D&D 5E 20th level Wizard vs the World

[Oofta]

The easiest way is probably the least glamorous. That being, use of charms and enchantments to get leaders, influential people, and/or the populous to want to do your bidding and increase your power.

Dominate doesn't work unless I'm missing something. Charm person just makes them a friendly acquaintance. Suggestion has to be reasonable.

Could someone get into a position of power using their influence? Sure. But they're not going to be an unstoppable juggernaut.

 

[tetrasodium]

2) for the world, we will assume the 20th level wizard is the top dog. There are a handful of people levels 11-12, everyone past that has moved on to do their own thing. There are of course more level 8-10 people but still pretty rare. Let’s assume 5th level and lower is more common, and then you have nigh infinite 1st level people.

I mean, that's a pretty convenient assumption. "Assuming there's nobody of high enough level to challenge me, how big a challenge is the world?"

I will note that any cleric level 10 or higher has a 10% or higher chance of being able to scotch domination plans through Divine Intervention. They each have that chance every week.

I think that it's also short sighted. Take a world like eberron where you dn't have a tier 3+ retired adventurer poing as the baker butcher & shopkeeper in every other town & limit the scope to just khorvaire were there's not really much of anything capable of challenging a level 20 anything. Under those conditions the only reason a level 20 would need to take over rather than using their power to participate in & enjoy the fruits of a productive reasonably stable advanced civilization is if that level 20 were criminally insane. Once you dive into that sort of crazy all of the convoluted schemes are likely to fall apart through incompetence in the face of the actual chessmasters in the world. Even if the level 20 wanted to do something like horrific arcane experiments on people for whatever reason, taking over the world is an absurd amount of effort when it could be done quietly in a remote area or even with funding from a proto-megacorp like ta dragonmarked house or a functioning established nation state interested enough in results to keep prying eyes/legal complications away.

Faerun may lack nations & governance due to rule by a continual series of violent overthrow of the last absetee warlord dubbed adventurer but even a crapsack world like darksun has numerous powers wielding the clout of a functioning nationstate complete with functioning military/policing/etc or similar but parallel levels of power who would just give the level 20 a cushy job mostly consisting of doing the thing they wanted to take over the world for.

Due to bounded accuracy & the assumption of no feats no magic items, any level 20 has been a fully functional armed & equipped T-X for many levels even if not using those things in their build. That makes the level 20 bar just silly

 

[Sacrosanct]

Dominate doesn't work unless I'm missing something. Charm person just makes them a friendly acquaintance. Suggestion has to be reasonable.

Could someone get into a position of power using their influence? Sure. But they're not going to be an unstoppable juggernaut.

Look at how people have come to power in real life. Then imagine if Hitler and his henchmen had even basic spells like charm person, mass suggestion, etc available to them? "Dear Yamamoto, it would not be in your best interests to bomb Pearl Harbor and bring the Americans into this war." "Mr. (Hitler waves his sith hand)

You can already achieve a lot of power as a normal person with a decent charisma stat, so you would be extremely powerful just by slyly augmenting that with charming spells. Especially as a sorcerer with subtle spell. You wouldn't need to be a juggernaut yourself, but you'd have all the power at your disposal.

 

[Mercurius]

I was having a fun debate with my gaming group. In 3rd edition, we all agreed that a high level wizard could take over a world pretty trivially.

No.

but how about 5e? The promise of bounded accuracy and more limited spells suggests it should be harder for a powerful wizard to just run the show. But is it still possible? Can a 20th level wizard with access to the full arsenal of magic conquer the world?

No.

 

[Oofta]

Look at how people have come to power in real life. Then imagine if Hitler and his henchmen had even basic spells like charm person, mass suggestion, etc available to them? "Dear Yamamoto, it would not be in your best interests to bomb Pearl Harbor and bring the Americans into this war." "Mr. (Hitler waves his sith hand)

You can already achieve a lot of power as a normal person with a decent charisma stat, so you would be extremely powerful just by slyly augmenting that with charming spells. Especially as a sorcerer with subtle spell. You wouldn't need to be a juggernaut yourself, but you'd have all the power at your disposal.

It would be useful, just not automatically successful for more than a region. Good? Yes. But I'm not even sure it would be that much better than just having a 20 charisma.

Remember this is not wizard vs kingdom, it's wizard vs world. It's hard enough to get allies to cooperate, imagine how difficult it would be to maintain an alliance between enemies for one person, even if they can repeatedly cast charm type spells as their signature spells. The wider their kingdom expands, the more difficult it will be to maintain.

You'd have to have some kind of super-mass charm, but that's not currently an option.

 

[Hohige]

I was having a fun debate with my gaming group. In 3rd edition, we all agreed that a high level wizard could take over a world pretty trivially.

but how about 5e? The promise of bounded accuracy and more limited spells suggests it should be harder for a powerful wizard to just run the show. But is it still possible? Can a 20th level wizard with access to the full arsenal of magic conquer the world?

No. Not even close.

 

[Hohige]

It would be useful, just not automatically successful for more than a region. Good? Yes. But I'm not even sure it would be that much better than just having a 20 charisma.

Remember this is not wizard vs kingdom, it's wizard vs world. It's hard enough to get allies to cooperate, imagine how difficult it would be to maintain an alliance between enemies for one person, even if they can repeatedly cast charm type spells as their signature spells. The wider their kingdom expands, the more difficult it will be to maintain.

You'd have to have some kind of super-mass charm, but that's not currently an option.

The wizard casting spells against other is really an offensive act. It doesn't work.

 

[aco175]

You could take over the world, but you don't want to do that. Remember this guy saying "yes" to all prayers after Morgan Freeman stepped down.

You want to use a proxy to prop up and then you will have time to play golf and chill.

 

[Eltab]

Once the Wizard20 starts making obvious "World Domination" moves, do you really expect the L10+'s to just sit back and watch? They will start (quietly if they are smart) getting allies, friends, &c together to plan against future need - and begin accruing XP for themselves, plus encourage others nearby to be brave, deal with problems / distractions in their area, and become higher-level themselves.

Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction.

 

[DND_Reborn]

But is it still possible? Can a 20th level wizard with access to the full arsenal of magic conquer the world?

Strictly RAW? Yes, very much so.

Unless you nerf Wizard spells, there really isn't any debate on it.