Remember to prepare your spells at short or long rests.
Any towns you go into, look for libraries and spell shops to fill up your spell book, or purchase spell scrolls to save on spell slots.
Spell component bags are a good redundancy if you lose your arcane focus item (i.e. you dropped your wand off a cliff) and a good spot to store rare spell components.
Stick with ranged weapons, wizards are glass cannons that blast magic from the back away from combat. Daggers, darts, slings dont do much damage, but to be honest you are gonna be blasting cantrips all the time when all your spell slots are empty, rather than throwing darts or daggers. Simple ranged weapons adds a “in a pinch” redundancy should something like antimagic field be in effect that interrupts spell casting, and still allow you to attack from afar and stay away from melee combat.
Aside from your spells, in the heat of battle you can sometimes forget about your class abilities. The DM isnt going to remind you that you can use your arcane ward ability when you cast a spell, thats your responsibility. I’ve seen this happen to new wizards that get focused on what spell they can use next and forget about their wizard abilities some times.
During the turns of enemies and other players start thinking ahead of what you are gonna do next. It speeds up wait time for the DM and other players if you are looking up spells during their turns, vs everyone waiting around for you to look up each spell before you use it.
More generally players should always understand their character's abilities. Rather than assuming their DM will know.
Since spells can have side effects it's important to read the entire description.
Casting magic in D&D is very obvious. Anyone who can see or hear your Wizard will know they are casting a spell. Even if they have no idea what is being cast. Which can mean that spells such as *Suggestion* are best avoided where there are witnesses.
Sure. So first off the wizard is a special case. Basically if you know a ritual spell as a wizard you do not have to have the spell prepared to be able to cast that spell. As long as you have the components and that spell is in your spellbook you can take 10 mins plus the normal casting time of the spell and cast it. Everyone else has to have the spell prepared and can cast it as a ritual (10 mins plus normal casting) without expending a spell slot.
I really appreciate that. I am running my first game ever with a bunch of brand new players tomorrow night and I was having trouble wrapping my head around what exactly that meant and how to explain it to the wizard in my party.
Think of it like a wizard can cast a ritual spell as an "open book test" if they have the time. I haven't prepared the spell, but it's all written right here. Just give me some time to get set up and work it out.
>you can take 10 mins and cast it.
It's 10 minutes _plus_ the normal casting time, not just 10 minutes. This is important for some rituals, such as Find Familiar, whose normal casting time is 1 hour.
In short you take time to cast a spell a instead of using a spell slot. For example; you can use 10 minutes to cast detect magic instead of using a level 1 spell slot
No problem, you should check in YouTube, there's more in depth information there. I know the bare minimum because I play melees with a couple casters in the party
There are a bunch of spells that have the "ritual" tag. You take an extra 10 minutes and cast these spells without using any spell slots so long as you have your spell book and they are known, you don't have to have them prepared. They are all excellent for out of combat and utility spells like identify and comprehend languages.
I know, not who you asked, but a request for Barney Style should always be answered.
Basically if you know a spell, you can cast it, IF it has a tag next to it in the description saying it can be cast as a ritual.
Example: Identify, Page 252 of the PHB. It says the spell name, then under it the level, and then the school. In this case it is a first lvl spell of the school of Divination. Right after that it will have in parenthesis the word "ritual". So it will be like:
IDENTTIFY
*1st-level divination (ritual)*
Now if it has this tag you can cast said spell if you know it, in other words, is in your spell book. If you are a wizard, it states you do not need to have it prepared(p114), but both cleric and druid claim you do(p58 & p66 respectively). Bard is the fun one because it does not say that. Just "You can cast any bard spell you know as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag". Which to me, says it is done as the wizard spells, but still odd it says it on Wiz, but not Bard.
Now you can only cast such spells this way if they are of your class and they have that tag. And the classes listed are the only ones that have it, so a warlock or sorcerer do not have this ability.
But what it does is allow you to use said spell without using a slot (for any of the classes, even if require to have it prepped), but at the cost of an additional 10 minutes of casting time, and not being able to upcast. So to continue with the above example, Identify can ONLY be cast this way as a lvl 1 spell.
So sticking with Identify, its casting time normally is 1 minute, but as a ritual it now takes 11 minutes, and is otherwise free.
The passage for Ritual Magic starts on the bottom of 201, and ends at the top of 202.
I hope this helps.
Bards don’t have a separate list for prepared spells, they can only know the spells they have prepared and vice versa. Same with sorcerers if I remember correctly.
Boy does this help!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to give such an in-depth response to my question. It's really appreciated.
Damn, the D&D community around here really is top tier!!
I am a DM, so I should be helping new players where I can. I was in the army, so I get a call for "break it down barney style" or "like I am 5" 😁
Happy to be of service.
Rituals are so useful IMO that it's worth marking a "R" next to them in the class spell lists. When I played Clerics, I often would be preparing more spells than I'd necessarily use in a day so I'd look for Rituals to pad out the list without sacrificing spell slots. I'm playing Scribe Wizard currently and best believe I'm abusing every Ritual I can, since that's basically the subclass.
People already answered you mechanically how it works, just for flavour reasons I'll add
Think a wiccan practitioner of how someone irl would cast a spell as a cerimonial ritual.
Since wizards live in a high fantasy world, if they are given that much time and ease of mind to cast a qualifying spell, then they don't need to prepare as they do to cast stuff during the heat of battle.
Plan your turn on your allies turns, so you can just get right to what you're doing when yours hits and you aren't the guy that says "uhhh, wait a sec lemme look" and slows the game down.
Yeah but barbarians are often doing the same thing on their turns. So they can look at the board and get going. Wizards have options so they have to pay attention to be effective. Others can get away with a small amount of attention wandering.
Find synergy with spells and teammates. Cast haste on fighters/Barbadians, feather fall/spider climb on a rogue that needs to climb up a few stories, jump on the frontline fighters, mold earth to direct enemies into specific areas, slow on enemies that can multi attack or disengage from combat easily.
Oh when you summon something, it doesn’t have to go for the kill, look at abilities of summons, some could grapple enemies, blind them, you can use summons to grab an important object, protect a downed/badly injured ally, distract/grant advantage to allies with the “help“action/flanking
Wizards are pretty good as is, and you *can* definitely play one that gets by with the 6 starting spells and the 2 they get from every level up.
However, a Wizard is a ton more fun if you are also able to get more spells by copying found spells into your spellbook.
And that's something a lot of DMs tend to occassionally forget - adding scrolls and other spell books for the Wizard to copy from.
What I do, as DM, is I ask my Wizard players to tell me
- 2 spells they *really* want
- 2 spells they think could be fun
- 1 spell they have never used
and as DM I also think about 2 spells that might come in handy.
With that information in hand, I build a spellbook (so it would contain something like Fireball, Snowball Storm, Caustic Brew, Earthbind, Air Bubble, Feather Fall and Flock of Familiars) and hand it out to the Wizard relatively early. Now the Wizard has the choice of a couple more spells they can add as the game goes on and they have enough money to do so.
This is something I’ve been a little confused about. The way I interpret the PHB wizard class is that when leveling up you get to add two spells to your book for free, regardless of how many you have in your book already, and you don’t need to find these spells in your travels.
It’s only additional spells that you come across that require the time and gold described in PHB. And you could eventually have a book that contained every Wizard spell, it just might require a lot of effort. Do I have that right?
Your party is standing in a 10'x10' corridor when they open up a 40'x50'x15' room filled with orcs! The wizard enthusiastically casts fireball at the centre of the room, how many PCs take damage?
I'm horrible unless I have a visual but all of them? Damage depends on if they save or not but they may all take some damage depending on position. Slow will however ensure that those orcs only have 1 action, make them unable to use bonus actions or reactions and more!
Find Familiar is your friend. Owl and bat are better friends. Mage Hand, Message and Minor Illusion are invaluable. Toll of the Dead is better than it appears. Fireball .. because .. it's fireball. Magic Missile can't miss. On the first day, tell everyone in the party that spells are expensive. Wizards are huge money pits. Keep your spellbook safe .. keep it very safe. Web is your friend. Misty step your best friend. When you can get polymorph ..get polymorph.
A bat + the Light cantrip = Glowbat, my perpetual familiar in every game. Glowbat is GREAT!
* no more torches
* can do recon and act as flying flashlight
* can keep watch over the party while we sleep, pairs well with Alarm
* can Help action
* never lets you down
Flying monkey is also really good. The stats might not seem spectacular, but keep in mind that they have opposable thumbs and are small sized. This opens doors like a potion deliverer or a monkey with a wand.
you'll be able to prepare a lot of spells. It won't feel like it. don't learn too many damage dealing spells as you'll use them less as you level. learn as many rituals as you can. If all of your unprepared spells are rituals then you have no unprepared spells. Absorb elements is life saving at every level. You can only concentrate on one spell at a time, so only prepare a few of those.
I saw an idea on the internet and I’ve been wanting to try it ever since.
Cast magic mouth on all your stuff, like your hat, so that it whispers a warning to you when someone’s staring at you, or your money pouch, so it screams when someone other than you touches it, all kinds of wacky stuff.
The most fun that I had playing my wizard was using concentration spells to buff my friends or debuff my enemies.
Like, yeah, it feels really good to cast Storm Sphere and wreck structures and low-hp minions, but it feels even better to slap Greater Invisibility on the Rogue and know that you're allowing them to Sneak Attack consistently. Or to break through a boss' legendary resistances with a Hold Person so that the rest of the party can just fuckin' wail on them.
So yeah, my advice is to think carefully about which Concentration spells you learn, and which ones you prepare each day.
Think carefully about which kind of playstyle you generally enjoy (offensive, defensive, melee, support) and pick your subclass appropriately.
Wizards have a lot of options on how to play them.
Learn the mechanics of ritual spells and use them all the time. You can detect magic, set alarms, and summon unseen servant all day long without using spell slots as long as you are not in a hurry.
Understanding spells means understanding the edge cases and boundaries for spells. Sometimes you can use your free unseen servant to set off traps, or put on a cloak and act like a distraction, or carry a lantern for you. An alarm is standard for setting camp, but you can also put it on a dungeon door and know if anyone enters or leaves behind you. A lot of spells can be used in ways that don't require rolls but do change the situation.
You will get more enjoyment out of your combat if you make well planned rp casting descriptions. Describe how you cast that spell, what you use or how use make the somatic components. In my experience, especially early level, your action economy is kind of slow. If you don’t want your turn to be “I cast fire bolt” and it misses, move on. Then describe the cast of the fire bolt, add some pizzazz!
Know what's fun? A high strength Wizard. Back in old school "Rules Cyclopedia" DnD when you took the stats you rolled straight up in order, I somehow rolled an 18 for both Strength and Intelligence. I could've chosen an Elf, but didn't like the low level cap, so I went Magic User. And hooooly crap that gave me an edge. My AC was crap, but I could charge up front and deliver the pain in a pinch.
1) Spells are your whole class: make sure you understand them. This feels obvious but it's good to keep in mind.
2)Think tactically: You have a genius level intelligence and 3 HP. Take advantage of cover, debilitating conditions(paralyzed, prone, etc), advantage/disadvantage, and anything else. You're smart enough to think of it and frail enough that it's massively helpful.
3)Find Familiar is amazing. You get a magic pet that can give you permanent advantage by repeatedly using the help action. Not to mention all the other benefits(RP benefits, scouting, etc)
4)Copy any spell you find into your book. One of the wizard's great features is the ability to add spells to your spellbook, giving you a giant pool of spells to tackle any situation.
Hope these help!
A wizard is just as much a problemsolver as he is a caster. Think about what could benefit your party how right now. In this regard the wizard is the magical variant of the rogue. When in doubt ask yourselfe what would batman prepare.
Something that may help is make sure your DM knows you need spell scrolls/spell books as part of their reward structure.
If your DM doesn’t know how wizards work, they may overlook giving you new spells via rewards. And that would be unfortunate.
As many have said, learn what your spells do. Also, don't be redundant with your spell list. Each spell should do something different, interesting and/or unique. A really big part of being a good wizard is not stepping on your allies toes and knowing when to use a leveled spell, when to use a cantrip, and when to do nothing.
There is nothing wrong with sitting the rest of the fight out because the rest of the team has it covered, but generally try to not sit out every fight. What you generally want to be doing is using cantrips when you think the time for leveled spells is over, which you'll find yourself in a lot.
A good wizard picks a lot of ritual spells up early. The more ritual spells you have, the more diverse your portfolio is, and the more your allies to use all their non-ritual spells. Wizards have the unique ability to cast all their ritual spells as rituals regardless if they're prepared or not. This means at lower levels, you'll be using a bunch of rituals as part of your spell selections because you won't have enough spell slots to accomodate your prepared spell list (by 19th level, you DEFINITELY won't have enough room, as at 20th, the max you can prepare is 25, but the most amount of spell slots you get is 22).
Roleplay doesn't really matter too much when it comes to drafting what your character is capable of, and by that, I mean it doesn't matter that you're playing a WIZARD. Just play the personality of the character how you want. Literally any backstory is possible (even the really ridiculous ones like being a former god/demon lord/archdevil/etc.).
And another reminder, REALLY know what your spells do. And in game, my recommendation is to hold on to spell scrolls for as long as possible and try to scribe them as early as you can if they're on the wizard spell list.
Depending on your DM, make an extra spell book or two. If you can get a low level magic item of always full magic ink, this can be very profitable too.
As a DM who plays a wizard when I’m not DMing: convince your DM to let you find spell scrolls or have some kind of a “research” mechanic, so you’re not just limited to the spells you get with levelling up.
For a single level dip, you're generally better off with Artificer than Fighter.
* Multiclass ability requirement is the same for both wizard and artificer, and with no need for strength as a wizard you don't need heavy armor (artificer gives medium armor and shields)
* No loss of spell slot progression
* More 1st level spells, using the same spellcasting ability as your main class
The main reason to multiclass fighter/wizard is for Action Surge in order to get a nova turn, but that requires 2 levels of fighter, not 1.
[This is really helpful to know the best spells to have prepared at every level for a first time wizard player](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPkI1ComIaiLQY-yjL8s7BeHxaXSB8dIE)
Divination is fun, as Portents can be a fun ace in the hole at times. Order of Scribes is also a hidden gem too that not enough people talk about I think.
Firebolts give good damage but the side effects of chill touch (prevent healing and give undead disadvantage against you) or Ray of Frost (only 60' range but opponent move speed -10)
1d8 damage + special effects beats 1d10 to me.
Both Cold and Fire damage are often resisted/immune but the necrotic from chill touch is more likely to do full. I usually give Chill Touch unless there is an RP or Lore reason not to.
The ability to ignite something from over 100 feet away or to shoot basically a flare into the air at will should not be overlooked. If you're not walking into every room, wondering what is flammable, you're wasting an advantage.
I’d also like to nominate toll the dead and mind sliver. Toll the dead has the highest cantrip damage with a good damage type, and mind sliver targets a rare save and has a great rider effect.
Once you have access to 2nd level spells - Heat Metal. Just a ridiculously powerful low-level spell against anyone wearing armor, especially full plate. It takes ages to remove plate armor, so you're just burning them constantly and they'll have disadvantage the entire time.
You actually have fewer spells prepped than you expect - many other classes have subclasses that give them free spell preparations, but wizards do not. This is partly why their ability to ritual cast spells without preparing them is useful.
For all the talk of god-wizards, that’s mostly about how medium-or-higher level spells impact the story. You’ll be much closer to “effective support teammate” than “defeat the whole fight” in combat.
Resist the urge to blast. Unless you can catch 3+ enemies in an AOE, your time is usually better spent trying to lock them down with control spells or concentrating on a useful buff or summon. Your party warriors are perfectly capable of doing HP damage to enemies.
That said, don’t be afraid to fire off an attack cantrip then end your turn. If you have a good Concentration spell running - say, you’ve got an Ogre locked up in a Web - you’re doing great. Plink him with a Fire Bolt and keep your distance.
Wizards get d6 HP in 5e, and do not get any armor proficiency. (But Mage Armor is better than any nonmagical light armor anyway.) In addition to quarterstaffs and daggers, wizards are proficient with slings, darts, and light crossbows.
When character levels up add one offensive or defensive spell and one utility spell. Concentration spells should be for control or buff spells, not damage.
Try getting all the Ritual Spells.
Try having one a WIDE array of options for both damage types as well as spell saves. Can’t have them all prepped at once, but having the access makes it a short term problem.
Get as many spells as you can during gameplay, especially ritual taged spells. Basically free spell slots.
Get reaction spells for action economy.
Stay back, use control spells don't worry about doing to much damage
Max damage dealing gets boring fast. Have damage spells but ones that do other things . Being able to mess with the environment and BBEG never gets old
Know your spells and talk to your dm about ambiguities before combat. If it’s your turn in combat and you and the dm spend 15 minutes going over what you can and cannot do, your table is going to hate you.
Do not overlook Ritual spells. Just knowing them means you can cast them as a ritual without having them prepared that day. Things like detect magic, Identify, and Tenser's Floating Disc can come in clutch but memorizing them is often a waste. This will give you greater versatility.
Prioritize learning spells by looking for spellbooks and scrolls and spend your gold there. You wont regret it. Just take real good care of your spellbook.
Take care of your concentration. Getting interrupted is a real problem. Using things like Shield as a reaction can save you feom getting whacked. Feats like Resilient (Constitution) can help shore your ability to concentrate up a bit.
Small HP pool so make distance but also don't put yourself all by yourself and out of range of other players abilities aka artificers flash of genius, bards cutting words, the spell silvery barbs, and so on normal rang is like 30 ft so dance around that if you can and if you can pick up shield spell really great if you get targeted anyways. casting it uses your reaction and a lvl1 spell slot giving you a +5 to your ac till the start of your next turn
1. Get proficiency in constitution saves and/or the warcaster feat to keep up concentration: it’s one of the most important things.
2. Use defensive spells to keep yourself alive. (Mage armor, shield, absorb elements, mirror image, etc.)
3. Make sure you know your party member’s capabilities and weaknesses, and plan accordingly. For instance if you’ve got a slow but powerful dwarf warrior in the fihgt, sometimes casting vortex warp on them to teleport them up to enemy archers is far more effective and fun for everyone than you trying to kill them yourself.
4. Look for ability or spell combinations with allies: if your ally can do repelling eldritch blasts, zone control spells (like web) can be a lot cooler when enemies get blasted back into the web.
5. Don’t think that magic needs to solve everything. If the group can solve a problem with mundane means, its usually better than wasting time or spell slots with magic.
6. Check if your DM allows crafting, if so creating scrolls and magical items are among the coolest things you can do for the team. Some spells are almost never worth memorizing themselves but fantastic to have in reserve on scroll (gust of wind for instance solves rare problems that will usually be BIG problems like natural fog, cloudkills, etc.). And if you make your fighter a flametongue sword they will love you for all time.
If you focus on battlefield control, you will make things far easier for your party, you are one of the best in the game. Think of AOE control spells as better versions of healing spells, how much of your party's HP are you saving by preventing them from taking hits in the first place?
Try to keep at least one teleport available, if you get grappled or stuck you'll need it.
Always be concentrating on something, and protect that concentration through positioning, ac, and feats.
Don't be afraid if asking your dm if there are spell scrolls around to find or buy so you can add to your spellbook. Asking every once and a while will keep it in mind.
At a glance the basics look covered. I'd say just have fun with it and add a bit of flavor to your spells. It adds a bit of detail that will make your combats a little more memorable beyond "I shoot magic missile into the darkness!"
* Remember that you can cast spells in any armor that you are proficient in. Like half plate if you're a mountain dwarf.
* Learn as many rituals as you can. Identify, alarm, detect magic, etc. You can cast them without spell slots as long as you're cool with it taking 10 minutes.
Stay off the front line. Know your spells.
Prioritize your Intelligence score. Get it to 18 as fast as you can. Then shoot for 20.
For example, I’m running a Bladesinger Wizard now. He’s got a 17 Intelligence. At level 4 he’s getting Telekinetic, which grants a +1 Intelligence bonus. At level 8 he’s taking the ASI and bumping Intelligence to 20.
Constitution and Dexterity matter. Balance that according to your subclass. If you’re running a Bladesinger, AC is important and you’ll want to prioritize Dex over Con.
If you’ve an odd numbered Constitution, get Resilient Con and you’ll have proficiency in Constitution saves. That feat will also add 1 to you Constitution. Helps your HP and your concentration checks. If your Constitution is even numbered, take Warcaster instead for advantage on Constitution rolls.
Check out the online spell guides. Treantmonk has a good one, as do others.
Minor quibble but war caster specifically grants advantage on constitution (concentration) checks, not con checks in general. An important distinction, especially for anyone relatively new to the game.
If your DM is stingy about giving out gold, don't learn spells related to your school when you level up. Save those for copying down into your spell book to save money.
Print out your spells on cardstock, put them in a binder. Get some index cards, one per spell slot and label them. Much easier to track spell slots when they are tangible.
Don’t go all in on damage spells. Where wizards truly shine is their utility and control. You might find that you’ll do more indirect damage by setting up your opponents for the fighter to kill rather than hitting them with a damaging spell yourself.
From level 1-4, you'll probably do more damage with a light crossbow than with a cantrip.
Fire Bolt will do 5.5 damage on average, and against a target with 13 AC you'll have a 65% chance to hit, assuming 16-17 Int at level 1. That's 3.85 damage per round on average, including your chance to crit.
Light crossbow will do 6.5 damage on average, assuming 14 Dex at level 1 (a reasonable number for a wizard to have), and against a target with 13 AC you'll have a 60% chance to hit. That's 4.215 damage per round on average.
At level 5, Fire Bolt would go up to 11 damage on average and you can switch to using the cantrips instead of the crossbow.
Telekinetic is an excellent feat choice for a wizard. It's a half feat, so if you had 17 Int at level 1, you could take Telekinetic at level 4 instead of +2 Int, and you'd still be in a good place, as far as your ability score progression goes. Wizards also frequently don't have something to spend their bonus action on, but Telekinetic gives you a BA shove that can be used at range, as many times per day as you want. This can be used to break a grapple on you (if you shove the monster grappling you and you end up outside their reach, the grapple ends), to pseudo-disengage (if you shove a melee enemy away from you so you're no longer in melee, they don't get to opportunity attack you when you run away), to use a ranged spell attack without disadvantage (any ranged attack while there are enemies in melee with you has disadvantage), or to throw enemies into dangerous terrain or traps. And you can use it to the benefit of the rest of the party too, such as if your monk has been grappled. (You could even shove the monk instead of the monster, and the monk can choose to fail the save, meaning the shove automatically works!) Bonus points: you get a special version of Mage Hand with no spell components, with the hand invisible. Lots of potential uses for that in social situations.
Always make sure to get creative with your spells. For example, you may think that the fog cloud spell is only for escaping a bad situation, but you can also drop it on archers or spellcasters so they can’t target your friends.
Start with 2 fighter levels. Con saves, heavy armor, martial weapons, a little self healing, and the ability to action surge 2 leveled spells I one turn is worth the slower spell progression in my opinion.
Some of these have already been said but in my experience these help a lot
1. Range is your friend. You're squishy so take cover and keep your distance from fights.
2. Know what to cast before it's your turn. Things may change last minute but most often knowing what you'll cast is going to save everyone time.
3. Ritual spells are great. Use them to your advantage
4. When doing prepared spells make "loadouts" like you would in C.O.D. these spells are useful in town. If know you're going into a fight use the combat loadout. Etc etc
5. Don't overstress yourself and have fun
REMEMBER TO ACTIVATE MAGE ARMOR. Also, remember to ask about Cloaks and wearable items that aren't armor when you're shopping. You can't get armor from wearable armor, so you'll have to remember that your magic and other items are to make up for this.
Also, if you do feats, you can get Mage Initiate to get a free cast of Mage armor once a day or False Life if you want to give yourself some temporary hit points to.make yourself harder to kill
So you get a discount on learning spells of your school! This is counterintuitive a little bit since you actually want to pick spells not of your school when you level up. This works only f you are able to find spell scrolls out in the open world. It’s a weird mechanic indeed
If you are going “straight” wizard I would actually suggest starting Artificer 1, you round up with artificer since they are basically a 3/4 caster. The big thing is you get more proficiency (shield) and cons save throws.
If you never plan to dip your Wizard down the line, this is a great way to set that up. Otherwise you are looking at having to take res-cons and not able to use a shield.
Also, unrelated, but bladesinger isn’t just melee, they are actually just really tankier versions of wizards if you think about it that way. Bladesinger is a really powerful class IMO even if you still mainly backline cast. Not saying you should pick it or anything, just really don’t discount it as “melee wizard” sure you can melee but Bladesingers are fantastic casters. I say this even though mine just died last weekend after landing 3 consecutive Mind Whips 🥲
When a problem comes along, you must Whip It!
Seriously consider taking Tasha's Mind Whip when you get the chance. It's an Int Save (usually quite a weak save for enemies in D&D, particularly beasts and monsters), does decent Psychic damage (one of the best damage types that is rarely resisted), and has a pretty debilitating debuff on top of all that. All of that for a second level spell slot.
Concentration is important, war caster and resilient con are your friends.
Plan your turns, read what your spells do, and have the spell save DC and target stat ready for your DM.
Depends on the context, I guess.
I'd try to avoid stereotypes just bc they're, well, stereotypes. (maybe don't choose fireball, even tho it's a really good spell)
While you're at it, you can try to think of a theme for your wizard, and why they have that theme. And try to spice up your spells a bit, add some nice flavor.
Also bc wizards are pretty OP, maybe think of a big flaw your character has. Not smth that could have a negative impact on the table's experience or your own, but smth that can really help shape your character.
(wizard in my party always rolls for which spells they prepare at the start of each game, bc of their faith. Definitely not a smart move, but it makes for some hilarious situations!)
All suggestions of course, do whatever you want with them. Just make sure all of you have fun playing!
Ask your dm if they will allow you to use the spell points system instead of spell slots. Its a variant rule in the DMG. Ive used it and had players who use it, and we have all found it to be much better than spell slots.
Also, for damaging spells, write the damage next to the spell: ex. 1d8 fire.
Familiars are insanely flexible but very fragile, your familiar can give help actions, benefit forms things like dragons breath and polymorph, other fun stuff.
Just know what your spells do, especially when you try to use them.
Yeah, I know about that stuff. There's another person in my party that didn't know that when he first started playing a Wizard
In that case I think you are set up well
Remember to prepare your spells at short or long rests. Any towns you go into, look for libraries and spell shops to fill up your spell book, or purchase spell scrolls to save on spell slots. Spell component bags are a good redundancy if you lose your arcane focus item (i.e. you dropped your wand off a cliff) and a good spot to store rare spell components. Stick with ranged weapons, wizards are glass cannons that blast magic from the back away from combat. Daggers, darts, slings dont do much damage, but to be honest you are gonna be blasting cantrips all the time when all your spell slots are empty, rather than throwing darts or daggers. Simple ranged weapons adds a “in a pinch” redundancy should something like antimagic field be in effect that interrupts spell casting, and still allow you to attack from afar and stay away from melee combat. Aside from your spells, in the heat of battle you can sometimes forget about your class abilities. The DM isnt going to remind you that you can use your arcane ward ability when you cast a spell, thats your responsibility. I’ve seen this happen to new wizards that get focused on what spell they can use next and forget about their wizard abilities some times. During the turns of enemies and other players start thinking ahead of what you are gonna do next. It speeds up wait time for the DM and other players if you are looking up spells during their turns, vs everyone waiting around for you to look up each spell before you use it.
More generally players should always understand their character's abilities. Rather than assuming their DM will know. Since spells can have side effects it's important to read the entire description. Casting magic in D&D is very obvious. Anyone who can see or hear your Wizard will know they are casting a spell. Even if they have no idea what is being cast. Which can mean that spells such as *Suggestion* are best avoided where there are witnesses.
And don't trust the DM to interpret any vague wording in your favor.
Make sure you know the difference between Spells Known, Spells Prepared, and Spell Slots.
Yeah
Make use of Ritual Caster! Supremely valuable in saving you slots.
Can you please explain what Ritual Caster is to me like I'm 5? I am having the hardest time understanding what it means in the PHB.
Sure. So first off the wizard is a special case. Basically if you know a ritual spell as a wizard you do not have to have the spell prepared to be able to cast that spell. As long as you have the components and that spell is in your spellbook you can take 10 mins plus the normal casting time of the spell and cast it. Everyone else has to have the spell prepared and can cast it as a ritual (10 mins plus normal casting) without expending a spell slot.
I really appreciate that. I am running my first game ever with a bunch of brand new players tomorrow night and I was having trouble wrapping my head around what exactly that meant and how to explain it to the wizard in my party.
Think of it like a wizard can cast a ritual spell as an "open book test" if they have the time. I haven't prepared the spell, but it's all written right here. Just give me some time to get set up and work it out.
Cheers! I hope you have a great time!
>you can take 10 mins and cast it. It's 10 minutes _plus_ the normal casting time, not just 10 minutes. This is important for some rituals, such as Find Familiar, whose normal casting time is 1 hour.
Sure, I will correct my comment! Thanks!
In short you take time to cast a spell a instead of using a spell slot. For example; you can use 10 minutes to cast detect magic instead of using a level 1 spell slot
Thanks so much!
No problem, you should check in YouTube, there's more in depth information there. I know the bare minimum because I play melees with a couple casters in the party
There are a bunch of spells that have the "ritual" tag. You take an extra 10 minutes and cast these spells without using any spell slots so long as you have your spell book and they are known, you don't have to have them prepared. They are all excellent for out of combat and utility spells like identify and comprehend languages.
Thank you so much! That helps a lot!
I know, not who you asked, but a request for Barney Style should always be answered. Basically if you know a spell, you can cast it, IF it has a tag next to it in the description saying it can be cast as a ritual. Example: Identify, Page 252 of the PHB. It says the spell name, then under it the level, and then the school. In this case it is a first lvl spell of the school of Divination. Right after that it will have in parenthesis the word "ritual". So it will be like: IDENTTIFY *1st-level divination (ritual)* Now if it has this tag you can cast said spell if you know it, in other words, is in your spell book. If you are a wizard, it states you do not need to have it prepared(p114), but both cleric and druid claim you do(p58 & p66 respectively). Bard is the fun one because it does not say that. Just "You can cast any bard spell you know as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag". Which to me, says it is done as the wizard spells, but still odd it says it on Wiz, but not Bard. Now you can only cast such spells this way if they are of your class and they have that tag. And the classes listed are the only ones that have it, so a warlock or sorcerer do not have this ability. But what it does is allow you to use said spell without using a slot (for any of the classes, even if require to have it prepped), but at the cost of an additional 10 minutes of casting time, and not being able to upcast. So to continue with the above example, Identify can ONLY be cast this way as a lvl 1 spell. So sticking with Identify, its casting time normally is 1 minute, but as a ritual it now takes 11 minutes, and is otherwise free. The passage for Ritual Magic starts on the bottom of 201, and ends at the top of 202. I hope this helps.
Bards don’t have a separate list for prepared spells, they can only know the spells they have prepared and vice versa. Same with sorcerers if I remember correctly.
Oh, that is right! Thank you!
Boy does this help!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to give such an in-depth response to my question. It's really appreciated. Damn, the D&D community around here really is top tier!!
I am a DM, so I should be helping new players where I can. I was in the army, so I get a call for "break it down barney style" or "like I am 5" 😁 Happy to be of service.
Break it down barney Style, reminds me of the book series Expeditionary Force :D
Rituals are so useful IMO that it's worth marking a "R" next to them in the class spell lists. When I played Clerics, I often would be preparing more spells than I'd necessarily use in a day so I'd look for Rituals to pad out the list without sacrificing spell slots. I'm playing Scribe Wizard currently and best believe I'm abusing every Ritual I can, since that's basically the subclass.
People already answered you mechanically how it works, just for flavour reasons I'll add Think a wiccan practitioner of how someone irl would cast a spell as a cerimonial ritual. Since wizards live in a high fantasy world, if they are given that much time and ease of mind to cast a qualifying spell, then they don't need to prepare as they do to cast stuff during the heat of battle.
Your starting HP pool is small, range is your friend with a Wizard.
On that note, you can also seek cover behind allies
And behind objects
In the case of warforged, it's both! :D
I just finished watching Critical Role Campaign 2. Their Wizard doesn’t crack 100hp until level fucking 16.
Plan your turn on your allies turns, so you can just get right to what you're doing when yours hits and you aren't the guy that says "uhhh, wait a sec lemme look" and slows the game down.
One should always strive towards this, irrespective of character.
Yeah but barbarians are often doing the same thing on their turns. So they can look at the board and get going. Wizards have options so they have to pay attention to be effective. Others can get away with a small amount of attention wandering.
Find synergy with spells and teammates. Cast haste on fighters/Barbadians, feather fall/spider climb on a rogue that needs to climb up a few stories, jump on the frontline fighters, mold earth to direct enemies into specific areas, slow on enemies that can multi attack or disengage from combat easily.
Oh when you summon something, it doesn’t have to go for the kill, look at abilities of summons, some could grapple enemies, blind them, you can use summons to grab an important object, protect a downed/badly injured ally, distract/grant advantage to allies with the “help“action/flanking
Always arrive precisely when you mean to!
Never before or after!
Don't go to the coast.
Made me laugh
Wizards are pretty good as is, and you *can* definitely play one that gets by with the 6 starting spells and the 2 they get from every level up. However, a Wizard is a ton more fun if you are also able to get more spells by copying found spells into your spellbook. And that's something a lot of DMs tend to occassionally forget - adding scrolls and other spell books for the Wizard to copy from. What I do, as DM, is I ask my Wizard players to tell me - 2 spells they *really* want - 2 spells they think could be fun - 1 spell they have never used and as DM I also think about 2 spells that might come in handy. With that information in hand, I build a spellbook (so it would contain something like Fireball, Snowball Storm, Caustic Brew, Earthbind, Air Bubble, Feather Fall and Flock of Familiars) and hand it out to the Wizard relatively early. Now the Wizard has the choice of a couple more spells they can add as the game goes on and they have enough money to do so.
If it’s two spells they want and two spells they think could be fun, they’re probably going to take those spells anyway
This is something I’ve been a little confused about. The way I interpret the PHB wizard class is that when leveling up you get to add two spells to your book for free, regardless of how many you have in your book already, and you don’t need to find these spells in your travels. It’s only additional spells that you come across that require the time and gold described in PHB. And you could eventually have a book that contained every Wizard spell, it just might require a lot of effort. Do I have that right?
That's how it works, yeah.
Thanks
Fireball solves 99.99% of your problems, for everything else there's lightning bolt!
If that's what you're going to do, why not play a sorcerer?
Fireball is good and all, but there’s nothing cooler than throwing a bolt of lightning.
>there’s nothing *cooler* than throwing a bolt of lightning Cone of Cold would like a word.
Gods, I love Cone of Cold and can't wait to get 5th level spells with my new wizard...
Bold words from someone within fireball distance
5ft/level vs 10+10 yards/level, mighty bold indeed!
As a dm fireball and lightning bolt has never caused an issue. But SLOW is a different beast
Your party is standing in a 10'x10' corridor when they open up a 40'x50'x15' room filled with orcs! The wizard enthusiastically casts fireball at the centre of the room, how many PCs take damage?
None, I’m an evocation wizard 😉
I'm horrible unless I have a visual but all of them? Damage depends on if they save or not but they may all take some damage depending on position. Slow will however ensure that those orcs only have 1 action, make them unable to use bonus actions or reactions and more!
Yes, the blast would extend 35 ft into the corridor. The 80's enjoyed their math in D&D!
Magic Missile is the real Problem Solver until then tho. *AUTOHITS.* Autohits *never* go out of style.
I magic missile the darkness!
Find Familiar is your friend. Owl and bat are better friends. Mage Hand, Message and Minor Illusion are invaluable. Toll of the Dead is better than it appears. Fireball .. because .. it's fireball. Magic Missile can't miss. On the first day, tell everyone in the party that spells are expensive. Wizards are huge money pits. Keep your spellbook safe .. keep it very safe. Web is your friend. Misty step your best friend. When you can get polymorph ..get polymorph.
A bat + the Light cantrip = Glowbat, my perpetual familiar in every game. Glowbat is GREAT! * no more torches * can do recon and act as flying flashlight * can keep watch over the party while we sleep, pairs well with Alarm * can Help action * never lets you down
Flying monkey is also really good. The stats might not seem spectacular, but keep in mind that they have opposable thumbs and are small sized. This opens doors like a potion deliverer or a monkey with a wand.
Can you have a flying monkey as a familiar?
On its stat block, it says that it can be summoned as a familiar with DM permission.
you'll be able to prepare a lot of spells. It won't feel like it. don't learn too many damage dealing spells as you'll use them less as you level. learn as many rituals as you can. If all of your unprepared spells are rituals then you have no unprepared spells. Absorb elements is life saving at every level. You can only concentrate on one spell at a time, so only prepare a few of those.
I saw an idea on the internet and I’ve been wanting to try it ever since. Cast magic mouth on all your stuff, like your hat, so that it whispers a warning to you when someone’s staring at you, or your money pouch, so it screams when someone other than you touches it, all kinds of wacky stuff.
The most fun that I had playing my wizard was using concentration spells to buff my friends or debuff my enemies. Like, yeah, it feels really good to cast Storm Sphere and wreck structures and low-hp minions, but it feels even better to slap Greater Invisibility on the Rogue and know that you're allowing them to Sneak Attack consistently. Or to break through a boss' legendary resistances with a Hold Person so that the rest of the party can just fuckin' wail on them. So yeah, my advice is to think carefully about which Concentration spells you learn, and which ones you prepare each day.
shield. always prepare shield. always.
Make some broad promises to friends. Wait 20 years. Stab them in the back. Declare it a tie.
Think carefully about which kind of playstyle you generally enjoy (offensive, defensive, melee, support) and pick your subclass appropriately. Wizards have a lot of options on how to play them.
Learn the mechanics of ritual spells and use them all the time. You can detect magic, set alarms, and summon unseen servant all day long without using spell slots as long as you are not in a hurry. Understanding spells means understanding the edge cases and boundaries for spells. Sometimes you can use your free unseen servant to set off traps, or put on a cloak and act like a distraction, or carry a lantern for you. An alarm is standard for setting camp, but you can also put it on a dungeon door and know if anyone enters or leaves behind you. A lot of spells can be used in ways that don't require rolls but do change the situation.
You will get more enjoyment out of your combat if you make well planned rp casting descriptions. Describe how you cast that spell, what you use or how use make the somatic components. In my experience, especially early level, your action economy is kind of slow. If you don’t want your turn to be “I cast fire bolt” and it misses, move on. Then describe the cast of the fire bolt, add some pizzazz!
Know what's fun? A high strength Wizard. Back in old school "Rules Cyclopedia" DnD when you took the stats you rolled straight up in order, I somehow rolled an 18 for both Strength and Intelligence. I could've chosen an Elf, but didn't like the low level cap, so I went Magic User. And hooooly crap that gave me an edge. My AC was crap, but I could charge up front and deliver the pain in a pinch.
1) Spells are your whole class: make sure you understand them. This feels obvious but it's good to keep in mind. 2)Think tactically: You have a genius level intelligence and 3 HP. Take advantage of cover, debilitating conditions(paralyzed, prone, etc), advantage/disadvantage, and anything else. You're smart enough to think of it and frail enough that it's massively helpful. 3)Find Familiar is amazing. You get a magic pet that can give you permanent advantage by repeatedly using the help action. Not to mention all the other benefits(RP benefits, scouting, etc) 4)Copy any spell you find into your book. One of the wizard's great features is the ability to add spells to your spellbook, giving you a giant pool of spells to tackle any situation. Hope these help!
Given your username - be very careful with Fireball.
Hahahaha thanks man
It is a wizard so don't. Kidding follow you gut and know your spells and max out that Int stat. Prepar extra char sheets.
Make a back up character.
A wizard is just as much a problemsolver as he is a caster. Think about what could benefit your party how right now. In this regard the wizard is the magical variant of the rogue. When in doubt ask yourselfe what would batman prepare.
Something that may help is make sure your DM knows you need spell scrolls/spell books as part of their reward structure. If your DM doesn’t know how wizards work, they may overlook giving you new spells via rewards. And that would be unfortunate.
As many have said, learn what your spells do. Also, don't be redundant with your spell list. Each spell should do something different, interesting and/or unique. A really big part of being a good wizard is not stepping on your allies toes and knowing when to use a leveled spell, when to use a cantrip, and when to do nothing. There is nothing wrong with sitting the rest of the fight out because the rest of the team has it covered, but generally try to not sit out every fight. What you generally want to be doing is using cantrips when you think the time for leveled spells is over, which you'll find yourself in a lot. A good wizard picks a lot of ritual spells up early. The more ritual spells you have, the more diverse your portfolio is, and the more your allies to use all their non-ritual spells. Wizards have the unique ability to cast all their ritual spells as rituals regardless if they're prepared or not. This means at lower levels, you'll be using a bunch of rituals as part of your spell selections because you won't have enough spell slots to accomodate your prepared spell list (by 19th level, you DEFINITELY won't have enough room, as at 20th, the max you can prepare is 25, but the most amount of spell slots you get is 22). Roleplay doesn't really matter too much when it comes to drafting what your character is capable of, and by that, I mean it doesn't matter that you're playing a WIZARD. Just play the personality of the character how you want. Literally any backstory is possible (even the really ridiculous ones like being a former god/demon lord/archdevil/etc.). And another reminder, REALLY know what your spells do. And in game, my recommendation is to hold on to spell scrolls for as long as possible and try to scribe them as early as you can if they're on the wizard spell list.
Depending on your DM, make an extra spell book or two. If you can get a low level magic item of always full magic ink, this can be very profitable too.
As a DM who plays a wizard when I’m not DMing: convince your DM to let you find spell scrolls or have some kind of a “research” mechanic, so you’re not just limited to the spells you get with levelling up.
Don't dump con. Control spells will have more impact than damage spells Find a theme and lean hard into, you'll have a lot of fun doing that.
Don't hit people with your stick. Stay out of melee.
It is always ok to cast fireball.
I'd suggest one lvl fighter so you aren't as squishy otherwise know your spells and what they do.
For a single level dip, you're generally better off with Artificer than Fighter. * Multiclass ability requirement is the same for both wizard and artificer, and with no need for strength as a wizard you don't need heavy armor (artificer gives medium armor and shields) * No loss of spell slot progression * More 1st level spells, using the same spellcasting ability as your main class The main reason to multiclass fighter/wizard is for Action Surge in order to get a nova turn, but that requires 2 levels of fighter, not 1.
keep tracking of what you're concentrating on
You will need mage armor and mirror image. Or a wizard shaped coffin
Play a wizard of the coast, they have great in-game economy! Might be perceived as going over dead bodies to earn money by the other players tho
[This is really helpful to know the best spells to have prepared at every level for a first time wizard player](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPkI1ComIaiLQY-yjL8s7BeHxaXSB8dIE)
Remember constitution is a dump stat. XD
Read your spells. That is all
Divination is fun, as Portents can be a fun ace in the hole at times. Order of Scribes is also a hidden gem too that not enough people talk about I think.
Hypnotic pattern > fireball in almost every situation.
Use component pouch rather than arcane focus, its more fun. Read your spells. Read the rules on spellcasting in phb.
take cantrips: firebolt, minor illusion, mage hand
Firebolts give good damage but the side effects of chill touch (prevent healing and give undead disadvantage against you) or Ray of Frost (only 60' range but opponent move speed -10) 1d8 damage + special effects beats 1d10 to me. Both Cold and Fire damage are often resisted/immune but the necrotic from chill touch is more likely to do full. I usually give Chill Touch unless there is an RP or Lore reason not to.
The ability to ignite something from over 100 feet away or to shoot basically a flare into the air at will should not be overlooked. If you're not walking into every room, wondering what is flammable, you're wasting an advantage.
>If you're not walking into every room, wondering what is flammable, you're wasting an advantage. Applies to real life as well!
I’d also like to nominate toll the dead and mind sliver. Toll the dead has the highest cantrip damage with a good damage type, and mind sliver targets a rare save and has a great rider effect.
Mage Armor its not fun, but is useful. Shield and Absorb Elements can save your life. Magic Missile is the best 1st level spell.
Magic missile is good, but I think the award for best 1st level spell has to go to Find Familiar.
Spell slots are limited, so try to be creative when needed. Lastly, Don't fuck up your fanbase.
Once you have access to 2nd level spells - Heat Metal. Just a ridiculously powerful low-level spell against anyone wearing armor, especially full plate. It takes ages to remove plate armor, so you're just burning them constantly and they'll have disadvantage the entire time.
Heat metal isn’t on the wizard spell list?
You actually have fewer spells prepped than you expect - many other classes have subclasses that give them free spell preparations, but wizards do not. This is partly why their ability to ritual cast spells without preparing them is useful. For all the talk of god-wizards, that’s mostly about how medium-or-higher level spells impact the story. You’ll be much closer to “effective support teammate” than “defeat the whole fight” in combat. Resist the urge to blast. Unless you can catch 3+ enemies in an AOE, your time is usually better spent trying to lock them down with control spells or concentrating on a useful buff or summon. Your party warriors are perfectly capable of doing HP damage to enemies. That said, don’t be afraid to fire off an attack cantrip then end your turn. If you have a good Concentration spell running - say, you’ve got an Ogre locked up in a Web - you’re doing great. Plink him with a Fire Bolt and keep your distance.
Take your first level in artificer than wizard the rest of the way so you can get decent ac
Also getting proficiency in con saving throws
Or if you don’t want to multi class, go for a race with natural armor like tortle or one that gives armor proficiency like the mountain dwarf.
Understand "preparing spells"
Avoid spells that do damage. A wizard it at their best when not duplicating other classes on the party.
Have fun
Remember you have 1d4 +CON HP per level, can only wear cloth armor, use staves or daggers, and should avoid melee combat!
Wizards get d6 HP in 5e, and do not get any armor proficiency. (But Mage Armor is better than any nonmagical light armor anyway.) In addition to quarterstaffs and daggers, wizards are proficient with slings, darts, and light crossbows.
Fireball
Read your spells. That's it.
Take wish at lvl 9 and make your own tricks
Steer clear of the coast. People around these parts hate Wizards from the Coast..
Magic missile and fireball are enough for damage spells. Everything else should be utility or control.
Google or searching this sub-reddit should help
> should help You mean like you didn't?
The irony of pointing out how much someone didn't help, is very helpful.
Cool cool
When character levels up add one offensive or defensive spell and one utility spell. Concentration spells should be for control or buff spells, not damage. Try getting all the Ritual Spells. Try having one a WIDE array of options for both damage types as well as spell saves. Can’t have them all prepped at once, but having the access makes it a short term problem.
Get as many spells as you can during gameplay, especially ritual taged spells. Basically free spell slots. Get reaction spells for action economy. Stay back, use control spells don't worry about doing to much damage
Max damage dealing gets boring fast. Have damage spells but ones that do other things . Being able to mess with the environment and BBEG never gets old
Know your spells and talk to your dm about ambiguities before combat. If it’s your turn in combat and you and the dm spend 15 minutes going over what you can and cannot do, your table is going to hate you.
Do not overlook Ritual spells. Just knowing them means you can cast them as a ritual without having them prepared that day. Things like detect magic, Identify, and Tenser's Floating Disc can come in clutch but memorizing them is often a waste. This will give you greater versatility. Prioritize learning spells by looking for spellbooks and scrolls and spend your gold there. You wont regret it. Just take real good care of your spellbook. Take care of your concentration. Getting interrupted is a real problem. Using things like Shield as a reaction can save you feom getting whacked. Feats like Resilient (Constitution) can help shore your ability to concentrate up a bit.
Small HP pool so make distance but also don't put yourself all by yourself and out of range of other players abilities aka artificers flash of genius, bards cutting words, the spell silvery barbs, and so on normal rang is like 30 ft so dance around that if you can and if you can pick up shield spell really great if you get targeted anyways. casting it uses your reaction and a lvl1 spell slot giving you a +5 to your ac till the start of your next turn
1. Get proficiency in constitution saves and/or the warcaster feat to keep up concentration: it’s one of the most important things. 2. Use defensive spells to keep yourself alive. (Mage armor, shield, absorb elements, mirror image, etc.) 3. Make sure you know your party member’s capabilities and weaknesses, and plan accordingly. For instance if you’ve got a slow but powerful dwarf warrior in the fihgt, sometimes casting vortex warp on them to teleport them up to enemy archers is far more effective and fun for everyone than you trying to kill them yourself. 4. Look for ability or spell combinations with allies: if your ally can do repelling eldritch blasts, zone control spells (like web) can be a lot cooler when enemies get blasted back into the web. 5. Don’t think that magic needs to solve everything. If the group can solve a problem with mundane means, its usually better than wasting time or spell slots with magic. 6. Check if your DM allows crafting, if so creating scrolls and magical items are among the coolest things you can do for the team. Some spells are almost never worth memorizing themselves but fantastic to have in reserve on scroll (gust of wind for instance solves rare problems that will usually be BIG problems like natural fog, cloudkills, etc.). And if you make your fighter a flametongue sword they will love you for all time.
If you focus on battlefield control, you will make things far easier for your party, you are one of the best in the game. Think of AOE control spells as better versions of healing spells, how much of your party's HP are you saving by preventing them from taking hits in the first place? Try to keep at least one teleport available, if you get grappled or stuck you'll need it. Always be concentrating on something, and protect that concentration through positioning, ac, and feats. Don't be afraid if asking your dm if there are spell scrolls around to find or buy so you can add to your spellbook. Asking every once and a while will keep it in mind.
At a glance the basics look covered. I'd say just have fun with it and add a bit of flavor to your spells. It adds a bit of detail that will make your combats a little more memorable beyond "I shoot magic missile into the darkness!"
* Remember that you can cast spells in any armor that you are proficient in. Like half plate if you're a mountain dwarf. * Learn as many rituals as you can. Identify, alarm, detect magic, etc. You can cast them without spell slots as long as you're cool with it taking 10 minutes.
Definitely some tricks...Magic tricks!!!!
Always always have a diverse spell list. One or two damaging spells per lvl and the rest as situational. Change it around when you can.
Have fun being descriptive in how your wizard casts certain spells. The hand motions, the language, any of it. Just adds to the theater of the mind.
I’d go with a component pouch over an arcane focus any day. Describing the use of material components is fun.
Stay off the front line. Know your spells. Prioritize your Intelligence score. Get it to 18 as fast as you can. Then shoot for 20. For example, I’m running a Bladesinger Wizard now. He’s got a 17 Intelligence. At level 4 he’s getting Telekinetic, which grants a +1 Intelligence bonus. At level 8 he’s taking the ASI and bumping Intelligence to 20. Constitution and Dexterity matter. Balance that according to your subclass. If you’re running a Bladesinger, AC is important and you’ll want to prioritize Dex over Con. If you’ve an odd numbered Constitution, get Resilient Con and you’ll have proficiency in Constitution saves. That feat will also add 1 to you Constitution. Helps your HP and your concentration checks. If your Constitution is even numbered, take Warcaster instead for advantage on Constitution rolls. Check out the online spell guides. Treantmonk has a good one, as do others.
Minor quibble but war caster specifically grants advantage on constitution (concentration) checks, not con checks in general. An important distinction, especially for anyone relatively new to the game.
True that! Thanks for this reminder,
If your DM is stingy about giving out gold, don't learn spells related to your school when you level up. Save those for copying down into your spell book to save money.
Print out your spells on cardstock, put them in a binder. Get some index cards, one per spell slot and label them. Much easier to track spell slots when they are tangible.
At first level I take shield and sleep and the rest is rituals.
Don’t go all in on damage spells. Where wizards truly shine is their utility and control. You might find that you’ll do more indirect damage by setting up your opponents for the fighter to kill rather than hitting them with a damaging spell yourself.
From level 1-4, you'll probably do more damage with a light crossbow than with a cantrip. Fire Bolt will do 5.5 damage on average, and against a target with 13 AC you'll have a 65% chance to hit, assuming 16-17 Int at level 1. That's 3.85 damage per round on average, including your chance to crit. Light crossbow will do 6.5 damage on average, assuming 14 Dex at level 1 (a reasonable number for a wizard to have), and against a target with 13 AC you'll have a 60% chance to hit. That's 4.215 damage per round on average. At level 5, Fire Bolt would go up to 11 damage on average and you can switch to using the cantrips instead of the crossbow. Telekinetic is an excellent feat choice for a wizard. It's a half feat, so if you had 17 Int at level 1, you could take Telekinetic at level 4 instead of +2 Int, and you'd still be in a good place, as far as your ability score progression goes. Wizards also frequently don't have something to spend their bonus action on, but Telekinetic gives you a BA shove that can be used at range, as many times per day as you want. This can be used to break a grapple on you (if you shove the monster grappling you and you end up outside their reach, the grapple ends), to pseudo-disengage (if you shove a melee enemy away from you so you're no longer in melee, they don't get to opportunity attack you when you run away), to use a ranged spell attack without disadvantage (any ranged attack while there are enemies in melee with you has disadvantage), or to throw enemies into dangerous terrain or traps. And you can use it to the benefit of the rest of the party too, such as if your monk has been grappled. (You could even shove the monk instead of the monster, and the monk can choose to fail the save, meaning the shove automatically works!) Bonus points: you get a special version of Mage Hand with no spell components, with the hand invisible. Lots of potential uses for that in social situations.
Always make sure to get creative with your spells. For example, you may think that the fog cloud spell is only for escaping a bad situation, but you can also drop it on archers or spellcasters so they can’t target your friends.
Read the rules for cover!
Stay away fron the coast.
Start with 2 fighter levels. Con saves, heavy armor, martial weapons, a little self healing, and the ability to action surge 2 leveled spells I one turn is worth the slower spell progression in my opinion.
Some of these have already been said but in my experience these help a lot 1. Range is your friend. You're squishy so take cover and keep your distance from fights. 2. Know what to cast before it's your turn. Things may change last minute but most often knowing what you'll cast is going to save everyone time. 3. Ritual spells are great. Use them to your advantage 4. When doing prepared spells make "loadouts" like you would in C.O.D. these spells are useful in town. If know you're going into a fight use the combat loadout. Etc etc 5. Don't overstress yourself and have fun
Fireball.
remember about arcane recovery
quick dip in cleric will get you heavy armor
Divination is the most powerful form.
speak like yoda, you should....
REMEMBER TO ACTIVATE MAGE ARMOR. Also, remember to ask about Cloaks and wearable items that aren't armor when you're shopping. You can't get armor from wearable armor, so you'll have to remember that your magic and other items are to make up for this. Also, if you do feats, you can get Mage Initiate to get a free cast of Mage armor once a day or False Life if you want to give yourself some temporary hit points to.make yourself harder to kill
I. Cast. Fireball.
FIREBALL.... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmAub3iRWaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmAub3iRWaU)
Your spell book does not have to be a literal book (in game).
yes pointy hat, robe and wand are essential :)
So you get a discount on learning spells of your school! This is counterintuitive a little bit since you actually want to pick spells not of your school when you level up. This works only f you are able to find spell scrolls out in the open world. It’s a weird mechanic indeed
If any NPCs help you along the way or support your mission, turn around later and rob them blind while calling them racist.
If you are going “straight” wizard I would actually suggest starting Artificer 1, you round up with artificer since they are basically a 3/4 caster. The big thing is you get more proficiency (shield) and cons save throws. If you never plan to dip your Wizard down the line, this is a great way to set that up. Otherwise you are looking at having to take res-cons and not able to use a shield. Also, unrelated, but bladesinger isn’t just melee, they are actually just really tankier versions of wizards if you think about it that way. Bladesinger is a really powerful class IMO even if you still mainly backline cast. Not saying you should pick it or anything, just really don’t discount it as “melee wizard” sure you can melee but Bladesingers are fantastic casters. I say this even though mine just died last weekend after landing 3 consecutive Mind Whips 🥲
ACF - “Always Cast Fireball”
Upcast fireball at all available moments.
Utlity/Buff spells > Damage dealing spells
Don't try to screw over your fan base by rewriting any contracts you get into.
When a problem comes along, you must Whip It! Seriously consider taking Tasha's Mind Whip when you get the chance. It's an Int Save (usually quite a weak save for enemies in D&D, particularly beasts and monsters), does decent Psychic damage (one of the best damage types that is rarely resisted), and has a pretty debilitating debuff on top of all that. All of that for a second level spell slot.
Fireball
Fireball
At low levels, save your slots for casting shield. Your primary goal is to survive
Concentration is important, war caster and resilient con are your friends. Plan your turns, read what your spells do, and have the spell save DC and target stat ready for your DM.
Be creative with your cantrips. Just mage hand and prestidigitation alone can do you well.
I recomend to take the true strike cantrip, very good for los and high levels 👍
Depends on the context, I guess. I'd try to avoid stereotypes just bc they're, well, stereotypes. (maybe don't choose fireball, even tho it's a really good spell) While you're at it, you can try to think of a theme for your wizard, and why they have that theme. And try to spice up your spells a bit, add some nice flavor. Also bc wizards are pretty OP, maybe think of a big flaw your character has. Not smth that could have a negative impact on the table's experience or your own, but smth that can really help shape your character. (wizard in my party always rolls for which spells they prepare at the start of each game, bc of their faith. Definitely not a smart move, but it makes for some hilarious situations!) All suggestions of course, do whatever you want with them. Just make sure all of you have fun playing!
Oh and if you want to choose the Silvery Barbs spell, please ask your DM first bc that spell is really powerful...
Ask your dm if they will allow you to use the spell points system instead of spell slots. Its a variant rule in the DMG. Ive used it and had players who use it, and we have all found it to be much better than spell slots. Also, for damaging spells, write the damage next to the spell: ex. 1d8 fire.
Familiars are insanely flexible but very fragile, your familiar can give help actions, benefit forms things like dragons breath and polymorph, other fun stuff.