Murder Mage!!!

[kbob]

So I have had an idea for a while now for a character concept. I made one in 3.5 and he was a “blast”! Until he died. Haha. I expect probably the same outcome for this char too but I don’t care. I just want to cause the most destruction as possible in the shortest amount of time.
The idea is very simple and very 2 dimensional: I want a mage that is optimized solely for destruction! High damage! Nuke the the heck out if everything and everyone! He has a short fuse and a big boom to go with it. My 3.5 version was a wizard. Obviously I’m not expecting anywhere near the devastation of a 3.5 wizard but I do want the best damage/destruction/death bringing mage that 5e can offer. So my question, where wizard was the obvious choice in 3.5 would it be the same for 5e or would a sorcerer with metamagic be more effective? What feats, spells, race (though i would assume HV would be ideal but I may be wrong), etc.? Thank yall!

[Man_Over_Game]

So I have had an idea for a while now for a character concept. I made one in 3.5 and he was a “blast”! Until he died. Haha. I expect probably the same outcome for this char too but I don’t care. I just want to cause the most destruction as possible in the shortest amount of time.
The idea is very simple and very 2 dimensional: I want a mage that is optimized solely for destruction! High damage! Nuke the the heck out if everything and everyone! He has a short fuse and a big boom to go with it. My 3.5 version was a wizard. Obviously I’m not expecting anywhere near the devastation of a 3.5 wizard but I do want the best damage/destruction/death bringing mage that 5e can offer. So my question, where wizard was the obvious choice in 3.5 would it be the same for 5e or would a sorcerer with metamagic be more effective? What feats, spells, race (though i would assume HV would be ideal but I may be wrong), etc.? Thank yall!

Sorcerers don't really add much destructive power with their Metamagics. You can increase the range, and you can double a single target spell, and you can shoot an extra cantrip in a turn, but they don't really do much with EXPLOSIONS. They're buffers, debuffers, and snipers, not very good pyromaniacs. Draconic deals a little more damage, but it doesn't really do much else beyond that for the concept.

What you're looking for is pretty straightforward: An Evocation Wizard. All of your features revolve around using Evocation (Energy, aka EXPLOSION) spells, and you'll be constantly rewarded for doing so.

For race, you actually want to avoid the Human Variant. Attributes are a lot more important than feats, as there are very few feats that will actually do anything to help you. Most of your spells don't use Concentration, so you don't need Resilience (Constitution). You don't use weapons, so you don't really need War Caster. Focusing on plain ol' stats, or non-combat utility (with things like Linguist) will get you more out of your game, IMO. Half-Orc, Gnome, Tiefling, High Elf all make good Evokers.

For spells, just grab anything that isn't redundant and is an Evocation spell. By redundant, I mean avoid grabbing Burning Hands and Fireball, as they both do similar things and target the same Saving Throw.

[nickl_2000]

I agree with MOG that Evocation Wizard is probably the best choice.

You can also look at Dragon Sorcerer, their level 6 elemental affinity could be focused on Fire and add some to the damage for spells to blow stuff up.

[Willie the Duck]

An Evoker is good for damage mostly in that you can drop your area effect spells on the front line, even though your side has already engaged the enemy -- I mean, you could do that without, but it probably would get this character killed just a little quicker than you expected (and by your supposed teammates). Otherwise, a red/gold draconic sorcerer is also a good choice.

[EdenIndustries]

What about Sorc 3/Evoker X to grab Empowered metamagic in addition to the Evoker goodies? I know Empowered isn't going to do a ton, but it will at least add onto the feel of making the big booms feel bigger.

[ImproperJustice]

Not to sound too sarcastic but yeah:

Except for increasing range, casting multiple spells in a turn and increasing the damage of their spells by 25-50% Sorcerers are terrible blasters.....

I mean, Evokers are good at blowing stuff up,
but give Sorcerers their due.
Meta Magic is a great aid to blasting stuff.
I know because I am running one.

Empower spell is excellent for turning all those sad 1s and 2s into something much better for the low low cost of 1sp, and you can do it without self injury.

[Willie the Duck]

Not to sound too sarcastic but yeah:

Except for increasing range, casting multiple spells in a turn and increasing the damage of their spells by 25-50% Sorcerers are terrible blasters.....


Literally the only person before you in the thread not to suggest sorcerer, made most of those points already, so it's not exactly clear who you're making the sarcastic comments to.

[LudicSavant]

What about Sorc 3/Evoker X to grab Empowered metamagic in addition to the Evoker goodies? I know Empowered isn't going to do a ton, but it will at least add onto the feel of making the big booms feel bigger.

You're honestly better off just going straight Evoker. A big part of what makes your booms bigger will be access to higher level tools on the Wizard spell list. Especially the action economy stuff like Contingency, Simulacrum, Freezing Sphere, and Crown of Stars.

[EdenIndustries]

You're honestly better off just going straight Evoker. A big part of what makes your booms bigger will be access to higher level tools on the Wizard spell list. Especially the action economy stuff like Contingency, Simulacrum, Freezing Sphere, and Crown of Stars.

Certainly quite true! Though depending on how the OP sees his character, pumping up his Fireball with Empower could be on-theme, even if unoptimized.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Sorcerers don't really add much destructive power with their Metamagics. You can increase the range, and you can double a single target spell, and you can shoot an extra cantrip in a turn, but they don't really do much with EXPLOSIONS. They're buffers, debuffers, and snipers, not very good pyromaniacs. Draconic deals a little more damage, but it doesn't really do much else beyond that for the concept.

What you're looking for is pretty straightforward: An Evocation Wizard. All of your features revolve around using Evocation (Energy, aka EXPLOSION) spells, and you'll be constantly rewarded for doing so.

For race, you actually want to avoid the Human Variant. Attributes are a lot more important than feats, as there are very few feats that will actually do anything to help you. Most of your spells don't use Concentration, so you don't need Resilience (Constitution). You don't use weapons, so you don't really need War Caster. Focusing on plain ol' stats, or non-combat utility (with things like Linguist) will get you more out of your game, IMO. Half-Orc, Gnome, Tiefling, High Elf all make good Evokers.

For spells, just grab anything that isn't redundant and is an Evocation spell. By redundant, I mean avoid grabbing Burning Hands and Fireball, as they both do similar things and target the same Saving Throw.

Burning hands uses a lower spell slot level.

[Man_Over_Game]

Burning hands uses a lower spell slot level.

But you could take Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb or Thunderwave. There might be a situation where you'll want to cast Thunderwave but not Fireball. There will not be many situations where you'll want to cast Burning Hands instead of Fireball.

[Wizard_Lizard]

But you could take Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb or Thunderwave. There might be a situation where you'll want to cast Thunderwave but not Fireball. There will not be many situations where you'll want to cast Burning Hands instead of Fireball.

ok. I concede.

[Damon_Tor]

One major benefit of the sorcerer compared to the wizard is their ability to melt down their level 1-4 spell slots and turn them into level 5 slots. Go big or go home.

Quicken isn't necessarily limited to cantrips by the bonus action spell rule. For example, you could use Quicken Spell to cast Sunbeam as a minor action and then immediately use your Action to trigger another beam, for 12d8 damage to creatures in a line in one turn using a 6th level spell slot.

It's worth noting that the fighter's second level ability "Action Surge" provides an action that can be used for any purpose, including casting spells. So using the above example, you could cast Sunbeam as a minor action, then create a beam two more times in a single turn for a total of 18d8 damage in a turn with just a level 6 spell slot. Or you could use it to cast two level 5 fireballs for 20d6 damage in an AoE, or focus two level 5 Scorching Rays on one guy to deal 24d6 damage to a single target. Plus you get extra hitpoints, medium armor and shield proficiency, and a +1 to AC fighting style. IMO, it's well worth the dip once you hit level 11 or so as a sorcerer.

Some others have noted concentration doesn't mean much to you if you're just blasting. This is true enough (remember examples like Sunbeam above though) which is why you should consider Create Bonfire. Often maligned, Bonfire is one of my favorite cantrips. You won't use it all the time, but when you can expect it to deal its damage even twice it's the best damage cantrip in the game. The fighter has a guy in a grapple? Bonfire! Enemy coming through a 5-foot chokepoint? Bonfire! Enemy really wants to hold a particular location for tactical reasons? Bonfire! The enemy can't move without triggering a nasty side effect of another allies' move=hurt ability? Bonfire! Sorcerers get a ton of cantrips, so the situations where bonfire makes sense make it well worth the opportunity cost.

Regardless of your class, Elemental Adept (Fire) is a great feat to have simply because so many of your best damage-dealing spells will be fire and so many creatures resist it.

[Kane0]

For a 3rd option: mix in some Storm Cleric. AFB but Channel Divinity maxxes lightning/thunder damage for maximum BOOM

[sophontteks]

Sorcerers don't really add much destructive power with their Metamagics. You can increase the range, and you can double a single target spell, and you can shoot an extra cantrip in a turn, but they don't really do much with EXPLOSIONS. They're buffers, debuffers, and snipers, not very good pyromaniacs. Draconic deals a little more damage, but it doesn't really do much else beyond that for the concept.

What you're looking for is pretty straightforward: An Evocation Wizard. All of your features revolve around using Evocation (Energy, aka EXPLOSION) spells, and you'll be constantly rewarded for doing so.

For race, you actually want to avoid the Human Variant. Attributes are a lot more important than feats, as there are very few feats that will actually do anything to help you. Most of your spells don't use Concentration, so you don't need Resilience (Constitution). You don't use weapons, so you don't really need War Caster. Focusing on plain ol' stats, or non-combat utility (with things like Linguist) will get you more out of your game, IMO. Half-Orc, Gnome, Tiefling, High Elf all make good Evokers.

For spells, just grab anything that isn't redundant and is an Evocation spell. By redundant, I mean avoid grabbing Burning Hands and Fireball, as they both do similar things and target the same Saving Throw.
If you do the math on empowered spell its actually one of the most potent damage buffs in the game for spells. Its the most powerful way to increae the effectiveness of explosions by a good margin. Empowered fireballs are terrifying.

[Ventruenox]

For a 3rd option: mix in some Storm Cleric. AFB but Channel Divinity maxxes lightning/thunder damage for maximum BOOM

One up you with the Zeal Cleric from Plane Shift: Amonkhet. It does that with fire/thunder damage and gets Fireball as a domain spell. Booming Blade on that class is also flat out unfair.

[Nhorianscum]

For raw blasting power?

Sorc.

SorcX/Hexblade 1 (eventually 2 but not till XL13) Is your best single target damage with stacking a ton of extra per-hit damage on SRay.

For area blasting Sorc7+/ Zeal or Tempest domain. Not much lives a maximised up cast fireball/Lbolt/chain lightning/Mswarm.

[Rukelnikov]

If you don't care for getting Meteor Swarm or any other spell after Fireball asap, and you wanna have an easy to use character, you can go Sor(Draconic)6/Evo2/SorX

Get Int 13 to qualify for MC and nothing else, take Quicken and Empower metamagics, and get the Elemental Adept feat of your subtype so you can ignore resistance.

If you basically want a Fireball Specialist, you can do Sor6/Evo2/Lock(Celestial)X

Take the same stuff as before, this build doesn't have high lvl spells, but the most number of Fireballs per day and adds Cha to damage an extra time against one target, also great single target at will damage.

On the other hand though, if you aren't fine with just Fireball, and would rather gain access to higher level spells ASAP, since if you are aiming for the biggest booms, Meteor Swarm really leaves little room for discussion, lets compare full Evoker vs full Dragon Sorc(fire subtype):



Evoker's allies (up to 1+spell lvl) automatically make their saves against your evocation spells and take no damage from "save for half" types (like fireball), for free, since lvl 2.
Sorc's can get Careful Spell, allies (up to Cha mod) automatically make their saves against your spells(normally meaning half-damage for fireball-like spells), 1 sp/cast, lvl 3 at the earliest.

Evoker's is clearly the better feature, hitting your party every round, even for half damage, will make your career last far shorter than not damaging them.




Evoker gets Int to damage of evocation spells at lvl 10
Dragon Sorc's get Cha to damage of subtype spells at lvl 6

Sorc's get the bonus earlier, and applying to onle one subtype of damage is not as much of a problem as it may seem, since most likely both casters will wanna get elemental adept to ignore resistance to one element. The only drawback this has, for this playstyle, is losing a bit of damage on Cone of Cold which is the next big hitter after fireball, having a amazing AoE, and dealing 1 more point of damage on average (this is contestable, since it targets Con instead of Dex, and higher CR enemies tend to have better Con saves than Dex saves)


Evokers, at lvl 14, get Overchannel, which is basically Maximize for spells of lvl 5 or less, but you take damage if you use more than 1/long rest
Sorc's can get Empower spell, but its not like 3e, it allows you to reroll up to Cha dices on a damage roll, its not a big avg damage increase, but you will likely avoid awful rolls, 1 sorcery point a cast

I don't think there's a clear winner here, Overchannel is the biggest damage increase normally, but you get it at lvl 14, and will likely be able to use it 6 times a day tops, which will mean 20d12 (130) damage to yourself, any more than that and your Cleric will likely stop healing you. On the other hand, while empower costs sorcery points to use, you can get it at lvl 3, and it is good to partially counter abysmal damage rolls.

Overall Sorc is better for specific consistent damage, Evoker is better for versatity and (from lvl 14) on demand damage spikes.




Wizards can recover half their level in slots level per day, up to 5th lvl, this means a 7th lvl Wizard can cast an additional Fireball a day.
Sorc's can melt their slots into sorcery points and then make slots of the levels they wanna cast, a 7th lvl sorcerer could consume all his starting sorcery points, 1st lvl and 2nd lvl slots for 3 additional Fireballs a day, ending up with 7 fireballs total (1 4th lvl one) and 2 sorcery points for some metamagic.

If go big or go home is the name of the game then Sorcerer is the clear winner here, but if the day goes on for too long you will likely run out of spells fast, depends a lot on how many encounters per day your group normally has.



Sorcs and Wiz while having very similar lists, have a few different relevant spells related to nuking:

Wizard's get Otiluke's Freezing Sphere (6th), which deals damage as a fireball of 1 level lower, but has 3 times the radius, 60 ft radius.
Sorc's get Firestorm (7th), which affeacts a large area you "draw" using ten 10 foot cubes, and deals an average damage as a fireball of 1 lvl lower, can't be upcasted.
Sorc's also get Earthquake (8th), which is hands down the best spell for destroying structures

IMO Otiluke's is far better than Firestorm, but if you like the idea of destroying Keeps and such, Earthquake brings something to the table even Meteor Swarm doesn't.



Sooner or later single target damage will be relevant:

Evoker's Magic Missile, from lvl 10 onwards, deals a pretty respectable amount of damage, with no attack roll or save involved, 25.5 avg damage from a lvl 1 slot is pretty good.
Evoker's get Bigby's Hand (5th), which is not a nuke or similar, but allows for added damage as a bonus action each round while concentration lasts.
Sorc's can get Heightened spell, which imposes disadvantage to one target of a spell you cast, costs 3 sorcery points per cast.
Sorc's can also get Quicken spell, which among the many uses it allows for, is increasing single target damage, adding an extra Firebolt per round is pretty nice, costs 2 sp/cast.


Quicken spell is awesome, and before lvl 9, it alone ensures better single target damage than the Evocator. After that, Bigby's and the improved Magic Missile make it so Sorc's will deal less damage, even if Quickening Disintegrates.



Wizard's get access to many spells that don't directly damage enemies but make you more versatile, mobile, or resilient like Phantom Steed, Resilient Sphere, Contingency, Simulacrum, Clone, and some other spells that can come really handy should you care to use them. Simulacrum in particular, can allow to make a copy of yourself to effectively cast 2 spells per turn, albeit it doesn't regain spell slots on rest and costs 1500 gp a cast, so no good for doubling slots in AL, but not a problem at all in normal gameplay by Tier 4.

Dragon Sorc's get wings, and thus, natural flight, which is awesome as it frees a an attunement slot or your concentration. They are also more directly resilient than Wizards thanks to the extra 1 hp/lvl and the resistance to one element they can get at lvl 6. Quicken Spell, also allows for extra damage each round, but is not compatible with Careful spell, so it may end up resulting in less damage if you target less enemies because of that.
[/LIST]


That's a "brief" explanation of some differences between the classes. I get the impression Sorcerer can get what you want faster, but Careful spell won't be as useful as Sculpt spell to go trigger happy.

[Kyutaru]

Sorry guys, but an Evocation specialist will only ever be second place in explosiomancy.

Transmutation specialists using True Polymorph can turn themselves or someone else into a creature-sized block of TNT.

[Willie the Duck]

Sorry guys, but an Evocation specialist will only ever be second place in explosiomancy.

Transmutation specialists using True Polymorph can turn themselves or someone else into a creature-sized block of TNT.

I remember a Looney Toons like that -- "what a great trick!" "Yeah, only problem is, I can only do it once."

[Sigreid]

Sorry guys, but an Evocation specialist will only ever be second place in explosiomancy.

Transmutation specialists using True Polymorph can turn themselves or someone else into a creature-sized block of TNT.

Provided there is such a thing in the campaign and you know what it is.

Edit: And Evokers can take true polymorph too and then you of course set it off with a fireball.

[Mercurias]

Mechanically, you could honestly go with either a Draconic Sorcerer or an Evocation Wizard and has a grand old time either way. From a roleplay standpoint, I would probably play a Draconic Sorcerer and not invest much into Wisdom. Living solely to make things explode doesn’t seem very wise, no matter how flipping fun it can me. A Zeal Cleric might work with high Wis if you’re the follower of a war or chaos god, though.