The New 2024 Wizard: DnD 5e Class Changes
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The Wizard is one of the oldest and most beloved of all DnD classes. Yet over the past decade there have been very few changes to the DnD 5e Wizard, with the class receiving up only a few minor cosmetic updates and a handful of new subclasses.
That’s about to change, however, with the new 2024 Player’s Handbook offering a refresh to the Wizard. Many of the changes will be familiar to anyone who’s been following the One D&D playtest, but Wizards of the Coast has been tweaking the class ever further since then, seeing revisions to the way spellcasting works and altering features of several of the core subclasses.
So just what other new changes are in store for the Wizard? Below, we crack open our spellbooks and conjure up all the details.
What’s changed in the new 2024 Wizard for DnD 5e?
Below are all the changes to the 2024 Wizard versus the 2014 Wizard (notably, both still fall under the DnD 5e rules).
| Wizard Feature | Level | Changes to the 2024 Wizard Class |
|---|---|---|
| Spellcasting | 1 | – Number of prepared spells is now a fixed number in the Wizard table. – Can replace one cantrip each Long Rest. – Spellbooks can be used as spellcasting foci. – Backing up your spellbook is faster and cheaper. – Ritual Casting has been removed from Spellcasting. Classes can now cast any prepared spells with the Ritual tag as a Ritual. |
| Ritual Adept | 1 | Functions the same as the ritual casting rules for the 2014 Wizard, but these rules are now housed under their own feature. |
| Scholar | 2 | Gain Expertise in a select skill. |
| Wizard Subclass | 3 | – Moved up to level 3 from level 2. – All Wizard subclasses get two free spells from their school and another free spell each time they gain access to a new level of spell slot. – Abjurer: Arcane Ward can now be refilled directly using spell slots and you get Counterspell and Dispel Magic as always prepared spells, and they don’t use spell slots if they fail. – Diviner: Largely the same, although The Third Eye gives 120-foot Darkvision and the ability to cast See Invisibility without a spell slot, but loses Ethereal Sight. – Evoker: Potent Cantrip and Sculpt Spells have swapped places. Potent Cantrip now applies to missed spell attacks as well as successful Saving Throws. – Illusionist: You can ignore Verbal components for Illusion spells and can cast Minor Illusion as a Bonus Action. Get Summon Beast and Summon Fey as always prepared spells that can also be cast once per Long Rest without a spell slot. |
| Memorize Spell | 5 | Swap one prepared spell for one in your spellbook each Short Rest. |
| Spell Mastery | 18 | – Chosen spells must now have a casting time of one action, but count as always prepared. – You can swap a spell on a Long Rest rather than using 8 hours of study, but only one per Long Rest. |
| Epic Boon | 19 | Choose one Epic Boon feat, or another feat of your choice. |
How will the 2024 Wizard changes impact gameplay?
Level 1: Spellcasting
One of the biggest changes to the new 2024 Wizard is the number of spells you can have prepared is no longer based on your Intelligence modifier plus Wizard level. Instead, the number of spells you can have prepared at one given time is set as fixed value listed in the Wizard class table.
In addition, the Cantrip Formula feature (which was an optional rule from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) is now a core feature of the 2024 Wizard. This allows you to replace a cantrip you know with another cantrip from the Wizard spell list whenever you finish a long rest.
The way spellbooks work has also been updated. In the 2024 rules, a spellbook can now be used as a Spellcasting Focus and are impossible to be read by anyone but you without the use of the Identify spell.
Level 1: Ritual Adept
This is really formalizing the 2014 Ritual Casting rules as their own standalone feature for Wizards under the new 2024 name Ritual Adept. This allows you to cast a Wizard spell as a ritual if the spell has the ritual tag and is in your spellbook. Using this method you do not have to have the spell prepared.
Level 2: Scholar
The 2024 Wizard also now gains Expertise (letting you double your proficiency bonus) in one of the following skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature or Religion (you must be proficient in the skill to get this bonus).
Level 5: Memorize Spell
This new 2024 feature lets Wizards swap out one prepared spell for one in their spellbook whenever they take a Short Rest.
Level 18: Spell Mastery
Spell Mastery has also changed from how it was first presented. In the 2014 rules, you could choose one 1st-level and one 2nd-level Wizard spell from your spellbook. If you had them prepared, you could then cast these spells at their lowest level without burning a spell slot. You could also swap one or both of these spells for others by spending 8 hours in study.
In the 2024 rules, however, the chosen spells must have a casting time of one action and you can only swap one spell at a time, rather than both. The chosen spells, however, now count as always prepared and can be swapped out on a Long Rest rather than requiring 8 hours of dedicated study.
Level 19: Epic Boon
In the 2014 rules, Epic Boons were only available to Dungeon Masters. They’ve since been included as part of the 2024 core rules. Wizards can choose from any of the 12 Epic Boons, but the WotC design team recommends going with the Boon of Spell Recall, which allows you to increase your Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma ability score by 1 (up to a maximum of 30). Additionally, when you cast a spell using a level 1 to 4 spell slot, you then roll 1d4. If you roll the spell’s level, the slot isn’t expended.
What are the changes to the 2024 Wizard subclasses?
In the new 2024 Player’s Handbook there are four official Wizard subclasses: Abjurer, Diviner, Evoker and Illusionist, all of which previously appeared in the 2014 Player’s Handbook. One of the biggest changes, however, is that Wizards now choose their subclass at Level 3 (as opposed to Level 2, as per the 2014 rules). When choosing their subclass, Wizards now also to get to access the new 2024 Savant Feature, which allows them access to two free level 1 or level 2 spells of their associated school. The Savant feature also means they get to add a spell from their chosen school to their spellbook each time they unlock a new level of spell slot in the Wizard class.
There have been a few additional changes to the way the four core subclasses work and the general verbiage, with the 2024 rules doing away with “School” in favor of a simple title. For example, the “School of Evocation” subclass from the 2014 rules is now known as the “Evoker” in the 2024 rules.
- Abjurer: The Arcane Ward feature can be refilled s a Bonus Action by expending a spell slot. At level 10, Abjurer Wizards also get a new feature called Spell Breaker granting them Counterspell and Dispel Magic, which are always prepared, with the latter cast as a Bonus Action. Additionally, if you use either spell and fail, no spell slot is burned.
- Diviner: The Third Eye feature now uses a Bonus Action, while the Darkvision feature has increased its range to 120 feet. The See Invisibility option also now allows you to cast the See Invisibility spell without using a spell slot. Additionally, Ethereal Sight has been removed as a feature of the subclass.
- Evoker: The Potent Cantrip feature now provides half damage on both missed spell attacks and successful saving throws against your cantrips.
- Illusionist: Improved Illusion now replaces Improved Minor Illusion. This allows you to ignore Verbal components for Illusion spells and increases the range of certain spells. Level 6 Illusionists now also get the new Phantasmal Creatures feature, which grants Summon Beast and Summon Fey as always-prepared spells. These can be cast as Illusion spells, which summons a modified version of the creature, and also allows a free casting of each once per Long Rest. Finally, Illusory Self can be restored by expending a level 2+ spell slot without requiring any action.
Final Thoughts on the New Wizard
The Wizard has been a fan favorite among DnD 5e players for over a decade, and Wizards of the Coast hasn’t made any significant changes to the 2024 version. Other than some minor tweaks to certain features and some quality-of-life improvements, the class hasn’t really seen the same kind of dramatic alterations as the new 2024 Fighter and the significantly retooled 2024 Paladin. One of the biggest disappointments for fans, may be that there are only four base subclasses included, meaning that we won’t have access to the other 8 subclasses that were included in the 2014 version for sometime.
Still the changes are generally well done and aren’t likely to stir up a ton of controversy. It remains to be seen, however, how the rest of the DnD 5e community responds to the new Wizard.
You can find the complete rules for the new Wizard class in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, which is available for pre-order now on D&D Beyond and Amazon.
Below is also a video from the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel, with DnD lead designer Jeremy Crawford which offers more details on the new features found in the 2024 Wizard.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
