D&D: Wildemount’s Dunamancy – Magic And Mayhem And Subclasses
One of the coolest things introduced in the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is the whole new magical system known as Dunamancy. Come take a look.
Reading through the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is an excellent look inside what makes Critical Role tick. It’s not just a glimpse into the world of Exandria, it’s a look at the style of how that group likes to play. And in this case, that means powerful magic and exciting powers. A lot of the inspiration seems to come from video games and anime, which makes sense, as that’s the world that these characters inhabit.
And in Dunamancy, we get a fresh take on what magical combat can feel like in D&D. And I don’t just mean casting spells either–let’s take a look at the new subclasses and spells you’ll find in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.
First up, the Echo Knight. This might be one of my favorite subclasses. It’s a Fighter subclass that’s based on summoning a shadow duplicate of yourself. Technically it’s a fragment of a potential alternate universe, but the net result is, you summon a 1hp shadow clone that can fight alongside you.
But it’s not a pet that runs around taking its own initiative. It has a 30ft move and goes wherever you decide (no action needed) and any time you make an attack on your turn, t can originate from your space or your echo’s space. You can also teleport to its location, regardless of where it is (as long as it stays within 1,000 feet), and as a reaction, you can make an attack of opportunity with your echo too.
At first glance this seems like a neat feature for battlefield control, but there are so many tricks you can get up to with this. There’s no limit on the number of echos you can summon. And with a range of 30 feet, you can summon it to a spot, have it move, and then on your next turn, teleport to it. Cross gaps, close distance–it can appear next to a hard to reach enemy, still giving you the benefit of your full attack. It can even make an extra attack when you make the attack action, meaning you can dish out a lot of extra attacks early on. It feels like something you’d unlock in a Metroidvania game, where you’d need to use the teleport hijinks to accomplish some hard platforming.
All that for a bonus action.
It’s very cool. It is very active when you’re playing it, and it gives you something exciting to do every turn. As you level up, you gain the ability to see through your shadow clone, then to swap places with it for an attack, then continue on. It might not seem powerful at first glance, but there’s a lot of depth here.
And that’s just one subclass. There are two others, both Wizard focused. They’re also quite good, the Gravity magic one is probably my favorite and is especially good if you’re playing on a battlemat where positioning matters even more. But the point remains, these classes feel different than typical D&D, and I think that’s a very good thing. Dunamancy is probably one of the best things to come to 5th Edition.
Let’s take a look at some of the spells. There are 15 all in all, and each one adds a little extra action to the game. It’s hard to explain–these spells feel game-ier than other spells. Like a flaming sphere might stick around and do a few d6 damage, but Magnify Gravity, for instance, which does 2d8 to creatures in a 10-ft radius sphere, halves the speed of affected targets, and makes unattended objects impossible to pick up without a strength check feels like it incorporates more of the “system” of the game.
The same for spells like Gravity Fissure, which blasts a line of gravity five feet wide and a hundred feet long, dealing 8d8 force damage to creatures within it–and creatures within 10 feet take 8d8 and are pulled into the area. Or Dark Star, which lets you summon a black hole–it’s all very game-y. But it works, and it makes me wonder what other spells that follow this design school might look like.
Dunamancy, check it out in the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.
Happy Adventuring!
