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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HarrisonF" data-source="post: 6537708" data-attributes="member: 58230">I've played a low level wizard (forest gnome diviner) in 5ed.  I have played wizards extensively for most editions (except 4th which I skipped).  In combat, they were always battlefield controllers and I played god and enjoyed it.For levels 1 and 2, in combat you pretty much cast Sleep.  It is so unbelievable balanced for those levels (ie. taking out 3-4 Kobolds per cast and ignoring your martials), that it alone makes wizards good.  Now it is kinda boring to just spam one spell, but effective (and other classes only have one attack option in these levels).  You may occasionally cast Magic Missile, but probably not since the martials have already killed the BBEG while you are taking care of all of the minions.  I took other combat spells, but never actually found a reason to use them over Sleep.  My DM used to joke with me that he was going to throw a group of elves at me as my nemesises.To maximize my spells available, I didn't cast any defensive spells (go go gadget AC 13).  I figured worst case I would die and then I could make a new low level wizard.  This allowed for 3 and 4 Sleeps per day at levels 1-2.  That still isn't a lot, so I would end up using cantrips and their anemic damage.   The most fun of those was picking on myself when I repeatedly failed to kill a kobold in one shot.  It did make it more exciting when I actually managed to kill one.  No one really cared though, since Sleep was so massively dominate otherwise.At level 3, things get a bit more interesting and you might end up casting Web and maybe Hold Person for CC.  Web is definitely a bit harder to use than Sleep (what are these saves?!?!?), but it can still generally be good.  I also played as a diviner, so saves didn't bother me too much since I could see the future of when to use the perfect spell that they would fail a saving throw against.   Hitting a webbed cultist with firedart also made me do almost martial damage (d10 + 2d4), so that was fun!   One round of Hold Person and your teammates getting auto-crits is enough to make the game easy-mode.  Keep in mind you can still use Sleep liberally at these levels, but it only became 50% of the spells I cast.At level 5+, you aren't really "low-level" anymore, and spells like Hypnotic pattern become the new Sleep without HP limits, but with saves.  Also Fireball allows you to really participate in damage, woo!  Cantrips, while still low on the damage meter, end up doing less swingy damage due to extra dice available.Overall, I am definitely more entertained by level 5+ wizards since you have more options.  The low levels spells could use a few more options that are as good as Sleep to make it more rounded.  Since you said you didn't use Sleep, I could see you not being as effective in low level combats.  Also if you were fighting an army of elves, level 1 wizards would be sad.Out of combat, wizards are as strong as ever.  Familiars for scouting, rituals for alarm and detect magic and others, illusions, and knowledge skills (since everyone dumps Int) really adds a lot to the party.  Sadly with Minor Illusion at will and my owl, my gnome diviner ended up as a better stealthy scout character than our ranger.</blockquote>

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