How can you make a bulky wizard? While, of course, still functioning as a wizard does.
I was thinking a hobgoblin, so you can grab light armor, con boost, and saving face for failed saving throws. And make it an abjuration wizard, and you're looking at a lot of health.
How can you make a bulky wizard? While, of course, still functioning as a wizard does.
I was thinking a hobgoblin, so you can grab light armor, con boost, and saving face for failed saving throws. And make it an abjuration wizard, and you're looking at a lot of health.
That could work. You could also go fighter 3-6 to grab the fighter goodies: 2 average hp per level more hp, whatever armor that you wanted, second wind, action surge, con save proficiency... all while missing out on only 2 to 4 levels of spell slot progression. You do pick up 2 extra cantrips and a couple of extra spells with Eldritch Knight, though the extra spells aren't as sexy with Wizard.
Otherwise, you could go with the Tough feat for some extra hp.
Another possibility that would start you off lower in Intelligence but could give you a meaty wizard: Loxodon. +2 con, +1 wis (not ideal, but...), and that lovely natural armor that's 12+con modifier. Yup, you get AC and HP with your primary defensive stat.
Powerful build is only meh in the wrong campaign, advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened could be nice, Keen Smell could be useful, and the trunk could give lots of roll play options, including being an elevator for your gnome and halfling buddies.
"Functioning" doesn't need to be optimized, and there's lots of room for Wizards to function without optimized, or even DECENT Intelligence!
Booming Blade doesn't really care about your Intelligence, and can be used by a strong wizard just fine (not as well as an EK, but still). There's some spells out there like Sleep and Magic Missile and Cloud of Daggers which harm enemies but don't require saves or attacks, or like Enlarge/Reduce which buff yourself or others without any link to your intelligence. Honestly there's enough to build an entire spell list around (Cloud of Daggers and Magic Missile are the only attack spells you'll ever need, if you're content to stick with single target dps)... but then there's also save-for-half-damage spells like Fireball, which you can recontextualize as some modest unavoidable damage with a small chance of double damage if you just change your expectations a little! Evocation Wizards are very good at being Dummy Wizards, since they can sling Fireball more freely in tight quarters, and their level 6 Potent Cantrip turns your damaging cantrips into save-for-half spells, which makes you one of the most reliable damage dealers on the team... even if your Intelligence is only 8! Other honorable mention schools if you don't want to cast save-for-half spells include Necromancy (your pets don't really care how smart you are, though you won't be killing much with spells), Divination (pre load some good rolls for yourself or bad rolls for your enemies, for the rare occasion you do want to cast an attack roll or save spell), Conjuration (see Necromancy), Abjuration (ward gets most of its chunk from class level not attribute, and the 10th level feature is enough to over-compensate for having low or no intelligence modifier when you need to cast a rare abjuration save spell), and Onomancy* (resonants can more than make up for creatures saving against your save-for-half spells).
Honestly I was going to post a build for a high-strength Orc Wizard, but there's so much for a Wizard to do that doesn't rely on spell attacks/saves that it just felt like doing Booming Blade attacks was a waste. Just chonk up with Dex and Constitution and summon, buff, and throw a boosted Cloud of Daggers or Magic Missile around now and again and you'll be fine. I'd recommend Abjuration Wizard for that for hecka HP, or a Conjuration or Necromancer Wizard if you'd rather have minions be buff. But the thing is, with Point Buy, there's not really anything else to spend your points on but Intelligence, so it's kind of hard to make a dummy wizard even when you try to....
There are a lot ways to use the Racial ASIs to bulk up a Wizard. Surprisingly, there are quite a few races that give either +2 Con and +1 Int, or give +2 Con and +1 of choice.
As you highlighted, Hobgoblin gives +2 Con, +1 Int, and Light Armor (though you can't use Mage Armor if you wear actual Armor).
If you have Eberron content, the Mark of Warding Dwarf gives you +2 Con and +1 Int. You also get several limited use free spells (Alarm, Mage Armor 1/LR, after level 3 Arcane Lock 1/LR). And since you're intending to be a Wizard, you'll have the Spellcasting class feature, which causes the Mark of Warding to add several additional spells to your Wizard spell list. One in particular, Armor of Agathys, gives you not only a nice chunk of temporary HP, but anything stupid enough to hit you in melee is going to take damage back -- if it machine gun punches you, it will probably kill itself.
The Genesi race has a +2 Con modifier as well, and the Fire type gives +1 Int. It also gives you the Produce Flame Cantrip, and from level 3 on gives you Burning Hands 1/LR as a 1st level. But it uses Con mod instead of Int mod, so it will probably not be useful for very long unless you continue putting more ASIs and Feats into Con.
Finally, even in their severely nerfed state, the Warforged are extremely tanky. +2 to Con, +1 to one of your choice. Don't need to eat, drink, breathe, and are immune to sleep effects and Disease. Advantage against being Poisoned, and resistance to Poison damage. Free +1 to AC regardless of what armor (if any) they are wearing. And much like an Elf's "trance", they can accomplish the resting part of a Long Rest in less than the usual 8 hours, so they have more time to, for example, copy spells from scrolls or other spellbooks into their own spellbook.
Another possibility that would start you off lower in Intelligence but could give you a meaty wizard: Loxodon. +2 con, +1 wis (not ideal, but...), and that lovely natural armor that's 12+con modifier. Yup, you get AC and HP with your primary defensive stat.
Powerful build is only meh in the wrong campaign, advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened could be nice, Keen Smell could be useful, and the trunk could give lots of roll play options, including being an elevator for your gnome and halfling buddies.
You've left out the best racial feature of the Loxodon. Their trunk allows them to hold a Wand or their Spellcasting Focus without needing to free up their hands. Granted, a Wizard is unlikely to wield a Shield, 2 hand weapon, or dual wield. But you could, for example, use both the wand AND the focus at the same time.
You've left out the best racial feature of the Loxodon. Their trunk allows them to hold a Wand or their Spellcasting Focus without needing to free up their hands. Granted, a Wizard is unlikely to wield a Shield, 2 hand weapon, or dual wield. But you could, for example, use both the wand AND the focus at the same time.
A dual wielding wizard isn't preposterous if you have a non wielded focus (like a Hat of Wizardry or a Lox trunk) it's one easy way to bump your AC higher by taking Dual Wielder and/or Defensive Duelist (though Defensive Duelist requires Dex 13, which you're unlikely to have as a Lox Wizard, bleh). A shield is probably better but takes an extra feat over Dual Wielder, if you aren't starting with Light Armor proficiency.
Insofar as 'bulky' means 'tough/well protected', there's also the old classic Dwarf.
Mountain dwarf starts with +2 con and proficiency in medium armor, on top of resistance to poison. Hard to beat that for racial sturdiness. Hill dwarf gets no armor training but it does get half the Tough feat, so it'd get more HP than any other wizard of its level would. Both can thiccen up a wizard without requiring dips in other classes for armor or bizarro races for natural AC, if you're not inclined for either of those things.
A Hill Dwarf Fighter 1/Wizard (Abjurer) 19 that starts with 15/8/17/15/9/8 and takes Tough and maxes Con and Int will end with:
AC 21, or 26 when using Shield (every round at high levels, if you take it as one of your Spell Masteries.
246 HP
An additional 50 THP of Arcane Ward at the start of each day, which can be partially refilled whenever you cast Abjuration Spells (such as Shield every single time you're attacked)
Proficiency in Con Saves to maintain concentration
A decent Athletics score to avoid being grappled
Proficiency in Battleaxes if you ever want to whack something with Booming Blade instead of casting a spell.
Spell Resistance and advantage on saves vs spells and poison
A small Second Wind 1d10+1 Bonus Action per short rest
Hard to imagine a build that is much more tough/well protected than that for a Wizard, nothing else is going to hit those levels.
A Hill Dwarf Fighter 1/Wizard (Abjurer) 19 that starts with 15/8/17/15/9/8 and takes Tough and maxes Con and Int will end with:
AC 21, or 26 when using Shield (every round at high levels, if you take it as one of your Spell Masteries.
246 HP
An additional 50 THP of Arcane Ward at the start of each day, which can be partially refilled whenever you cast Abjuration Spells (such as Shield every single time you're attacked)
Proficiency in Con Saves
Spell Resistance and advantage on saves vs spells and poison
A small Second Wind 1d10+1 Bonus Action per short rest
Hard to imagine a build that is much more tough/well protected than that for a Wizard, nothing else is going to hit those levels.
Now I want to play that character. Nice job Chicken_Champ.
Hill Dwarf doesn't even need the 15 Strength. "Dwarf: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."
So far as I can tell, the speed reduction is the only penalty from wearing armor you're not strong enough to wear, so Gristle Dorf can tank his wizard muscles as much as he likes and not care about the Strength requirement on heavy armor.
I had not noticed that Yurei, dayum that's nice. You do still need at least 13 to multi out of Fighter and into Wizard, but that saves... 4 points? to round out your other 8's.
Hill Dwarf doesn't even need the 15 Strength. "Dwarf: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."
So far as I can tell, the speed reduction is the only penalty from wearing armor you're not strong enough to wear, so Gristle Dorf can tank his wizard muscles as much as he likes and not care about the Strength requirement on heavy armor.
Only thing that might happen is your DM might take note of encumbrance, most DM's I know ignore encumbrance unless you are start taking advantage of that, if your armor takes up half your carrying capacity he might start looking at what else you have. Once you start getting a bag of holding or similar it is less of an issue but you might need to be careful up to that point.
If your DM is using variant encumbrance things get very hard, unless your strength is 14 you can't even carry a wand while wearing plate if you want a speed more than 15, and if you dump str to 8 you can only carry 15 lb before being heavily encumbered which basically means you die.
Need 13 STR or 13 DX. If you're working with point buy, could tank Strength altogether to start with and grab up a Dex score. Probably not ideal, especially with the axe proficiencies you also get that don't run off Dex, but if you want a Bulky Wizard who is also sneaky with some mithral plate armor later, could be an idea.
Bleh. Keeping Strength at 14, and just squeezing Wisdom up to 10 would be my preferred route. But honestly just leaving Str at 15 for that extra 15 lbs of carrying capacity and extra jump distance might be the better value, it just seems a shame to waste that dwarf trait.
Honestly Arcane Ward would be the most beneficial part of being bulky. If you are a deep gnome and you take Svirfneblin Magic racial feat then you can spam non detection to keep your ward at full. Otherwise you could go Warlock 2 for at will mage armor as one of your invocations. By keeping the ward full between encounters you become harder to take down. If you use mirror image then you can definitely survive some hits. I would focus on INT and CON to benefit spell saves/attack roles, HP, and concentration checks.
Hmmm. Deep gnome costs you 20 HP compared to the Hill Dwarf, advantage against Poison, the ability to wear Plate with less than 15 strength without slowing to a crawl, and the ability to whack with a warhammer instead of a quarterstaff. The bonus point in dex instead of wis is fine.
You gain 5 move speed, advantage on mental saves against magic (redundant at high levels), the ability to cast Nondetection constatntly with a feat to keep those 50 THP full, and an extra cast of Blur.
If you still want to max Constitution and Int, that would cost you Tough, so really it would end up costing you 60 HP compared to the Hill Dwarf. It's as good or better over the length of an entire adventure day, but it's quite a bit squishier in a single hard combat where you'll need that full HP pool.
Definitely a toss up, but the Deep Gnome build could be a good choice for someone with a DM that won't get annoyed by the Nondetection cheese.
The other thing to keep in mind is that deep gnomes are not a universally applicable race. It's hard to find a DM who'll say no to hill dwarf, but deep gnome is a significantly less universally okay choice. Not every DM is okay with free use of Underdark species.
One should also note that at the highest levels, Spell Mastery allows the wizard to freely cast one 1st and one 2nd-level spell. Shield is a 1st-level spell that benefits enormously from this, and which serves the same purpose as Nondetection spam for refilling Arcane Wards. So while Svirfneblin can pull the cheese out significantly earlier with their feat, a high enough level Abjurer can do the same thing.
Yurei, the spam doesn't work quite the same way because someone has to punch you in order to be able to cast Shield. You could pick Mage Armor or something for your Spell Mastery and it would work, but obviously that would be a huge waste compared to Shield. Also, that only comes online at level 18 (or 19 if you start Fighter), while the nondetection spam can start at level 4 (or 5, if you start fighter)
Yeah, Svirfneblin is definitely better at the cheese. Simply noting that when considering top-end builds, the dwarf is capable of it. If primarily with the assistance of a nerdy slap-fight. Beyond that though, I know that I as a DM don't like to let people run Underdark species without telling me why this Enemy of Surfacekind is a mild-mannered adventure boi, and also all the other cool shit dwarves can do. Probably run Gristle Wizard as a dwarf myself, even if it means less goudariffic rules abuse for Arcane Ward.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please do not contact or message me.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
How can you make a bulky wizard? While, of course, still functioning as a wizard does.
I was thinking a hobgoblin, so you can grab light armor, con boost, and saving face for failed saving throws. And make it an abjuration wizard, and you're looking at a lot of health.
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
Bladesinger?
That could work. You could also go fighter 3-6 to grab the fighter goodies: 2 average hp per level more hp, whatever armor that you wanted, second wind, action surge, con save proficiency... all while missing out on only 2 to 4 levels of spell slot progression. You do pick up 2 extra cantrips and a couple of extra spells with Eldritch Knight, though the extra spells aren't as sexy with Wizard.
Otherwise, you could go with the Tough feat for some extra hp.
Another possibility that would start you off lower in Intelligence but could give you a meaty wizard: Loxodon. +2 con, +1 wis (not ideal, but...), and that lovely natural armor that's 12+con modifier. Yup, you get AC and HP with your primary defensive stat.
Powerful build is only meh in the wrong campaign, advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened could be nice, Keen Smell could be useful, and the trunk could give lots of roll play options, including being an elevator for your gnome and halfling buddies.
"Functioning" doesn't need to be optimized, and there's lots of room for Wizards to function without optimized, or even DECENT Intelligence!
Booming Blade doesn't really care about your Intelligence, and can be used by a strong wizard just fine (not as well as an EK, but still). There's some spells out there like Sleep and Magic Missile and Cloud of Daggers which harm enemies but don't require saves or attacks, or like Enlarge/Reduce which buff yourself or others without any link to your intelligence. Honestly there's enough to build an entire spell list around (Cloud of Daggers and Magic Missile are the only attack spells you'll ever need, if you're content to stick with single target dps)... but then there's also save-for-half-damage spells like Fireball, which you can recontextualize as some modest unavoidable damage with a small chance of double damage if you just change your expectations a little! Evocation Wizards are very good at being Dummy Wizards, since they can sling Fireball more freely in tight quarters, and their level 6 Potent Cantrip turns your damaging cantrips into save-for-half spells, which makes you one of the most reliable damage dealers on the team... even if your Intelligence is only 8! Other honorable mention schools if you don't want to cast save-for-half spells include Necromancy (your pets don't really care how smart you are, though you won't be killing much with spells), Divination (pre load some good rolls for yourself or bad rolls for your enemies, for the rare occasion you do want to cast an attack roll or save spell), Conjuration (see Necromancy), Abjuration (ward gets most of its chunk from class level not attribute, and the 10th level feature is enough to over-compensate for having low or no intelligence modifier when you need to cast a rare abjuration save spell), and Onomancy* (resonants can more than make up for creatures saving against your save-for-half spells).
Honestly I was going to post a build for a high-strength Orc Wizard, but there's so much for a Wizard to do that doesn't rely on spell attacks/saves that it just felt like doing Booming Blade attacks was a waste. Just chonk up with Dex and Constitution and summon, buff, and throw a boosted Cloud of Daggers or Magic Missile around now and again and you'll be fine. I'd recommend Abjuration Wizard for that for hecka HP, or a Conjuration or Necromancer Wizard if you'd rather have minions be buff. But the thing is, with Point Buy, there's not really anything else to spend your points on but Intelligence, so it's kind of hard to make a dummy wizard even when you try to....
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
There are a lot ways to use the Racial ASIs to bulk up a Wizard. Surprisingly, there are quite a few races that give either +2 Con and +1 Int, or give +2 Con and +1 of choice.
As you highlighted, Hobgoblin gives +2 Con, +1 Int, and Light Armor (though you can't use Mage Armor if you wear actual Armor).
If you have Eberron content, the Mark of Warding Dwarf gives you +2 Con and +1 Int. You also get several limited use free spells (Alarm, Mage Armor 1/LR, after level 3 Arcane Lock 1/LR). And since you're intending to be a Wizard, you'll have the Spellcasting class feature, which causes the Mark of Warding to add several additional spells to your Wizard spell list. One in particular, Armor of Agathys, gives you not only a nice chunk of temporary HP, but anything stupid enough to hit you in melee is going to take damage back -- if it machine gun punches you, it will probably kill itself.
The Genesi race has a +2 Con modifier as well, and the Fire type gives +1 Int. It also gives you the Produce Flame Cantrip, and from level 3 on gives you Burning Hands 1/LR as a 1st level. But it uses Con mod instead of Int mod, so it will probably not be useful for very long unless you continue putting more ASIs and Feats into Con.
Finally, even in their severely nerfed state, the Warforged are extremely tanky. +2 to Con, +1 to one of your choice. Don't need to eat, drink, breathe, and are immune to sleep effects and Disease. Advantage against being Poisoned, and resistance to Poison damage. Free +1 to AC regardless of what armor (if any) they are wearing. And much like an Elf's "trance", they can accomplish the resting part of a Long Rest in less than the usual 8 hours, so they have more time to, for example, copy spells from scrolls or other spellbooks into their own spellbook.
You've left out the best racial feature of the Loxodon. Their trunk allows them to hold a Wand or their Spellcasting Focus without needing to free up their hands. Granted, a Wizard is unlikely to wield a Shield, 2 hand weapon, or dual wield. But you could, for example, use both the wand AND the focus at the same time.
If Faeries could be also threated as a wizard instead of WIS magic, then it could be a nice option too.
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
A dual wielding wizard isn't preposterous if you have a non wielded focus (like a Hat of Wizardry or a Lox trunk) it's one easy way to bump your AC higher by taking Dual Wielder and/or Defensive Duelist (though Defensive Duelist requires Dex 13, which you're unlikely to have as a Lox Wizard, bleh). A shield is probably better but takes an extra feat over Dual Wielder, if you aren't starting with Light Armor proficiency.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Insofar as 'bulky' means 'tough/well protected', there's also the old classic Dwarf.
Mountain dwarf starts with +2 con and proficiency in medium armor, on top of resistance to poison. Hard to beat that for racial sturdiness. Hill dwarf gets no armor training but it does get half the Tough feat, so it'd get more HP than any other wizard of its level would. Both can thiccen up a wizard without requiring dips in other classes for armor or bizarro races for natural AC, if you're not inclined for either of those things.
Please do not contact or message me.
A Hill Dwarf Fighter 1/Wizard (Abjurer) 19 that starts with 15/8/17/15/9/8 and takes Tough and maxes Con and Int will end with:
Hard to imagine a build that is much more tough/well protected than that for a Wizard, nothing else is going to hit those levels.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Now I want to play that character. Nice job Chicken_Champ.
Hill Dwarf doesn't even need the 15 Strength.
"Dwarf: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."
So far as I can tell, the speed reduction is the only penalty from wearing armor you're not strong enough to wear, so Gristle Dorf can tank his wizard muscles as much as he likes and not care about the Strength requirement on heavy armor.
Please do not contact or message me.
I had not noticed that Yurei, dayum that's nice. You do still need at least 13 to multi out of Fighter and into Wizard, but that saves... 4 points? to round out your other 8's.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Only thing that might happen is your DM might take note of encumbrance, most DM's I know ignore encumbrance unless you are start taking advantage of that, if your armor takes up half your carrying capacity he might start looking at what else you have. Once you start getting a bag of holding or similar it is less of an issue but you might need to be careful up to that point.
If your DM is using variant encumbrance things get very hard, unless your strength is 14 you can't even carry a wand while wearing plate if you want a speed more than 15, and if you dump str to 8 you can only carry 15 lb before being heavily encumbered which basically means you die.
Need 13 STR or 13 DX. If you're working with point buy, could tank Strength altogether to start with and grab up a Dex score. Probably not ideal, especially with the axe proficiencies you also get that don't run off Dex, but if you want a Bulky Wizard who is also sneaky with some mithral plate armor later, could be an idea.
Please do not contact or message me.
Bleh. Keeping Strength at 14, and just squeezing Wisdom up to 10 would be my preferred route. But honestly just leaving Str at 15 for that extra 15 lbs of carrying capacity and extra jump distance might be the better value, it just seems a shame to waste that dwarf trait.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Honestly Arcane Ward would be the most beneficial part of being bulky. If you are a deep gnome and you take Svirfneblin Magic racial feat then you can spam non detection to keep your ward at full. Otherwise you could go Warlock 2 for at will mage armor as one of your invocations. By keeping the ward full between encounters you become harder to take down. If you use mirror image then you can definitely survive some hits. I would focus on INT and CON to benefit spell saves/attack roles, HP, and concentration checks.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
Hmmm. Deep gnome costs you 20 HP compared to the Hill Dwarf, advantage against Poison, the ability to wear Plate with less than 15 strength without slowing to a crawl, and the ability to whack with a warhammer instead of a quarterstaff. The bonus point in dex instead of wis is fine.
You gain 5 move speed, advantage on mental saves against magic (redundant at high levels), the ability to cast Nondetection constatntly with a feat to keep those 50 THP full, and an extra cast of Blur.
If you still want to max Constitution and Int, that would cost you Tough, so really it would end up costing you 60 HP compared to the Hill Dwarf. It's as good or better over the length of an entire adventure day, but it's quite a bit squishier in a single hard combat where you'll need that full HP pool.
Definitely a toss up, but the Deep Gnome build could be a good choice for someone with a DM that won't get annoyed by the Nondetection cheese.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The other thing to keep in mind is that deep gnomes are not a universally applicable race. It's hard to find a DM who'll say no to hill dwarf, but deep gnome is a significantly less universally okay choice. Not every DM is okay with free use of Underdark species.
One should also note that at the highest levels, Spell Mastery allows the wizard to freely cast one 1st and one 2nd-level spell. Shield is a 1st-level spell that benefits enormously from this, and which serves the same purpose as Nondetection spam for refilling Arcane Wards. So while Svirfneblin can pull the cheese out significantly earlier with their feat, a high enough level Abjurer can do the same thing.
Please do not contact or message me.
Yurei, the spam doesn't work quite the same way because someone has to punch you in order to be able to cast Shield. You could pick Mage Armor or something for your Spell Mastery and it would work, but obviously that would be a huge waste compared to Shield. Also, that only comes online at level 18 (or 19 if you start Fighter), while the nondetection spam can start at level 4 (or 5, if you start fighter)
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Yeah, Svirfneblin is definitely better at the cheese. Simply noting that when considering top-end builds, the dwarf is capable of it. If primarily with the assistance of a nerdy slap-fight. Beyond that though, I know that I as a DM don't like to let people run Underdark species without telling me why this Enemy of Surfacekind is a mild-mannered adventure boi, and also all the other cool shit dwarves can do. Probably run Gristle Wizard as a dwarf myself, even if it means less goudariffic rules abuse for Arcane Ward.
Please do not contact or message me.