Can you play a support wizard in 5e?

[King of Nowhere]

I recently started playing baldurs gate 3. it's my first time with the 5th edition.
I started with the idea of playing a support wizard, specialized in buff and crowd control.

I was very pissed when I discovered the concentration mechanic.

So, my plan was to have a dozen buff spells active on me, a good many on other party members, and cast debuffs on the opponents. but I can't do that; each and every single buff I've seen, with the sole exception of mage armor, is concentration, so I can only have one active. I don't remember having seen a single group buff in the wizard list, up to 3rd level spells - a single group buff in the cleric list. As for debuffs and crowd control, they are also concentration. So I can either have one single spell active on a single party member, or I can have one single effect to disable enemies.
Clearly, this edition was made specifically to prevent people from playing that kind of character.
however, the story is good, you have lots of options, and so I decided to not uninstall the game. I am then forced to play with the 5e rules.

is there some way to play the kind of character I wanted to play - a caster focused entirely on buffing and crowd control, almost never resorting to direct damage - within the 5e rules? (as applied by a videogame, so obscure multiclassing options are out of the table)
Or do I have to try for another archetype?

In case I have to change archetype, I always like to play tank - high AC, high saving throws, high defences overall. what are my options? barbarian seems the best bet, with rage giving resistance, but still can't get much of an AC - unarmored defence + mage armor is still no better than a heavy armor. some warrior subclass seem to have defensive reactions, but nothing against spells.

[stoutstien]

Generally spells are a lot more powerful in relationship to other factors so while concentration is a factor it hardly prevents support casting.

Also there are a ton of spells that aren't concentration that fall into this category. They aren't as "big" but that's the point. Grease, blind/deaf, jump, long strider, sleet storm, erupting earth, transmute stone, mind whip, binding ice,...

[Silly Name]

Haven't played BG 3, but here's my two copper pieces on how Concentration is less stifling than what it may feel like:

First of all, Concentration spells can be quite powerful. A Cleric casting Bless on his party's Fighter, Paladin and Rogue easily helps determine the tide of battle with a single spell, and can then spend the rest of the encounter using stuff like Guiding Bolt to make hitting even easier.

As far as Wizards are concerned, they generally aren't extremely focused on party-wide buffs, but have a good selection of AoE debuffs, and you still do have access to some useful tricks.

For example, consider the following:

- Use Web to cover an area
- Use Thunderwave to push back any enemy that tries to escape the enwebbed area, or that was outside of it
- (Optional) Cast Ray of Sickness to make it more likely your enemies don't escape the Web
- To top it all off, burn the Web with a simple Fire Bolt.

Later you can instead do stuff like Hypnotic Pattern to confuse your foes and make them easy pickings for your allies, and stuff like Sleet Storm is awesome against spellcaster-heavy enemy formations.

The way to get the most out of Concentration is to figure out what Concentration spell you want to use, and what other spells you can use in your turn to further enhance its effectiveness. For example, if you cast Haste on your Fighter, you then want to make it so his targets suffer even more - so why not cast Blindness on the next big enemy the Fighter is going to attack?

But if you want to be a buffer, specifically, Wizard isn't the best option. Clerics and Bards do it much better, and even Sorcerers pull it off easier thanks to the Twinned Spell metamagic allowing them to target two creatures with single-target buffs/debuffs.

[Theodoxus]

A Land Druid plays more like a support Wizard than any support Wizard you can try to create.

The bonus of the Druid is it knows all the spells, instead of trying to track down the spell you want, or "wasting" your free 2 spells at level up. Land Druids have the same mechanic to restore spell slots on a short rest as well.

[Snivlem]

Wizards aren't the best at buffing. The first decent buff you get is haste at level 5. Long strider is also decent and does not require concentration.
Wizards are great at contolling the battlefield, arguably the best. If you want to build a wizard that doesn't do any damage, it will be hard, but you can definetly play a wizard that hardly does damage. Throw down a good concentration spell like sleep (early on), web, hypnotic pattern, wall of force and follow up with non-concentration options like grease, tashas mind whip, Rimes binding ice, blindness, counterspell, dispel magic etc.
The concentration mechanic is for keeping casters from overshadowing martials by the way, and even with it, most would argue they are still ahead. It is good for the game, no doubt.

[Kurt Kurageous]

A diviner using portent in conjunction with save or suck (charm esp) works well in heavily humanoid places.

[Frogreaver]

The simple answer is yes. Focus on enemy debuffs though especially aoe debuffs. 5e buff spells are mostly meh. Use them when a character or characters couldn’t otherwise be effective. Say fly vs flying enemies in a melee character.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Going from 3.5 to 5E can be somewhat jarring. I know it was for me. It seems like the bar you are setting is, "Can I dominate with this playstyle as much as in 3.5?" Try instead asking yourself, "Is this as effective as other options available in 5E? And give yourself some time to discover the answer.

[Telwar]

I'm currently playing a war mage who specializes in crowd control. One concentration spell at a time is fine, you can spam cantrips or leveled spells that don't require concentration while you need your concentration. That also helps with endurance, since you should not expect a 15-minute workday.

Once in a while I polymorph one of the spore druid's zombies into a tyrannosaur for a change of pace.

[King of Nowhere]

well, thanks everyone. I'll see what I can do with those options.




Also there are a ton of spells that aren't concentration that fall into this category. They aren't as "big" but that's the point. Grease, blind/deaf, jump, long strider, sleet storm, erupting earth, transmute stone, mind whip, binding ice,...

Wizards aren't the best at buffing. The first decent buff you get is haste at level 5. Long strider is also decent and does not require concentration.
Wizards are great at contolling the battlefield, arguably the best. If you want to build a wizard that doesn't do any damage, it will be hard, but you can definetly play a wizard that hardly does damage. Throw down a good concentration spell like sleep (early on), web, hypnotic pattern, wall of force and follow up with non-concentration options like grease, tashas mind whip, Rimes binding ice, blindness, counterspell, dispel magic etc.
The concentration mechanic is for keeping casters from overshadowing martials by the way, and even with it, most would argue they are still ahead. It is good for the game, no doubt.

I've been trying to do some of that, though it's never as effective as advertised. I've basically stopped using grease, half the opponents make their save and those that fail, apparently they get up the next round and just walk away without penalty. web works a little better, but again, I haven't seen it stopping the enemies much, not for more than one round. No idea if it's something in the 5e mechanics or in the videogame.
sleep has been the biggest fail. Enemies would just wake up each other using the "push" bonus action; since most enemies have nothing to do with their bonus actions normally, it means they would wake up each other for free, making the spell essentially moot. and now the hit point limit from overcast increases a lot less than the actual hit point pool of enemies.


Going from 3.5 to 5E can be somewhat jarring. I know it was for me. It seems like the bar you are setting is, "Can I dominate with this playstyle as much as in 3.5?"

more or less, yes. though it's less about "dominating the playstyle" (despite popular claims about 3.5 and caster domination, in my table we had to devise ways to keep track of all of our buffs and yet martials would dominate as many fights as casters) and more that I expect, if my opponents fail a save against certain spells, they are at least going to lose some actions.

[Zuras]

As others have noted, wizards are much better at debuffs and crowd control than buffing spells. Wizards have a few very strong buff spells, but often they’re quite situational. Enlarge, Invisibility, Spider Climb, Fly and Haste have all been dramatically effective at my table, but Haste is the only one that’s effective in all situations (assuming you can retain concentration).

[stoutstien]

As far as grease goes, If they fail the save they will eat up 25 ft of movement to get out of grease if they are able to step out at all. Even on a pass you can target in such a way it eats up movement or forces enemies to either move around it or repeat saves. Even better if you have a big guy who is wanting to be close anyways. That pretty good control against anything not immune to prone when is a surprisingly large array of NPCs. Alone its not anything to write home about but it doesn't take concentration so couple it with something like gust of wind and you can lock down a ton of NPCs from a safe distance while also dodging/dashing around.

Also prone is one of the best "buffs" for melee PCs you can hand out.

[Psyren]

I recently started playing baldurs gate 3. it's my first time with the 5th edition.
I started with the idea of playing a support wizard, specialized in buff and crowd control.

I was very pissed when I discovered the concentration mechanic.

I think I've seen you over in the 3e board; if so, you'll know that in prior editions, casters being able to stack buffs on buffs on buffs was one of the key sources of imbalance in that game. 5e Concentration might feel restrictive at first, but I promise you'll get used to it, and wizards are still extremely powerful even with that limitation.

Note too that if your DM is okay with dozens of concurrent buffs and you want a truly high-powered campaign, you can just set that rule aside, or at the very least agree to remove concentration from a few spells. But again, you don't need to do this to feel powerful in 5e.

(If instead you're talking purely about BG3, mods are likely going to be your only option there.)



So, my plan was to have a dozen buff spells active on me, a good many on other party members, and cast debuffs on the opponents. but I can't do that; each and every single buff I've seen, with the sole exception of mage armor, is concentration, so I can only have one active. I don't remember having seen a single group buff in the wizard list, up to 3rd level spells - a single group buff in the cleric list. As for debuffs and crowd control, they are also concentration. So I can either have one single spell active on a single party member, or I can have one single effect to disable enemies.
Clearly, this edition was made specifically to prevent people from playing that kind of character.
however, the story is good, you have lots of options, and so I decided to not uninstall the game. I am then forced to play with the 5e rules.

is there some way to play the kind of character I wanted to play - a caster focused entirely on buffing and crowd control, almost never resorting to direct damage - within the 5e rules? (as applied by a videogame, so obscure multiclassing options are out of the table)
Or do I have to try for another archetype?

1) There are actually a few buffs that can be upcast to affect multiple allies yet still count as one spell for concentration. Fly and Invisibility are perhaps the most prominent examples, but there are also spells like Intellect Fortress and Flame Arrows.

2) If you're okay with concentrating on crowd control rather than buffing then your options open up considerably, because the nice thing about crowd control is that it usually doesn't care how many enemies there are (if you're affecting an area, there will always be some benefit), whereas for a buffer you usually need to worry about multiple allies.

[King of Nowhere]

I think I've seen you over in the 3e board; if so, you'll know that in prior editions, casters being able to stack buffs on buffs on buffs was one of the key sources of imbalance in that game. 5e Concentration might feel restrictive at first, but I promise you'll get used to it, and wizards are still extremely powerful even with that limitation.


it's not a matter of balance, or even strictly of power. I liked to stack buffs, just on principle.
and I played martials most of the time. Never had too big issues with balance. In fact, being able to stack buffs on the rest of the party too was a balancing factor; while on forums you read some horror stories like "my own spell slots are mine, so I will buff myself and beat things up harder than you do", my table experience was more like "take some low level buffs and deal with the enemies; I'll save the strongest spells for a real emergency".
And on the worldbuilding/lore perspective, the idea that you can use magic to make yourself and your allies stronger and more resistant just feels right. And I liked the possibility of making myself (or even the enemies) a lot more powerful for a short duration, of investing all your resources to go nova on a single obstacle; like, this thing is too hard to do, but if I put enough resources into it, it may just become doable; and the more resourceful I am, the more I can increase my odds. I am sure a lot of people here didn't like that, and the focus on the 15 minutes adventuring day it brought, but I liked it.
It's just a matter of stylistic differences.
One thing I will concede, though: keeping track of everything was a big bother.

On the strictly videogaming issue, I did solo neverwinter nights 2 at the hardest level with an arcane caster, and I was trying to solo baldurs gate 2 when the save got corrupted. I liked being able to aim for that extra challenge. I suppose somebody may manage it with 5e rules too, but it is certainly outside of my ability.
On the plus side, bg3 already has pretty challenging fights; especially because the plot encourages you to rest as little as possible and so I enter most combats short on spells and hit points (yes, I know I can sleep as many times as I want, but I do feel engaged with the premise of being on a timeline and I don't like abusing the story/gameplay segregation)

[Psyren]

Then as I said, if playing tabletop 5e, talk to your DM if that's what you both find fun (stacking buffs.) Just because the system default decided on one way doesn't mean you have to stick with that way at your table. You can either remove Concentration from a select set of spells, or abolish the mechanic entirely.

For BG3 I expect the mod scene to get a lot more attention once it actually releases.

[Nagog]

Support Wizard is very much a possibility, though perhaps not in the same capacity as you may be thinking.

Concentration is a resource: Knowing how to spend it to get the most out of it is huge. For example: Haste on the Cleric may boost their movement and AC to wade into combat to heal the Barbarian, but the Extra Action may be wasted with the limitation on what it can be used on. But putting it on a Rogue grants them the ability to potentially Sneak Attack twice in a round (though a held action), and the AC and Movement buffs are extraordinarily helpful for a strafing fighting style, which Rogues are excellent at!
Meanwhile, a spell like Shadow Blade is pretty nice to hand off to a Barbarian or a Paladin, but in the hands of a Fighter or Monk, the damage output is increased right along with their innate capacity to attack more frequently!

Overall, playing a Support Wizard is a lot more about knowing what your allies bring to the table and how to help them be the best at those things, rather than slapping a million buffs onto whoever and letting them go ham. Knowledge of the game system at large allowing you to be more effective also plays very well into the Int based nature of the class!

For tanking (if you choose to respec): Paladin all the way. By level 6, you and other nearby allies add your Cha to saving throws, which is almost entirely unprecedented: Saving Throws are a difficult defense to shore up, and Paladin is the most effective and powerful way to do so. In addition, heavy armor and innate healing are far more potent at well-rounded tanking than BPS resistance.

[Gignere]

I'm currently playing a war mage who specializes in crowd control. One concentration spell at a time is fine, you can spam cantrips or leveled spells that don't require concentration while you need your concentration. That also helps with endurance, since you should not expect a 15-minute workday.

Once in a while I polymorph one of the spore druid's zombies into a tyrannosaur for a change of pace.

I don’t think polymorph allows that with the Druid zombies, the CR that you change into is capped by the target’s level or CR. The zombies are like what CR1/4 maybe 1/2, they can’t turn into TRexes. You have just made the spell polymorph way more powerful and it was powerful to begin with already.

[RazorChain]

I have a group of 6 players.

Ranger, Druid, Mage, Warlock, Bard and a Paladin. All of them can cast spells. I for one am glad for the concentration mechanic or else it would be a total overkill.

Remember that the same mechanics apply to the enemies as well.

Most combats take 3-5 rounds and spells like web, entangle and hypnotic pattern can really turn the tide of the battle.

In last battle my party fought the wizard managed to take out 3 enemies with hypnotic pattern, they all lost 2 rounds + 1 enemy that had to run to them and use action to wake up the first one from the effect. These were foes that have 3 attacks, so the wizard mitigated 21 attacks against the party while they concentrated killing other foes.

The Wizard and the Druid in my party will often cast an overlapping entanglement and web on a group of enemies mostly neutralizing them if they are melee and at least giving them disadvantage if they are ranged.

That is the fact of 5e, a lot of the classes are casters or half casters so the concentration mechanic is actually a boon....and in most cases you don't have to sit out a combat because someone cast hold person on your character, you actually have a chance to disrupt concentration or break free from the spell.

I played PF Wrath of the Righteous and there almost needs to be a buff button because you use so many buff spells you need to cast before a fight.

[stoutstien]

it's not a matter of balance, or even strictly of power. I liked to stack buffs, just on principle.
and I played martials most of the time. Never had too big issues with balance. In fact, being able to stack buffs on the rest of the party too was a balancing factor; while on forums you read some horror stories like "my own spell slots are mine, so I will buff myself and beat things up harder than you do", my table experience was more like "take some low level buffs and deal with the enemies; I'll save the strongest spells for a real emergency".
And on the worldbuilding/lore perspective, the idea that you can use magic to make yourself and your allies stronger and more resistant just feels right. And I liked the possibility of making myself (or even the enemies) a lot more powerful for a short duration, of investing all your resources to go nova on a single obstacle; like, this thing is too hard to do, but if I put enough resources into it, it may just become doable; and the more resourceful I am, the more I can increase my odds. I am sure a lot of people here didn't like that, and the focus on the 15 minutes adventuring day it brought, but I liked it.
It's just a matter of stylistic differences.
One thing I will concede, though: keeping track of everything was a big bother.

On the strictly videogaming issue, I did solo neverwinter nights 2 at the hardest level with an arcane caster, and I was trying to solo baldurs gate 2 when the save got corrupted. I liked being able to aim for that extra challenge. I suppose somebody may manage it with 5e rules too, but it is certainly outside of my ability.
On the plus side, bg3 already has pretty challenging fights; especially because the plot encourages you to rest as little as possible and so I enter most combats short on spells and hit points (yes, I know I can sleep as many times as I want, but I do feel engaged with the premise of being on a timeline and I don't like abusing the story/gameplay segregation)

Something you will run into is 5e doesn't have tight variances for challenges so unlike video games, or even 3.X, stacking buffs like this just won't have as much of an impact.
The good news is because of this you can add/remove concentration tags from most spells and as long as the GM has a decent handle on the system it won't come close to being a real issue as the magic(spell) that are problems already circumvent it.

Five is modular enough that you can either add rules or even a subclass option for something like this with very little work.

On a side note artificer can be built this way pretty easily by handing out infusion and focusing on buffing subclass options.

[Telwar]

I don’t think polymorph allows that with the Druid zombies, the CR that you change into is capped by the target’s level or CR. The zombies are like what CR1/4 maybe 1/2, they can’t turn into TRexes. You have just made the spell polymorph way more powerful and it was powerful to begin with already.

Ahhhh, you're right! DM seemed to think it was okay, but that was a force multiplier there. I'll keep that in mind and discuss with DM.

(It might be balanced for that player, as they historically, ahem, underplay their character, by a lot.)

[Dork_Forge]

Mage armor, longstrider, mirror image, blink, flame shield.

All stack, none require concentration. Buff stacking is very much alive and well, a Wizard isn't really a good class for buffing multiple pcs with a single spell, they're better at debuffing multiple enemies.

I'd also advise to not treat BG3 as 5e,it may be based on it but its not the same.

[Ninja Dragon]

This guide seems to defend that anyone not playing a wizard as a support didn't get the point of the class.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE_v67QY/mobilebasic

(disclaimer: I'm not saying I agree with everything it says, I just think it's a fitting counterpoint to the OP)

Imo concentration isn't a huge issue when a single spell will usually turn the balance enough to your party's side that the martials will be able to clear the opposition with little problem. The challenge is figuring out which spell is that.

[King of Nowhere]

This guide seems to defend that anyone not playing a wizard as a support didn't get the point of the class.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE_v67QY/mobilebasic

(disclaimer: I'm not saying I agree with everything it says, I just think it's a fitting counterpoint to the OP)

Imo concentration isn't a huge issue when a single spell will usually turn the balance enough to your party's side that the martials will be able to clear the opposition with little problem. The challenge is figuring out which spell is that.

A lot of the blue spells are not in the videogame. web was pretty much the only one working as advertised.
i suppose the main problem is that I'm still low level. mirror image is no concentration and a great buff to AC, but when I only have a handful of spells using one to evade maybe three attacks is not great. everything will improve with more spell slots, I suppose