My great wizard trick with a wizard came from an earlier edition. I had magic items that gave me high resistances to element magic and spells to do the same. While in a tavern of baddies, I prepped my resistances and cast fireball max level at ground zero. I walked out of the tavern; they didn't.
Played a high level, 13th to 15th level campaign as a loxodon abjuration wizard. First thing I did was make a simulacrum and told it to start making another simulacrum and I'll be back in 8 hours for it to be casted on me for the sake of hit points. I repeated this process over the campaign 5 more times until the final fight where I put them all in a demiplane, long rested, and opened the plane at the bbeg's location. The sight of 6 15th level wizards all coming out of a door to fight with you is priceless. I had 7 hit point pools and 7 sets of spell slots to keep track of.
@@kriddius POV you: sorry we don’t do that thing called “fun” here. This is a serious dnd campaign and I will have no shenanigans even if all party members agree to the shenanigans
@@ConstructedChaos we’ll never healing as they can’t use 9th level healing spells unlike clerics. But they are capable of using 8th level healing with wish so there certainly not the worst at it, there are just better options.
I’ve wanted to play a tortle kensei monk or a lore bard that tells ghost stories for a while now but this sounds really interesting too! So much unique flavor there!
@@CPUplayer1 hahahaha you won’t believe me but we also reference kung fu panda in my campaign all the time. Started as a joke where someone was describing something as “just like on kung fu panda”. Now we’ve all diminished into parrots that just say that in reference to literally everything. Meets a tortle-just like kung fu panda Learns to use chopsticks-just like kung fu panda NPC brutally murdered-just like kung fu panda…. 😂
I had played a wizard at max level, this was my first caracter ever. Most of the campain i was at or bellow level 8, but i did get a few lvl 20 combats. My wizard didn't have a subclass, instead it had the ability to create artefacts, as well as 1 artefact it had from lvl 1: a knife that once repaired, allows you to combine 2 spells together in a single stronger spell. The item was incredebly strong, even tho i only got to use it a few times. Before i could achive lvl 20, at level 8, i had to fight a level 20 wizard (our DM was new and the balance was a bit all over the place). I used something to do with air elementals, toghedher with a upcast summon demons (the little demons you can summon a lot of, i don't remember the exact name, it's a 3rd lvl spell requiering blood) to summon a lot of air elementals. I had to roll a arcana check for it, i rolled a NAT 20, and the dm told me to roll 3d20 +5 to determin how many would spawn. I got really lucky and rolled 61. Anyway, the combat lasted 1 round. I played true most of the campain with cantrips alone tho, and my best moment had to be when i was fighting a shapeshifting monster on the sea, i forced it to transform in something big, and i used a cantrip i got from our DM, similar to shape water, but for air and a bit better since it allowed to presure the air. I throwed 49 giant theeth (got from a monster earlier, each of them dealt 3d8 dmg on hit if used as a weapon) and used the cantrip to presurise air in a ball, and make it explode in it's mounth with all 49 theeth impailing him. I had to roll a arcana check of 26 or so, but i had a really high arcana (+11), and i rolled a 19. After rolling the damage, i dealth something over 700 dmg with that, and just one shoted the monster we where suppose to run from (it had 500 hp, while we where lvl 7)
In my campaign I'm playing a wizard. My DM is all for bending some rules here and there. I told him from the get go that I wanted to use firearms in the playthrough. Those don't exist in his created world. That is until my 20int wizard conducted enough research alongside his master. Now my character has tapped into the potency of his arcane magic, harnessing all forms of electricity magic while also wielding an electrically charged magnetized slug rifle. ⚡️ 🌩
Nah you said Wizards cant be tanks. They can be ANYTHING. Abjuration, Bladesinger, War Wizard, (id argue even conjuration but thats super niche). They can all be built to be tanks. Its awesome
Hmmm my choice of words wasn’t great there haha. I was mostly just referring to their low hit point total. I totally agree with you here that wizards can be effective tanks-especially with a little multiclassing.
Wizard is, and has always been, my favorite class in D&D. As a fan of fantasy settings, I always gravitate to these characters first, whether they are powerful personages, like Elminster and Halaster Blackcloak (one of my favorite NPCs I got to act out 😁), or less potent practitioners, like Mathew from the Rose of the Prophet Series, or Calandryll of the Godwars series. Sure, there's something to be said about making it to the end of progression, and being able to do things some other characters depend on gods/patrons to do, or simply never can, but I just love the theme. I'm certainly not the smartest person in a room, and I try my best to frown on metagaming, but standing in the room, leaning on my staff, trying to leverage things I know, and powers I've unlocked, while everyone else yammer about how they want to do things is fun. Also, magic is fun! I'm also a total lore hound, on account of the massive amounts of time where playing game wasn't available, or my long-term battle with perpetual DM-itus, where knowing helps, and the mighty wizards of the setting are usually fun. My first 5e character was a simple wizard on the run from his mentor, and my two favorites were variations of the same thing. One of my favorite Backgrounds is Awakened Clone, from Heroes of Baldur's Gate, which is essentially the Clone of a mighty archmage that they never used, or that was defective. Anyway, even without their soul moving into this body, and animating it, it "wakes up". No memories, or abilities, of the original, and now it has to set out and find our why it exists, and who it's meant to be. My first version was a forced clone of Khelban Blackstaff Arunsun, since he's dead in 5e. Was made by one of the Manshoons, in an effort to create a Khelban he could control, and manipulate Water-repellent, but he died before it could happen, and the Blackstaff had a curse placed on him to foil such efforts. Still, he had some of those powers, and people who knew him could recognize him, to different appreciation. A later reskin took out the middle man, and simply was another Manshoon. The Manshoon Wars revealed how there were a number of stasis Clones, and the problems that could cause. This one was made, but the Spellplague prevented him from waking up, and when he did later, Mansion was still active. He was trapped in one of a Manshoon's hidden caches for 12 years, with only the resources (books, diary, food) of that place, until he eventually figured out how to port out with a ring. He had some idea of who "Manshoon" had been, but nor that he sort of was one, and borrowed the name Asmuth for adventuring. A "real" Manshoon discovered him, and decided he wanted a fresh body, not missing an arm, so became an enemy, but other things that could respond to Manshoon also worked for Asmuth, to some really cool results, and other shenanigans ensued. It's just another reason I like wizards; few other beings could allow for such backstories, in circumstances where such involved backstories are welcomed.
My first character was a gnome wizard! So fun! Before Tashas...she was a tinker gnome and building a mech to ride in.. Advanced tinker feat. I want to play a necromancer at some point too. Drow who just can't let go and even carries the bones of his mother and sister around.
Gnomes always make for great wizards! But a drow wizard also sounds really interesting. In particular the macabre example you gave evokes some really dark vibes with lots of room for character development!
My first character was back in AD&D 2nd edition, elf wizard. Back then wizards only had 1d4 HP and like one or two spells at first level. I of course picked shocking grasp because nothing says power move like an elf with a penalty to CON, no armor and only 4 HP walking up to a monster and trying to grab it. Anyway my party and I were fighting some monsters in a cave and the DM described the monsters as standing in a shallow pool of water, so I cast shocking grasp and grabbed the water. Shocked all the bad guys and have been hooked on D&D since then.
When I visualize a Wizard casting a spell I see something similar to 'Doctor Strange' and certain anime where when a mage is casting a spell they create magic circles that float in the air, normally in front of their hands where they are directing the spell, and the more powerful the spell the larger and more intricate the circles get even to the point they take a 3D shape around the caster made with multiple circles incorporated into it. The circles are basically the mathmagical formulas and equations needed to cast a spell cause Wizards had to study and practice to tap into the weave of magic in order to preform their spells. Also if the spell is the creation of a certain Wizard who developed it their name is part of the formula as well. Finally each school of magic has it's own layout and even color. So a Wizard casting a cantrip would produce a magic circle the size of their hand, a 1st level spell would be the diameter from their finger tips to their elbow, and the circles would just get bigger and more complicated.
I love the visualization here!! It’s definitely something I think a lot of tables could benefit from to help paint a clearer difference between the multitude of spellcasters in the game!
Nice!! I’ve got a necromancer playing in a campaign that I DM for currently and it seems really fun! Are they somewhat desensitized to the concept of morality-being somewhat of a machine themselves?
@@ConstructedChaos indeed he is, he has a general disdain for life in general, as he was programmed as a troop replenishment unit during the Great War. His name is Generated Lich, or GLich. Fun stuff.
Interesting take on a particular Wizard subclass.... I know you don't cover homebrew (more than understandable), but I built Matt Mercer's Hemomancy Wizard, theoretically ending at level 20 with 20 Constitution, 20 Intelligence, Tough & 222 HP. Right out the gate you can use your body as an Arcane Focus if you're missing at least 1 HP and can receive 1D10 necrotic damage per 50GP of a spell components cost if you cast a spell (say, Chromatic Orb) without the component (such as the Crystal Orb). Perfect example at high levels is the Clone spell. Thing is: the funny thing about the Clone spell is that the diamond needed to create the clone is consumed, but the vessel can be reused after you pop out of it. So if you consume your own HP for the 1,000 GP diamond you'll take an average of 110 HP & a maximum of 200HP with your max HP being 222. That means that in downtime, all your character has to do is create the 5,000 GP vessels (which isn't hard at all with massive funds you'd have by then & Fabricate). The same could be done with any spell of 1,000 GP or less components in the Wizard's spell list like Plane Shift (instantly get out of a fight or your own Demiplane hideouts without the need of a 250 GP Tuning Fork), Create Undead, True Seeing, Teleportation Circle (negate the 18,250 GP you have to spend casting 50 GP a day every day for a year), Magic Circle + Planar Binding (an army of Fire Elementals for almost a year is fun), Scrying & who knows how many others. Now true, most of these are best used outside of combat when you can rest to get the slot & HP back rather than inside a fight, in addition to the fact that Wish makes this all useless at higher levels. HOWEVER, the best high GP spells are still outside of combat spells & not only do you only get 1 Wish per day, you could potentially loose Wish.
Aight story time we just entered the bbeg's lair it was this huge build up from the beginning and it was like a castle of sorts and we got to a dining room he was in now it was all melee except for one wizard so of course he tells us to cover him as usual but then he says he casts glyph of warding with the trigger being the number one then he does it again and 2 and again 3 and then just chucks them all at him and just speedreads and says 123 and boom took off a third of his life then the barbarian just chucked him out of the castle somehow and off the cliff it was priceless seeing the dm's face as he described the long awaited bbeg becoming mist on a rock at the bottom after about 12 turns
I started a lvl 20+ campaign recently. As a player, I haven’t used a wizard since 3rd edition. Way more options this time around, but I’m going with a necromancer. Should be a blast.
I'm playing my first wizard. We started at 3rd lvl. Dipped first lvl in artificer for armor and con saving throw Prof and went the rest of the way wizard. Chonurgist wizard and God I'm busted and I'm only gonna get better.....
Ohhhhh yea haha. Especially with that artificer dip for a decent AC! Low level wizards usually struggle a bit. But, if you’re already finding your footing, you’re in for a good time 😂
A wizard should never choose wisdom as a dump stat imo. Far too many things call for wis saves and you do not have the HP to fail many. It also makes sense for a scholarly mage to learn from experiences and gain in that stat. Personally I'd lose out on strength. If you're in a position to use it you're probably in melee and already dead. Charisma also makes sense as someone who spends their lives with their head in the books likely never practices social skills. Personally my second highest stat is either con (every HP matters!) or dex for precious AC in early game, followed by wisdom As soon as possible purchase the common magic item, the enduring spell book (if your DM doesn't just give it to you at character creation) If purchasing anew you'll have to rescribe your spells into it but the book itself is immune to water damage, becoming dirty or easily damaged or destroyed.
Yeaaaaaa my bad here for making a silly joke haha. I did a poor job of explaining in the video how all the stats should fall and altered my presentation of this section in future videos. I don’t disagree with you at all!
This wasn’t 20th level but I played a wizard that went with his party to gain favor of the gods and we had to fight in a back to back arena slogfest where we fought boss after boss and by the time we got to the final boss, my abjuration wizard was the only one left standing and he successfully 1v1ed them by kiting, shutting down their offense and polymorphing into a giant ape when they got too close. It was so epic!
Now this is the real broken class. lol. i think others may have mentioned this already but i wouldn't dump wis. at least have it as a 12 if you aren't multiclassing into a wis based class or a 14 if you are. my typical ability score spread for a wiz would be dex 14, con 14, int 15 and wis 12 with str and cha as dump stats. among the wizard subclasses, i like the bladesinger, diviner and scribe as i've used them in my optimized builds. necromancer, enchanter and war wizards are strong as well.
I strongly recommend Wizard to gain access to armor (preferably medium armor either by playing Mountain Dwarf or dipping Artificer) since Wizard PC would be targeted heavily by opponents. +2 to AC in Arcane Deflection does not sound fun, but it also has option to +4 to Saving Throw which more likely to save PC's butt than other Wizards. On top of that possible +5 to Initiative is godsend to Wizard with any play style.
That’s funny you mention this haha. I’m currently working on a mountain dwarf wizard for this reason (as well as just enjoying the RP dynamic). Expect a video on him soon! 😉
@@ConstructedChaos At least during early LVs I am pretty sure Dwarf Wizard can have "smashing time"! On other hand from DM's side if PC is going into power trip, you can deploy "Heat Metal" to keep PC in line. No wonder Druids dont prefer metal armors.
@@quonomonna8126 aaahhh yes! My favorite optional rule in 5E! I was actually keen on running my games that way before Tasha’s was released so I’m glad it’s official now!
Some of the newer transmutation (I’m assuming that’s what you meant) spells are actually pretty great and definitely make the transmutation school a bit more of an enticing option!
yup. tougher than martials tbh. they can hit higher AC by using armor, shield and spells. they can have comparable hp with spells like armor of agathys/false life and shields like arcane ward. they make better innate tanks since combat tactics 101 for enemies is to go after the casters. they don't need to find ways to encourage enemies to hit them (which martials have to do) since enemies want to hit them by default. this makes them natural party protectors (tanks).
I created a wiz for a lvl 20 game and it was tons of fun. Chronurgist 19/twilight cleric 1 with tons of feats. +14 initiative modifier (dex, int from chronurgist, alert feat) with advantage thanks to twilight cleric, enhance ability as an at will spell to be able to cast all the time, usually using wisdom for those juicy advantage on perception tests, also skill expert feat in perception. The end result is initiative of 1d20+14+1d8 from gift of alacrity spell with advantage from twilight cleric (average initiative roll around 32-33), a 29 passive perception check, 300 ft darkvision also from twilight cleric, and wielding staff and shield (war caster feat, shield prof from cleric), with an end AC of 27 or 32 with the shield spell. Once combat starts, switch enhance ability to intelligence to get advantage on counterspell or dispel magic checks. And then you're still a full wizard and chronurgist, so there's two of you (simulacrum), you can't die (clone hidden in your demiplane), and the list goes on and on.
Chronurgy is definitely the most powerful option for wizard and clerics are pretty great too! You’ll be happy to know that you can also technically spam the guidance cantrip to get another 1d4 on initiative as well!
@@ConstructedChaos Agreed. Chronurgists are 1st on my build-to-do list once our DM allows wildemount content in our world. right now, i'm still on the strixhaven backgrounds/old backgrounds + free feat proposal as all setting specific content is excluded at our table except for monsters DMs can use.
yup wizards have lots of broken stuff. only thing i'd switch personally is 2 levels of wizard for fighter 2 (action surge, fighting style-ambush) or artificer 2 (bag of holding bomb combo, mind sharpener).
@@TheRobversion1 I did strongly consider fighter but didn't want to lose 2 levels of spellcasting (losing 1 6th and 1 7th lvl slot is big), loss of a feat (which would mean losing alert or an ASI) and loss of the lvl 1 twilight cleric feature of advantage to initiative and 300ft darkvision. I deemed going first all the time more important as I can just end a fight with upcast save or suck spells.
@@ConstructedChaos As long as you have the temp HP from the Armor and are hit by a melee attack the cold damage will trigger... even if its hitting your ward instead of bumping off the temp HP from the Armor.
abjuration wizards at their core, even with armor of agathys wont be good tanks. they'll be durable and study, sure. but tanks in the sense of protecting the party and redirecting threat to themselves still need a few more tools like sentinel and some threat redirection like the ones armorer, cavalier or battlemaster provide. of course if you have a very cooperative DM or all ranged party members, then the above isn't needed as much.
@@ConstructedChaos proficiency with ground vehicles comes with the folk hero background, so he's covered. He got some local notoriety when he exposed the person responsible for all the missing people.
... Abjuration wizard steps into a bar and it immediately attacked by a thrown dagger. "Shield!" An arcane ward appears, the dagger bounces off the shield as a second dagger sinks into the ward. The wizard casts thunderwave and walks the hell out of the room.
@@ConstructedChaos I played one for three years every two weeks because I didn't want my character to die. I thought abjuration wizard would be my best bet in staying alive. I took spells like shield, blur, mirror image, fear, fly, and even false life. My character spent a lot of gold buying scrolls at market to learn even more spells. And of course, ironically enough, I was never downed once in the entire campaign. Which included a multi-level "dangerous" ranked one-on-one tournament for a wish spell. I won without taking a single hit. All I have to say is: fear, fly, and feeblemind. I finished things with a few lightning bolts for flare. I think I was level 16 or 17, and the encounter was CR20. ... The look on my DMs face was priceless;)
@@VirgilAllenMoore Hahahaha incredibly potent combination of effects there! I think my face would have been much the same if I was DMing for that haha!
Abjuration is my favorite subclass for Wizard. Simply put, if you're in a bind, and the odds are very stacked against you, even the best of Wizards can fall if they get caught out. Not you, though. You have your health, your temp health through spells like False Life and the like, and an Arcane Ward. With a maximum durability at 45, it doesn't sound like much, but a single Counterspell gives back 6 ward, it doesn't matter if the effect succeeds or not, you WILL still get that ward and spell resistance, oh man spell resistance. Advantage on all spell effects, and you get to take half damage to all spells... it's what initially drew me to the subclass in the first place, until I saw the ward. Love everything about it
And to add to that, at level 18 you can cast a 1st and 2nd level spell at will, with the ability to swap out your choices each long rest. You can now consistently cast Shield if you want or misty step without taking up spell slots!
Hey Chaos. Sharing here my old scribes wizard but updated with a couple of the newer options in case others may find some interesting ideas here. basically the build started as to how to be able to do solo the usual wall of force combos. this was challenging as most spells can't pass through the wall of force so it would be typically a 2 casters combo. the original theme of the build was inspired by someone who sought to combine science and magic together, Jayce from league of legends. However, since i'm changing some options, maybe a new theme is in order. level 10 theorycraft to start and was played till level 16. "hound in a box" artificer 1, scribes 9 harengon asi: gift of the gem dragon (old version had telekinetic), + 2 int key spells: wall of force, faithful hound, tiny servant, magic stone, minor illusion, guidance familiar: owl tactics: pre-combat: use a 4th level slot to create 3 tiny servants. standing orders to take a magic stone from you and throw it at a target you point at. tiny servants stay inside satchel. cast false life with a 2nd level slot (1st levels are valuable for shield/absorb elements) if you want. always have the awakened spellbook moving far ahead of the party. continuous cast magic stone and guidance (for initiative) while walking. stones for magic stone can be modified with magical tinkering for light stones, stinky stone or noisy stone. 1st round: bonus action: move awakened spellbook towards bbeg action: wall of force (sphere) around the bbeg. make sure the awakened spellbook is inside the wall of force as well. free action: point at another target on the field. drop magic stones in satchel tiny servant 1-3: come out of satchel. throw magic stone with advantage 3x. go back inside the satchel. familiar: help an ally reaction: gift of the gem dragon, shield, counterspell or absorb elements as needed 2nd round: bonus action: rabbit hop if needed action: faithful hound through the awakened spellbook beside the bbeg inside wall of force tiny servants: 1-3 do nothing familiar: help an ally now this is where your party can focus on the other targets as you have locked down the bbeg with wall of force and faithful hound. due to the duration, the hound will eventually kill the bbeg. 3rd round: bonus action: magic stone action: minor illusion around yourself (steel crate with small opening, steel golem with openings, etc) to protect your concentration free action: point at another target on the field. drop magic stone in satchel tiny servant 1-3: come out of satchel. throw magic stone with advantage 3x. go back inside the satchel. familiar: help an ally 4th round onwards: bonus action: magic stone action: ray of frost with advantage or mind sliver free action: point at another target on the field. drop magic stone in satchel tiny servant 1-3: come out of satchel. throw magic stone with advantage 3x. go back inside the satchel. familiar: help an ally so simple build and mostly pure class with spell slot progression not delayed. wearing medium armor and shield with most spell slots dedicated to utility and defense. dmg per round is decent at 3d6 + 15. feel free to tell me what you think or ask if you have questions.
Hahaha I love the creative use of magic stone and wall of force here! Seems absolutely maddening for the BBEG haha! And taking just one level of artificer so you don’t lose spell progression was a smart move too! Really cool build, man!
@@ConstructedChaos thanks. glad you liked it! here a couple of tidbits i didn't explain earlier: 1. you're right it's maddening for the bbeg to have an invisible unkillable hound slowly kill him while he's trapped with the hound. you'd think he'd want to either disintegrate the wall of force or teleport out. with any other wizard, that nullifies the wall of force trap tactic. not with scribes. since our awakened spellbook is inside with him, we can cast counterspell to counter those spells from inside the wall of force. basically the bbeg will stay inside and slowly die. no save. 2. the dm i had wanted to make magical tinkering cool for combat since i was doing all sorts of shenanigans with it with magic stone. so basically with the visual of an enemy getting hit in the face with bright light, blaring horns and an ogre fart, he would impose a cumulative -1 to all rolls (maximum -3) for each tinkered magic stone that hits while the enemy would stay in it's 10ft radius area.
I'd like to point out that War Magic Wizard + Yuan-ti allows you to make a character who can cast an AoE save-or-suck spell like Sickening Radiance and stand in it with almost no chance of ever getting hit by it. War Magic gets some pretty strong boosts to saving throws against spells. Add in advantage against those saves from Yuan-ti and it gets kinda weird.
This is the 2nd video I’ve seen from you. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the content so far and am excited to see more. Liked and subscribed. Shouldn’t entirely dump wisdom modifier. After a wizards concentration is bolstered by a feat or multiclassing, wisdom saves usually leading to incapacitation will likely be the next most encountered problem for concentration. Also, a surprised wizard is a dead wizard. War wizard is best wizard in my opinion. I’ve played one for over two years now. It’s combination of initiative boost and save bonuses almost ensure its efficacy, but it doesn’t seem outright game breaking like divination or chronurgy. 1st level order domain/10th level war wizard atm. We play milestones instead of XP. It’s amazing.
I love the idea of a low wisdom wizard though. Super incredibly smart, but not very wise and so makes poor social decisions with their magic. Basically Sheldon cooper if he was a wizard in dnd haha
Thanks for the advice, friend! My newer videos have much better audio mixing so I've made this adjustment already. I wish I could go back and fix the oldies but UA-cam doesn't let you do that!
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! This video is a few years old at this point and I've since gotten better at balancing audio. But I appreciate the heads up regardless!
I'm going to apologize for not subscribing sooner as I have seen several of your videos already but I thought that I had already subbed. I just happened to glance at it and saw the Subscribe button was still red and I grimaced in embarrassment. Thankfully, that allowed me to crit on the Subscribe button and attune to the notification bell.
3:06 Falling out a two-story window? What's the matter, didn't have Feather Fall prepared, nerd? xD I learned very early in my DnD career (back when 2e was the newest edition) that having some source of Feather Fall is *crucial* to survival!
Haha they did not pack feather fall, sadly. It was session 1 and we didn't know whether to laugh or cry as the party tried to stabilize them without a healer.
@@ConstructedChaos That does suck, but feather fall is a first level spell, so they didn't really have an excuse. At the same time, though, it's not every day that you NEED that spell so I do kinda get it.
Just for the record, Power world kill is generally a really weak 9nth level spell. Its situationally usefull but you only get 1 9nth level spell a day, why would you take power word kill that at most kills one enemy, as opposed to meteor swarm that can easily kill dozens? It also does nothing to any enemy with over 100HP, meaning the big bad boss monsters you would want to use it on the most you cant. Considering there is no way for players to know what HP enemies have Power word kill is the easiest 9nth level spell to whiff completely.
You're not wrong here at all. As a DM, I sometimes have a tendency to look at things with a certain bias--as I do see it as a great spell for my monsters to use on players... hehe.
Bladesingers after lvl 6 work exceptionally well with the new Dragonborn from Fizban. You can take the attack action and replace both attacks with a cantrip and your breath weapon combo giving you great damage at 10 ft range like chill touch and toll the dead. and you can also fly over your enemies to avoid any ground effects.
Hey Alex, my brother's youngest grandson(11) is playing his first wizard and I'm frankly scared to death of how he'll do with it. I admit it's his character, but I'll only help him if and only if he asks me for help. My brother's doing his damndest to keep me out of it. Do you also feel worried about this?!?! LMAO
At the end of the day, we can only prepare for so much. One of my favorite parts about DND and TTRPGs in general is the possibility for something unexpected! (but yes I still worry all the time haha)
I've been wanting to make a Wizard's spellbook a Longsword. Runes etched into the blade, and several spell-circles as part of the hand guard. true this idea might fit an Eldrich Knight better but the idea still sounds fun to play with as instead if rare inks you'd most likely need special gem/stone/ore dust.
@@ConstructedChaos I just had the idea of starting as an Elf for the Weapon Prof. Then start with a level or two in Wizard before taking two levels in Monk to get the Dedicated Weapon feat so basically any weapon can be used with Dex. With this you could have the Spellbook Sword and have everything be made with official content
I want to do an Order of Scribe build soon for the channel but I just used a tortle for my abjuration build. Is there a particular reason I should give the Tortle a second look for this one that I’m not thinking of?
@@ConstructedChaos order of scribes is 1 of the best wizards imo. top 3 in my book if we arent counting chronurgist. mine was custom lineage when i played in the past, but if i were to play it again with the harengon out, i'd switch to a harengon.
2:52 tldr: my high ac bladesinder got went down with 1krit and died cause of the lack of hp :( Me: bladesinger with higher dex (20) then int (16) (for stats did we use the pointbuy from pathinder cause we are a 3man party and that stat boost was very usefull). With mage armor and bladesong reached he 21ac (for savety got he shield prepiared) and nonstop was into frontline cause closely nothing could hit him. My party got into a fight against a stone piller thingy and it just krited my mage on the first turn and my mage just lost all his hp. Most other classes wouldnt die cause they would got more hp at that point. The "healer" of the party didnt go out of wild shape and i rolled a 1 success, 1 fail death save aaand then a nat 1.
ouch. and this is why i think the best defense is good offense and initiative. better to go 1st, disable/kill the target and they become target practice for the rest of the combat. I'd definitely recommend not relying solely on ac for your defenses. use layers since you're a wizard. mirror image, blink, etc helps. blink imo is best as this protects you from spells as well. you have access to false life. use that to buffer yourself with temp hp before you adventure.
EXCELLENT advice. I feel like many builds forget that AC-no matter how high it is-is only one layer of protection! Blink is probably one of my favorite spells, honestly. I run it on an UA Stone Sorcerer build that I have for a friend’s Eberron campaign and I kinda just don’t get hit because I can’t even be targeted half the time haha!
@@ConstructedChaos agreed. and i like to tell people, if an enemy targets your ac, that's just dmg. it's more devastating when they can target your saves. blink is my fave contingency spell for a wizard/bard. "whenever i enter combat" is my trigger and i automatically have blink. i dont have to waste my 1st action on it and it has great flavor imo. non-concentration too! lastly, people forget its a great repositioning tool. a free 10 ft teleport every round helps you build/close distance and avoid AOO.
@@ConstructedChaos it happens! i like using it because i feel like nightcrawler from X2. when it comes to defense in dnd i follow mr. miyagi's advice: "Best defense Daniel-san is no be there."
I've got a 20th level Abjuration Wizard. The Arcane Ward is pretty strong, but the proficiency bonus to dispel and counter spell is way strong. I counter most spells at 3rd or 4th. Last session I used Timestop to help our Monk out of a Forcecage with Anti-magic field, then stood around the group to basically null any spell from the 4 liches we were fighting. 😂
@@PersistentDissenter Oh I haven't forgotten! But when I do that, they innevitably counterspell my counterspell that was for their counterspell. What I've had more success with is using monsters that have magical "abilities" rather than spells.
@@ConstructedChaos this is what our DM does too as most have learned to pack counterspell. or when a dm does have to use a spellcaster (like story wise) it's usually a sorc with subtle spell so there's no counterspell chains.
imo the most entertaining thing is putting your DM in a catch-22. provide him options. he selects option 1, he's screwed. select option 2, he's screwed. pure joy for me when it's my turn to make the DM think.
Haha sorry about the synaptic static there! This is one of my older videos and I’ve since lowered the volume on my background music after a couple comments like this. Thanks for the tip!
3:04 I beg to differ. I made a bladesinger that had I think 29 AC around level 10 before. That's not including shield. I also always cast blur and had luck. I was literally never hit by anything. Only a saving throw could effect me. I got that AC by rolling lucky stats totaling 85 putting a point in barbarian for unarmoured defence and having AC boosting magic items. And that's nowhere near the most tanky you could theoretically be. A wizard with access to wish could wish 25,000 gp a day. They could also cast simulacrum and have their simulacrum cast wish to spawn gold every day up to 2 times ontop of the player doing it. With this cash a wizard could buy robes of the magi. Staff of the magi. Bracers of defence. They could use magic beans and tomes to increase every stat to 30 each. If they where patient they could from the start forgo stat increases and just take feats. With a level in monk or barbarian and the rest in bladesinger wizard 30 of each stat staff of the magi and bracers of defence your save bonus excluding proficiency or advantage such as in maintaining concentration would be +16 Your ac would be 34 base. 10 + 10 from con or wis + 10 from dex +4 from magic items. And that's not including bladesong which brings it up to 44. Or shield which you can endlessly cast with spell mastery bringing it to 49. Then there is luck ontop of that. And blur making it even harder to hit. And your health is ridiculously high. Over 400 if I remember right. And with simulacrum and wish you can give yourself resistance to every damage type. And to make it even more OP you could cast simulacrum. Have your simulacrum use wish to cast a simulacrum copying your form. Have that simulacrum use wish to cast another etc infinitely. Hell you could even true polymorph a simulacrum into yourself freeing up a slot to make another simulacrum and giving them the ability to also true polymorph other simulacrum. Rinse and repeat until you have a exponentially growing army of unstoppable wizard tanks.
i think Chaos was making reasonable assumptions here. the assumptions you're making are things that won't fly/happen at most tables: 1. most tables dont reach tier 4 and wish is commonly banned at tables that play at that level (precisely to avoid the wish+simulacrum combo). 2. simulacrum is commonly banned at most tables. 3. most dms wont be awarding a bunch of beans and tomes along with multiple legendary items just to allow you get your stats to 30. even at tier 4 play. with that said, even without all of those, i do agree that wizards can be quite durable if built right.
@@TheRobversion1 okay but even my level 10 character was tanky af. Me and a level 17 or 18 barbarian powergamer got in a argument and had a duel together in a arena. Even being nearly half his level he never hit me and had to resort to disarming my rapier to do anything. In the end he gave up.
@@Chris-jw8vm as i said in my comment, i dont disagree that wizards can be durable to martial attacks. just the assumptions to push the defenses that high and using certain spells which are commonly banned. A level 17-18 barbarian btw is not a "powergamer." he may just be trying to optimize a pure barb but the fact that he took a barb past level 2-6 just shows he made alot of suboptimal decisions. he should've multiclassed at that point. or as casters>martials in 5e by a mile, if he was really a powergamer, he would've had some sort of spellcasting on his build if not be a caster. a barbarian is one of the bottom 3 classes in 5e and one of the easiest classes to handle in any sort of pvp (along with rogues and monks). they can't cast spells. while wizards are one of the top 3 classes. you had a major advantage even if you didn't make all optimal choices and he did. I think from a hypothetical pvp standpoint, it would've been a fairer matchup if he was a bard or a sorc.
@@TheRobversion1 well for a barbarian he was. I dunno what he was doing but he had a passive healing ability and had very high stats. I think 20 to 26 in every stat using tomes and magic beans. I hadn't used either by that point.
@@Chris-jw8vm yeah that was my guess. he was just trying to make the best barb he could but anything a barb has pales in comparison to spells. stats isn't that big a deal either as spells get around that (lots of no save spells so your stats doesn't matter). healing (as is the healer role) is bad in 5e. in 5e, action economy (and offense by relation) is king. the basic tactic in any combat to succeed in 5e is to either kill your enemy before they can do anything (burst striking) or to control your enemy before they can do anything (controller). good stats may protect one from a good burst striker but if a controller knows what he's doing no amount of stats will protect them from it. the key to beating controllers lies with casters as well (this is why martials arent as good in 5e). the key is to prevent them from casting spells (silence, obscurement, counterspell, inflicting control). most of these tools are on the wizard/sorc repertoire as well. its really a mismatch to pit a caster vs. a martial.
I am playing a level 15 Enchantment Wizard. She is the most powerful character I have ever played. I don't do much damage but battlefield control is second to none.
while i'd agree enchanters make good controllers, i doubt enchanters are second to none even within her own class (diviners, war wizards and chronurgists are there) or when compared to other classes such as sorcs who can boost save control spells with heightened spell or are the best at skill check control spells due to magical guidance. any wizard though should definitely feel as one of the most powerful characters you've played as they are regarded as a top 3 if not the best class in the game. the only challengers really are bard (tier 3-4) and sorcs (tier 1-2).
@@TheRobversion1 I agree with everything you said. I haven't played some of those wizards. However two things to note. When casting an enchantment spell that only has one target you get to target an additional target. This is extremely powerful when cast something like Feeblemind or Tasha's Mind Whip. Secondly updating some of the enchantment spells gives you multiple targets also some the enchantment spells limits targets action economy limiting to only an attack, move, bonus action or reaction. Really powerful.
@@oppressive1770 i did keep in mind split enchantment. hence, sorc comparison who can do this but with all spells. second, enchantment spells aren't restricted to enchanter. all wizards can use it. other classes can use it. the analysis of the enchanter imo should be limited to their abilities at 2nd, 6th, 10th and 14th. spells should be left off the list as those are universal to wizards at least. here's my analysis: 2nd-non-concen control that's good but puts the wizard in danger (melee). very costly action economy wise as it consumes an action every turn (thus you won't be casting spells). it's something you'll use once you're out of spell slots and are resorting to cantrips. easy to break as well as the creature can just be hit by their allies to break them out and you can't apply it on the same target again. since it forces a save and is a charm effect, this will be not useful as you hit tier 3 and charm/incap immunity abound along with legendary resistance. definitely good for tier 1 play when you have few spell slots but starts to decline at tier 2. 6th-situational and limited reaction (needs 2 creatures to be within 5ft of each other attacking you) that like hypnotic gaze is good early on but suffers as you progress. with access to shield it's rare a wizard will use this unless out of spell slots. suffers again at tier 3 due to it being a charm effect. 10th-this is the enchanter's best ability but as mentioned earlier, this is just a slightly worse version of the sorc's twinned spell. 14th-again another charm ability. you see where i'm going with this. it's tier 3 when you get this so it's very underwhelming at this point. plus the effect is more of a ribbon with no combat application and the out of combat application is campaign dependent (this is great in a political/social kind of campaign but not in anything puzzle or combat heavy like a dungeon crawl). if you look at it basically 1/4 are good abilities and you can find better tools for a controller in the other subclasses/classes i mentioned or at least having more than 1 good ability.
I would say that the enchanter come very close to the best controller wizard. But I have some disagreement with Rob Vera analysis: The 2nd level ability: Hypnotic Gaze, though only have 5 ft range, is super useful when a tough monster engage you in melee combat. Incapacitate them and wait for the rest of the party to deal with other monsters, then come back to kill the dazed one. Or if you cast a concentration spell and one succeeded the save, just walk up to them, hypnotize it and wait the party to come and kill it The 6th lv ability: Instinctive Charm, only work against 1 target, but **do** work on a ranged attack, deflecting a massive attack which can’t be Shield to a fighter/paladin/barbarian, is life saver. You’re a wizard, if someone can tank the hit for you, they should. The 10th lv ability: Split Enchantment, effectively twining spells of an Enchantment school, include: Hideous Laughter, Charm Person, Suggestion, Tasha Mind Whip, Charm Monster, Hold Person, Hold Monster, Raulothim Psychic Lance, Geas, Modify Memory, Dominate Person, Dominate Monster, Otto Irresistible Dance, Feeble Mind, Power Word Stun, Power Word Pain, Power Word Kill. You can make an argument that a sorcerer with twinned spell metamagic can do the same thing, but I would love to see the sorcerer trying to keep up with the enchanter by blowing up all their sorcery points and left nothing for the next combat. The 14th lv ability: Alter Memories, is excellent in social encounter. Most of the charm and dominate spells come with a problem that the target still remember they are charmed by you, thus lead to negative reactions. Remove their memory about the time they get deceived by your magic is just too good to ignore. Need that legendary item that a noble held? 4th lv Charm Person the entire room, Dominate Person the noble, force him to give you the item, Modify Memory them as appropriate, Alter Memories them if necessary, walk away and they won’t even remember what happened
@@honahamomoru151 lots to go over here. lets get to it: 1. i did say hypnotic gaze was good. i just pointed out it's limitations such as legendary resistance, charm effect, being in melee range. what you mentioned in the last sentence is undoable by a wizard unless you dipped fighter 2 for action surge. and tbh if i had action surge and they succeeded the save for the concen spell, i'd just stay out of range and cast another concen spell with action surge. 2. again, i just pointed out it's limitations. there's alot of enemies immune to charm and of course legendary resistance. my guess is you're disagreeing because your DM doesn't challenge you that much by constantly sending these types of enemies. we typically play tier 2-tier 3 so our DM usually does. this and the level 2 ability work best at tier 1-2 which is what i said previously. another limitation i failed to mention is this requires enemies to be bunched up together. if you have a melee ally closer to the enemy, they will just redirect that attack to your ally. unlike you i don't see the value of redirecting an enemy attack to an ally. i'd rather redirect that attack to the enemy. and tbh properly built wizards can have very high ac that they should be able to have the hit miss with shield. the wizard doesn't even have to multiclass to get high ac. just play a mountain dwarf or any of the other races that grant armor prof. or pick up med armor prof via feat and play vuman/custom lineage. 3. yes i can make that argument. you can check the sorc vid of Chaos where he talks about coffeelocking. but yes, i understand coffeelocking is banned at most tables but by RAW sorcs can keep up technically. now if the sorc has to do this multiple times that they would run out it just means 3 things: a. the sorc is doing it wrong like choosing the wrong spells. combats done properly should last 3-4 rounds at the most so he doesn't have to keep it up for long. and tbh at the tier you get this in, enchantment spells are bad as magic resistance and legendary resistance come into play more often. a tactical player shouldn't be targeting saves at this point and wasting their spell slots. most of the spells you mention here require a save. at this level a tactical wizard (and a sorc) should be using spells like wall of force, telekinesis/bigby's hand and the like. b. the sorc has a crappy party. c. the dm is running many combats that consume resources instead of the typical 3-4 combats per day. 4. you just pointed out my disagreement in your 1st sentence. you said this is great for a social encounter. i don't disagree with that. we are however talking about controller which means combat applications only. this is a dead ability for the purpose of determining the best controller.
You’re not wrong!! My apologies for a poor attempt at a silly joke about how wizards (who phonetically might sound like they want wisdom to be their casting stat) use intelligence instead.
there would be certain optimal builds where you'd be forced to dump wis (especially paladins multiclassing into something that doesn't require str or cha as they arent dumping con either so int or wis are the most likely dump stats).
I think people are actually grossly overestimating Spellcasters in 5e. Control is fun and games until you realize everything control spell ever is concentration and gets a save everything round. Even a commoner can wiggle free from a level 20 wizard with a bit of luck. It's ridiculous. Utility, fine. Adventure utility is what wizard does, but Wizard does not walk all over combat encounters like everyone claims them to do. Even that so precious fireball is just a mild inconvenience against a CR 5 or higher creature. Best the Wizard can do for is to tie down the opposition for his martials to finish the job but when it comes to actually killing stuff, spallcasting classes are just ridiculously hopeless compared to a class like fighter. Your 6 7 and even 9 level spells just bounce off from your targets. A supposedly very powerful 7th level nuke spell Finger of death cannot even zap a creature for half it's hit points around that level its beyond pathetic.
i aggree with you, and while making no sense, it was made to balance casters. It inst believable sense that someone with arcane mastery looses to someone swinging a sword. Thing is that in theory casters still can trivialize most things. They have spells that break the game rather easily. And it just takes 2 concentration spells at any single time, which is possible with a level 7 spell, or with other measures, to start dunking on everyone else.
Why summon the remote when I can just say: "Hi jarvis, please play amouranth on twitch" and weird stuff appears automatically. With grreat power comes great responsibility. A good voice control can match some familiars.
Sorry about that!! Some of my earlier videos like this one had background music that was a bit too loud but I’ve made adjustments since then and it should be alright now! 😊
Copying any other 7th or 8th level spell can come in handy if you really need something that you don't have prepared. However, there's also the rest of the spell's description that makes it ridiculously powerful.
@@ConstructedChaos or if your DM is lenient with Wish, you could just wish for all your enemies to die, be trapped in an eternal/unescapable prison or whatever final solution the campaign ends. it just usually ends up as simulacrum because the DM is not lenient with Wish. Wish in actuality is a campaign-ending spell/plot device in the hands of a DM.
I loved Minthara's commentary on Gale in BG3. that she wouldn't waste time getting to know him because he's a wizard and he'd probably be killed soon anyways
Lol that’s fair enough. But, I think every class CAN be broken depending on how you build your character and the tier of play that character is in. The idea here is that people shouldn’t feel like they can’t play certain classes just because everyone says it’s “underpowered”.
Can I ask why you call this a guide? You summerised and read class features. I don't see any guidance here. This looks like an introduction to me. I feel mislead and my time wasted. You have a nice voice and I don't doubt there is an audience that can appreciate your content. Keep it up (with less clickbaity titles?)!
Hey friend! Welcome to the channel! As is the case with most guides, I offer a comprehensive look at how to play each class with this series while also offering some extra input on what parts of each class are the most powerful in an effort to showcase that ANY class in D&D can be broken! I hope that affords a bit more insight! But, in either case, sorry to have wasted your time and happy adventuring!
did you mean phantasmal force? imo phantasmal force rocks, phantasmal killer sucks (compared to other options at this level like polymorph, banishment and even lower level options like fear).
Great video, one correction I noticed is that bladesingers get prof with one “one-handed melee weapon”, it doesn’t have to be simple though.
Good catch!! I must’ve misspoke a bit on that one! Thank you.
"a great wizard dies precisely when he means to" this is how we get Liches
😂😂😂
Or Baelnorn
That's why I always pick the feather fall spell.
My great wizard trick with a wizard came from an earlier edition. I had magic items that gave me high resistances to element magic and spells to do the same. While in a tavern of baddies, I prepped my resistances and cast fireball max level at ground zero. I walked out of the tavern; they didn't.
Hahaha like a literal action movie moment just waltzing out of a burning building behind you with explosions abound!
Played a high level, 13th to 15th level campaign as a loxodon abjuration wizard. First thing I did was make a simulacrum and told it to start making another simulacrum and I'll be back in 8 hours for it to be casted on me for the sake of hit points. I repeated this process over the campaign 5 more times until the final fight where I put them all in a demiplane, long rested, and opened the plane at the bbeg's location. The sight of 6 15th level wizards all coming out of a door to fight with you is priceless. I had 7 hit point pools and 7 sets of spell slots to keep track of.
*golf clap*
Well done hahah! That sounds amazing!
That DM rocked the rule of cool 😎 good guy/gal
But that's what force cage + cloud kill was made for
The look on the player's face when those Simulacrums get dispelled and destroyed would have been even better :P
@@kriddius POV you: sorry we don’t do that thing called “fun” here. This is a serious dnd campaign and I will have no shenanigans even if all party members agree to the shenanigans
Wizards are like Batman, give them prep time and they will without question destroy you.
Especially if they have simulacrum or wish with simulacrum.
At a certain point, Wizards just win at everything!
@@ConstructedChaos we’ll never healing as they can’t use 9th level healing spells unlike clerics.
But they are capable of using 8th level healing with wish so there certainly not the worst at it, there are just better options.
Specifically Tortle Wizards. They are the best. Dump STR and DEX; pump CON and INT; WIS and CHA for flavor.
I’ve wanted to play a tortle kensei monk or a lore bard that tells ghost stories for a while now but this sounds really interesting too! So much unique flavor there!
@@ConstructedChaos my DM made one for a joke campaign once and named it Oogway after the turtle in kung fu panda lol
@@CPUplayer1 hahahaha you won’t believe me but we also reference kung fu panda in my campaign all the time. Started as a joke where someone was describing something as “just like on kung fu panda”. Now we’ve all diminished into parrots that just say that in reference to literally everything.
Meets a tortle-just like kung fu panda
Learns to use chopsticks-just like kung fu panda
NPC brutally murdered-just like kung fu panda…. 😂
@@ConstructedChaos That's awesome, I'll have to let my buddy know! lmao
I had played a wizard at max level, this was my first caracter ever. Most of the campain i was at or bellow level 8, but i did get a few lvl 20 combats. My wizard didn't have a subclass, instead it had the ability to create artefacts, as well as 1 artefact it had from lvl 1: a knife that once repaired, allows you to combine 2 spells together in a single stronger spell. The item was incredebly strong, even tho i only got to use it a few times. Before i could achive lvl 20, at level 8, i had to fight a level 20 wizard (our DM was new and the balance was a bit all over the place). I used something to do with air elementals, toghedher with a upcast summon demons (the little demons you can summon a lot of, i don't remember the exact name, it's a 3rd lvl spell requiering blood) to summon a lot of air elementals. I had to roll a arcana check for it, i rolled a NAT 20, and the dm told me to roll 3d20 +5 to determin how many would spawn. I got really lucky and rolled 61. Anyway, the combat lasted 1 round. I played true most of the campain with cantrips alone tho, and my best moment had to be when i was fighting a shapeshifting monster on the sea, i forced it to transform in something big, and i used a cantrip i got from our DM, similar to shape water, but for air and a bit better since it allowed to presure the air. I throwed 49 giant theeth (got from a monster earlier, each of them dealt 3d8 dmg on hit if used as a weapon) and used the cantrip to presurise air in a ball, and make it explode in it's mounth with all 49 theeth impailing him. I had to roll a arcana check of 26 or so, but i had a really high arcana (+11), and i rolled a 19. After rolling the damage, i dealth something over 700 dmg with that, and just one shoted the monster we where suppose to run from (it had 500 hp, while we where lvl 7)
In my campaign I'm playing a wizard. My DM is all for bending some rules here and there. I told him from the get go that I wanted to use firearms in the playthrough. Those don't exist in his created world. That is until my 20int wizard conducted enough research alongside his master. Now my character has tapped into the potency of his arcane magic, harnessing all forms of electricity magic while also wielding an electrically charged magnetized slug rifle. ⚡️ 🌩
Nice!! I love it when my players and their characters end up adding lore and flavor to the world we're playing in!
Artificer?
Nah you said Wizards cant be tanks. They can be ANYTHING. Abjuration, Bladesinger, War Wizard, (id argue even conjuration but thats super niche). They can all be built to be tanks. Its awesome
Hmmm my choice of words wasn’t great there haha. I was mostly just referring to their low hit point total. I totally agree with you here that wizards can be effective tanks-especially with a little multiclassing.
True, 1 Knowledge Cleric X War Wizard (my build) is pretty tanky, that is from my experience idk about others builds
It's even worse than that, they just open a demiplane and out come half a dozen planar bound solars to tank for the wizard.
Wizard is, and has always been, my favorite class in D&D. As a fan of fantasy settings, I always gravitate to these characters first, whether they are powerful personages, like Elminster and Halaster Blackcloak (one of my favorite NPCs I got to act out 😁), or less potent practitioners, like Mathew from the Rose of the Prophet Series, or Calandryll of the Godwars series. Sure, there's something to be said about making it to the end of progression, and being able to do things some other characters depend on gods/patrons to do, or simply never can, but I just love the theme. I'm certainly not the smartest person in a room, and I try my best to frown on metagaming, but standing in the room, leaning on my staff, trying to leverage things I know, and powers I've unlocked, while everyone else yammer about how they want to do things is fun. Also, magic is fun!
I'm also a total lore hound, on account of the massive amounts of time where playing game wasn't available, or my long-term battle with perpetual DM-itus, where knowing helps, and the mighty wizards of the setting are usually fun. My first 5e character was a simple wizard on the run from his mentor, and my two favorites were variations of the same thing. One of my favorite Backgrounds is Awakened Clone, from Heroes of Baldur's Gate, which is essentially the Clone of a mighty archmage that they never used, or that was defective. Anyway, even without their soul moving into this body, and animating it, it "wakes up". No memories, or abilities, of the original, and now it has to set out and find our why it exists, and who it's meant to be. My first version was a forced clone of Khelban Blackstaff Arunsun, since he's dead in 5e. Was made by one of the Manshoons, in an effort to create a Khelban he could control, and manipulate Water-repellent, but he died before it could happen, and the Blackstaff had a curse placed on him to foil such efforts. Still, he had some of those powers, and people who knew him could recognize him, to different appreciation. A later reskin took out the middle man, and simply was another Manshoon. The Manshoon Wars revealed how there were a number of stasis Clones, and the problems that could cause. This one was made, but the Spellplague prevented him from waking up, and when he did later, Mansion was still active. He was trapped in one of a Manshoon's hidden caches for 12 years, with only the resources (books, diary, food) of that place, until he eventually figured out how to port out with a ring. He had some idea of who "Manshoon" had been, but nor that he sort of was one, and borrowed the name Asmuth for adventuring. A "real" Manshoon discovered him, and decided he wanted a fresh body, not missing an arm, so became an enemy, but other things that could respond to Manshoon also worked for Asmuth, to some really cool results, and other shenanigans ensued. It's just another reason I like wizards; few other beings could allow for such backstories, in circumstances where such involved backstories are welcomed.
My first character was a gnome wizard! So fun! Before Tashas...she was a tinker gnome and building a mech to ride in.. Advanced tinker feat. I want to play a necromancer at some point too. Drow who just can't let go and even carries the bones of his mother and sister around.
Gnomes always make for great wizards! But a drow wizard also sounds really interesting. In particular the macabre example you gave evokes some really dark vibes with lots of room for character development!
Yo so was mine, I also had 20int after race mod thanks to a lucky 18
And on my second character ever I got 2 18 for stats and a 16 as lizardfolk, so I had 3 plus fours in con, int, and dex
My first character was back in AD&D 2nd edition, elf wizard. Back then wizards only had 1d4 HP and like one or two spells at first level. I of course picked shocking grasp because nothing says power move like an elf with a penalty to CON, no armor and only 4 HP walking up to a monster and trying to grab it. Anyway my party and I were fighting some monsters in a cave and the DM described the monsters as standing in a shallow pool of water, so I cast shocking grasp and grabbed the water. Shocked all the bad guys and have been hooked on D&D since then.
Haha I LOVE this story and it sounds like you had an awesome DM! Kudos to them for the rule of cool implementation!
When I visualize a Wizard casting a spell I see something similar to 'Doctor Strange' and certain anime where when a mage is casting a spell they create magic circles that float in the air, normally in front of their hands where they are directing the spell, and the more powerful the spell the larger and more intricate the circles get even to the point they take a 3D shape around the caster made with multiple circles incorporated into it. The circles are basically the mathmagical formulas and equations needed to cast a spell cause Wizards had to study and practice to tap into the weave of magic in order to preform their spells. Also if the spell is the creation of a certain Wizard who developed it their name is part of the formula as well. Finally each school of magic has it's own layout and even color.
So a Wizard casting a cantrip would produce a magic circle the size of their hand, a 1st level spell would be the diameter from their finger tips to their elbow, and the circles would just get bigger and more complicated.
I love the visualization here!! It’s definitely something I think a lot of tables could benefit from to help paint a clearer difference between the multitude of spellcasters in the game!
Playing a Warforged Necromancer currently. It’s a very cool combo and allows for some really fun RP moments.
Nice!! I’ve got a necromancer playing in a campaign that I DM for currently and it seems really fun! Are they somewhat desensitized to the concept of morality-being somewhat of a machine themselves?
@@ConstructedChaos indeed he is, he has a general disdain for life in general, as he was programmed as a troop replenishment unit during the Great War. His name is Generated Lich, or GLich. Fun stuff.
@@RobDastardly oh I love the name!! So much flavor there!! Thanks for sharing!
do the skeletons work by servos and clockwork??
@@isaacs1052 I describe it as a serum that contains nonobot like organisms which reproduce and inhabit bodies making zombies or skeletons
Interesting take on a particular Wizard subclass....
I know you don't cover homebrew (more than understandable), but I built Matt Mercer's Hemomancy Wizard, theoretically ending at level 20 with 20 Constitution, 20 Intelligence, Tough & 222 HP. Right out the gate you can use your body as an Arcane Focus if you're missing at least 1 HP and can receive 1D10 necrotic damage per 50GP of a spell components cost if you cast a spell (say, Chromatic Orb) without the component (such as the Crystal Orb). Perfect example at high levels is the Clone spell.
Thing is: the funny thing about the Clone spell is that the diamond needed to create the clone is consumed, but the vessel can be reused after you pop out of it. So if you consume your own HP for the 1,000 GP diamond you'll take an average of 110 HP & a maximum of 200HP with your max HP being 222. That means that in downtime, all your character has to do is create the 5,000 GP vessels (which isn't hard at all with massive funds you'd have by then & Fabricate). The same could be done with any spell of 1,000 GP or less components in the Wizard's spell list like Plane Shift (instantly get out of a fight or your own Demiplane hideouts without the need of a 250 GP Tuning Fork), Create Undead, True Seeing, Teleportation Circle (negate the 18,250 GP you have to spend casting 50 GP a day every day for a year), Magic Circle + Planar Binding (an army of Fire Elementals for almost a year is fun), Scrying & who knows how many others.
Now true, most of these are best used outside of combat when you can rest to get the slot & HP back rather than inside a fight, in addition to the fact that Wish makes this all useless at higher levels. HOWEVER, the best high GP spells are still outside of combat spells & not only do you only get 1 Wish per day, you could potentially loose Wish.
I honestly haven't even looked at Hemomancy just yet but it sounds interesting based on your description here!
I like dwarf wizards. That armor bonus is the chef's kiss.
You’re not wrong!! I’ve been working on a dwarven wizard for a while! Hope to get that video up on the channel soon!
Aight story time we just entered the bbeg's lair it was this huge build up from the beginning and it was like a castle of sorts and we got to a dining room he was in now it was all melee except for one wizard so of course he tells us to cover him as usual but then he says he casts glyph of warding with the trigger being the number one then he does it again and 2 and again 3 and then just chucks them all at him and just speedreads and says 123 and boom took off a third of his life then the barbarian just chucked him out of the castle somehow and off the cliff it was priceless seeing the dm's face as he described the long awaited bbeg becoming mist on a rock at the bottom after about 12 turns
Hahaha bye bye bbeg!
I started a lvl 20+ campaign recently. As a player, I haven’t used a wizard since 3rd edition. Way more options this time around, but I’m going with a necromancer. Should be a blast.
Nice!! Level 20 casters can get pretty cracked! Enjoy!
I really appreciate how detailed this Video is
Especially the Wizard Sub Classes
Thanks so much! I'm glad you found it helpful!
I'm playing my first wizard. We started at 3rd lvl. Dipped first lvl in artificer for armor and con saving throw Prof and went the rest of the way wizard. Chonurgist wizard and God I'm busted and I'm only gonna get better.....
Ohhhhh yea haha. Especially with that artificer dip for a decent AC! Low level wizards usually struggle a bit. But, if you’re already finding your footing, you’re in for a good time 😂
A wizard should never choose wisdom as a dump stat imo. Far too many things call for wis saves and you do not have the HP to fail many. It also makes sense for a scholarly mage to learn from experiences and gain in that stat. Personally I'd lose out on strength. If you're in a position to use it you're probably in melee and already dead. Charisma also makes sense as someone who spends their lives with their head in the books likely never practices social skills. Personally my second highest stat is either con (every HP matters!) or dex for precious AC in early game, followed by wisdom
As soon as possible purchase the common magic item, the enduring spell book (if your DM doesn't just give it to you at character creation) If purchasing anew you'll have to rescribe your spells into it but the book itself is immune to water damage, becoming dirty or easily damaged or destroyed.
i agree. when i play a wiz my ability priority tends to be: int>con>dex>wis>cha=str
Yeaaaaaa my bad here for making a silly joke haha. I did a poor job of explaining in the video how all the stats should fall and altered my presentation of this section in future videos. I don’t disagree with you at all!
This wasn’t 20th level but I played a wizard that went with his party to gain favor of the gods and we had to fight in a back to back arena slogfest where we fought boss after boss and by the time we got to the final boss, my abjuration wizard was the only one left standing and he successfully 1v1ed them by kiting, shutting down their offense and polymorphing into a giant ape when they got too close. It was so epic!
Abjuration is definitely one of my favorite options!! Wayyyy more staying power than most would expect out of a wizard!
Now this is the real broken class. lol.
i think others may have mentioned this already but i wouldn't dump wis. at least have it as a 12 if you aren't multiclassing into a wis based class or a 14 if you are. my typical ability score spread for a wiz would be dex 14, con 14, int 15 and wis 12 with str and cha as dump stats.
among the wizard subclasses, i like the bladesinger, diviner and scribe as i've used them in my optimized builds. necromancer, enchanter and war wizards are strong as well.
I strongly recommend Wizard to gain access to armor (preferably medium armor either by playing Mountain Dwarf or dipping Artificer) since Wizard PC would be targeted heavily by opponents.
+2 to AC in Arcane Deflection does not sound fun, but it also has option to +4 to Saving Throw which more likely to save PC's butt than other Wizards.
On top of that possible +5 to Initiative is godsend to Wizard with any play style.
That’s funny you mention this haha. I’m currently working on a mountain dwarf wizard for this reason (as well as just enjoying the RP dynamic). Expect a video on him soon! 😉
@@ConstructedChaos At least during early LVs I am pretty sure Dwarf Wizard can have "smashing time"!
On other hand from DM's side if PC is going into power trip, you can deploy "Heat Metal" to keep PC in line.
No wonder Druids dont prefer metal armors.
@@kwaksea hahaha for sure!! Maybe my mountain dwarf will make his armor from stone 😂
@@ConstructedChaos with Tasha's custom origin option, mountain dwarf becomes even more enticing because you can put those +2's anywhere
@@quonomonna8126 aaahhh yes! My favorite optional rule in 5E! I was actually keen on running my games that way before Tasha’s was released so I’m glad it’s official now!
I played a wizard (transmitter) till i was 16th level the game ended at that point. Was a mad pyromancer amd great utility wizard.
Some of the newer transmutation (I’m assuming that’s what you meant) spells are actually pretty great and definitely make the transmutation school a bit more of an enticing option!
I love the 6th level ability then it dosent get good till level 14 again
@@toddmcculloch5399 yeaahhhh the free polymorph with caveats seems a bit unnecessary at that point.
Wizards are only squishy if not built right. They can be as tough as they come quite easily.
yup. tougher than martials tbh. they can hit higher AC by using armor, shield and spells. they can have comparable hp with spells like armor of agathys/false life and shields like arcane ward. they make better innate tanks since combat tactics 101 for enemies is to go after the casters. they don't need to find ways to encourage enemies to hit them (which martials have to do) since enemies want to hit them by default. this makes them natural party protectors (tanks).
Certainly true enough! I just like to joke about this kind of thing!
I created a wiz for a lvl 20 game and it was tons of fun. Chronurgist 19/twilight cleric 1 with tons of feats. +14 initiative modifier (dex, int from chronurgist, alert feat) with advantage thanks to twilight cleric, enhance ability as an at will spell to be able to cast all the time, usually using wisdom for those juicy advantage on perception tests, also skill expert feat in perception.
The end result is initiative of 1d20+14+1d8 from gift of alacrity spell with advantage from twilight cleric (average initiative roll around 32-33), a 29 passive perception check, 300 ft darkvision also from twilight cleric, and wielding staff and shield (war caster feat, shield prof from cleric), with an end AC of 27 or 32 with the shield spell.
Once combat starts, switch enhance ability to intelligence to get advantage on counterspell or dispel magic checks.
And then you're still a full wizard and chronurgist, so there's two of you (simulacrum), you can't die (clone hidden in your demiplane), and the list goes on and on.
Chronurgy is definitely the most powerful option for wizard and clerics are pretty great too! You’ll be happy to know that you can also technically spam the guidance cantrip to get another 1d4 on initiative as well!
@@ConstructedChaos Agreed. Chronurgists are 1st on my build-to-do list once our DM allows wildemount content in our world. right now, i'm still on the strixhaven backgrounds/old backgrounds + free feat proposal as all setting specific content is excluded at our table except for monsters DMs can use.
yup wizards have lots of broken stuff. only thing i'd switch personally is 2 levels of wizard for fighter 2 (action surge, fighting style-ambush) or artificer 2 (bag of holding bomb combo, mind sharpener).
@@ConstructedChaos Definitely got that cantrip too and plan to use it a LOT. Plus prot evil/good and healing word from cleric. All great options. Hehe
@@TheRobversion1 I did strongly consider fighter but didn't want to lose 2 levels of spellcasting (losing 1 6th and 1 7th lvl slot is big), loss of a feat (which would mean losing alert or an ASI) and loss of the lvl 1 twilight cleric feature of advantage to initiative and 300ft darkvision. I deemed going first all the time more important as I can just end a fight with upcast save or suck spells.
Abjuration wizards can be really good tanks if you get access to armorer of agathist
Does that still activate if it’s only taking temp hit points? Excellent observation if so!
@@ConstructedChaos As long as you have the temp HP from the Armor and are hit by a melee attack the cold damage will trigger... even if its hitting your ward instead of bumping off the temp HP from the Armor.
@@isaoblack987 oh! Very cool then!
abjuration wizards at their core, even with armor of agathys wont be good tanks. they'll be durable and study, sure. but tanks in the sense of protecting the party and redirecting threat to themselves still need a few more tools like sentinel and some threat redirection like the ones armorer, cavalier or battlemaster provide. of course if you have a very cooperative DM or all ranged party members, then the above isn't needed as much.
My abduction wizard drives around in a white panel van.
Very effective combo if you have proficiency in vans.
@@ConstructedChaos proficiency with ground vehicles comes with the folk hero background, so he's covered. He got some local notoriety when he exposed the person responsible for all the missing people.
@@TheScreamingMime 😂😂😂
... Abjuration wizard steps into a bar and it immediately attacked by a thrown dagger. "Shield!" An arcane ward appears, the dagger bounces off the shield as a second dagger sinks into the ward. The wizard casts thunderwave and walks the hell out of the room.
This comments section is definitely making me want to create a new Abjuration Wizard. Maybe that'll be my next character build!
@@ConstructedChaos I played one for three years every two weeks because I didn't want my character to die. I thought abjuration wizard would be my best bet in staying alive. I took spells like shield, blur, mirror image, fear, fly, and even false life. My character spent a lot of gold buying scrolls at market to learn even more spells. And of course, ironically enough, I was never downed once in the entire campaign. Which included a multi-level "dangerous" ranked one-on-one tournament for a wish spell. I won without taking a single hit. All I have to say is: fear, fly, and feeblemind. I finished things with a few lightning bolts for flare. I think I was level 16 or 17, and the encounter was CR20. ... The look on my DMs face was priceless;)
@@VirgilAllenMoore Hahahaha incredibly potent combination of effects there! I think my face would have been much the same if I was DMing for that haha!
Abjuration is my favorite subclass for Wizard. Simply put, if you're in a bind, and the odds are very stacked against you, even the best of Wizards can fall if they get caught out. Not you, though. You have your health, your temp health through spells like False Life and the like, and an Arcane Ward. With a maximum durability at 45, it doesn't sound like much, but a single Counterspell gives back 6 ward, it doesn't matter if the effect succeeds or not, you WILL still get that ward and spell resistance, oh man spell resistance. Advantage on all spell effects, and you get to take half damage to all spells... it's what initially drew me to the subclass in the first place, until I saw the ward. Love everything about it
And to add to that, at level 18 you can cast a 1st and 2nd level spell at will, with the ability to swap out your choices each long rest. You can now consistently cast Shield if you want or misty step without taking up spell slots!
Hey Chaos. Sharing here my old scribes wizard but updated with a couple of the newer options in case others may find some interesting ideas here. basically the build started as to how to be able to do solo the usual wall of force combos. this was challenging as most spells can't pass through the wall of force so it would be typically a 2 casters combo. the original theme of the build was inspired by someone who sought to combine science and magic together, Jayce from league of legends. However, since i'm changing some options, maybe a new theme is in order. level 10 theorycraft to start and was played till level 16.
"hound in a box"
artificer 1, scribes 9
harengon
asi: gift of the gem dragon (old version had telekinetic), + 2 int
key spells: wall of force, faithful hound, tiny servant, magic stone, minor illusion, guidance
familiar: owl
tactics:
pre-combat: use a 4th level slot to create 3 tiny servants. standing orders to take a magic stone from you and throw it at a target you point at. tiny servants stay inside satchel. cast false life with a 2nd level slot (1st levels are valuable for shield/absorb elements) if you want. always have the awakened spellbook moving far ahead of the party. continuous cast magic stone and guidance (for initiative) while walking. stones for magic stone can be modified with magical tinkering for light stones, stinky stone or noisy stone.
1st round:
bonus action: move awakened spellbook towards bbeg
action: wall of force (sphere) around the bbeg. make sure the awakened spellbook is inside the wall of force as well.
free action: point at another target on the field. drop magic stones in satchel
tiny servant 1-3: come out of satchel. throw magic stone with advantage 3x. go back inside the satchel.
familiar: help an ally
reaction: gift of the gem dragon, shield, counterspell or absorb elements as needed
2nd round:
bonus action: rabbit hop if needed
action: faithful hound through the awakened spellbook beside the bbeg inside wall of force
tiny servants: 1-3 do nothing
familiar: help an ally
now this is where your party can focus on the other targets as you have locked down the bbeg with wall of force and faithful hound. due to the duration, the hound will eventually kill the bbeg.
3rd round:
bonus action: magic stone
action: minor illusion around yourself (steel crate with small opening, steel golem with openings, etc) to protect your concentration
free action: point at another target on the field. drop magic stone in satchel
tiny servant 1-3: come out of satchel. throw magic stone with advantage 3x. go back inside the satchel.
familiar: help an ally
4th round onwards:
bonus action: magic stone
action: ray of frost with advantage or mind sliver
free action: point at another target on the field. drop magic stone in satchel
tiny servant 1-3: come out of satchel. throw magic stone with advantage 3x. go back inside the satchel.
familiar: help an ally
so simple build and mostly pure class with spell slot progression not delayed. wearing medium armor and shield with most spell slots dedicated to utility and defense. dmg per round is decent at 3d6 + 15. feel free to tell me what you think or ask if you have questions.
Hahaha I love the creative use of magic stone and wall of force here! Seems absolutely maddening for the BBEG haha! And taking just one level of artificer so you don’t lose spell progression was a smart move too! Really cool build, man!
@@ConstructedChaos thanks. glad you liked it! here a couple of tidbits i didn't explain earlier:
1. you're right it's maddening for the bbeg to have an invisible unkillable hound slowly kill him while he's trapped with the hound. you'd think he'd want to either disintegrate the wall of force or teleport out. with any other wizard, that nullifies the wall of force trap tactic. not with scribes. since our awakened spellbook is inside with him, we can cast counterspell to counter those spells from inside the wall of force. basically the bbeg will stay inside and slowly die. no save.
2. the dm i had wanted to make magical tinkering cool for combat since i was doing all sorts of shenanigans with it with magic stone. so basically with the visual of an enemy getting hit in the face with bright light, blaring horns and an ogre fart, he would impose a cumulative -1 to all rolls (maximum -3) for each tinkered magic stone that hits while the enemy would stay in it's 10ft radius area.
@@TheRobversion1 hahahaha so awesome! 😂
We are all learning, all the time
Haha definitely! Myself included!
I'd like to point out that War Magic Wizard + Yuan-ti allows you to make a character who can cast an AoE save-or-suck spell like Sickening Radiance and stand in it with almost no chance of ever getting hit by it. War Magic gets some pretty strong boosts to saving throws against spells. Add in advantage against those saves from Yuan-ti and it gets kinda weird.
or gnomes for certain spells.
Yuan-ti was just all sorts of broken until they changed it in MOTM. Honestly, it's still really, really good!
This is the 2nd video I’ve seen from you. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the content so far and am excited to see more. Liked and subscribed.
Shouldn’t entirely dump wisdom modifier. After a wizards concentration is bolstered by a feat or multiclassing, wisdom saves usually leading to incapacitation will likely be the next most encountered problem for concentration.
Also, a surprised wizard is a dead wizard.
War wizard is best wizard in my opinion. I’ve played one for over two years now. It’s combination of initiative boost and save bonuses almost ensure its efficacy, but it doesn’t seem outright game breaking like divination or chronurgy.
1st level order domain/10th level war wizard atm. We play milestones instead of XP. It’s amazing.
Right on!! I was mostly just making a joke about wizards aren’t wisdom based even though the name of the class is seemingly derived from “wisdom” haha
Also thanks for the kind words! Happy to welcome you into the chaos! 😊
I love the idea of a low wisdom wizard though. Super incredibly smart, but not very wise and so makes poor social decisions with their magic. Basically Sheldon cooper if he was a wizard in dnd haha
@@Trial88 I’m drawn to the same trope haha. About 90% of my wizard builds have had that flaw to some varying degree!
My current is similar, playing a war wizard/eldritch knight, while not something I would call broken, is loads of fun to play
Love these videos. Playing BG3 right now and I love watching these too
Glad you're enjoying them!! :)
Might wanna reign in your background music, it seems to like fighting you for auditory dominance.
Thanks for the advice, friend! My newer videos have much better audio mixing so I've made this adjustment already. I wish I could go back and fix the oldies but UA-cam doesn't let you do that!
Your voice is really soothing
Thanks so much!! That’s so nice of you to say!
Fantastic video, thanks for sharing you knowledge
The music was a bit over your voice
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! This video is a few years old at this point and I've since gotten better at balancing audio. But I appreciate the heads up regardless!
I'm going to apologize for not subscribing sooner as I have seen several of your videos already but I thought that I had already subbed. I just happened to glance at it and saw the Subscribe button was still red and I grimaced in embarrassment. Thankfully, that allowed me to crit on the Subscribe button and attune to the notification bell.
Hahaha no worries!! I’m happy to have ya along in any capacity!
A tour of your favorite spells would be great!
That’s a fantastic idea!! I can already see this as a series: the best spells for each class!
@@ConstructedChaos Indeed! I'm returning to D&D after a 30 year hiatus and I am very grateful for your content.
@@m3w happy to help in any way I can! Welcome back to the hobby!
3:06 Falling out a two-story window? What's the matter, didn't have Feather Fall prepared, nerd? xD I learned very early in my DnD career (back when 2e was the newest edition) that having some source of Feather Fall is *crucial* to survival!
Haha they did not pack feather fall, sadly. It was session 1 and we didn't know whether to laugh or cry as the party tried to stabilize them without a healer.
@@ConstructedChaos That does suck, but feather fall is a first level spell, so they didn't really have an excuse. At the same time, though, it's not every day that you NEED that spell so I do kinda get it.
@@Terashi Haha yeah they were also asking for it climbing up the side of a building with a terrible acrobatics stat.
Were they inately gifted?
*Sorcerer intensyfies*
*innately gifted with the ability to learn magic via intelligence 😅
The highest level wizard I ever played was in second edition it was a divination specialist I utilize the spell foresight an awful lot
*drools over high level wizard gameplay*
Haha that sounds like a good time!
Just for the record, Power world kill is generally a really weak 9nth level spell. Its situationally usefull but you only get 1 9nth level spell a day, why would you take power word kill that at most kills one enemy, as opposed to meteor swarm that can easily kill dozens?
It also does nothing to any enemy with over 100HP, meaning the big bad boss monsters you would want to use it on the most you cant.
Considering there is no way for players to know what HP enemies have Power word kill is the easiest 9nth level spell to whiff completely.
You're not wrong here at all. As a DM, I sometimes have a tendency to look at things with a certain bias--as I do see it as a great spell for my monsters to use on players... hehe.
Bladesingers after lvl 6 work exceptionally well with the new Dragonborn from Fizban. You can take the attack action and replace both attacks with a cantrip and your breath weapon combo giving you great damage at 10 ft range like chill touch and toll the dead. and you can also fly over your enemies to avoid any ground effects.
The new Dragonborn are pretty great in general but attaching those abilities to a blade singer is definitely a fun application!!
agreed here. over the breath weapon though, i prefer using dragon fear.
Hey Alex, my brother's youngest grandson(11) is playing his first wizard and I'm frankly scared to death of how he'll do with it. I admit it's his character, but I'll only help him if and only if he asks me for help. My brother's doing his damndest to keep me out of it. Do you also feel worried about this?!?! LMAO
At the end of the day, we can only prepare for so much. One of my favorite parts about DND and TTRPGs in general is the possibility for something unexpected! (but yes I still worry all the time haha)
I play Necromancy Wizard as Onmyoji...❤❤
I've been wanting to make a Wizard's spellbook a Longsword. Runes etched into the blade, and several spell-circles as part of the hand guard. true this idea might fit an Eldrich Knight better but the idea still sounds fun to play with as instead if rare inks you'd most likely need special gem/stone/ore dust.
Sounds like a really cool idea for a homebrew magic item! It'd work really well for a blade singer wizard!
@@ConstructedChaos I just had the idea of starting as an Elf for the Weapon Prof. Then start with a level or two in Wizard before taking two levels in Monk to get the Dedicated Weapon feat so basically any weapon can be used with Dex. With this you could have the Spellbook Sword and have everything be made with official content
Order of Scribe Tortle might be cool
I want to do an Order of Scribe build soon for the channel but I just used a tortle for my abjuration build. Is there a particular reason I should give the Tortle a second look for this one that I’m not thinking of?
I also plan on making one they sound fun
@@connorrawson5661 Tortles are just the best!
@@ConstructedChaos order of scribes is 1 of the best wizards imo. top 3 in my book if we arent counting chronurgist. mine was custom lineage when i played in the past, but if i were to play it again with the harengon out, i'd switch to a harengon.
@@TheRobversion1 for the free misty step (rabbit hop)? Or some other reason?
2:52 tldr: my high ac bladesinder got went down with 1krit and died cause of the lack of hp :(
Me: bladesinger with higher dex (20) then int (16) (for stats did we use the pointbuy from pathinder cause we are a 3man party and that stat boost was very usefull). With mage armor and bladesong reached he 21ac (for savety got he shield prepiared) and nonstop was into frontline cause closely nothing could hit him. My party got into a fight against a stone piller thingy and it just krited my mage on the first turn and my mage just lost all his hp. Most other classes wouldnt die cause they would got more hp at that point. The "healer" of the party didnt go out of wild shape and i rolled a 1 success, 1 fail death save aaand then a nat 1.
ouch. and this is why i think the best defense is good offense and initiative. better to go 1st, disable/kill the target and they become target practice for the rest of the combat. I'd definitely recommend not relying solely on ac for your defenses. use layers since you're a wizard. mirror image, blink, etc helps. blink imo is best as this protects you from spells as well. you have access to false life. use that to buffer yourself with temp hp before you adventure.
EXCELLENT advice. I feel like many builds forget that AC-no matter how high it is-is only one layer of protection! Blink is probably one of my favorite spells, honestly. I run it on an UA Stone Sorcerer build that I have for a friend’s Eberron campaign and I kinda just don’t get hit because I can’t even be targeted half the time haha!
@@ConstructedChaos agreed. and i like to tell people, if an enemy targets your ac, that's just dmg. it's more devastating when they can target your saves.
blink is my fave contingency spell for a wizard/bard. "whenever i enter combat" is my trigger and i automatically have blink. i dont have to waste my 1st action on it and it has great flavor imo. non-concentration too! lastly, people forget its a great repositioning tool. a free 10 ft teleport every round helps you build/close distance and avoid AOO.
@@TheRobversion1 oh I do actually forget about that 10ft of teleport every time!!
@@ConstructedChaos it happens! i like using it because i feel like nightcrawler from X2.
when it comes to defense in dnd i follow mr. miyagi's advice: "Best defense Daniel-san is no be there."
I've got a 20th level Abjuration Wizard.
The Arcane Ward is pretty strong, but the proficiency bonus to dispel and counter spell is way strong. I counter most spells at 3rd or 4th.
Last session I used Timestop to help our Monk out of a Forcecage with Anti-magic field, then stood around the group to basically null any spell from the 4 liches we were fighting. 😂
True that! I've got 3 players in my main group that have counterspell and they do not hesitate to "nope" me constantly haha.
@@ConstructedChaos Don't forget you can counterspell a counterspell! Makes for some hilarious chains of reactions!
@@PersistentDissenter Oh I haven't forgotten! But when I do that, they innevitably counterspell my counterspell that was for their counterspell. What I've had more success with is using monsters that have magical "abilities" rather than spells.
@@ConstructedChaos Yes!!
@@ConstructedChaos this is what our DM does too as most have learned to pack counterspell. or when a dm does have to use a spellcaster (like story wise) it's usually a sorc with subtle spell so there's no counterspell chains.
I really wish there was a sorcerer version of bladesinger.
WOTC came close-ish with the stone sorcery bloodline. I’ve played it even though it was UA and can’t recommend it enough. Super fun!
@@ConstructedChaos I’ll check it out, thanks 🤙🏻
I prefer doing this with my wizards
14 necromancer
5 undead warlock pact tome, aspect of moon
1 shadow sorcerer
Haha sounds like a fun build!
@@ConstructedChaos it is with all the spell slots available to it plus add lichdom to it it is fun
@@Vampireknight99 Lichdom is always a good time haha
Pssh back in my day...
My wizards had 1D4 hit die and it was rolled at first level plus con bonus...
Hahaha absolutely brutal!
Especially the wizard
1.25 playback speed is a gift
Haha sorry if it was a bit slow! I’ve improved the speed of my delivery since recording this one!
Blowing things us is entertaining, but there's nothing like controlling the battlefield and making it your own.
You’re not wrong at all!!
imo the most entertaining thing is putting your DM in a catch-22. provide him options. he selects option 1, he's screwed. select option 2, he's screwed. pure joy for me when it's my turn to make the DM think.
Awesome video! Thank You!
Glad you liked it!!
The background music makes me want to roll a concentration check
Haha sorry about the synaptic static there! This is one of my older videos and I’ve since lowered the volume on my background music after a couple comments like this. Thanks for the tip!
Hot damn that's a lot of misspelled subclass names
It's been a while since I made this video and that's oddly the first I'm hearing of it! What'd I miss?
@@ConstructedChaoschronurgy has an e instead of a u but that’s all I see at a glance
Amazing video man... Thank you
No problem!! Happy you enjoyed it!
3:04
I beg to differ. I made a bladesinger that had I think 29 AC around level 10 before. That's not including shield. I also always cast blur and had luck. I was literally never hit by anything. Only a saving throw could effect me.
I got that AC by rolling lucky stats totaling 85 putting a point in barbarian for unarmoured defence and having AC boosting magic items.
And that's nowhere near the most tanky you could theoretically be. A wizard with access to wish could wish 25,000 gp a day. They could also cast simulacrum and have their simulacrum cast wish to spawn gold every day up to 2 times ontop of the player doing it.
With this cash a wizard could buy robes of the magi. Staff of the magi. Bracers of defence. They could use magic beans and tomes to increase every stat to 30 each. If they where patient they could from the start forgo stat increases and just take feats.
With a level in monk or barbarian and the rest in bladesinger wizard 30 of each stat staff of the magi and bracers of defence your save bonus excluding proficiency or advantage such as in maintaining concentration would be +16
Your ac would be 34 base. 10 + 10 from con or wis + 10 from dex +4 from magic items. And that's not including bladesong which brings it up to 44. Or shield which you can endlessly cast with spell mastery bringing it to 49.
Then there is luck ontop of that.
And blur making it even harder to hit.
And your health is ridiculously high. Over 400 if I remember right.
And with simulacrum and wish you can give yourself resistance to every damage type.
And to make it even more OP you could cast simulacrum. Have your simulacrum use wish to cast a simulacrum copying your form. Have that simulacrum use wish to cast another etc infinitely. Hell you could even true polymorph a simulacrum into yourself freeing up a slot to make another simulacrum and giving them the ability to also true polymorph other simulacrum.
Rinse and repeat until you have a exponentially growing army of unstoppable wizard tanks.
i think Chaos was making reasonable assumptions here. the assumptions you're making are things that won't fly/happen at most tables:
1. most tables dont reach tier 4 and wish is commonly banned at tables that play at that level (precisely to avoid the wish+simulacrum combo).
2. simulacrum is commonly banned at most tables.
3. most dms wont be awarding a bunch of beans and tomes along with multiple legendary items just to allow you get your stats to 30. even at tier 4 play.
with that said, even without all of those, i do agree that wizards can be quite durable if built right.
@@TheRobversion1 okay but even my level 10 character was tanky af. Me and a level 17 or 18 barbarian powergamer got in a argument and had a duel together in a arena. Even being nearly half his level he never hit me and had to resort to disarming my rapier to do anything. In the end he gave up.
@@Chris-jw8vm as i said in my comment, i dont disagree that wizards can be durable to martial attacks. just the assumptions to push the defenses that high and using certain spells which are commonly banned.
A level 17-18 barbarian btw is not a "powergamer." he may just be trying to optimize a pure barb but the fact that he took a barb past level 2-6 just shows he made alot of suboptimal decisions. he should've multiclassed at that point. or as casters>martials in 5e by a mile, if he was really a powergamer, he would've had some sort of spellcasting on his build if not be a caster. a barbarian is one of the bottom 3 classes in 5e and one of the easiest classes to handle in any sort of pvp (along with rogues and monks). they can't cast spells. while wizards are one of the top 3 classes. you had a major advantage even if you didn't make all optimal choices and he did.
I think from a hypothetical pvp standpoint, it would've been a fairer matchup if he was a bard or a sorc.
@@TheRobversion1 well for a barbarian he was. I dunno what he was doing but he had a passive healing ability and had very high stats. I think 20 to 26 in every stat using tomes and magic beans. I hadn't used either by that point.
@@Chris-jw8vm yeah that was my guess. he was just trying to make the best barb he could but anything a barb has pales in comparison to spells. stats isn't that big a deal either as spells get around that (lots of no save spells so your stats doesn't matter). healing (as is the healer role) is bad in 5e. in 5e, action economy (and offense by relation) is king. the basic tactic in any combat to succeed in 5e is to either kill your enemy before they can do anything (burst striking) or to control your enemy before they can do anything (controller).
good stats may protect one from a good burst striker but if a controller knows what he's doing no amount of stats will protect them from it. the key to beating controllers lies with casters as well (this is why martials arent as good in 5e). the key is to prevent them from casting spells (silence, obscurement, counterspell, inflicting control). most of these tools are on the wizard/sorc repertoire as well. its really a mismatch to pit a caster vs. a martial.
“Dont let it be you” bwahahahahahaha
Inevitably, someone let it be them. lol
I am playing a level 15 Enchantment Wizard. She is the most powerful character I have ever played. I don't do much damage but battlefield control is second to none.
while i'd agree enchanters make good controllers, i doubt enchanters are second to none even within her own class (diviners, war wizards and chronurgists are there) or when compared to other classes such as sorcs who can boost save control spells with heightened spell or are the best at skill check control spells due to magical guidance.
any wizard though should definitely feel as one of the most powerful characters you've played as they are regarded as a top 3 if not the best class in the game. the only challengers really are bard (tier 3-4) and sorcs (tier 1-2).
@@TheRobversion1 I agree with everything you said. I haven't played some of those wizards. However two things to note. When casting an enchantment spell that only has one target you get to target an additional target. This is extremely powerful when cast something like Feeblemind or Tasha's Mind Whip. Secondly updating some of the enchantment spells gives you multiple targets also some the enchantment spells limits targets action economy limiting to only an attack, move, bonus action or reaction. Really powerful.
@@oppressive1770 i did keep in mind split enchantment. hence, sorc comparison who can do this but with all spells.
second, enchantment spells aren't restricted to enchanter. all wizards can use it. other classes can use it. the analysis of the enchanter imo should be limited to their abilities at 2nd, 6th, 10th and 14th. spells should be left off the list as those are universal to wizards at least. here's my analysis:
2nd-non-concen control that's good but puts the wizard in danger (melee). very costly action economy wise as it consumes an action every turn (thus you won't be casting spells). it's something you'll use once you're out of spell slots and are resorting to cantrips. easy to break as well as the creature can just be hit by their allies to break them out and you can't apply it on the same target again. since it forces a save and is a charm effect, this will be not useful as you hit tier 3 and charm/incap immunity abound along with legendary resistance. definitely good for tier 1 play when you have few spell slots but starts to decline at tier 2.
6th-situational and limited reaction (needs 2 creatures to be within 5ft of each other attacking you) that like hypnotic gaze is good early on but suffers as you progress. with access to shield it's rare a wizard will use this unless out of spell slots. suffers again at tier 3 due to it being a charm effect.
10th-this is the enchanter's best ability but as mentioned earlier, this is just a slightly worse version of the sorc's twinned spell.
14th-again another charm ability. you see where i'm going with this. it's tier 3 when you get this so it's very underwhelming at this point. plus the effect is more of a ribbon with no combat application and the out of combat application is campaign dependent (this is great in a political/social kind of campaign but not in anything puzzle or combat heavy like a dungeon crawl).
if you look at it basically 1/4 are good abilities and you can find better tools for a controller in the other subclasses/classes i mentioned or at least having more than 1 good ability.
I would say that the enchanter come very close to the best controller wizard. But I have some disagreement with Rob Vera analysis:
The 2nd level ability: Hypnotic Gaze, though only have 5 ft range, is super useful when a tough monster engage you in melee combat. Incapacitate them and wait for the rest of the party to deal with other monsters, then come back to kill the dazed one. Or if you cast a concentration spell and one succeeded the save, just walk up to them, hypnotize it and wait the party to come and kill it
The 6th lv ability: Instinctive Charm, only work against 1 target, but **do** work on a ranged attack, deflecting a massive attack which can’t be Shield to a fighter/paladin/barbarian, is life saver. You’re a wizard, if someone can tank the hit for you, they should.
The 10th lv ability: Split Enchantment, effectively twining spells of an Enchantment school, include: Hideous Laughter, Charm Person, Suggestion, Tasha Mind Whip, Charm Monster, Hold Person, Hold Monster, Raulothim Psychic Lance, Geas, Modify Memory, Dominate Person, Dominate Monster, Otto Irresistible Dance, Feeble Mind, Power Word Stun, Power Word Pain, Power Word Kill. You can make an argument that a sorcerer with twinned spell metamagic can do the same thing, but I would love to see the sorcerer trying to keep up with the enchanter by blowing up all their sorcery points and left nothing for the next combat.
The 14th lv ability: Alter Memories, is excellent in social encounter. Most of the charm and dominate spells come with a problem that the target still remember they are charmed by you, thus lead to negative reactions. Remove their memory about the time they get deceived by your magic is just too good to ignore. Need that legendary item that a noble held? 4th lv Charm Person the entire room, Dominate Person the noble, force him to give you the item, Modify Memory them as appropriate, Alter Memories them if necessary, walk away and they won’t even remember what happened
@@honahamomoru151 lots to go over here. lets get to it:
1. i did say hypnotic gaze was good. i just pointed out it's limitations such as legendary resistance, charm effect, being in melee range. what you mentioned in the last sentence is undoable by a wizard unless you dipped fighter 2 for action surge. and tbh if i had action surge and they succeeded the save for the concen spell, i'd just stay out of range and cast another concen spell with action surge.
2. again, i just pointed out it's limitations. there's alot of enemies immune to charm and of course legendary resistance. my guess is you're disagreeing because your DM doesn't challenge you that much by constantly sending these types of enemies. we typically play tier 2-tier 3 so our DM usually does. this and the level 2 ability work best at tier 1-2 which is what i said previously.
another limitation i failed to mention is this requires enemies to be bunched up together. if you have a melee ally closer to the enemy, they will just redirect that attack to your ally. unlike you i don't see the value of redirecting an enemy attack to an ally. i'd rather redirect that attack to the enemy. and tbh properly built wizards can have very high ac that they should be able to have the hit miss with shield. the wizard doesn't even have to multiclass to get high ac. just play a mountain dwarf or any of the other races that grant armor prof. or pick up med armor prof via feat and play vuman/custom lineage.
3. yes i can make that argument. you can check the sorc vid of Chaos where he talks about coffeelocking. but yes, i understand coffeelocking is banned at most tables but by RAW sorcs can keep up technically. now if the sorc has to do this multiple times that they would run out it just means 3 things:
a. the sorc is doing it wrong like choosing the wrong spells. combats done properly should last 3-4 rounds at the most so he doesn't have to keep it up for long. and tbh at the tier you get this in, enchantment spells are bad as magic resistance and legendary resistance come into play more often. a tactical player shouldn't be targeting saves at this point and wasting their spell slots. most of the spells you mention here require a save. at this level a tactical wizard (and a sorc) should be using spells like wall of force, telekinesis/bigby's hand and the like.
b. the sorc has a crappy party.
c. the dm is running many combats that consume resources instead of the typical 3-4 combats per day.
4. you just pointed out my disagreement in your 1st sentence. you said this is great for a social encounter. i don't disagree with that. we are however talking about controller which means combat applications only. this is a dead ability for the purpose of determining the best controller.
Wizard is broken? more like PC will be broken trying to play one.
It's okay, your DM probably doesn't understand the way it works either ;)
How do I find out how many spell slots I have
check the PHB or any online resource?
It’s at 5:17 of this video! 😊
‘Dump your wisdom score’… um, what? I would argue a wizard should dump STR. Wisdom is too important to all classes to dump.
You’re not wrong!! My apologies for a poor attempt at a silly joke about how wizards (who phonetically might sound like they want wisdom to be their casting stat) use intelligence instead.
@@ConstructedChaos no worries. I get it now. It’s actually pretty clever.
there would be certain optimal builds where you'd be forced to dump wis (especially paladins multiclassing into something that doesn't require str or cha as they arent dumping con either so int or wis are the most likely dump stats).
@@The_Gnome_Chomskee regardless, it’d probably be a good idea to cut that latter part out so it isn’t confusing haha
I think people are actually grossly overestimating Spellcasters in 5e.
Control is fun and games until you realize everything control spell ever is concentration and gets a save everything round. Even a commoner can wiggle free from a level 20 wizard with a bit of luck. It's ridiculous.
Utility, fine. Adventure utility is what wizard does, but Wizard does not walk all over combat encounters like everyone claims them to do.
Even that so precious fireball is just a mild inconvenience against a CR 5 or higher creature. Best the Wizard can do for is to tie down the opposition for his martials to finish the job but when it comes to actually killing stuff, spallcasting classes are just ridiculously hopeless compared to a class like fighter.
Your 6 7 and even 9 level spells just bounce off from your targets. A supposedly very powerful 7th level nuke spell Finger of death cannot even zap a creature for half it's hit points around that level its beyond pathetic.
i aggree with you, and while making no sense, it was made to balance casters. It inst believable sense that someone with arcane mastery looses to someone swinging a sword.
Thing is that in theory casters still can trivialize most things. They have spells that break the game rather easily. And it just takes 2 concentration spells at any single time, which is possible with a level 7 spell, or with other measures, to start dunking on everyone else.
Click bait
Comment bait
Why summon the remote when I can just say: "Hi jarvis, please play amouranth on twitch" and weird stuff appears automatically. With grreat power comes great responsibility. A good voice control can match some familiars.
Yes, please watch amouranth responsibly 😂😅
@@ConstructedChaos Lol. I prefer Bebahan. 😝
The background music is obnoxious, I think the video would be better with no music.
Sorry about that!! Some of my earlier videos like this one had background music that was a bit too loud but I’ve made adjustments since then and it should be alright now! 😊
I don't hear anything?
Check your settings on UA-cam maybe? It's working for me and well over 150 other commenters below!
@@ConstructedChaos it was weird, but i here again.
@@BanetheWolfGod hmm perhaps a glitch in the matrix?
@@ConstructedChaos he didn't take the red pill. that's why.
@@TheRobversion1 the trick is to take them both 🤪
Wise should olnly be used to copy spells like simulacrum and sutch anything else is a rediclus wast.
Copying any other 7th or 8th level spell can come in handy if you really need something that you don't have prepared. However, there's also the rest of the spell's description that makes it ridiculously powerful.
@@ConstructedChaos or if your DM is lenient with Wish, you could just wish for all your enemies to die, be trapped in an eternal/unescapable prison or whatever final solution the campaign ends. it just usually ends up as simulacrum because the DM is not lenient with Wish. Wish in actuality is a campaign-ending spell/plot device in the hands of a DM.
I loved Minthara's commentary on Gale in BG3. that she wouldn't waste time getting to know him because he's a wizard and he'd probably be killed soon anyways
Hahahahaha I haven't played BG3 yet but that's a joke I'd appreciate!
Bro, not every class is broken. Lol!
Lol that’s fair enough. But, I think every class CAN be broken depending on how you build your character and the tier of play that character is in. The idea here is that people shouldn’t feel like they can’t play certain classes just because everyone says it’s “underpowered”.
Can I ask why you call this a guide?
You summerised and read class features.
I don't see any guidance here.
This looks like an introduction to me.
I feel mislead and my time wasted.
You have a nice voice and I don't doubt there is an audience that can appreciate your content. Keep it up (with less clickbaity titles?)!
Hey friend! Welcome to the channel! As is the case with most guides, I offer a comprehensive look at how to play each class with this series while also offering some extra input on what parts of each class are the most powerful in an effort to showcase that ANY class in D&D can be broken! I hope that affords a bit more insight!
But, in either case, sorry to have wasted your time and happy adventuring!
Illusion, at low levels Phantasmal Killer Rocks.
did you mean phantasmal force? imo phantasmal force rocks, phantasmal killer sucks (compared to other options at this level like polymorph, banishment and even lower level options like fear).
Mage is not a Wizard... Correct yourself
A wizard is to a mage as a square is to a rectangle.
In other words, a wizard is a mage but a mage is not necessarily a wizard.
Am I the only one who thinks spell slots is confusing and would rather have them be referred to as spell charges?
If calling them something different helps, I’d say go for it!!
Ppap
Is that an acronym for something?
@@ConstructedChaos honestly, I pocket-dialed those letters 🤣 but since i already commented, I want to say: nice video, enjoyed watching it 😎
@@hapsanaCovjece hahaha that’s awesome! Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for watching! 😊
A wizard is the LAST thing a new person should play. 😳🫢
And they are definitely not broken. 🤦🏻♂️😆
Did I say in the video that they’re good for beginners? If so, you’re absolutely right. But…. Uhm…. They most definitely can be broken 😜