2024 PHB Character Changes, Pt. 3
Did Someone Mention Spells? Sorcerer, Wizard, and Casting Heavy Warlocks
We looked at martials in Part 1 thr half casters and the melee warlock in Part 2, so why don’t we transition into full arcane casters in Part 3. Here are the character creation rules:
Characters get to use the following magic items:
Level 1-4: 1 Uncommon and 1 Common
Level 5-10: Up to 3 Rare & Uncommon combined, more common
Level 11-16: Up to 6 Very Rare, Rare, and Uncommon combined
Level 17-20: Up to 10 items of any rarity.
All characters get a custom background with an origin feat, two skills, and a tool of their choice along with allocating ability scores. No character could use the limited starting backgrounds printed in the book. Also, I want to keep characters who have fun backgrounds like “Self Described Goblin Noble” and “Tourist Trap Operator”
The restrictions of "Exotic" languages and table of more common languages don’t make sense for the Forgotten Realms, where these characters are from. In the Forgotten Realms, Halfling is a Rare language restricted to Halfling cluture, not one of the world’s more common languages. As someone who studied sociolinguistics in graduate school, it’s clear that a game designer thought of a d12 table instead of what makes sense for the worlds of WotC’s published adventures over the last 10 years.
Sorcerer
The "bloodlines" theming of sorcerers in the 2014 Player’s Handbook was a relative nonstarter for me as a player. I tried a divine soul sorcerer because I had a great roleplay idea but she reached a natural point to quit adventuring when a minute of Wild magic in an adventure made her shrink 2 inches, grow to Huge, shrink 3 more inches, lose all her hair, and be unable to drink.
Since then, 85 to 90 percent of the sorcerers I DM for have felt like a bit of an accounting trick to combine Metamagic with non-sorcerer abilities. Spamming eldritch blast with Quickened Spell is a favorite. Taking levels of paladin to quicken booming blade was popular for a while. There was also Treantmonk’s build of taking one level of Order Cleric for heavy armor proficiency and their ability to cast a spell on an ally and let that ally make an attack as a reaction.
My conclusion is that there were lots of players who looked at the narrowness of the sorcerer’s abilities and said “why not just play a wizard to get more options? Why play a full sorcerer?” Metamagic applied solely to sorcerer spells rarely provided enough incentive to the players I DMed for over the years.
WotC’s main answer to this question in the new Player’s Handbook is a feature called Innate Sorcery. For the cost of a bonus action, the spell save of all sorcerer spells goes up by 1 and all sorcerer spell attack rolls are made at advantage for the next minute. This can be used at least twice per day and more often at level 7 by spending spell slots.
In other words, WotC’s attempt to fix the “why play a sorcerer?” problem is to make the sorcerer better than any other arcane caster at doing the same thing. I hate this design approach. It is incredibly obvious when you sit down to play and one player is always rolling at advantage or the DM asks for their DC and it’s always higher than everyone else. A certain degree of envy creeps in. When I DM, one of the things I have to consider fairly carefully is to make sure the PCs are balanced relative to each other. I can adjust the challenge of the campaign to fit what players want. But I know that even long time friends may get frustrated if one character is much stronger than others.
Fianna Rothenel
Drow Divine Soul Sorcerer 8 / Knowledge Cleric 1
Fianna was a child in a minor noble house blessed with divine magic. She hid it for decades until going to the surface, when she blasted her squad leader with a guiding bolt and fled to freedom. She made it to a library, then spent 150 years translating every book in the library and becoming a cleric of Deneir, the god of literacy. When there were no more books to translate, she became an adventurer.
2014 PHB Rating: 6. I didn't want to use Quicken Spell, so I took Twinned Spell instead. Twinned guiding bolt, etc. Fianna had an early adventure helping an orphanage when a charity fundraiser went wrong, so spiritual weapon (as a donation box) also became a signature spell. In many ways, I feel like I spread myself too thin as a Divine Soul sorcerer. In other ways, Fianna felt incredibly basic with only the same staple spells every adventure. Spells like shield, misty step, fireball, and counterspell were pretty basic for wizards but only haste really took advantage of Metamagic.
A lot of Fianna’s flavor came from the level of Knowledge cleric. Two more languages helped develop her character and character flaw of always seeking books. The armor proficiency was incredibly helpful as well in higher combat convention games.
2024 PHB Rating: TBD. I have no idea how I will feel about a sorcerer today but switching to the Clockwork Soul feels like a good start. This subclass can no longer swap the bonus subclass spells but five of the spells on the list I really like and I could find a use for the other three.
Since Twinned Spell was rebalanced to be more in line with other options, I dropped it for Quickened Spell. Having more spell selections, bonus subclass spells, and dropping the few cleric spells I took from Divine Soul helps me feel like I’ve got a considerably deeper spell list now if I’ve got to use those same spells every adventure.
I still want Cleric for Medium armor. Getting rid of the powerful 1 level dips (Knowledge and Peace) is good for game balance, even though not choosing your domain until level 3 can hurt roleplay. Unfortunately, between not having the Knowledge cleric's additional languages at level 1 or the ability to choose only languages from my background, I'm going to need a brand new backstory too. With that in mind I switched Fianna from a drow to a dwarf, because the dwarf seemed much closer to a clockwork connection out of any PHB ancestries.
Future Character Ideas
I’d love to see if there’s a way to make a sorcerer / warlock who does more than spam eldritch blast with Quickened Spell. As far as sole class sorcerers, I need to play Fianna more in her new form first.
Warlock
Being a spellcasting-focused warlock was always a bit rough. You only got 2 spell slots per short rest until level 11. That meant a lot of what you did was spam eldritch blast. Even if eldritch blast was the best basic ranged attack at a d10 plus Charisma, spamming it could really feel repetitive. If your DM didn’t give short rests, it was a nightmare.
The casting warlock got a subtle downgrade in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Until this point, warlocks were the only 5th Edition spellcaster who could boos their spellcasting DC without a legendary magic item. The rod of the pact keeper felt like a reasonable tradeoff: warlocks get so few spell slots and so few spells, so they should be able to get a higher spellcasting DC than anyone else. When Tasha’s added magic items to give every class a unique DC boost, the casting warlock lost one of its biggest advantages and largely disappeared except for a few unique builds.
In some ways, it feels like the 2024 Player’s Handbook slants warlocks even further towards being bladelocks or only using warlock as part of a multiclass. The Pact of the Tome only gets one unique invocation, the very useful Gift of the Protectors. All the other new tools for the warlock are equally or more useful for the bladelock. While the monk can get all their Focus points back once per day at second level, the warlock only gets half their spell slots, rounded up, and it takes a minute to do so. From the critical levels 1-10 the casting warlock only gets one spell slot back, not both.
The revised Archfey is a bit more suited for bladelocks now with their misty steps, and the fiend was always more blade-centric, while the weaker subclasses in the PHB are more caster focused. Tasha’s offered two good subclasses for caster warlocks, the Fathomless and Genie. A home game DM should let these classes get their domain spells for free to conform to 2024 PHB design, but that’s not allowed for convention gaming.
Jillian Sunmeadow
Half-Elf Celestial Warlock 9 / Peace Cleric 1
Jillian was, like, forced to work and fend for herself in Waterdeep at 15. She had to clean poop which was totally gross. However, her cunning proved far more useful to the Dungsweeper's Guild than her scooping, so she quickly became a negotiator for the politically connected guild. Along the way, a solar took pity on her having to work all day to eek out a living and offered her a warlock deal. Now she believes in the power of love, mainly platonic love. As an adventurer, she's a ditzy tourist and bit of a Valley Girl to explain why she's always going from one shot to one shot in different parts of the world.
2014 PHB Rating: 6. Life as a caster warlock is rough. Some one shots don't give short rests. Spamming Eldritch Blast all day gets boring. Jillian can offer a few big spells and the Peace cleric’s bond to boost allies. Jillian is there for more comedic one shots. Since they are often more skill focused, she took Skilled as a starting feat and is a bit of a backup skill monkey with 10 skill proficiencies (4 baseline, 2 from half-elf, 1 from Peace cleric, 3 from Skilled). One of the things I liked to do was collect all kinds of rituals for her Book of Many Secrets invocation.
2024 PHB Rating: 5? I'm glad the 1 level dip of Peace Cleric was removed. In an ideal world, I would make Jillian a Human and take an improved Linguist feat, similar to Musician, but giving languages instead of tools. For some bizarre reason, Linguist was the only PHB Feat WotC didn't update, so I'm stuck with instruments and fewer languages known along with Alert. We're taking Devil's Sight as a Human to replace the Book of Ancient Secrets. I get 2 more invocations since casting polymorph via invocation was removed, so let's take Eldritch Mind for advantage on concentration and Lessons of the First Ones to learn Tough.
Additionally, I am going to make Jillian's more sinister half into a new fiend warlock. She will be a high elf with her first level in Fighter for proficiency in Constitution saving throws while maintaining armor proficiency. Along with Pact of the Blade, she takes Thirsting Blade (obviously), Lifedrinker, Eldritch Mind, Lessons of the First Ones twice to learn Tough and Skilled, and Otherworldly Leap for movement. I'm going to try Elven Accuracy along with a magic item that lets me misty step at will and then make my first attack at advantage as long as I am in dim light or darkness. Not needing 13 Wisdom for Cleric let me take Elven Accuracy. Spells are more oriented to melee self buffs. Like I said, warlocks from the 2024 PHB feel much more slanted to being bladelocks.
Other Character Ideas
Both the Fathomless and Genie are interesting. If they get the modification I suggested, they could be fun for the same type of game I use Jillian for.
Wizard
Wizards are probably the class that changes the least of any in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Wizards had the fewest number of class features in the 2014 PHB because they get such a large spell selection and that’s still the case. The main thing they get is an Expertise slot. This makes some sense because as much as a wizard’s spells should be an alternative to using skills to resolve some exploration challenges, few exploration challenges in published adventures are written that way. There’s also a somewhat excessive tendency to have Arcana checks in lieu of a more balanced range of checks, so the new Scholar feature lets a wizard shine here.
Erky Oneshoe
Forest Gnome Knowledge Cleric 1 / Divination Wizard 15
Erky was orphaned at an early age after a clueless giant accidentally stepped on the rest of his family and squished them. Yeah, some of my early characters had tragic backstories, but I didn’t play this for tragedy at all or talk about it. Instead, this was just an excuse to play a character with few ties to other people in the world because I wasn’t ready for that and DMs weren’t interested in fostering NPCs into local game store games.
Clerics of Mystra found Erky scrounging through their trash, recognized his potential as a wizard, and sponsored him for wizard’s school. Before attending, he decided to undertake basic clerical training to thank the clerics who plucked him off the street. As Erky went on adventures, he found himself on some of the deadliest, most consequential, and most lucrative adventures available. He started to buy trinkets to put in his bag of holding to distribute them to all the orphans in the new town he traveled to, while wearing armor that was surrounded by illusory snowflakes.
2014 PHB Rating: 9. There isn’t a whole lot about being a wizard that has to be explained. With many subclasses, one wizard is kind of similar to each other in a way that other classes aren’t. I chose Diviner as a subclass early on because I didn’t know what I wanted and the evoker’s signature subclass feature didn’t do much at level 2 when I had no area of effect evocation spells. I tried evoker a bit when I had lots of AoE spells to choose from and sure there was some power but it didn’t add a whole lot to the experience except for nuking all the enemies with dawn while excluding the party.
Erky eventually got rich enough to be able to buy and then scribe any spell of 5th leel or lower I wanted. I don’t use his Arcane Grimoire +3 because a spell save DC of 19 is plenty while 22 for a wizard is overkill. These DC boosting items have made high level DMing at conventions considerably harder in a way that belts of fire giant strength never did because 1 spell can fully incapacitate an NPC while fire giant belts just lead to damage.
The level of Cleric was essential for Erky. He got Expertise in Arcana and Religion and often played adventures where that outstanding ability with Arcana was more important than any spell. Medium armor and a shield gave Erky 18 AC plus the shield spell early on if needed and eventually a 25 with magic armor, shield, and a staff of power. Plus I could upcast bless. Between all of these options and Tough plus a blessing of Vitality to be durable, Erky could do a lot.
If I could play more adventures with a range of exploration and combat to use his deep spell list, he’d be a 10 instead of a 9 for enjoyment. I like being able to know lots of spells as a wizard and swap out what will be most useful for the adventuring day, which tends to work better in home games with a wider range of challenges.
2024 PHB Rating: 8.5. I’m going back to diviner for Erky. The few adventures as an evoker gave a bit of power but didn’t feel right. At this level, with this much gold in the bank, the basic operation of casting spells doesn’t change much. The revised Divination Savant is great when starting from level 3. I have an abjurer in my home game. But I’m not going to go through the trouble of bookkeeping for Erky at this level.
Erky loses 2 spell preparations, as all high level prepared spellcasters from 2014 (wizard, cleric, druid) lose spell preps at higher levels. The 2024 PHB lets wizards prepare more spells than the cleric or druid at these levels—a slap in the face of those classes—but even the wizard is penalized!
The biggest change to Erky comes away from spellcasting. He loses one of his Expertise slots from Knowledge cleric, getting the other from the Scholar feature. War Caster being a half feat means he can take Keen Mind as well to maintain Expertise in Religion as well. More importantly, because the Knowledge cleric gave two skill proficiencies, Erky has to sacrifice both Perception and Insight to keep his Intelligence skills. This might backfire spectacularly…I need to see if I ca use extensive downtime to train in Perception.
Now Erky is beyond exceptional at those adventures where someone has to make an Arcana check to stop the evil ritual. He’s got +18 and can make those checks as a bonus action along with casting a spell as normal. If Erky does a generic combat heavy adventure, he’s essentially the same character, as he won’t notice the fewer spell preps too much. In a home game where anything could happen and depth of abilities matters more, Erky and other wizards may feel a bit worse for me without the right setup.
Other Character Ideas
Somehow, despite not being a major fan of wizards, I have played them more than anyone else in my home game over the last 5 1/2 years. As a group, we’ve seen every class played by multiple people except monk and sorcerer. I’m the only one who has played wizard twice. My first was a bladesinger, which plays very differently than other wizards. I’ve also got an abjurer who started with one level of fighter for the heavy armor, concentration, and because wizardry was forbidden in his dwarven homeland.