Wizard 5e: DnD 5th Edition Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The Wizard is the iconic arcane spellcaster, capable of doing all manner offantastic tricks, and generally limited only by their spellbook and theirspell slots. A Wizard with a comprehensive spellbook can do essentiallyanything in the game, often as well as or better than a non-magical characterwho is built to do that thing. A Wizard with Invisibility is as stealthy as aRogue. A Wizard with a summoned pet can replace a fighter (at leasttemporarily). A clever Wizard could even find a way to heal their allies andreplace a Cleric.

Because Wizards can do so much so well, their roles are numerous and varied.However, in a typical party the Wizard’s primary functions are as a Blaster,Controller, Librarian, Support caster, Striker, and Utility Caster. Dependingon your spells and potentially your skills, you can also serve as a Defender,Face, Healer (though it’s difficult), and Scout. You may think, “but wait,isn’t that every role?”. Yes. Yes, it is.

However, with that incredible breadth of capability comes both complexity and risk. Most of this complexity is buried in the Wizard’s spellcasting. Wizards get very few actual class/subclass features, but spellcasting fills in the gaps. Managing a spellbook is complex, and unlike Clerics and Druids who can select from a vast spell list after every long rest, you need to hoard newly-learned spells to expand your capabilities, sometimes at great expense, so learning new spells may be a gamble, costing precious gold for a spell which you may never use. If you are prone to analysis paralysis or don’t enjoy carefully tracking resources, the Wizard is a waking nightmare.

Wizards are among the least durable characters in the game, having no armor proficiencies, poor saving throws, and the lowest hit dice available. Staying alive as a wizard can be very difficult, and in most cases requires a party of sturdy allies willing to protect you from harm. There are exceptions to this rule (bladesingers can achieve some of the highest AC in the game without the aid of magic items), but they are few in number.

I’ll tell anyone who asks that the Wizard is my favorite class, and that hasbeen the case since early in my career with Dungeons and Dragons. The Wizardis a class that rewards system mastery, and while you don’t need to be anexperienced player to succeed as a wizard, improving your familiarity with thegame will pay dividends.

After reading this handbook, I encourage you to read our other supportingarticles:

• Wizard Races Breakdown
• Wizard Spells Breakdown
• Wizard Subclasses Breakdown

If you’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3, you might also enjoy ourBaldur’s Gate 3 Wizard Handbook.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Wizard Class Features
  • Optional Class Features
• Wizard Ability Scores
• Wizard Races
• Wizard Skills
• Wizard Backgrounds
• Wizard Feats
• Wizard Weapons
• Wizard Armor
• Multiclassing
• Wizard Magic Items
  • Common Magic Items
  • Uncommon Magic Items
  • Rare Magic Items
  • Very Rare Magic Items
  • Legendary Magic Items
• Example Wizard Build – High Elf Wizard (Evoker)
  • Abilities
  • Race
  • Skills and Tools
  • Background
  • Feats
  • Levels

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 Class Features

Optional Class Features are detailed below under Optional Class Features.

Hit Points: d6 hit points is the lowest inthe game. Fortunately, Intelligence is the only ability which Wizards strictlyneed, so you can afford a decent Constitution score.

Saves: Intelligence saves are very rare,and proficiency in Wisdom saves won’t help much if your Wisdom is terrible.

Proficiencies: Wizard’s weapons are pitiful,but can be easily replaced by cantrips. Wizards also get no armor, so it’seither Mage Armor or nothing for the vast majority of wizards. Wizards onlyget the standard two skills, which is difficult considering that your partywill expect you to cover as many knowledge skills as possible, leaving manywizards with little room to diversify.

Spellcasting: Wizards are the king ofspellcasters. They can do everything; kill stuff, charm stuff, solve problems,gather information, travel, whatever. If you can imagine doing it with magic,a Wizard can do it. Except healing. They can’t really do that.

For help selecting spells, see myWizard Spell List Breakdown.

Arcane Recovery: This provides a bit ofsustainability to the Wizard which was missing in previous editions. Wizardswere the biggest cause of the “five minute day”, in which the Wizard wouldburn their biggest spells in the first encounter, then would be essentiallyuseless unless the party immediately took a long rest. Arcane Recovery givesyou the ability to recover a bunch of spell slots, allowing you to continue atleast through the first short rest of each day without issue. While ArcaneRecovery can’t restore slots above 6th level and therefore diminishes inimportance at high levels, it’s still a crucial resource, allowing you torecover low-level spell slots which will remain a perpetual source of crucialdefensive and utility spells like Shield and Darkvision.

Arcane Tradition: Wizard subclasses are briefly summarizedbelow. See myWizard Subclasses Breakdownfor help selecting your subclass.

• Bladesinging: Masters of fighting with both weapons and with spells, bladesingers canperform a secret song and dance which makes them deadly in combat. Among themost caster-focused gish options.
• Chronurgy Magic: Manipulate the flow of time, allowing you to force rerolls, to stopcreatures, and even to temporarily suspend spells in a tiny bead and shareit with your allies. Chronurgists also gain access to the Dunamancy spelllist.
• Graviturgy Magic: Manipulate space and gravity to move your foes about on the battlefieldand crush them with powerful gravitational effects. Graviturgists also gainaccess to the Dunamancy spell list.
• Order of the Scribes: Awaken your spellbook, and master the central concepts of wizardly magic,allowing you to learn spells faster than other wizards and employ them innew and unusual ways.
• School of Abjuration: Masters of protective magic, Abjurers gain a powerful magical ward whichcan absorb damage dealt to you or your allies and recharges when you castabjuration spells.
• School of Conjuration: Masters of teleportation and summoning, conjurers can teleport withoutusing a spell and are better at using summoned creatures.
• School of Divination: Diviners gain the powerful Portent feature, allowing them to roll two tothree d20’s at the beginning of the day and use them to replace rolls, aswell as the ability to cast divination spells and incredible littlecost.
• School of Enchantment: Powerful and versatile spellcasters, enchanters gain abilities to charmand hypnotize foes, and to affect additional targets with single-targetenchantment spells.
• School of Evocation: Exceptional at dealing damage with spells, evokers deal more damage withcantrips than other spellcaster, and can make safe spaces in their areadamage spells to avoid harming allies.
• School of Illusion: Masters of illusion spells, illusionists gain abilities to manipulateillusion spells beyond their normal limits, including the ability to makethem partially real.
• School of Necromancy: Gain the ability to heal yourself when you kill other creatures, and tomore easily create and control undead, including powerful ones far morepowerful than spells alone would allow.
• School of Transmutation: Gain abilities to turn things into other things, like wood into metal,yourself into an animal, dead things into live things, and injured or sickthings into happy and healthy things.
• War Magic: Powerful combatants, war wizards gain abilities to defend themselvesagainst attacks and to boost their spell damage by countering or dispellingother spells.

Spell Mastery: Your first thought might beto pick up something to replace your cantrips as a go-to damage solution, butyour cantrips hit 4dx damage a level ago, which means they will outstripnearly all first and second spells in terms of single-target damage. Your bestbets for damage are Shatter (if you need a spammable AOE) and Scorching Ray,but even scorching ray only beats cantrips by an average of 3 damage. Instead,look for utility spells which are helpful to spam like Invisibility, MirrorImage, a save-or-suck spell like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, defensive optionslike Absorb Elements and Shield, and more strategically interesting optionslike Magic Missile for breaking enemy spellcasters’ Concentration.

Signature Spell: Cool, but not nearly asimportant as Spell Mastery. The free castings are nice, but the biggest drawis the two extra spells prepared per day, which improves your versatility evenat this level when you’re already able to prepare so many.

Optional Class Features

Introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Optional Class Features offer ways to add additional features or replace existing ones. These rules are optional, and you should not assume that your DM will allow these features without consulting them first.

Assessments and suggestions for specific Optional Class Features are presented here, but for more information on handling Optional Class Features in general, see my Practical Guide to Optional Class Features.

Additional Wizard Spells (Addition):Everything added by this optional feature makes sense on the Wizard’s spelllist, And surprisingly few of them are additions from existing sources. Mostof the new spells are published or re-published in Tasha’s Cauldron ofEverything.

I recommend allowing the expanded spell list on all wizards. The new spellsfill in gaps in the wizards capabilities which made it either mechanically orthematically unsatisfying to play certain wizard subclasses like School ofConjuration and School of Necromancy because spell options for thosesubclasses were so limited and often involved significantly disrupting thegame for everyone at the table.

Cantrip Formulas (Addition): The fact thatwizards have no way to replace their known cantrips has confused me since theearliest days of DnD 5e’s lifespan. They’re the one type of spell that thewizard can’t expand or replace, and I’m still not sure why. My one complaintwith this feature is that the Wizard doesn’t need to write the cantrips intotheir spellbook, which thematically feels very odd.

I recommend allowing Cantrip Versatility on all wizards. You can’t getanything which you couldn’t already have, so it doesn’t make your charactermore powerful. If you need a way to balance that, make the wizard writecantrips into their spellbook at half the cost of a 1st-level spell.

Wizard Ability Scores

Wizards are a single-ability class. All you need is Intelligence, andeverything else is supplemental.

Str: Dump stat. A Wizard should knowbetter.

Dex: A bit for AC is nice and Dexteritysaves are common, but that’s all you get unless you go for Bladesinging, inwhich case you will want a bunch for the weapon that you’re going to use. Youcan limp along at low levels using a crossbow in place of offensive cantrips,but you don’t need to strain yourself to get 16 Dexterity unless your race makes that easy. 14 will do fine.

Con: Hit points and Constitution saves areproblems for Wizards. A wizard with less than 14 Constitution is a choice togamble with your life.

Int: A Wizard’s first priority should be toget 20 Intelligence. Their second priority should be to find a way to exceed20 Intelligence, but there are very few ways to do that.

Wis: Good for Wisdom saves. You want a bitto protect yourself, but fortunately wizards are also proficient in Wisdomsaves.

Cha: Dump stat.

Wizard Races

Intelligence bonuses are crucial, and nothing else is strictly necessary.Things which add to your spellcasting capabilities like extra cantrips aregreat, and ways to increase your durability are like Dexterity or Constitutionincreases or natural armor can be really nice, but none of those areabsolutely necessary.

For help selecting a race, see ourWizard Races Breakdown.

For a classic wizard feel, consider the High Elf. For a nice durable wizard,the Mountain Dwarf and the Tortle will both improve your durabilityconsiderably. For a powerful build, consider the Fairy.

Wizard Skills

• Arcana (Int): Wizards are all aboutArcana, so it’s reasonable to assume that you know it.
• History (Int): Helpful, especially incampaigns which go into history frequently.
• Insight (Wis): You likely don’t haveenough Wisdom to be particularly good at this, but it can be helpful if yourparty’s Face doesn’t have it.
• Investigation (Int): Helpful, but likelybest left for the party’s Scout.
• Medicine (Wis): This skill is useless.Medicine is best done magically.
• Religion (Int): One of the more importantknowledge skills, and you are probably better with it than the Cleric.

Wizard Backgrounds

This section does not address every published background, as doing so would result in an ever-growing list of options which don’t cater to the class. Instead, this section will cover the options which I think work especially well for the class, or which might be tempting but poor choices. Racial feats are discussed in the Races section, above.

With the Wizard’s Intelligence, you want as many knowledge skills as you canget. There aren’t great tool options for most wizards and languages may not beuseful with poor Charisma and access to magical solutions to languagebarriers, but when all of the options are poor there’s a lot of flexibility topick something fun rather than something that’s definitely useful.

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

• Acolyte^PHB: Two skills from the Wizard skill list, and two languages. Not awful, butnothing that you really need to have and it doesn’t expand your options.
• Clan Crafter^SCAG: History is good, but Wizards typically don’t get a lot of use out ofInsight, and artificer’s tools aren’t terribly useful.
• Cloistered Scholar^SCAG: Two knowledge skills are great, and you get to pick one. The bonuslanguages might not be particularly helpful, since you can handle languagesmagically.
• Faction Agent^SCAG: Insight is okay, and the flexible skill choice is nice, but you can getthe languages magically.
• Hermit^PHB: Two skills from the Wizard skill list, one language, and proficiency withthe herbalist’s kit, which you can use to craft potions of healing.
• Sage^PHB: Two of the better skills from the Wizard skill list and two languages.The bonus languages might not be particularly helpful since you can handlelanguages magically.

Wizard Feats

Thissectiondoesnotaddresseverypublishedfeat,asdoingsowouldresultinanever-growinglistofoptionswhichdon’tcatertotheclass.Instead,thissectionwillcoverfeatswhichwethinkworkespeciallywellfortheclassorwhichmightbetemptingbutpoorchoices.

• Alert^PHB: The bonus to Initiative is tempting because spellcasters can do so muchto affect a fight if they go first, but nothing else is particularlyhelpful.
• Artificer Initiate^TCoE: The Artificer’s spell list overlaps considerably with the Wizard’s, butthe Artificer has some enticing 1st-level spell options like Faerie Fire andCure Wounds, and since the Artificer also uses Intelligence these spellswill work nicely with the rest of your spellcasting.
• Cartomancer^BoMT: The card spell effectively lets you choose one spell from your spell list (not from your prepared spells) and quicken it ahead of time. You do still need to spend a spell slot, so this isn’t any better than quickening a spell with Metamagic Adept, and you give up the ability to change which spell you quicken. This isn’t bad, it’s just not as good as Metamagic Adept for prepared spellcasters.
• Elemental Adept^PHB: Very tempting for Evokers, but specializing in one element is severelylimiting. If something is resistant to one element, use a different one.Changing 1’s to 2’s averages 1/6 damage per die if you’re rolling d6’s,which is as close to nothing as you will ever see.
• Fey Touched^TCoE: Misty Step once per day for free is nice, but not essential. The1st-level spells include few options that the Wizard can’t already cast, butBless or Heroism might be tempting. There’s nothing here that’s going tosignificantly improve your wizard, but if you’re at 19 Intelligence it’s atleast worth a look.

  For more advice on Fey Touched, see mySpellcasting Feats Breakdown.

• Gift of the Metallic Dragon^FToD: The ability to do some healing as a wizard is very tempting, but CureWounds isn’t a great option and Protective Wings forces you to be placeswhere you don’t want to be (near someone being attacked) if you want to makeit useful. If you only want to use it for yourself, just cast Shield.
• Gunner^TCoE: Bladesingers might consider this, but it’s not significantly better thanusing a longbow and since you’re using a cantrip in place of one of yourattacks (check the Bladesinger’s version of Extra Attack), you’re gettingvery little benefit from this.
• Keen Mind^PHB: A partial bonus to Intelligence, but the other bonuses are nearlyworthless. You could use this to do things like recall the appearance ofdocuments and use that recollection to create perfect illusory replicas, butthe situations in which you would use that are exceptionally rare.
• Lightly Armored^PHB: Mage Armor works fine. If you’re desperate for manufactured armor,multiclass into something that gets you better armor.
• Lucky^PHB: Amusing, but not particularly useful to Wizards since they don’tfrequently roll attacks or saves. This could be useful for Concentration,but I think it’s better to invest in avoiding damage rather than attemptingto suffer the damage and mitigate the effects. If you find that you’remaking more than three Constitution saves in a day, Resilient (Constitution)may be a better choice.
• Magic Initiate^PHB: A tempting way to get cantrips from other classes, but remember that youuse the spellcasting ability of that other class, and since your Wisdom andCharisma will be poor compared to your Intelligence, so will yourspellcasting. Stick to utility options or options which don’t care aboutyour spellcasting ability modifier if you insist on taking this.

  For more advice on Magic Initiate, see mySpellcasting Feats Breakdown.

• Metamagic Adept^TCoE: Excellent on any spellcaster. The Wizard has some great options forExtended Spell like Mage Armor and summon spells. Evokers will enjoyTransmuted Spell, and basically any wizard will enjoy options like QuickenedSpell and Twinned Spell. For advice on Metamagic Adept, see mySorcerer Metamagic Breakdown.
• Observant^PHB: A partial Intelligence bonus, and the passive Investigation bonus can beuseful.
• Resilient^PHB: Proficiency in Constitution saves really helps with Concentration, not tomention how common Consitution saves are. If you care primarily aboutConcentration it’s easy to compare this to War Caster. Advantage works outto a little more than +3, so once your Proficiency Bonus hits +4 Resilientbecomes the more effective option of the two. However, Concentration onlybecomes a factor if you’re taking damage. If you’re taking damage, you havemuch bigger problems than Concentration. Instead, boost yourIntelligence and use the extra prepared spell to pick up something that willkeep you from getting hit like Shield, Invisibility, Blink, or MirrorImage.
• Ritual Caster^PHB: Really only useful if yourparty needs access to Cleric rituals, and there aren’t enough that you’re likely to miss them.
• Shadow Touched^TCoE: Most of the spells are already available to the Wizard, and the two extraspells per day will have very little impact.

  For more advice on Shadow Touched, see mySpellcasting Feats Breakdown.

• Skilled^PHB: Proficiencies are great, especially since Wizards get few skills, but ifyou really need skills you should probably play a race that gives you extraskill proficiencies or start as a Rogue.
• Spell Sniper^PHB: The only spells that are viable for you to select are already on theWizard’s spell list. If making spell attacks is a problem, use somethingthat requires saving throws instead.

  For more advice on Spell Sniper, see mySpellcasting Feats Breakdown.

• Telekinetic^TCoE: While the Wizard does have options to use their Bonus Action, most ofthem involve spending spell slots, and even if you have a mountain of spellslots to burn your Bonus Action is still going to be idle on many turns. Inthose cases, Telekinetic adds a useful way to spend your Bonus Action tohave a tactical impact. Moving a creature 5 feet often isn’t a big deal, butit’s enough to break grapples and sometimes it’s enough to force enemiesinto hazardous places like the area of ongoing spells.
• Telepathic^TCoE: Unlike many sources of telepathy, including those offered by some races,this telepathy still uses languages, so the benefits are minimally appealingeven for a Face. You do get to increase a mental ability score, whichreduces the cost of the feat, but the benefits are primarily the ability tocommunicate while being stealthy.
• Tough^PHB: Cast False Life instead.
• War Caster^PHB: A really great feat, but generally best left to Artificers and EldritchKnights. Bladesingers can get a lot of use out of it while they’re in melee,but if you just want Advantage on Concentration checks I think Lucky orResilient are better options.

Wizard Weapons

• Dagger: Carry one or two for utilitypurposes at any level, but the damage isn’t good enough to make it betterthan shocking grasp. You can make opportunity attacks with a dagger, butthat’s not something you should be doing frequently.
• Light Crossbow: Until you hit level 5, alight crossbow can do more damage than firebolt. If you have at least 14Dexterity, a light crossbow is a better option than firebolt at low levelswhen you just need to do some damage (Crossbow DPR with 14 Dex roughly 3.9compared to 3.575 to Fire Bolt with 16 Int from levels 1 through 3, then3.575 for both at level 4).
• Quarterstaff: A great cosmetic item, buttotally useless in combat. Use Shocking Grasp or a Dagger instead.
• Rapier: The Bladesinger Wizard’s go-toweapon.
• Scimitar: Tempting for the Bladesingerif you want to explore Two-Weapon Fighting, but you can’t perform Somaticcomponents with a weapon in your hand so you can’t cast Shield if you’reusing two scimitars. You’ll need War Caster to overcome that limitation, andeven if you go that route remember that you’ll often want your Bonus Actionfor casting spells like Misty Step.

Wizard Armor

Cast Mage Armor and learn Shield. At low levels, that will be enough to keep you safe, but at high levels you may forgo mage armor because enemies’ attack bonuses will be so high that it may stop being helpful. You might keep shield around for times when it would deflect an incoming attack, but you’re better served by other spells like Blur, Blink, or Mirror Image, none of which care about attack bonuses.

Multiclassing

This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.

• Artificer: Starting with a level inartificer gets you a lot. Proficiency in medium armor, shields, andConstitution saving throws are really tempting, plus artificers get accessto some low-level spells which the Wizard doesn’t like Cure Wounds. TheArtificer’s multiclassing rules allow you to round up when determining spellslots (other spellcasting classes round down), so while you don’t learn spellsof new spell levels as quickly you still get the same spell slotprogression. It’s nothing that you absolutely need to have, but for 1 levelit’s pretty good. Bladesingers might consider 3 levels to get theBattlesmith’s Battle Ready feature, allowing them to use Intelligence forweapon attacks and damage.
• Cleric: A single level with the rightdomain can get you heavy armor proficiency, not to mention how many greatlow-level spells the Cleric has.
• Fighter: If you want Action Surge, twolevels of Fighter are tempting, but remember that you’re giving up an entirelevel of spells to get one to three extra spells per day (the game expectstwo short rests in a full day of adventuring). If you want to be a fighterthat blasts stuff, Bladesinger and Eldritch Knight exist for a reason. If you stillwant Action Surge, wait until you have 9th-level spells.

Wizard Magic Items

Common Magic Items

• Hat of Wizardry: Easy access to all of thoseweird, situational cantrips that aren’t worth learning permanently. A DC 10Arcana check is trivial for the Wizard; a typical wizard will get +5 to thecheck at level 1, and by level 9 passes the check on a natural 1.Unfortunately, this does require Attunement and you can only attempt to useit once per day, so you may abandon this in favor of other items later inyour career.
• Ruby of the War Mage^XGtE: Tempting for the Bladesinger, but the Bladesinger generally fights with aone-handed weapon so you have a hand free to cast spells. I would considerthis if you like two-weapon fighting as a bladesinger, but remember that youstill need a free hand to cast Absorb Elements and Shield and Ruby of theWar Mage won’t fix that.

Uncommon Magic Items

• Arcane Grimoire: +1 to spell attacks andsave DC’s. The improvement to Arcane Recovery isn’t huge, but it makes iteasier to recover higher-level spell slots. You don’t get to exceed the capof 6th level, but at low levels the ability to recover slightly morepowerful spell slots is a big improvement.
• Broom of Flying^DMG: Easily overlooked, but one of the best ways to get flight for anycharacter. It doesn’t require attunement, and has a fly speed of 50 feet,though many medium characters will exceed the 200 pound limit to reduce thespeed to 30 feet, but even then 30 feet fly speed with no duration cap andrequiring no action after speaking the command word is absolutelyincredible. The only drawback is that you’re using the item’s speed ratherthan giving yourself a fly speed, so things that improve your speed won’tmake the broom move faster, and you can’t Dash with the broom. Even so, Ihonestly can’t justify why this is only Uncommon considering howexceptionally good it is.
• Cloak of Protection^DMG: Good on any character, but it requires Attunement and it’s not veryinteresting.
• Eyes of Minute Seeing^DMG: Excellent in dungeon crawls. Investigation is typically used for findingthings like traps, and even if you’re not proficient you almost certainlyhave the highest Intelligence in the party.
• Goggles of Night^DMG: Crucial for races which don’t get Darkvision, especially if your partycan’t cast the Darkvision spell for you.
• Headband of Intellect: By the time you can getthis, you probably already have 18 Intelligence so there’s little benefit.Give it to the least-intelligent person in the party.
• Pearl of Power^DMG: Useful on any spellcaster.
• Slippers of Spider Climbing^DMG: The next-best thing to flight. Walking up a wall has all the benefits offlying out of reach.
• Stone of Good Luck^DMG: Excellent on literally any character, but if you just want better defensea Cloak of Protection may be more effective. Note that ability checksinclude Initiative rolls and checks to counter/dispel things.
• Wand of the War Mage^DMG: Helpful if you’re heavily reliant on cantrips like Fire Bolt, but anArcane Grimoire will be considerably more useful.
• Weapon, +1^DMG: Helpful for the Bladesinger.
• Winged Boots^DMG: Excellent on its own, but Winged Boots are more limited in use than abroom of flying, and they require Attunement.

Rare Magic Items

• Alchemical Compendium^TCoE: While the Alchemical Compendium doesn’t provide a bonus to your spellattacks and spell DC’s like the Arcane Grimoire, it’s still an amazing itemwith a ton of utility that may not be obvious at first. The first benefit ofthe item is the simplest, allowing you to draw on your growing collection ofspells in your spellbook on short notice, allowing you to use weird,situational transmutation spells that typically aren’t worth preparing likeAlter Self or Skywrite.

  The second benefit is considerably more complex, but it’s complex enoughthat it’s definitely worth exploring. The obvious use is to turn oneobject into another object, such as a weapon into a tool to get past anobstacle, or a block of gold into a diamond so that you can raise an allyfrom the dead. There doesn’t seem to be any limitation on the final sizeof the object or on special materials, so you can do weird things liketurning a gold bar into a stone boulder or a torch into a dead mouse (deadbodies are objects).

  Even better, you can use this to sabotage obstacles, such as by turningdoor hinges or locks into coins. In fact, spending a charge of the book toturn random objects into money (coins, gems, or bars of precious metalsall work) is a great idea because it removes a problematic object andgives you a small, value-dense object of a specific value which you canthen use later to recreate that object if necessary. Unfortunately youcan’t turn multiple objects into one object or one object into multipleobjects (no piles of coins), but if necessary you can just melt metaltogether to make it a single object.

• Amulet of Health^DMG: Setting your Constitution to 19 means that you don’t need to put AbilityScore Increases into it unless you’re really certain that you want 20Constitution. Less ASI’s into Constitution means more room for feats.Combining this with Resilient (Constitution) or War Caster can do a lot tomake Concentration easier.
• Arcane Grimoire: +2 to spell attacks andsave DC’s. See Arcane Grimoire under Uncommon Magic Items for more.
• Astromancy Archive^TCoE: The ability to trade prepared spells to access divination spellsas-needed means that you can easily access things like Identify and Tongueswithout needing to keep them prepared all the time. The second benefit isextremely powerful even at a maximum of three uses per day. Use it to buffyour allies saves against dangerous things like save-or-scuk effects or todebuff enemies who are attempting to resist your high-level spells.
• Atlas of Endless Horizons^TCoE: The ability to trade prepared spells to access conjuration spellsas-needed means that you can easily access things like Find Familiar andPlane Shift without needing to keep them prepared all the time. Manyconjuration spells are very situational and you may not need them whileactively adventuring, but might want them at the end of the day or when youdecide it’s time to teleport home. The teleportation effect is neat and canget you out of grapples, but the range is tiny so you may still want MistyStep prepared. You only need to hit by an attack to trigger it, so you couldpunch yourself (or have an ally do it) in order to forcibly trigger theteleportation.
• Barrier Tattoo (Rare)^TCoE: Way better than Mage Armor and you don’t need to raise your Dexteritypast 14 to still have good AC.
• Bracers of Defense^DMG: Get a Barrier Tattoo (Rare).
• Cloak of Displacement^DMG: Among the best defensive items in the game. Taking damage from any source(spells, etc.) suppresses the effect temporarily, so make a point to killanything that can damage you without an attack roll.
• Duplicitous Manuscript^TCoE: Among the school-specific focuses of this type, the DuplicitousManuscript is one of the least useful. While it shares the ability to changea prepared spell, you’ll rarely need to change which illusions you’veprepared within the space of a day unless you need to break out the reallyunusual options like Seeming and Hallucinatory Terrain. The second benefitallows you to impose Disadvantage when creatures try to break your illusions,but it’s one charge to affect one creature on one check or save, so it’sexpensive and not very effective. A +1 or +2 spellcasting focus will yieldmore consistent results and will work consistently across all of your spellsrather than only for the maximum of three times per day where you can usethe Duplicitous Manuscript.
• Elven Chain^DMG: One less AC than Barrier Tattoo (Rare), but it doesn’t requireattunement, so in a game with abundant magic items Elven Chain may be abetter choice.
• Fulminating Treatise^TCoE: Generally evocation enthusiasts are Blasters, and have a good mix ofspells that they prepare every day to fulfill their magical violence needs.But there are a few situational spells (Contingency, etc.) which you mayneed to cast once but don’t want to keep prepared when you walk into afight, so trading a spell can be very helpful. The secondary benefit adds asmall amount of damage against a single target and knocks them prone.Considering the book’s rarity, that’s a fairly minor benefit most of thetime. But remember that knocking a flying foe prone causes them to fallunless they can hover, and since the effect doesn’t allow a save you can addit to Magic Missile and knock flying foes out of the air unerringly. Imaginecasting Magic Missile at first level and causing an ancient dragon to falland take a mountain of falling damage.
• Heart Weaver’s Primer^TCoE: An absolute must for an enchantment enthusiast, the Heart Weaver’sPrimer’s second benefit is basically the same as Enhanced Spell. ImposingDisadvantage on even one save can negate a creature as a threat. Enchantmentspells include some of the best save-or-suck options in the game, and whilemany include additional saving throws (Hold Monster, etc.), many don’tunless specific conditions are met (Charm Monster, Hypnotic Pattern). TheDisadvantage only affects one creature per charge, but that’s still enoughto be massively impactful.
• Libram of Souls and Flesh^TCoE: If you’re working with undead you need to be able to handle them withoutthem murdering you for much longer than 30 minutes per day.
• Planecaller’s Codex^TCoE: Summon spells are fantastic, especially with the addition of the newspells in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The second benefit of this itemhas a very short duration which encourages you to wait to summon a pet untilyou actually plan to fight things (normally you can do it ahead of timethanks to the generous hour-long durations), but doing so is absolutelyworth the strain for the dramatic improvement in effectiveness.
• Protective Verses^TCoE: Abjuration includes a huge number of situational spells like Arcane Lock,so having access to them easily is a big advantage. The second benefitapplies a decent amount of temporary hit points, but I would reserve atleast 1 charge for trading prepared spells because it’s so easy to spendyour charges on the temporary hit points.
• Ring of Protection^DMG: Cloak of Protection is lower rarity and has the same effect.
• Ring of Resistance^DMG: A fine item in a vacuum, but a Ring of Spell Storing full of AbsorbElements will be much more effective.
• Ring of Spell Storing^DMG: Fill it with Absorb Elements and Shield, and recharge it wheneverpossible and this is a spectacular defensive asset.
• Sun Staff^BoMT: The attack and damage bonuses are totally useless for you, and the damage reroll isn’t useful enough to justify actively trying to get one of these. The best user for this is an Eldritch Knight with Polearm Master, but they can’t attune to this without multiclassing.
• Weapon, +2^DMG: Helpful for the Bladesinger.
• Wings of Flying^DMG: Broom of Flying is much better, lower rarity, and doesn’t requireattunement.

Very Rare Magic Items

• Absorbing Tattoo^TCoE: Good, but too high rarity to devote to a single damage type. Get a Ringof Spell Storing and fill it with Absorb Elements.
• Amulet of the Planes: Plane Shift for free, andsince it’s an Intelligence check you’ll be able to pass it without too muchtrouble. If you do fail, you can use it again the next round so long as youdon’t end up somewhere which would prevent you from doing so.
• Arcane Grimoire: +3 to spell attacks andsave DC’s. See Arcane Grimoire under Uncommon Magic Items for more.
• Barrier Tattoo (Very Rare)^TCoE: The fixed AC matches full plate, so you don’t need to worry aboutDexterity to boost your AC and you don’t even suffer Disadvantage onDexterity (Stealth) checks.
• Crystalline Chronicle^TCoE: By the time you’re high enough level to get this item, the 100gp capwon’t be especially helpful. You do get to pretend to know three additionalcantrips, which is nice, but at this level you really need this to bebetter.
• Deck of Oracles^BoMT: Basically Portent once per day, plus one free casting of Divination once per day. Excellent on literally any character.
• Manual of Bodily Health^DMG: Permanent Constitution bonus and raises your cap by 2. Unless you’reusing a magic item that fixes your Constitution as a specific score, this isexcellent.
• Rod of Hellish Flames^BoMT: The damage resistances are nice, but you’re here for the ability to maximize fire or necrotic damage once per day. Easily missed but very important: It’s not “the first damage roll” like most similar effects. You simply don’t roll damage. That means that this works with spells that do repeated or ongoing damage such as Dragon Breath, Fire Shield, Hex, Illusory Dragon, Scorching Ray, Spirit Shroud, and Wall of Fire. Yes, it’s only once per day, but you can get a ton of mileage out of that single use. Not all of those are on your spell list, but I really want you to understand the possibilities here.
• Spellguard Shield^DMG: Basically only useful against spellcasters, but if you’re facing aspellcaster there are few better defenses.
• Staff of Fire^DMG: Good go-to spells a few times per day.
• Staff of Ice^DMG: Decent spells, but knowing Fireball and Wall of Force makes the bestoptions on the staff obsolete.
• Staff of Power^DMG: A +2 quarterstaff, +2 to spell attacks (though not to spell DC’s for somereason, so you may want another focus), +2 to both AC and to saving throws,20 charges, and 9 spells which you can cast. This is powerful, versatile,and all around just an exceptionally powerful item.
• Tome of Clear Thought^DMG: Permanent Intelligence bonus and raises your cap by 2.
• Weapon, +3^DMG: Helpful for the Bladesinger.

Legendary Magic Items

• Cloak of Invisibility^DMG: Invisibility is extremely powerful in 5e. Note that this is just theinvisible condition, not the spell spell Invisibility, so you can stillattack or whatever while invisible. Unless you’re playing a Defender andactively trying to draw attacks away from your allies, this is absolutelyamazing.
• Ioun Stone (Mastery)^DMG: Proficiency Bonuses apply to a lot of things and a +1 bonus goes a longway. Attacks, saves, skills, etc. all benefit. However, most wizards relymostly on spells which require saving throws so it’s not as beneficial as itwould be for other characters. A Stone of Good Luck may be just asuseful.
• Orb of Skoraeus^GotG: Darkvision, see in magical darkness, a bonus to saves to maintainconcentration, and mitigate 300gp of material component costs per day. Thisfeels very tempting, but it’s just not good enough for this rarity. By thislevel, 300gp is a pittance, and you have access to magical options that makemagical darkness much less of a problem.
• Ring of Spell Turning^DMG: Given the choice, I would much rather have a Mantle of Spell Resistancesimply because the Ring of Spell Turning doesn’t provide any protectionagainst area effect spells. Otherwise, this is a really fun item, and if itprovided Advantage on saves against area of effect spells it would shootstraight up to blue.
• Ring of Three Wishes^DMG: Learn Wish and give this to someone in your party who can’t cast spellsso that they can use it to give everyone permanent damage resistance.

  For more help with Wish, see myPractical Guide to Wish.

• Robe of the Archmagi^DMG: Combine the benefits of a Very Rare spellcasting focus, a Barrier Tattoo(Rare), and a Mantle of Spell Resistance. Those are three absolutelyfantastic items, and combining them on one item is spectacular.
• Scarab of Protection^DMG: An upgrade from the Mantle of Spell Resistance, the Scarab of Protectionadds a limited benefit against necromancy and undead creatures, and doesn’ttake up your cloak slot, leaving you free to take items like a Cloak ofProtection or Cloak of Invisibility instead.
• Spindle of Fate^BoMT: The third bullet is why you’re here. Force a creature to auto-fail a save up to twice per day. Perfect for all those awesome save-or-suck spells rendered useless by targeting Con saves.
• Staff of the Magi^DMG: Mostly an upgrade from the Staff of Power, the Staff of the Magi is a +2quarterstaff and adds +2 to spell attacks (though not to spell DC’s for somereason, so you may want another focus), but loses the Staff of Power’s ACand saving throw bonuses, though you do get Advantage on saves againstspells. You get a massive pool of charges and 20 spells that you can cast, 6of which can be cast without spending charges. You can also absorb spellswhich other creatures cast, allowing you to turn those spells into chargesin the staff and recharge it faster than you could simply by waiting fordawn. This is a great way to recharge the staff before a long rest if youhave allies whose spell slots would otherwise go unspent. Strangely, thismechanic allows you to absorb cantrips, but since they’re 0-level spellsthey don’t charge the staff. It’s like drinking an empty glass of water.
• Tome of the Stilled Tongue^DMG: In addition to serving as a spellbook and a casting focus, this allowsyou to cast one spell without spending a spell slot. There’s no restrictionon the level of the spell, so in a practical sense you get to cast a9th-level spell once per day for free as a Bonus Action with nosomatic/verbal components. You don’t need to have the spell prepared,either, so you have access to everything in your spell book at a moment’snotice. Of course, realistically you’re going to cast Wish if you wantanything except a 9th-level spell, so the ability to cast any spell in yourspellbook only matters if you somehow find this below level 17.

Example Wizard Build – High Elf Wizard (Evoker)

Frankkóttir the High Elf School of Evocation Wizard

Evocation Wizard A slender figure sits hunched over a table in the corner,scribbling furiously into a thick tome, seemingly oblivious to yourpresence. The fluffy white cat curled up next to the book opens an eye tostudy you, before letting out an annoyed mewl. The figure jumps to theirfeet with surprise at the sound, much taller than you expected, theirdelicate high elven features at odds with their disheveled pale gold hair.From the state of their rumpled robes they seem to have been working forseveral hours, if not days, and had not been expecting interruption.

— Boxed text provided by dScryb^{(affiliate link)}

Thisisa“StapleBuild”.Thisbuildissimple,andreliesonoptionsfromtheSRDandtheBasicRuleswhereverpossible.Ifyouneedafunctionalbuildwithnothingfancyorcomplicated,thisisagreatplacetostart.

By wizard standards, the evoker is simple. Blow stuff up, long rest, repeat.The biggest impediment to evokers is needing to overcome enemy resistances tovarious types of damage from their spells, and that’s easy to overcome bydiversifying your spells.

For a more optimized example, see ourSchool of Evocation Wizard Handbook.

Abilities

We will assume the point buy abilities suggested above.

Race

High Elf. High Elf is a spectacular option for the Wizard. The ability scoreincreases line up nicely, and a free cantrip provides extra versatility at lowlevels where it is sorely needed. You also get proficiency with longbows, andwith 16 Dexterity and proficiency you’re just as good with a longbow as anyoneelse, and 1d8+3 damage will be more damage than a cantrip at low levels.

Skills and Tools

The Wizard’s skill list is almost exclusively dominated by Intelligence-basedskills, and that’s exactly what we want. Your party will look to you to knowthings about stuff, and you should meet that expectation as much as possible.You’ll get two more skills from your background, so try to find a backgroundthat lets you cover the knowledge skills which no one else in your party cancover. You also get Perception proficiency as a racial trait. Assuming thatyou take the Sage background as suggested below, I recommend that you takeInvestigation and Religion to start with the following proficiencies:

• Arcana
• History
• Investigation
• Perception
• Religion

Background

Acolyte and Sage both have things to offer. Sage is the go-to option for wizards, giving you two knowledge skills and two languages. Languages may not seem important with dumped Charisma, but it’s hard to read ancient tomes if you don’t know the language. Of course, you could cast Comprehend Languages as a ritual.

Acolyte gives you proficiency in Insight and Religion, both of which are onyour skill list, but Insight should usually be left to someone with higherWisdom if anyone else in the party has it. You also get two languages, butagain: Comprehend Languages as a ritual.

We’ll use Sage for this build.

Feats

Intelligence is the only ability score that wizards really need, so once you hit 20 Intelligence you might consider exploring feats. Magic Initiate can get you some powerful options from other class’s spell lists, and Elemental Adept can help you focus on your favorite element without worrying as much about damage resistances. If you’re not ready for complicated feats but still don’t see ability score increases as appealing, try something simple like Skilled.

Levels