D&D 5E What can a 20th level wizard do in a day?

Stalker0 · Feb 13, 2023

Inspired by this thread: D&D 5E - The challenges of high level adventure design.

A common notion about high level play is: Time management. When players have time, they have the world.

So to put that notion through the test, lets have some fun brainstorming just what can a high level (20th level) wizard do when it has a whole day to apply their powers?

First, for consistency, the groundrules:

20th level wizard. Any wizard subclass is fine.
One simulacrum only: We all know about the infinite sim cheese, which at this point is more of an exploit than anything. So while we can enjoy a single extra set of hands, lets not get crazy.
No magic items: Only your own efforts.
No supporting players: While a high level wizard is sure to have a few kings and a couple of angels in their back pocket, we aren't going to model the relationships such a wizard may or may not have collected. So unless the wizard can summon and compel their help directly, lets leave that off the table.
Any spell from WOTC books allowed. If its been in an official WOTC book, its legal. No UA stuff though, and no 3pp.
A day is considered 16 hours, with 8 hours for a long rest (sorry elven wizards). The wizard can trade in as many hours for short rests as they wish.
Wish is bound by the normal "duplicate other spell" criteria, we aren't relying on dm fiat of wish translation.
Spell components are fine if reasonable. A few hundred or even a thousand gold in components for an important day is reasonable for a 20th level wizard. 10000 gp blown in a day is a bit much.
The wizard can start the day with any set of prepared spells (and having adjusted their signature spells). Assume that they knew the plan for this day and had prepared accordingly. However, they still must follow the rules of how many spells can be prepared in a day.
The wizard starts the day with no spells already cast. Anything you need they will have to cast on the day in question.
Assume 20 intelligence and DC 20 spells.
Any feats are fine.

For convenience, here are the spell slots you have to work with.
1st - 4
2nd - 3
3rd - 3
4th - 3
5th - 3
6th - 2
7th - 2
8th - 1
9th - 1
Arcane Recovery - 10 slots (no higher than 5th).

Storyteller Hero · Feb 13, 2023

Cast Gate to bring forth a higher being or archmage to accomplish much, much more in a day than a single wizard can.

Wish is great for quick stuff on the go, but Gate beats it for other things.

EDIT: They don't have be friends, the supporting players rule doesn't rule out use of spells to compel or blackmail.

Stalker0 · Feb 13, 2023

Storyteller Hero said:
Cast Gate to bring forth a higher being or archmage to accomplish much, much more in a day than a single wizard can.

Wish is great for quick stuff on the go, but Gate beats it for other things.

That violates this rule:

No supporting players: While a high level wizard is sure to have a few kings and a couple of angels in their back pocket, we aren't going to model the relationships such a wizard may or may not have collected. So unless the wizard can summon and compel their help directly, lets leave that off the table.

Gated creatures are not fundamentally compelled to work for you (as opposed to summoned creatures), so we aren't going to count them.

CleverNickName · Feb 13, 2023

This reminds me of a discussion years ago, where someone was trying to figure out how long it would take a beholder to destroy the world--actually destroy it, via its disintegration beam. The result was like, a quadrillion years or something.

EDIT: found it.

Disintegrate destroys a 10' cube of matter every 6 seconds.
Assuming the beholder has to rest, eat, etc. for 8 hours a day, so only 16 hours of work per day.
16 hours = 960 minutes = 9600 rounds per day.
Therefore, 1 beholder can disintegrate 96000 cubic feet of matter (or 2,718 cubic meters) per day.
The volume of the earth is 1,097,509,500,000,000,000,000 cubic meters.
Divide that by 2718, and you get 40,379,304,635,800,000 days.
Which is 1,106,282,318,790,000 years---1.1 quadrillion years.

Stalker0 · Feb 13, 2023

The Dead Whisperer
Scenario: You have gone into an underground crypt filled with an order's sages. How much information can you extract in a single day?

Me and my simulacrum go to work using speak with dead. I can cast the spell 14 times (so 140 minutes) or 28 times with my sim in tow. Throw in 3 more with arcane recovery. So 155 questions for the dead assuming there are 31 corpses around to talk to.

As a cherry on top you can always throw in a divination (using the diviner's power to give you a free 3rd level slot so you aren't losing a speak with dead), and an augury for a little extra oomph. You can also end the day with a single contact other plane instead of a speak with dead, so if you go insane you can just go right into the long rest without losing any time.

Storyteller Hero · Feb 13, 2023

Stalker0 said:
That violates this rule:

No supporting players: While a high level wizard is sure to have a few kings and a couple of angels in their back pocket, we aren't going to model the relationships such a wizard may or may not have collected. So unless the wizard can summon and compel their help directly, lets leave that off the table.

Gated creatures are not fundamentally compelled to work for you (as opposed to summoned creatures), so we aren't going to count them.

The wizard however does have spells to compel creatures once they've come through the Gate, or at least blackmail them into doing the wizard's bidding, even if only for a day.

Reynard · Feb 13, 2023

He should be able to bring a city completely to its knees with Control Weather -- an arctic blizzard with gale force winds for 16 hours (the wizard and Sim) should just about do it.

Benjamin Olson · Feb 14, 2023

Both the Wizard and their Simulacrum can cast Mighty Fortress, for a combined 200 unseen servants who unlike their Magnificent Mansion cousins are, depending on how you read the spell, able to leave the Fortress. So 1 minute (and 1,000 gold in diamonds) in and you've already got an army of hands to do simple mundane tasks, as well as enough food for 200 people to enjoy 7 days of 9 course banquets (that's 12,600 servings).

My ideas of what to do with that set of resources range from "just see how many towers you can add to the fortress complex with Galder's Tower", to starting a Bed and Breakfast, to hosting a regional wizard summit, to tricking the entire town to come over for a feast while my army of undead and I ransack the town. And not all of those ideas even necessarily involve casting additional spells.

I think this exercise would be easier if we had some goals for the level 20 Wizard in mind, because otherwise all I can say is he could cast 24-29 leveled spells, not including rituals, cantrips, or his simulacrum's spells. A level 20 Wizard could spend just over 2 minutes minutes firing off 133 magic missiles, come back later in the day after an arcane recovery and fire off 24 more, and otherwise sleep the day away, and if that is all he seeks in life I suppose it's a productive day. Another level 20 Wizard could Wish herself a Simulacrum and they could each spend a little under 3 hours casting Galder's Tower a collective 30 times (and two more times at level 5 for the Wizard herself after arcane recovery) creating a complex with 136 rooms spread over 32 towers, but unless she plans to do the same again the next day, the towers will all disappear and this industriousness is perhaps no more productive than that of Mr. Magic Missiles. The Wizard is a problem solver class. We need to give them problems to solve.

So I propose that anyone who has an idea for a difficult challenge a Level 20 Wizard might face to lay it out for us, and we can all puzzle over how the right level 20 Wizard might attack it.

aco175 · Feb 14, 2023

Hire a group of 1st level PCs in the tavern to go on a quest for him to go into the forest and collect special mushrooms. You know, since he is soooo busy and cannot go himself with his couple teleports and such.