Davvy reviews Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos

This video made me learn how to spell curriculum.
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Song: Kingdom of Bards - Adrian Von Ziegler

[moonlight]

I can't believe Davy made through this entire video without saying "especially the wizard" once.

[TheClericCorner]

"living the fantasy of getting good grades"

Same, chappy, same 😂

[summermermaidstar]

The thing to remember: Strixhaven isnt a school to "learn how to cast spells", it's a magical school and magic in magical school is good and all BUT it's about applying magic studies to ALL ASPECTS of life.
Picking up a little bit of magic shows that at least anyone (with those backgrounds) studied a little bit, enough to get some magical ability. But a monk may be interest in quandrix to sharpen their minds a bit. A lorehold barbarian (Ancestral guardian be great here) fits perfectly even if they cant flex their first level spell while raging. Battlemaster honing their techniques by studying spells that could be used against them. It's even part law school (Silverquill) and Lawyers need a place to learn law, court is pretty tough and practicing against magical opponents can make non magical courtroom battles even easier.

Heck one of the monsters that is in the book is anti-spellcaster (Known from MTG knowledge, but countering spellcasters with mage killers is just smart badguy tactics) so maybe having that one person with less magic could be a good thing!

tdlr school is more studying about magic, then being magic yourself. Even if your a non-caster with little spells (Via feats) you can have RP reasons to be there, because knowing how magic works makes you smarter. Caster classes, enjoy your improved education especially Silverquill (vicious mockery all day every day!)

[MeterLP]

For a book about a spellcaster school, I really expected more spells to cast. The ones we got are pretty juicy, though.

[BloodOre]

I'm going to try to mix this in with Candlekeep Mysteries to see how that goes. Maybe give the graduates something to do after their school life, as the last chapter of strixhaven is level 10 (Thanks comments! Good to know it was higher than I thought (8)), while Candlekeep goes to level 16. Might make for a meatier campaign setting!

[procrastinatinggamer]

It’s disappointing that they couldn’t find a way to get martial classes to feel as included here, especially given it has some pretty direct competition in the “magical academy adventure” niche. It’s release is right at the tail end of Pathfinder 2e’s *Strength of Thousands* Adventure Path (I think the second-last part released a week or two back) which has the PCs as new students at the Magaambya, Golarion’s premier magical university deep in the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse.

And it included martial classes by using a variant rule called Free Archetype, where every time you get a class feat (which is every even-numbered level, with martial getting an extra one at 1st level) you also get a bonus archetype feat, which the AP thematically restricts to either the Wizard or Druid multiclass archetypes (the school focuses on arcane and primal magic and those are the only two sources of such magic that can be academically taught). Those archetypes can let you get up to 8th level spells if you follow them long enough, which you’re probably going to do in this AP unless the restriction on which archetypes you can get for free loosens up along the way - there’s a shedload of non-multiclass archetypes that could work for the campaign, even a few with direct lore connections to the Magaambya.

[akisha]

As far as "Magic school in TTRPG" goes, I really like the "Strength of Thousands" adventure path in Pathfinder Second Edition. Even non-casters get cool stuff and you can even get items/ new spells if you befriend students.

[NovaQueen]

I feel like the feats should have been five for each school, for a total of 25. One initiate level, and then two paths that represent the different ways to specialize in the school, locked by both the previous feat and level requirements. It would give a nice feeling of progression and a proper theme for your character. For example, you could have Witherbloom initiate, and then proceed to either Witherbloom Lifecrafter or Witherbloom Gloomsage, before finishing out at Witherbloom Biomaster or Witherbloom Deathmaster. I also thought that maybe t he max level feats could only be taken at the level of most classes' final feats, so you could only have one, but I don't know about that.

[jonathanmarth]

Question is how easily the school life stuff is adabtable to other schools. Might be interesting as a baseline for all the magic schools and military academies scattered around my world.
Then again paying 50 bucks for something that some DnD content creator probably already has a superior video on might not be a savvy investment.

[joelsasmad]

Davvy Chappy knowing about Helluva Boss makes me really happy!

[lorihacking]

Now I can roleplay something I’m already doing; failing in school.

[fuzzydragon]

i kinda dig what im reading of the adventure, its a vast departure from the dark gritty style that most 5e modules have for something a good bit more kid friendly, or light hearted. But I can see where the real potential lurks in in pairing Strixhaven with Candlekeep Mysteries to span the downtime for some Scooby-Doo adventures! 🤔

[zimattack]

If this doesn't end with crippling student loan debt then not a true college and can't forget useless degrees

[DStrormer]

Strixhaven does feel like a big missed opportunity. Like, I knew from the name they were going to focus in on the school, but it feels like they neglected Arcavios as a larger setting while also half-assing the school itself. It's not bad, but definitely average at best. I expect we'll see a lot more value added on Guild now that Arcavios is available as another MtG setting though.

[Armaggedon]

I kind of agree that subclasses should deepen the mechanics of their class, but feats have so much unexplored design space. I understand the hesitancy though, after 3.5e.

[KaiserCaboose]

Tbh my favorite thing was the extracurricular stuff. So good to fill out a setting that is in a static

[Howlzifer]

I'd still use the UA subclasses but just make them optional.
If you could rework the UA subclasses into some sort of prestige class, I feel like that would maybe work allowing your players to be both what their class is supposed to be along with the added college stuff.

[mylesdrake]

Honestly I like that background features because they allow you to do cool things like cast revify as a contingency as a wizard in case you die. There is also the fiends in the book that give bonus magic for dealing with them that comes at a cost. The 5 new spells are also go from okay to stupidly good.

[randomsleepyness]

At 2:33 I was screaming "owlbear!"

[wykd]

I wonder when Davy will realize that the Discord link doesn't work.