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You're a wizard harry!~ *WIP*

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2022-03-17 03:46:14

Some D&D Basics

This here is to help with better understanding of the game and D&D as well, so as to better plan, plot or outmanuver your enemies. I will not list all of them because that may take forever but I will list what I feel is more important. Mayhaps in the future I may add to this.

Ability Scores

I'm pretty sure you know what these are, your strength,dex,wis,int,con,cha. As ability scores give modifiers every even number, there's no point pushing to odd. In a normal D&D setting it is very very hard to push past 20. Because even if you threw everything into one stat, it caps at 20. There are rare exceptions but those are not in the game yet.

10 = 0, 12 = +1, 14 = +2, 16 =+3, 18 = +4 so on and so forth

*As a wizard you want intelligence as your main and the highest you could potentially hit at this point is 16 at the start. As explained by the numerics above, getting to 17 gives you nothing, unless you intend to add it to 18 at level 4.

AC

Armor class. This is dictated by what armor you wear and usually dexterity up to a point.

Heavy armors are of some exception. Basically the heavier the armor, the lesser points it gets from dexterity. Medium armor half plate for example, gives 15 AC + up to 2 dex. Bear in mind, meeting the AC is what is required to hit someone or get hit. As such, if you have 14 AC, someone has to roll 14 or higher on a d20 with their modifers to hit.

*As a wizard, with but Githyanki as an exception you really do not need to worry about armors, you'll be wearing robes and as such that will rely purely on your dex score for AC.

DC

Difficulty Class, these are for saving throws. If you see spells that need saving, that is what is required. They will roll a specific stat that the spell dictates, if they save, the spell is either less effective or if it's a cantrip it does nothing.

*As a wizard, as mentioned everything relies on your intelligence, your DC is based on that

Concentration

Concentration is one really interesting aspect, some spells require it, like say faerie fire, or bless.

You can only concentrate on one concentration spell at a time. So if you casted Faerie fire, then decide to cast witch bolt? Faerie fire's concentration will drop. Keep in mind, concentration can be broken by doing enough damage and as such the spell is broken. It is usually a constitution save to maintain concentration when you are hit.

Advantage/Disadvantage

These are situations given to you based on a few factors, but conceptually, advantage is rolling twice to take the higher score and disadvantage is rolling twice and taking the lowest score.

Always find ways to get advantage or grant your enemies disadvantage.

Faerie fire, is a spell that gives advantage to those hitting the target, guiding bolt as well.

*Important for Wizards. Most of your direct hit spells are considered ranged spell attacks, in such a situation, using them whilst in melee will grant you disadvantage, which shows up as really low hit %s*

Introduction To Wizardry~

You're a wizard harry, as my introduction has suggested, now to set you on the path to blasting the crap out of your opponents with your plethora of spells, or support your party in a more utilitarian method, depending on whichever path you choose~

This guide will hopefully be going through, with an in-depth look on how to play your wizard most optimally~

There are a few core things one must understand about playing a wizard.

1. You are squishy!

Under most, normal circumstances you have very low AC and low hp. TL;DR you are squishy.

There are ways to go around such limitations but always keep in mind, you are more often than not preferred to remain in the back line.

2. Terrain, barrels, surroundings.

Use all of such to your advantage. Higher ground, exploding things, line-of-sight. In particular, line of sight is very important. If you can, always try to find corners to return to so you become out of sight and stealth to fully render enemies being unable to target you.

3. Scrolls scrolls and more scrolls.

You as a player wizard can learn EVERY spell, provided you have the scrolls for it. This is fundamentally the most broken thing right now. Meaning, that you can learn some pretty wicked spells and cantrips you normally do not have access too. Guiding bolt, cure wounds, healing word?

(This doesn't count for Gale, sorry D:)

4. Do not be hasty.

Patience is the key to the game of a wizard, conservation of your spell slots, preparation of your spells, they all come full circle with your heavy intelligence to make you the strategist, wizards are very book smart, that can usually translate to some battlefield and tactical knowledge, immerse fully into that as you so wish!!

Can I Be A Halfing Wizard, Dumbledore?!?!?! Race Guide

So we are now going to the character creation screen and we will go through the races.

Keep in mind that you can be whatever you want to be, this is a roleplaying game, play how you wish!!!

However for those who want to play for numbers, I can offer recommendations yes :D!

Top picks!

1. Half-elf

+2 To two different stat of my choice? Yes please.

Dark vision, check.

Immune to sleep, check.

Honestly, any half-elf subrace would be great, high elf, for the extra cantrip of your choice would probably be the more meta option. Wood elf with stealth proficiency is great too~

The Charisma is great too, better to talk your way out of things and possibly go Warlock initiate for a feat. That would definitely be a dpr booster.

Recommended stats, +1 Int, +1dex

2. High Elf

+2 dexterity and +1 Intelligence? Yes more AC for me.

Dark vision, check.

Immune to sleep, check

Free cantrip too!

Sure you get some weapon proficiencies but seriously, you're a wizard, use your spells!

Side note; With a decent dex score, you could potentially especially at low levels run with a longbow to hit for notably more damage than your cantrips~

3. Tieflings

Asmodeus / Mephistopheles in particular

+2 charisma +1 intelligence, that works!

Hellish resistance is great, resistance to fire with so many flame stuff around.

Free cantrips is a yes. I would go Mephistopheles though because mage hand is far more useful than Thaumaturgy to me.

The rest are alright.

Githyanki and humans suffer from lack of darkvision which is a huge drawback especially for a range casters, being unable to see in the dark would grant disadvantage to attacks on enemies and there -are- many dark places. Such could be mitigated with dancing lights/ lights / lighting up the place and all.

Githyanki also have medium armor proficiency and a lot of weapon proficiencies which is great and all but it comes down to simply, weighing your pros and cons, but do not take that as a good idea to make a melee wizard~!

(There's actually a subclass for that, but it isn't released yet, not sure when it will be!)

Ability Score priority

Intelligence > Dex (For your AC) > Whatever else

Spells And Spell Slots Overview

I would like to break this apart to explain how all of this works.

Learned Spells

These are spells you learned, they are available to be picked for preparation to use.

Keep in mind you can learn new spells by picking up scrolls and as broken as wizards are right now for player wizards as mentioned, you can learn EVERYTHING including cleric spells.

Prepared spells

These are spells you picked to use for the day. You get a limited number of spells you can pick per day, these are decided every night before you rest. When you arrive in camp, go to your spells tab and change out spells if you desire. Keep in mind, when you learn a new spell you cannot use it til you prepared for it.

Spell Slots

Level 1 spells and onwards require you to expend spell slots to cast and they refresh with Arcane Recovery or a long rest. You get more spell slots as you level and up to level 4 you get a maximum for 4 level 1 spells and 2 level 2 spells per day to cast.

Cantrips

These are your bread and butter spells that will last you throughout the game, you can cast them limitlessly and while they seem weak now, they actually scale to level later albeit you cannot see that in the current EA.

Think of spell slots as mana in a sense, you have this much you can do a day, so be thoughtful with your spell casting, you are pushing intelligence to the highest, be strategic as mentioned before.

Cantrips & First Level Spells!

I will start here with recommending spells for players and explaining what they do. I will avoid going into numerics but will explain the potential of those I use often. Not all spells will be detailed here of course until perhaps a later time when I fully experiment with everything.

CANTRIPS

Top picks!

Fire bolt

Yes, I said it, yes I know the damage may seem to suck, but seriously being able to light things on fire has a lot of damaging potential.

Ray of frost

Has about the sameish damage as firebolt, but makes the ground slippery, which if the target falls gives the melee advantage to attack it and when they do get up, they lose 3meters of movement, useful to prevent people for coming close to you or trying to give melee a boost.

*Keep in mind I believe it is a dexterity save for ray of frost, so try to hit that on less dexterous targets.

Mage Hand

Disembodied hand that you can send to throw light things your way, or open possibly trapped doors and chests? Yes please, the possibilities are endless!

Honorable mentions

Dancing lights

Helps your buddies without darkvision!!

Light

See above!

Minor Illusion

Able to distract people to look at something for a round? Useful for stealth missions!

Chill Touch

It's alright dpr, useful against undead and the damage cannot be healed, so that is nice.

1ST LEVEL SPELLS

Top Picks

Sleep *Starter pick*

Especially at level 1 and 2 when enemy hp is low, you can potentially take out 2 guys and at minimal 1 guy for some time, which helps a lot, especially when you use it strategically.

Magic Missile*Starter pick*

It is always good to have magic missile around to hit a target you have super low % of hitting.

There's also something that boosts it's DPR significantly that I will mention in the secrets section.

Fog Cloud *Starter pick*

Fog Cloud is amazing, line of sight is important to ranged folks, fog cloud hampers it significantly.

You can cast it on your party and come out to fire, then go back in, stealth to get out of sight. Or you can potentially cast it on a group of enemies to force them away from their advantageous position.

Grease *Starter Pick*

I can light it on fire? Yes please. The damage potential of that is significant since if there already are flame barrels nearby you spread that flames out even further, leaving lesser safe areas for your enemies to stand, just don't blow yourself up.

Mage Armor

Grants you 3 more AC, no harm in more AC. I don't have this on starter pick because I can normally find scrolls up to 3 days worth within the first day. Keep in mind, it lasts until rest so pretty damned useful to have.

Find Familiar. *Starter pick*

Very useful, you summon a familiar that can do a lot of things for you. Scout? Peck an enemy in the eye to blind them? Scare an enemy? The potentials are endless! Also they last throughout the day. Definitely very worth the single spell slot spent.

Guiding Bolt *Spell Scroll*

Probably the hardest hitting first level spell you would get for ranged attack, on top of the fact that it gives advantage to the next attack, very worth it.

Cure Wounds *Spell Scroll*

Another cleric spell, basically being able to help as a healer on clench moments!

Healing Word * Spell Scroll*

Same as above, heals for less but doable at range.

Honorable mentions.

Thunderwave

I want to say yeeesss please, but really it is quite limiting. It is used on clench moments sure when melee all wrap up on you somehow, such moments should be rare if you play tactically and as such it is not a top pick.

Burning Hands

Same as above, very rare and will see limited use.

Ray of Sickness

It's not bad, it does decent damage for what it's worth but poison is not a damage over time, keep that in mind, it gives disadvantage to attacks and ability checks. Useful if I knew how long the poison lasts!

Tactical Mastermind!!

I will explain some key tactics to keep in mind for battle.

High Ground.

Like Ob-wan Kenobi, you must master the high ground. We all know what happened to Anakin and as such you cannot be Anakin. Always find higher ground, it gives higher chance of hitting and it always will give you better places to run out of sight.

Darkness and shadows are your friends.

They make it much easier to hide, as mentioned above this all goes down to line of sight. Be it using the darkness spell, using corners, using higher ground, always strive to have movement to run back to a hiding corner and if you have bonus actions left, stealth to poofles away. It does not matter how high your stealth is, the key is to keep their ranged not targetting you and the melee from finding you.

Stay behind!

You should always have someone tankier or skirmishy to deal with the melee, your rogues and fighters, maybe even your cleric with a shield can help keep them at bay!

Study your area behind you fight.

Having a knowledge of your surrounding is fundamental, what can you use to your advantage? Barrels of boom? Ledges to shove people off? Poisonous plants? Breakable ground? All of such can turn the tide of battle insanely in your favor.

Scrolls scrolls and more scrolls.

There are a plethora of scrolls everywhere, learn what you want from them but keep the useful ones, like magic missile, burning hands, mage armor, using a spell scroll saves you from using slots!

Build Suggestions, Meta Builds Included, *Some Spoilers*

Matters little to me what race you pick, but overall scores you will be looking at.

16 Intelligence 16 Dexterity 14 Con. 10 10 8 to the rest.

You really should be avoiding being targeted and as such you should not worry too much about saves and as such you can afford to have lower stats for most others. Dexterity is there to keep your AC as high as possible and intelligence is without saying.

Evocation would be your go-to DPR build. (Normal decent build)

The list of spells I will have here, it will be up to you to swap and prepare them as per necessity, as with playing a wizard a lot of situations are circumstancial

Cantrips

Fire bolt

Ray of Frost

Mage Hand

1st Level

Sleep

Mage Armor+

Magic Missile

Find Familiar

Cure Wounds*

Healing Word*

Bless*

Fog cloud

Burning Hands/Thunder Wave

*These are cleric spells learned from scrolls, it is good to have them as spare especially healing word, you can heal on clench moments, or use bless to bolster yourself and your party if you're not doing any concentration spells

+ I don't often worry about mage armor, mostly cause there's a ton of scrolls for it just about everywhere!

2nd Level

Scorching Ray (High DPR)

Misty Step

Shatter (High DPR AOE)

Mirror Image

At Fourth level, pick a feat and go Warlock initiate. It will grant you warlock spells.

Notably *Hex and whatever cantrip you desire as long as it is not a damaging cantrip, since your charisma is probably low.

Hex at the cost of 1 spell slot can last the entire day since you can keep re-applying it for free, what it does is give disadvantage to one stat of your choosing and an additional 1d6 damage whenever you attack. Which means you fire bolt is now doing 2d6 +1d4 per hit and it is casted on a bonus action, which leaves your action open to immediately attacking on that turn.

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Meta Build

This is built upon knowing the game is capped at level 4 and you are meta-ing the hell out of it.

This build expects the rest of the party to carry you for a good bit.

Charisma 16 Dex 16 Con 14, 10, 10, 8 for the rest.

As usual, this one expects you to go warlock initiate, the spell list is about the same but you pick Eldritch Blast for a cantrip and Hex for a first level warlock spell. With 16 Charisma you get a +5 to hit on Eldritch blast.

What about my int!?

There's the trickery, there are orges that you can kill for a headband of intelligence that gives you straight up 18 intelligence, thusly making every race viable for this build. Drow in particular are great because they get faerie fire for free.

I will list the orges under the secrets section!!

Secrets For The Wizards! *Spoilers Ahead~*

First important secret that is hinted at in my builds section.

There are 3 Orges in the Blighted Village, the head honcho has a helm of intellect that gives 18 intelligence. They may seem tough but I'll say this. Bring three to four explosive barrels, place them at their feet and nuke them from upstairs, job done.

Within the Underdark, in the Myconid village is a rare amulet called Sapphire Sparks.

The trader Blurgh sells them, it gives you one free cast of magic missile at level 1 per long rest, but on top of that it adds an additional 1d4 psychic damage. Which means 6d4 damage of 100% hit at level 1 slot and 8d4 at level 2, that is a lot of damage!!!

------------------------------More to come~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2257408647

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