I read a thread about which Wizard arcane traditions are best for coastal campaigns, and while generally the a wizard on beaches is no different than a wizard on any other kind of land, it did get me thinking about what would be best for a wizard in a proper seafaring campaign - one that is mostly at sea, fighting pirate ships and exploring new lands and islands they come across. So I made this. Since this also offers tips for wizard spells that some other classes have and may find useful, I figured the Tips & Tricks forum was best. It could maybe even help with multiclass builds.
I'm going to run through the non-UA Arcane Traditions and give you my thoughts on them - by this point I've played almost all of them or being in games where others were played, from 1st to 20th level. So, while these are still my personal opinions, maybe they'll help.
I'll describe my thoughts then say whether I recommend them for a seafaring-focused campaign.
Not Recommended - the features are not enough to really warrant taking this as it'll be of little or no benefit for large portions of the campaign.
Recommended - most features will see some use or there's one feature that can offer a lot of use and benefit even if the others may not.
Highly Recommended - you will see benefit from every feature, some more than others, but all features will be useful to you in a significant way.
After this I will move on to spells I recommend, considering them either for their obvious relevant benefit or because there are neat tricks or combinations you can do that are going to be useful in such a campaign.
Warning: this is going to be very long. But, hopefully a lot of it will be useful for you. Please forgive typos, I started this at 3 am and it's now nearly 12:30 pm (I'm writing this intro bit last). I'm a slow typer. And I'm too tired to proof-read.
Arcane Traditions
Bladesinging
While this can be useful and make cool moments - none of the features will help you in a nautical setting. However, it does make it easier for you to fight in melee, and being on a ship that can be likely if the enemy boards you. However, most battles at sea have less boarding and more ranged cannonfire, so blasting fireballs will be better than swinging a sword.
Not recommended.
Chronurgy Magic
The Chronal Shift feature will always be useful whether it's a basic skill check for normal ship operations, or helping in battle, or when an enemy saves against your spell. The forced reroll increases your chances of things being in your favour. Temporal Awareness adding a bonus to your Initiative can be useful - with the right spell and high enough initiative you could end the battle before it's even begun. The Momentary Stasis feature also has uses. If the enemy is trying to swim to you, you can use this: incapacitated with a speed of 0 means they can no longer swim. Down they go. Okay, it's only a round, but in that round they're sitting ducks in the water. Or, if the enemy ship has a spellcaster as well and their ship moves into range, this feature can stop them concentrating on any spell or casting new ones for a round. This can certainly help. Arcane Conveyance is more useful than you may realise. If you have 10 gp per crew/party member, well, now you can give everyone a familiar of their choice. The spell mote will let them cast your Find Familiar spell as if they were the caster - so it doesn't interfere with your own familiar, the familiar they make will be theirs not yours. Spells of 4th level or lower with a target of self can now be effectively cast on others. Not only that but they bear the burden of Concentration - so gift your Fighter with a mote of Haste, give your Rogue a mote of Invisibility, and so on. Convergent Future is mouth-wateringly good. Make any attack/ability check/saving throw within 60 ft of you succeed or fail regardless of what the dice say? Holy waffles that's useful!
Highly Recommended
Graviturgy Magic
Adjust Density and Violent Attraction are very situational but certainly useful. Gravity Well is a lot less useful due to being more situational. Move the target around by 5 ft isn't a lot. Even if they were on the edge of the ship moving them to fall into water can be good but the amount of times an enemy is just going to stand next to an edge they could easily be moved off of while without 60 ft of you is... Not going to happen a lot. Outside of that there are not a lot of uses. Maybe combine with Levitate and then you can cast some cantrip on yourself to move yourself sideways, not just up and down? I dunno. Event Horizon can be good to keep enemies away from you if they do board your ship. Even if they save their speed is effectively halved trying to move towards you and if they fail they cannot move at all, and it only affects hostiles, and lasts a minute and damages them if they start their turn within 30 ft - which, given the speed reductions, can be likely - unless they turn tail and run away from you when they can which is kinda a win for you.
Recommended
School of Abjuration
Outside of battle or similar dangerous situations, this has no real function. So outside of thos situations this arcane tradition gives you nothing. But for those occasions where you are in battle or exploring a jungle you've come across or something, it definitely can come in handy. The Arcane Ward is decent and can take some good hits for you and you can recharge with abjuration spells. Being able to have the ward take damage for an ally, is useful for obvious reasons. The enhancement to Dispel Magic and Counterspell is great when going up against other spellcasting entities, and means you can afford to use lower level slots rather than risking higher slots. The advantage to saving throws against any magic used against you and resistance to damage from any magic - you're basically the anti-mage mage. We'll soon discover there's a few spells that just outright destroy ships, so being better protected against enemy magic is going to be useful.
Recommended
School of Conjuration.
Minor Conjuration is one of those things that can be useful in all sorts of ways. You can create any object you have ever seen in your life as long as it is within 3 feet on any side. Chairs, small tables, fishing rod, thieves' tools (maybe), the guard's key, a dagger (although it will disappear after use), a glowing diamond to sell to some sailing merchant as a fake magic item, a ball to play with, a frisbee (is there a medieval/D&D equivalent? - well you're a wizard with high Int, invent it!), a musical instrument, a fancy hat, a wedge of wood to put under a door to stop it slamming shut or make it more difficult to open, a cup for some tea, a white flag for surrendering or at least pretending that you are, a barrel if you need an extra one temporarily... All sorts of things. Frankly this feature alone could make it worth it if you're creative enough. Benign Transposition is really handy especially when you combine with misty step. Unbreakable concentration for conjurations will be nifty when summoning elementals as will the temp HP from durable summons - even minor elementals - your fire mephits may indeed succeed at reaching the enemy's gunpowder storage and even if they don't their habit of exploding on death will help ignite the enemy's ship.
Highly Recommended
School of Divination
Portent Feature is useful in many situations in and out of battles and danger. Recovering spell slots is good - if you can find the situation for constantly casting enough divination spells to be worth it. When you get 9th level, Foresight could be useful with the recovery of 8th level or lower slot, but really when in battle out at sea you do have better uses for that 9th level slot. The Third Eye is useful in some situations. To be honest if it wasn't for Portent this wouldn't be recommended, but it does have it and it's a decent enough feature.
Recommended
School of Enchantment
Hypnotic Gaze is of limited use in any kind of game, in a seafaring one it's usefuless compared to other options is virtually nil. Instinctive Charm would be alright if it didn't require you to have another enemy close by, which is not going to happen often since most battles start at distance, and you'll be doing what you can to keep enemies away. I'm currently playing an Enchanter and even when going up against a whole horde of enemies I've yet to use it. I'd rather use my reaction for a Shield to protect from multiple attacks than this feature against only one. Split Enchantment and Alter Memories are useful - but for seafaring and island exploring, how useful is it really going to be? On land in usual campaigns they could see more use. Spending most of the time with the same crew and only occasionally battling ships or animals - these features will barely be used.
Not Recommended
School of Evocation
This is akin to Abjuration: utterly useless outside of battle or any situation where you need to kill something. But in battle it is great: your cantrips are no longer 'save or suck' so you can guarantee damage every round, your evocation spells do a bit extra damage, and you can maximise the damage of any 5th level or lower evocation spell instead of rolling once per day. That's all real nifty. Since you're on a ship using AoE spells is challenging, so Scult Spells solves that. Although that only becomes necessary for battles that occur on your ship, most won't - they'll be "ship battles" or on land where you can quite reasonably position your AoEs to not hit allies most of the time. None of these features are big and all are completely reliant on battle, unlike Abjuration which can be useful in exploration against traps and hazards. Still, it does bring enough to the table.
Recommended.
School of Illusion
The free cantrip with improvement is nice, not necessary but Minor Illusion can have surprising amount of usefuless in a variety of situations. Malleable Illusions is great at saving spell slots or making more impressive deceptions like having your illusion of a mage transform into a great beast! The Illusory Self is like Hypnotic Gaze but better in that it forces an auto-miss. Still, it's only against 1 attack and by this level many enemies will have multiattack - Shield still remains better. So far, while there's uses, it's not enough to recommend or seafaring - illusions at sea will suffer in effectiveness. Useful, sure, but the situations where illusions really shine occur much less. Illusions can be useful, but out at sea it's not going to happen enough to warrant a subclass investment. However, the game-changer to this is Illusory Reality when now your Silent Image becomes a cannon-blocking wall or something. Minor Illusion can make chairs you can sit in, you can do all sorts of things. So, this is a weird case. If you don't think you'll become a 14th level wizard - whether because the campaign won't last that long, or you think you'll multiclass more than 6 levels, then I don't recommend this.
Recommended at 14th level or later.
School of Necromancy
Grim Harvest is an OK feature, sort of. It requires you to be the one issuing the killing blow and with a spell of 1st level or higher - which means using a cantrip is riskier, since if you kill with a cantrip you get nothing. The amount of healing is minimal, and you only heal once per turn even if you killed multiple enemies with a single spell, so it discourages AoE uses. It's a very disappointing feature, to be honest. Undead Thralls is meh: free addition of Animate Dead to the spellbook is OK, the slight improvement to health and proficiency bonus is alright. The thing with necromancers like this is that they rely on having a large amount of undead to swarm the opponent with. When you're on a ship with very limited space having a large collection of undead isn't feasible. The spell slots you'd use up maintaining them every day is not worth the rare moments you will actually benefit from having them. Sure, you can have a literal skeleton crew - but real crew think better, react better, help solve stuff better, and will have skill proficiencies relative to their duties which zombies and skeletons don't. Not really worth the cost of spending spell slots every day just to keep them around. Inured to death has very situational uses, because very few things can drain your maximum HP, and Necrotic damage isn't super common - and resistance to it could be gained by other means, like race or magic items. On land where you can amass an undead army but out at sea, the limitations stack up against you. Command Undead is next to worthless - at least for a 14th level feature - the way it's worded, no matter the situation. Best this does, the absolute best, is control one extra undead. Undead with Int of 8+ get advantage to resist, Int of 12+ can repeat save to resist every hour. If an undead ever resists this feature it becomes immune FOREVER. Sod that.
Not Recommended.
School of Transmutation
Minor Alchemy can have some rather creative uses if you have the time to use it. Like buying metal, turn it to wood, cut/shape as needed, fix into place and it'll turn back into metal - could be useful in adding fortifications to the ship's hull. Need to get through a metal door? Turn it to wood and have your strong friend smash through - or burn it to ash before it reverts. A creative mind can get a lot of uses of this. The Transmuter's Stone is quite helpful - adaptable resistance, darkvision if needed, increased speed when in a hurry, help with Con saves, and you can even give it to somebody else for them to benefit if they need it more than you. The upgrade at 14th level is super helpful as well especially if there's no designated healer - restore all hit points and cure all disease and poisons and removes all curses all in a single action? Raise the dead if you need to and the cleric's not around - you still need the diamond though, restore youthful appearance - limited use, really just get Clone spell, and the Major Transformation is a niche thing - possibly exploitable. Still the restoring properties are significant.
Highly Recommended
War Magic
Arcane Deflection is better used for the +4 to a saving throw, although the +2 to AC if I run out of slots I want to sacrifice for Shield could be alright. Again, though, it's only a single attack, so Shield is better if you can cast it. And truth be told, the +4 to a saving throw isn't that great when you could instead use Absorb Elements. It's useful, of course, but the situations where the feature is preferred over other defensive options all wizards can have are going to be few and far between. The bonus to initiative is good, as covered earlier. Power Surge I find lacklustre - you only get one charge in a day unless you can Dispel Magic or Counterspell successfully which, given the seafaring setting, probably isn't going to happen often enough to make the feature worth it. Especially since the damage output of a surge is rather mediocre - even at level 20 it's just 10 damage. So, realistically that's maybe 30 extra damage dealt in a day if you're lucky? Meh. Durable Magic is interesting, and has some use, it'll stack with Shield and Mage Armour, so it's not bad. Deflecting Shroud finally gives the oomph that the Arcane Deflection needed, but at this point it's too little too late. Unlike Illusory Reality it's not a gamechanger. If you're more on land and constantly fighting mages, then sure although frankly the Abjurist would still be a better pick.
Not Recommended.
Let's talk about spells now.
Recommended Spells
This is not intended to be all the spells you must focus on, just some I think you may get more out of for a campaign largely focused on battles at sea or on coasts. Some suggestions may be redundant depending on what the members of your party can also do or what your race is. I won't be including UA content in this, just because that can often not be allowed.
Cantrips
Control Flames - makes it easier to snuff out fires. Fire on a wooden boat with lots of rope and sails and other flammable material, including gunpowder? Not good. So this will help stop fires spreading.
Fire Bolt - To start fires on the enemy boats. Since you can target objects, you can target their sails, ropes, barrels. If a boat is chasing you, toss out a barrel of gunpowder, when you go away from it, the enemy gets close to it: firebolt it and watch it go boom right at the enemy. A non-magical variant of this was actually used in real history. It can be effective.
Gust - While the gust made is not enough for main ships, a small boat with a smaller sail could easily be sped up with this simple cantrip. Time it right by readying and blast somebody trying to swing onto your boat, causing them to fall into the water instead.
Light - It gets dark out at sea, without street lanterns and such. Turn on and off at a distance to signal to ships or shore.
Mage Hand - All hands on deck can mean this extra hand, great for trying knots in sails high up without you needing to climb. Also just extremely handy for all sorts of things. Like handling dangerous barrels of gunpowder, grabbing items that fall overboard without having to go down there, or to pour your rum when you're feeling lazy.
Mending - Things can easily break on a boat. Lashes from the sea, things fall from shelves, storms, more. Mending can help a lot fix some of these wear and tear damages - and much faster and with less effort and materials. As long as you have all the pieces - or at least enough of them - you can fix almost anything - including those leaks.
Message - The sea can be noisy with the waves, wind and endless singing of sea shanties. This can help message people across the ship where shouting would fail - even to other ships or the shore if you're close enough.
Minor Illusion - This spell is useful in most situations. Need to change a flag? Take yours down and make the illusion of the new one, need to distract the enemy - make an illusion of something scary. Scouted a bit of land? Make an illusion of a map showing what you discovered. You aren't going to have a huge use for illusions unless you are an Illusion wizard, but having a little something can prove useful in situations that arise.
Prestidigitation - Getting clean on a ship is a nightmare. Sea water isn't really clean and it's very cold. With this cantrip you can clean your items (most DMs will let you clean yourself, too). You warm up water for a bath, make marks and symbols appear, and more. It's the most versatile cantrip in 5th Edition D&D (maybe any edition?) and this one is highly recommended - just for the cleaning alone!
Shape Water - Hot day out at sea? Use this to create ice on demand that, no matter how hot, stays ice for an hour. Also entertaining to animate the water. Can also help push small boats, or help move the water if you have a leak - make it reverse direction, repair the leak, then animate the water that came in for it to just walk itself to the edge of the ship and dive overboard. Easy cleanup.
1st Level Spells
Alarm - Sleep safely. Or know when somebody has entered your rooms. Make one for all the windows and doors - if anybody tries to sneak onto your ship at night, the alarms ring and nobody is caught unaware.
Catapult - Keep some smaller mini-cannonballs on deck. Fling these at enemies that try to board, or to the enemy ship's hull. They're small, but thanks to the spell they'll throw 60 ft and do 3d8 damage. Now if you had Alchemist's Fire or something else that can blow up on impact? Ooh baby.
Comprehend Languages - Travelling around you could come across all sorts of things. Hidden islands, lost treasures, other travellers, pirates and more. Invariably you'll come across things in different languages - this nifty ritual spell ensures you can always get a good-enough understanding of anything you come across. Perhaps you got a map but it's in a language you don't understand - should be fine - the land masses are all there, right? Ah but that warning about the Kraken lurking next to a small island that's actually a Dragon Turtle? Oh, whoops, would have been good to not miss that!
Find Familiar - A familiar helps with scouting, can look all around the ship without you climbing and risking falling overboard, and can be turned into an aquatic creature to see what's lurking under the waves - or as a scout and aid if you go swimming. It can get very foggy out at sea sometimes - a familiar flying overhead means you can use its senses to help you guide the ship through even the densest fog.
Fog Cloud - Can help mask approaches or getaways, especially for smaller boats or skiffs. If it's already a foggy day, obscuring yourself with mist will make you undetectable to the enemy.
Grease - If you can't stop an enemy boarding, then having them fall on their ass when they do is a choice Plan B. Also funnier.
Mage Armor / Shield / Magic Missile - Because, seriously, you can't be a wizard without these. It's a law or something. Joking aside, they're staples because they're awesome. Mage Armour and Shield give you a great baseline protection and Magic Missile being an auto-hit is something you should never underestimate - especially in underwater encounters where your attacks and spells could be less effective. Their 1st level spells so it's easy to make Spell Scrolls of them - stock up on a few scrolls of each spell and that can save spell slots for when you need them.
Tenser's Floating Disk - Total time-saver when you're restocking, just load it all onto the disk and bring it up on-board. Also useful if you need to move a lot of kegs/barrels around.
Thunderwave - Nothing says "Get off my ship!" like blasting the enemy into the sea. Time it when they're attempting to swing onto yours and you could end up bashing them into the side of their own ship.
Unseen Servant - Why carry stuff yourself or mop the deck or do any of that? You're a wizard! Create a servant to do it for you. You've got better things to do, like navigating, looking important, sipping tea, reading spell books and napping. (Note: if you're 18th level you can choose this for Spell Mastery and in one you've basically created a crew by just casting it over and over again.)
2nd Level Spells
Alter Self - Swimming is better when you get a natural swim speed (which also means no more disadvantage to any melee attacks you make) and can breathe underwater. At 18th level you could choose this as your Spell Mastery to be able to cast it infinitely.
Arcane Lock - Your ship will be your home for a long period of time. There is few things worse than having enemies secretly board your ship in the middle of the night. They could be enemies from under the sea, from a nearby ship you thought was just a safe merchant or an ally. Your Alarms will only alert you to them not stop them. So, why not secure the doors and windows and whatever holes with an Arcane Lock? Only you and the crew can open or close these. Suddenly flimsy wood is now almost as tough as iron and the locks are like Master locks - much more difficult to lockpick. You can also use it on a padlock to a chain you can put on the ship's wheel and the crank for the anchor - so, when you're under the waves diving down, or on the shore of a new island you don't have to worry about an enemy sailing up and stealing it.
Continual Flame - It gets dark at night and can even be dark in the day during winter. Lanterns and candles constantly needing to be lit and consuming wax and oil can be a hassle. Carrying fire around where there's gunpowder even more of an hassle - especially if you drop that candle or torch, or a harsh wave causes a lantern to fall where you really don't want it to. Then realise the entire ship is wood, not exactly difficult to catch fire. So, having fire on board is risky. So, here the spell quite literally shines. All the illumination of fire, with none of the risk of burning your ship to ashes or, in the gunpowder room, blowing you all up. If you want to be really theatrical and had enough material components: you make it seem like you're a whole ship on fire. Might hinder your outward visibility wading through firelight, but it would undoubtedly, be really freaking cool.
Dragon's Breath - Oh darn, the enemy ship is just out of reach of the cannons and usual spells. Oh, but you have this spell and a familiar. Cast on a flying familiar, they can fly over and napalm the shit out of the ship and come back. Or on an aquatic one who could swim close, stick their head up, blast away, go back under to safety. Even if it "dies" so what - it's a familiar, you can bring back with a bit of incense and a ritual. Even better, if you can get close to the enemy ship, sure you battle with firebolts and whatnot, but in the meantime send a familiar to sneak to the ship into the gunpowder room. If the familiar is within 100 ft, still, then you can cast this spell through the familiar - the familiar can touch itself to have it be cast upon it. Why do it this way? Just in case it takes longer to sneak to this room, and so you can use concentration spells in the meantime if needed. Also so you haven't wasted the spell in case it gets caught and killed before it reaches the gunpowder room. But, once there, with Dragon's Breath of Fire it can ignite all the gunpowder at once in a kamikaze move and take out the enemy ship.
Flock of Familiars - For an hour you can use your familiar and the ones created this spell as scouts with telepathic connection, seeing and hearing through all of them without needing to use an action to maintain it, and for up to a mile away. It's an amazing scouting spell. Furthermore, if there's an enemy ship 500 feet away, you'll normally be hard-pressed to see the deck from that distance - since most ships have the sides go up all around to counter splashing of waves and stop people falling over. But, with a flying familiar with this spell - you can see through its eyes without using your action letting you use that action to cast Arcane Gate so you and your crewmates can rush in and surprise the enemy from a distance greater than their cannons can shoot.
Gentle Repose - You could be weeks, months, from anywhere that will have a Cleric or diamond components. So if you lack the means of casting Raise Dead, this ritual will keep the bodies of fallen crew/party members within the 10-day limit of raise dead. If you have the gold I would recommend making a few spell scrolls and keep them on you. That way you could use the scrolls to cast as an action and keep the bodies within the time-limits of Revivify. The less the cost in diamonds for resurrection spells, the easier they are to procure thus the easier it is to bring back your friend.
Gust of Wind - A boost to the sails, or just to make it difficult for enemies to stay on board. Or push crewmembers overboard as a prank.
Invisibility - Makes it easier for you or your familiar (see Dragon's Breath entry above) to sneak on board the enemy ship.
Levitate - In the water and need to get back up quickly? Use this. Also good to use on a melee enemy so they cannot attack people. Also useful for getting up to the crow's nest or the sails. Ally unconcious in water? Use this so they don't drown. Below water surface with an unconious ally and, being a wizard, too weak to swim them up to the surface? Use this to get them to the surface (and beyond) faster. Works on objects too up to 500 lbs, like levitating a cannon, push an enemy underneath and then dropping concentration.
Misty Step - Similar to Levitate this could be used to get to the deck quickly from the water. If the enemy captures you but hasn't gagged you, the simple verbal component makes it easy to misty step out of the restraints/cage. It's also a good spell if the enemy has surrounded you and you need to escape or if you need to chase an enemy. If you encounter a locked door you can summon your familiar on the other side (since you don't have to see the space you summon it to), then you can use actions to see through it and then the bonus action to Misty Step - bypassing the door. Screw you Rogue, us Wizards can get through any door without tools! If you're a conjuration wizard you should take this for 18th level Spell Mastery, because it resets your Benign Transposition feature. That's two 30 ft teleports every turn. If you ready the Benign Transposition action, you could Misty Step into the air then Benign Transposition another 30 ft as a reaction before you fall - basically letting you teleport to an enemy ship, as long as it's within 60 ft, without using a spell slot.
Skywrite - If you're venturing onto land and find enemies and need reinforcements or need to tell your crew to move away from the land because the enemies are on the way, and you cannot get to them in time - then this is useful spell. Or perhaps your crew are on land and you're on the ship and an enemy ship approaches. Being able to write a message in the sky can help communicate at longer distance. It would be useful to make scrolls. That way you can ritual cast for less urgent messages and use the scroll for those rare moments you need to cast as an action - which all saves on spell slots.
3rd Level Spells
Some of these are useful in most situations like Blink, Catnap, Counterspell and Dispel Magic, Fireball, Fly and more. So, I'm going to focus more on ones that have a specific nautical use to suggest, might have relevance to a situation not commonly thought of or make good combos.
Gaseous Form - An often overlooked spell with its 10 ft fly speed and inability to do anything during it. However, it will be useful here. See an enemy ship ahead, while at night, that has yet to notice you? Turn into a misty cloud and float along the water - the enemy will barely notice and if they do you're just a bit of fog - a highly common sight. Sure, it takes a minute to move 100 ft, but it lasts an hour, so it's OK. Get close, and float up to slip in through any crack or hole, and voila, you've successfully snuck on board. Since you look like a cloud, you could fly up in the actual clouds and nobody will notice you. In an hour it's 600 ft of flying while looking like an innocuous cloud and being able to go down when they're not looking and pass through cracks, holes, an such openings. On your own ship you could purposefully create a series of concealed openings and tubes so if the enemy does successfully board your ship, you have a way of getting around the ship secretly and with more stealth than any Rogue could possibly dream of. This could be great to combine with Glyphs of Warding (covered later) - to create safe rooms: somebody who cannot fight could be shown what to do: they go to right place, touch the glyph, and are then clouds that can move through a narrow hidden slit with a tube that can take them to a more secure part of the ship or just to hide in. Perhaps you have a secret room that can only be accessed this way? Or maybe a tube leads outside the ship where another 2 glyphs are to dispel the cloud as the other then casts waterbreathing? A bit elaborate, but hey, it works. Also, it's a touch spell so you can remotely cast it on your familiar if trying to sneak them into the enemy's ship that has hatches down and doors closed.
Glyph of Warding - Sure it's costly and takes an hour but the uses are endless. A buff or trap that persists and doesn't use your concentration? Whether the panic button to get you to safety, an emergency water-breathing, or a fireball ready to set against your stock of gunpowder if you're the type who'd rather the destroy the ship than let the enemy have it, if the enemy are too powerful for you - just make sure it's a trigger your familiar could set off so you're not immediately there when it goes boom and end up vaporised. It's good for all sorts of situations but I mention it here because you can store Waterbreathing in it, because of using Gaseous Form with it, and just generally because you can create all sorts of combos. The cost and time are worth it to cast an hour-long buff without it taking concentration, like Alter Self. If you ever get a Spell Gem that can hold a 3rd level spell, holy shit are you in for an awesome time. Spell Gems let you store a spell in them, if they're abjuration , then you only need half the components. So, it now costs 100 gp instead of 200 gp. It also now only costs an action to cast the spell stored inside. And, you are still considered the caster of that stored spell when you use that action to cast it. The spell Flock of Familiars allows you to use any of the familiars with the same rules and options of Find Familiar - which includes the ability to use a reaction to deliver a touch spell. And guess what, Glyph of Warding is a touch spell. You can now remotely place a Glyph of Warding anywhere within a mile that at least one of the familiars can get to. You can still choose to put a spell in the glyph, or just leave it with the explosive option (like in the gunpowder room of an enemy ship) and you can still set whatever trigger you want within the parameters, which could be "one minute after the familiar leaves the room" (if you're using your normal familiar and don't want it to "die"). If this is a ship you're aiming to take over and don't want to destroy, the familiar can sneak into the captain's quarter's instead. Remote, instantly-placed, Glyphs of Warding for half-cost. I ******* love Wizards.
Sending - I'm still mentioning this because it will be a great way to maintain some communication to contacts on land, back home, etc. It's a rather essential spell in this case. You could use it to keep somebody updated on where you are, so if something happens they have a good idea where you might be. Perhaps your ship sunk so now you're stranded - a good sending spell and rescue might be on the way, depending on the distance.
Tidal Wave - Fire is the bane of ships so being able to put out a lot of fire in an instant is a blessing. Also useful for pushing enemies off the ship as well, or at least knocking a lot of them prone.
Water Breathing - It lets everyone be amphibious for 24 hours. I think it's fairly obvious why this should be taken if you're spending a lot of time on coasts or at sea. If your ship is destroyed this could save your life. Also a great excuse to go diving, while adopting a jamaican accent and singing Under the Sea.
4th Level Spells
I'm going to continue focusing more specifically and will do so throughout this list from here on.
Control Water - Speed up your ship a bit, or sink enemy ships with a wave of a hand. A sea battle between ships will end in your favour the instant you start using this.
Dimension Door - Teleport to or from the shore, to or from the enemy ship. Teleport around your ship if speed is needed.
Fabricate - A lot of spare wood but none fit the big hole an enemy cannon left? Use fabricate to turn that wood into a large, single, solid piece that is. Between Mending and Fabricate you can basically fix anything much faster than normal. Great for recycling.
Galder's Speedy Courier - You got loot, buncha swag, more. You got the mcguffin you were sent after. Why wait the days, weeks or even months to get back home when you could set up a trusty ally with the right connections who can sell that stuff for you? You can then use this spell to get the stuff to them instantly. By the time you get back, they will have sold everything and will have a nice pile o' shinies for you. If the Mcguffin was for somebody, you can use this to send it to them. It will work best if your trusted ally is also a wizard or warlock who can cast this spell, so they could send the gold to you without you having to even return. If the ally is just a Commoner merchant, then a Geas spell could ensure their honesty - because you could have it that if they ever steal from you etc, they take damage which is enough to instantly kill them. So, they'll never break your trust, due to wanting to stay alive. (They have 4 HP and the spell does 5 damage minimum...) Also a good way to send letters home so Sending's word limit won't restrict you.
5th Level Spells
Control Winds - Helps in a storm and can give you a big speed boost for an hour, which is great for outpacing enemies or catching up to them.
Passwall - On your ship a quick exit. On an enemy ship it's an instant hole the water can flood through. While breathing underwater you can swim up underneath the boat, cast Passwall and just let it flood for an hour (instant victory against smaller ships) or for a sneaky way into their ship undetected and an exit you can use again since it lasts an hour without concentration.
Rary's Telepathic Bond - if you're infiltrating the enemy ship sneakily or just popping onto land quickly, this can give you communication at distance. It only lasts an hour unless you recast, but it is a ritual so you can use it without using up spellslots. Great for stealth missions. Also good for underwater communication.
Teleportation Circle - OK, a weird one, but hear me out. The spell does say you need to draw the circle on the "ground". However, this is not a strict dictionary definition of "ground" and rather the idiomatic use - generally meaning the floor or surface beneath your feet when you stand normally. This is evident by the fact there are wizard spires and dungeons and more that have teleport circles on flooring/surfaces and even platforms that are not "surface of the earth". So yes, you can use it on a ship. If we took "ground" to be the dictionary definition a lot of spells would be unusable in most circumstances and some official adventures would be rather inaccurate. There is no restriction, at all, that says you cannot fix it to a moving surface. A permanent teleport circle is linked to the location where its circle is drawn, not to a fixed point in space. Teleporting via this spell or Teleport or Plane Shift, can be to a permanent teleport circle whose sigils you know. So, there's nothing stopping you making a permanent circle on your ship so you can easily get to it when you need to. I mean aside from the fact it takes a year and 600 gp.
6th Level Spells
Arcane Gate - Sometimes it's not convenient to bring a ship too close to the shore. So, use this and that problem is solved. If you can see the deck of an enemy ship you can create an Arcane Gate to quickly and easily invade that ship.
Contingency - Always recommend storing waterbreathing. This way if your ship is suddenly attacked and sunk, even if you're made unconcious or otherwise incapacitated, this will trigger and you can't drown.
Disintegrate - Okay, so this isn't any special nautical circumstance but it's worthy enough to mention: it's an instant 10-foot hole you can put in the enemy ship if you get close enough. Target the right spot and that's a hole they're not gonna fix in time before the ship sinks while smaller boats will be entirely disintegrated.
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere - You're bound to find some enemy thing swimming up towards your ship. So freeze the water to restrain them.
7th Level Spells
Project Image - Want to explore that island in safety? Miss your family back home and want to be with them? This spell is great for both. It's range of 500 miles is a huge distance. You could also project to another ship for talks, in case its a trap. And it lasts all day.
Reverse Gravity - If the enemy ship is within 100 ft, cast there to send their crew into the air. If they're outside that distance but have boats making their way to you, use it on the boats. The boats and all on them will fly up. Even if they're out of range, the gem + glyph + flock of familiars trick can certainly solve that problem, since the delivery of the glyph occurs before casting this spell into it - but you need to have a gem capable of storing 7th level spells and ensure the glyph spell is 7th level.
Symbol - Less versatile but more powerful version of Glyph of Warding. When the Symbol is triggered it creates a 60 ft radius sphere that lasts 10 minutes, anyone caught in that sphere or enters it suffers the effects which can range from stunning everyone, making them unconcious and just straight up 10d10 necro damage. All the tricks of Glyph with gems and familiars applies to Symbol - which is bloody frightening to think about.
8th Level Spells
Control Weather - A bad storm can capsize a ship while a lack of wind can make you stuck, not going anywhere if you don't have oars. Controlling the weather to always ensure that for the next 8 hours, you will always have the perfect sailing weather which in turn ensures good speeds. If you're a high level sailing wizard then this is a must-have.
Demiplane - The lighter a ship is the faster it can be and it all helps. If you need to lighten the ship shove unnecessary stuff into a demiplane. It's a good place for your gold and treasures too. Also a good place to put prisoners for a limited time (ya know, before their air runs out but it's a big space, it'll be days before they do).
9th Level Spells
Gate - If you need to travel by sea to a different plane this spell can open a portal for you. It's 20 ft in diameter, and most ships are 20 ft wide, so it may be enough to fit through. But if the DM says it can't then, there are still uses. If you have Plane Shifted around and know the right places you could open a Gate to a river of lava/magma in the plane of fire right onto the enemy's ship. Or flood them with a massive waterfall of water from the plane of water.
Meteor Swarm - You can take out a whole fleet of ships in an instant.
Wish - No special nautical uses, just if you don't take this you're mental. Even the base effect of replicating any spell of 8th level or lower, with no somatic or material components required and in an instant (action) instead of regular casting time? Sweet jeebus.
I think you’re undervaluing the necromancer being able to provide enough bodies that every crew member performs their respective task with advantage from being Helped. Even a fully skeleton crew, unskilled as it is, will have the bonepower to perform every nautical task with advantage. And, they won’t need provisions!
When checking the subclasses I need to focus on the benefit of the features. The necromancer subclass features don't provide much benefit for seafaring. Sure, a skeleton crew has uses - but that's not something specific to the subclass. Any wizard can have an undead army. As can any Cleric for that matter. You could most assuredly have a skeleton crew while also being a Chronurgist or Conjuror for instance. The Necromancy subclass features don't do anything to really improve how effective your skeleton crew is at being a crew other than 1 extra member per cast, which isn't much of a boost.
Hmm, that “one extra” is actually quite a few extra across your spell slots (100% more on a 3rd, 33% more on a 4th, etc…) but I forget the precise skeleton math for a dedicated necromancer :p Seems like familiars get props a few times for their usefulness assisting the crew… despite having animal intelligence, low strength, and no free hands. Creating undead sailors to keep watch, perform ship tasks, assist crew, or do things like… haul the ship off a sandbar by throwing them overboard tied to ropes? Etc… I just think you’re sleeping on the thematic ness and usefulness of zombie pirates!
Bones aside, this was definitely a cool idea for a thread! It isn’t often you see build advice for a setting rather than a combat role.
I read a thread about which Wizard arcane traditions are best for coastal campaigns, and while generally the a wizard on beaches is no different than a wizard on any other kind of land, it did get me thinking about what would be best for a wizard in a proper seafaring campaign - one that is mostly at sea, fighting pirate ships and exploring new lands and islands they come across. So I made this. Since this also offers tips for wizard spells that some other classes have and may find useful, I figured the Tips & Tricks forum was best. It could maybe even help with multiclass builds.
I'm going to run through the non-UA Arcane Traditions and give you my thoughts on them - by this point I've played almost all of them or being in games where others were played, from 1st to 20th level. So, while these are still my personal opinions, maybe they'll help.
I'll describe my thoughts then say whether I recommend them for a seafaring-focused campaign.
Not Recommended - the features are not enough to really warrant taking this as it'll be of little or no benefit for large portions of the campaign.
Recommended - most features will see some use or there's one feature that can offer a lot of use and benefit even if the others may not.
Highly Recommended - you will see benefit from every feature, some more than others, but all features will be useful to you in a significant way.
After this I will move on to spells I recommend, considering them either for their obvious relevant benefit or because there are neat tricks or combinations you can do that are going to be useful in such a campaign.
Warning: this is going to be very long. But, hopefully a lot of it will be useful for you. Please forgive typos, I started this at 3 am and it's now nearly 12:30 pm (I'm writing this intro bit last). I'm a slow typer. And I'm too tired to proof-read.
Arcane Traditions
Bladesinging
While this can be useful and make cool moments - none of the features will help you in a nautical setting. However, it does make it easier for you to fight in melee, and being on a ship that can be likely if the enemy boards you. However, most battles at sea have less boarding and more ranged cannonfire, so blasting fireballs will be better than swinging a sword.
Not recommended.
Chronurgy Magic
The Chronal Shift feature will always be useful whether it's a basic skill check for normal ship operations, or helping in battle, or when an enemy saves against your spell. The forced reroll increases your chances of things being in your favour. Temporal Awareness adding a bonus to your Initiative can be useful - with the right spell and high enough initiative you could end the battle before it's even begun. The Momentary Stasis feature also has uses. If the enemy is trying to swim to you, you can use this: incapacitated with a speed of 0 means they can no longer swim. Down they go. Okay, it's only a round, but in that round they're sitting ducks in the water. Or, if the enemy ship has a spellcaster as well and their ship moves into range, this feature can stop them concentrating on any spell or casting new ones for a round. This can certainly help. Arcane Conveyance is more useful than you may realise. If you have 10 gp per crew/party member, well, now you can give everyone a familiar of their choice. The spell mote will let them cast your Find Familiar spell as if they were the caster - so it doesn't interfere with your own familiar, the familiar they make will be theirs not yours. Spells of 4th level or lower with a target of self can now be effectively cast on others. Not only that but they bear the burden of Concentration - so gift your Fighter with a mote of Haste, give your Rogue a mote of Invisibility, and so on. Convergent Future is mouth-wateringly good. Make any attack/ability check/saving throw within 60 ft of you succeed or fail regardless of what the dice say? Holy waffles that's useful!
Highly Recommended
Graviturgy Magic
Adjust Density and Violent Attraction are very situational but certainly useful. Gravity Well is a lot less useful due to being more situational. Move the target around by 5 ft isn't a lot. Even if they were on the edge of the ship moving them to fall into water can be good but the amount of times an enemy is just going to stand next to an edge they could easily be moved off of while without 60 ft of you is... Not going to happen a lot. Outside of that there are not a lot of uses. Maybe combine with Levitate and then you can cast some cantrip on yourself to move yourself sideways, not just up and down? I dunno. Event Horizon can be good to keep enemies away from you if they do board your ship. Even if they save their speed is effectively halved trying to move towards you and if they fail they cannot move at all, and it only affects hostiles, and lasts a minute and damages them if they start their turn within 30 ft - which, given the speed reductions, can be likely - unless they turn tail and run away from you when they can which is kinda a win for you.
Recommended
School of Abjuration
Outside of battle or similar dangerous situations, this has no real function. So outside of thos situations this arcane tradition gives you nothing. But for those occasions where you are in battle or exploring a jungle you've come across or something, it definitely can come in handy. The Arcane Ward is decent and can take some good hits for you and you can recharge with abjuration spells. Being able to have the ward take damage for an ally, is useful for obvious reasons. The enhancement to Dispel Magic and Counterspell is great when going up against other spellcasting entities, and means you can afford to use lower level slots rather than risking higher slots. The advantage to saving throws against any magic used against you and resistance to damage from any magic - you're basically the anti-mage mage. We'll soon discover there's a few spells that just outright destroy ships, so being better protected against enemy magic is going to be useful.
Recommended
School of Conjuration.
Minor Conjuration is one of those things that can be useful in all sorts of ways. You can create any object you have ever seen in your life as long as it is within 3 feet on any side. Chairs, small tables, fishing rod, thieves' tools (maybe), the guard's key, a dagger (although it will disappear after use), a glowing diamond to sell to some sailing merchant as a fake magic item, a ball to play with, a frisbee (is there a medieval/D&D equivalent? - well you're a wizard with high Int, invent it!), a musical instrument, a fancy hat, a wedge of wood to put under a door to stop it slamming shut or make it more difficult to open, a cup for some tea, a white flag for surrendering or at least pretending that you are, a barrel if you need an extra one temporarily... All sorts of things. Frankly this feature alone could make it worth it if you're creative enough. Benign Transposition is really handy especially when you combine with misty step. Unbreakable concentration for conjurations will be nifty when summoning elementals as will the temp HP from durable summons - even minor elementals - your fire mephits may indeed succeed at reaching the enemy's gunpowder storage and even if they don't their habit of exploding on death will help ignite the enemy's ship.
Highly Recommended
School of Divination
Portent Feature is useful in many situations in and out of battles and danger. Recovering spell slots is good - if you can find the situation for constantly casting enough divination spells to be worth it. When you get 9th level, Foresight could be useful with the recovery of 8th level or lower slot, but really when in battle out at sea you do have better uses for that 9th level slot. The Third Eye is useful in some situations. To be honest if it wasn't for Portent this wouldn't be recommended, but it does have it and it's a decent enough feature.
Recommended
School of Enchantment
Hypnotic Gaze is of limited use in any kind of game, in a seafaring one it's usefuless compared to other options is virtually nil. Instinctive Charm would be alright if it didn't require you to have another enemy close by, which is not going to happen often since most battles start at distance, and you'll be doing what you can to keep enemies away. I'm currently playing an Enchanter and even when going up against a whole horde of enemies I've yet to use it. I'd rather use my reaction for a Shield to protect from multiple attacks than this feature against only one. Split Enchantment and Alter Memories are useful - but for seafaring and island exploring, how useful is it really going to be? On land in usual campaigns they could see more use. Spending most of the time with the same crew and only occasionally battling ships or animals - these features will barely be used.
Not Recommended
School of Evocation
This is akin to Abjuration: utterly useless outside of battle or any situation where you need to kill something. But in battle it is great: your cantrips are no longer 'save or suck' so you can guarantee damage every round, your evocation spells do a bit extra damage, and you can maximise the damage of any 5th level or lower evocation spell instead of rolling once per day. That's all real nifty. Since you're on a ship using AoE spells is challenging, so Scult Spells solves that. Although that only becomes necessary for battles that occur on your ship, most won't - they'll be "ship battles" or on land where you can quite reasonably position your AoEs to not hit allies most of the time. None of these features are big and all are completely reliant on battle, unlike Abjuration which can be useful in exploration against traps and hazards. Still, it does bring enough to the table.
Recommended.
School of Illusion
The free cantrip with improvement is nice, not necessary but Minor Illusion can have surprising amount of usefuless in a variety of situations. Malleable Illusions is great at saving spell slots or making more impressive deceptions like having your illusion of a mage transform into a great beast! The Illusory Self is like Hypnotic Gaze but better in that it forces an auto-miss. Still, it's only against 1 attack and by this level many enemies will have multiattack - Shield still remains better. So far, while there's uses, it's not enough to recommend or seafaring - illusions at sea will suffer in effectiveness. Useful, sure, but the situations where illusions really shine occur much less. Illusions can be useful, but out at sea it's not going to happen enough to warrant a subclass investment. However, the game-changer to this is Illusory Reality when now your Silent Image becomes a cannon-blocking wall or something. Minor Illusion can make chairs you can sit in, you can do all sorts of things. So, this is a weird case. If you don't think you'll become a 14th level wizard - whether because the campaign won't last that long, or you think you'll multiclass more than 6 levels, then I don't recommend this.
Recommended at 14th level or later.
School of Necromancy
Grim Harvest is an OK feature, sort of. It requires you to be the one issuing the killing blow and with a spell of 1st level or higher - which means using a cantrip is riskier, since if you kill with a cantrip you get nothing. The amount of healing is minimal, and you only heal once per turn even if you killed multiple enemies with a single spell, so it discourages AoE uses. It's a very disappointing feature, to be honest. Undead Thralls is meh: free addition of Animate Dead to the spellbook is OK, the slight improvement to health and proficiency bonus is alright. The thing with necromancers like this is that they rely on having a large amount of undead to swarm the opponent with. When you're on a ship with very limited space having a large collection of undead isn't feasible. The spell slots you'd use up maintaining them every day is not worth the rare moments you will actually benefit from having them. Sure, you can have a literal skeleton crew - but real crew think better, react better, help solve stuff better, and will have skill proficiencies relative to their duties which zombies and skeletons don't. Not really worth the cost of spending spell slots every day just to keep them around. Inured to death has very situational uses, because very few things can drain your maximum HP, and Necrotic damage isn't super common - and resistance to it could be gained by other means, like race or magic items. On land where you can amass an undead army but out at sea, the limitations stack up against you. Command Undead is next to worthless - at least for a 14th level feature - the way it's worded, no matter the situation. Best this does, the absolute best, is control one extra undead. Undead with Int of 8+ get advantage to resist, Int of 12+ can repeat save to resist every hour. If an undead ever resists this feature it becomes immune FOREVER. Sod that.
Not Recommended.
School of Transmutation
Minor Alchemy can have some rather creative uses if you have the time to use it. Like buying metal, turn it to wood, cut/shape as needed, fix into place and it'll turn back into metal - could be useful in adding fortifications to the ship's hull. Need to get through a metal door? Turn it to wood and have your strong friend smash through - or burn it to ash before it reverts. A creative mind can get a lot of uses of this. The Transmuter's Stone is quite helpful - adaptable resistance, darkvision if needed, increased speed when in a hurry, help with Con saves, and you can even give it to somebody else for them to benefit if they need it more than you. The upgrade at 14th level is super helpful as well especially if there's no designated healer - restore all hit points and cure all disease and poisons and removes all curses all in a single action? Raise the dead if you need to and the cleric's not around - you still need the diamond though, restore youthful appearance - limited use, really just get Clone spell, and the Major Transformation is a niche thing - possibly exploitable. Still the restoring properties are significant.
Highly Recommended
War Magic
Arcane Deflection is better used for the +4 to a saving throw, although the +2 to AC if I run out of slots I want to sacrifice for Shield could be alright. Again, though, it's only a single attack, so Shield is better if you can cast it. And truth be told, the +4 to a saving throw isn't that great when you could instead use Absorb Elements. It's useful, of course, but the situations where the feature is preferred over other defensive options all wizards can have are going to be few and far between. The bonus to initiative is good, as covered earlier. Power Surge I find lacklustre - you only get one charge in a day unless you can Dispel Magic or Counterspell successfully which, given the seafaring setting, probably isn't going to happen often enough to make the feature worth it. Especially since the damage output of a surge is rather mediocre - even at level 20 it's just 10 damage. So, realistically that's maybe 30 extra damage dealt in a day if you're lucky? Meh. Durable Magic is interesting, and has some use, it'll stack with Shield and Mage Armour, so it's not bad. Deflecting Shroud finally gives the oomph that the Arcane Deflection needed, but at this point it's too little too late. Unlike Illusory Reality it's not a gamechanger. If you're more on land and constantly fighting mages, then sure although frankly the Abjurist would still be a better pick.
Not Recommended.
Let's talk about spells now.
Recommended Spells
This is not intended to be all the spells you must focus on, just some I think you may get more out of for a campaign largely focused on battles at sea or on coasts. Some suggestions may be redundant depending on what the members of your party can also do or what your race is. I won't be including UA content in this, just because that can often not be allowed.
Cantrips
Control Flames - makes it easier to snuff out fires. Fire on a wooden boat with lots of rope and sails and other flammable material, including gunpowder? Not good. So this will help stop fires spreading.
Fire Bolt - To start fires on the enemy boats. Since you can target objects, you can target their sails, ropes, barrels. If a boat is chasing you, toss out a barrel of gunpowder, when you go away from it, the enemy gets close to it: firebolt it and watch it go boom right at the enemy. A non-magical variant of this was actually used in real history. It can be effective.
Gust - While the gust made is not enough for main ships, a small boat with a smaller sail could easily be sped up with this simple cantrip. Time it right by readying and blast somebody trying to swing onto your boat, causing them to fall into the water instead.
Light - It gets dark out at sea, without street lanterns and such. Turn on and off at a distance to signal to ships or shore.
Mage Hand - All hands on deck can mean this extra hand, great for trying knots in sails high up without you needing to climb. Also just extremely handy for all sorts of things. Like handling dangerous barrels of gunpowder, grabbing items that fall overboard without having to go down there, or to pour your rum when you're feeling lazy.
Mending - Things can easily break on a boat. Lashes from the sea, things fall from shelves, storms, more. Mending can help a lot fix some of these wear and tear damages - and much faster and with less effort and materials. As long as you have all the pieces - or at least enough of them - you can fix almost anything - including those leaks.
Message - The sea can be noisy with the waves, wind and endless singing of sea shanties. This can help message people across the ship where shouting would fail - even to other ships or the shore if you're close enough.
Minor Illusion - This spell is useful in most situations. Need to change a flag? Take yours down and make the illusion of the new one, need to distract the enemy - make an illusion of something scary. Scouted a bit of land? Make an illusion of a map showing what you discovered. You aren't going to have a huge use for illusions unless you are an Illusion wizard, but having a little something can prove useful in situations that arise.
Prestidigitation - Getting clean on a ship is a nightmare. Sea water isn't really clean and it's very cold. With this cantrip you can clean your items (most DMs will let you clean yourself, too). You warm up water for a bath, make marks and symbols appear, and more. It's the most versatile cantrip in 5th Edition D&D (maybe any edition?) and this one is highly recommended - just for the cleaning alone!
Shape Water - Hot day out at sea? Use this to create ice on demand that, no matter how hot, stays ice for an hour. Also entertaining to animate the water. Can also help push small boats, or help move the water if you have a leak - make it reverse direction, repair the leak, then animate the water that came in for it to just walk itself to the edge of the ship and dive overboard. Easy cleanup.
1st Level Spells
Alarm - Sleep safely. Or know when somebody has entered your rooms. Make one for all the windows and doors - if anybody tries to sneak onto your ship at night, the alarms ring and nobody is caught unaware.
Catapult - Keep some smaller mini-cannonballs on deck. Fling these at enemies that try to board, or to the enemy ship's hull. They're small, but thanks to the spell they'll throw 60 ft and do 3d8 damage. Now if you had Alchemist's Fire or something else that can blow up on impact? Ooh baby.
Comprehend Languages - Travelling around you could come across all sorts of things. Hidden islands, lost treasures, other travellers, pirates and more. Invariably you'll come across things in different languages - this nifty ritual spell ensures you can always get a good-enough understanding of anything you come across. Perhaps you got a map but it's in a language you don't understand - should be fine - the land masses are all there, right? Ah but that warning about the Kraken lurking next to a small island that's actually a Dragon Turtle? Oh, whoops, would have been good to not miss that!
Find Familiar - A familiar helps with scouting, can look all around the ship without you climbing and risking falling overboard, and can be turned into an aquatic creature to see what's lurking under the waves - or as a scout and aid if you go swimming. It can get very foggy out at sea sometimes - a familiar flying overhead means you can use its senses to help you guide the ship through even the densest fog.
Fog Cloud - Can help mask approaches or getaways, especially for smaller boats or skiffs. If it's already a foggy day, obscuring yourself with mist will make you undetectable to the enemy.
Grease - If you can't stop an enemy boarding, then having them fall on their ass when they do is a choice Plan B. Also funnier.
Mage Armor / Shield / Magic Missile - Because, seriously, you can't be a wizard without these. It's a law or something. Joking aside, they're staples because they're awesome. Mage Armour and Shield give you a great baseline protection and Magic Missile being an auto-hit is something you should never underestimate - especially in underwater encounters where your attacks and spells could be less effective. Their 1st level spells so it's easy to make Spell Scrolls of them - stock up on a few scrolls of each spell and that can save spell slots for when you need them.
Tenser's Floating Disk - Total time-saver when you're restocking, just load it all onto the disk and bring it up on-board. Also useful if you need to move a lot of kegs/barrels around.
Thunderwave - Nothing says "Get off my ship!" like blasting the enemy into the sea. Time it when they're attempting to swing onto yours and you could end up bashing them into the side of their own ship.
Unseen Servant - Why carry stuff yourself or mop the deck or do any of that? You're a wizard! Create a servant to do it for you. You've got better things to do, like navigating, looking important, sipping tea, reading spell books and napping. (Note: if you're 18th level you can choose this for Spell Mastery and in one you've basically created a crew by just casting it over and over again.)
2nd Level Spells
Alter Self - Swimming is better when you get a natural swim speed (which also means no more disadvantage to any melee attacks you make) and can breathe underwater. At 18th level you could choose this as your Spell Mastery to be able to cast it infinitely.
Arcane Lock - Your ship will be your home for a long period of time. There is few things worse than having enemies secretly board your ship in the middle of the night. They could be enemies from under the sea, from a nearby ship you thought was just a safe merchant or an ally. Your Alarms will only alert you to them not stop them. So, why not secure the doors and windows and whatever holes with an Arcane Lock? Only you and the crew can open or close these. Suddenly flimsy wood is now almost as tough as iron and the locks are like Master locks - much more difficult to lockpick. You can also use it on a padlock to a chain you can put on the ship's wheel and the crank for the anchor - so, when you're under the waves diving down, or on the shore of a new island you don't have to worry about an enemy sailing up and stealing it.
Continual Flame - It gets dark at night and can even be dark in the day during winter. Lanterns and candles constantly needing to be lit and consuming wax and oil can be a hassle. Carrying fire around where there's gunpowder even more of an hassle - especially if you drop that candle or torch, or a harsh wave causes a lantern to fall where you really don't want it to. Then realise the entire ship is wood, not exactly difficult to catch fire. So, having fire on board is risky. So, here the spell quite literally shines. All the illumination of fire, with none of the risk of burning your ship to ashes or, in the gunpowder room, blowing you all up. If you want to be really theatrical and had enough material components: you make it seem like you're a whole ship on fire. Might hinder your outward visibility wading through firelight, but it would undoubtedly, be really freaking cool.
Dragon's Breath - Oh darn, the enemy ship is just out of reach of the cannons and usual spells. Oh, but you have this spell and a familiar. Cast on a flying familiar, they can fly over and napalm the shit out of the ship and come back. Or on an aquatic one who could swim close, stick their head up, blast away, go back under to safety. Even if it "dies" so what - it's a familiar, you can bring back with a bit of incense and a ritual. Even better, if you can get close to the enemy ship, sure you battle with firebolts and whatnot, but in the meantime send a familiar to sneak to the ship into the gunpowder room. If the familiar is within 100 ft, still, then you can cast this spell through the familiar - the familiar can touch itself to have it be cast upon it. Why do it this way? Just in case it takes longer to sneak to this room, and so you can use concentration spells in the meantime if needed. Also so you haven't wasted the spell in case it gets caught and killed before it reaches the gunpowder room. But, once there, with Dragon's Breath of Fire it can ignite all the gunpowder at once in a kamikaze move and take out the enemy ship.
Flock of Familiars - For an hour you can use your familiar and the ones created this spell as scouts with telepathic connection, seeing and hearing through all of them without needing to use an action to maintain it, and for up to a mile away. It's an amazing scouting spell. Furthermore, if there's an enemy ship 500 feet away, you'll normally be hard-pressed to see the deck from that distance - since most ships have the sides go up all around to counter splashing of waves and stop people falling over. But, with a flying familiar with this spell - you can see through its eyes without using your action letting you use that action to cast Arcane Gate so you and your crewmates can rush in and surprise the enemy from a distance greater than their cannons can shoot.
Gentle Repose - You could be weeks, months, from anywhere that will have a Cleric or diamond components. So if you lack the means of casting Raise Dead, this ritual will keep the bodies of fallen crew/party members within the 10-day limit of raise dead. If you have the gold I would recommend making a few spell scrolls and keep them on you. That way you could use the scrolls to cast as an action and keep the bodies within the time-limits of Revivify. The less the cost in diamonds for resurrection spells, the easier they are to procure thus the easier it is to bring back your friend.
Gust of Wind - A boost to the sails, or just to make it difficult for enemies to stay on board. Or push crewmembers overboard as a prank.
Invisibility - Makes it easier for you or your familiar (see Dragon's Breath entry above) to sneak on board the enemy ship.
Levitate - In the water and need to get back up quickly? Use this. Also good to use on a melee enemy so they cannot attack people. Also useful for getting up to the crow's nest or the sails. Ally unconcious in water? Use this so they don't drown. Below water surface with an unconious ally and, being a wizard, too weak to swim them up to the surface? Use this to get them to the surface (and beyond) faster. Works on objects too up to 500 lbs, like levitating a cannon, push an enemy underneath and then dropping concentration.
Misty Step - Similar to Levitate this could be used to get to the deck quickly from the water. If the enemy captures you but hasn't gagged you, the simple verbal component makes it easy to misty step out of the restraints/cage. It's also a good spell if the enemy has surrounded you and you need to escape or if you need to chase an enemy. If you encounter a locked door you can summon your familiar on the other side (since you don't have to see the space you summon it to), then you can use actions to see through it and then the bonus action to Misty Step - bypassing the door. Screw you Rogue, us Wizards can get through any door without tools! If you're a conjuration wizard you should take this for 18th level Spell Mastery, because it resets your Benign Transposition feature. That's two 30 ft teleports every turn. If you ready the Benign Transposition action, you could Misty Step into the air then Benign Transposition another 30 ft as a reaction before you fall - basically letting you teleport to an enemy ship, as long as it's within 60 ft, without using a spell slot.
Skywrite - If you're venturing onto land and find enemies and need reinforcements or need to tell your crew to move away from the land because the enemies are on the way, and you cannot get to them in time - then this is useful spell. Or perhaps your crew are on land and you're on the ship and an enemy ship approaches. Being able to write a message in the sky can help communicate at longer distance. It would be useful to make scrolls. That way you can ritual cast for less urgent messages and use the scroll for those rare moments you need to cast as an action - which all saves on spell slots.
3rd Level Spells
Some of these are useful in most situations like Blink, Catnap, Counterspell and Dispel Magic, Fireball, Fly and more. So, I'm going to focus more on ones that have a specific nautical use to suggest, might have relevance to a situation not commonly thought of or make good combos.
Gaseous Form - An often overlooked spell with its 10 ft fly speed and inability to do anything during it. However, it will be useful here. See an enemy ship ahead, while at night, that has yet to notice you? Turn into a misty cloud and float along the water - the enemy will barely notice and if they do you're just a bit of fog - a highly common sight. Sure, it takes a minute to move 100 ft, but it lasts an hour, so it's OK. Get close, and float up to slip in through any crack or hole, and voila, you've successfully snuck on board. Since you look like a cloud, you could fly up in the actual clouds and nobody will notice you. In an hour it's 600 ft of flying while looking like an innocuous cloud and being able to go down when they're not looking and pass through cracks, holes, an such openings. On your own ship you could purposefully create a series of concealed openings and tubes so if the enemy does successfully board your ship, you have a way of getting around the ship secretly and with more stealth than any Rogue could possibly dream of. This could be great to combine with Glyphs of Warding (covered later) - to create safe rooms: somebody who cannot fight could be shown what to do: they go to right place, touch the glyph, and are then clouds that can move through a narrow hidden slit with a tube that can take them to a more secure part of the ship or just to hide in. Perhaps you have a secret room that can only be accessed this way? Or maybe a tube leads outside the ship where another 2 glyphs are to dispel the cloud as the other then casts waterbreathing? A bit elaborate, but hey, it works. Also, it's a touch spell so you can remotely cast it on your familiar if trying to sneak them into the enemy's ship that has hatches down and doors closed.
Glyph of Warding - Sure it's costly and takes an hour but the uses are endless. A buff or trap that persists and doesn't use your concentration? Whether the panic button to get you to safety, an emergency water-breathing, or a fireball ready to set against your stock of gunpowder if you're the type who'd rather the destroy the ship than let the enemy have it, if the enemy are too powerful for you - just make sure it's a trigger your familiar could set off so you're not immediately there when it goes boom and end up vaporised. It's good for all sorts of situations but I mention it here because you can store Waterbreathing in it, because of using Gaseous Form with it, and just generally because you can create all sorts of combos. The cost and time are worth it to cast an hour-long buff without it taking concentration, like Alter Self. If you ever get a Spell Gem that can hold a 3rd level spell, holy shit are you in for an awesome time. Spell Gems let you store a spell in them, if they're abjuration , then you only need half the components. So, it now costs 100 gp instead of 200 gp. It also now only costs an action to cast the spell stored inside. And, you are still considered the caster of that stored spell when you use that action to cast it. The spell Flock of Familiars allows you to use any of the familiars with the same rules and options of Find Familiar - which includes the ability to use a reaction to deliver a touch spell. And guess what, Glyph of Warding is a touch spell. You can now remotely place a Glyph of Warding anywhere within a mile that at least one of the familiars can get to. You can still choose to put a spell in the glyph, or just leave it with the explosive option (like in the gunpowder room of an enemy ship) and you can still set whatever trigger you want within the parameters, which could be "one minute after the familiar leaves the room" (if you're using your normal familiar and don't want it to "die"). If this is a ship you're aiming to take over and don't want to destroy, the familiar can sneak into the captain's quarter's instead. Remote, instantly-placed, Glyphs of Warding for half-cost. I ******* love Wizards.
Sending - I'm still mentioning this because it will be a great way to maintain some communication to contacts on land, back home, etc. It's a rather essential spell in this case. You could use it to keep somebody updated on where you are, so if something happens they have a good idea where you might be. Perhaps your ship sunk so now you're stranded - a good sending spell and rescue might be on the way, depending on the distance.
Tidal Wave - Fire is the bane of ships so being able to put out a lot of fire in an instant is a blessing. Also useful for pushing enemies off the ship as well, or at least knocking a lot of them prone.
Water Breathing - It lets everyone be amphibious for 24 hours. I think it's fairly obvious why this should be taken if you're spending a lot of time on coasts or at sea. If your ship is destroyed this could save your life. Also a great excuse to go diving, while adopting a jamaican accent and singing Under the Sea.
4th Level Spells
I'm going to continue focusing more specifically and will do so throughout this list from here on.
Control Water - Speed up your ship a bit, or sink enemy ships with a wave of a hand. A sea battle between ships will end in your favour the instant you start using this.
Dimension Door - Teleport to or from the shore, to or from the enemy ship. Teleport around your ship if speed is needed.
Fabricate - A lot of spare wood but none fit the big hole an enemy cannon left? Use fabricate to turn that wood into a large, single, solid piece that is. Between Mending and Fabricate you can basically fix anything much faster than normal. Great for recycling.
Galder's Speedy Courier - You got loot, buncha swag, more. You got the mcguffin you were sent after. Why wait the days, weeks or even months to get back home when you could set up a trusty ally with the right connections who can sell that stuff for you? You can then use this spell to get the stuff to them instantly. By the time you get back, they will have sold everything and will have a nice pile o' shinies for you. If the Mcguffin was for somebody, you can use this to send it to them. It will work best if your trusted ally is also a wizard or warlock who can cast this spell, so they could send the gold to you without you having to even return. If the ally is just a Commoner merchant, then a Geas spell could ensure their honesty - because you could have it that if they ever steal from you etc, they take damage which is enough to instantly kill them. So, they'll never break your trust, due to wanting to stay alive. (They have 4 HP and the spell does 5 damage minimum...) Also a good way to send letters home so Sending's word limit won't restrict you.
5th Level Spells
Control Winds - Helps in a storm and can give you a big speed boost for an hour, which is great for outpacing enemies or catching up to them.
Passwall - On your ship a quick exit. On an enemy ship it's an instant hole the water can flood through. While breathing underwater you can swim up underneath the boat, cast Passwall and just let it flood for an hour (instant victory against smaller ships) or for a sneaky way into their ship undetected and an exit you can use again since it lasts an hour without concentration.
Rary's Telepathic Bond - if you're infiltrating the enemy ship sneakily or just popping onto land quickly, this can give you communication at distance. It only lasts an hour unless you recast, but it is a ritual so you can use it without using up spellslots. Great for stealth missions. Also good for underwater communication.
Teleportation Circle - OK, a weird one, but hear me out. The spell does say you need to draw the circle on the "ground". However, this is not a strict dictionary definition of "ground" and rather the idiomatic use - generally meaning the floor or surface beneath your feet when you stand normally. This is evident by the fact there are wizard spires and dungeons and more that have teleport circles on flooring/surfaces and even platforms that are not "surface of the earth". So yes, you can use it on a ship. If we took "ground" to be the dictionary definition a lot of spells would be unusable in most circumstances and some official adventures would be rather inaccurate. There is no restriction, at all, that says you cannot fix it to a moving surface. A permanent teleport circle is linked to the location where its circle is drawn, not to a fixed point in space. Teleporting via this spell or Teleport or Plane Shift, can be to a permanent teleport circle whose sigils you know. So, there's nothing stopping you making a permanent circle on your ship so you can easily get to it when you need to. I mean aside from the fact it takes a year and 600 gp.
6th Level Spells
Arcane Gate - Sometimes it's not convenient to bring a ship too close to the shore. So, use this and that problem is solved. If you can see the deck of an enemy ship you can create an Arcane Gate to quickly and easily invade that ship.
Contingency - Always recommend storing waterbreathing. This way if your ship is suddenly attacked and sunk, even if you're made unconcious or otherwise incapacitated, this will trigger and you can't drown.
Disintegrate - Okay, so this isn't any special nautical circumstance but it's worthy enough to mention: it's an instant 10-foot hole you can put in the enemy ship if you get close enough. Target the right spot and that's a hole they're not gonna fix in time before the ship sinks while smaller boats will be entirely disintegrated.
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere - You're bound to find some enemy thing swimming up towards your ship. So freeze the water to restrain them.
7th Level Spells
Project Image - Want to explore that island in safety? Miss your family back home and want to be with them? This spell is great for both. It's range of 500 miles is a huge distance. You could also project to another ship for talks, in case its a trap. And it lasts all day.
Reverse Gravity - If the enemy ship is within 100 ft, cast there to send their crew into the air. If they're outside that distance but have boats making their way to you, use it on the boats. The boats and all on them will fly up. Even if they're out of range, the gem + glyph + flock of familiars trick can certainly solve that problem, since the delivery of the glyph occurs before casting this spell into it - but you need to have a gem capable of storing 7th level spells and ensure the glyph spell is 7th level.
Symbol - Less versatile but more powerful version of Glyph of Warding. When the Symbol is triggered it creates a 60 ft radius sphere that lasts 10 minutes, anyone caught in that sphere or enters it suffers the effects which can range from stunning everyone, making them unconcious and just straight up 10d10 necro damage. All the tricks of Glyph with gems and familiars applies to Symbol - which is bloody frightening to think about.
8th Level Spells
Control Weather - A bad storm can capsize a ship while a lack of wind can make you stuck, not going anywhere if you don't have oars. Controlling the weather to always ensure that for the next 8 hours, you will always have the perfect sailing weather which in turn ensures good speeds. If you're a high level sailing wizard then this is a must-have.
Demiplane - The lighter a ship is the faster it can be and it all helps. If you need to lighten the ship shove unnecessary stuff into a demiplane. It's a good place for your gold and treasures too. Also a good place to put prisoners for a limited time (ya know, before their air runs out but it's a big space, it'll be days before they do).
9th Level Spells
Gate - If you need to travel by sea to a different plane this spell can open a portal for you. It's 20 ft in diameter, and most ships are 20 ft wide, so it may be enough to fit through. But if the DM says it can't then, there are still uses. If you have Plane Shifted around and know the right places you could open a Gate to a river of lava/magma in the plane of fire right onto the enemy's ship. Or flood them with a massive waterfall of water from the plane of water.
Meteor Swarm - You can take out a whole fleet of ships in an instant.
Wish - No special nautical uses, just if you don't take this you're mental. Even the base effect of replicating any spell of 8th level or lower, with no somatic or material components required and in an instant (action) instead of regular casting time? Sweet jeebus.
Hope this helps or sparks ideas. :)
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Great job typing that up. Thank you.
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This is insanely helpful! Thank you!!!
I think you’re undervaluing the necromancer being able to provide enough bodies that every crew member performs their respective task with advantage from being Helped. Even a fully skeleton crew, unskilled as it is, will have the bonepower to perform every nautical task with advantage. And, they won’t need provisions!
Necromancer should be upgraded!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
When checking the subclasses I need to focus on the benefit of the features. The necromancer subclass features don't provide much benefit for seafaring. Sure, a skeleton crew has uses - but that's not something specific to the subclass. Any wizard can have an undead army. As can any Cleric for that matter. You could most assuredly have a skeleton crew while also being a Chronurgist or Conjuror for instance. The Necromancy subclass features don't do anything to really improve how effective your skeleton crew is at being a crew other than 1 extra member per cast, which isn't much of a boost.
So, I stand by my original opinion.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
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Hmm, that “one extra” is actually quite a few extra across your spell slots (100% more on a 3rd, 33% more on a 4th, etc…) but I forget the precise skeleton math for a dedicated necromancer :p Seems like familiars get props a few times for their usefulness assisting the crew… despite having animal intelligence, low strength, and no free hands. Creating undead sailors to keep watch, perform ship tasks, assist crew, or do things like… haul the ship off a sandbar by throwing them overboard tied to ropes? Etc… I just think you’re sleeping on the thematic ness and usefulness of zombie pirates!
Bones aside, this was definitely a cool idea for a thread! It isn’t often you see build advice for a setting rather than a combat role.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
How do you feel about the Scribe Wizard?