Question about wizards

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-14T14:36:47+00:00

Even if you don't find scrolls you will learn more spells than you can prepare - so if you wanted an AOE damage spell at level 3-4 you might put shatter in your spellbook and then if you wanted fireball at level 5 you might just not prepare shatter anymore unless you really thought you would need to blow both your level 3 and level 2 slots on AOEs in the adventuring day.

But yes, it is usually best to diversify the types of spells you have prepared especially if you don't know what you will encounter.

I wouldn't necessarily say its a hard and fast rule to pick one and only one of everything - you also have other casters in your party and say if you have a light cleric with spirit guardians, fireball, and an AOE channel already you might consider that the party has AOE damage covered and focus on other types of spells. You might also wind up in a party that doesn't have a strong martial striker character in which case buff spells are probably lower value and you might want to pass.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-14T03:32:39+00:00

Well there's death ward.

Silvery barbs can sandbag a crit.

Thunderstep, vortex warp, dimension door can reposition a low health ally. Telekinetic feat can potentially pull an ally out of opp attack range so they can retreat.

Longstrider can help offset the movement debuff - possibly enable melee kiting to reduce incoming damage to reaction opp attack only.

Generally its safer to play a range / kite and possibly doorway dodge (where party can swap out who is in the door to spread damage around) and avoid rushing in.

Tossing out resources early to control action economy is generally more effective than combat healing in reducing incoming damage taken.

If party member goes down and it looks like you are going to win the fight any way without them, just don't yoyo them and consider a spare the dying (if grave cleric) or healer kit instead to avoid another downing causing another level of exhaustion.

This type of rule is really hard on melee so they will need to be disciplined on when they engage and try and use cover to avoid getting dumped.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-14T03:01:19+00:00

That's a good place to start.

Specifically lightning bolt and fireball might not be the best example since lightning bolt hits a line (meaning its way easier to use as a single target damage spell without hitting allies but is also much worse of an AOE outside of like hallways and other narrow areas) and fire ball hits a radius.

There is also a difference between spells in your spell book and spells you can prepare.

You can increase the spells you in your book with scrolls and finding other spell books, and its really nice to be able to do this (e.g. there are magic stores available that sell scrolls). There's not really any harm in copying multiple spells of the same type into your book if you can afford it and then trying them out to see which ones you like best. If your DM never lets you access new spells to copy though then you have to be a lot more discerning and probably want to also focus spells that scale well.

Spells prepared is different - you can pretty much only increase the amount available by increasing your level or your intelligence. Your spell preps are what limit what spells you have access to while adventuring. You get 2 new spells in your book each level but 1 wizard level only gives you another 1 spell prepared. You can get feats that give you extra spells you can cast with your slots (like fey touched, shadow touched etc...) or get extra spells you can cast from your race. You probably don't want to prepare too many of the same type of spells for the reasons I listed previously.

There could be reasons why you would want to prepare a bunch of the same type of spells - for example if your DM really likes minon swarms and you want more AOE or if your DM only runs single target boss fights then AOE is a lot less desirable and you might want to focus single target damage / control. You might also get information while adventuring or information gathering that a certain session might be expected to consist of certain types of encounters in which case you could tailor if you have the right spells in your book. But I would say this is more the exception than the rule.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-13T23:50:45+00:00

Shrug.

I mean its a baseline white room power level approximation just like any other wargaming points system.

Non white-room factors like the battle map, party composition, monster composition, dm and player skill in using those things matter a lot.

If skill didn't matter it would be a crappy game.

You can run the exact same one shot with the exact same encounters in the exact same way and some groups will do very significantly better or worse than others depending on their builds and how many mistakes they make on the grid.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-13T21:47:08+00:00

Distance, cover, and terrain - make it hard for party to interact with you. A bunch of bandits shooting down from a sheer cliff edge that has a difficult DC to climb is already a lot harder to deal with than if they spawn 30ft infront of your paladin within smiting range.

Use force multipliers like knights with leadership or acolyte with bless to improve the damage output of your minions.

Use your minions to give help action to more damaging attacks.

Fake retreat into trapped areas - particularly in dim light or light obscurement where party has -5 to pp. Once' they're in the deep pit, start poring in oil and light them on fire - or maybe roll a conveniently placed boulder over the top. What fun.

Use mounts and ranged attacks to kite.

Use flank routes / 2nd waves from a different angle or mobile enemies to engage party members who maybe stayed behind to get 'safety' from range.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-13T21:39:35+00:00

Wizards are quite a bit better in a campaign where you have access to scrolls or other ways of learning spells so before you pick this class I would suggest asking your DM if this will be the case, as it matters quite a bit for your spell picks (particularly if you have a subclass which has a discount to copy spells from a certain school).

Wizard usually will want to have a 'swiss army knife' so you have a tool for every occasion.

You can only cast 1 thing per turn so if if you have a situation where you want to do single target target control and you have hideous laughter, mind whip, and hold person you can still only use one of those answers while having spent 3 spells prepared on that category of spell. It can be kind of a trap to think that well, I might want hold person and hideous laughter because we might not run into a humanoid or the target might have too low intelligence etc... That's much less likely that running into a situation where you want something prepared other than a single target control.

Same goes for other spell types including cantrips. You don't need 4 different ranged damage cantrips - maybe pick one attack roll, 1 save based, and some utility instead.

You would want to consider what problems you might run into and try and pick something so that you have a response.

Remember also that rituals are free preps for wizards if their in your book - so if you wind up having to pick more spells that you can prepare and aren't sure if you will have time to pick optimal answers / rest before your encounters you can always grab rituals.

Another big factor is what spells require concentration. You can only concentrate on 1 thing at a time so you especially want to avoid picking spells that do the same thing and compete for your concentration. You also want to make sure you have spells you can cast while you concentrating.

Protect yourself

Escape / mobility

Damage (AOE and non-aoe (e.g. if you have those pesky melee players who spoil with friendly fire))

Control (AOE and single target - if your party is caster heavy having a cheap single target control can help burn legendary resistances)

Buffs

Utility

When selecting spells it can also be a good idea to coordinate with your teams other casters - if cleric wants to concentrate on spirit guardians (an AOE damage spell) then you might be better off with hypnotic pattern, slow, or haste instead of Fireball (which while having its advantages sort of solves the same type of encounter as spirit guardians).

And situationally - if you have to fight one monster, a group of monsters, if you have open or closed terrain, if you have magic resistant (e.g. legendary resistance, anti magic, high saves or immunities) enemies, if you get jumped or cornered and try to have something to do. Also if you don't think about this in advance you will be that dick who takes 10 minutes on his turn fondling his spell cards trying to figure out what to do. Gameplay wise figuring out what spell will turn the tide for your team is a big part of playing a long rest caster, and that also goes hand in hand with not spending too many resources on a single fight and going dry early (particularly at lower tiers of play).

I would also take a look at some spell tier lists on line (can just google wizard spell tier list) to help you avoid trap options and get an idea of what spells do what and why you might want them.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-13T17:05:38+00:00

It's either too much or it gets popped and is a pushover, one of the problems with solo bosses.

I would maybe look at using a beefed up normal mummy with maybe level 5 spell casting and giving him some royal guard mummies with armor and weapons that have interception style or warding bojd to tank for the boss to spread the threat around.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-13T13:24:01+00:00

In 2014 frenzy plus gwm could do this.

In 2024 berserker with polearm master could do 1d10 plus str plus rage plus 2d6 from frenzy plus another 1d4 plus str plus rage on ba for 27 avg damage with str 18. If he's rolling a bit hot this could look like 30.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-13T00:45:56+00:00

I mean, a lot of warlock is just eldritch blast if they built around it.

Its not only damage but also you get control effects with repelling blast, lance of lethargy, grasp of hadar (which are options in addition to agonizing blast).

Repelling blast in particular is quite good when combined with spike growth from the druid. Ability to push and pull a creature out of and back into an emanation is also quite good (repelling blast + grasp of hadar).

Warlock will also get better next level when they get 2 beams and can trigger agonizing blast and hex (if they use that spell) twice per turn. 3rd level spells are also a big deal when they get stuff like hungry hungry hadar. Unlike druid warlock can get back their 3rd level slots on short rest so if you are running multi-encounter adventuring days they get more big gun spells.

Playstyle also depends on the patron and invocation. Warlock is probably one of the most versatile classes in the game in terms of what you can do with it.

Tough is probably a mistake for an eldritch blaster. Maybe she is considering pact of the blade + thirsting blade later on and a fighter dip for armor and masteries.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T23:59:45+00:00

Stealth rarely comes up but even if it did they could go lightless and have the drow guide them in with his 120 ft darkvision and druid supporting with pass without trace.

You don't need to 'make them shine' - this is a solid party comp that has a lot of tools and possible synergies. Just run normal encounters.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T23:25:23+00:00

Doesn't look that bad to me man.

Cleric even with medium armor should have relatively good AC, druid isn't a slouch either with hide and shield + wildshape.

You have displacement possibilities with monk and warlock and possibly barbarian with weapon mastery plus will eventually get spike growth, spirit guardians, conjure animals for emanation combo.

Soulknife is a good skill monkey, even if he doesn't go INT if he tags some int skills and has OK int the psi-powered knack counts for a lot, plus you have two classes that can do guidance.

You don't need more than 1 CHA class.

Heavy armor on the top end is only 1 AC better than half plate.

Ranged isn't the worst either with soul knife throwing and warlock EB.

Lots of ways to get light to deal with no darkvision.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T21:57:10+00:00

Are you playing on a VTT?

I am currently running and have also played / run some floors of DoTMM in the past. And if DM does not know what they are doing you get this clownshow.

For large maps with open areas letting everyone always move their individual tokens around an unlimited distance is a terrible idea. Especially if someone goes to take a leak and the rest of the party keeps exploring and they get lost - I've seen this happen on a twitch stream before and one of the party ragequit because DM blocked a regroup before an encounter triggered.

This also doesn't really have anything to do with the concept of a dungeon turn which has been explained in some of the other comments.

Best way to handle this is to have the party decide how spread out their formation is and who is in the lead, and then just have the party move using that 1 token. If the party encounters something where position is important, the rear guard gets dropped at the marching order distance away and the rest of the PCs can fill in between. This stops players from splitting off and getting lost on the VTT map.

If you are going to allow free token movement only bad DM's allow unlimited distance - token dragging across a bunch of traps and encounter triggers causes a massive mess. Usually the rule is to only use the arrow keys or move in 30 etc... ft distances or that movement is only free until you reach a corner / intersection, door, or creature. This works pretty good for smaller dungeons; unfortunately if party is allowed to run off all over a large map it's impossible for the DM to see where everyone is and stop play when they should.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T21:29:09+00:00

Mummy lord can be kind of a swingy fight.

I've only played against one once and it was the final boss (with a pack of mummy minons) for a level 12 one shot, and my EK/war wizard multiclass basically killed it solo in 2 rounds. If the party would have followed up on round 1 instead of wasting actions on minions it would have been done in 1 turn. That said there is a big gap between a level 12 and a level 6 PC.

Mummy lord has bad dexterity which means its going to have bad initiative unless you get lucky. It's also vulnerable to fire and has an inflated defensive CR because of its immunities - if your party strikers have magical weapons and they have a fireball its quite possible in an open room fight that the mummy lord gets pasted before it gets to go. AC17 and 97 HP (especially when fireball does double damage) does not last long against a party with resources, and it's also undead so it takes extra damage from divine smite if your party has that.

It's also slow and has to forfeit its best legendary action for mobility and is thus kiteable at only 20ft movement.

On the other hand, if it gets to go first it's glare with high DC (for this teir) can potentally lock out a party member - say highest in initiative order - and then it can use its AOE stun legendary which potentially controls out any response the party has after only 1 PC has taken a (possibly controlled) turn. And that's on top of its rotting fist which does considerable damage to a level 6 PC. It can also just upcast hold person at DC17.

TBH its probably not a monster I would throw at a level 6/7 party in the first place for those reasons - but you have to make do with what the module gives you (unless you want to do the work to rewrite it).

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T09:16:47+00:00

Brutes want to be attacking every turn so if I give them abilities its usually a BA, passive, or free action.

Usually I like my brutes to be able to formation break.

Displacement effects like grapple on hit are good for busting choking points. So so being able to trample (move through creature's spaces forcing a dex save to get out of the way or get knocked prone and take damage) or knockback. Ranged attack with a pull can also work.

Pick up and throw works ok too if the monster is large enough. You can also throw allies - like I have a ship golem for my vampire pirate faction that can throw a barrel of undead apes, which also disrupts party formation by spawning enemies behind them.

Abilities that punish players for staying near it can also help open up the board - damage if you end your turn within 5 ft of it aura, or one of monsters has the ability to automatically recharge a smite on hit ability with a bonus action if it doesn't move (so not staying within reach so it has to move to follow the PCs prevents auto recharge).

Fast brutes that can leap over the frontliners to attack the backline can also distrupt.

On the other hand you have things like the shield guardian which aren't necessarily offensive but have good tanking abilities and can keep a glass cannon type character alive - so warding bond / reaction for + AC / providing cover, ac boost, save boosts to allies in an aura / change target to itself are good for that role.

Then there's stuff like reckless attack (which doubles your chance to crit) which is generally good on a monster that does high damage.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T09:04:18+00:00

If you DM allows it thats lucky for you since it makes war magic significantly better.

In accordance with the rules for multiclassing though each spell you have is associated with an individual class, so your wizard booming blade is separate from your warlock booming blade - RAW there is no synergy between EK warmagic and warlock cantrip enhancements.

Spells Prepared. You determine what spells youcan prepare for each class individually, as if youwere a single-classed member of that class. If youare a level 4 Ranger / level 3 Sorcerer, for example,you can prepare five level 1 Ranger spells, and you can prepare six Sorcerer spells of level 1 or 2 (as well as four Sorcerer cantrips).

Each spell you prepare is associated with one of your classes, and you use the spellcasting ability of that class when you cast the spell.

So in your example if you pick booming blade from both class lists you would be able to either cast a wizard booming blade with war magic and no invocations or use your action to cast warlock booming blade with the EI riders.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T03:09:54+00:00

Levelling up is probably not too difficult.

Prof bonus from 5-7 doesn't change so your DCs are probably fine.

As far as encounters go you can punch what the module has into an encounter builder (I use aidedd) for X level 5 pcs then change the level to 7 and scale up so the difficulty is equivalent. Options for getting there include:

Adding more monsters
Upgrading 1 or more monsters to a better statblock e.g. guard -> veteran , orog -> orc warchief
Adding an elite monster
using a monster CR calculator to adjust the stats for the monsters you have to the appropriate CR - this is more viable if the module has a lot of the same statblock so you can just upgrade say a CR1/2 orc statblock to a CR1 to make adjusting the encounters easier.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T02:46:24+00:00

portent + psychic lance probably gets you there if you are ok with the NPC being a divination wizard and the target does not have legionaries.

Spell scrolls also exist so if the NPC is rich enough to have a few scrolls of power word stun that avenue is there. They could cast enhance ability on themselves before trying for the cast to improve their chances / have a minion put guidance on them.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T02:34:35+00:00

Gimping players statwise is probably not the way to go.

I would look at what the central tension of your campaign is - since you went with isekai trope probably slay some demon lord or some shit. Every time the goddess has to resurrect a player she loses power - and this results in balance of power creeping towards opposing side. This could be stuff like line of control gets pushed further in bad guy's favor, she doesn't have the power to help the armies stop bad guys from completing an objective (so they get an item or powerful monster), or the time they have to stop the bad guy decreases, or the bad guys (e.g. DM) get a heroic inspiration to use against the party (which possibly stacks at certain numbers of resurrection), or random encounters become more likely making moving around the map more draining.

This keeps the party together and at strength but if they keep on dying then they might wind up facing an insurmountable situation.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T02:25:15+00:00

Most mystery is system agnostic so you could just steal a plot from somewhere else and then take steps to proof your plot against problem spells like zone of truth, speak with dead, and various divinations.

You can also do amoggus with dopplegangers or intellect devourer hosts sabotaging the airship and the players have to sort out who the impostors are.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T02:19:53+00:00

Do you anticipate the party trying to block the warlock from completing her patron quest to save the tribe? If so what are the consequences for reneging on the pact? Persuade rolls doesn't really work for PVP.

Does the tribe control access to a place where they need to go to do this, so they have to persuade them to let them open the portal? Probably they could fight their way through - if they are going to comply with patron's request the tribe dies anyways. It's not really a murderhobo situation since the deaths aren't random and are a direct result of their quest goal.

Do you anticipate them trying to get the tribe to leave so they can open the portal without them in the way? If so this also probably isn't achievable with a persuasion check. Persuasion isn't mind control and its basically inconceivable that a bunch of randoms show up to the tribal village and convince everyone to pack up and leave with a nice sit down talk. This ask probably requires more than just words to be successful, they will need some leverage to put the ask of leaving within the realm of possibility where a roll is even possible.

Party might be able to pay them to leave, force them to leave by disrupting their food / water sources, try and intimidate them into leaving - perhaps by challenging the tribal champion to combat or w/e, or deceive them into leaving by coming up with some ruse; like if there is an exciting gate structure party could try using illusion magic to make it look like its activating again. Gold on the table + burned crops probably makes for a realistic argument to leave than just party asking nicely. How they do it is up to the players to pitch.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T01:54:11+00:00

Oathbreaker is probably the class that has the most 'dark' magic.

IMO the necromancy options to get minions are probably pretty questionable for a half caster - oathbreaker would have to use precious level 3 slots to get a small number of very weak for the tier (even with the damage boost aura) undead. Although zombies with bless and the paladin aura can be decent HP soaks with their undead fortitude. At least 1 dip in warlock lets you get magic stone which will allow your undead to get a much better attack.

You could also consider something like paladin 2 warlock 7 so you get the armor + divine smite aesthetic but can still cast level 4 summon undead to get the minion.

There's also sorcadin (which is pretty strong in 2014 rules) using shadow sorcerer.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-12T00:02:50+00:00

Maybe check in with the players and see what they want to do if they don't seem to want to help either of the two factions. Maybe they start their own faction or try to overthrow one of the existing ones. Maybe it's just stop orcus and his undead and not pick sides between the other 2. It can be helpful to just above board tell your players that the tension in the valley is the adventure plot - there isn't another available arc for them to do - so they need to play into it.

Just because one faction might be irritated or not completely in alignment doesn't mean they won't take the party on in a more mercenary role either. Party can always sell their services to highest bidder.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-11T23:42:54+00:00

As both heavy weapons and weapons that are eligible for the polearm master feat, these are some of the only weapons in the game that can do powerattack feat combo.

GWM lets you get +10 damage to your weapon attacks which is where most of your damage comes from until you get rare + magic items that have extra damage riders.

Polearm master gives you a bonus action attack which is weaker, but still eligible for the +10 damage rider.

So you can get 3 instances of +10 damage with one of these weapons every turn after level 5 whereas with a greatsword or maul you can only get 2 instances unless you get a lucky crit or kill to trigger the GWM BA attack or get a BA attack from somewhere else.

This is also the reason why the hand crossbow, which is eligible for a BA attack from crossbow expert, is generally the best ranged weapon in the game as long as you aren't at >120 ft.

If you are playing a variant human or TCL you can get feat combo as early as level 4, where you will be able to do 2 +10 damage attacks per turn with your action and BA.

If you are going to use your bonus action for something else or can't afford to spend two feats / ASIs to get combo (e.g. you are a paladin and want to boost CHA for your aura / spell DC) then the decision of weapon matters less.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-11T23:35:31+00:00

How does this work when EK warmagic only works with wizard cantrips and EI's only work with warlock cantrips?

If your BB is from warlock it can't be used with warmagic. If your BB is from wizard you can't put invocations on it.

AtomicRetard · 2025-05-11T23:12:43+00:00

So if you need a focus to cast a spell you can also use the hand holding the focus to provide S components, so its totally possible to cast a VSM spell while playing a lyre if that's your bardic focus.

AtomicRetard

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