D&D 5E Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards 5e

...and thus was born Barry, Your Cut-Rate Planar Ally (TM), who is willing to work at 60 cents on the dollar.

Kobold Stew said:

...and thus was born Barry, Your Cut-Rate Planar Ally (TM), who is willing to work at 60 cents on the dollar.

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And a share of xp.

I would love a DM to make a powerful fiend named....Barry. You buy the name with an incredulous expression from some other cleric. You summon...Barry...a Balor shows up. He works cheap because he likes to kill. It's a win-win.

Exactly.

Disguise Self

I think you greatly undervalue Disguise Self.

Yes, it is circumstantial. However, I have saved a keep from attack by a dragon with this spell (Disguised Self as a dragon cultist, faked 'taking over' the keep & securing the 'prisoners' below - actually moving civilians to shelter - & then loudly called forth that the keep was secure, dismissing the circling dragon with an imperious wave from the battlements). I have prevented a TPK with this spell (pretty much the same set up as before, but this time after fleeing to a hidden position I came back into view as a cultist & ordered our foes to 'ignore them - find the illusionist <me - hehe> who escaped THAT way!', as I pointed away from our preferred escape route). This was all in one night, & at 5th level.

I can see knocking it down some because best use requires a good Deception skill (something pure wizards are unlikely to have), but seriously - this spell is amazeballs. At least upgrade it one notch & include a recommendation to rank higher for the rare Wizard/Cha-caster multiclass.

Celtavian said:

6. Hold Monster or Hold Person: These spells can be quite powerful. Even a round of being held can increase damage output substantially since every hit by a creature within 5 feet of the target is a critical hit. This can be especially good for a rogue or paladin.

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I apologize to anyone who's posts I miss, there really is quite a bit to respond to. I'm going to do my best. I did promise to respond to the rest of this detailed post...
They can indeed by quite powerful when they are applicable and they stick. However, lots of spells can be powerful, and many only provide one save (or none) and work on most creatures, and may not even require concentration. Overall, Hold Monster is the more versatile, so I prefer it, and despite it's limitations, I gave it the "ok" rating. Yes, I've seen both these spells end a combat though. Keep in mind that with these guides I'm comparing these spells against each other. Spells I rank red can still be useful, or even powerful, I'm just saying that of the pool of spells available, I think they come up on the low end.

Celtavian said:

7. Teleport: During downtime this is a spell you can use to make money if you have a DM willing to allow it.

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You can make money in down time with any spell, if that's your thing. I'm inclined to keep my down time open for scribing spells, research, or that kind of thing.

Celtavian said:

8. Project Image: Treantmonk, if you do a cleric guide, look a the Trickery Domain. You sort of get this effect back.

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Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the trickery domain either. They get a bunch of strange powers that I'm not sure how to use effectively, the one you are referring to included.

Celtavian said:

9. Gate: Summoning effect must be used in conjunction with planar binding and magic circle to unlock its true power. This allows you to summon a big dog creature like a Goristro or a Yugoloth and bind it. This spell should become more valuable as they release more fiends and elementals. But you must do your research to find names of creatures or learn them in battle. It makes for cool role-play scenarios for buying the names of creatures that can be summoned.

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Yes, I'm beginning to get a handle on Planar Binding in 5e. I'm going to play around with it myself before I go recommending it though.

Celtavian said:

10. Power Word Kill: Automatically kill a demilich. Automatically kill a wounded Legendary Creature that can automatically save with Legendary Resistance. There is no defense against this spell. Nothing is immune. Get them within the hit point range and end them regardless of AC, saving throws, immunities, damage resistance, special abilities, or the like. I think it rates at least a purple, perhaps a blue. It is a great fight ender.

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It does kill a Demilich, no question about it. I would suggest that the average creature with Legendary Resistance has probably already used it up by the time they get down to double digit HP. There is of course a defense against this spell, and that's having 100+ HP. If you, as a caster, knew definitively how many HP your opponent had, this wouldn't be such a limitation, but generally, it's guesswork. Guess wrong and poof - goodbye 9th level spell slot. Finally, the idea of going for the kill isn't really what I'm recommending in my guide.

Celtavian said:

11. Weird and Phantasmal Killer: I think a bit better than brown. The save every round sucks as does the concentration. It does do 4d10 Psychic Damage (very few creatures have Psychic damage resistance) and applies the Frightened condition which gives Disadvantage on all attacks. Given the fear is in its mind, it can't get out of line of sight of the source of its fear. It will have disadvantage on attacks as long as it misses its save. It's like a reverse blur for the entire party that does damage. Even a few rounds of this spell can destroy an opponent and reduce damage against the party.

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Lots of spells screw up an enemy if they fail their save. Lots of spells of lower level than either of these screw up the enemy more severely than these do. They are both slotted at too high a level for what you get IMO.

P.S. I have to add, I get a chuckle out of thinking of ending Tomb of Horrors final battle with:
1) A skull is floating in the middle of the room, what do you do?
2) "I cast Power Word Kill"
3) Oh. (flips through MM). Wow. Uh...it dies. See you guys next week.

As much as I love time stop, I feel like its usefulness is a bit diminished with the introduction of concentration. Most buffs and battlefield control spells use concentration and since you can't use target spells in a time stop I can't think of many things to do with the remaining extra turns after you set up your wall of force or buff yourself with something.
Maybe I'm just not creative enough. What time stop packages would you suggest?

MonkeezOnFire said:

As much as I love time stop, I feel like its usefulness is a bit diminished with the introduction of concentration. Most buffs and battlefield control spells use concentration and since you can't use target spells in a time stop I can't think of many things to do with the remaining extra turns after you set up your wall of force or buff yourself with something.
Maybe I'm just not creative enough. What time stop packages would you suggest?

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heh. I answered the same question an hour ago at the Wizards site. See reply 17. http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4209951#comment-52092501

Treantmonklvl20 said:

heh. I answered the same question an hour ago at the Wizards site. See reply 17. http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4209951#comment-52092501

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Please don't send people elsewhere to read your replies. Thanks.

Sacrosanct said:

I'm afraid you won't get that from me. I don't mean that to sound like a jerk or anything. I say it because my philosophy of gameplay is that PCs are rather personal to an individual player, and game tables have styles of play that run the gammut. There is no way I could come up with an entire guide about the best optimized combinations because it has no appeal to me to do so and is very much dependent on environmental factors you can't possibly predict. My philosophy is that first and foremost, players should play a character and all that comes with that (spell selection, attribute allocation, etc) to be unique what kind of PC that player envisions, and that is different from player to player. Sometimes much different. It doesn't do me much good to say this is a great combination of spells/abilities when that player might be in an environment where none of those are relevant.

That's why I am vague in my responses, because the game can cover millions of different scenarios that all have an impact to how I personally would build my character and what spells I would learn. The thing is, is that I don't know what those are until I play the game. It's the same reason I almost never plan out my PC for several levels ahead, let alone all the way up to level 20. The choices I make from level to level are entirely based on what has actually happened in the game so far.

That's why I don't spend a lot of time coming up with guides. I'd much rather spend my time creating adventures, new monsters/concepts, and campaign settings.

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You can fairly categorize most games as emphasizing these three elements: 1) Combat, 2) Exploration, 3) Social Interaction. Each game will involve those aspects to differing degrees, and it's fair to say one campaign may emphasize one of those things at the expense of the other two, or two of them at the expense of the third. But I think you exaggerate when you say there are millions of scenarios you'd need to account for. Not really - most things come down to one of those three elements, and you can talk about generalizations concerning each ability, option, and spell concerning those three aspects of games. I mean sure, we know if you are facing only fire demons then your fire spells might not be so useful - but you also know most games are not just facing only fire demons. You can generalize, which is what such guides are about. And the generalizations are useful - they are a stepping off point for discussion, a baseline for new players or players new to a class to look at, they can be fun to read, there's all sorts of useful stuff with these guides. It's why they've been popular threads for decades now.

Treantmonklvl20 said:

P.S. I have to add, I get a chuckle out of thinking of ending Tomb of Horrors final battle with:
1) A skull is floating in the middle of the room, what do you do?
2) "I cast Power Word Kill"
3) Oh. (flips through MM). Wow. Uh...it dies. See you guys next week.

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I love those kinds of battles. Everything hinges on whether the PWK guy can beat Acerak's initiative and Counterspell rolls.

The kind of battle I like even better is where you're just trying to beat his Perception score with stealth so you can take him out uncontested. And hoping that you're not wasting your best material on a decoy.