How would you build an all Wizard party?

[Wasp]

Hi everyone!

I am wondering - how would you build a 4 player party that is all wizards? Maybe in two variants

a) 4 pure wizards, all of different races, backgrounds and specializations
b) 4 wizards that can dip into other classes (they could also start in another class) but they would still need to be able to cast 9th level wizard spells at 20th level (so at max a 3 level dip if I am not mistaken)

How would you cover skills and try to overcome the risk from sharing similar weaknesses?

Point Buy, all materials allowed, in general viable throughout their career

What do you think?

[nickl_2000]

If you are allowed multiclassing

EK 3/Bladesinger Wizard 17 - Primary Tank, your AC will be off the charts
AT 3/Illusionist Wizard 17 - Illusionist/Sneaky/Skill Monky
Nature Cleric 1/Transmutation 19 - Healer/Backup Tank/Buff Wizard
Evocation Wizard 20 - Make things go boom.

Use Mountain Dwarfs for the melee wizards to shore up HP issues and you have lots of magic to help with other things.

[Sexyshoeless]

So the main challenge with an all wizard party is filling those vital roles of tank and healing.
Fortunately, as the strongest class in the game, wizards can handle this some what.

For a group such as this as you are still dealing with d6 hit die across the board, you want to as a party emphasize stealth, social/diplomacy based solutions, and first round alpha striking as much as possible. Early game abilities are also important as at high levels a group of wizards should be able to lock out the battle field well.

With those needs in mind, we can jump into who we want to fill this roster.

1. Bladesinger High elf - with the dex focus, this can be your "rogue" with the criminal or urchin background
2. Abjurer hobgoblin or dwarf - with arcane ward you can rival a fighter for effective hit points and with moderately armored you'll be able to achieve a decent AC.

These two act as your emergency front line - able to dive in and take on enemy squishies in a pinch and act as the wall between the enemy at the other two.

3. Diviner Wizard - Judicious use of portent to force through not only vital battlefield control, but also ability checks such as persuade, perception, or stealth to avoid getting all of your squishy wizard faces chewed off. Not necessary but bonus points if you go halfling and get bountiful luck for extra rerolls.

4. War wizard -Use that bonus to initiative to get off the crucial wall or other battlefield control spell to keep your wimpy compatriots alive and with enough time to get off a spell. War wizard also is slightly harder to kill given arcane deflection. If you're not the biggest fan of the war wizard or cannot use Xanathar's, any other wizard will work well. I like enchanters for the extra battlefield control double enchantment gives you.

Vital feats/characteristics for someone in the party to pick up:

Healer (for emergencies and out of combat healing only). You do not want to be relying on life transference for emergency heals. Magic initiate for a healing spell is another option (can you cast this with wizard slots?)

Someone has to build with a higher Cha (I recommend your diviner or war wizard, as the two front liners will need stats for tank stats and feats) and with Cha skills such as with the guild artisan background. GUild artisan would also give you herbalist proficiency so you can craft potions for the group.

Feats such as alert will also work well for your purposes. One character (I recommend war wizard) should pump wisdom and get perception proficiency to really prevent getting surprised as surprise is probably method #1 to kill this party. Between 4 familiars and this guy you should be rarely getting jumped on.

Stealth proficiency on as many as you can get is also good, as this is again a party who prefers to scout/scry out their enemies, get in a solid alpha strike before the melee begins.

[Phoenix042]

As a challenge, I once submitted a party of four characters who were all identical race, class, and subclass choices. I chose variant human (obviously), and, to mix it up a little, battlemaster fighter just to see if I could cover all essential party roles.

I had a pretty effective group by the end, able to shell out some pretty insane focused damage, with some really good synergy between different feat and maneuver selections.

A similar approach can be tried with Wizard, but here, the versatility of racial features, feats, spell selection on the wizard list, and subclass make this challenge trivial.

How would you build an all wizard party?

Effortlessly.

[RickAllison]

The main difficulty in handling an all-wizard party won't be in setting them up to be versatile and powerful, it's playing Batman and figuring out how you can leverage your combined powers to do insane stuff. When you have four full casters with the most diverse spell set in the game, there is going to likely be development of combo attacks now that your concentration ability is going to be quite diverse. A straight fight is going to be a bit more difficult, but it's hard to argue with a Wall of Force with a recurring AoE inside. Or Tenser's Transformation with tons of buffs.

Tank: There are three potential people here, Abjuration, Bladesinger, or War Magic. War Magic is a bit finicky for it, and Bladesinger is still squishy, so Abjuration I think is still king here, especially a svirnefblin.

Damage: This ebbs and flows. Bladesinger can pull this well at higher levels, so can a conjuration or necromancer with minions. In particular, demon summoning could be great for this. In a favorite battle of mine, a wizard used an Eversmoking Bottle and a flying broom to get into the air just over 30 feet and cover an area in smoke, then summoned a Barlgura on the ground. Let the thing with blindsight 30 ft run around killing all the enemies with advantage on all attacks and disadvantage to hit it, all while the wizard just lazed around. If it was running out of enemies to kill, the wizard just made some noise to attract it toward another group.

Utility: Not even going to justify this with a response. If four wizards can't find a way to overcome an obstacle, ya'll deserve to have your magic licenses revoked.

Control: Same as Utility, but Divination is highly favored here. Enchantment is another option, since the entrancing gaze thing can hold someone down while the rest of the party deals with the other enemies, then they can plan a full assault on the entranced target.

[Fable Wright]

Low level damage: up to 4x Dragon's Breath familiars, or 4x Sleep.

Mid level damage: Sickening Radiance and Wall of Stone/Force. Or Barlgura in Fog Cloud.

High level damage: as above, but everyone has a Simulacrum, Clones, possibly True Polymorph, Magic Jar, and more. I hear the Nuclear Wizard is fun.

[RickAllison]

Low level damage: up to 4x Dragon's Breath familiars, or 4x Sleep.

Mid level damage: Sickening Radiance and Wall of Stone/Force. Or Barlgura in Fog Cloud.

High level damage: as above, but everyone has a Simulacrum, Clones, possibly True Polymorph, Magic Jar, and more. I hear the Nuclear Wizard is fun.

Don't forget the glorious level 7, where the wizards can take turns being dinosaurs and just eating everyone in sight.

[Blood of Gaea]

Two Abjuration and two Necromancy Wizards. The Wards can be spread around the group, and two necromancers make for plenty of minions to take hits and put out attacks.

I would probably make all of them Hobgoblins, and take Moderately Armored at 4th level.

[moonfly7]

1 blade dancer warforged for tanking, he'd be the party melee.
I'd make a dwarf (the one subrace with extra HP) with dwarven fortitude, and resilient. Then, try to find or make a periapt of wound closure. Your dodge actions heal you for a fair chunk of health, and maybe take tough for more. Dump into health a lot, and main concentration spells so you can save your action for dodge heals.(melphs meteor here would really be good)
Necromancer wizard dark gnome, get this man (or woman) a bag of holding. Keep skeelies who aren't turned in bag, turn them whenever for some instant back up. Or just drop them on people climbing ladders and waste no slots on control. Get rope trick, pull up rope, pour skellies down and wait for enemy to die. Turn the survivors.
And lastly, an evocasionist, so if needed, you can drop fireballs centered on the team and keep walking. Stick close and you can wade through enemies.

[EdenIndustries]

Damage: This ebbs and flows. Bladesinger can pull this well at higher levels, so can a conjuration or necromancer with minions. In particular, demon summoning could be great for this. In a favorite battle of mine, a wizard used an Eversmoking Bottle and a flying broom to get into the air just over 30 feet and cover an area in smoke, then summoned a Barlgura on the ground. Let the thing with blindsight 30 ft run around killing all the enemies with advantage on all attacks and disadvantage to hit it, all while the wizard just lazed around. If it was running out of enemies to kill, the wizard just made some noise to attract it toward another group.


Why summon a Barlgura when you can cast Animate Objects? Granted, Animate Objects is a level 5 spell vs Summon Greater Demon which is a level 4 spell. But beyond those two levels in which you only have level 4 spells and not level 5, Animate Objects is far superior, no? 10 Tiny objects have a +8 to hit, vs the Barlgura's +7, and will do on average 65 damage per round vs 29 from Barlgura. And the objects have Blindsight too. And while the Barlgura could stick around for 1 hour, the fact that it can break free of your control seems like it'd end its control even before the 1 minute duration of Animate Objects. Am I missing something or does Animate Objects seem much better?

[RickAllison]

Why summon a Barlgura when you can cast Animate Objects? Granted, Animate Objects is a level 5 spell vs Summon Greater Demon which is a level 4 spell. But beyond those two levels in which you only have level 4 spells and not level 5, Animate Objects is far superior, no? 10 Tiny objects have a +8 to hit, vs the Barlgura's +7, and will do on average 65 damage per round vs 29 from Barlgura. And the objects have Blindsight too. And while the Barlgura could stick around for 1 hour, the fact that it can break free of your control seems like it'd end its control even before the 1 minute duration of Animate Objects. Am I missing something or does Animate Objects seem much better?

Because the Barlgura lasts me an hour and there was a lot of ground to cover. I never actually tried to exert control of the demon, I just let it do its thing and found it things to kill while staying out of reach. Sometimes it's best to just let the demon who "represents the savagery and brutality of the Abyss" do its own thing and stay out of the way. Remember this part of the text:


On a successful save, your control of the demon ends for the rest of the duration, and the demon spends its turns pursuing and attacking the nearest non-demons to the best of its ability.

Sooooo yeah. The Barlgura was no threat to me, but it spent the hour trying to kill my enemies because I would lead it to more non-demons to kill. Some might say that letting a demon run loose on a massacre for an hour is irresponsible. To that, I say that this is the same character who massacred thousands of orcs who were our allies three minutes before, just to try out a spell combo.

[EdenIndustries]

Because the Barlgura lasts me an hour and there was a lot of ground to cover. I never actually tried to exert control of the demon, I just let it do its thing and found it things to kill while staying out of reach. Sometimes it's best to just let the demon who "represents the savagery and brutality of the Abyss" do its own thing and stay out of the way. Remember this part of the text:



Sooooo yeah. The Barlgura was no threat to me, but it spent the hour trying to kill my enemies because I would lead it to more non-demons to kill. Some might say that letting a demon run loose on a massacre for an hour is irresponsible. To that, I say that this is the same character who massacred thousands of orcs who were our allies three minutes before, just to try out a spell combo.

Heh, fair enough...seems like managing to direct it between encounters would stretch the bounds of what I'd expect (as opposed to just going off on whatever direction it feels like), but nevertheless, kudos to you!

[RickAllison]

Heh, fair enough...seems like managing to direct it between encounters would stretch the bounds of what I'd expect (as opposed to just going off on whatever direction it feels like), but nevertheless, kudos to you!

To be fair, I didn't really care what direction it went. I was caught far away from the party with a bunch of mage killers around. As long it was killing somebody, I considered it an absolute win! My leading it around was more to fulfill the "it heads off to attack the nearest non-demon, until it picked up another.

[EdenIndustries]

To be fair, I didn't really care what direction it went. I was caught far away from the party with a bunch of mage killers around. As long it was killing somebody, I considered it an absolute win! My leading it around was more to fulfill the "it heads off to attack the nearest non-demon, until it picked up another.

Right yeah I guess in the context of just being knee-deep in enemy territory, letting loose a few demons will certainly wreak a fairly maximal amount of havoc!

[RickAllison]

Right yeah I guess in the context of just being knee-deep in enemy territory, letting loose a few demons will certainly wreak a fairly maximal amount of havoc!

And if you're a fan of bloodcurdling screams, it could be downright therapeutic!

[strangebloke]

As with most questions, it comes down to the length of the adventuring day.

Short day with 1-2 super deadly encounters? All diviners with the lucky feat. Single targets will get melted by force-failed saves. Groups will get melted by usual wizard tricks.

Long day with many encounters? Svartalf Abjurers, Necromancers, and Transmuters all become more useful here, as efficiency is really important.

Overall I would say that while the all-diviner party would dominate at many tables, I don't think that those tables are actually all that challenging anyway. My pick would be:

I would say, 1 of each of the ones I mentioned, with the Transmuter being a dubious pick. Having a ress of some kind available is something I consider important though.

[opaopajr]

All illusionists or all enchanters. :smallbiggrin: The chaos running that would be magnificent. One requires coordinated lateral thinking, the other requires coordinated NPC manipulation. Both are GM & PC party challenges! :smallcool: It would be a refreshing change of pace on which game pillars are stressed.