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Fixing the Transmutation Wizard - D&D 5e Subclass Revision
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Oct 2, 2022
I created a revised Transmutation Wizard to plug some of the subclass holes and make it more fun. As mentioned in my Wizard subclass rating article, the Transmutation Wizard leaves much to be desired. It actually works against what a transmuter should be focusing on, especially the tenth-level ability. I believe we can make minor revisions to the School of Transmutation Wizard to improve it so it doesn’t feel like a trap. Wizards are strong in their own right, so a weaker subclass isn’t a dire problem; however, I enjoy making each subclass viable if it’s lagging far behind. Let’s fix the Transmutation Wizard with the magic of homebrew! And yea, I know Cure Wounds is from the evocation school of magic. I ignore that detail. Read along: https://www.flutesloot.com/transmuter-wizard-homebrew-fix-dnd5e-revision/?utm_source=youtube ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 Intro 00:17 We are Flutes Loot 00:51 Revision foreword 01:18 Transmutation Savant / Minor Alchemy 02:52 Transmuter's Stone 05:08 Shapechanger / Residual Recycling 06:22 Master Transmuter 07:58 Feedback, please 08:41 Animal Messenger, like, subscribe --------- 🎈 Shop our loot on Redbubble: flutesloot.redbubble.com
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey, looters, I have another revision for you today
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This time it's the transmutation wizard. This subclass needs some help, so let's see if we can fix it up today on FlutesLute
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For anyone new here, I am Flutes, and my wife is Opel
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We are the founders of FlutesLute.com. This Transmutation Wizard subclass revision is in an article there, so you don't have to take notes on this video
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I took the notes for you by writing up everything about this revision
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The link is in the description if you want to read the revision there
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And typically with the revisions I've been posting on YouTube, I'm getting a lot of great feedback that makes me alter these revisions a little bit
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And so this video will probably quickly become dated as people give me feedback and other ideas that I will edit in that article
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So first of all, what's wrong with the transmutation wizard? I did a subclass rating video and article for wizards
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and I went over all the problems with the transmutation wizard. But the gist of it is that the transmuter doesn't feel like
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they're any better at transmuting things than other wizards. So let's just go into each feature of the subclass one of the time
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Each feature, as I've revised it, I'll put it up on the screen. If it's italicized text, that means that's something I've added or changed
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Transmutation savant, not change in that. I love that the wizards get to specialize in their school of magic
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No problem there. But the minor alchemy feature, I did need to rework it
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One thing I changed is that you can use minor alchemy as an action. I didn't alter the kinds of materials you're playing with
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but just making it faster to do just made sense to me
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And so how do we keep you from just turning a whole castle into cheese or something weird like that
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When you transform something with minor alchemy, you can only transform it for an hour or until you use your action to change it back
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And you can use this ability a number of times equal to your intelligence modifier per long rest
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That's just a little tweak to the ability to, allow you some more creativity on the fly without spending like 10 minutes changing a little bit of material into something else
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So now you can be a little bit more nimble with the ability and if you're creative I think it'll serve you well
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But I added some more features here. One is that I think the transmutation wizard needed to have alchemist supplies as
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a proficiency If you already have proficiency with alchemist supplies just pick something else and that can fill the spot And lastly I gave you a little spell to make you feel like more of a transmuter and it feeds more into what the transmuter stone does and that cure wounds
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I like that if you're a wizard and you multi-class, you can get the artifice or spell list and get cure wounds
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So let's give the transmitter the ability to heal. The transmuter stone is going to give them the ability to heal and even revive people from the dead later on
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So let's give them some sort of spell that kind of feeds into the fact that they're altering things in that way
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So to summarize minor alchemy now, it's still the same but made a little bit easier to use on the fly
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You get alchemist supplies and cure wounds, giving it more tools to feel like a transmuter
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At level six, you get the transmuter stone. I had some fun with this one. First, instead of just choosing a fixed amount of features from the transmuter stone that you can benefit from
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I made it scalable, so it's equal to your proficiency bonus how many benefits of the stone you can get
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So at level six, assuming you have a multi-class, is going to be three. And then as you level up, you're going to get even more features
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So I thought we need to add more features to the transmuter stone. I'm going to throw the list up and have it just kind of scroll through so you can read them
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The gist is most of them are cosmetic, like changing your hair color
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slightly giving yourself a better sense of smell. I made it so you can pick the elemental resistance one more than once
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so you could get fire and cold resistance with the stone. You can give yourself more or less body hair
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You can alter the pitch and tone of your voice. You can make yourself smell good or really bad
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You can even make yourself so that you don't, produce any smells at all. Your body gives off no scent. And you can take away the ability to feel
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physical pain. So if someone needs to perform a surgery, this could be pretty useful. So a lot of
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these benefits I added to the transmuter stone. Just make it feel like you're altering yourself
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or whoever's holding the stone and you are a transmuter. Like, you're not just dependent on the
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spells that you learn, but you are creating and altering things almost effortlessly. So then I got to
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thinking, how else can we make the transmuter stone more useful for you? So I thought, let's make it more
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clear what you can do with it. I did limit it so if you give the stone to someone else, they can
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only receive one benefit from the stone, which could still be useful for providing someone
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a disguise, you know, changing their hair or their appearance in some way, or giving someone in your party
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enhanced movement speed or resistance to a certain damage type. But you're only limited to one
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if it someone else So you are the best one at using your transmuter stone I also decided to have some fun with how the transmuter stone affects you when you are shape like from a polymorph spell If you are carrying a transmuter stone and you shape
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and the transmuter stone like merges with you, like your other things you're carrying, your items
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you can retain the ability to speak audibly while you are shape-changed
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Even if whatever you've changed into doesn't have a mouth or any obvious way to communicate audibly
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Kind of like a radio today where it doesn't look like it can talk, but it does
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I think the transmuter should be more fun in this sort of way. Moving on to level 10, I removed Shape Changer altogether
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I'm not going to try to salvage it. Here's what you get instead. If you know the Divination Wizard, this is going to sound familiar
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I call this ability residual recycling. When you cast a leveled spell of second level or higher
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you can regain a lower level spell slot. You are so good at casting transmutation spells that there's like residual arcana whenever you
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cast a spell that allows you to kind of harness it and recycle it for a lower level
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spell. So when you cast a wizard transmutation spell of second level or higher, you regain
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a lower level than the spell slot you used. The spell slot you regain cannot be higher than
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third level, however. Now the divination wizard, their limit is fifth level, but there's so few
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divination spells that it kind of makes sense. Transmuters, there's a lot more transmutation spells
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and they can come up a lot more often. And so just to kind of limit abuse of this, not going above a third
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level would be fine. So you won't be regaining castings of polymorph or anything because that's
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fourth level. That's really the main reason I stopped it at third level is so you're not
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recycling lots of polymorphs. But let me know if you think that that would be fine. I mean
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polymorph is a very powerful spell. Should the transmitter be able to cast it very often
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Let me know if I should open it up and let this transmuter just polymorph all day. At level 14
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I just added more options and opened up some of the existing options for the master transmuter
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feature when you expend your transmuter stone in a grand effect. So the major transformation
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I made it a 10-foot cube that you could affect. You transform it into something of equal or lesser
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value, and you need to handle it for 10 minutes. The panacea effect, I added that you can also
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cure a level of exhaustion because that just doesn come up a lot You heal someone get rid of a bunch of other effects that are affecting them like poison and disease and also a level of exhaustion restore life and restore youth unchanged then i added two more abilities here pure transformation it kind of like a smaller wish spell
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allows you to cast any transmutation spell from any class as long as it's fifth level or lower
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so you get this one use when you use your transmuter stone and expend it so you'll have to create
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a new one and so this just seems like a good ace in the hole if you need a polymorph on the fly or some other
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transmutation spell. And this last one just sounded fun. It's called diminutivity, which is
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making you tiny. You touch the transmuter stone to a willing creature who is already small or medium
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so nothing bigger than that. And for eight hours, you change that creature's size to tiny. So you can
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run around like a little spy, you know, like the mice and Cinderella. And if you need to end the
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spell early, you can do so as an action, just willing it so. Or the creature who you shrank
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who was willing to begin with, can choose to unshrink as well. I just picture love. I just picture
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a lot of fun could come of this. And sure, you could do it before with polymorph by transforming into like a mosquito or something
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But this way, it doesn't require concentration, and it's just another option up your sleeve
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So that's my revised transmutation wizard. Nothing crazy. Just adding more possibility and making the transmitter actually feel like the expert in
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altering biology and shape and form and everything. But I want your feedback, because the reason I made this revision in the first place was hoping
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people would use it. And thank goodness I already heard people say that they, would like to use it. I got a few nice comments. But surely I can make it better. And in this one
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it's kind of easy to give me some feedback because the transmuter stone, I obviously added a lot of
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frivolous options. And so if you have some ideas, let me know. And I'd love to add them in
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If you think I overlooked something that makes this too strong, let me know. Or if you think it's still not enough and you still wouldn't want to play this subclass, let me know. And I'll see if I can
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sweeten the deal. If you liked this video, go find a hamster or other tiny beast and place it
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on your keyboard to leave a comment and let's see what they say. And of course, if you enjoyed this content, hit that subscribe button because we will keep bringing content that is useful and fun for you
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every week regarding D&D 5th edition. Subscribing will allow you to scry on us every time we put out a video
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so you will not miss a thing. Until next time, this is Flutes Sing. Have a nice day. See ya
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