casting Alarm as a ritual to activate Arcane Ward?

[odigity]

Just started playing a new char: Human Fighter 1, Wizard 2 (Abjurer)

I've got the Alarm spell in my book, which is both Abjuration and a Ritual spell. I'm planning on casting Alarm on my belt pouch every morning as a way to activate my Arcane Ward (Abjurer 2 class feature) without burning a spell slot. I assume there's no problem with this by RAW? Plus, free wallet protection for the first 8hrs of every day doesn't seem like a complete waste of 11 minutes.

As for recharging it:


The ward has hit points equal to twice your wizard level + your Intelligence modifier. Whenever you take damage, the ward takes the damage instead. If this damage reduces the ward to 0 hit points, you take any remaining damage.

While the ward has 0 hit points, it can’t absorb damage, but its magic remains. Whenever you cast an abjuration spell of 1st level or higher, the ward regains a number of hit points equal to twice the level of the spell.

I assume that the Ward is basically like a character, in that it has an HP max (2x Wiz lvl + Int mod), and can only be recharged up to that HP max? I can't recharge it with more HP than it started with, right?

So, I could cast Alarm as a ritual over and over to recharge it when it's at less than full for the time cost of 11m/2hp, which is slow. Are there any other Abjuration ritual spells, preferably of higher than level 1, which could be used to recharge the Ward faster?

[Mellack]

It all works as you said. There is a warlock combo out there that works even better. There is no other abjuration wizard rituals, so you are stuck at 2hp/11 minutes. That is hardly game-breaking.

[odigity]

It all works as you said. There is a warlock combo out there that works even better. There is no other abjuration wizard rituals, so you are stuck at 2hp/11 minutes. That is hardly game-breaking.

What's the combo?

[Mellack]

It requires multiclassing as a Warlock to get the Armor of Shadows invocation (mage armor) and casting that repeatedly for free.

[odigity]

It requires multiclassing as a Warlock to get the Armor of Shadows invocation (mage armor) and casting that repeatedly for free.

Ah, nice. Not willing to dip 2 lvls outside of Abjurer for this char, but I often do on other builds.

[Dalebert]

Just a heads up--don't play that character in one of my games because I would house-rule it has to be a wizard spell. Way too much cheese there.

On a side note, I'm glad to see they've made Mage Armor abjuration instead of conjuration, as it always should have been.

[Mellack]

Just a heads up--don't play that character in one of my games because I would house-rule it has to be a wizard spell. Way too much cheese there.

On a side note, I'm glad to see they've made Mage Armor abjuration instead of conjuration, as it always should have been.

I am not sure what you are referring to. Both Alarm and Mage Armor are wizard spells. The warlock invocation lets you cast Mage Armor without spending a spell slot or components.
You are of course free to rule what you want for your game, but I believe there is a dev post saying that the combo is working as intended.

Edit: found the tweet. https://twitter.com/archaeonaga/status/513153733522640898

[Dalebert]

I am not sure what you are referring to. Both Alarm and Mage Armor are wizard spells. The warlock invocation lets you cast Mage Armor without spending a spell slot or components.

They're on the wizard spell list, but if you use a warlock invocation to cast it, it's not a wizard spell. It's a warlock invocation. If you learned it as a wizard and used a warlock slot to cast it, then it would still be a wizard spell. What I take that to mean is by which class do you know the spell?

For comparison, consider a wild magic sorcerer. It specifies casting a sorcerer spell to trigger wild magic. It doesn't matter what lists the spell is on or what slot you're using. I've always taken that to mean any spell you cast via the spells known as a sorcerer. If you had dipped wizard and learned a spell that way, it's not a sorcerer spell unless you are also using one of your limited spells known slots as a sorcerer. Then you could choose which way you're casting it, either as a wizard or a sorcerer, which would affect which stat you use to cast it and whether it has a chance of triggering a surge.

Is that not the way to interpret it? If someone dips just one level of sorcerer and then learns a lot of spells as a mage that happen to be on the sorcerer spell list, do all of those, even high level ones, potentially trigger wild magic surges? That doesn't seem right to me but I'm open to correction on that.


You are of course free to rule what you want for your game, but I believe there is a dev post saying that the combo is working as intended.

Edit: found the tweet. https://twitter.com/archaeonaga/status/513153733522640898

There's no need. I already conceded it's RAW and that my case would be a house rule because it's major cheese. A 20th level abjurer would have a 50 41 point ward and easily be able to replenish it completely after every encounter at no cost of resources. The way that guy talks in the tweet, I'm not sure he's thought it through. He speaks as if the 2 pt per casting is some kind of limitation but it's a joke when you can cast it endlessly. But even if he has thought it through, it's obnoxiously cheesy. Having extra hit points for every encounter that scale up for your level and that stack with temporary hit points? The three levels of dipping it takes to get that have to beat whatever your last three levels would have been. Stack it with costless renewable warlock temporary hit points and it gets so cheesy, you could open a factory in Wisconsin.

EDITED due to later realizing my math was wrong. I was doubling stat-based points as well and forgetting that you need 2nd lvl warlock to get an invocation. Math was based on 1st.