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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6409111" data-attributes="member: 58197">A lot of folks here seem overly focused on being the star of combat. Wizards are a utility class, with a side order of mook destruction. If that's not your thing, you won't enjoy playing a wizard, any more than a player who finds combat boring would enjoy playing a fighter, or a player who hates being in a support role would enjoy playing a cleric.Now that we've got that out of the way:First of all, don't make the mistake of thinking of cantrips as fallbacks for when you run out of "real" spells. At low- to mid-levels, cantrips are your "real" spells; leveled spells are your big guns. And don't get stuck on dealing damage. Remember: Utility class. Minor illusion is incredibly useful as an all-purpose distraction. Get the ogre to waste one of his PC-crushing swings on an illusion, and the fighter will love you forever. Draw a guard out of position chasing a fake rogue so the real rogue can slip past. Mage hand can do all kinds of useful tricks, swiping small objects, triggering traps, fetching treasure from locations you can't easily reach. Those are probably the two best cantrips; prestidigitation and light are good too.Don't neglect the utility value of attack cantrips, either. Unless your DM is extra picky about requiring a creature as a target, acid splash is a great utility spell. Got a locked door you need to open quietly, but the rogue botched the Thieves' Tools check? Pour acid into it and eat the mechanism away. Just killed a bugbear sentry and now you have a seven-foot corpse to hide? Reduce it to pitted bones and put them in a sack. While fire bolt is not quite as versatile, it's still got plenty of out-of-combat use. Every good adventurer knows the importance of setting things on fire.As you advance, your leveled spells gain in importance. I have found that there are two spells on my spell list that see more use than anything else: Fireball and dimension door. Fireball is awesome mook destruction--just phenomenal at taking out the trash while the other PCs focus on the big boss. (And if you can arrange to clip the big boss with it while you're blowing up mooks, he'll certainly feel the sting.) Dimension door takes a 4th-level slot, which is painful, but it's worth every bit of it. Its best use IME is to let you act as a chariot; when the fighter or the rogue really, really needs to get to an enemy who's way out of reach (a spellcaster, a flying enemy, et cetera), just grab her by the shoulder and dimension door over there. You can also use it as an escape hatch for yourself and one other person if a fight starts to go badly, or to get past a barrier of some kind.Other excellent leveled spells: Levitate, shield, invisibility, suggestion,, counterspell. I routinely make my DM cry by counterspelling his spell-slinging villains. If you're an abjurer (which gives you proficiency on your counterspell checks), you have no excuse to let an enemy caster ever get a big spell off.(As for comparing the wizard to the cleric as a utility class: Sure, clerics have a larger list of spells available to prepare. Hardly any of them are utility spells, however, and those they do have are nowhere near as versatile as what the wizard gets. When you need to tighten a screw, which is better: The guy with seven different hammers, or the guy with one screwdriver?)</blockquote>

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