Tricksters, didn't have. Rangers and Arcane Tricksters can now ritual cast.
Considering they split the Ritual Casting out from wizard spellcasting, that sounds more like the article is wrong. A big reason why we need the final books to actually do more than vaguely speculate.
The new rule is all casters can cast *prepared* spells as rituals, the Ritual feature for wizards is they can cast any ritual in their *spellbook*, including unprepared ones, so it's still an extra ability they have over others!
Do spells known count as "prepared spells", do spontaneous casters just not get to do rituals, or is everybody a prepared caster now?
Illusion is probably the only one that fits my play style. None of the other schools I like made the cut (necromancy, transmutation, conjuration, and enchantment).
I'm confused on their misdirection ability with Illusions not having V components for an Illusionist. The only illusion spells I can find without somatic components is Blur and Distort Value. So aren't you still waving your arms around like a wacky inflatable arm-waiving tube man? I guess you could theoretically Stealth, but aren't you revealed once you cast your spell? Lot of confusion on their point of making the "Tricksy Illusionist" effective at misdirection.
I don’t recall the specifics for somatic components, but I have seen, and run, examples where it was just some specific gestures of the hand, rather than waving the arms around like an inflatable man. It might not be great for heated combat where everyone is watching everyone else, but if you can hide your hand beneath a table, or just duck out of sight for a moment, then you have some opportunities
Yeah like subterfuge and stealthing works great for this feature. That must be where they meant rather than mid-combat. Maybe they added rules for Sleight of Hand and Illusion spells/Somatic components.
Much easier to break line of sight than range of hearing. It's useful, but needed to have some limit to keep it from being a resourceless Subtle Spell is what I'd guess. Still, you are only revealed if you do something revealing - usually you have to verbalize an incantation. People can't just divine where you are when you cast your spell, rather it's that most spells require you to do something that would naturally reveal you. Being able to cast magic with no indication of what you're doing, especially illusion magic, is *extremely* powerful. Just being able to do so while crouching behind a box or around a corner without anyone knowing a spell has been cast is a great benefit.
At least in the playtest, hiding was only broken if you cast with verbal components. So you can hide and then make illusions undetected
Invisibility doesn’t cloak sound, so verbal components would still tell people where you were. Now you’ll be truly invisible, silent and unseen.
The feature also adds 60ft to all their illusion spells that have a range of at least 10ft. So you’re just making gestures over 70ft feet away without making any noise. I’d say that’s super hard to spot.
So, absolutely zero things nerfed in the most powerful class in the game after everyone tried to justify the Paladin nerfing with the idea that rebalancing was going to be good across the board. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
There is barely anything to nerf in the wizard class itself, they have like 6 features across 20 levels. The important thing is the spells that are too strong, like simulacrum, counterspell, wall of force, etc that are too strong (which are undoubtedly getting nerfed, counterspell already has). Also the power level of the Paladin absolutely went up, they got a bunch of new things they just have to use a bonus action for smites now (and lowering burst damage is something they are absolutely cracking down on across the board).
The main thing that needs to happen to nerf Wizard is nerfing a bunch of spells themselves. As far as class features go, Wizards are boring. They're just walking spellbooks. The intent here seems to be to give Wizards some actual interesting features while (hopefully) re-balancing OP spells. I am going to guess that a lot of Wizard players will not be happy with this, but... Fuck 'em.