DnD 5e Wizard Subclass Breakdown – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The majority of wizard subclasses are themed around a specific school ofmagic, and the subclass features reflect that theme. Others deviate a bit,seeking to present the Wizard in new and interesting ways. Regardless, yourspellcasting is still your Wizard’s primary class feature, and your subclassfeatures complement that core capability.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Wizard Subclasses – Arcane Traditions
  • Bladesinging (SCAG / TCoE)
  • Chronurgy Magic (EGtW)
  • Graviturgy Magic (EGtW)
  • Order of Scribes (TCoE)
  • School of Abjuration (PHB)
  • School of Conjuration (PHB)
  • School of Divination (PHB)
  • School of Enchantment (PHB)
  • School of Evocation (PHB)
  • School of Illusion (PHB)
  • School of Necromancy (PHB)
  • School of Transmutation (PHB)
  • War Magic (XGtE)
• 3rd-Party Publishers

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Wizard Subclasses – Arcane Traditions

I’m going to skip the “X Savant” feature because they’re mostly identical.Not every subclass gets an X Savant feature, but for the subclasses which dothey’re a great reason to use your free spells learned at each level on spellswhich don’t benefit from your X Savant feature.

Bladesinging ^{(SCAG / TCoE)}

The Bladesinger is a fun concept, falling a lot closer to a normal Wizardthan the Eldritch Knight does, and allowing you to get into melee combat whilestill using the full Wizard spell list. Unfortunately, you’re burdened withMAD since you now need three ability scores to use all of your capabilitieseffectively, and you’ll struggle constantly to make Bladesong more useful thanjust being a generic wizard. Surviving in melee with d6 hit points is hard,even with the wizard’s spell list to protect you, and no matter what spellsyou cast to support using a weapon, it’s nearly always more effective to dosomething other than using bladesong.

Bladesong is a tempting prize for Dexterity/Intelligence-based “gish” buildslike a Dexterity-based Eldritch Knight Fighter. However, since it’s ashort-duration buff with a low daily usage cap, I recommend waiting tomulticlass until you’re high enough level that your Proficiency Bonus willmake Bladesong a meaningful part of your tactics.

If you are reading the version of Bladesinging published in the Sword CoastAdventurer’s Guide, please note that an updated version was published inTasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The errata document for Sword CoastAdventurer’s Guide includes all of the changes to update the subclass.

The Bladesinging Wizard Handbook

2. Training in War Song: Light armor on aWizard is a nice boost to AC. Mage Armor works great, but it eats one ofyour precious prepared spell slots for the day, which can be a hard trade atlow levels when the AC difference is only +1 and your prepared spells areprecious. Still, at higher levels when you’re using Bladesong regularly,that +1 to AC is worth the spell unless you can guarantee access to magicitems. +1 is a big bonus in 5e.

   You also get free proficiency with a one-handed melee weapon (Rapier,Shortsword, or Whip is your best bet), which is great since the Wizardgets literally the worst list of weapon proficiencies in the game.

2. Bladesong: While Bladesong is active, it’san incredibly powerful effect allowing the Wizard to thrive in melee with aboosted AC and boosting Concentration rolls so that you can maintaincritical buffs like Elemental Weapon or Tenser’s Transformation.

   Bladesong, combined with high Dexterity and buffs like Shield, allows theBladesinger to boost their AC to heights that most classes simply can’tmatch without without magic items. However, you’re still vulnerable toother sources of damage like spells and area of effect damage, so bringother defensive options like Absorb Elements and Counterspell. Alsoremember that a single critical hit could easily take you out of combatunless you can also use Song of Defense to reduce the damage enough tokeep yourself going.

   Since your uses of Bladesong per day are tied to your Proficiency Bonus,at low levels you need to think of this more as an occasional buff thanyour go-to option in combat. Use this as-needed primarily as a defensivebuff and pretend that you’re any other type of wizard until you pick upExtra Attack and your Proficiency Bonus increases.

6. Extra Attack: One of your attacks can be acantrip, so you can use Booming Blade/Green-Flame Blade/Swordburst and makean additional weapon attack using one Action. You get all the effectivenesssof using an attack cantrip without giving up the multiple attacks made byusing Extra Attack so you get the best of both options. Short of theEldritch Knight’s War Magic feature (which notably uses a Bonus Action), noother “gish” subclass can match this capability.

   Extra Attack notably works even while you’re not using Bladesong.Consider carrying a decent ranged weapon like a crossbow so that on turnswhen you plan to use a ranged attack cantrip you can make a ranged weaponattack in the same turn. Even if your Dexterity is still at a +3 bonusthat attack is still a chance at some extra damage for very littleeffort. This is also compatible with both two-weaponfighting and Crossbow Expert.

10. Song of Defense: This is a great way topad your d6 hit points, but it will eat through your spell slots veryquickly. Consider Absorb Elements and Shield as your go-to options formitigating damage, but if Shield won’t negate an attack you might use thisinstead if you expect the damage to be more than you’re willing to take.
14. Song of Victory: A bit late to the game,but by now you should easily have 20 Intelligence, so 5 bonus damage permelee weapon attack (yes, only melee) is pretty nice. Since Extra Attack canget you two attacks without giving up the benefits of a cantrip like BoomingBlade, this can be a noteworthy boost to your damage output on turns whereyou’re not throwing around leveled spells. Combine this with Tenser’sTransformation, and a mundane rapier could deal 1d8+10+2d12 damage perattack, which is pretty great. But, while the damage bonus is nice, at thislevel a +5 damage bonus on your weapon attacks is frequently less impactfulthan upcastinf Fireball, which any wizard can do.

Chronurgy Magic ^(EGtW)

Chronal Shift and Convergent Future feel very similar in function to theSchool of Divination’s Portent feature, and if you want that feature but don’tshare my love for divination spells, Chronurgy Magic is a great option.

The Chronurgy Magic subclass gains access to the Dunamancy spell list. See my Dunamancy Spell List Breakdown for guidance on Dunamancy spells.

Chronurgy Magic Wizard Handbook

2. Chronal Shift: Rerolls are always great,and you can use this after the target rerolls. The target can be you, anally, or an enemy, so you can use this to divert critical hits, to offeranother attempt on failed saves, or if you’re not worried about your ownsafety you could use this to let allies reroll missed attacks. Generally youshould save this to be used defensively. Rerolling one ally’s missed attackwill rarely save a life, but rerolling saves will save lives constantly.
2. Temporal Awareness: A sizable bonus toInitiative. Going first is incredibly useful for spellcasters who can placearea control effects to shape the rest of the fight.
6. Momentary Stasis: Taking a creature outof a fight for a turn is great, but Constitution saves tend to be high, andthe effect only lasts until the end of your next turn so you’re giving upyour Action on your turn to possibly deny the target their ownturn. It’s a fine trade if your party outnumbers your enemies, but if you’reoutnumbered you should be fireballing things rather than trading turns witha single enemy.
10. Arcane Abeyance: I see four ways to usethis:
    1. You can have an ally cast a spell which typically affects the caster sothat you can share powerful effects like Shadow Blade.
    2. You can have an ally cast a concentration spell and hold theconcentration for you. This is especially useful for familiars who cancast the spell then run and hide without cutting into your party’seffectiveness significantly.

       If you’re especially cheeky and have access to the Ravnica backgrounds, being Orzhov and handing Spirit Guardians to your fighter is pretty fun.

    3. You can use it to let another creature cast a spell for you so that youcan get an extra spell off in a hurry. A familiar is a fantastic choicein this case. They’re prohibited from making attacks, but nothing stopsthem from casting Fireball.
    4. Cast a spell with a long casting time, then freeze it upon completion.Carry the bead around for a bit, then activate it to deliver thespell.
    5. Give every member of the party their own Familiar. Give your Familiar a Familiar. Give that Familiar a Familiar.
14. Convergent Future: Rerolls are great, butthey’re still a roll. Take the risk out of it and just decide that a rollsucceeds or fails. The cost is high, however, and it gets worse the moretimes you use this in a day. Few creatures can give you levels ofexhaustion, so it’s usually not a problem, but the one time you encounter anenemy which inflicts Exhaustion you’re in serious trouble if you’ve usedthis at all that day. Also avoid things like starving, sleep deprivation,and forced marches. Dying at level 14 because you’re tired is hardly the wayyou want to go out.

Graviturgy Magic ^(EGtW)

Graviturgy is a really cool concept, but the abilities are simply toosituational and difficult to use to make it effective. The only reliablyuseful ability is Event Horizon, which you get once per day starting at level14, and even then it’s incredibly dangerous to use because you need to be soclose to your enemies and because it doesn’t exclude your allies.

There are some abuse cases which can make Graviturgy Magic work well, such asthrowing enemies into low-hanging AOE damage effects with Gravity Well, andcooperating with allies who like to grapple in order to capitalize on AdjustDensity, but unless your party has abundant options to force enemies to eithermove or not move at your wthem, you may struggle to make the subclass featuresconsistently impactful. The Dunamancy Spell List offers perhaps the mostcrucial options for the Graviturgy Magic Wizard, so if those spells are notavailable to you, I strongly encourage you to look elsewhere.

The Graviturgy Magic subclass gains access to the Dunamancy spell list. See our Dunamancy Spell List Breakdown for guidance on Dunamancy spells.

Graviturgy Magic Wizard Handbook

2. Adjust Density: Situational. Your alliesmight enjoy the extra speed from time to time, and Advantage on Strengthchecks is great for allies who are grappling, but the 1-minute duration andConcentration requirement mean that you can usually find something better todo. Still, you can use it as often as you like and there’s no save, which isgreat if your allies like to Shove or Grapple.
6. Gravity Well: 5 ft. of positioning isoccasionally very useful. Since this is forced movement, it doesn’t provokeOpportunity Attacks, so you can use this to cast a spell on yourself or anally to move the target out of melee without provoking an opportunityattacks, and potentially breaking grapples. Tragically, it only applies whenyou cast the spell so you can’t repeatedly reposition targets to keep theminside areas of effect. This also doesn’t specify which directions you canmove the target, so theoretically you could move targets 5 feet into the airto force them into conveniently-positioned effects like Wall of Fire.
10. Violent Attraction: There aren’t manyoptions which can force enemies to fall, so either you need toreally like Reverse Gravity and Gravity Sinkhole, or your DM likesto put a lot of pits and cliffs on the map. Regardless, it’s at most 10d10damage per day (assuming you can somehow cause falling damage on 5 separaterounds) and you have to spend your Reaction to activate it each time,meaning that you don’t have your Reaction for Shield or Absorb Elements.
14. Event Horizon: A great area controleffect hampered only by the fact that you need to be in the middle of it.With a radius of just 30 feet, you’re easily within reach for attacks andabilities with any sort of range, and since you need to Concentrate on this,you might lose your signature feature for the day if you take even a tinyamount of damage.

    Fortunately, this doesn’t appear to care about cover, so you can dothings like casting Stone Shape or Wall of Ice to erect a dome overyourself for cover, then lie prone inside it to impose Disadvantage onranged attacks against you. If cover isn’t a option, try to keep movingenemies at bay by hitting them with things like Thunderclap to push themaway or Ray of Frost to reduce their speed. Even Earth Thremor may beuseful, as knocking targets prone forces them to spend half their speed tostand.

Order of Scribes ^(TCoE)

If you want to collect every wizard spell every published (like me), Order ofScribes is a great choice. They get some unique capabilities to address manychallenges commonly faced while adventuring, but they’re not focused on anyone small part of wizardry. Rather, Order of Scribes is a sort of genericwizard subclass that emphasizes, complements, and celebrates some of the bestthings about being a wizard (like collecting all of the spells). In many ways,Order of Scribes is the most wizard-y wizard there is.

Order of Scribes Wizard Handbook

2. Wizardly Quill: Copying a spells normallytakes two hours per spell level. This reduces that time considerably. Timespent learning spells is typically handled “off screen”, but if you’retracking Downtime this means that you can copy 60 times as many spells inthe same amount of time as other wizards.

   The quill also allows you to vandalize stuff for free. The ink doesn’tmagically adhere to things, but given time you could scribble over everybook in a library, rendering them illegible until you decide to erase yourscribbles. Tragically, the free ink doesn’t make it free to add morespells to your spellbook, so expect to spend the bulk of your money oncopying new spells.

2. Awakened Spellbook: The ability to changethe damage type of your spells makes it much easier to use damage spells.Look for spells which deal damage types that are rarely resisted like Force(Magic Missile, Disintegrate), Thunder (Shatter), Psychic, Necrotic, andRadiant damage. If you know enough spells and know your enemies’resistances, you may go your entire career without dealing damage to acreature which has resistance to that damage type. But, again, you need tolearn as many spells as possible to get the most out of this feature, so ifyour DM doesn’t give your access to more spells you may struggle to makethis work.

   The third benefit lets you cast a ritual more quickly once per day.That’s great for options like Detect Magic and if you need them in ahurry, but hopefully you won’t need it often.

6. Manifest Mind: Similar in many ways toArcane Eye, though certainly less subtle since it’s not invisible. Thisallows you to examine distant objects, peek around corners, keep watch intwo places at once, and even explore small spaces where you can’t physicallyfit. It even has Darkvision even if you don’t, so it can mostly serve in place ofyour own eyes in dark places. Think of it like one of those quadcopterdrones, but your controls only work out to a range of 300 feet and you canshoot fireballs through it.

   You also gain the ability to cast spells using your spectral mind as theorigin point. This allows you to cast spells while you’re safely behindcover, or to deliver short-range spells like Burning Hands or Thunderclapwithout the risk of being in near-melee range and potentially even withoutthe targets being aware of your presence. However, the number of times youcan do this per day is small so look for other ways to solve the sameproblems if you can.

10. Master Scrivener: Since you can’t sharethis (the scroll is unintelligible to anyone else), this is basically justa free spell per day. Find your favorite 2nd-level spell with a decenteffect for being upcast to 3rd level. You don’t need to have the spellprepared, so this is good for spells with long durations which you know youwill cast, but which you won’t cast more than once.
14. One with the Word: Advantage on Arcanachecks is really nice, especially if you’re using the rules for identifyingspells presented in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and if your DM allows youto use skill checks to identify monsters and their weaknesses.

    The second benefit of this feature allows you to entirely negate sourcesof damage. However, this comes with a steep cost and a gamble. First, iteats your Reaction, so consider using Shield or Absorb Elements if eitherof them will suffice. Second, it dismisses your Spectral Mind, so you’llneed to re-manifest it as a Bonus Action on a later turn.

    Third, and most important, you temporarily lose access to some of thespells in your spellbook. This is honestly a pain to track, but it’s alsoeasy to mitigate this cost. By learning a huge number of spells, you canaccumulate enough spell levels worth of unused spells that you may be ableto use this numerous times in succession. Just keep in mind that at anaverage of 10.5 spell levels, you need to spend an average of 525gplearning the spells to fuel a single use.

    Finally, if you roll the 3d6 and roll more spell levels than you canspend, you’re immediately reduced to 0 hit points. This can prevent youfrom immediately dying due to massive damage because the original damageis still prevented, but if the original damage wasn’t going to knock youdown to 0 you’re going to feel silly for knocking yourself out because youdon’t know enough spells.

School of Abjuration ^(PHB)

School of Abjuration’s signature mechanic is Arcane Ward, which provides apool of not-quite-hit-points that you can use to mitigate damage to yourselfand eventually to your allies. Improved Abjuration makes the Abjurer theuncontested champion of Counterspell, allowing you to defend your allies bothfrom mundane damage with your ward and from spells with abjuration optionslike Counterspell and Dispel Magic.

The Abjurer is an easy option for players new to the game, or players whomight be intimidated by managing the Wizard’s spellcasting. Because College ofAbjuration’s features are primarily reactive in nature, it allows the playerto focus on using their spells offensively while falling back on theirsubclass features to defend themselves. However, experienced players who arecomfortable managing complex characters may find that the reactionary natureof the subclass frustrating because you may go long periods without yourfeatures being impactful unless you’re facing an abundance of spellcasters.

School of Abjuration Wizard Handbook

2. Abjuration Savant: Standard for PHB wizardsubclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your two freespells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells from yourfavorite school.
2. Arcane Ward: A great source of whatessentially amounts to temporary hit points, but since they aren’ttechnically temporary hit points the two effects stack. The Ward itself begins at full HP the first time you cast an Abjuration spell each day, even if all you do is spend eleven minutes to Ritual cast Alarm on nothing important. It then lasts until you finish your next Long Rest.

   Since the ward can take damage in your place, you may even be able to avoid saves to maintain Concentration when you take damage. This additional overshield is a resource and resources are meant to be spent, but don’t be reckless and overextend. Be sure to take all the normal defensive precautions and the Ward will help mitigate when the dice just don’t go in your favor.

   If you’re looking for an easy way to charge the ward, consider theEldritch Initiate feat to get Armor of Shadows. Armor of Shadows allowsyou to cast Mage Armor on yourself at will, allowing you to fully chargethe ward whenever you have a few minutes to repeatedly cast Mage Armor inorder to charge it.

6. Projected Ward: Your party’s Defenderlikely takes a lot more damage than you, so soaking some of it with yourward can really cut down on how many resources your party must devote tohealing. Just be aware that you’ll be unable to cast Shield, Absorb Elements, and Counterspell in response to future triggering events should you block some damage to an ally.
10. Improved Abjuration: Situational bydesign, but very powerful in games which feature enemy spellcasters.Counterspell is an off-switch for those enemy spellcasters. Adding yourproficiency bonus dramatically improves its effectiveness, making you ableto easily prevent enemy spellcasters from doing anything at all without theneed to burn your highest-level spell slots. If you can also cast EnhanceAbility (Intelligence) on yourself before walking into a fight with enemyspellcasters, you can counter spells with very little risk of failure.
14. Spell Resistance: Resistance to spells isgreat for resisting dangerous save or suck spells, and resistance to spelldamage makes you greatly resistant to direct damage spells which typicallydon’t require saves (Eldritch Blast, Fire Bolt, etc.). Both halves of thefeature apply at the same time, so against spells which allow you to savefor reduced damage (Fireball, etc.), this is extremely effective because ona successful save you’ll often take just a quarter of the game. However,you’re expected to counter spells rather than try to resist them, so this ismostly a redundant defense for when you’re outnumbered or surprised.

School of Conjuration ^(PHB)

Conjuration does a lot of things, and school of conjuration gives you a taste of all of them. If you’re just here to play a summoner you won’t get anything to support that concept until 14th level, but until then you’re still a pretty great wizard with some options to summon items and teleport on top of your spells (which do allow you to summon creatures).

School of Conjuration Wizard Handbook

2. Conjuration Savant: Standard for PHBwizard subclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your twofree spells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells fromyour favorite school.
2. Minor Conjuration: Like creation spells,Minor Conjuration’s effectiveness depends heavily on your creativity and onyour DM’s permissiveness. At the very least you can summon cylindricalobjects and roll them around in dungeons to set off traps, or create asturdy object to use as cover.

   If your DM allows it, creating a weapon with Conjuration Creation may beenough to overcome resistance to damage from non-magical attacks since theobject is “visibly magical”. You may even be able to create weapons madeof special materials like adamantine or cold iron. Unfortunately, the sizeconstraints may limit your weapon options, so stick to stubby weapons likeaxes rather than long weapons like spears and longswords. Also note thatthe weapon will disappear if it deals damage once, so it’s a single-useweapon. Maybe useful for rogues or if you just need one hit, but thiswon’t totally replace real weapons. It’s not clear if you can create expensiveitems like Alchemist’s Fire, but I don’t think doing so would cause problemsbeyond very low levels where your available gold is limited.

   See Also

   War Magic Wizard Handbook: DnD 5e Subclass Guide – RPGBOT

6. Benign Transposition: A great way to getaround when there are enemies present, especially if you switch places withyour party’s Defender and drop them in the middle of a bunch of surprisedenemies. Of course, the biggest benefit of Benign Transposition (getting youout of somewhere dangerous) can be entirely replaced by Misty Step, whichcan be used as a Bonus Action at the cost of a 2nd-level spell slot.
10. Focused Conjuration: This is great forkeeping your summoned creature around even if you take damage, but at thislevel you have plenty of ways to keep yourself out of trouble. Spells likeShield, Absorb Elements, and Mirror Image are staple defensive options whichdon’t require Concentration, and if you have a summoned creature there’s onemore ally on the field drawing attention away from you.
14. Durable Summons: 30 temporary hit pointsprovides as many additional hit points as casting a “Summon Creature” spelltwo or three spell levels higher (it varies by spell). That’s a hugeincrease in durability, which means that you’re getting more mileage out ofyour summon spells.

School of Divination ^(PHB)

Forewarned is fore-armed, and Divination is all about forewarning. If youever walk into a room without knowing who and what is inside it, you aren’tcasting enough Divinations. The biggest problem with relying heavily ondivinations is that they can quickly eat your spell slots, often with littletangible effect. Fortunately, Expert Divination dramatically reduces the costof casting divination spells. Portent provides a wonderful mechanic toinfluence rolls, allowing you alter the outcome of critical roles insignificant and powerful ways.

As great as Portent is, if you plan to play a diviner, you and your DM needto be prepared to handle divinations and how they work. The DM may be forcedto predict the future for you, to offer cryptic hints, or to improvise theidle activities of creatures who are generally just sitting in a room waitingfor your party to come fight them. You need to remember to use yourdivinations to mitigate risk and to solve problems that can’t be solved usingFireball and the like. But if you put in the work, School of Divination willreward you for your efforts.

School of Divination Wizard Handbook

2. Divination Savant: Standard for PHB wizardsubclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your two freespells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells from yourfavorite school.
2. Portent: Roll high? Save it for importantsaving throws or attacks. Roll low? Use it to replace an enemy attack rollor an enemy saving throw. There is no way for this to be bad unless youforget to use it. Portent is School of Divination’s signature trait, andmastering it will have a massive impact on your game.
6. Expert Divination: This dramaticallyexpands the number of spells you can cast in a day. If you ever think “is itworth a spell slot to cast a Divination right now?”, the answer shouldalways be “yes”. Throw them around like confetti. You can even use MindSpike (the only damage-dealing divination spell in the game) to get bigpiles of single-target damage at minimal cost whenever you might normallyuse a cantrip.
10. The Third Eye: Darkvision isn’t aDivination, so this is a good way to get it for free if you don’t get itfrom our race, an item, or an ally who can cast Darkvision. The othereffects are replicated with See Invisibility and Comprehend Languages, whichcost next to nothing to cast thanks to both Expert Divination and theWizard’s ability to cast rituals, but having See Invisibility running at alltimes is a helpful defense since See Invisibility only lasts for anhour.
14. Greater Portent: Not a game changer, butPortent is fantastic, and this makes it 50% more powerful.

School of Enchantment ^(PHB)

School of Enchantment has some amazing save-or-suck options and can function as a Face with a little bit of effort, but the over-reliance on the Charmed condition does create a weakness in your capabilities since resistance and immunity to Charmed are so common.

School of Enchantment Wizard Handbook

2. Enchantment Savant: Standard for PHBwizard subclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your twofree spells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells fromyour favorite school.
2. Hypnotic Gaze: As a Wizard you should notspend a whole lot of time 5 feet away from enemies. But if you find yourselfface to face with something unfriendly, flash those baby blues and hit itwith your Hypnotic Gaze. This allows you to indefinitely lock down a singletarget, provided that you remain within range and that the targetconsistently fails the initial saving throw. In an encounter where your alliesoutnumber the enemies (or at least the significant ones) this is a great wayto tilt the balance of the encounter in your favor, even if this also takesyou out of the encounter. Using this to incapacitate enemies also means thatthey release you if they were grappling you, and you can safely move awaywithout provoking Opportunity Attacks if you don’t want to stand there untilyour party can come tie up whatever you’ve hypnotized. You can use this onceper target per long rest, so a brave wizard might use this as a go-to tacticin place of expensive resources like spell slots.
6. Instinctive Charm: This is a great way tomake enemy ranged attackers hit their own allies (or at least your moredurable allies if the enemy doesn’t have friends nearby). Since you can usethis repeatedly on the same target until they pass a save, you can expect to use this repeatedly inencounters where enemies are relying on ranged attacks. However, since thisis difficult to use against melee attacks, you may still want Shield unless anally is willing to stand next to you to take the hits for you.
10. Split Enchantment: Many of the bestEnchantment spells are single-target, which is a problem in encounters withmore than one enemy. This functionally doubles your spell output with yourbest spells, including powerful options like Dominate Monster and Power WordKill.
14. Alter Memories: This is the only Wizardfeature anywhere which cares about your Charisma, and it’s both extremely situationaland disappointingly ineffective. The ability to erase part of the creature’smemory of its time spent Charmed means that you can hit the creature withCharm Person or Charm Monster, spend an hour or more questioning it, thenmake it forget that your conversation. Unfortunately, the spells whichbenefit from Alter Memories are extremely few in number, so expect to leanheavily on Charm X/Dominate X. Even the spell Friends doesn’t actually makethe target Charmed, so your options are pitifully small.

School of Evocation ^(PHB)

Evocation is the blunt hammer of magic. It’s rarely subtle or elegant, andit’s often imprecise. But hey, when 90% of problems are nails, the hammer isthe king of tools. Evocation is a great option for players who are new tospellcasters because many of the best spells are mechanically simple, requirelittle tracking if any, and usually leave little room for interpretation oftheir effects. Beyond the simple instantaneous damage options, evocationspells also include powerful offensive options like Wall of Fire

While School of Evocation is one of the simpler wizard subclasses,experienced players shouldn’t overlook it simply because of its relativesimplicity. It’s an effective set of tools for effectively using go-tooffensive spell options, and it works reliably in any game where a blastercaster can be effective. Players new to the game will enjoy being able tosagely fireball enemies without murdering their own party, and as players getcomfortable they can explore more complex aspects of spellcasting confident inthe knowledge that they can always revert to Fireball if more complex optionsprove difficult or ineffective.

School of Evocation Wizard Handbook

2. Evocation Savant: Standard for PHB wizardsubclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your two freespells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells from yourfavorite school.
2. Sculpt Spells: Friendly fire happensinevitably when you have an evoker in the party. This goes a long way to cutdown on the problem, and you should abuse the fact that your allies are immune to your spells wherever possible.

   There’s some weird nuance here that’s easy to overlook: While this isclearly intended to protect allies from Burning Hands, Fireball, and othersuch AOE damage options, the protection doesn’t end after the initialeffect of the spell. Creatures are protected from the spell’s effects forthe spell’s full duration. This means that your allies can comfortablywalk around in the areas of spells like Sickening Radiance,potentially dragging enemies about inside the area to force them totake damage. You could even cast Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere, designate yourallies as protected by Sculpt Spells, then send them off with pockets fullof frozen spheres to smash at their feet in a room full of enemies.Honestly, I don’t think this was intended when WotC wrote School ofEvocation. Much like Empowered Evocation, I think that they meant forSculpt Spells only to apply to the initial effects. But it’s been 5+ yearsand we haven’t gotten errata or tweets from Jeremy Crawford, so it appearsthat Sculpt Spells works as I’ve described it until someone tells usotherwise.

6. Potent Cantrip: Acid Splash and PoisonSpray are the only damaging Wizard cantrips in the PHB which require asaving throw, but other supplements have dramatically increased youroptions.Additionally, this feature is not limited to Wizard cantrips, in case you happen to have something from another class, feat, or a racial feature.This is nice insurance, and it encourages you to use saving throwcantrips like Frostbite instead of attack cantrips like Fire Bolt becausethe guaranteed half damage means that your DPR is calculated with the formula ([Dice Average]*([Chance to Fail Save]+0.5*(1-[Chance to Fail Save]))). This formula applies to any save for half effect, so it’s also relevant to a lot of leveled spells.

   An example at the level we get this: with Toll the Dead (2d12, avg. 13) and a 60% Chance the target fails: (13*(0.6+0.5*(0.4)))=10.4 Expected DPR. If instead the target only failed the save 50% of the time: (13*(0.5+0.5*(0.5)))=9.75 Expected DPR. That’s only a difference of 0.65 DPR.

   A firebolt at the same level, following the expected math for an attack roll with 2d10 damage on a hit, comes to 7.7 DPR and does nothing on a miss.

10. Empowered Evocation: A bonus to damagelike this is a considerable boost, especially for your low-level spells likeBurning Hands, which can still be decent damage sources at a low spell slotcost.

    According toJeremy Crawfordback in 2015, this bonus applies to each missile of magic missile and toall targets of an AOE, but only to one attack for multi-attack spells likeScorching Ray. If Empowered Evocation applies to each missile, MagicMissile becomes very powerful. This conflicts with Crawford’s more recentrulings, where he has ruled that each missile from Magic Missile is aseparate damage roll, so similar damage bonuses only get applied to one ofthe missiles. Personally I think the more-recent ruling makes more sense,but discuss it with your DM.For the magic missile case, see our Practical Guide toMagic Missile.

14. Overchannel: This is a great way to getmore mileage out of reliable lower-level spells like Magic Missile andFireball at a level where your higher-level spells would generally eclipsethem. Just be sure to have a Cleric handy when you start taking damage. RAW,the damage is maximized every time that the spell deals damage, which makesspells like Wall of Fire especially powerful. However, according toJeremy Crawfordthe effect was intended to only apply to the first damage roll for thespell, so sticking to Fireball is likely your best choice. Check with yourDM about how they want to handle things.

School of Illusion ^(PHB)

Illusion is one of the most complex, open-ended, and flexible schools of magic. It is limited only by your and your DM’s imaginations. ISchool of Illusion strictly emphasizes sensory illusions like Major Image, and gives you new options to make those spells more flexible, versatile, and powerful.

School of Illusion Wizard Handbook

2. Illusion Savant: Standard for PHB wizardsubclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your two freespells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells from yourfavorite school.
2. Improved Minor Illusion: Minor Illusioncan be incredibly powerful in the hands of a smart caster, and adding botheffects on one casting makes it considerably more useful. Creating anillusion of a pot lying on the floor accompanied by the sound of a potfalling, or an illusion of a small animal accompanied by appropriate sounds(I’m fond of chickens for this purpose) can be excellent distractions, andcreatures don’t get a save or a skill check to disbelieve the illusion untilthey spend an Action to do so.
6. Malleable Illusions: Most illusion spellswhich create an ongoing illusory effect (Minor Image, Hallucinatory Terrain,etc.) do not allow you to change the illusion once it’s in place. MinorImage and Major Image allow you to move and animate the illusion, but thatcan turn a red ball into a rolling or bouncing red ball, but nothing more.Malleable Illusions could turn your red ball into a statue of a dragon orsomething, effectively replacing your existing illusion without re-castingthe spell. This adds a ton of flexibility to such spells.
10. Illusory Self: Infallibly ignore oneattack against you for free, once per Short or Long Rest. Very good for asquishy Wizard. Combined with other defensive measures like hiding and usingcover, you may even be able to forgo Shield.
14. Illusory Reality: This turns yourillusions into creation spells, which means that any tool that you canimagine is available for the low cost of casting Silent Image. Sadly,Malleable Illusions likely doesn’t let you change the object which you’vechosen to make real because Illusory Reality only applies when you cast thespell.

    You can’t directly harm creatures with Illusory Reality, but the rulessay nothing about impeding, restraining, blocking, or even dropping them.Throw up a Silent Image to create a wall of stone between you and yourfoes, or to put a cage around them. Create an illusory bridge with aconvenient trap door (or just time it so that they’re on the bridge whenthe 1-minute duration expires) and drop your enemies into a pit.

School of Necromancy ^(PHB)

Necromancy is a cool school. In addition to animating dead creatures, it hassome really powerful and exciting spells like Bestow Curse, Enervation, andeven Clone. However, School of Necromancy is devoted almost entirely to the“army of pet undead” concept and offers nothing beyond Grim Harvest tocomplement other necromancy options, though with some help from ourPractical Guide to Animating the Dead, that may all you need.

School of Necromancy Wizard Handbook

2. Necromancy Savant: Standard for PHB wizardsubclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your two freespells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells from yourfavorite school.
2. Grim Harvest:RAW you can use this on any creature, so there’s nothing to stop youfrom carrying a bag of rats for you to “harvest” when you need hit points.Unfortunately, there aren’t many leveled necromancy spells whichcan kill a creature, and many of them are weak. The lowest-level option is Ray of Sickness.

   For maximum efficiency, cast leveled spells with long durations and ongoingdamage like Vampiric Touch, then kill one rat per turn. Vampiric Touch also healson its own, so you can combine it with the bagof rats trick to double-dip on healing (though Vampiric Touch can’t healyou more than the target’s hit points, and rats have 1 hp).

   There is some ambiguity about how this works with the spell SummonUndead. Summon Undead is a necromancy spell, and the summoned creature isthe spell’s “effect”, so killing a creature with your summoned undead mayqualify to trigger Grim Harvest. As a DM, I would not allow this becausethe creature’s attacks are not the spell itself and because allowing itwould immediately become a problem. Along the same lines: the effect ofAnimate Dead is to create an undead creature. That creature killingsomething is not part of the spell’s effect and therefore doesn’tqualify.

6. Undead Thralls: Additional hit points anddamage will make your pet undead considerably more lethal. Remember thathaving more undead will require you to spend more spell slots every day tokeep them under control, so don’t have too many. Instead, try to focus onhaving a few undead that you can rely upon and move about withouttoo much trouble. See our Practical Guide to Animating the Deadfor help with the relevant spells.

   Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to work with the Summon Undead spell.Summon Undead summons an undead creature, and Undead Thralls onlyapplies if you create the undead creature.

10. Inured to Undeath: Situational, butthematically appropriate. There aren’t spells that let you take control ofundead that you stumble across or reassert control of undead which youcreate after you’ve lost control of them, so sometimes you’ll run into ashadow or something and need to actually fight them. Command Undead reducesthis risk somewhat, but you can only use it to control one undead at a time,so undead which can reduce your hit point maximum remain a risk.

    The immunity to hit point reduction, while intended to address a commonside-effect of attacks by undead creatures, isn’t limited to those attacks:you’re still immune to hit point reduction from other sources. Forexample, the spells Create Homunculus and Create Magen both require you toreduce your hit point maximum as part of the spells.

    Immunity to hit pointreduction removes that cost, so your Homunculus can perpetually have halfof your hit dice at no cost to your hit point maximum, and so long as youhave the gold, you can create a small army of magens to serve you whereundead might not do the job (i.e. almost anywhere with living people). Idon’t think that this was an intentional rules interaction, so your DMmight not be thrilled about it. Please be careful not to abuse it tooheavily.

14. Command Undead: This is a very usefulability if you have enemies which command undead or which are undeadthemselves, but the fact that intelligent undead (very common by this level)get Advantage on the save makes this ability hard to use effectively. Somehigh-CR undead like the Nightwalker are tempting targets, but unless you’reactively seeking them out (and your DM is silly enough to let you find andenslave one) you can’t count on just stumbling upon a suitable target.

School of Transmutation ^(PHB)

Transmutation gets you very little which you couldn’t already get more easily from other places, often at a lower level. Transmuter’s Stone is arguably the best part of the subclass, but you can replace it with the Resilient feat or by taking your first level in the Artificer, Fighter, or Sorcerer classes to get proficiency in Constitution saves, then learn some basic spells that any sensible wizard should know anyway. Master Transmuter is the next high point of the class, but waiting until level 14 to get a good subclass feature is not a good choice. Even then, the best benefits are made totally obsolete by Wish three levels later.

School of Transmutation Wizard Handbook

2. Transmutation Savant: Standard for PHBwizard subclasses. Strangely, this feature incentivizes you to use your twofree spells learned per level to learn literally anything except spells fromyour favorite school.
2. Minor Alchemy: It’s hard to say how best touse this, but at the very least you could turn a block of wood into silverand sell it before it reverts and you’re run out of town.
6. Transmuter’s Stone: Several excellentbuffs to choose from, and you can change the selected buff easily. If youenjoy Concentration spells like Polymorph, proficiency in Constitution saving throws ishuge. You might also share that benefit with a cleric if there’s one in theparty since clerics have tons of good Concentration spells and tend to be onthe front lines a lot but also don’t get proficiency in Constitution saves.If you want Darkvision, cast Darkvision. If you want the damage resistance,Absorb Elements or Protection From Energy work, but they may be more costly.Remember that you can change the benefit when you cast a leveled transmutationspell, so don’t be afraid to change it when the situation calls for it.
10. Shapechanger: Helpful for scouting andutility purposes, but it won’t get you through a fight, and you can use aRogue or a Divination spell for scouting. You can use it for overland travelby turning into something that flies, but stick to Giant Eagle, Giant Owl,or Giant Vulture because most beasts have an Intelligence score low enoughthat you’re likely to forget where you were going.
14. Master Transmuter: The MajorTransformation option can do curious things like making adamantine weapons,but can’t create adamantine armor because adamantine armor is a magic itemeven though adamantine weapons aren’t.

    The Panacea and Restore Life options are very good, and giving up yourTransmuter’s Stone to get the benefits is worth the cost since you cancreate another one at no cost except time. Wizards don’t have many healingoptions and can’t raise creatures from the dead until you can cast Wish,so these are useful options, especially in a party without a cleric.

    Restore Youth is amusing but it’s basically a party trick.

War Magic ^(XGtE)

Despite the flavor text, War Magic is primarily defensive. Power Surge (andarguably Deflecting Shroud) are the only truly offensive abilities, and thedamage provided is fairly small. War Magic has a lot of overlap with School ofAbjuration, but where School of Abjuration focuses more on countering spellsand defending your allies, War Magic focuses more on defending yourself andkeeping yourself in a fight.

War Magic’s focus on your own durability helps solve the Wizard’s biggestproblem: their frailty. Wizards get no armor except Mage Armor and have justd6 hit dice, making them the least durable class in the game. They are verymuch “glass cannons”, and War Magic does a bit to improve on that pain point.This is appealing if you’re planning to play a wizard in tight quarters likedungeons or caves where running and hiding may be difficult, or if you’rebrave and want to wade into close quarters and rely on short-range spells likeBurning Hands.

If you want to play an extra durably wizard, consider adding other mechanismsto boost your AC and ideally your Constitution saves. Starting with a level inArtificer accomplishes both, but you could also choose Githyanki, MountainDwarf, or Tortle as your race to get better AC, or you could go for CustomLineage or Variant Human in order to take Resilient or War Caster.

War Magic Wizard Handbook

2. Arcane Deflection: Shield provides abetter AC bonus, but the real appeal here is the bonus to saves. +4 isenough to make a huge difference, and features that provide similar bonuses(The Paladin’s Aura of Protection, the Artificer’s Flash of Genius, etc.)are never available this early in your career.

   However, Arcane Deflection comes with an opportunity cost beyond yourReaction: You can’t cast leveled spells during your next turn. Considerthat casting leveled spells is your primary function as a wizard, that’s alot to give up. When you use Arcane Deflection, you need to be ready tospend your next turn using cantrips or something. At low levels where yourspell slots are few in number that’s not a problem, but as you gain levelsthe opportunity cost grows considerably. You can’t even use items likewands to get around this because those items still cause you to cast aspell.

   There may still be times where Absorb Elements or Shield make more senseso that you can cast leveled spells on your turn, and fortunately as theopportunity cost to use Arcane Deflection increases, the opportunity costto prepare Absorb Elements and Shield is reduced as your number ofprepared spells increases.

2. Tactical Wit: Initiative bonuses arealways great, and getting to go early means that you can quickly cast buffor control spells which will determine how the fight plays out.
6. Power Surge: The damage isn’t great, andunless you’re facing a lot of enemy spellcasters it will be hard to chargeyour power surges. You could ask your allies to waste low-level spells(ideally a cantrip with a non-instantaneous duraiton like Guidance orShillelagh) so that you can dispel or counterspell them, but it’s probablynot worth your spell slots do this in order to recharge your Power Surgepool.
10. Durable Magic: If you’re not maintainingConcentration on a spell, you should be casting a spell that requiresConcentration. There are too many good Concentration spells for you to nothave one running. The bonus to saves notably applies to your save tomaintain Concentration, and combined with Arcane Deflection you’re veryeffective at maintaining Concentration.

    If you’re worried about the cost to constantly cast and maintainConcentration, look at summoning spells. They typically have a 1-hourduration and many are very effective, so it’s easy to fit them into yourtactics. Another useful option is running Enhance Ability (Dexterity) so that when combat starts you or another party member, or both if upcast, have Advantage on the Initiative check.

14. Deflecting Shroud: You only get to useArcane Deflection if you’re hit by an attack or if you fail a saving throw,but Deflecting Shroud works even if Arcane Deflection doesn’t negate theeffect which triggered it, so you’re always guaranteed the damage.

    The damage from Deflecting Shroud isn’t great, but there’s no usagelimitation and since it hits three targets at range it can easilyout-damage cantrips. If you’re facing groups of weak enemies they mighthit you sheerly by making a large number of attacks or by including you inan area damage effect, and this will allow you to thin their numberswithout spending expensive spell slots.

    The damage also helps justify using Arcane Deflection at high levels bytaking some of the sting out of giving up leveled spells for a turn. Bythis level your pool of spell slots is enormous, so limiting yourself tocantrips in many circ*mstances means that your turn is reduced to a tinysplash of damage where you could instead throw a leveled spell likeFireball or Chain Lightning.

    If you want to trigger this easily, there’s an ally can make an unarmedstrike to hit you for 1+Strength damage to set this off, allowing you toget a bunch of extra damage before a turn where you may have alreadyplanned to cast a cantrip. If you don’t have an ally handy, keep an angryrat in a sack, stick your hand into the sack, and wait for the rat to biteyou.

3rd-Party Publishers

RPGBOT has covered some 3rd-party content from our favorite creators. This content is published under the Open Gaming License, under Creative Commons, or through DMsGuild, and is not considered official content. As such, it is not available in Adventurer’s League organized play, and your group may not allow it in your game. If your group wants to explore 3rd-party content, we hope that these articles will help you make them work for you.

• Tal’Dorei Blood Magic Wizard Handbook