Does anyone else struggle with wizard spell selection?

[Jmarsh56]

I know there are more spells out there, but with XGtE out now there are a lot of really badass necromancy spells. As someone who likes to at least TRY to keep my spell selection and character customization within the wheelhouse of what my character would actually use I find it hard to justify picking up say Danse Macabre or Soul Cage and other spells like that for any other archetype outside of necromancer.

Is it just me? Can anyone help to justify it for me because I would like to give myself access to those spells but without feeling like I've "cheated" on myself.

[hymer]

What sort of justification do you want? I mean, other than that your character decided to work towards those spells because s/he wanted them?

Add a morbid streak to your character's personality. Maybe you wanted to be a necromancer, but there was no way to major in that at your goody-two-shoe wizard college.
Maybe your character has done meticulous calcultions, and has an experiment in mind that requires that specific spell to be cast. So you take it even if it is a little distasteful.
Perhaps you came across some early notes on several necromancy spells, and you just decided to work on those because it was easier than starting from scratch.
They came to you in a dream. You don't know why, but the spells wouldn't let you alone until you developed them.

[DarkKnightJin]

It could be the dark side of your Wizard manifesting when you cast them for the first time.

My Death Cleric is generally a nice guy.
Didn't stop him from going full Dark Side when he cast Vampiric Touch for the first time.

Sure, the DM knew about some secret of my Cleric's past that would have him embracing that 'evil' power. Doesn't mean I had any less fun playing it out the way I did.
Suffice it to say that the Warlock got a good idea of what it might've been like to see my Cleric on the battlefield during his Soldier-ing days.

[Unoriginal]

Would it feel out of place to you if a Necromancer learned Fireball?

If no, why would an Evoker learning a necromancy spell be weird?

[Sigreid]

Understanding of magic is the prime desire for my wizards. The current one specializes in the blow stuff up kind of magic bit he still wants to understand all of it.

[Laserlight]

When you went to grad school, your thesis adviser "suggested" that you study spells from that school.

You need to know them so you can Dispel/Counterspell them. (Yes, "Learn Counterspell" is on my list of things to do. Stop nagging me every six months about it. I'll get to it.)

They were right there in the book, Chapter Four. What, you think I would just skip ahead to Chapter Five "Summoning Fluffy Bunnies" without working through Ch4?

[Mr.Spastic]

I think the easiest way to allow it is to have your wizard be completely utilitarian. I have a wizard who is a good character but has summon demons. He knows that it is evil but also recognizes that it is really powerful. He only uses it when it doesn't but innocents in danger. Sure he might get shunned because of it. But he does it for the greater good.

Another way to go for some necromancy spells to be go for a more puppetmaster type vibe. You give false life to all objects, including corpses. You could run spells like catapult, hold person(you control them too), eventually animate objects, and telekinesis.

[Mr.Spastic]

You could increase the puppet master theme by going for the enchantment school and getting spells like dominate person. You are the ultimate controller of the environment. I'd also recommend cantrips like mold earth, mage hand, maybe infestation to attack. You start off only being able to control small things like bees then grow to be able to control people. Then you could justify spells like raise zombie and danse macabre.

[Toadkiller]

I will generally set my general direction when I make the character - will do this, but not that. Then as the campaign progresses level up opportunities are the time to see if those guard rails have shifted.

My wizards, in particular start (in my head anyway) with a pretty good idea of what magic can and can’t do. So they would likely *know* such spells were possible in general. Any number of events in the campaign might drive them to actuallly learn to use them, despite misgivings in some cases.