D&D 5E The (almost) no-damage wizard: tell me your favorite spells

[fearsomepirate]

I'm playing a wizard in our new campaign, and my plan is to take no damage spells outside of cantrips. No Fireball, no Magic Missile, no Disintegrate, none of that. Now, I don't want to hear about why this isn't optimal. I know it isn't! If this wizard ends up dead, oh well, new character sheets are cheap.

I know about the big ones, like Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, Sleep, Haste, etc. Does anyone have any favorite non-damage spells that are a little more off the wall?

 

[aco175]

Are the other players on board with this? I know that it does not matter and all PCs can play together, but they may be expecting Tim, the Enchanter and end up with Jeff Dunham.

For something more useful, you will need more defense and utility spells since you are not going with offensive spells. Things like invisibility and levitate help scouting and sneaking. Great to cast on other PCs to give them a boost. This leaves you with defense like shields and walls to block weapon attacks on you or to block bad guys from certain areas of the battlefield.

A lot may depend on the DM and style of play. A lot of combats or dungeon crawls may mean you need a few offensive spells. A lot of city mysteries or roleplay may mean this is a great choice.

 

[Voadam]

In prior editions grease, web, and charm monster were big non-damaging go-to attack spells I used a lot in combat.

Suggestion is one I considered a lot in 5e as a bard.

 

[Arvok]

I would consider Color Spray and Sleep essential 1st level spells for such a build. They can take enemies out of combat without dealing any damage and can be upcast to still be useful at higher levels (there's a thread somewhere arguing the effectiveness of sleep). Also consider Find Familiar. That makes your non-damaging wizard a great scout.

 

[Arvok]

For 2nd level Blindness/Deafness is great for making 1 enemy combatant much less dangerous and easy to hit and Blur can make one of your own tanks much harder to kill. Phantasmal Force can be a great spell depending on your DM and the campaign.

 

[Arvok]

3rd level spells would probably include Bestow Curse (although you have to move into melee range), Counterspell (if you face any casters), and Slow. Major Image could also be very useful or almost useless depending on your DM and his play style (as well as your creativity).

 

[ECMO3]

I'm playing a wizard in our new campaign, and my plan is to take no damage spells outside of cantrips. No Fireball, no Magic Missile, no Disintegrate, none of that. Now, I don't want to hear about why this isn't optimal. I know it isn't! If this wizard ends up dead, oh well, new character sheets are cheap.

I know about the big ones, like Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, Sleep, Haste, etc. Does anyone have any favorite non-damage spells that are a little more off the wall?

Protection from good and evil, blur, suggestion, levitate, fly, enlarge/reduce, grease, mage armor, misty step. Those are my favorite combat spells aside from damaging. There are a ton of non-combat too.

 

[Arvok]

If you really want to challenge yourself and take non-damaging cantrips you can take Mold Earth, Gust, and Prestidigitation. Mold Earth is actually quite useful outdoors if you have a few minutes to prep the battlefield. Gust can be used to move your enemies out of melee with your tanks (at least for a moment) and maybe into a pit you've prepared beforehand (with Mold Earth).

 

[tetrasodium]

3rd level spells would probably include Bestow Curse (although you have to move into melee range), Counterspell (if you face any casters), and Slow. Major Image could also be very useful or almost useless depending on your DM and his play style (as well as your creativity).

I dunno, 5e bestow curse is iffy under the best of conditions because of concentration. In this case that concentration is going to hurt even more by conflicting with actual good spells

• Choose one ability score. While cursed, the target has disadvantage on ability checks and saving throws made with that ability score. <- Rarely useful for 1 minute & even less often in combat
• While cursed, the target has disadvantage on attack rolls against you. <- You generally should not be the target of these
• While cursed, the target must make a Wisdom saving throw at the start of each of its turns. If it fails, it wastes its action that turn doing nothing. <- Maybe this will do something, maybe it wont but you already needed to make it fail a save so you could apply it on your turn & now it gets a second save .
• While the target is cursed, your attacks and spells deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage to the target.<- A nondamage build is going to get even less use out of this

 

[Arvok]

I dunno, 5e bestow curse is iffy under the best of conditions because of concentration. In this case that concentration is going to hurt even more by conflicting with actual good spells

• Choose one ability score. While cursed, the target has disadvantage on ability checks and saving throws made with that ability score. <- Rarely useful for 1 minute & even less often in combat
• While cursed, the target has disadvantage on attack rolls against you. <- You generally should not be the target of these
• While cursed, the target must make a Wisdom saving throw at the start of each of its turns. If it fails, it wastes its action that turn doing nothing. <- Maybe this will do something, maybe it wont but you already needed to make it fail a save so you could apply it on your turn & now it gets a second save .
• While the target is cursed, your attacks and spells deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage to the target.<- A nondamage build is going to get even less use out of this

It's not a great option, but this is a sub-optimal build. I'm thinking of choosing disadvantage on Str or Dex and counting on one of your tanks to be a battlemaster and knock the enemy down a lot. Either that, or push him into one of the trenches you've dug with Mold Earth. Not great, but he's trying to play a combat focused game without dealing damage.