Hello! I have never played an abjuration wizard as I thought their absorption shield seemed a bit slow to charge up. People I have played with all seem to think that abjuration is a bit "meh", and that there are so much better choices for a wizard player. However with the eldritch adept feat, giving the armor of shadows eldritch invocation you suddenly can spam the armor spell to "charge" 2 points per round, without spell slot cost. A quite fast charging while out of combat, so you should be able to always enter every new fight with full shields up.
You experienced wizard players, do you think the abjuration subclass would get alot better by this, or is it not really worth the feat to get it?
I've always liked Abjurer, but that's mostly because our group likes NPC spellcasters and an additional +4 to Counterspell has saved us from many, many Fireballs.
The shield is actually fairly good anyway with all the Protections from Energy, Counterspells, Dispels (+6HP), Banishments and Stoneskins (+8HP) you'll be spending, not to speak of the Shields and Absorb Elements (+2HP), and in total it actually raises your health to about equal to a Fighter (1d6+2 averages 5.5, same as 1d10) even without the recharge. Plus, it stacks with temp HP like false life.
I do agree that Armour of Shadows means that you'll easily have as much as 45HP to blow on every single fight and regain almost immediately.
It depends if you care about what race you play or not. If race does not matter then going Deep Gnome and taking Svirfneblin Magic is more useful.
Variant Human with Eldritch Adept is better. You have the synergy online by level 2 and have all of your ASIs free for normal wizard fare. And Armor of Shadows takes care of any armor concerns. I love me some svirfneblin magic, but I don't think it's the better option.
This is a good combo. Being able to battery up your shield will greatly increase survivability. Plus, armor is already a concern on wizards, and like I said, Armor of Shadows provides. Spending what quickly becomes hours to recharge your shield with casting and recasting alarm as a ritual spell will not be a luxury all of the time. Even in campaigns with a slower tempo for the adventuring day.
It depends if you care about what race you play or not. If race does not matter then going Deep Gnome and taking Svirfneblin Magic is more useful.
Variant Human with Eldritch Adept is better. You have the synergy online by level 2 and have all of your ASIs free for normal wizard fare. And Armor of Shadows takes care of any armor concerns. I love me some svirfneblin magic, but I don't think it's the better option.
This is a good combo. Being able to battery up your shield will greatly increase survivability. Plus, armor is already a concern on wizards, and like I said, Armor of Shadows provides. Spending what quickly becomes hours to recharge your shield with casting and recasting alarm as a ritual spell will not be a luxury all of the time. Even in campaigns with a slower tempo for the adventuring day.
I would never allow a custom lineage to count as a pre-existing species. All of a sudden the door is open for a custom Elf that starts with elven accuracy and an 18 in their attack stat. But yes, if you have a DM willing to play game, then custom Svirf is sick. I mean, I just love Svirfneblin so I'm going to think about the gnome path for this build no matter what.
I would never allow a custom lineage to count as a pre-existing species. All of a sudden the door is open for a custom Elf that starts with elven accuracy and an 18 in their attack stat. But yes, if you have a DM willing to play game, then custom Svirf is sick. I mean, I just love Svirfneblin so I'm going to think about the gnome path for this build no matter what.
Fair enough, 18 attack stat elven accuracy lvl 1s can be very annoyingly powerful. But I wouldn't totally shut the door on it though because Custom Origin counting for racial feats actually lets people play something they otherwise would not. A good example is somebody at my table who said that she is going to play a Tiefling Pyromancer for our next campaign mainly because she gets to take Flames of Phlegethos as her bonus feat.
But this is D&D where Gnomes are listed as a common race just like Humans are.....
The commonality of Gnomes depends on the GM’s world, but smurfs are typically not as common as humans.
Part of your problem is that gnomes are in no way smurfs. Smurfs have more in common with the halfling than they do the gnome. And it's obvious why they don't fit the halfling....
Hello! I have never played an abjuration wizard as I thought their absorption shield seemed a bit slow to charge up. People I have played with all seem to think that abjuration is a bit "meh", and that there are so much better choices for a wizard player. However with the eldritch adept feat, giving the armor of shadows eldritch invocation you suddenly can spam the armor spell to "charge" 2 points per round, without spell slot cost. A quite fast charging while out of combat, so you should be able to always enter every new fight with full shields up.
You experienced wizard players, do you think the abjuration subclass would get alot better by this, or is it not really worth the feat to get it?
It's not necessarily so much a charge up as it is a recharge. The first time you do a spell you get a much better version and then it's slowly refillable over time. Abjurer's are good mages to focus on counter and dispel magics...Both decent reaction spells (shield and absorb elements).. and protection spells such as protection from Energy. They might not be the most damaging but they are quite tanky for wizards while they do more of a support function. And you can easily stack a fair bit of nuking power on them as their secondary focus still to handle both offense and defense.
Picking up this is just another way to recharge and take one of your go to spells out of your wizard spell list to give you more room for other things.
It’s good, but not breaking. It will definitely facilitate the process to recharge the Arcane Ward, but you can do it by carefully managing your Abjuration spell castings.
Mark of Warding Dwarf has one free per day Alarm and Mage Armor, plus access to Armor of Agathys, which is an outstanding spell to combine with Arcane Ward.
It’s good, but not breaking. It will definitely facilitate the process to recharge the Arcane Ward, but you can do it by carefully managing your Abjuration spell castings.
Mark of Warding Dwarf has one free per day Alarm and Mage Armor, plus access to Armor of Agathys, which is an outstanding spell to combine with Arcane Ward.
I'm toying around with a warding 1lvl Order cleric with the rest abjur wiz. Pop agathys and go big shield then pop fire shield in combat to extra boom, and use order if ya got rogues or allies with no real reaction to go smack with bless or shield of faith or even healing word.
If your gonna pick a feat I’d pick fey touched. +1 intelligence, a free misty step use, and a spell preparation freed up. Also, for your first level spell pick Heroism. Temporary hitpoints that continually renew every turn based on your intelligence is awesome for an abjuration wizard. It also gets rid of the frightened condition if that ends up affecting your counterspelled/dispel Magic’s.
I'm about to run a Mark of Mending Dwarf Abjuration Wizard. I rolled insanse stats so I have an 18 con. I also rolled 6,6,6,4 for my hit dice. At lvl 5 I'm going to have 48hp, 15hp of arcane ward, and another 15 temp hp from 3rd lvl Armor of Agythys from Mark of Mending. As a lvl 5 wizard I can go into a fight with 78 effective HP. Eldritch adept just means that I can go into any fight with 15 hp. I think a single feat for 15 hp every single fight at lvl 5 is pretty good, and its only gonna get better. Essentially unless you really get smacked around youre pretty much just healing for 15 out of combat after every single fight without using spell slots.
I've come round to like the idea of rolling stats etc in the group discord in a session zero and taking the rolls in sequence. I once got great rolls at a third attempt in one campaign but it left me disproportionately strong.
I've come round to like the idea of rolling stats etc in the group discord in a session zero and taking the rolls in sequence. I once got great rolls at a third attempt in one campaign but it left me disproportionately strong.
Rolls are potentially great if your looking for Strong and/or really non-standard characters, point buy is kind of middle ground unless you go with a non-standard point buy that changes certain limits and/or the number of points. Array tends to be best suited to have the most consistent party members so you don't have one that is hard to challenge and another that drops dead in a strong wind or to a particularly smelly fart that your trying to balance around.
This discussion is highlighting how powerful an effect feats have on the game, and how much better a build becomes if you take variant human as your base.
As Wizards release more and better feats the game can be projected to become variant human and custom lineage on the one side, and everything else on the other. Racial feats (which shouldn't be given to custom lineage) and personal preference will be the reasons people play the non-feat races.
This discussion is highlighting how powerful an effect feats have on the game, and how much better a build becomes if you take variant human as your base.
As Wizards release more and better feats the game can be projected to become variant human and custom lineage on the one side, and everything else on the other. Racial feats (which shouldn't be given to custom lineage) and personal preference will be the reasons people play the non-feat races.
Except. That's just a matter of false perception. There are a lot of other abilities that are powerful as well that often need to be taken into account.
The Reality is that while a few things can be mimic'd with feats. There are many abilities that come with Races that actually cannot that can be picked up by Variant Human, Or even necessarily Customary Lineage. Some of them might potentially be able to be mimic'd in other ways but the ways are going to be few, often cost resources or even potentially cause problems for builds that racials don't, and usual pretty specific to actually do it in even a semi-useful way.
Darkvision is one that Variant human can't have for example that has a dramatic effect on a fair bit of combat and even some entire settings. Because not being able to see while not codified in quite the way a feat is. Has All kinds of actual indirect problems. Like the inability to wield a 2 handed weapon or a sword and shield at the same time with most light sources they would have to use which can affect both melee and ranged combat for the character. or Potentially a second character as they aid you in your moments of disability.
Now, DarkVision can technically be picked up by a spell, or be dealt with by just one or two rare magical items you can't be guaranteed to get. But even though it is one that is replicatable it still demonstrates how it can be better not to have to need to replicate it. But there are things like stackable damage, particularly of rare damage types, That certain races can add into things and such like that which do not have any kind of easy or real counterpart that can just be picked up. The Feat on the other hand. That can usually be picked up later so that you can have both these kinds of things and the Feat.
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Hello!
I have never played an abjuration wizard as I thought their absorption shield seemed a bit slow to charge up. People I have played with all seem to think that abjuration is a bit "meh", and that there are so much better choices for a wizard player. However with the eldritch adept feat, giving the armor of shadows eldritch invocation you suddenly can spam the armor spell to "charge" 2 points per round, without spell slot cost. A quite fast charging while out of combat, so you should be able to always enter every new fight with full shields up.
You experienced wizard players, do you think the abjuration subclass would get alot better by this, or is it not really worth the feat to get it?
It depends if you care about what race you play or not. If race does not matter then going Deep Gnome and taking Svirfneblin Magic is more useful.
I've always liked Abjurer, but that's mostly because our group likes NPC spellcasters and an additional +4 to Counterspell has saved us from many, many Fireballs.
The shield is actually fairly good anyway with all the Protections from Energy, Counterspells, Dispels (+6HP), Banishments and Stoneskins (+8HP) you'll be spending, not to speak of the Shields and Absorb Elements (+2HP), and in total it actually raises your health to about equal to a Fighter (1d6+2 averages 5.5, same as 1d10) even without the recharge. Plus, it stacks with temp HP like false life.
I do agree that Armour of Shadows means that you'll easily have as much as 45HP to blow on every single fight and regain almost immediately.
Variant Human with Eldritch Adept is better. You have the synergy online by level 2 and have all of your ASIs free for normal wizard fare. And Armor of Shadows takes care of any armor concerns. I love me some svirfneblin magic, but I don't think it's the better option.
This is a good combo. Being able to battery up your shield will greatly increase survivability. Plus, armor is already a concern on wizards, and like I said, Armor of Shadows provides. Spending what quickly becomes hours to recharge your shield with casting and recasting alarm as a ritual spell will not be a luxury all of the time. Even in campaigns with a slower tempo for the adventuring day.
Custom Origin Deep Gnome is still better :D
And Variant Human doesn't limit your race? lol
I would never allow a custom lineage to count as a pre-existing species. All of a sudden the door is open for a custom Elf that starts with elven accuracy and an 18 in their attack stat. But yes, if you have a DM willing to play game, then custom Svirf is sick. I mean, I just love Svirfneblin so I'm going to think about the gnome path for this build no matter what.
But this is D&D where Gnomes are listed as a common race just like Humans are.....
Fair enough, 18 attack stat elven accuracy lvl 1s can be very annoyingly powerful. But I wouldn't totally shut the door on it though because Custom Origin counting for racial feats actually lets people play something they otherwise would not. A good example is somebody at my table who said that she is going to play a Tiefling Pyromancer for our next campaign mainly because she gets to take Flames of Phlegethos as her bonus feat.
Part of your problem is that gnomes are in no way smurfs. Smurfs have more in common with the halfling than they do the gnome. And it's obvious why they don't fit the halfling....
It's not necessarily so much a charge up as it is a recharge. The first time you do a spell you get a much better version and then it's slowly refillable over time. Abjurer's are good mages to focus on counter and dispel magics...Both decent reaction spells (shield and absorb elements).. and protection spells such as protection from Energy. They might not be the most damaging but they are quite tanky for wizards while they do more of a support function. And you can easily stack a fair bit of nuking power on them as their secondary focus still to handle both offense and defense.
Picking up this is just another way to recharge and take one of your go to spells out of your wizard spell list to give you more room for other things.
Gnomes are listed as uncommon in the PHB.
It’s good, but not breaking. It will definitely facilitate the process to recharge the Arcane Ward, but you can do it by carefully managing your Abjuration spell castings.
Mark of Warding Dwarf has one free per day Alarm and Mage Armor, plus access to Armor of Agathys, which is an outstanding spell to combine with Arcane Ward.
I'm toying around with a warding 1lvl Order cleric with the rest abjur wiz. Pop agathys and go big shield then pop fire shield in combat to extra boom, and use order if ya got rogues or allies with no real reaction to go smack with bless or shield of faith or even healing word.
If your gonna pick a feat I’d pick fey touched. +1 intelligence, a free misty step use, and a spell preparation freed up. Also, for your first level spell pick Heroism. Temporary hitpoints that continually renew every turn based on your intelligence is awesome for an abjuration wizard. It also gets rid of the frightened condition if that ends up affecting your counterspelled/dispel Magic’s.
I'm about to run a Mark of Mending Dwarf Abjuration Wizard. I rolled insanse stats so I have an 18 con. I also rolled 6,6,6,4 for my hit dice. At lvl 5 I'm going to have 48hp, 15hp of arcane ward, and another 15 temp hp from 3rd lvl Armor of Agythys from Mark of Mending. As a lvl 5 wizard I can go into a fight with 78 effective HP. Eldritch adept just means that I can go into any fight with 15 hp. I think a single feat for 15 hp every single fight at lvl 5 is pretty good, and its only gonna get better. Essentially unless you really get smacked around youre pretty much just healing for 15 out of combat after every single fight without using spell slots.
I've come round to like the idea of rolling stats etc in the group discord in a session zero and taking the rolls in sequence. I once got great rolls at a third attempt in one campaign but it left me disproportionately strong.
Rolls are potentially great if your looking for Strong and/or really non-standard characters, point buy is kind of middle ground unless you go with a non-standard point buy that changes certain limits and/or the number of points. Array tends to be best suited to have the most consistent party members so you don't have one that is hard to challenge and another that drops dead in a strong wind or to a particularly smelly fart that your trying to balance around.
This discussion is highlighting how powerful an effect feats have on the game, and how much better a build becomes if you take variant human as your base.
As Wizards release more and better feats the game can be projected to become variant human and custom lineage on the one side, and everything else on the other. Racial feats (which shouldn't be given to custom lineage) and personal preference will be the reasons people play the non-feat races.
Except. That's just a matter of false perception. There are a lot of other abilities that are powerful as well that often need to be taken into account.
The Reality is that while a few things can be mimic'd with feats. There are many abilities that come with Races that actually cannot that can be picked up by Variant Human, Or even necessarily Customary Lineage. Some of them might potentially be able to be mimic'd in other ways but the ways are going to be few, often cost resources or even potentially cause problems for builds that racials don't, and usual pretty specific to actually do it in even a semi-useful way.
Darkvision is one that Variant human can't have for example that has a dramatic effect on a fair bit of combat and even some entire settings. Because not being able to see while not codified in quite the way a feat is. Has All kinds of actual indirect problems. Like the inability to wield a 2 handed weapon or a sword and shield at the same time with most light sources they would have to use which can affect both melee and ranged combat for the character. or Potentially a second character as they aid you in your moments of disability.
Now, DarkVision can technically be picked up by a spell, or be dealt with by just one or two rare magical items you can't be guaranteed to get. But even though it is one that is replicatable it still demonstrates how it can be better not to have to need to replicate it. But there are things like stackable damage, particularly of rare damage types, That certain races can add into things and such like that which do not have any kind of easy or real counterpart that can just be picked up. The Feat on the other hand. That can usually be picked up later so that you can have both these kinds of things and the Feat.