I’m playing a war wizard (not multiclassed) in Tomb of Annihilation. He’s a Mephistopheles Tiefling (Mage Hand, Burning Hands, Flame Blade) with the cloistered scholar background. I’ve already maxed his intelligence and taken the Flames of Phlegethos feat. The rest of the party includes a gloom stalker ranger, light cleric, and thief rogue.
I’m starting to think about a feat for Level 8. I’m considering: (1) Tough (big HP boost), (2) Elemental Adept Fire (even more powerful fire spells), or (3) Telekinetic from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (enhanced Mage Hand and battlefield control).
Seems like I can’t go wrong with a big HP boost for a wizard, especially one in close combat (at least part of the time). Elemental Adept Fire would be fun for roleplaying - that is, playing up the character’s skill with fire spells/damage (Fire Bolt, Burning Hands, Dragon’s Breath, Fireball, etc.). Telekinetic would allow the character to not only push/pull enemies into area effects (Web, Spike Growth, Wall of Fire, etc.), but also push/pull allies out of grapples and out of opportunity attack range.
This is my first time playing a mid-level wizard. Regardless of the character, I always have a hard time picking feats. I would love to hear thoughts from more experienced players. Have you picked any of these feats for your (war) wizard? Were you happy with your decision or did you wish you had picked something else? Thanks!!!
If your con is odd resilient con. War Caster is solid as well. A different stat boost might work as well, get the dex up a bit more, if you have 2 odd stats bump those. There really aren't that many feats that really boost what a mage does. If you use a lot of fire magic elemental adept fire might be useful depending on the campaign.
Telekinetic is nice, though you will be losing out on the +1 stat boost since your stat is already maxed. Honestly, while useful it sound super annoying, almost every round you will be using a bonus action and the DM has to make another die roll.
I was going to suggest war caster or spell sniper. Just turning your mage hand invisible is not really that much of an upgrade. The extra 30 feet is a second small upgrade but nothing world shattering. It's still the same weak spectral hand it always was. i think people are getting a little caught up on this particular effect because a lot of them have seen invisible mage hands be very useful to trickster rogues. But Trickster Rogues actually have a class feature that actually makes mage hand quite a bit better with abilities to do things like pick locks and pick pockets or steal stuff and even the bonus action control over it that isn't just part of the hand being invisible.
the benefit of flames of pheletegros that lets you reroll 1's for fire spells might make the benefit letting you treat a roll of 1 as a roll of 2 a bit less useful, only mattering 1 in 36 times you roll a d6 for fire damage or only 1 in 100 times you roll a d10 for fire damage with fire bolt, but if you are primarily using fire spells and nothing else and you suspect that you will soon fight plenty of monsters that are resistant to fire damage then it might practically double your damage output
That said war caster is also a natural choice for any character who casts a lot of spells in melee but its benefits might not fit your playstyle and be completely useless if you are not durable enough to stay within 5 feet of every enemy/ if enemies rarely trigger opportunity attacks from you and you rarely need to use spells that require concentration (i assume using a shield and weapons is hardly a priority for you)
if you do not like the amount of hit points you have and are worried about that, you should pick durable, if you think that telekinetic would be really fun, pick that
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Thanks for all of the advice! After much thought, I think I'm going to go with Tough. With 17 AC (16 Dex + Mage Armor + Ring of Protection) and greatly increased HP, I'd like to have my war wizard spend more time in melee to use Burning Hands, Dragon's Breath (when not cast on his familiar), Thunderwave, Green-Flame Blade, and fire damage from Flames of Phlegethos. Currently, our tortle light cleric serves as our tank (and often goes down) and all other characters (rogue, ranger, wizard) disperse. It would be nice to have a much less squishy wizard who can help out on the frontlines. Seems to make sense for a war wizard who can deflect/reduce damage with Arcane Deflection, Shield, and Absorb Elements. And maintaining concentration hasn't been a problem with 16 Constitution and Arcane Deflection (+4 to saving throws).
If you plan on being more up front as a wizard, I would recommend War Caster or Resilient (Con) feats. They would allow you to maintain concentration better on spells. Or if you are planning more on Fire spells, Elemental Adept to ignore Fire Resistance would be very useful.
You want War Caster on War Wizards to keep concentration on your spells when you get hit, because at level 10 you'll get Durable Magic boosts your AC and saving throws when you're concentrating on a spell, and Arcane Deflection doesn't let you cast spells until the end of your next turn, which won't matter if you have a concentration spell running, because you can just use your action or bonus action to use the spell's effect. If you really need to get into melee range you already have a nice concentration spell to boost your AC by two once you hit 10, and you can spam Arcane Deflection to pump your AC and saves against nasty effects
Our DM is ruling that anything that would require a roll for movement is not going to work for the Telekinetic feat's push/pull for an ally. So, if an ally is grappled, you can't break it by pushing or pulling them 5 feet because there's a roll involved. Maybe if the DC for your Telekinetic feat is higher than the DC to break the grapple, I could see it being allowed, but otherwise, I agree with our DM. Has there been any official comments about the Telekinetic feat being used to break grapples or move allies when they would otherwise need to be making a roll to escape?
Our DM is ruling that anything that would require a roll for movement is not going to work for the Telekinetic feat's push/pull for an ally. So, if an ally is grappled, you can't break it by pushing or pulling them 5 feet because there's a roll involved. Maybe if the DC for your Telekinetic feat is higher than the DC to break the grapple, I could see it being allowed, but otherwise, I agree with our DM. Has there been any official comments about the Telekinetic feat being used to break grapples or move allies when they would otherwise need to be making a roll to escape?
I’ve always ruled it that way - forcing moving on a grappled character is impossible, and if you force move the grappler, the grappled character moves with them.
I never allow multiple grapples on a person - just like you can’t blind people multiple times, or incapacitate multiple times, the stronger grapple effect always replaces all other grapples. So if you want to rescue your ally you can:
1) Help action to give them advantage on their next skill check
2) Grapple the ally, resulting in a grapple contest between you and the current grappler. Winner of the contest now holds the grapple, and in case of it being your ally, can be dropped immediately without action.
This just saves everyone the issue of trying to recalculate everyone’s grapple.
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I’m playing a war wizard (not multiclassed) in Tomb of Annihilation. He’s a Mephistopheles Tiefling (Mage Hand, Burning Hands, Flame Blade) with the cloistered scholar background. I’ve already maxed his intelligence and taken the Flames of Phlegethos feat. The rest of the party includes a gloom stalker ranger, light cleric, and thief rogue.
I’m starting to think about a feat for Level 8. I’m considering: (1) Tough (big HP boost), (2) Elemental Adept Fire (even more powerful fire spells), or (3) Telekinetic from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (enhanced Mage Hand and battlefield control).
Seems like I can’t go wrong with a big HP boost for a wizard, especially one in close combat (at least part of the time). Elemental Adept Fire would be fun for roleplaying - that is, playing up the character’s skill with fire spells/damage (Fire Bolt, Burning Hands, Dragon’s Breath, Fireball, etc.). Telekinetic would allow the character to not only push/pull enemies into area effects (Web, Spike Growth, Wall of Fire, etc.), but also push/pull allies out of grapples and out of opportunity attack range.
This is my first time playing a mid-level wizard. Regardless of the character, I always have a hard time picking feats. I would love to hear thoughts from more experienced players. Have you picked any of these feats for your (war) wizard? Were you happy with your decision or did you wish you had picked something else? Thanks!!!
If your con is odd resilient con. War Caster is solid as well. A different stat boost might work as well, get the dex up a bit more, if you have 2 odd stats bump those. There really aren't that many feats that really boost what a mage does. If you use a lot of fire magic elemental adept fire might be useful depending on the campaign.
Telekinetic is nice, though you will be losing out on the +1 stat boost since your stat is already maxed. Honestly, while useful it sound super annoying, almost every round you will be using a bonus action and the DM has to make another die roll.
Fey Touched and Shadow Touched are really nice if you have an odd INT.
I was going to suggest war caster or spell sniper. Just turning your mage hand invisible is not really that much of an upgrade. The extra 30 feet is a second small upgrade but nothing world shattering. It's still the same weak spectral hand it always was. i think people are getting a little caught up on this particular effect because a lot of them have seen invisible mage hands be very useful to trickster rogues. But Trickster Rogues actually have a class feature that actually makes mage hand quite a bit better with abilities to do things like pick locks and pick pockets or steal stuff and even the bonus action control over it that isn't just part of the hand being invisible.
the benefit of flames of pheletegros that lets you reroll 1's for fire spells might make the benefit letting you treat a roll of 1 as a roll of 2 a bit less useful, only mattering 1 in 36 times you roll a d6 for fire damage or only 1 in 100 times you roll a d10 for fire damage with fire bolt, but if you are primarily using fire spells and nothing else and you suspect that you will soon fight plenty of monsters that are resistant to fire damage then it might practically double your damage output
That said war caster is also a natural choice for any character who casts a lot of spells in melee but its benefits might not fit your playstyle and be completely useless if you are not durable enough to stay within 5 feet of every enemy/ if enemies rarely trigger opportunity attacks from you and you rarely need to use spells that require concentration (i assume using a shield and weapons is hardly a priority for you)
if you do not like the amount of hit points you have and are worried about that, you should pick durable, if you think that telekinetic would be really fun, pick that
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Thanks for all of the advice! After much thought, I think I'm going to go with Tough. With 17 AC (16 Dex + Mage Armor + Ring of Protection) and greatly increased HP, I'd like to have my war wizard spend more time in melee to use Burning Hands, Dragon's Breath (when not cast on his familiar), Thunderwave, Green-Flame Blade, and fire damage from Flames of Phlegethos. Currently, our tortle light cleric serves as our tank (and often goes down) and all other characters (rogue, ranger, wizard) disperse. It would be nice to have a much less squishy wizard who can help out on the frontlines. Seems to make sense for a war wizard who can deflect/reduce damage with Arcane Deflection, Shield, and Absorb Elements. And maintaining concentration hasn't been a problem with 16 Constitution and Arcane Deflection (+4 to saving throws).
If you plan on being more up front as a wizard, I would recommend War Caster or Resilient (Con) feats. They would allow you to maintain concentration better on spells. Or if you are planning more on Fire spells, Elemental Adept to ignore Fire Resistance would be very useful.
Our DM is ruling that anything that would require a roll for movement is not going to work for the Telekinetic feat's push/pull for an ally. So, if an ally is grappled, you can't break it by pushing or pulling them 5 feet because there's a roll involved. Maybe if the DC for your Telekinetic feat is higher than the DC to break the grapple, I could see it being allowed, but otherwise, I agree with our DM. Has there been any official comments about the Telekinetic feat being used to break grapples or move allies when they would otherwise need to be making a roll to escape?
I’ve always ruled it that way - forcing moving on a grappled character is impossible, and if you force move the grappler, the grappled character moves with them.
I never allow multiple grapples on a person - just like you can’t blind people multiple times, or incapacitate multiple times, the stronger grapple effect always replaces all other grapples. So if you want to rescue your ally you can:
1) Help action to give them advantage on their next skill check
2) Grapple the ally, resulting in a grapple contest between you and the current grappler. Winner of the contest now holds the grapple, and in case of it being your ally, can be dropped immediately without action.
This just saves everyone the issue of trying to recalculate everyone’s grapple.