What combos can two Wizards perform?

[jaappleton]

So my group now have two Wizards. We are currently 8th level, and next session we could hit level 9. So we'll have 5th level spells in short order.

Divination & Evocation

What shenanigans can we get into?

For example: Can Evo cast Sickening Radiance and Div traps enemies in it with Wall of Force's hemispherical dome, roasting them like a pizza oven?

[NNescio]

So my group now have two Wizards. We are currently 8th level, and next session we could hit level 9. So we'll have 5th level spells in short order.

Divination & Evocation

What shenanigans can we get into?

For example: Can Evo cast Sickening Radiance and Div traps enemies in it with Wall of Force's hemispherical dome, roasting them like a pizza oven?

Yes.

Be careful of burrowing enemies though, since they can tunnel under the hemisphere. You can choose the sphere option instead to obviate this risk, though it covers less 'area' on the 'ground' 2D plane if you do so (but remember, you can force enemies inside the sphere if they happen to overlap with the surface area).

(Also your DM is going to hate you if he hates 3D geometry.)

If there's another friendly caster around, you can also counter most teleportation attempts by dropping something that blocks LoS like Fog Cloud. Most teleport abilities rely on LoS ("a place you see"), with DDoor being a significant exception.

[jaappleton]

Yes.

Be careful of burrowing enemies though, since they can tunnel under the hemisphere. You can choose the sphere option instead to obviate this risk, though it covers less 'area' on the 'ground' 2D plane if you do so (but remember, you can force enemies inside the sphere if they happen to overlap with the surface area).

(Also your DM is going to hate you if he hates 3D geometry.)

If there's another friendly caster around, you can also counter most teleportation attempts by dropping something that blocks LoS like Fog Cloud. Most teleport abilities rely on LoS ("a place you see"), with DDoor being a significant exception.


Does casting Dimension Door, with Door A being on the ground next to me and Door B being 400ft in the air, allow for a charmed enemy to walk through and fall?

Also, does a Wizard casting animate objects next to a War Cleric let a bunch of animated daggers benefit from Crusader's Mantle?

[Justin Sane]

Does casting Dimension Door, with Door A being on the ground next to me and Door B being 400ft in the air, allow for a charmed enemy to walk through and fall?No - Dimension Door is an instant teleport, it doesn't actually create portals (despite the name).
Also, does a Wizard casting animate objects next to a War Cleric let a bunch of animated daggers benefit from Crusader's Mantle?Yes.

[NNescio]

Does casting Dimension Door, with Door A being on the ground next to me and Door B being 400ft in the air, allow for a charmed enemy to walk through and fall?

DDoor doesn't work that way, despite the name of the spell. It's just a (medium-range) teleport effect that allows the caster to also bring along one willing creature. There are no portals hanging around, unlike Arcane Gate.

You might be able to convince a Charmed enemy to travel along with you, but this is dicey in combat, especially within such a short timeframe. You'll also fall along with the enemy, since you have to teleport too (you are bringing along another creature).



Also, does a Wizard casting animate objects next to a War Cleric let a bunch of animated daggers benefit from Crusader's Mantle?

Yes.

Crusader's Mantle affects (nonhostile) creatures. Animated objects (via the Animate Objects spells) are explicitly creatures during the duration of Animate Objects. Ergo they benefit from Crusader's Mantle.

(Provided the animated objects are nonhostile to the War Cleric, but I'm assuming it's implied that both the Wiz and Cleric are allies.)

[Nagog]

For comboing these two specifically, I'd rely pretty heavily on the Diviner's Portent ability to combine with Overchannel from Evoker. Single Target of a Fireball guaranteed to take 48 fire damage, or if you use a higher slot, 60 fire damage. Overchannel caps out at level 5 spells, so this still leaves much of the higher-level spells and all of the Diviner's spells available for other combos.

[Bobthewizard]

Portent autofail Levitate is an automatic win against a creature with no ranged attack. Add silence from the other caster and you've shut down an enemy caster with no chance to escape.

Web and Evards tentacles means they can only try to escape from one with their action so will likely be stuck for quite a while.

If your DM lets you polymorph someone into a blue whale, sickening radiance will kill them before they drop to zero HP and revert. If you have to use a killer whale, you could use a couple of healing spells to keep them from dropping to zero HP so the exhaustion can kill them (6 failed saves equals about 132 HP of damage on average). You want something with a land speed of zero and lots of HP.

Hypnotic pattern and fear is a fun combo against swarms of intelligent enemies. Assuming half fail their saves for each spell, you would have half incapacitated and 1/4 run away. If the remaining 1/4 try to shake someone out of the hypnotic pattern the target has a 50/50 chance of running away because they also failed their save against fear.

Fireball then hypnotic pattern is better, but if you need to, you can sculpt a fireball or wall of fire around those that failed against the hypnotic pattern so you don't shake them out.

While it's normally not as good of a spell, one of you might want to take confusion since many undead are immune to charm or fright.

Double animate objects is just great bonus action damage. Although you can't sculpt other spells around animated objects.

Just being able to use spells like polymorph, banishment or wall of force more times per day is helpful, even without specific combos. I've never been able to play a campaign with two wizards so I'm a little jealous. Have a great time.

[jaappleton]

Going back to Dimension Door:

Ok, if an ally casts Suggestion on an enemy, telling them to hold on to me for 6 seconds, and then I cast it.... Yeah I'd need to deal with falling (cast Fly, Feather Fall, etc), does that work?

[No brains]

Wombo Combos, no Falco required.

Don't forget the old chestnut of Hold Person and anything requiring an attack roll, strength or dexterity save.

[Trickery]

One wizard casts Reduce on something to cut its weight by 7/8ths, the other Catapults said object, and the first cancels concentration on Reduce just as the object hits its target.

Not technically RAW, but a lot of fun potential.

[NNescio]

Going back to Dimension Door:

Ok, if an ally casts Suggestion on an enemy, telling them to hold on to me for 6 seconds, and then I cast it.... Yeah I'd need to deal with falling (cast Fly, Feather Fall, etc), does that work?

Not if you're just asking them to hold onto you. You can't DDoor away something like, say, a grappling enemy even if it's holding onto you. It has to be willing.

Now, if the Suggestion were phrased to, say, "Let yourself be teleported away", then it might work, if the DM finds it reasonable (for the NPC). I wouldn't though (in this case), since letting yourself be teleported (or affected by any spell) by an enemy in the middle of combat just sounds suicidal.

I might allow it though, if the Suggested target is under Charmed Person (or a similar effect that effectively makes the target consider the caster its friend. not just the Charmed condition) with respect to the DDoor caster, or is a known acquaintance who is reluctant to fight the party. "Let yourself be teleported away from this fight with your friend, so you both won't kill each other (and each other's friends)" can sound reasonable, depending on the NPC's disposition. But yeah, it's still risky since it depends a lot on "DM may I" (and also impractical as it involves three spells).

[Trickery]

Slow + Sleet Storm is pretty nasty.

[LudicSavant]

Slow + Sleet Storm is pretty nasty.

I am rather fond of Sleet Storm + blasting AoEs in general. Have trivialized many a Deadly encounter that way.

Knockbacks/pulls and "enters" spells can combo very well, too. Can actually rack up quite a lot of damage with just cantrips that way.


Portent autofail Levitate is an automatic win against a creature with no ranged attack. Add silence from the other caster and you've shut down an enemy caster with no chance to escape. Silence is a Bard / Cleric / Ranger spell.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Not if you're just asking them to hold onto you. You can't DDoor away something like, say, a grappling enemy even if it's holding onto you. It has to be willing.

Now, if the Suggestion were phrased to, say, "Let yourself be teleported away", then it might work, if the DM finds it reasonable (for the NPC).

I'm pretty sure that the suggestion is at advantage, if the teleporting wizard is named Calgon....:smallsmile:

[Dalebert]

DDoor doesn't work that way, despite the name of the spell. It's just a (medium-range) teleport effect that allows the caster to also bring along one willing creature. There are no portals hanging around, unlike Arcane Gate.


On that note, have you considered similar shenanigans with Arcane Gate?

[NNescio]

On that note, have you considered similar shenanigans with Arcane Gate?

The Arcane Gate portals only hover a few inches above ground and have to be perpendicular (to the plane of the ground), so you need a cliff within 500 ft or some kind of similar steep terrain/structure to use the spell that way. You would probably also need to manually shove the target through the Gate. (more easily doable if there's a Warlock with Repelling Blast.)

I guess WotC didn't want people exploiting it for infinite(-ish) momentum shenanigans or perpetual motion engines.

--

That aside there are lot of shenanigans you can do with the spell. The most obvious, intended use is to act as a medium-range mass teleportation effect, letting you quickly transport the party into a room you have scouted out with Arcane Eye or some similar remote sensing spell (or a familiar, but that's riskier) while still retaining a means of egress.

Related is to extend spell and attack ranges by ~500 ft. This can be very effectively used for hit-and-run attacks, especially against 'dumb brute' monsters like the Tarrasque.

Both the above methods can be even be more effective when combined with some method of creating cover (or an adjacent wall that you can rotate the ring towards to block the exit), to deny access to enemies.

You can also quickly drain areas of water and then dump the water someplace inconvenient (for your enemies).

Arguably the most powerful use is to exploit the unidirectional visibility/portal effect for what basically amounts to invincible one-way total cover. Jam two portals in a tight 10-ft corridor, right in front of you, with both portal sides facing the enemies (alternatively you can also divide a 20-ft room/corridor by placing both portals side-by-side). You and your party can see through the portals and shoot/cast through them. The enemies instead see opaque misty gates, and if they enter one portal, they just exit out the other (in the space between the portals for the airlock option), all the while remaining visible and targetable to your party while they can't do anything.

(Technically speaking the portals are circular though, so there are some angles where you might be partially visible and thus get downgraded to 3/4 cover instead of total. So you might want to angle the portals diagonally or overlap them to maximize their coverage, instead of going with a simple airlock or double doors. Stoneshape can also help plug gaps if there are surrounding stone to work with, and Mold Earth may sort of work if you [or the Fighter or some other STR martial] have a habit of carrying dirt around with you.)

Also, with an allied Wizard, you can even use the Arcane Gate airlock trick even in open spaces. Create a fortification (via Wall of Stone, for example, which can make rounded walls with circular gaps) with an opening that is just the right size to fit the AG airlock (or make it a lemniscate wedge/corner to reflect projectiles). Plop your airlock (wedge) and enjoy your one-way cover; it's like Leomund's Tiny Hut but castable in two actions (assuming two casters) instead of one full minute. Just rotate the inner gate (towards your side) if you need to get out without ending the spell.

Note that even when not abused this way to its fullest potential, the AG portals can also be used as makeshift cover when you're using it for short-range Scry-n'-Die or hit-and-run tactics.