Wizard has no access to the spell "Enhance ability"

[mutexin]

Isn't wizard supposed to be more versatile than sorcerer? Why can sorcerer have the spell, but wizard can't? Stupid D&D. Makes no sense.

[KRON]

Wizard has access to any spell that you can find on a scroll, though. Like, Enhance Ability ain't important anyway. And clerics have it, so you can use Shadowheart for it.

[The Bee]

Sorcerers derive their magic from lucky genetics. It is feasible that these genetics, of possibly draconic ancestry, enhance a caster in a manner that is similar to what their forefathers looked like and felt in measures of strength. Another explanation is that the spell also gives attributes similar to animals. Something more feral/primal could come easier to sorcerers in relation to the more studious and meticulous wizards who go for more refined methods. *wheeze*

[mutexin]

Originally posted by The Bee:

Sorcerers derive their magic from lucky genetics. It is feasible that these genetics, of possibly draconic ancestry, enhance a caster in a manner that is similar to what their forefathers looked like and felt in measures of strength. Another explanation is that the spell also gives attributes similar to animals. Something more feral/primal could come easier to sorcerers in relation to the more studious and meticulous wizards who go for more refined methods. *wheeze*

Sorcerer can cast a transmutation spell which transmutation wizard can't. Even bard has it.

[jonnin]

EA is a roll up of the individual spells that were always clerical magic. Whether it makes sense or not, and while there is a lot of overlap, in D&D clerical magic is buffs and cures/heals, while arcane is personal defenses (only for the caster, like mirror image, mage armor, etc) and destruction of enemy. For a combination of role (buffer) and historical reasons (cat's grace etc family of spells) these are clerical.

I have often felt that there should be branches of arcane magic that mimic some divine effects, just as multiple clerical domains offer arcane powers. D&D 5e moved away from the specialist wizard ideas, though -- previously you would give up a school (eg, necromatic) to be better at another school (eg abjuration) and could never cast the ones in the lost school. Adding a divine school would have been ... interesting, but with that idea dead, its probably never gonna happen (but casting bards sort of meet in the middle).

[FunkyMonkey]

There are mods that give casters few more spells called Tasha's added spells or something like that. They add Enhance ability to Wizards, some spells for Clerics, Command on Bards... I like these mods, they don't mess with the balance too much.

[brendan_in_china]

Enhance ability is a Wizard spell; Larian decided otherwise for BG3.

[seeker1]

You can get it from Secret Scrolls. Don't use the mod.io version, it's busted and all the icons are invisible.

Get it from Nexus, and then you get a scroll of Enhance Ability, which your wizard can learn.

BTW, according to Roll20 5E online rules, Enhance Ability is a sorcerer, bard, cleric, druid, and artificer spell, but NOT a wizard spell, so this may not have been a Larian homebrew change.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Enhance%20Ability#content

Specific variants of the spell are found on different items BTW.
Cat's Grace (DEX) is on the Graceful Cloth. (etc.)

[mutexin]

Originally posted by seeker1:

You can get it from Secret Scrolls. Don't use the mod.io version, it's busted and all the icons are invisible.

Get it from Nexus, and then you get a scroll of Enhance Ability, which your wizard can learn.

BTW, according to Roll20 5E online rules, Enhance Ability is a sorcerer, bard, cleric, druid, and artificer spell, but NOT a wizard spell, so this may not have been a Larian homebrew change.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Enhance%20Ability#content

Specific variants of the spell are found on different items BTW.
Cat's Grace (DEX) is on the Graceful Cloth. (etc.)

I don't like modding games. Mods often break saves. And when a mod which broke a save isn't maintaned, you're screwed.

[Mike Garrison]

Bottom line is that D&D has historically separated "divine magic" from "arcane magic". Although they added a bunch of crossover classes that pull from both pools, the prototypical divine magic class (cleric) never gets any arcane magic, and the prototypical arcane magic class (wizard) never gets any divine magic.

Although, there has always been some overlap. For example there was an arcane "remove curse" and a divine "remove curse" which had basically the same effect but were different spells. In 5e they just combined them into the same spell, so now it muddies the waters.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Bottom line is that D&D has historically separated "divine magic" from "arcane magic". Although they added a bunch of crossover classes that pull from both pools, the prototypical divine magic class (cleric) never gets any arcane magic, and the prototypical arcane magic class (wizard) never gets any divine magic.

Although, there has always been some overlap. For example there was an arcane "remove curse" and a divine "remove curse" which had basically the same effect but were different spells. In 5e they just combined them into the same spell, so now it muddies the waters.

This is true, however enhance ability as well as the older versions which actually enhanced stats in older editions does actually appear on the wizard spell list as well as the cleric spell list in table top.
(generally the ability to heal is what arcane magic users were denied, but even then there have been some work arounds since 3rd edition)

Wizard not having it here in game is purely Larian's choice.

It honestly doesn't make sense that wizard doesn't have it.
I guess they felt wizard being able to learn so many spells already was enough.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by jonnin:

EA is a roll up of the individual spells that were always clerical magic. Whether it makes sense or not, and while there is a lot of overlap, in D&D clerical magic is buffs and cures/heals, while arcane is personal defenses (only for the caster, like mirror image, mage armor, etc) and destruction of enemy. For a combination of role (buffer) and historical reasons (cat's grace etc family of spells) these are clerical.

I have often felt that there should be branches of arcane magic that mimic some divine effects, just as multiple clerical domains offer arcane powers. D&D 5e moved away from the specialist wizard ideas, though -- previously you would give up a school (eg, necromatic) to be better at another school (eg abjuration) and could never cast the ones in the lost school. Adding a divine school would have been ... interesting, but with that idea dead, its probably never gonna happen (but casting bards sort of meet in the middle).

They actually did a UA test once in 5e with a subclass of wizard that did that.
https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wizard:theurgy-ua

Older editions also toyed with the idea.
3.x had several sub classes and prestige classes that did it like Mystic Theurge.
Pathfinder 1e expanded on them.

Sadly you are probably right.
They don't seem to like experimenting with design as much anymore.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by TG zac:

Originally posted by jonnin:

EA is a roll up of the individual spells that were always clerical magic. Whether it makes sense or not, and while there is a lot of overlap, in D&D clerical magic is buffs and cures/heals, while arcane is personal defenses (only for the caster, like mirror image, mage armor, etc) and destruction of enemy. For a combination of role (buffer) and historical reasons (cat's grace etc family of spells) these are clerical.

I have often felt that there should be branches of arcane magic that mimic some divine effects, just as multiple clerical domains offer arcane powers. D&D 5e moved away from the specialist wizard ideas, though -- previously you would give up a school (eg, necromatic) to be better at another school (eg abjuration) and could never cast the ones in the lost school. Adding a divine school would have been ... interesting, but with that idea dead, its probably never gonna happen (but casting bards sort of meet in the middle).

They actually did a UA test once in 5e with a subclass of wizard that did that.
https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wizard:theurgy-ua

Older editions also toyed with the idea.
3.x had several sub classes and prestige classes that did it like Mystic Theurge.
Pathfinder 1e expanded on them.

Sadly you are probably right.
They don't seem to like experimenting with design as much anymore.

Or maybe they felt like the experiment showed that it was a bad idea.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by TG zac:

Wizard not having it here in game is purely Larian's choice.

It's not, though. By 5e rules, enhance ability can be learned by clerics, bards, druids, sorcerers, artificers, and oath of glory paladins. Not wizards. It's a 5e choice, and Larian was only following the 2014 rules.

2024 rules changed it so that pretty much every type of spellcaster can cast it, including wizards.

BG3 came out before the 2024 rules, although they also obviously incorporated some of the rule changes that they must have had advanced info about. This must not have been one of the early changes that was passed on to Larian.

(Another interesting thing ... the 2024 rules dropped CON from the list of abilities that can be enhanced. The 2014 spell allowed you to enhance any of the six, but the 2024 spell only allows you to enhance the five abilities other than CON. The 2024 rules also dropped the little extra buffs like some temporary HP for the CON, or the extra carrying capacity for the STR.)

(Since BG3 allows you to enhance CON, that's more evidence that they were following the 2014 rules for this spell. This is backed up by the use of "Bull's Strength", "Cat's Grace", etc. which were all dropped from the 2024 rules in favor of simply saying "you pick either STR, DEX, INT, WIS, or CHA".)

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by TG zac:

Wizard not having it here in game is purely Larian's choice.

It's not, though. By 5e rules, enhance ability can be learned by clerics, bards, druids, sorcerers, artificers, and oath of glory paladins. Not wizards. It's a 5e choice, and Larian was only following the 2014 rules.

2024 rules changed it so that pretty much every type of spellcaster can cast it, including wizards.

BG3 came out before the 2024 rules, although they also obviously incorporated some of the rule changes that they must have had advanced info about. This must not have been one of the early changes that was passed on to Larian.

(Another interesting thing ... the 2024 rules dropped CON from the list of abilities that can be enhanced. The 2014 spell allowed you to enhance any of the six, but the 2024 spell only allows you to enhance the five abilities other than CON. The 2024 rules also dropped the little extra buffs like some temporary HP for the CON, or the extra carrying capacity for the STR.)

(Since BG3 allows you to enhance CON, that's more evidence that they were following the 2014 rules for this spell. This is backed up by the use of "Bull's Strength", "Cat's Grace", etc. which were all dropped from the 2024 rules in favor of simply saying "you pick either STR, DEX, INT, WIS, or CHA".)

Several ways wizards could actually get it before that actually
https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spell:enhance-ability

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by TG zac:

They actually did a UA test once in 5e with a subclass of wizard that did that.
https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wizard:theurgy-ua

Older editions also toyed with the idea.
3.x had several sub classes and prestige classes that did it like Mystic Theurge.
Pathfinder 1e expanded on them.

Sadly you are probably right.
They don't seem to like experimenting with design as much anymore.

Or maybe they felt like the experiment showed that it was a bad idea.

I mean they have already heavily diluted the original ideas for spell casting restrictions.
You are no longer bound to specific spell schools as a wizard like previous editions.
Numerous books have introduced ways for wizards to get spells that can steal life, straight up heal and do other things that never would have been considered in earlier editions.

Even looking at 2024 many of the ideas in it are either things previous editions had or are straight up lifted from other systems.
Problem is while they are lifted from other systems or older editions they didn't really grab the systems to balance & restrict them.

So 2024 edition ends up a fuster cluck anyway.

They may as well go all out and just embrace it.