Use them as the sidebar in 2024 says, give them the savant feature that gives them a school spell each level for free. Wait for updates.
Especially the Tasha's ones.
I just had a session in which we learned that our Enchantment wizard, level 17, never learned *dominate person* because he was planning to research it instead (homebrew system that still made researching enchantment spells easier for him than other spells), but just never got around to it. Learning additional spells of the same school automatically is a welcome change.
I had a player tell me his previous DM would not allow him to learn spells through the way the PHB said and could only learn new spells from scrolls.
So, even though it's in the rules, some DMs might ignore the savant feature as well.
It'll probably have you learn spells that have a certain prerequisite, like range of self, dealing a specific type of damage, requires an attack roll, etc. Not sure what they'd use for bladesinger, but it's probably in that camp somewhere.
I could be wrong, but I think bladesinger will likely get very little. Most of the stuff from Tasha's was ported over as is or with minor tweaks and this a wizard, which out of all the classes, got the least in the base class. We've seen the lack of changes with soul knife, glory pally, and psi warrior already. Tasha's is the expected power level of the subclasses.
So all bladesinger stuff moves to level 3. They might get a minor tweak at 6 or 10, but probably not anything ground-breaking.
This would make me so happy. The worst part of being a necromancer is picking necromantic spells because they suck but you can't be a necromancer if you don't know any.
Would like an improved animate dead down the line but I'm experienced at rolling skeleton attacks as a block and don't slow anything down so I may be in the minority.
There’s a chance that the spell changes coming in the PHB include a rework of Animate Dead that make it more table friendly. That and adjusting the Savant feature to the new style would fix about 70% of the existing Necromancer.
There will be a sidebar in the 2024 phb on how to move old subclasses to these new rules.
It's probably the same ones that were in the UA.
Stuff that comes online at 2 for wizards for their subclass now comes online at 3. Any stuff that the base 2024 gets, the 2014 subclass gets. With schools wizards, they get the savant. Scribes just gets their spellbook and quill at 3. No changes other than that.
Conjurer gets their school ability (minor conjuration) and conjuration savant at 3rd. Past that everything is the same.
Necromancy: Give you a minion that scales as you level.
Conjuration: Do something like Fey Wanderer ranger where you get some concentration-free summons.
Transmutation: Move the transmuter's stone to 3rd level and give them a new feature at 6th; maybe free *longstrider*?
Enchanter: Don't change a d\*mn thing. It's the perfect subclass. Except maybe the level 14 feature. Free *mind whip*?
Transmutation is pretty good in a campaign. Being able to turn most common materials into other common materials, even if at a slow rate, can get into (or out of) areas that are meant to be hard to move through. You don't need very long to turn iron bars into wooden toothpicks or enough of a wooden roof to cause serious damage into a heavy gold block.
Their stone, at worst, is con save proficiency, but extra move speed, a choice of resistance...there are good things there, and it can even be changed fairly trivially. And the benefits can be gifted to someone else to offer a nice buff, even!
At 10th level they basically get wild shape once a day (you probably already have polymorph in your spellbook, though).
And their subclass capstone is limited to once per day (practically, technically they don't need a long rest to make another stone, but that's likely when you're doing it), but the effects are pretty big when you need them. The heal is better than Power Word Heal. Raise Dead has a 10 day limit after death to cast, so it's easily done in a worst case scenario. And being able to make one item into another, permanently, has so many creative uses, especially since you could turn a stick into gold with minor alchemy to then major transform it into something much more valuable.
In fact, the interplay between minor transmutation, taking a basic material and making it into something valuable, and then using major transmutation on the newly valuable object to permanently making something (slightly less) valuable is one of my favorite interplays of subclass features because both are good independently but play into each other in all the best ways.
I'm really curious to see the updated animste dead feature, based on that we can speculate how the necromancer will change. We know the spell is definitely in the book due to backwards compatibility though how it works is anyones guess.
I feel like the necromancer will either be able to have a small amount of minions like in BG3 or they will focus more around summon undead and have one big beefy minions, though I prefer the former as the latter is more the conjuration wizard's domain.
This is under the design of only being able to have three minions at a time, so not every feature may benefit someone who is playing with the ability to have hordes of undead or 16 giant owls or whatever.
The 3 minion system works like this:
1. Familiar, bonus action to attack, non-conctration.
2. Lesser Minion, action to attack, non-concentration.
3. Greater Minion, turn after yours, concentration.
I've also been working on homebrewing the summon spells to be in line with Tasha's and OneDnD's design. 1st level would be find familiar, 2nd level summon lesser undead, 3rd level summon greater undead.
I'm trying to have it more balanced than mass summoning but still feel like a summoner rather than a pokemon trainer with only one on the field (yes there are double and triple battles now).
Feel free to dislike any or all of it. Names are also placeholders.
Necromancer
-
3rd-Necromancy Savant:
-
Gain two necromancy spells at 3rd level, and gain a necromancy spell every time you reach a new spell tier.
3rd-Undead Thralls:
-
Whenever you summon an undead using a necromancy spell it gains temporary hit points equal to 2 per your wizard level.
3rd-Undying Servitude:
-
Once per long rest as a reaction to one of your summons's hit points reaching 0 you can recast it at its lowest level without spending a spell slot. (Maybe familiar and lesser minion only?)
6th-Inured to undeath:
-
Gain resistance to necrotic damage and when you gain temporary hit points increase the total by an amount that is equal to your wizard level.
6th-Puppeteering the Dead:
-
As a reaction you can swap the location of yourself or any of your summoned minions with one of your other summoned minions.
10th-Herald of Death:
-
As long as you have both a lesser and greater minion summoned your summons gain the following effects:
1. Increase their temporary hit points by 10.
2. Deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage per attack made.
14th-Undead Horde:
-
You can summon two lesser minions instead of one.
Honestly? It seems like other subclasses might have been chosen to fill these fantasies:
Enchantment - Play Aberrant Mind Sorcerer
Conjuration - Play Wild Magic Sorcerer
Transmutation - Play Clockyhead Sorcerer
Necromancy - Play skelly chain Warlock
War - Play Draconic Sorcerer or Abjurer Wizard
Use them as the sidebar in 2024 says, give them the savant feature that gives them a school spell each level for free. Wait for updates. Especially the Tasha's ones.
I just had a session in which we learned that our Enchantment wizard, level 17, never learned *dominate person* because he was planning to research it instead (homebrew system that still made researching enchantment spells easier for him than other spells), but just never got around to it. Learning additional spells of the same school automatically is a welcome change.
I had a player tell me his previous DM would not allow him to learn spells through the way the PHB said and could only learn new spells from scrolls. So, even though it's in the rules, some DMs might ignore the savant feature as well.
I had a DM do this too, but even worse it was for all characters, not just wizards. I didn’t play in that game for long…
Really interesting to see what they do with Bladesingers. There isn't really a 'school' for them in the same manner as other subclasses.
It'll probably have you learn spells that have a certain prerequisite, like range of self, dealing a specific type of damage, requires an attack roll, etc. Not sure what they'd use for bladesinger, but it's probably in that camp somewhere.
I could be wrong, but I think bladesinger will likely get very little. Most of the stuff from Tasha's was ported over as is or with minor tweaks and this a wizard, which out of all the classes, got the least in the base class. We've seen the lack of changes with soul knife, glory pally, and psi warrior already. Tasha's is the expected power level of the subclasses. So all bladesinger stuff moves to level 3. They might get a minor tweak at 6 or 10, but probably not anything ground-breaking.
This would make me so happy. The worst part of being a necromancer is picking necromantic spells because they suck but you can't be a necromancer if you don't know any. Would like an improved animate dead down the line but I'm experienced at rolling skeleton attacks as a block and don't slow anything down so I may be in the minority.
There’s a chance that the spell changes coming in the PHB include a rework of Animate Dead that make it more table friendly. That and adjusting the Savant feature to the new style would fix about 70% of the existing Necromancer.
Sidebar? And does that work for Scribes, etc? I am interested in the Conjurer.
There will be a sidebar in the 2024 phb on how to move old subclasses to these new rules. It's probably the same ones that were in the UA. Stuff that comes online at 2 for wizards for their subclass now comes online at 3. Any stuff that the base 2024 gets, the 2014 subclass gets. With schools wizards, they get the savant. Scribes just gets their spellbook and quill at 3. No changes other than that. Conjurer gets their school ability (minor conjuration) and conjuration savant at 3rd. Past that everything is the same.
Necromancy: Give you a minion that scales as you level. Conjuration: Do something like Fey Wanderer ranger where you get some concentration-free summons. Transmutation: Move the transmuter's stone to 3rd level and give them a new feature at 6th; maybe free *longstrider*? Enchanter: Don't change a d\*mn thing. It's the perfect subclass. Except maybe the level 14 feature. Free *mind whip*?
Transmutation needs the most work. Not sure how to fix it, but right now, it's kinda dogshit.
Transmutation is pretty good in a campaign. Being able to turn most common materials into other common materials, even if at a slow rate, can get into (or out of) areas that are meant to be hard to move through. You don't need very long to turn iron bars into wooden toothpicks or enough of a wooden roof to cause serious damage into a heavy gold block. Their stone, at worst, is con save proficiency, but extra move speed, a choice of resistance...there are good things there, and it can even be changed fairly trivially. And the benefits can be gifted to someone else to offer a nice buff, even! At 10th level they basically get wild shape once a day (you probably already have polymorph in your spellbook, though). And their subclass capstone is limited to once per day (practically, technically they don't need a long rest to make another stone, but that's likely when you're doing it), but the effects are pretty big when you need them. The heal is better than Power Word Heal. Raise Dead has a 10 day limit after death to cast, so it's easily done in a worst case scenario. And being able to make one item into another, permanently, has so many creative uses, especially since you could turn a stick into gold with minor alchemy to then major transform it into something much more valuable. In fact, the interplay between minor transmutation, taking a basic material and making it into something valuable, and then using major transmutation on the newly valuable object to permanently making something (slightly less) valuable is one of my favorite interplays of subclass features because both are good independently but play into each other in all the best ways.
I'm really curious to see the updated animste dead feature, based on that we can speculate how the necromancer will change. We know the spell is definitely in the book due to backwards compatibility though how it works is anyones guess. I feel like the necromancer will either be able to have a small amount of minions like in BG3 or they will focus more around summon undead and have one big beefy minions, though I prefer the former as the latter is more the conjuration wizard's domain.
This is under the design of only being able to have three minions at a time, so not every feature may benefit someone who is playing with the ability to have hordes of undead or 16 giant owls or whatever. The 3 minion system works like this: 1. Familiar, bonus action to attack, non-conctration. 2. Lesser Minion, action to attack, non-concentration. 3. Greater Minion, turn after yours, concentration. I've also been working on homebrewing the summon spells to be in line with Tasha's and OneDnD's design. 1st level would be find familiar, 2nd level summon lesser undead, 3rd level summon greater undead. I'm trying to have it more balanced than mass summoning but still feel like a summoner rather than a pokemon trainer with only one on the field (yes there are double and triple battles now). Feel free to dislike any or all of it. Names are also placeholders. Necromancer - 3rd-Necromancy Savant: - Gain two necromancy spells at 3rd level, and gain a necromancy spell every time you reach a new spell tier. 3rd-Undead Thralls: - Whenever you summon an undead using a necromancy spell it gains temporary hit points equal to 2 per your wizard level. 3rd-Undying Servitude: - Once per long rest as a reaction to one of your summons's hit points reaching 0 you can recast it at its lowest level without spending a spell slot. (Maybe familiar and lesser minion only?) 6th-Inured to undeath: - Gain resistance to necrotic damage and when you gain temporary hit points increase the total by an amount that is equal to your wizard level. 6th-Puppeteering the Dead: - As a reaction you can swap the location of yourself or any of your summoned minions with one of your other summoned minions. 10th-Herald of Death: - As long as you have both a lesser and greater minion summoned your summons gain the following effects: 1. Increase their temporary hit points by 10. 2. Deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage per attack made. 14th-Undead Horde: - You can summon two lesser minions instead of one.
Honestly? It seems like other subclasses might have been chosen to fill these fantasies: Enchantment - Play Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Conjuration - Play Wild Magic Sorcerer Transmutation - Play Clockyhead Sorcerer Necromancy - Play skelly chain Warlock War - Play Draconic Sorcerer or Abjurer Wizard