"I cast Cloudkill" "Oh these creatures are immune to poison dama-" "It deals bludgeoning damage" *watching enemies being smothered in solid fog* this is fine

When I saw it my first thought was "this is the quintessential wizard". the most wizard of wizards. this guy needs his own tower kind of wizard

“I’ve been searching 5 years for a use for Witch Bolt and I finally found one” lol

Take persuasion with this wizard, and convince your local wizard peers to let you borrow their spellbook under their supervision, even if just for a couple minutes. You'll have all the spells you've been looking for in no time.

Power level aside, the flavour alone makes me want to play this. "Hold on, lemme write that down" *conjures quill*

"They develop a special relationship with their books, in a magical way." That's one heck of an innuendo, haha.

A few good singleton spells that vary up damage types greatly on their own: 1: Absorb Elements 2: Dragon's Breath 3: Glyph of Warding 4: Elemental Bane 7: Prismatic Spray 9: Prismatic Wall Additionally, some valuable damage types here: Radiant: 3: Spirit Shroud 4: Sickening Radiance 5: Dawn 6: Sunbeam 7: Crown of Stars 8: Sunburst Force: 1: Magic Missile 5: Bigby's Hand 6: Disintegrate 7: Mordenkainen's Sword 9: Blade of Disaster

I've always disliked Wizard subclasses being specialization schools, because I feel like the entire purpose of the Wizard is versatility and specializing in one school is the exact opposite of that. I really like how the newer subclasses (War Magic, Bladesinging, Scribes) seem to increase your general versatility in different ways, rather than trying to limit that versatility by focusing on one type of fighting style.

You left out one thing with the Awakened Mind: If your character doesn't have darkvision, you gain it by manifesting your awakened mind - you can use it's darkvision to see, literally all night.

One thing I didn't see mentioned was the final effect of Awakened Spellbook. You can turn any other spellbook you are attuned to or blank book into your awakened spellbook. If you do so, it becomes your new awakened spellbook and brings ALL YOUR SPELLS WITH IT. You never have to worry about your spellbook being lost or destroyed again. That most stereotypical way to screw over a wizard is entirely vanquished with just the need for a blank book. Even the Chronurgist has to fear the destruction of their spellbook. But the Scribe just laughs. And If you find a magic spellbook like one of the new ones in Tashas or the Tome of the Stilled tongue, you don't have to spend time and gold transcribing all your spells into it at all. Hell, it's even better for the Tashas spellbooks. Because if you find one, you can attune to it, turn it into your spellbook to transfer all your spells to it, and then if you then transfer it to a different book you bring all the spells the book contained automatically with you as well.

This class was obviously meant to have a Thicc spell list. Opening up psychic, slashing, & bludgeoning damage for choice AOE spells is extremely good.

When I play this class I’m definitely picking a race with a lot of weapon proficiencies (elf or dwarf for example) and use the custom origin rules to switch those to proficiency with forgery, calligraphy, painting (which I assume covers drawing also), and cartography. Anything involving putting a pen to paper, I’m a master of it.

Point of note: Chromatic Orb is a 1st level spell that names 8 kinds of damage. If you have that in your spellbook, any spell you cast with a 1st level slot can choose from at least those 8 damage types. That's incredible versatility.

Scribes wizard teamed up with a monster hunter ranger so you always know what will hurt the most.

I really love the flavor of this subclass. My idea for a character would be a wizard apprentice whose master was cursed to turn into the magical spellbook and quill, the curse only being broken when the book is filled with every wizard spell in existence. I think I'd also flavor the ability to change the damage type on spells as more of the apprentice messing up while casting the spell

Taking Glyph of Warding and Fireball means you could most likely have the right damage type for any fireball you cast

A possibly more unusual thing Scribe Wizards can do with their Manifest Mind power, is get good use out of the thunderclap cantrip, which only has a five foot range from you, so isn't usually something you want as a wizard, but when you're able to do it from safety it's potentially really good! I'm sure there's other spells that you usually don't want to be that close to cast, but that was the obvious one that jumped out at me, at 6th level.

This is the subclass flavor-wise that I've been wanting. My only hope is that the conjured quill could also be used to write anything at ×60 normal speed. Just imagining the nerdiest nerd transcribing lessons with a magic quill that writes at the speed of sound makes me unnaturally happy

I actually think you missed something. I didn't remember hearing you say anything about the spellbook replacement ability to move all your spells into another spellbook for free at the end of a rest. This is exceptionally strong if you are put in situations where your book is stolen or destroyed, or if you find one of the tashas magic item spellbooks, allowing you to add all of you spells to it.

What I did not realise innitially, is that the damage swap of awakened spellbook works with any spell in your spellbook not just prepared spells. No need to prepare subpar spells in order to change damage types. This not only makes your prepared spells much more versatile but also makes finding subpar spells like wall of light much more rewarding. Because even though I will never use it, now all my lvl 5 spells can do radiant damage, which is a damage type that is hard to get as a wizard.

Something else really cool about the book used as a scout. If you have both a familiar _and_ the book out, there's nothing stopping you from scouting two different locations at the same time. For example, you are in the woods running from a group of enemies and come upon a shack that you could use to your advantage to face the enemy. So you send your familiar 100ft into the air to observe the approaching enemies, while your friendly Rogue picks the lock on the window and lets your book goes in with the Rogue to act as an extra set of eyes _and_ support if they enter and ambush.

I absolutely love this arcane tradition. I have been looking forward for a generalist wizard for years, and this is the one. Also, I think you forgot one essential, if maybe more flavour-heavy feature of the Awakened spellbook: You can replace lost/stolen/destroyed spellbook, without virtually any effort or penalty. No longer can you be crippled or disarmed by thieves or too much fire!

Recently my Evoker wizard had a "religious" experience with a god of magic (divination specifically). Then he in the next adventure he rolled a 1 on a save against a banshee. So as I'm rolling up my new character I made a .... *cough*monk*cough*....moving on...my DM had a vignette where I described what my wizard is doing and being asked by a servant of my deity if he'd be willing to return. So my wizard is coming back. I toyed with the idea of returning as a diviner, even watched the guide on it, but realized that I still need to do dps and as much fun as I think I'd have with that I decided to stick with evoker. Then I got Tasha's this subclass fits so well with what I was trying to do, from his version of heaven (doing spell research in a giant celestial library) to the swapping out of damage which he did in other editions. I'm planning on coming back as an order of scribes.

I can see your points. But I don't think most games track things like transcription times. Honestly, most DMs don't understand wizards very well, and hand wave many details. So while I see that you're correct, I don't think it's real for the VAST majority of tables. Likewise with the awakened book, the benefits are real... with a smart DM and table. That eliminates 90% of DMs and 90% of tables. It's hard enough to get a single person at a table to see that a familiar is more than a Help action. The book mechanics are simply never going to be real for most tables. This is a detail oriented subclass that yields its benefits to a real strategist. It's competing with Evoker and Abjurer, which are far easier to make good use of.

When the spell book is destroyed or lost you can just create a new one with all the original spells it had already written on it! THAT'S INSANE!!!

Detect magic can be really good in like social/ niche scenarios. But the 10 minute ritual cast stops it and no one preparing it.

Even if you got no extra spells for your spellbook, that last ability could be really good, sometimes you just need to survive, and this blocks any amount of damage. That could be something that would kill you outright, and now it does nothing. That's worth it even if you lose spells you use.

The balance of this will be significantly different in a gritty rest rules game. The 1 week long rest provides significant opportunities to transcribe books, but the scroll scribing will be fantastic for extending the # of spells through additional scrolls. Still pretty potent!

I literally bought TCoE for this subclass. The flavor spoke to me and there is so much versatility and roleplay potential. Also, think of all the ways this could be applied. Espionage, assassination, being a nerd, being that ritual caster. It's sooo good.

I must say that casting a well placed counterspell through the Manifest Mind feature can be very effective. In our game, I was actually able to shot down an enemy spellcaster by blasting him from afar as to be out of his range while preventing him from ever using a single spell.

I've noticed you neglected to mention that Manifested Mind is highly visible and cannot use Stealth. Meaning, it is getting discovered 100% when scouting. Meaning, if your enemies are not mindless, they are realizing that they're being obseved, or, at the very least, that there's something fishy afoot. Meaning, in turn, that they'll be on their guard. They can also follow the Mind back to the caster. So many ways it can go wrong.

Post your best ideas for what the Awakened Mind of your spellbook can be skinned as! I'm picking Treantmonk's face.

Changing the damage type of Animate Objects sounds pretty powerful to me. The vampire's immune? Not anymore.

Thank you! I was looking this over and thought this is the wizard class I want to play. Then I saw comments and videos on how terrible it was.. couldn't believe it. With the way our DM's run games downtime is at a minimum. Being able to add spells into a spell book nearly on the fly is a game changer for our group.

I dig the rework of the One with the Word ability. Previously in UA it was something along the lines of "If you die, you can wipe out 3d6 spells of levels worth *permanently*" and that just sucks to have as a capstone ability of a subclass. Also, Manifest Mind does not require concentration!

Also, you didn't mention it, but the "ribbon" ability at the end of Awakened Spellbook is also pretty fantastic if you're in a survival setting, or your DM loves messing with your spellbook. ANY other wizard, if your spellbook gets destroyed and you didn't spend hefty amounts of gold and time to make a copy, you are back to square one. The scribe just gets one short rest and ALL your spells are back, and you can put all of your spells in any magical spellbook you find for absolutely free as well!

The awakened spellbook feature is a bit better than talked about in this video. The second bullet talks about damage types, but you seem to focus only on using it offensively. “When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spell- book, which magically alters the spell's formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.” It mentions changing damage types of spells, but doesn’t limit the feature to spells that just deal damage. It can be used to change around resistances and potentially immunity. A decent example would be the Intellect Fortress spell. You cast it and keep all the bonuses for mental saves, but you can switch around the resistance to make it much more useful and versatile. Casting it at level 3 means protection from energy is available, amongst other spells. If you upcast it to level 4 or 5, you can switch around damage types AND still target multiple allies. Some of the crappy “investiture” spells become quite good.

The time reduction thing is very campaign dependant... At my table I rarely find any scrolls at all.. But I have plenty of time to tansfer spells over if I did find any scrolls.. A real benefit would've been to greatly reduce cost.. because wizards are probably the most money hungry class in the game... Time is easy to come by most of the time.

The stuff you mentioned doing with manifest mind reminds me of Zee Bashew's videos on the Technomancy Wizard and the gnome backpack wizard. Wizards are damn scary if they can attack you from where you can't fight back.

What occurred to me with the level 14 ability: Insta-death on 0 hp effects (disintegrate, for example) or death by massive damage? Just outright give this the finger. Losing up to 18 spell levels for up to 6 days might hurt... but it'll hurt less than being a pile of ashes. And that's the worst case scenario. Losing an average of 11 spell levels for half a week can easily be worth not needing to make a particularly rough concentration check. It's situational, but if that situation DOES come up it can literally be the difference between retired character and being 100% a-okay. Portent is also situational yet it's often considered to be a top-tier ability. No other wizard feature can outright negate enough damage to reduce your wizard to the consistency chunky salsa or a pile of ash. My take is Scribes is a lot of situational abilities. If those situations never come up it's not going to be very good. If they're a common feature in your games? Awesome. I'd say a typical game these are common enough situations to make for an effective character. It's certainly less situational than, say, necromancy. Skeleton minions are GREAT at messing with action economy or locking down an enemy, but then you need to make sure and avoid cheesing off anyone that has issues with undead. Might annoy the crap out of the DM, too. And I say this as someone that found playing a necromancer to be an absolute blast. Sure equipping my skeletons and keeping them adequately disguised ate a chunk of character wealth. But wizards really aren't that money hungry so long as they're picking the spells they'll most use on level up.

I think this is another case of your 'ignore UA' policy being a good one. My understanding is that the printed scribe is significantly weaker than UA version, and peoole are seeing that nerf rather than how good the final version is in its own right.

The main selling point for the order of the scribes is the level 6 feature Manifest Mind. It's a great feature. An improved version of the the find familiar spell. The question becomes: Am I willing to sacrifice another wizard subclass for an improved version of find familiar? And you have to wait 6 levels also. For me the answer is no.

I think it's hard to rank because outside of Manifest Mind I think Order of Scribes would still be pretty close to bottom tier. - Wizardly Quill: Makes the damage swap and capstone abilities not terrible, but not much else. You can have all the spells in the world, but you're still probably preparing the same spells as any other wizard 99% of the time. And as others have noted money will often be a bigger limiting factor than time anyhow. - Awakened Spellbook: Damage swap will be nice when you need it, but damage isn't the main concern of a god wizard, and whether or not it comes up is situational and a bit DM dependent. I do like that it means you can consider preparing spells that are often dismissed for having commonly resisted damage types. Unseen Servant as an action without a spell slot is really cool, but the ritual spells aren't very useful in combat and outside of the combat, I don't think x minutes vs x+10 minutes will often be a big deal. As a DM it's certainly a distinction I would rarely make. - Master Scrivener: It's not very versatile since you have to know what spell you want at the beginning of the day. To get maximum benefit you'd want that one spell to last all day, but not many 8 hour 1st or 2nd level spells benefit from upcasting. If the best use you have for it is to remove the mage armor tax, that seems meh at 10th level. Also the other parts are meh. - One With the Word: For preventing damage in combat it's strictly worse than the Illusionist's level 10 ability, which also recharges after every short rest. The only additional benefit is out of combat/non-attack based damage emergencies. Pretty bad for a 14th level capstone. (edit: I forgot the Illusionist ability only works on attack rolls, and this will prevent damage from spells with saves as well. You'll still get way fewer uses out of the OoS feature). With those abilities I think I would take every wizard subclass except transmuter over OoS, certainly for a combat heavy campaign. But I skipped over Manifest Mind, and good grief the more I think about it the more bonkers it seems. And it's not just good it's _terrifying_. Imagine sitting around a camp fire when a glowing orb appears and drifts slowly toward you through the trees unleashing fire and brimstone on your party. The lack of stealth and slow movement limits shenanigans somewhat, but even just being able to cast spells from around a corner without exposing yourself is great, not to mention all the utility where stealth doesn't matter. It doesn't sound like Manifest Mind + Black Blade would work RAW by itself unless you can also see the targets, but add a familiar and look through it's senses for the Black Blade attacks (which take a bonus action so the action to see through the familiar doesn't interfere), and you have something. I don't have Tasha's yet, so I may be getting something wrong, but I really hope I get to have the BBEG terrorize the land through his Squirrel familiar. Wherever it ranks thought, I think OoS sounds very fun. I've been working on a SWAT team coordinator style character concept that uses divination and messaging spells to coordinate raids, and I had been going back and forth between Diviner/Chronurgist and Illusionist for that character, but I think OoS is even better. You can have Arcane Eye, a familiar, and Manifest Mind all up at once covering different locations and bounce back and forth between them, while using telepathic bond (cast as an action without using a spell slot). It does seem like there will be a lot of rules questions that come up with a OoS character. Since objects don't go through it can it move objects? If yes, how heavy, can it be wrapped or covered to hide the glow?If no, does simply putting a cloth on top of it completely immobilize it? Can it be carried if it's in a container? What's the significance of it "sharing" what it sees vs you seeing through it? Is the sharing instant and continuous? Does this mental sharing meet the requirements for casting Counterspell?

Being that wizard is among a few classes that can expand their personal spell list, I've run across DMs who don't understand scribing new spells into your spellbook. They assume you only need the ones you get from leveling like sorcerers and bards

My group wasn't too keen on my necromancer and wouldn't let me animate zombies, ended up switching to this subclass and I love tidalwave doing lightening damage

Imagine the Awakened Mind taking the form of the scowling visage of Mordenkainen himself, absolutely disgusted (but secretly a little impressed) by this fledgling wizard who managed to make off with one of his own spellbooks. Now THAT would be a fun backstory!

Finally a use for Illusory Script

You did it again, Treantmonk! I had my eye on this one and found outstandlingly interesting and full of potential. But you really nailed the possibilities represented on this subclass and gave a me some insights and ideas I truely hadn't thought of. Thanks :)

I haven't even watched the video yet, but knowing Treantmonk, he'll probably say that the Order of Scribes Wizard is great... Because it's a wizard and all wizards are great.

I play a war wizard. The campaign I play in has downtime baked in for all of our characters. The problem I run into is that I don’t have enough gold to transcribe the spells I have access to. Our group works well with the division of treasure, and they’ve been very charitable in giving my character more gold to transcribe with, but it feels weird. So now I have to compare the gold used to transcribe a spell to any sort of item upgrade we have access to. I have to ask myself if me transcribing the spell and having access to that spell is as effective as upgrading the equipment of a teammate.

Been reading your material before you even made a YT. Have to say you're the best spoken and most thought-out producer of this type of DnD game analysis.

I know this is an old video, but OH MY GOD you are so right at 4:05 when you mention Rangers, and how people get hung up on bad abilities and just assume the class/subclass *must* be bad because there are a few bad abilities!

A minor something I just considered that wasn't quite brought up, and it's possibly minor, but with Master Scrivener, you can possibly cast two ritual spells at their normal casting time, provided you prepare one of them with Scrivener, which doubles the efficacy of one of Awakened Spellbook's features. It does require some planning and forethought, since preparing a 1st or 2nd level ritual that might not come up between long rests might happen, but that same prep and forethought would happen anyways if you were going to prepare Scorching Ray or Gust of Wind or whatever other damage or effect spell upcasted by one would be.

After watching the video, I can say that I'm slightly convinced that Scribes is not as bad as I thought. It is still not amazingly powerful, to my mind.

On the first read through I was very impressed. But I have learned to read every word of every subclass, because every word matters until it doesn't. So I can understand how some people might have skimmed the class and had a less than favorable first impression. It's also NOT a subclass I would dip into. Once you're in with the scribes... you're ALL in. Each feature builds on the last, so there's not much point to just taking a few levels of this subclass. "Same level as the slot you expend." To me that means theoretically you can up-cast fireball to 6th level (not that you would) and make it force damage if you have learned Disintegrate for example. Manifest Mind is straight up better than Trickery Domain's Invoke Duplicity, since it doesn't require concentration. The ONLY downside is that you're limited in the number of spells you can cast from your Manifest Mind. That said it is still massively powerful, since duration spells don't need to be re-cast.

The ability to write a free spell scroll every long rest and to alter spell damage typing is amazing. Whoever initially thought this subclass was bad has never done high level play with wizards. Besides portent dice and creating safety pockets with your blast spells, most subclass abilities take a backseat to the spell utility you get from simply being a high level wizard. This subclass alters that and provides you with the ability to make much cheaper high level spell scrolls.

From the moment I read it the Order of Scribes it was one of my favorite subclasses. I can't hardly believe your patrons thought it wasn't *even good.*

The amount of fun you can have with Manifest Mind and what would otherwise be risky summoning spells...

As a Scribes wizard in a Ravnica campaign, *thank you*.

I've really liked this subclass since it came out. Haven't had the opportunity to play a scribe wizard but I'm really looking forward to play at least one of the character concepts I have in mind. Great video!

4:17 I've been prepping for an upcoming game where I'll be playing a Warforged School of Scribes Wizard, and one thing I noticed is that the Wizardly Quill not requiring ink might actually have some mechanical value after all. The wording on copying down spells is as follows: >"For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, *as well as the fine inks you need to record it.* Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells." PHB 112 The fine inks needed to record the spell could be argued to no longer contribute to cost, which could be argued to mean a 10 GP/spell level reduction to cost as a 1 oz bottle of ink is stated to be worth 10 GP on page 150 of the PHB. So if you're copying down a 6th level spell it's 240 GP instead of 300. A small difference but certainly still noticeable.

I'm not convinced by Manifest Mind. It'll work great occasionally I'm sure, but it's not invisible so it'll put enemies on alert, you can only cast a few spells a day through it, and since it can't pass through objects it's stopped by a door.

One nail you hit on the effing head is the spell transcription time. In a group I'm in, our DM has purposely given us spell books and we have had a REALLY hard time finding game time to copy them, at least game time that isn't kind of role play BS like "ok, 2 weeks have gone by"

I think the tenth level ability is awesome too: using Xanathar's, you can prepare spell scrolls up to 3rd level as long as you get a week of downtime; with this you can prepare a Polymorph scroll in the same timeframe, while slashing down the time and costs of lower level scrolls. You then have additional spells to cast, both in terms of "slots" and situational spells you wouldn't normally prepare. You can have the half casters in your party use those scrolls too, as long as the spells are on their lists.

27:35 now that is just mean AND hilarious

The scribe’s ritual ability is really strong with Leomund’s Tiny Hut, especially of your DM forgets you have it.

Manifest Mind is fantastic because it gives new reasons to take the linguist feat. Learn the languages of all the humanoids your DM likes to fill enemy outposts and bandit camps with. Manifest the Mind as a ghostly severed head of the same race as the enemies and have it float through the outpost/camp/etc... Alternate between casting minor illusion and shatter. Have the head shout in orcish, gnoll, goblin, whatever the camp or fort is full of. It'll just keep shouting nonsense "I can't feel my legs." "Have you seen my loin cloth?" "How many fingers am I holding up?" The mind will shout a line through minor illusion and then cast shatter on the room it's in. And the only way to stop the chaos is for the DM to add a creature with dispel magic to the encounter, or add a ring of spell storing or similar magic item to the enemy leader and the loot pool the party gets at the end of the fight.

Hum, for when things aren't resistant(early on) or immune to fire damage: Tiefling(Mammon +1 Int and other stuff), Flames Of Phlegethos (racial feat, +1 Int, reroll 1's on fire dmg), Elemental Adept Fire(ignore resistance, 1's count as 2's after all the unlucky rerolls show up) => Any spell that you've decided to convert to fire (aka no immunities) are suddenly receiving a sizable boost. 3rd level fireball is 8d6 with a statistical +1.33/2d6 avg dmg that gives us +5.32 dmg to our fireball not including the 1's= 2 bonus. Which may not seem all that amazing but personally I've found myself being quite lucky when it comes to rerolls turning 1's into 4's quite often on my gwf characters. Oh and there's the benefit that that's applied to all targets hit meaning the bonus dpr is multiplied by the number of targets hit. Disgusting.

I don't know, you certainly changed my mind about the usefulness of some of the subclass abilities, but i still think you are overestimating some aspects of it and placing it near the top of the wizard subclasses list is a bit too much. Many of the abilities are too situational IMO. The scribing speed buff is better than I initially thought but I stil think it is DM or campaing -dependant, it has some strong but pretty situational applications and does not compare with a good number of other level 2 abilities from the best wizard subclasses. The awakened spell book is good but not so much, it restricts the way you play requiring you to hold the book in hand and shaping the choices of spells you take in order to make it work (forcing you to take spells you otherwise would have not taken or again depending on your dm to let you find scrolls or such to use the damage swapping ability) while the ritual buff is situational at best. The Manifest Mind is a better ability than I initially assumed, a pretty good one i might add. Still it is not an ability that makes me say "Okay this is as good as the Diviner, or the War Mage, or etc". The level 14 ability was one of the reason I thought you were going to praise the order of scribes wizard because the drawback is really minor for a wizard (again it gets better the more your dm gets generous XD). The level 10 ability i almost forgot about. All in all i think that the subclass is way better than people, myself included, initially thought since it has different features which range from ok to good, but i don't think it is in the race for the second best wizard. I definitely like the flavour of it and that it is not as straightforward to play as some other subclasses. :)

Eh... I'm still not sold on this. Wish I was because I love the flavor, but a lot of the abilities that you point to as being really good just seem alright to me. Just running though each ability... - Wizardly Quill is mostly fluff, as you said. While I can see the argument that the reduced copying time for the spells is stronger than the Savant abilities, I can't see it having much impact in most games. Any game with frequent downtime makes this near useless, and the same goes for campaigns where the cost of copying spells is the greater limiting factor. Honestly I don't want to copy most spells I find anyways (usually just the rituals because I took the spells I want to prepare when I leveled up). Ignoring how it interacts with One With the Word later, this seems situational at best. - Awakened Spellbook is better than nothing, but everything here is pretty situational. I like it, but I wouldn't say it's very powerful. - Manifest Mind... I agree that t's a pretty good ability, but given that it always glows and as an object can't use the stealth skill it will give away it's presence pretty much automatically. Using it to simulate a drone strike is really good when it comes up, but it doesn't always come up. Definitely the best ability here still, but still only good for me. - Master Scrivener is one extra 2nd level spell upcast per long rest. Given the relatively minor effects of 2nd level spells by this point and your available spell slots, this really seems just okay and only gets less impactful as you continue to gain levels. - One With the Word is certainly better on this wizard then it would be on any other, but even if you completely mitigate the lost spells and can re-use Manifest Mind right after, you are blanking one source of damage per day. That might not even be as good as some 2nd level wizard abilities (Arcane Deflection comes to mind immediately, as does Portent). So... yeah. I don't think this is BAD, but I'd put it around the middle of the pack.

Chromatic orb and Glyph of warding are so great for Awakened Spellbook

Being able to swap damage types synergizes well with being able to transcribe spells quickly. It becomes valuable to transcribe a spell that isn't great as written just so you can use its damage type with another spell.

Order of Scribes build video incoming? 🤞

Awakened spell book is actually insane think of all thoughs rituals spells that require a action. You can cast them without a spell slot as a action and can use rituals in actual combat. Also changing damage types are extremely easy especially if you have tons of evocation types spells which you can do as many times as you want as long as it's a spell with a spell slot

I've learnt so much from the Discord that it's almost required reading when learning about the new subclasses!!

The main draw for me is the Awakened Spellbook, it brings a unique level of roleplay to the Wizard where you could potentially have whole conversations with your spellbook/familiar as a research assistant, long dead scholar, childhood mentor, etc. The remaining features are just icing on the cake for me: changing damage types, never losing your spellbook, beefed up arcane eye, super fast spell scribing, and a decent defensive ability to round out the whole thing (just gotta find every spell in existence for plenty of buffering lol). Great review

Anyone else getting a Rita Skeeter and her quick-quotes-quill vibe here?

Nice...thanks Chris! One question: do you actually expend a spell slot using Master Scrivener? I read that as a totally free spell casting.

I think one of the biggest reasons for the hatred of this subclass (something I also feel deeply), is that this is the effective replacement for Lore Master, and it is extremely different both mechanically and flavorfully, and we'll now likely never get what and official version of the lore master wizard people wanted to play

I love the blending of theme and mechanics with this subclass. Here you have a subclass who just wants to fill their tome with spells. And not only are they given the tools to do so, with the 2 minute/spell level scribe time and potentially the magic quill for costs (nothing specified so I wouldn't count on it), but you're given mechanical reasons to want to. Having more spells in your spell book not only gives you more options for substituting damage types (psychic and necrotic fireballs are available at most spell levels, just sayin') but it gives you a greater buffer between the spells you want to hold on to when using the level 14 feature.

I'm not really convinced. The Quill certainly has niche uses but to call it one of the best abilities in the game is way too much kool-aid. Energy switching just improves/encourages blasting and that's hardly ever a good thing for a wizard to do. MM is definitely a good power but the glowing thing really limits its scouting uses... it's not a valid comparison to Arcane Eye, though I do like it, and I think an unobtrusive familiar will still be preferred 90% of the time. And using it as a long-range bomber is, I think, less effective in practice than theory with only profX/day and hard to use as a party member, though excellent in a solo adventure. One with the Word is pretty hard to deploy comfortably even with Witch Bolts and Acid Streams offering cheap "fuel". Overall, a defensively weak class with no good consistently-usable reactions and can't dip for shields easily, so should probably use a Stealth suite. Offensively weak with no tricks except better blasting (yay). It makes its living on the enhanced utility aspects, and the darned MM glows?!?!? Not a fan of this subdomain, though I'll still try to optimize it in my next vid!

This domain has some flavor, and it's a wizard, so it's going to be powerful. @treantmonk, are you really saying the level 2 feature here is on par with Portent? Or bladesong? I mean, c'mon now.

Wizardly Quill can be used to overcome a Kenku's speech issue. Just wave the quill and have the words you want to say appear out of thin air. Unless the party barbarian is illiterate, you have overcome a good races' only drawback.

I wish more subclasses had this approach, giving flavourful abilities that are also mechanically good for both in and outside of combat. It may not be the strongest subclass, but the worst ability you get at lvl 10 is actually just a decent one, so overall it's pretty balanced and what you get works well together. It also reminds me of the universalist from previous editions, perhaps the closest we will get in 5e.

I thought this subclass was as good as at least half the the school classes. And I would only really consider like four of the schools to be generally useful. Sure some are campaign/dm dependent. But I would take this way before something like conjuration school or some such.

When I first read this I thought it would make the ultimate Generalist Wizard and was legitmiately surprised to find people saying it's weak,

This will be the next wizard type I play. Every ivory tower has to have one, they're spell thieves! I could sneak into someone's study and make off with the contents of their entire spellbook, and they'd never even know the difference because I wouldn't take the book -- just copy the contents. Every spell I could grab, I would, just to have something to sacrifice at 14th level. I'd be a spell sponge, which I generally am as a wizard anyhow (it's half the point of being one), as this subclass takes what makes wizards special and doubles down on it. I have been trying for years to create a roguelike subclass for wizards, to give them more stealth, skills, and maneuverability, to the point that the Big Bad Evil Gal in my campaign is a retired PC of my custom subclass. I've been working on it that long. Since the setting is on hiatus, I think I'm going to retcon her into a Scribes wizard and give up on my Spellpunk subclass. It has always been a mismatched bundle of parts, a bit like a Swords bard. The Awakened Spellbook more than makes up for what Spellpunks got at 6th level (Cunning Action, a skill, and a single Expertise).

21:15 yea the second you start using this ability suddenly every group of enemies will suddenly have dispel magic. Thats how most DMs roll.

wizardly quill doesnt touch the cost. The example spellbook you generated? Time isnt the only thing why a warwizard wouldnt copy it. (5*3+6*2+4), times 50. 1550 gold worth of supplies. Even if the party is really high level, to the point where gold is useless, ththere are still worldbuilding concerns. They must play in a really high magic setting to find enough supplies to copy these spells. You used critical role as an example before, how much gold has caleb spent on copying spells? About 2 stores ran out of "copying supplies" for the things he was finding.

I really dont understand the amount of hate scribes has been getting. I think its a very good subclass. Anyway great video keep up the amazing work

Awesome! Thanks for such an insightful breakdown. Definitely helped me understand the subclass much better

Thank you for making this!!! I hope people start "fixing" their opinions about this subclass. I'm currently playing a scribes wizard and am looking forward to every bit of it. The level 14 feature is amazing. You've explained it well for everyone, thanks! It's also important that it is super easy for you to add those extra spells to your spellbook with your earlier ability for scribing them.

21:45 - the description says that Manifested Mind cannot pass through objects. Doesn't that mean that the simple way to defeat this awesome ability is to throw a bucket or a blanket over the thing?..

Once again, Wizards of the Coast is powercreeping in stupid ways, that six level ability is like giving a wizard the Chain Pact from warlocks entirely for free and with extra cookies. Nothing new under the sun. By the way, great analysis, keep the good work!

I’ve been playing this subclass and my DM is pretty old school. I found a spell book in a library, but he tried to put some time pressure on me. He was expecting me to get to choose one spell, but I snagged all six! Thanks magic quill!

New player here who just finished his first longer campaign (level 1-10). I decided to jump in at the deep end and force myself to learn the magic system by playing a wizard. Order of Scribes seemed to fit the character I wanted to make perfectly. The level 2 features weren't that useful early in the campaign. A more experienced player might be able to pull off some really neat tricks when replacing damage types. I just chose to learn Chromatic Orb and Dragon's Breath. The Manifest Mind at level 6 though… The long range, tiny size and darkvision makes it perfect for scouting ahead or exploring otherwise inaccessible areas. It's really versatile, useful both in and out of battle and a lot of fun to use. I eventually did find a spellbook and of course had to spend all my hard-earned money on materials to copy the spells regardless of whether they were useful or not. The DM is working on a sequel though, so I guess I might find a use for all those useless spells eventually!

I still don't understand how this is strong, can someone explain it to me? Treantmonk talks about how it's insane that you can transcribe spells so fast with this, but, I have never had any issues relating to time when transcribing spells, I don't even want to transcribe all the spells that i find, I will just pick and choose the spells that I actually bother preparing. Now you might say that you'd want to transcribe as many spells possible with this wizard so you enable the 14th level ability, but that ability in itself is okay at best, and this is kinda circular logic too, its a once per long rest negation of one instance of damage. Even if you can use it every day once per day with no cost of spells it would still be meh. The Manifest Mind feature at 6th level is fine, it is better than I thought it would be, but I still can't see the uses with it, even if you send it in a room to blast some creatures, how much better is it than just walking in with your party and casting the spells anyways? Is it that good of a feature when it allows you to just cast some blast spells from safety? Is there another way to use this that I'm missing? I'd appreciate some answers because I still feel like I'm being pranked or I'm feeling like I'm in a dream and nothing makes sense. I never saw the UA for this, I just thought this was barely better than a subclassless wizard the moment i saw it.

Hot takes from a Discord isn't why I subscribe. Don't know if it added much value to the video or context to your insights.

It also avoids the problem of spellbook destruction, as you can replace it (for free) over the course of a short rest and it retains all of its spells, not just those you had prepped. No need for multiple spellbooks ever again.

Additionally the bottom text block of the level 6 feature gives a Pact of the Tome-level ability to resummon or transfer your entire spellbook in a ritual if it is ever destroyed or you find an Arcane Grimoire/etc. This means massive cost saved from having to make duplicate or backup spellbooks if yours ever gets Fireballed, Disintegrated, or otherwise stolen.