D&D 5E So it looks as if the mountain dwarf will still make the best overall wizard.

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'd be okay if we just ruled that any melee attack against a wizard auto kills him. I can't conceive of a game remotely resembling the game I play where the wizard is getting attacked very often. Perhaps against an arrow attack it could help some.

Your intelligent monsters need to report back to boot camp for retraining. Tactic #2 is "Kill the wizard first!"

 

[Wolfskin]

IME running 5e so far, a combination of Dex (+2 Bonus or more), Mage Armor and Shield can give the Wizard a pretty nifty armor class (20 at the least)- I'll grant that you're spending spell slots, but Shield can be activated once someone hit you, so it's a useful spell to have prepared.

Mountain Dwarf Wizard is not a bad choice, but I don't think it is by any means the best Wizard character. High Dex and high Int are still the best choices, IMO.

 

[KarinsDad]

Your intelligent monsters need to report back to boot camp for retraining. Tactic #2 is "Kill the wizard first!"

Just last week I sent a picture of a female mage (circled in red) with some high tech mercaneries to some of my friends. The captions:


Run into heavily armed mercenaries

Who do you kill first?


This xxxxxxxxxxxx right here


GEEK THE MAGE FIRST



I cannot show the picture here due to language.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I've never heard of not attacking a PC because they were squishy. If that were yhe case then they would nees HP or defenses. Might as well say they are immune to all attacks until they reach a certain level.

Not immune to attacks, it's just that in 1e/2e (and to a lesser extent 3e), there was nothing really protecting the Wizard at all. ESPECIALLY at first level. So, any enemy that went out of their way to attack the Wizard would pretty much automatically succeed.

So, I know that in our games(and I assume in many others), the first couple of games went like this: "The enemies go, they run around the games in the front line to kill that annoying Wizard in the back. They hit, they do 10 damage....uhh, the Wizard dies." Generally in the first battle the Wizard was ever in. After the first Wizard died, the second Wizard would show up and die in their first encounter as well.

Many DMs realized that killing the Wizard wasn't exactly difficult to do. It wasn't a great feat...in fact, if you didn't go out of your way to AVOID killing them, they died without you trying.

5e isn't quite as bad, they can take a hit or two. However, so far nearly all of the PC deaths in my games have been Wizards.

At this point, I still naturally look for excuses not to attack the Wizard. Most of the time, I rationalize like crazy:
"Well, the Wizard is further back, do I want to run through the front line and be surrounded?"
"That guy with a sword is closer, it requires so much more walking to get to the Wizard...and that sword looks pretty dangerous."
"The huge guy with the muscles looks extremely dangerous, that guy in the robe looks like a weakling. It isn't very honourable to fight weaklings. I'll finish him off when I'm done with the worthy enemies."
"That guy in the robes could be a Wizard, but maybe not. He hasn't cast any spells yet. Maybe he's just some unarmed peasant who likes robes."
"That wizard cast a cantrip that did 3 points of damage last turn while that Fighter did 10 damage with his sword and killed one of my friends. The Fighter is the greater threat and needs to be taken out now!"
"This is a Wolf, he doesn't know what a Wizard is. He attacks the nearest thing."

It has the net effect of having the Wizard not be attacked most battles. Really, most of my enemies attack the nearest person. If the Wizard runs up past the Fighter he'll still get attacked because most of my reasons melt away then. But Wizards playing defensively in my games will often not get attacked during combat.

 

[am181d]

It feels like folks are using the word "kill" when they should say "drop". In the games I run, PCs frequently drop below 0 hp during combats, but they are then healed. Do you guys just roll new characters as soon as a PC hits 0 hp?

 

[KarinsDad]

Not immune to attacks, it's just that in 1e/2e (and to a lesser extent 3e), there was nothing really protecting the Wizard at all. ESPECIALLY at first level. So, any enemy that went out of their way to attack the Wizard would pretty much automatically succeed.

So, I know that in our games(and I assume in many others), the first couple of games went like this: "The enemies go, they run around the games in the front line to kill that annoying Wizard in the back. They hit, they do 10 damage....uhh, the Wizard dies." Generally in the first battle the Wizard was ever in. After the first Wizard died, the second Wizard would show up and die in their first encounter as well.

Many DMs realized that killing the Wizard wasn't exactly difficult to do. It wasn't a great feat...in fact, if you didn't go out of your way to AVOID killing them, they died without you trying.

5e isn't quite as bad, they can take a hit or two. However, so far nearly all of the PC deaths in my games have been Wizards.

At this point, I still naturally look for excuses not to attack the Wizard. Most of the time, I rationalize like crazy:
"Well, the Wizard is further back, do I want to run through the front line and be surrounded?"
"That guy with a sword is closer, it requires so much more walking to get to the Wizard...and that sword looks pretty dangerous."
"The huge guy with the muscles looks extremely dangerous, that guy in the robe looks like a weakling. It isn't very honourable to fight weaklings. I'll finish him off when I'm done with the worthy enemies."
"That guy in the robes could be a Wizard, but maybe not. He hasn't cast any spells yet. Maybe he's just some unarmed peasant who likes robes."
"That wizard cast a cantrip that did 3 points of damage last turn while that Fighter did 10 damage with his sword and killed one of my friends. The Fighter is the greater threat and needs to be taken out now!"
"This is a Wolf, he doesn't know what a Wizard is. He attacks the nearest thing."

It has the net effect of having the Wizard not be attacked most battles. Really, most of my enemies attack the nearest person. If the Wizard runs up past the Fighter he'll still get attacked because most of my reasons melt away then. But Wizards playing defensively in my games will often not get attacked during combat.

Odd. I've often played Wizards since 1E and although my very first magic user died nearly right away, I've played a lot of them that didn't. I do remember one Mage getting polymorphed in 1E.

In 3E, I played a Sorcerer who raced ahead of the group because of all of the buffs he often had on him. Granted, he did die eventually after 6 or so levels, jumping into something he just wasn't capable of handling. Granted, Sorcerers have more spells and more versatility.

But as a DM, I do not go out of my way to kill the Wizard, but if he is the best target at a certain point (closest, throwing spells so arrows and spells are heading back his way, etc.), he's totally fair game. I've never heard of a DM protecting the Wizard. That's the job of the players.

As a DM, I sometimes surround the PCs as well. It's hard to stay in the back if the group is surrounded.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Wouldn't it be better to pick a Human, take the +1 to two stats and a feat option, and select the moderatly armored feat for +1 con and medium armor proficiency? Then you could with the default array of 15, 14, 13 start out with 15+1 = 16 int and 14+1+1 = 16 con? +1 to hit and damage at low levels is really good

 

[Mistwell]

I suspect fighter 1, wizard xx, will be the best for concentration casting. if you start as fighter youll get armour and shield and con prof. the tradeoff will presumably be not getting wizard profs, and be a level behind in wizard relative to your party... but for a pure wizard, i agree with OP that dwarf is looking strongest, at least for concentration spells.

I believe the multiclass rule was changed to require ability stat qualification for both classes now...making that not ideal.

 

[FadedC]

Unless I'm missing something I think the human would be strictly better than the mountain dwarf in every way (other than lack of things like poison resistance). You'd have higher intelligence, higher armor class (since moderately armored gives you shield proficiency) and the same con.

Regarding attacking casters, a well played party is often very effective at keeping melee away from the wizard. With no charge feat in 5e it will be even harder then usual for melee to get to the wizard all the way in the back. Ranged attacks of course are another matter.

Wouldn't it be better to pick a Human, take the +1 to two stats and a feat option, and select the moderatly armored feat for +1 con and medium armor proficiency? Then you could with the default array of 15, 14, 13 start out with 15+1 = 16 int and 14+1+1 = 16 con? +1 to hit and damage at low levels is really good

 

[Evenglare]

This has been debated about to death, and honestly each class has their advantages. Elf wizards are good at casting spells, MD wizards are good at getting hit.... Personally? I don't know why anyone is getting hit in melee so often that they need to worry THAT much about AC. I expect my party to protect me most of the time, and now that having a shield is AWESOME I don't personally see the NEED for so much armor at the expense of less spell casting and one less cantrip. That's a pretty big drawback in this situation. Also, I like high elf wizards because they are high elf wizards. If I have a character in mind I don't really wanna change his entire Identity (race) just so im better in armor. People arguing about what makes the "best" class see to imply that every other class is less good so you should never be that class because, why would you be subpar? It's never stated out right but that's the general vibe I get from people who post things like this. It's a huge pet peeve. But hey, that's the interwebs for you.