D&D 5E 5E essential spells?

[DaveDash]

Eh. It depends a little bit on what level you expect to play this guy to--at low level I'd take Augury, but later on I'd want Divination or Commune (as soon as I could cast it).

Other amazing spells include Conjure Animals, Hex, Blessing, Death Ward, Aura of Vitality, and Sanctuary.

Since you're a diviner, I'd probably go with:

1. Augury
2. Commune
3. Blessing
4. Conjure Animals
5. Aura of Vitality
6. Sanctuary

The utility of most of these is obvious, but a quick comment on Sanctuary: it's a bonus action spell, compatible with Dodging or Blade Ward, and allows you to choose your battles and only get involved in important ones. It's a great spell for mysterious wizards.

I'd be sorely tempted to make room somehow for Death Ward because Contingency: Death Ward (whenever I am injured) is amazing.

Conjure Animals should be "Check with your DM".

I certainly wouldn't let my player dictate what kind of creatures they summon - the "DM has the creatures statistics" could imply that the DM choses the creatures. It might not as well, but I certainly wouldn't let a character summon 8 pixies.
I will pick the creatures that are summoned based on where they are and what purpose the character wants from the spell. Maybe they get 8 younger pixies that don't have polymorph and/or invisibility - after all I have their statistics.

 

[Ashrym]

Eh. It depends a little bit on what level you expect to play this guy to--at low level I'd take Augury, but later on I'd want Divination or Commune (as soon as I could cast it).

Other amazing spells include Conjure Animals, Hex, Blessing, Death Ward, Aura of Vitality, and Sanctuary.

Since you're a diviner, I'd probably go with:

1. Augury
2. Commune
3. Blessing
4. Conjure Animals
5. Aura of Vitality
6. Sanctuary

The utility of most of these is obvious, but a quick comment on Sanctuary: it's a bonus action spell, compatible with Dodging or Blade Ward, and allows you to choose your battles and only get involved in important ones. It's a great spell for mysterious wizards.

I'd be sorely tempted to make room somehow for Death Ward because Contingency: Death Ward (whenever I am injured) is amazing.

We might need clarification on allowing spells higher than a 4th level wizard can cast. It can impact the answers and I kept it to capable of casting. That matches the ruling on not being able to add higher level spells to a spell book than can be prepared or cast.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

1.) Pixies aren't animals. You're thinking of Conjure Woodland Creatures.

2.) The DM could pick random CR 1/4 animals out of the MM appendix and the spell would still be fantastic. It's a one-action summoning spell that can give you 16 CR 1/4 creatures for the next hour, out of a fifth-level spell slot. I can't think of any animals that would actually be bad at that price.

 

[steeldragons]

Or Conjure Fey.

 

[kerbarian]

Another vote for Aura of Vitality. Out of combat, it's 20d6 healing for a 3rd-level spell. In combat, it lets you heal someone every round (whoever's at 0 hp) with only a bonus action after the first round..

Also, Bless could be a good choice -- also fits with being a diviner.

 

[Baloop]

We might need clarification on allowing spells higher than a 4th level wizard can cast. It can impact the answers and I kept it to capable of casting. That matches the ruling on not being able to add higher level spells to a spell book than can be prepared or cast.

The spells can be of any level, but can't be cast until the character is capable of casting that spell level.

Thanks for the advice guys, it's very helpful. I think Augury and Commune are definitely good calls, and Sanctuary as well

 

[Mistwell]

Bless
Hex
Aura of Vitality
Summon Animals
Faerie Fire

 

[DaveDash]

1.) Pixies aren't animals. You're thinking of Conjure Woodland Creatures.

2.) The DM could pick random CR 1/4 animals out of the MM appendix and the spell would still be fantastic. It's a one-action summoning spell that can give you 16 CR 1/4 creatures for the next hour, out of a fifth-level spell slot. I can't think of any animals that would actually be bad at that price.

Yeah. I was mistakenly thinking of Conjure Woodland Beings.

But as I DM I wouldn't be too keen on adding 16 creatures to combat, all with potentially different tokens, hitpoints, etc, and then presumably having them act as one big borg on their turn - since rolling individual initiative for them would be way too slow.

Yeah there's those rules for large numbers of creatures in combat in the DMG, but just the setup time alone would slow things down way too much for my tastes.
I'm fine with large combats, but they need to be planned in advance with pre-rolls and everything set up already.

Just use fireball instead. The outcome the player is looking for will probably be the same.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But as I DM I wouldn't be too keen on adding 16 creatures to combat, all with potentially different tokens, hitpoints, etc, and then presumably having them act as one big borg on their turn - since rolling individual initiative for them would be way too slow.

Depends on the initiative system you're using. Under AD&D-style (Speed Factor-ish) initiative, you rarely even have to roll their initiative. Once everybody declares their actions, you can resolve in any order. The only times you would need to roll an animal's initiative is when it dies on the same round that it hit and did damage--then you just roll to see whose initiative is higher, the animal's or the monster who killed it.

Getting good at running large combats is an essential skill for good DMing in 5E, due in large part to bounded accuracy. It opens up lots of options for variety, and variety = fun.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing to consider is that while healing of any kind has classicallly been a wizard blindspot, that doesn't necessarily make it desireable, for the wizard. Having a heal spell prepped puts tremendous pressure on you to use or reserve your slots for healing, since it is such a critical function. Better to leave healing to another PC or PCs in the party with less varied spell lists than your wizard, especially your wizard with 6 non-wizard spells available to him.

Only if your party is desperately short of healing, or if the healers can't be depended upon to be there for every session, should you even consider taking up that burden.