D&D 5E Dwarves are the best spellcasters?

[Jer]

I have to say - this focus on wizards getting hit so much bothers me a bit. My players never let me hit the wizard more than once - and even that is rare. If I start aiming for the wizard with anything the fighters drop whatever they're doing and proceed to put a beatdown on whatever's attacking the wizard. Not to mention the wizard himself immediately turns his attention on whatever is trying to hit him. And if the fighters can't reach it the rogue starts making ranged attacks.

I'm feeling left out. In my current campaign I think the wizard might be the only character that hasn't ever even been dropped to unconscious once.

 

[jgsugden]

This is getting more discussion than it deserves.

We have limited information and people are drawing conclusions based upon that information. Once we get all of the information from the PHB, there were will be more viable options - including probably at least 2 ways to get a +2 to intelligence at level 1, which will likely be the paths that people elect to take most of the time for wizards. The benefit of having your intelligence higher - in terms of cantrip attack accuracy and difficult of saves is worth more to a wizard than a few points of AC - especially when we start to find Bracers of Armor that grant ACs equivalent to platemail...

 

[Xodis]

Not really, The Wizard is in basic and so are both Elves and Dwarves, although I agree that the "BEST" spellcaster race is largely dependent on every other variable like party composition, playstyles, enemies beings faces, etc...

So in conclusion for every situation you may be able to come up with that makes the Dwarf superior, someone can come up with a situation making the Elf superior.

 

[jimmyjimjam]

This thread is starting to look a lot like the previous one.

 

[GX.Sigma]

This thread is starting to look a lot like the previous one.

That one looked a lot like the one before that.

Maybe we need a temporary "mountain dwarf wizard" subforum.

 

[Iry]

Damn dwarven wizards and their online advertising schemes.

 

[MoonSong]

Damn dwarven wizard necromancers and their online advertising schemes.

Here, fixed it for you...

 

[Blue]

Considering that the majority of actual games don't hit 12th (see the D&D Beyond breakdown from last month), that means in your average game the dwarf will never catch up to a +INT race in terms of their primary casting ability.

Note that in addition to Spell Attacks and DCs, greater INT helps with a number of skills that the wizard is the nly one that is likely to be good at, and is used in many of a wizard's subclass features.

Also, elves aren't the only +Int option. Gnomes get +2 to Int which means that they could have a 16 plus two other points in point buy to put elsewhere (say Dex). Half-elves have +1s that can go to INT. Humans get +1 INT, +1 DEX, +1 CON, and +1 everything else. Variant Humans can have +1 INT and another (DEX or CON likely) as well as a feat - which could give another +1. Or some other boost to casting.

So Dwarves may have some more survivability as characters, but are worse at being actual casters then many other races. How those two things balance out for you is likely table variation.

 

[Blue]

High Dex does little for a caster who can wear armour. The highest native (i.e. without using magic) AC achievable for a wizard is 15 and that's only when his Dex gets to 20. A dwarf wizard with 14 Dex can have that AC as soon as he can afford the 50gp for a chain shirt (let alone anything better).

Using point buy, an Elven wizard can get an Int of 16 at level 1, giving them a marginal advantage over a dwarf in the spellcasting stakes (save DC and spell attack rolls enjoy a +1). By level 12, that margin ceases to exist at all, yet the dwarf still enjoys the benefit of superior armour which is completely inaccesible to the elf (with basic rules at least), as well as hihger Str and Con.

The dwarf can also afford to pump his prime stat, Int, to the exclusion of others, while the elf must also continue to increase dex and the other stats or lag behind further.

EDIT: Whoops, someone necro'd this thread so I'm replying to something from 2014.

+1 to spell attack rolls, DCs, INT skills (which the wizard is likely the only one good at), initiative and subclass features is not marginal when taken together.

So for the first 11 levels (where the majority of play happens) the dwarf is behind, and then they have to spend part of their 12th level ASI. You count as a negative other races spending an ASI to increase DEX so be consistent and count Dwarves as having to spend extra ASI on INT as another disadvantage.

 

[Iry]

EDIT: Whoops, someone necro'd this thread so I'm replying to something from 2014.

Hahaha. It was someone who posted above me, but had their post deleted. So now I look like the necromancer.

Bloody dwarven illusionists.