D&D 5E your fist level wizard has used their 2 spells. Now What?

[Mort]

Minor Illusion cover for your allies, and allow your rogue to hide and attack your foes, and all sorts of fun stuff like that! There are entire videos on fun with minor illusion

Fully agree, and I love this cantrip.

BUT, it is highly DM dependent! With the right DM (or even a regularly permissive one, really) it's a great tool.

With a stingy one, it can be a complete waste.

 

[Leatherhead]

I wonder if they should have made a cantrip that increased the effectiveness of thrown or ranged weapons slightly, so Wizards still had to carry them around.

Sort of a ranged shillelagh or something...

You mean like Magic Stone?

 

[jgsugden]

1.) Light Crossbow or a cantrip are the most common answers.
2.) Help action is often a thing worth doing.
3.) Minor Illusion and Mold Earth also are worthwhile tools at first level.
4.) I know you said first level, but first level is incredibly short. My last wizard was an enchantment wizard - and the nearly unlimited Hypnotic Gaze saw * a lot* of low level use.

 

[Krachek]

Usually level 1 only take half a session to go through.

Level 2 takes 1 session.

Experiencing what it is like to have limited power early will help you appreciate just how powerful you are at 5th level when the game really starts to get going.

Should be level 3 by now!

 

[cbwjm]

I'll likely be casting firebolt or ray of frost once my spell slots are done. In fact, that's exactly what happened a couple weeks ago.

 

[James Gasik]

You mean like Magic Stone?

Yeah but for arcane types.

 

[Stormonu]

Grapple!

With how swingy the die is in D&D, just get proficiency in Athletic and you can grapple/shove most creature, since they dont have any skills most of the time!

Funny that...in the Salmarsh campaign we finished up (gosh, a year ago?) the 1st level wizard did that - and ended up ripping the head off an undead miniboss (granted, the rest of the party was helping quite a bit, but his actions kept the bad guy from casting spells, and he delivered the final damage).

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm not sure I'd be that worried about it - I might even not worry about Extra Attack. it's basically letting a martial type substitute in their Int/Wis or Cha for their martial attack score in exchange for 1 bonus action and their one Concentration spell they can keep maintained. There's not really a balance issue there is there? There might be some specific ideas for a character that would find it helpful but it doesn't at first glance look like something that would cheese up the place.

I really don't like it, but I don't think that it is too powerful. Requiring concentration is a limiting factor, and most casters like that will invest in Dex anyway because it grants so many other benefits.

My dislike is due to it being thematically another spell that lets casters be better at martial stuff. Also that it impinges a little on some class abilities like the battle smith Artificer.

 

[James Gasik]

I really don't like it, but I don't think that it is too powerful. Requiring concentration is a limiting factor, and most casters like that will invest in Dex anyway because it grants so many other benefits.

My dislike is due to it being thematically another spell that lets casters be better at martial stuff. Also that it impinges a little on some class abilities like the battle smith Artificer.

It's a fair point, but we already have Hexblades, right?

 

[Umbran]

Yeah but for arcane types.

Druids, Warlocks, and Artificers get access to Magic Stone. Two of the three are arcane types.

Admittedly, the thread is about wizards, who don't get this cantrip, but just wanted to note...