Maybe do a high fantasy riff on Rick and Morty and Star Trek: Lower Decks. In a world dominated by megalomaniacal archwizards ruling flying cities, the heroes are lowly but ambitious but probably doomed apprentices, running errands and trying to stay alive.
The party's patron is not necessarily one of the real big dogs of the setting -- just a 20th level Chaotic Neutral guy on his way to lichdom, with a short attention span and a flexible moral code and a lot of ideas. Might even do a "What We Do In The Shadows" vibe where the heroes kind of collectively apprentice for a collective of archmagi.
Probably wanna come up with some new wizard ("arcanist") subclasses --- Inventor (creates or destroys matter and material things), Mentalist (operates in the arena of the mind) and Variator (altered existing objects, materials, and even magic itself). No spell memorization required.
"Apprentice" could be anything up to 10th level.
Arcane magic (and wizard magic specifically) is where it's at, and you could play with the idea that even an eldritch knight with a 16 Intelligence, proficiency in Arcana, and the Arcane Initiate (Wizard) feat is universally seen as the dumb muscle.
The party's patron is not necessarily one of the real big dogs of the setting -- just a 20th level Chaotic Neutral guy on his way to lichdom, with a short attention span and a flexible moral code and a lot of ideas. Might even do a "What We Do In The Shadows" vibe where the heroes kind of collectively apprentice for a collective of archmagi.
Probably wanna come up with some new wizard ("arcanist") subclasses --- Inventor (creates or destroys matter and material things), Mentalist (operates in the arena of the mind) and Variator (altered existing objects, materials, and even magic itself). No spell memorization required.
"Apprentice" could be anything up to 10th level.
Arcane magic (and wizard magic specifically) is where it's at, and you could play with the idea that even an eldritch knight with a 16 Intelligence, proficiency in Arcana, and the Arcane Initiate (Wizard) feat is universally seen as the dumb muscle.