D&D 5E The (almost) no-damage wizard: tell me your favorite spells

[fearsomepirate]

What sort of object are you creating with Phantasmal Force to blind an enemy?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What sort of object are you creating with Phantasmal Force to blind an enemy?

Smoke. A wall. A swirling cloud of cartoon bluebirds. Anything that would reasonably obstruct sight.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Smoke. A wall. A swirling cloud of cartoon bluebirds. Anything that would reasonably obstruct sight.

Seems like it could be even more useful to put the fog cloud around its target.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Seems like it could be even more useful to put the fog cloud around its target.

It depends on whether you want your opponent to be able to switch to another target or not.

In any case, illusionists are arguably some of the most powerful casters in any version of D&D (well, not 4E, when they were just reskinned regular wizards) with plenty of ways to be effective with even the most illusion-hostile DMs. Unless you're fighting in a blank white cube filled with light coming from everywhere and nowhere, there's always going to be a plausible sort of obstruction you can throw up, if only for a moment. (Arterial sprays of blood, anyone?)

 

[Voadam]

What sort of object are you creating with Phantasmal Force to blind an enemy?

So in a prior Pathfinder 1e game I was playing a sorcerer and my friend was playing a rogue but she felt she was being ineffective dagger attacking for 1d6 sneak and then being pasted so she multiclassed into wizard and had phantasmal force. We formed Magic Club and had confabs on magical strategy. In one adventure we knew we were going into a basilisk's lair so we had a team magic consult before going in and came up with our game plan.

We came upon the chamber and got surprise on the basilisk. The hulking barbarian cleric specifically looked away to swing his power attack axe with a miss chance and missed, the DM who was a bit adversarial, grinned and said "Next." My friend's turn came up and the DM said in a bored voice, "So you run up to sneak attack with a cantrip again?" She responded "No. Phantasmal force. An illusion of an executioner's hood on its head with no eye holes." The DM looked gobsmacked, thought for a moment then said "You can do that, but it will immediately interact with it so it gets a save." I responded "Yeah, it gets one so it might see through it, but we can choose not to save." The DM's face fell and he said in a quiet voice "Oh god, that works."

Magic club high fives.

With full sight targeting the barbarian's axe and the rest of the party made quick work of it.

 

[jgsugden]

...Seconded on phantasmal force, and it isn't as DM-dependent as people make it out. The key is that the Investigation check to end the spell costs an action; so the target is forced to choose between "suffer [X] effect for the entire combat" and "suffer [X] and take no actions until you make your Investigation check."

As for what [X] is, even a restrictive DM would almost have to agree that "blindness" was legit, and that's a nasty debuff. If you can get other effects like restrained, even better.

I'm going to disagree on the DM dependency. There is a sort of a floor there, but as an example from a recent game, the player using phantasmal force to encapsulate an enemy in a "red hot iron cube", to block line of sight, keep them contained, and inflict damage. The DM ruled that the monster would have thrown itself against the walls to try to escape, taken damage (once) and passed right through and been freed, assuming it broke through a seam in the box. In the end, the spell did 1d6 and took up a little movement. That is not how I would have ruled it, but the dm there did and can at least somewhat say they are following the RAW. The target still believed in the phantasmal force, but was just able to get away from it and took no more damage.

 

[Mistwell]

Most of the best wizard spells are non-damaging spells. Damage spells tend to be suboptimal at many levels anyway.

Minor Illusion, Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Find Familiar, Fog Cloud or Grease, Sleep, Web, Mirror Image, Blindness, Invisibility, Rope Trick, Levitate, Counterspell, Misty Step, Sleet Storm, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, Phantom Steed, Slow, Fly, Banishment, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph, etc...

 

[Dausuul]

I'm going to disagree on the DM dependency. There is a sort of a floor there, but as an example from a recent game, the player using phantasmal force to encapsulate an enemy in a "red hot iron cube", to block line of sight, keep them contained, and inflict damage. The DM ruled that the monster would have thrown itself against the walls to try to escape, taken damage (once) and passed right through and been freed, assuming it broke through a seam in the box. In the end, the spell did 1d6 and took up a little movement. That is not how I would have ruled it, but the dm there did and can at least somewhat say they are following the RAW. The target still believed in the phantasmal force, but was just able to get away from it and took no more damage.

Whether phantasmal force can impose physical restraints is a point of debate. The safe plan is to make an illusion that can move and does not restrain, like a swarm of stinging insects that blocks vision and follows the victim.

A DM who is really determined to shut you down will always find an excuse--I didn't say it wasn't DM-dependent at all--but if you're trying to impose merely "blind" instead of "blind, can't move, and can't do anything," you are much less likely to provoke a usually-fair DM into looking for ways to rules-lawyer you.

 

[fearsomepirate]

A moving object seems a little rules-lawyery, but a 10x10 zone of hot steam that the monster's nearest neighbors are sitting in would be a straightforward way to get a lot out of the spell without having to argue corner cases.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I've been playing a Dwarven Divination Wizard for a few years (it's a slow campaign, we are at Level 9), and early on I decided to go non-combat. I play in a group of six, and we have a barbarian, a blasting sorcerer, a battlemaster fighter, a Circle of the Moon Druid, and a fire-heavy Cleric, so one more person lobbing damaging spells wasn't needed and would honestly have been boring for me.

Coming up with ways to add to combat has been a lot of fun! Here's my spellbook. Keep in mind some are copied for scrolls or other spellbooks, so they're not all self-selected. I've bolded the ones I usually prepare for an "average" adventuring day.

Cantrips
Control Flames
Frostbite (got to have at least one thing that damages)
Mage Hand
Minor Illusion

1st Level
Alarm (R)
Chromatic Orb (from before I became non-combaty)
Comprehend Languages (R)
Detect Magic (R)
Disguise Self
Expeditious Retreat
Find Familiar (R)
Fog Cloud
Grease
Identify (R)
Silent Image
Unseen Servant (R)

2nd Level
Arcane Lock
Detect Thoughts
Knock
Locate Object
Magic Mouth (R)
Phantasmal Force
Rope Trick
Spider Climb

3rd Level
Counterspell
Dispel Magic
Fly
Major Image
Nondetection
Protection from Energy
Sending
Slow
Tongues

4th Level
Banishment
Charm Monster
Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum

5th Level
Animate Objects
Teleportation Circle
Wall of Stone

Overall I have a lot of fun in combat, especially with illusions, but I really shine out of combat. My use of rituals, Knock spells, etc, have allowed me to do things no one else in the group can do. Since leveling up to 9th I've been leaving stone structures at each spot we rest while traveling (using Wall of Stone), and the entire campaign I've been making museums in each town using Magic Mouth.

In combat, Counterspell is always useful to have on hand, along with Dispel Magic, and non-concentration spells like Grease come up a lot. Plus being a Divination Wizard allows me to sometimes force an enemy to automatically fail a saving throw, which is amazing for spells like Charm Monster.

For Illusions, I love illusions of locks on doors, bear traps, pits, natural predators, or just doubling our Barbarian. Even if it just wastes one attack of an enemy, that's as good as using a healing spell!

I have no regrets choosing a non-combat wizard, and the rest of the group loves it too!