I'm looking for people's opinions on the most fun wizard possible

[Kair0s]

I've looked at all the guides and I have a better idea for minmaxing, but how about plain old fun? Any arguments for wizard schools/races that maximize fun? I'd imagine desigining a wizard to be fun would involve building them to be very flexible or to still be useful when I blow my load for the the day.

I'm thinking yuan-ti has the saves and poison spray as a cantrip is useful. But I like the arguments I've heard for aarakocra and raining spells down. I'm also leaning towards Conjuration for more frequent teleports (and picking spells that don't bog the game down with more creatures/turns) or Divination for less misses.

Would really appreciate hearing your experiences/opinions

 

[Gavin O.]

If your idea of fun is to manipulate people into doing your bidding and doing the hard work for you, then the enchantment spells can be lots of fun. Nothing like turning your enemies against each other, or "convincing" them to help you.

If your idea of fun is making your melee allies feel awesome, you can absolutely play a pure support wizard. Get a Familiar with the Find Familiar spell and have it use the help action to give your allies advantage, use hold person to make them auto-crit, haste to give them an extra attack every round, Polymorph them into huge dinosaurs, etc.

If your idea of fun involves making the DM miserable, then take all save-or-suck effects with a single save: Sleep (which gives no save), Phantasmal Force, Hypnotic pattern, banishment, etc.

If your idea of fun is to burn ten goblins to a crisp at once, play an Evocation wizard, take fireball, and point it at flammable things

The most fun wizard race in the game is the Iblis-headed Aven, because what's more fun than 30-foot flight at-will at level one and trivializing melee enemies?

The most fun wizard school, in my opinion, is Divination. The most fun thing for me is to tell the DM "No, you can't roll that monster's save against my spell, take this 4 instead".

But really, you don't need to specifically build for being fun. So long as they can copy spells they find into their spellbook, you can get almost every wizard spell in the game.

 

[CTurbo]

Most "fun"? Enchanter or Illusionist but of course it depends on what your idea of fun is.

 

[Ovarwa]

A shame that D&D5 didn't keep the Feat chain of Extra Fun, Improved Fun, Enhanced Fun, Empowered Fun, Extended Fun, Maximized Fun and Persistent Fun!

 

[Kair0s]

Sounds more like minmax to me. I'm trying to avoid falling for that this time.

 

[Kair0s]

Can you describe your experiences with enchanter? I feel like there would be a lot of moments where the charm fails and in useless

 

[Kair0s]

If your idea of fun is to manipulate people into doing your bidding and doing the hard work for you, then the enchantment spells can be lots of fun. Nothing like turning your enemies against each other, or "convincing" them to help you.

If your idea of fun is making your melee allies feel awesome, you can absolutely play a pure support wizard. Get a Familiar with the Find Familiar spell and have it use the help action to give your allies advantage, use hold person to make them auto-crit, haste to give them an extra attack every round, Polymorph them into huge dinosaurs, etc.

If your idea of fun involves making the DM miserable, then take all save-or-suck effects with a single save: Sleep (which gives no save), Phantasmal Force, Hypnotic pattern, banishment, etc.

If your idea of fun is to burn ten goblins to a crisp at once, play an Evocation wizard, take fireball, and point it at flammable things

The most fun wizard race in the game is the Iblis-headed Aven, because what's more fun than 30-foot flight at-will at level one and trivializing melee enemies?

The most fun wizard school, in my opinion, is Divination. The most fun thing for me is to tell the DM "No, you can't roll that monster's save against my spell, take this 4 instead".

But really, you don't need to specifically build for being fun. So long as they can copy spells they find into their spellbook, you can get almost every wizard spell in the game.

I just looked up the Aven. Can you clear up how the Int bonus on checks works with them? I'm leaning towards divination, forcing someone's fate sounds pretty cool.

 

[CTurbo]

I have not played a 5e Enchanter but I have played Enchanters in past editions and they have always been a blast. It's fun to manipulate and dominate others. The 5e Enchantment spells list is really strong though so imagine it would be pretty fun to play. It doesn't matter what school you take, they're all the same as in if the spells fails it's useless.

 

[Gavin O.]

I just looked up the Aven. Can you clear up how the Int bonus on checks works with them? I'm leaning towards divination, forcing someone's fate sounds pretty cool.

The trait reads thus:
Kefnet’s Blessing. You can add half your
proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any
Intelligence check you make that doesn’t
already include your proficiency bonus.

So basically, if there's any intelligence check (not save) related to a skill that you don't have proficiency in from your class and background, you at least get half your proficiency bonus added (so, +1 at level 1) This would also be applies to an intelligence check that wasn't related to any skill, but I've never seen a situation where that's come up.

 

[Kair0s]

The trait reads thus:
Kefnet’s Blessing. You can add half your
proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any
Intelligence check you make that doesn’t
already include your proficiency bonus.

So basically, if there's any intelligence check (not save) related to a skill that you don't have proficiency in from your class and background, you at least get half your proficiency bonus added (so, +1 at level 1) This would also be applies to an intelligence check that wasn't related to any skill, but I've never seen a situation where that's come up.

Oh thanks! That seems neat. I've heard that int is an underwhelming stat for checks in this edition. Also it's too bad the int isn't the +2 but permanent flying seems worth it.