D&D: Wild About Wildemount – Most Popular Options In New CR Book
From new subclasses to new spells, the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount contains a wealth of new options–here are the most popular ones.
The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount adds so much to your games of D&D, it’s hard to pick a favorite. Fortunately, we don’t have to, that’s already been done. D&D Beyond has run the numbers and come up with these most popular new options in the new Critical Role book, so you can get an idea of where to jump in with the buffet of new options. Let’s take a look!
Starting with the Subclass popularity charts, we can see that Echo Knights are off the chart. Admittedly, there are only three subclasses to pick from, but Echo Knight is breezing past the two wizard subclasses by a landslide. Chronurgy Magic comes in at a distant second, with its ability to freeze spells for later use appealing to many. Graviturgy Magic might suffer the old “doesn’t come online, really, until higher levels” which is a problem for 5th Edition, where the vast majority of games come to an end by 6th level. Echo Knights, though, are popular for a good reason.
If you're an Echo Knight in D&D, the magical echo you create is an image of yourself that occupies its space. It isn't a creature.
If this translucent, gray image were meant to be a creature, the rule would say so. #DnD https://t.co/ox6pxE8rY7
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) March 19, 2020
They allow Fighters to move in all kinds of places and get away with a lot because they don’t count as a creature, which makes the Echo immune to many spells and retributive effects. It also allows the fighter to do something different from the other subclasses. It reflects a more explorative style of play, feeling like something you’d find in a more action-oriented video game. It’s very rewarding to use the Echo Knight abilities, and it shows. But let’s talk about the other big addition to the game–new magic that changes spell lists for the better.
Here’s a look at the breakdown of how people are using the new spells. This is taken from a list of folks who have marked these as “prepared” on their character sheets, which is about as good as it gets for figuring out if these characters are actively being used in games. Unsurprisingly, the lower level spells are more popular. But look at how active these spells are. Fortune’s Favor gives your ally a point of luck to spend, basically, Pulse Wave lets you decide whether to push or pull your targets while still doing respectable damage. Gravity Fissure remains my favorite, but as you can see, folks are digging the new magic.
I hope this kind of system sets a new precedent going forward. With Mythic Odysseys of Theros and at least one other book due out later in the fall this year, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how WotC rolls with the hits as they come in.
What’s your favorite part of the new book? Let us know in the comments!
