Dungeons & Dragons Reveals Redesigned Wizard Class

The Wizard is getting some new abilities in the 2024 Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons.

By Christian Hoffer

Dungeons & Dragons has unveiled the new rules for the Wizard, one of the 12 redesigned classes that appear in the 2024 Player's Handbook. Today, Wizards of the Coast released a new video previewing the upcoming rules changes to the Wizard class, which will officially be released in September in the Player's Handbook. The Wizard's updates aren't as drastic as other class changes, although they are in line with other changes made to increase player versatility and flexibility. 

In a video released today, D&D lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford noted that Wizard players will see many of the class's improvements come from improved spell rules found in the Magic Spells section of the Player's Handbook. While not detailed, the D&D design team previously said that they added several new spells and reworked other spells to make them more useful. As the Wizard is the spells specialist more so than other spellcasting classes, a lot of the class's improvements come from these new and improved spells.

Wizards now gain the ability to swap out cantrips on a long rest starting at 1st level and they also gain an expertise in a scholarly field (like History or Arcana) at second level. At fifth level, the Wizard can swap out a prepared spell with another spell after a Short Rest. 

One of the most notable changes to the Wizard class is that the class contains only 4 subclasses in the Player's Handbook, with the Abjurer, Diviner, Evoker, and Illusionist all detailed in the new Player's Handbook. Of the four subclasses, the Diviner and Evoker remain mostly unchanged, but the Abjurer gains an improved Arcane Ward (a forcefield feature that absorbs damage and now accounts for a player's resistances and immunity before taking damage) and the Illusionist gains access to several new or upgraded features, included the Phantasmal Creatures ability that allows the Wizard to cast either Summon Beast and Summon Fey for free once per day as illusions with only their half their HP. 

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All four subclasses also gain an improved version of the Savant feature and gain access to additional spells in their chosen specialty whenever they take a level in Wizard. 

The new Player's Handbook comes out on September 17th. You can check out other rules changes in the new rulebook here. 

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