Welcome to my Abjurer guide! In this video I am going to make a unique Wizard, a Wizard who wants to be attacked! This prickly pear punishes those who dare to attack by releasing waves of freezing retribution. This is part 1 of 3 of this build. For Part 2 of this build: ruclips.net/video/qGMV-xPm-8k/видео.html For Part 3 of this build: ruclips.net/video/cbx7xQW3xhE/видео.html Here's the link to the final build: ddb.ac/characters/17317766/G1zuGf
Great build! Would it be worthwhile to take 2 lvls of warlock to get the Eldritch Sight invocation? Replenishes your ward "at will" FTW! How much would that hurt the rest of the build?
@@bigklu4756 I think you mean Armor of Shadows not Eldritch Sight, and well, yeah going another level back in spell progression was a price I figured was too high, though I did consider it.
How much of the build changes if you don’t dip into warlock? Obviously you lose AoA but can you supplements with a wizard spell or does the build fall apart?
@@TreantmonksTemple over the course of 20 levels I think losing that single caster level might well be worth it.not only do you take the Mage Armor invocation for recharge cheese, you can also take something else like Devil's Sight
I get bored out of my mind playing a class that doesn't get lots of spellcasting options, which is why I've always dreaded getting stuck playing "the tank" or, "the thief" with my dnd group. After seeing these last three videos (armadillo, war mage, ultimate arcane trickster) I'm actually kind of excited for the next time they say, "We need a tank," and I can reply, "Cool, I'll make a wizard!" Thanks Chris!
Michael H. I agree fun spell options are awesome, the Arcane Trickster Rogue is always a great option for when you need a thief, so don’t dread that one too much lol
One thing I enjoy about this (or any Armor of Agathys build) is it can actually make use of the Blade Ward cantrip. The damage resistance doesn't apply to your Arcane Ward, but it can effectively make your AoA twice as effective. It's almost the only build where Blade Ward is at all useful.
I made a dragon rider build once. High level lore bard crossed with a few levels of hexblade. Take find greater steed magical secrets and the mask of many faces invocation. Summon griffon and then buff yourself and the griffon (find greater steed duplicates the self spells into the mount to). Change yours and your mount appearance so he looks like a dragon. Cast armor of agathys, aid, enlarge. Take mounted combatant so that I can choose who the enemy attacks. Cast blade ward or booming blade depending on my mood while my 'dragon' mauls the enemy.
Hey Chris! When you first posted this build I immediately knew it would be perfect for an upcoming antagonist and tweaked it to fit the person my party was fighting. I'm coming back because I want to refresh my memory. The party has encountered this character twice now and they absolutely HATE him in a way that builds a really satisfying enemy. Thanks for all the help!
Dragonmark Dwarf's release creates interesting options for wizards. In general, the +1 Intelligence makes it possible to do a one level Cleric/Fighter dip and still dump strength because of the Dwarf racial. Specifically for an abjurer, it's nice because their expanded spell list includes armor of agathys. This opens up three great alternative versions of this build: 1. Straight Wizard. No armor proficiencies, but faster progression while still having access to armor of agathys. 2. One level dip in Forge Cleric (requiring 13 Wis instead of 13 Cha), resulting in better AC than the dip in Hexblade, and the option of cure wounds. 3. One level dip in Artificer (no need for anything but Int), which gives equivalent armor benefits as Hexblade, but also provides con save proficiency, saving you an ASI, and also the option of cure wounds.
Just wanted to say I just discovered your channel this week and I've been watching through your wizard videos nonstop. Your content has been multiplying my excitement to call dibs on playing wizard in my group's next campaign. Thanks for all the love and effort you put into these guides, you've really opened my eyes to how many wildly different ways a wizard can make a huge difference for your party AND have lots of fun doing it.
I do have to say, after the newest expansion, if your DM let’s you, playing a Mark of Warding dwarf would allow you to get armor of Agathys without multiclassing, and gives you a welcome intelligence bonus.
I'm wondering what would be better: Straight up 20 Levels Abjurer, 1st and maybe 2nd level Twilight Clericand then 18/19 Levels Abjurer, or maybe even another multiclass?
I came up with a similar but different way to get more out of Armor of Agathys. If you go Bear Totem Barbarian 3 and Warlock 9 then when you cast Armor of Agathys and then go into a rage (which you can do because AoA is not concentration) then that 25 Temp HP you got from the 5th level casting essentially just got you 50 Temp HP because your raging with half it all. And until those "50" Temp HP go away you are doing 25 Dmg every time you get hit in melee You could go Hexblade if you want for Hexblade's Curse, but if you do, don't use Charisma to attack because you won't get your Rage bonus damage from using Strength. It's a little MAD but no more than a Paladin, really. As for invocations, you'd take all the ones that would help you more in Melee like Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade, Cloak of Flies, Lifedrinker, etc.
Love the tutorials and the reason for picking each feature over another. I now play a hybrid between your godwizard and the abjurer here. since I was afraid that the godwizard was going to be too squishy. I basically exchanged the enchanter with abjurer and did a hexblade dip for 1 level, and I love it. It has saved me from dying twice already at level 3. Once to some spiders and later on to a young dragon in the same mission. Getting 10 THP + 7 ward, when you normally have 20ish HP is massive, and I'm not so afraid that I just cover in the back. And the fact that these Wards/THP are something you can "heal" yourself instead of relying on the cleric, etc. is what I feel I've been missing from the wizard so far. Cheers!
Dwarf (Mark of Warding) from Eberron sourcebook gives you everything you need without having to Dip into Warlock. Gives you Armor of Agathys as well as a bunch of other great abilities like poison resistance, Darkvision, a tool proficiency, a D4 to Investigation and thieves tools checks, a free casting of mage armor, etc.
I really enjoyed this! Abjuration is my favorite magic school, and I'm doing basically this exact build for my geomancer wizard, just reflavoring a lot of things to be stone. I am realizing a lot of mistakes I made in my build though, thanks for helping make my character better!
I had a spin off idea from this and the "blood cleric" from D&D daily. Go Shadar Kai, straight into life cleric to get heavy armor proficiency and 2+spell level additional healing to spells. Then a level in Hexblade (actually Genie would be better), picking up Armor of Agathys. After that, the rest into Abjuration wizard. It comes online at 7th level with Vampiric Touch. The idea is to let them whittle down your health a little before casting Armor of Agathys. Then as they deal with your shield you're healing behind them. The teleport/resistance from Shadar Kai and the Shield spell give you lifesavers when you need it. You could pick up Elven Accuracy, a familiar with flyby attack gives advantage. And when you have the curse up the proficiency bonus also applies to healing and double crit range with triple advantage is quite good on an attack mostly getting damage from how many d6s you're rolling. Flame Shield for some added prickles and you get a very nice "hedgehog". It is a bit MAD. And it would be nice to be able to attack more than once a turn. And Vampiric Touch takes away concentration you could otherwise use for a control spell. Plus you want to keep your enemies in melee and this strategy doesn't help against ranged foes. But this is still a wizard, and those weaknesses are kinda a stretch.
I'm playing a fairly similar build, with some differences, on a PBP server (started at level 4, but we're taking it slow so I don't think there will be progression past level 7). - There's an Eberron subrace with Alarm ritual and a bonus to Int which fits nicely. - I took 2 levels of Celestial Warlock at the start - the healing is one of best in the game and also a bonus action option. - While quick arcane ward recharging through Armor of Shadows is fun (also grabbed an at-will Detect Magic invocation) I kinda regret it due to spell progression delays - Ice Knife is a bit problematic as a main blasting spell - after 2nd round, or even after first if you lose initiative, one of you melee buddies would probably be in melee range and you can't hit the enemy with it - Action economy-wise spending a round on AoA feels lame (also wasteful if you start a fight with full ward) - Remind your party cleric about Aid. Early and often. Having a tempHP buffer in the party (Insping Leader, or in my case Shepherd druid) could also be redundant At the end I kinda switched out from Hellish Rebuke in favor of a more useful blast spell For those who roll stats and roll well, a more martial-oriented multiclass here could be 3 levels of Conquest Paladin for Armor of Agathys and eventually Aid, perhaps.
@@dustinsmith2021 no, it was because of backlash from playtesters and the community. People liked it the way it had always been (charisma) despite the saturation of charisma casters it would lead to. I'm saddened by this as well, but what can you do? Elitists will always be elitist. It's a shame WotC caved to the bullying.
This works very well with concentration spells. Armor of agathys can do a lot of damage to melee attackers. If your ward takes all the damage then you don’t make concentration rolls till left over damage dips into your tempHp/HP.
Thanks Chris, recently I've started to play a Dwarf Abjuration Wizard and was struggling with spell development. My table gave me "traditional wizard" opinions on the list and it wasn't getting the feeling that I wanted. Got great ideas from you and Cody (on D4). I dipped in to Fae pact because of the storyline - just hit 3 level 😁
I asked in another post about an AL legal version and missed an obvious possibility. Just do some non-hexblade warlock type for armor of agathys (and I pronounce it the way you do, Chris) - and give up med armor, shield and curse. Leather armor and no shield is weak, so one option is to take a feat at lvl 4 that gives medium armor prof - maybe lower dex to have 16 con (or leave 15 con and later on get resil con). Another option is to start at fighter level one, and since this is AL use DM points to start at lvl 2 or 3 and skip that awkward first level. Anyway, you could be Abj 19/Warlock 1 - and if you want faerie fire pick fey warlock - if you want telepathy go old one, etc. Or do fighter 1/warlock 1/abj 18 - start fighter and get chain and shield - use longstrider to make up for low speed until you can trade from another character a pair of boots of striding and springing, which let you ignore heavy armor movement penalties. Another option: fighter 2/warlock 1/abj 17 - you still get wish but you add action surge - not sure I'd do this - I would think being three levels behind is not worth it to get action surge, as we're not that kind of caster - we're not casting that many non-concentration spells and do damage more from being hit. An exception might be if we had a wand of fireballs or something. Or fighter 1/warlock 2/abj 17 - or warlock 2/abj 18 and pick the feat to get med armor - going warlock 2 depends on how useful it is to fully top off ward between fights, or can we reliably recharge it casting abj spells in combat. You can try casting ritual spells while the others short rest - alarm six times and get 12 points, but if ward is down 27 points it's not full. To recharge 27 pts to ward using cast-at-will Mage Armor - this needs 14 rounds, under a minute and a half.
I played this build for 1.5 years, earth tremor is a great pick, especially since after a while my DM just gave up on trying to kill my character in combat and started taking every opportunity for the enemies to ignore him.
Thanks once again for the food for thought on my Monday office slog through the land of Excel in the world of Microsoft Office (campaign not recommended).
Depending on the party, one may get more mileage out of mage armor than snare. NPCs and wiz, druid, bard, monk or rogue could benefit from the AC boost
I'm playing a similar build, a dwarven abjurer "god wizard" with some melee thrown into the mix. I love the whole Armor of Agathys craziness - the damage, the synergy with arcane ward, temp hitpoints... But I really don't wanna take warlock levels just for that. I have to admit, this pissed me off a bit haha, cause I really like the idea, but I decided I wouldn't use warlock levels or even cleric (I was tempted to take 1 level of knowledge cleric which might actually make sense for my wizard.) It'd be nice if wizards had Armor of Agathys on their spell list, especially when you mention the lack of good abjuration spells. I've only played a few sessions at level 4 so I don't know, maybe I'll manage to make it work without AoA or shield proficiency (versatile battleaxe+halfplate, but sadly dwarves get no shield proficiency) cause I've got great stats since we rolled for them and good HP (16,14,16,17,12,10; I'm a level 4 wizard now, I took War Caster, 8th level +1 INT, +1 CON, 12th level +2 INT=20, and assuming we get this far 16th Resilient CON +1=18, 19th level Lucky/Tough/whatever) The issue here is that without the focus on retaliation damage and extra temporary HP AND shield proficiency, it seems my tactic should be a bit less crazy, get into melee for booming blade if I don't have other spells to cast, but mainly avoid getting hit and use arcane ward to stay alive if I do (and help shield party members later on). Anyways, I like the build videos, and I've loved the God wizard ever since I read your guide for Pathfinder I believe, years ago. :)
Hey buddy! You’re in luck! The newest expansion, Eberron, rising from the last war, has a new subrace of dwarf with a dragon mark, that gives an intelligence boost AND adds Armor of Agathys to whatever spell list your class has, so you can learn it as a wizard without multiclassing.
For me, this is the ultimate Chad-Wizard build. I'm gonna roleplay him as a wizard duelist, challanging other wizards to duels of friendly competition. Background Noble for extra style points. From lvl 11 on my counterspells are gonna be the bane of all enemy wizards and if I can fit in metamagic adept I'm gonna take subtle spell so I become un-counterspellable. That way I don't have to use my reaction to counterspell his counterspell to my spell and can use it to counterspell his spell instead. Yo dawg, I heard you like counterspell.
Hey Chris! First, I love your channel, thank you for the wonderful content and insight. Second, would you please consider a background overhaul video? The sage REALLY needs to be refreshed, in my opinion! It's one of the only backgrounds that doesn't have a clearly defined feature. Most of the other backgrounds grant a benefit such as a criminal contact that you can contact even over long distances, the ability to traverse a city undetected, the ability to book passage on a ship, the ability to have Soldiers defer to your former rank, the ability to find food and water, etc. The poor sage's "feature" is knowing where information is kept, but no advantage of accessing it. It would be great to know a former colleague who would assist you, or maintaining your credentials to gain access, or something similar. I have home brewed it, but I would appreciate a second opinion and possible "unofficial resource". Thanks for your time.
Alternatively, you could have taken hex as a warlock. At low levels you aren't always concentrating on things, it makes cantrips and normal attacks better, but more importantly it gives disadvantage on checks, which lets you - or more importantly a fighter or barbarian in your group - bully around enemies with skill checks like shoves, knocking them down, etc.
Presumably this would also work as a straight wizard with a Mark of Warding dwarf - Armor of Agathys is added to the spell list, as is a once-per-long-rest free casting of Mage Armor. Though I might be tempted by a cleric dip for heavy armour.
Magic missile would have gone very well with the hex blade curse feature with proficiency damage. The damage would be added for each dart against the same cursed creature. Jim’s magic missile would work with the increased crit range too
Yes in my opinion Magic Missile is a must have on all Hexblade dips. It’s basically a scaling version of the Evocation lvl 10 feature, except it works whether you play Magic Missile by RAW or by rolling each dart.
ehh, i don't think thats how its intended. even RaW its iffy. because MM specifies that all the darts hit simultaneously. so just because its multiple darts, its not multiple instances of damage. you'd have a stronger argument for EB working like you want it to because you make separate attack rolls.
sillyking1991 RAW is you roll 1 damage roll for three darts, so the Curse applies to one roll three times. But if you roll three separate damage rolls, Hexblades Curse procs every time you roll damage also.
@@M0ebius tahts liek saying you could apply it to every die of a fireball if you rolled each d6 individually. however, like i said: im more coming at it from RaI. but even from a RaW perspective i don't think it works because all darts hit simultaneously and would therefore all count as a single instance of damage. however, its not as clear cut as RaI is, i can see the argument for the opposite side. i just happen to disagree with that being how it works even RaW.
sillyking1991 It works as I described, as confirmed by Jeremy Crawford. www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2016/10/17/magic-missile-do-you-roll-the-same-d4-for-all-darts/amp/ www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2015/01/26/magic-missile-3-bolts/amp/ The tweet is describing Magic Missile + Empowered Evocation, which might be ambiguous if the table does not play RAW and roll thrice instead. However Hexblades Curse has no such limitations and is very clear RAW to apply to every damage roll.
I mention in vid 2 that in retrospect I should have called it the porcupine ;) I was told that I should have given it the urchin background and called it the sea urchin.
If we take 2 levels of warlock we get an invocation that lets us cast mage armor, an abj spell at will - meaning that in between fights we can almost always charge up the ward - even if there is no short rest, as long as you have x rounds to pump up the ward to full, you've got a full ward. And you get another invocation - could go devil's sight and see through magical darkness - or always have detect magic up - or misty visions, silent image castable at will. If one level behind it's a hassle, but at two levels behind it gets pain - so this does come with a price. I'd take blade ward cuz melee damage resistance = doubling the ward and armor of agathys - it would be a good option to cast blade ward and hope the monsters attack you. What about an AL legal version of this? Would you go half elf? Another option is deep gnome and the Elemental Evil feat Snirfneblin Magic or w/e it's called - where you can cast non-detection w/out the expensive component at will - but not AL-legal for this build.
I know its eberron but mark of warding dwarf will let you take artificer 1 instead of warlock. same ac bonuses, but armor of agathys, a free alarm, free thieves tools with a +1d4, guidance, and cure wounds with bonus first level preparations for absorb elements or rituals
19:00 wouldn’t this be even better with Magic Missile than with Ice Knife? They all hit guaranteed (unless the opponent uses Shield), and all 3 benefit from Hexblade’s Curse. It even has the option of upcasting MM to get more instances of the Curse damage, whereas Ice Knife doesn’t make more attacks when upcast.
Great Video Chris, as always. This build is a ton of fun as always. Hobgoblin is a novel choice since the saving face ability will also work on counterspell... is it worth it compared to variant human's feat? I don't really know.
SharkForce Assuming point buy, even for casters Vhumans getting you WarCaster or Resilient CON is extremely strong, particularly if you are a caster with Shield Proficiency. Tier 2-3 it’s still very powerful, since the best feats are almost always better than racials. Doubling up on concentration buffs means you virtually never fail DC10 saves, and then there’s Alert and Lucky which are universally good. Alert in particular is very good for casters that focus on control. Or if you already have WarCaster and didnt want to double Resilient WIS is always a strong choice. It’s only in tier 4 that the extra feat dips a little since by then you’ll have gotten all the best feats. But depending on class there are still goodies like Inspiring Leader or Tough that I would still take over most racials.
SharkForce Having good concentration saves doesn’t make you a better caster? That’s an interesting take. Failing concentration check is not a mistake. It’s statistics. Unless you DM never ambush/surround, shoot casters with range attacks, or try to break concentration ever. In which case you have a nice DM. Not all DMs are nice. Also holding a shield and having an empty hand certain works. Having a shield and holding a weapon/staff/wand is better, optimal even depending on your class. And being able to do opportunity attacks is even better still. Are feats more important for martials? Sure, depending on the martial, but also irrelevant to what we are talking about. Alert absolutely makes you a better caster, and no rolling low on initiative is not a mistake, it’s just statistics. Lucky just makes you a better character overall, caster or not. The correct comparison here is whether a feat is better than the racial abilities in question, not whether feats are more important to fighters or barbarians. And my opinion is for compared to most races feat is better.
SharkForce Like I said, maybe you just have nicer DMs. At my table intelligent enemies WILL target you with range attacks among other things when you cast spells. And unless your party constantly crit on Perception checks you WILL get ambushed/surrounded from time to time. It’s a matter of whether the DM wants to test you, irregardless of your tactical competence. Indeed if every encounter starts with the party on one side and backline never gets targetted, concentration don’t matter much. In fact you don’t need layered defenses at all with Shield/Absorb Elements/Mirror Image/Misty Step. But that has as much to do with the challenge level of your campaign as the quality of your play. And yes for Web concentration may be less important. But what if you’re in the middle of melee with Spirit Guardians up? Or you’re a Sword Bard with Holy Weapon up? It depends entirely on the type of caster and the spell in question, and whether the DM wants you to make checks. As for feats like Alert, obviously a caster that can consistently get off his CC or buff spell first is better than one that does so at a lower rate. And Lucky is self explanatory. Again, the comparison here isn’t between melees and casters. It’s between casters with a feat and casters with other racial features, and as with any reasonable analysis we are assuming equal tactical competence and challenge level for encounters. Bringing in PAM/GWM only needlessly muddles the waters and has no bearing on the discussion at hand.
SharkForce To sum up simply, by no means am I saying casters without feats are unplayable. All I’m saying is that VHuman casters with a feat is better than most races at almost every stage of the game, and the diminishing returns doesn’t really kick in until after your fourth or fifth ASI.
SharkForce Darkvision only really matters in terms of stealth, otherwise you have plenty of light source options. Flight is a big deal early game on any range DPR characters and then the power drops off, but yes tier 1 it is the best by far (and why flying races are banned often). To be honest all the tier 1 races are all good if the stats line up. I play mostly charisma casters and you cant really go wrong with Half Elf, Yuan-Ti, Aasimar, or Warforged Envoy. VHuman is not always the flat out best, but they are consistently among the top which means, as I already said, they are better that most races most of the time irregardless of tier of play. You keep saying feats don’t make you a better caster, which is very weird to me. I already outlined why a caster with feat is better a couple of times, so I won’t do it a third time. Your reasoning basically means NO races make you a better caster besides the ones with innate spellcasting. My contention is WarCaster alone is better than any once per day low level spells, at every tier of play. Finally I will say one last time, no amount of optimal tactical play can prevent you from having to make concentration checks. What you need is a soft DM with simplistic encounters. And also one last time, the comparison isn’t between VHuman Casters (good) and VHuman Martials (great!), it’s between VHuman Casters and Race X Casters. I don’t know why this conversation is so circular. IIRC I generally agree with about 95% of your points (and I’m not sure we even disagree that much here, but the terms are muddled).
I would absolutely pick Shield as level 1 Warlock because that's one more free preparation slot for the Wizard half and doesn't interact with Charisma at all.
Deep gnome let’s you take the smurf magic and cast nondetection for free at will it’d be a cheesy way to recharge. Not the most efficient way in combat but it would allow you to recharge free between combat.
Planning on doing this but with armorer artificer added because giving disadvantage vs everyone that's not me further adds to the no win situation of hitting me and just hurting yourself lol.
I have to disagree on Race Choice, purely because Deep Gnome exists. Svirfneblin Magic feat makes refilling your Ward a snap (At-Will Nondetection on yourself)
Dragonmark of warding dwarves can gain Armor of agathys without multiclassing warlock now, considering a similar build to this, but with a first level of rogue for light armor(and medium armor feat requisites), skills, and expertise in say..investigation and thieves tools. And heck, thieves can't can be useful for a dwarven wizardly archeologist. 😋 (would 3 lvls of rogue for arcane trickster be worthwhile for a trap tackler I wonder...)
I love the guide as always. Simple question (not meant as a criticism, sincere): how viable is this? I feel like the ward would go down in one hit, and often both the ward and the a of a spell would go down in one hit. Is this not the case? I actually have a character concept that this could really work for, so am very curious.
Awesome video Chris. I love Armour of Agathys and this uses it to some wonderful effect! Thematically I'm wondering if it can work without the dip into Warlock to maintain wizard casting progression and overall flavour of the character, but only way to pick up AoA would be as a variant human and magic initiate. Any advice on avoiding the dip or do you think it's too far off the optimal path?
well, he *did* mention at the beginning that going hobgoblin isn't necessarily necessary. its good, no doubt, but human variant would also be able to pull this off just as well. and really one of hte big draws of the race its racial ASI's. so it would also depend on if you're playing a 'legal character' (i.e. point buy/standard array). if you have better starting ability scores you can get away with more stuff without losing optimization.
Would a second level of warlock for invocations work out? Armor of shadows gives you infinite uses of mage armor and therefore infinite out of combat arcane ward recharge work out? Touch a willing creature not wearing armor can be your familiar
Armor of Shadows specifically only lets you cast Mage Armor on yourself. And you can't easily cheese that with this build because you're wearing armour.
Sadly Hobgoblin and Hexblade not directly valid for Adventurers' League, because the race and subclass come from different books. Plenty of workarounds.
So my deep gnome abjuration wizard with snirfneblin magic is an exploit, but your hobgoblin hexblade monstrosity is not? Okay dude. How is casting nondetection any different than casting alarm as a ritual or armor of shadows other than it being slightly more convenient to the rest of the party?
Magic Initiate some DMs limit it to one casting per day. Treantmonk, assuming that the DM does accept that now you can use your slots on Armor of Agathys with magic initiate, would you think that would be better or worse than the dip? And you can always dip another Warlock if Hexblade feels cheesy (or if you are playing with PHB+1 restriction) Or a 3 level Paladin Oath of Conquest dip, but that's a big investment.
I don't remember. Can a wizard prepare the warlock spell after magic initiate? I know taking magic initiate wizard with wizard is like learning a spell for "free."
This is really late to ask but how viable is a variant human with Eldritch Adept feat (Armor of Shadows)? Dipping Hexblade feels a little dirty and harder to RP for me. Why not a dip in Artificer? What is the free feat used for?
I love this build. Are there any major changes considered for race or multiclasses in the light of newer sources we have today? Is there a way of getting armor of Agathys without going to warlock?
Is there any way to do this while relying only on PHB and DMG as sources; so no Hexblade and Hex Warrior at level 1, no Eldritch Adept at level 1. Does this mean I have to dip into 2 levels of Warlock to get my first 2 Invocations? What's the best way to go about this?
Hey Treantmonk, I was wondering why you take warlock first? Would it not be more efficient to take wizard first? Love the videos my dude. (The answer is probably obvious I’m just not seeing it)
I love this idea! But would it be completely ridiculous to take a level of sorcerer to get light, mending, message, and prestidigitation? Well, and the other sorcerer stuff too, but mostly the cantrips? Half the reason I don't play wizards is because of my FOMO with non-combat cantrips.... To be fair, I'm the guy who feels like druids should get druidcraft, clerics should get thaumaturgy, and wizards should get prestidigitation in addition to their other cantrips anyway, because it's largely flavor, and it drives me nuts having to choose between flavor and effectiveness.
I've not tried a wizard yet, this video will definitely be the base for my first one thanks @Treantmonk! Can I ask why you started Warlock not Wizard and then pick up warlock after 1-5 levels? Just wondering what advantage doing it this way had.
The main advantage is the access to medium armor and shield at level 1. This means a 14 Dex is just fine. Armor of Agathys at level 1 is a secondary reason.
I was a dash disappointed to see the War Wizard be a Githyanki, because I think this Wizard subclass is the best for it. Thanks to Arcane Ward, you can take Heavily Armored at L4, pick up some Plate, and you have yourself a Tank Wizard.
It’s not dex so it’s a worse save, and you need 15 strength then. You only need 14 for medium armor and if you take medium armor master it’s 16 but You get stealth
@@conradkorbol That's definitely another way you could take it, but that wastes the Gith's racial bumps and weapon proficiencies (it's pretty trivial to get to Str 15 when your race gives you a +2 bump). An argument can be made that a pure Wizard is unlikely to truly get mileage out of being proficient with good weapons, of course, but I think it's a nice little side perk. And I don't think a Tank Wizard build was getting all that much mileage out of Stealth anyway.
Roland Rivera to be honest I didn’t watch his other video. So I don’t know for sure what happened. However, this wizard gets magical resistance and I think passing dex saves easier and taking even less damage helps a lot. You are correct that stealth may not be good, but if you are low on resources. Then stealth becomes awesome
@@TreantmonksTemple shields are nice, but those incur the War Caster feat tax if you want to use them with a weapon, and the Hobgob's stat bumps line up poorly with weapon use in general. The build I have in mind dumps Dex into the ground, wields a greatsword to have an OA worth noting (especially once you do eventually cough up the feat for War Caster and can OA people with Booming Blade) while still being able to access components before eventually springing for War Caster (which I will, I'd just rather have Int 20 first), and still has a solid AC thanks to Plate. A Wizard with delusions of being a Fighter, if you will.
How does this build work while equipping the shield? Even with the warcaster feat you need a free hand for material components. Armour of Agathys needs a material component, along with a number of spells on your list. Is it worth the actions to equip and unequip the sheild for the 1ac? Edit: just realised you can draw and sheath your sword as a free object interaction to get to your components.
Never though a Warlock/Wizard build could be good before, I gotta say I'm rewatching this because of how good it is. Would there be any benefits/downsides of taking 2 levels of warlocks in your opinion. I think having a couple eldritch invocations as well as 2 pact magic slots could be helpful. Devil Sight, Mask of Many Faces, Misty Visions or (I know this vid came out before Tasha's) Eldritch Mind could be pretty great.
Hey treantmonk i have a question. Is it viable for the abjuration wizard to use a spear instead of a rapier? And if so, should I use another level in hexblade or take polearm mastery?
In hopes of being seen soon. could this work with a lv1 artificer human variant taking magical adept (not sure about the name) and grab AoA from warlock? could grab shield of faith from artificer lv1 and get a total of 20 AC. could also skip resilient constitution. idk how artificer affects the min/max of this set.
I just don't buy the notion that the Warlock spell Armor of Agathys and an Abjurer's Arcane Ward work as you've described. To me, AW is a magical field that (RAW) 'absorbs damage' and 'takes the damage instead of you', so you can pretty plausibly imagine that its a type of magical force field, surrounding the Abjurer or at higher levels another PC the Abjurer chooses. AoA's features are triggered by a successful 'hit', but that hit first interacts with the AW, expending its HPs - therefore it does not interact with the AoA. Or am I missing something?
I can see intuitively why you would think of it that way. Ultimately, what matters for AoA is that someone tried to attack us (in melee) and succeeded- they “hit” us- whether we take damage or our AW took the damage is irrelevant. As per the wording of the spell, as long as someone successfully *hits us with a melee attack* while we have the temp hit points for AoA, they take the damage. AW doesn’t stop us from getting hit, it just adds a buffer to our health. I think this is the only fair interpretation of how AW works with effects that activate on a hit. If we,as an abjurer, were fighting a paladin, and the paladin successfully hit us with a melee attack and decided they wanted to add divine smite damage, we couldn’t turn around and say “no, sorry- you only hit my arcane ward so you can’t add your divine smite damage”. Now, if there are effects that specifically require you to take *damage* and not just be hit, that might be a different story. For instance, I’ve heard Chris say that we don’t count any damage our arcane ward takes when calculating the DC of our concentration checks (he may bring it up in this video, I’m still watching). I had never considered that and tbh it’s not how I would have ruled it if I were dming and had not come across the idea in a video.
I normally don't look at UA. I think someone specifically requested me to look at this one, I can't remember if I did or not. If it becomes official, I will certainly review it carefully.
Hello, sorry, bit of a noob here. In minute 25.35 you talk about casting ''Armor of Agathays'' 3 times, increasing the THP that the spell gives you, if im I understanding correctly. I thought these kind of spells coundn't stack. Or is there a mechanic I'm missobservating, can u help me ?
He’s not talking about casting it three times in a row. What he means is that if he casts it once and he takes damage and AoA is depleted he can just cast it again later. If he uses all 3 of his spell slots in this way over the course of a day, AoA is effectively providing an additional 15 hit points, and that’s not even including getting the spell slots back on a short rest.
When I'm an abjurer, I have my character be a bit paranoid or cautious and cast alarm every morning. I don't always cast mage armor but my group favors social over combat.
Ritual: alarm, and you can always reflavour it as transferring "strands of magical energy" into your ward if casting alarm a bunch of times to recharge it seems cheesy (for example if you have an hour of doing nothing between fights, or a short rest where you don't need HP but want to regain Arcane ward points...).
@@anthonynorman7545 Using the warlock mage armor loophole or what was it, to recharge your arcane ward would be cheesing. This just seems lame until you realize that there is no real reason why you couldn't spend your magical energy to boost your arcane ward, it's not like you're gonna have a ton of free time to do it very often. The spell itself doesn't even matter, you could just say "I spend 10 minutes every morning channeling magic to create my arcane ward" without the effects of the alarm spell. Your char concept came to mind to me too, but I decided not to go the paranoid route haha.
How are you upcasting 'Armor of Agathas'? Didn't you take only one level of Warlock (Hexblade)? I thought that was a Warlock spell. Or, are you allowed to cast a spell you know with with another class's spell slots if you multiclass?
Yes, you are allowed to do that. You can always cast any spells you have at your disposal using any spell slots you have, the slots and the spell don’t have to be from the same class.
Not only do you not have to do this, you wouldn’t actually be able to. Learning a spell as a warlock gives you no means of transcribing it into your wizard spellbook- the spells you transcribe have to come from a physical source like a scroll or another spellbook. You can just use the spell slots of one class to cast a spell you learned from another class. For instance, if I were a level 1 cleric and a level 5 wizard, I could cast bless at level 3 if I wanted to using my wizard spell slots, even though it’s a cleric spell.
I was wondering this myself. I wonder if he discovered an error and needed to re-record it? I had been meaning to watch it since I saw it posted and was all hyped up this morning only for it to have disappeared...
treantmonk.wordpress.com/ With some retrospect and feedback, I am re-working my Monk variant. For now, the video has been removed from RUclips until I have the revised version completed at which point I will be re-releasing it. I will post here when that happens.
Point buy or standard array? V Human is going to be way better off with Point Buy. In which case I would match these stats except 8 wisdom. Get War caster at level 1 and push up all the ASI's by one spot.
Also it’s interesting you mention an 8 in Wisdom. The character concept I’m playing is a teenager who wanted to study magic as a wizard but finds himself the victim of a deal his parents made. Hence the level of warlock. Having a high Int but a low Wis is perfect for a character who has little life experience. ...that being said I’m still going to take proficiency in Perception....if only because I’ve always thought that it was linked to both intelligence and wisdom.
I'm a little confused about the release of these videos. I know there was a schedule and all that, but both this and the War Mage had been out well before their planned release. I had expected The Grave Mage today. Something I'm missing?
This was the release order from my notes. I had Bladesinger, Diviner, Enchanter, Evoker, Conjurer, Illusionist, War Mage, Abjurer, Necromancer and finally the Transmuter. I believe that's the order I promised in my Build Preview vid.
@@TreantmonksTemple I'm well aware of the release schedule, but I could swear that I saw this video uploaded to this channel a week ago. That's where the confusion stems from. That it seemed you were ahead of your schedule.
@@TheOverDemon I upload the videos early but leave them unlisted until the release date, at which point I switch them to public viewing, but if you check the playlist, you can often access them early. Anyways, Necromancer is now recorded (not edited or uploaded yet), but it should be up next Monday. I guess I could not put them in the playlist until the release date...but I don't really mind if people catch a sneak-peek.
Welcome to my Abjurer guide! In this video I am going to make a unique Wizard, a Wizard who wants to be attacked! This prickly pear punishes those who dare to attack by releasing waves of freezing retribution. This is part 1 of 3 of this build.
For Part 2 of this build: ruclips.net/video/qGMV-xPm-8k/видео.html
For Part 3 of this build: ruclips.net/video/cbx7xQW3xhE/видео.html
Here's the link to the final build: ddb.ac/characters/17317766/G1zuGf
Great build! Would it be worthwhile to take 2 lvls of warlock to get the Eldritch Sight invocation? Replenishes your ward "at will" FTW! How much would that hurt the rest of the build?
@@bigklu4756 I think you mean Armor of Shadows not Eldritch Sight, and well, yeah going another level back in spell progression was a price I figured was too high, though I did consider it.
How much of the build changes if you don’t dip into warlock? Obviously you lose AoA but can you supplements with a wizard spell or does the build fall apart?
I'm still a bit surprised you didn't go with Dark Gnome for the non-detection recharge cheese
@@TreantmonksTemple over the course of 20 levels I think losing that single caster level might well be worth it.not only do you take the Mage Armor invocation for recharge cheese, you can also take something else like Devil's Sight
I get bored out of my mind playing a class that doesn't get lots of spellcasting options, which is why I've always dreaded getting stuck playing "the tank" or, "the thief" with my dnd group. After seeing these last three videos (armadillo, war mage, ultimate arcane trickster) I'm actually kind of excited for the next time they say, "We need a tank," and I can reply, "Cool, I'll make a wizard!" Thanks Chris!
YES!
Michael H. I agree fun spell options are awesome, the Arcane Trickster Rogue is always a great option for when you need a thief, so don’t dread that one too much lol
One thing I enjoy about this (or any Armor of Agathys build) is it can actually make use of the Blade Ward cantrip. The damage resistance doesn't apply to your Arcane Ward, but it can effectively make your AoA twice as effective. It's almost the only build where Blade Ward is at all useful.
Adrian Goetz interdasting.
Clever
I made a dragon rider build once. High level lore bard crossed with a few levels of hexblade. Take find greater steed magical secrets and the mask of many faces invocation. Summon griffon and then buff yourself and the griffon (find greater steed duplicates the self spells into the mount to). Change yours and your mount appearance so he looks like a dragon. Cast armor of agathys, aid, enlarge. Take mounted combatant so that I can choose who the enemy attacks. Cast blade ward or booming blade depending on my mood while my 'dragon' mauls the enemy.
@@benry007 you don't chose who the enemy attacks, you can force attacks against the mount to attack you
@@jamesbaker2092 mounted combatant let's you do it to protect your mount
Echidna
1: Hobgoblin [Variant Human]: Rapier, Longbow. Warlock: Arcana, History, Hexblade. SA: 8/14/12/15/10/13. Sage: Perception, Investigation. Booming Blade, Mage Hand, Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke. Equipment: Light Crossbow, Component Pouch, Leather (Buy Shield, Scale Mail, Half-plate), Rapier, Dungeoneer’s Pack, Light Crossbow (sell).
2: Wizard 1: Fire Bolt, Toll the Dead, Minor Illusion. Shield*, Find Familiar, Absorb Elements*, Alarm, Thunderwave*, Ice Knife*.
3: Wizard 2: Abjurer, Detect Magic, Snare*
4: Wizard 3: Web*, Levitate*.
5: Wizard 4: Warcaster, Prestidigitation, Misty Step*, Mirror Image*
6: Wizard 5: Counterspell*, Slow*
7: Wizard 6: Dispel Magic*, Leomud’s Tiny Hut
8: Wizard 7: Banishment*, Polymorph*
9: Wizard 8: ASI INTx2, Fire Shield*
10: Wizard 9: Bigby’s Hand*, Wall of Force*, Polymorph (*)
11: Wizard 10: Light, Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Transmute Rock*
13: Wizard 12: ASI INTx2, Dimension Door*, Contingency, Globe of Invulnerability*, Mass Suggestion*
15: Wizard 14: Crown of Stars*, Forcecage*, Simulacrum, Teleport*, Web(*), Levitate(*)
17: Wizard 16: Resilient CON, Clone, Demiplane*, Mind Blank*, Illusory Dragon*
20: Wizard 19: Lucky, Wish*, Arcane Lock*, Invulnerability*, True Polymorph, Water Breathing
Hey Chris!
When you first posted this build I immediately knew it would be perfect for an upcoming antagonist and tweaked it to fit the person my party was fighting. I'm coming back because I want to refresh my memory. The party has encountered this character twice now and they absolutely HATE him in a way that builds a really satisfying enemy. Thanks for all the help!
I've loved this series Chris. Your reasoning for taking one option over another has helped me see my character design in a new light.
Dragonmark Dwarf's release creates interesting options for wizards. In general, the +1 Intelligence makes it possible to do a one level Cleric/Fighter dip and still dump strength because of the Dwarf racial. Specifically for an abjurer, it's nice because their expanded spell list includes armor of agathys.
This opens up three great alternative versions of this build:
1. Straight Wizard. No armor proficiencies, but faster progression while still having access to armor of agathys.
2. One level dip in Forge Cleric (requiring 13 Wis instead of 13 Cha), resulting in better AC than the dip in Hexblade, and the option of cure wounds.
3. One level dip in Artificer (no need for anything but Int), which gives equivalent armor benefits as Hexblade, but also provides con save proficiency, saving you an ASI, and also the option of cure wounds.
Do you think getting all that AC from forge cleric will hurt your ability to use AOA?
What i dont like about artificer is that you need a tool on hand to cast artificer spells.
Replying from the future where we now have strixhaven to get healing on pure wizard and this build can now tank, heal, and be a wizard
Just wanted to say I just discovered your channel this week and I've been watching through your wizard videos nonstop. Your content has been multiplying my excitement to call dibs on playing wizard in my group's next campaign. Thanks for all the love and effort you put into these guides, you've really opened my eyes to how many wildly different ways a wizard can make a huge difference for your party AND have lots of fun doing it.
Thank you! Glad to have you here.
"Calling dibs" everyone knows the best party is just 4 wizards.
You've stumbled on a great channel. There is a ton of back content that is absolutely worth watching.
I do have to say, after the newest expansion, if your DM let’s you, playing a Mark of Warding dwarf would allow you to get armor of Agathys without multiclassing, and gives you a welcome intelligence bonus.
I'm wondering what would be better:
Straight up 20 Levels Abjurer, 1st and maybe 2nd level Twilight Clericand then 18/19 Levels Abjurer, or maybe even another multiclass?
Yup! And you can even customize the Dwarvin Martial Training to include a Rapier and a hand crossbow etc. It's the best!
I came up with a similar but different way to get more out of Armor of Agathys. If you go Bear Totem Barbarian 3 and Warlock 9 then when you cast Armor of Agathys and then go into a rage (which you can do because AoA is not concentration) then that 25 Temp HP you got from the 5th level casting essentially just got you 50 Temp HP because your raging with half it all. And until those "50" Temp HP go away you are doing 25 Dmg every time you get hit in melee You could go Hexblade if you want for Hexblade's Curse, but if you do, don't use Charisma to attack because you won't get your Rage bonus damage from using Strength. It's a little MAD but no more than a Paladin, really. As for invocations, you'd take all the ones that would help you more in Melee like Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade, Cloak of Flies, Lifedrinker, etc.
imma just copy and paste this thing bc its a good read :D
Every time i watch one of your wizard subclass guides, i feel like playing that particular character. Dangit 😁
I have the same problem when I make them!
Love the tutorials and the reason for picking each feature over another. I now play a hybrid between your godwizard and the abjurer here. since I was afraid that the godwizard was going to be too squishy. I basically exchanged the enchanter with abjurer and did a hexblade dip for 1 level, and I love it. It has saved me from dying twice already at level 3. Once to some spiders and later on to a young dragon in the same mission. Getting 10 THP + 7 ward, when you normally have 20ish HP is massive, and I'm not so afraid that I just cover in the back. And the fact that these Wards/THP are something you can "heal" yourself instead of relying on the cleric, etc. is what I feel I've been missing from the wizard so far. Cheers!
Dwarf (Mark of Warding) from Eberron sourcebook gives you everything you need without having to Dip into Warlock. Gives you Armor of Agathys as well as a bunch of other great abilities like poison resistance, Darkvision, a tool proficiency, a D4 to Investigation and thieves tools checks, a free casting of mage armor, etc.
I really enjoyed this! Abjuration is my favorite magic school, and I'm doing basically this exact build for my geomancer wizard, just reflavoring a lot of things to be stone. I am realizing a lot of mistakes I made in my build though, thanks for helping make my character better!
This would be a good build for a tiefling or half-elf. Anything that makes the 13 CHA easier to get.
I had a spin off idea from this and the "blood cleric" from D&D daily.
Go Shadar Kai, straight into life cleric to get heavy armor proficiency and 2+spell level additional healing to spells.
Then a level in Hexblade (actually Genie would be better), picking up Armor of Agathys. After that, the rest into Abjuration wizard. It comes online at 7th level with Vampiric Touch. The idea is to let them whittle down your health a little before casting Armor of Agathys. Then as they deal with your shield you're healing behind them. The teleport/resistance from Shadar Kai and the Shield spell give you lifesavers when you need it. You could pick up Elven Accuracy, a familiar with flyby attack gives advantage. And when you have the curse up the proficiency bonus also applies to healing and double crit range with triple advantage is quite good on an attack mostly getting damage from how many d6s you're rolling. Flame Shield for some added prickles and you get a very nice "hedgehog".
It is a bit MAD. And it would be nice to be able to attack more than once a turn. And Vampiric Touch takes away concentration you could otherwise use for a control spell. Plus you want to keep your enemies in melee and this strategy doesn't help against ranged foes. But this is still a wizard, and those weaknesses are kinda a stretch.
I was going to watch another one of your videos but when I clicked your page you had a new one up YUS!
I'm playing a fairly similar build, with some differences, on a PBP server (started at level 4, but we're taking it slow so I don't think there will be progression past level 7).
- There's an Eberron subrace with Alarm ritual and a bonus to Int which fits nicely.
- I took 2 levels of Celestial Warlock at the start - the healing is one of best in the game and also a bonus action option.
- While quick arcane ward recharging through Armor of Shadows is fun (also grabbed an at-will Detect Magic invocation) I kinda regret it due to spell progression delays
- Ice Knife is a bit problematic as a main blasting spell - after 2nd round, or even after first if you lose initiative, one of you melee buddies would probably be in melee range and you can't hit the enemy with it
- Action economy-wise spending a round on AoA feels lame (also wasteful if you start a fight with full ward)
- Remind your party cleric about Aid. Early and often. Having a tempHP buffer in the party (Insping Leader, or in my case Shepherd druid) could also be redundant
At the end I kinda switched out from Hellish Rebuke in favor of a more useful blast spell
For those who roll stats and roll well, a more martial-oriented multiclass here could be 3 levels of Conquest Paladin for Armor of Agathys and eventually Aid, perhaps.
Glad to see moderately armored hobgoblin get a shout out - I remember mentioning it on an older vid. More people should try it out.
I often sadly reflect on the fact that Wizards originally intended for the Warlock to be INT-based. #whatcouldhavebeen
I imagine they wanted tiefligs to have charisma and they needed an iconic race for an iconic class. Just my guess.
Dustin Smith I’d think it’s why Tieflings got an INT boost in the first place, really
Adurnis I’m ashamed of myself for not knowing that triflings have int boost. Tsumimasen
Beginning a Tiefling Abjurer for the last chapter of Princes on Monday, so excited.
@@dustinsmith2021 no, it was because of backlash from playtesters and the community. People liked it the way it had always been (charisma) despite the saturation of charisma casters it would lead to. I'm saddened by this as well, but what can you do? Elitists will always be elitist. It's a shame WotC caved to the bullying.
This works very well with concentration spells. Armor of agathys can do a lot of damage to melee attackers. If your ward takes all the damage then you don’t make concentration rolls till left over damage dips into your tempHp/HP.
Thanks Chris, recently I've started to play a Dwarf Abjuration Wizard and was struggling with spell development. My table gave me "traditional wizard" opinions on the list and it wasn't getting the feeling that I wanted. Got great ideas from you and Cody (on D4). I dipped in to Fae pact because of the storyline - just hit 3 level 😁
I asked in another post about an AL legal version and missed an obvious possibility. Just do some non-hexblade warlock type for armor of agathys (and I pronounce it the way you do, Chris) - and give up med armor, shield and curse. Leather armor and no shield is weak, so one option is to take a feat at lvl 4 that gives medium armor prof - maybe lower dex to have 16 con (or leave 15 con and later on get resil con). Another option is to start at fighter level one, and since this is AL use DM points to start at lvl 2 or 3 and skip that awkward first level. Anyway, you could be Abj 19/Warlock 1 - and if you want faerie fire pick fey warlock - if you want telepathy go old one, etc.
Or do fighter 1/warlock 1/abj 18 - start fighter and get chain and shield - use longstrider to make up for low speed until you can trade from another character a pair of boots of striding and springing, which let you ignore heavy armor movement penalties.
Another option: fighter 2/warlock 1/abj 17 - you still get wish but you add action surge - not sure I'd do this - I would think being three levels behind is not worth it to get action surge, as we're not that kind of caster - we're not casting that many non-concentration spells and do damage more from being hit. An exception might be if we had a wand of fireballs or something.
Or fighter 1/warlock 2/abj 17 - or warlock 2/abj 18 and pick the feat to get med armor - going warlock 2 depends on how useful it is to fully top off ward between fights, or can we reliably recharge it casting abj spells in combat. You can try casting ritual spells while the others short rest - alarm six times and get 12 points, but if ward is down 27 points it's not full. To recharge 27 pts to ward using cast-at-will Mage Armor - this needs 14 rounds, under a minute and a half.
*waits to see if Earth Tremor is mentioned, realizes it probably isn't going to happen when the armadillo concept is explained*
I played this build for 1.5 years, earth tremor is a great pick, especially since after a while my DM just gave up on trying to kill my character in combat and started taking every opportunity for the enemies to ignore him.
@@andreistoian3152 - I don't get it, what's the deal with Earth Tremor?
Thanks once again for the food for thought on my Monday office slog through the land of Excel in the world of Microsoft Office (campaign not recommended).
Depending on the party, one may get more mileage out of mage armor than snare. NPCs and wiz, druid, bard, monk or rogue could benefit from the AC boost
I normally play the big dumb fighter but this makes me want to reroll.... lol
The ultimate compliment - converting a fighter player!
I'm playing a similar build, a dwarven abjurer "god wizard" with some melee thrown into the mix. I love the whole Armor of Agathys craziness - the damage, the synergy with arcane ward, temp hitpoints... But I really don't wanna take warlock levels just for that. I have to admit, this pissed me off a bit haha, cause I really like the idea, but I decided I wouldn't use warlock levels or even cleric (I was tempted to take 1 level of knowledge cleric which might actually make sense for my wizard.)
It'd be nice if wizards had Armor of Agathys on their spell list, especially when you mention the lack of good abjuration spells. I've only played a few sessions at level 4 so I don't know, maybe I'll manage to make it work without AoA or shield proficiency (versatile battleaxe+halfplate, but sadly dwarves get no shield proficiency) cause I've got great stats since we rolled for them and good HP
(16,14,16,17,12,10; I'm a level 4 wizard now, I took War Caster, 8th level +1 INT, +1 CON, 12th level +2 INT=20, and assuming we get this far 16th Resilient CON +1=18, 19th level Lucky/Tough/whatever)
The issue here is that without the focus on retaliation damage and extra temporary HP AND shield proficiency, it seems my tactic should be a bit less crazy, get into melee for booming blade if I don't have other spells to cast, but mainly avoid getting hit and use arcane ward to stay alive if I do (and help shield party members later on).
Anyways, I like the build videos, and I've loved the God wizard ever since I read your guide for Pathfinder I believe, years ago. :)
Hey buddy! You’re in luck! The newest expansion, Eberron, rising from the last war, has a new subrace of dwarf with a dragon mark, that gives an intelligence boost AND adds Armor of Agathys to whatever spell list your class has, so you can learn it as a wizard without multiclassing.
@@virplexer1428 Unfortunately I've already made the character but that's really cool.
For me, this is the ultimate Chad-Wizard build. I'm gonna roleplay him as a wizard duelist, challanging other wizards to duels of friendly competition. Background Noble for extra style points. From lvl 11 on my counterspells are gonna be the bane of all enemy wizards and if I can fit in metamagic adept I'm gonna take subtle spell so I become un-counterspellable. That way I don't have to use my reaction to counterspell his counterspell to my spell and can use it to counterspell his spell instead. Yo dawg, I heard you like counterspell.
“Hit me! I dare ya pansy!” I love this build.
Hey Chris! First, I love your channel, thank you for the wonderful content and insight. Second, would you please consider a background overhaul video? The sage REALLY needs to be refreshed, in my opinion! It's one of the only backgrounds that doesn't have a clearly defined feature. Most of the other backgrounds grant a benefit such as a criminal contact that you can contact even over long distances, the ability to traverse a city undetected, the ability to book passage on a ship, the ability to have Soldiers defer to your former rank, the ability to find food and water, etc. The poor sage's "feature" is knowing where information is kept, but no advantage of accessing it. It would be great to know a former colleague who would assist you, or maintaining your credentials to gain access, or something similar. I have home brewed it, but I would appreciate a second opinion and possible "unofficial resource". Thanks for your time.
I love this series but i kinda want a series about different warlocks too!
I like that the flavor of this build could be: accidentally made a pact with an elder god so I went to wizard school to learn how to protect myself.
I prefer dwarf for my abjurers, but I’d play this guy.
I will say this in every video. Necromancer time.
Next video you can add an exclamation point. Necromancer time!
@@TreantmonksTemple always enjoy your video's treantmonk
Alternatively, you could have taken hex as a warlock. At low levels you aren't always concentrating on things, it makes cantrips and normal attacks better, but more importantly it gives disadvantage on checks, which lets you - or more importantly a fighter or barbarian in your group - bully around enemies with skill checks like shoves, knocking them down, etc.
Presumably this would also work as a straight wizard with a Mark of Warding dwarf - Armor of Agathys is added to the spell list, as is a once-per-long-rest free casting of Mage Armor. Though I might be tempted by a cleric dip for heavy armour.
Magic missile would have gone very well with the hex blade curse feature with proficiency damage.
The damage would be added for each dart against the same cursed creature.
Jim’s magic missile would work with the increased crit range too
Yes in my opinion Magic Missile is a must have on all Hexblade dips. It’s basically a scaling version of the Evocation lvl 10 feature, except it works whether you play Magic Missile by RAW or by rolling each dart.
ehh, i don't think thats how its intended. even RaW its iffy.
because MM specifies that all the darts hit simultaneously. so just because its multiple darts, its not multiple instances of damage. you'd have a stronger argument for EB working like you want it to because you make separate attack rolls.
sillyking1991 RAW is you roll 1 damage roll for three darts, so the Curse applies to one roll three times. But if you roll three separate damage rolls, Hexblades Curse procs every time you roll damage also.
@@M0ebius tahts liek saying you could apply it to every die of a fireball if you rolled each d6 individually.
however, like i said: im more coming at it from RaI.
but even from a RaW perspective i don't think it works because all darts hit simultaneously and would therefore all count as a single instance of damage. however, its not as clear cut as RaI is, i can see the argument for the opposite side. i just happen to disagree with that being how it works even RaW.
sillyking1991 It works as I described, as confirmed by Jeremy Crawford.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2016/10/17/magic-missile-do-you-roll-the-same-d4-for-all-darts/amp/
www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2015/01/26/magic-missile-3-bolts/amp/
The tweet is describing Magic Missile + Empowered Evocation, which might be ambiguous if the table does not play RAW and roll thrice instead. However Hexblades Curse has no such limitations and is very clear RAW to apply to every damage roll.
The Arcane Ward also doesn't benefit from any vulnerabilities or resistances that you might pick up
With a variant human you could grab heavily armored and scoop up heavy armor master at level 4.
Really lean into the agathis strategy.
Great video, great concept.
This is more than an armadillo though, since it hurts to attack it, like a porcupine. I'd call it the porcudillo!
I mention in vid 2 that in retrospect I should have called it the porcupine ;) I was told that I should have given it the urchin background and called it the sea urchin.
If we take 2 levels of warlock we get an invocation that lets us cast mage armor, an abj spell at will - meaning that in between fights we can almost always charge up the ward - even if there is no short rest, as long as you have x rounds to pump up the ward to full, you've got a full ward. And you get another invocation - could go devil's sight and see through magical darkness - or always have detect magic up - or misty visions, silent image castable at will. If one level behind it's a hassle, but at two levels behind it gets pain - so this does come with a price.
I'd take blade ward cuz melee damage resistance = doubling the ward and armor of agathys - it would be a good option to cast blade ward and hope the monsters attack you.
What about an AL legal version of this? Would you go half elf?
Another option is deep gnome and the Elemental Evil feat Snirfneblin Magic or w/e it's called - where you can cast non-detection w/out the expensive component at will - but not AL-legal for this build.
With the new monsters of the multiverse out, I think earth genasi with bonus action spell ward might be a good choice for this build
I know its eberron but mark of warding dwarf will let you take artificer 1 instead of warlock. same ac bonuses, but armor of agathys, a free alarm, free thieves tools with a +1d4, guidance, and cure wounds with bonus first level preparations for absorb elements or rituals
19:00 wouldn’t this be even better with Magic Missile than with Ice Knife? They all hit guaranteed (unless the opponent uses Shield), and all 3 benefit from Hexblade’s Curse. It even has the option of upcasting MM to get more instances of the Curse damage, whereas Ice Knife doesn’t make more attacks when upcast.
Great Video Chris, as always. This build is a ton of fun as always. Hobgoblin is a novel choice since the saving face ability will also work on counterspell... is it worth it compared to variant human's feat? I don't really know.
SharkForce Assuming point buy, even for casters Vhumans getting you WarCaster or Resilient CON is extremely strong, particularly if you are a caster with Shield Proficiency.
Tier 2-3 it’s still very powerful, since the best feats are almost always better than racials. Doubling up on concentration buffs means you virtually never fail DC10 saves, and then there’s Alert and Lucky which are universally good. Alert in particular is very good for casters that focus on control. Or if you already have WarCaster and didnt want to double Resilient WIS is always a strong choice.
It’s only in tier 4 that the extra feat dips a little since by then you’ll have gotten all the best feats. But depending on class there are still goodies like Inspiring Leader or Tough that I would still take over most racials.
SharkForce Having good concentration saves doesn’t make you a better caster? That’s an interesting take. Failing concentration check is not a mistake. It’s statistics. Unless you DM never ambush/surround, shoot casters with range attacks, or try to break concentration ever. In which case you have a nice DM. Not all DMs are nice.
Also holding a shield and having an empty hand certain works. Having a shield and holding a weapon/staff/wand is better, optimal even depending on your class. And being able to do opportunity attacks is even better still.
Are feats more important for martials? Sure, depending on the martial, but also irrelevant to what we are talking about. Alert absolutely makes you a better caster, and no rolling low on initiative is not a mistake, it’s just statistics. Lucky just makes you a better character overall, caster or not. The correct comparison here is whether a feat is better than the racial abilities in question, not whether feats are more important to fighters or barbarians. And my opinion is for compared to most races feat is better.
SharkForce Like I said, maybe you just have nicer DMs. At my table intelligent enemies WILL target you with range attacks among other things when you cast spells. And unless your party constantly crit on Perception checks you WILL get ambushed/surrounded from time to time. It’s a matter of whether the DM wants to test you, irregardless of your tactical competence. Indeed if every encounter starts with the party on one side and backline never gets targetted, concentration don’t matter much. In fact you don’t need layered defenses at all with Shield/Absorb Elements/Mirror Image/Misty Step. But that has as much to do with the challenge level of your campaign as the quality of your play.
And yes for Web concentration may be less important. But what if you’re in the middle of melee with Spirit Guardians up? Or you’re a Sword Bard with Holy Weapon up? It depends entirely on the type of caster and the spell in question, and whether the DM wants you to make checks. As for feats like Alert, obviously a caster that can consistently get off his CC or buff spell first is better than one that does so at a lower rate. And Lucky is self explanatory.
Again, the comparison here isn’t between melees and casters. It’s between casters with a feat and casters with other racial features, and as with any reasonable analysis we are assuming equal tactical competence and challenge level for encounters. Bringing in PAM/GWM only needlessly muddles the waters and has no bearing on the discussion at hand.
SharkForce To sum up simply, by no means am I saying casters without feats are unplayable. All I’m saying is that VHuman casters with a feat is better than most races at almost every stage of the game, and the diminishing returns doesn’t really kick in until after your fourth or fifth ASI.
SharkForce Darkvision only really matters in terms of stealth, otherwise you have plenty of light source options. Flight is a big deal early game on any range DPR characters and then the power drops off, but yes tier 1 it is the best by far (and why flying races are banned often).
To be honest all the tier 1 races are all good if the stats line up. I play mostly charisma casters and you cant really go wrong with Half Elf, Yuan-Ti, Aasimar, or Warforged Envoy. VHuman is not always the flat out best, but they are consistently among the top which means, as I already said, they are better that most races most of the time irregardless of tier of play.
You keep saying feats don’t make you a better caster, which is very weird to me. I already outlined why a caster with feat is better a couple of times, so I won’t do it a third time. Your reasoning basically means NO races make you a better caster besides the ones with innate spellcasting. My contention is WarCaster alone is better than any once per day low level spells, at every tier of play.
Finally I will say one last time, no amount of optimal tactical play can prevent you from having to make concentration checks. What you need is a soft DM with simplistic encounters. And also one last time, the comparison isn’t between VHuman Casters (good) and VHuman Martials (great!), it’s between VHuman Casters and Race X Casters. I don’t know why this conversation is so circular. IIRC I generally agree with about 95% of your points (and I’m not sure we even disagree that much here, but the terms are muddled).
I would absolutely pick Shield as level 1 Warlock because that's one more free preparation slot for the Wizard half and doesn't interact with Charisma at all.
Wouldn’t a hedgehog be more appropriate than an armadillo ;)
I mention in part 2 that I should have named the porcupine.
Treantmonk's Temple even more spiky :)
2 levels of warlock for the mage armor evocation, calling it.
So close...
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah I'm surprised you didn't go for that.
3 levels, because that 3rd level bumps both WL slots to 2nd level AND gets you your Pact Boon (chain pact is my bet).
He said in a previous video that he wasn't going to go for any of that kind of cheese on these builds
@@undrhil cheese? Explain please?
Deep gnome let’s you take the smurf magic and cast nondetection for free at will it’d be a cheesy way to recharge. Not the most efficient way in combat but it would allow you to recharge free between combat.
Planning on doing this but with armorer artificer added because giving disadvantage vs everyone that's not me further adds to the no win situation of hitting me and just hurting yourself lol.
I have to disagree on Race Choice, purely because Deep Gnome exists. Svirfneblin Magic feat makes refilling your Ward a snap (At-Will Nondetection on yourself)
Dragonmark of warding dwarves can gain Armor of agathys without multiclassing warlock now, considering a similar build to this, but with a first level of rogue for light armor(and medium armor feat requisites), skills, and expertise in say..investigation and thieves tools.
And heck, thieves can't can be useful for a dwarven wizardly archeologist. 😋 (would 3 lvls of rogue for arcane trickster be worthwhile for a trap tackler I wonder...)
I love the guide as always. Simple question (not meant as a criticism, sincere): how viable is this? I feel like the ward would go down in one hit, and often both the ward and the a of a spell would go down in one hit. Is this not the case?
I actually have a character concept that this could really work for, so am very curious.
It depends on the enemy you are facing, but no, against most CR appropriate enemies it should not go down in one hit
You can take find familiar and cast mage armor on it to activate arcane ward
High ac seems good but then they hit less reducing your output. Interesting balance between wanting to be hit and but not too much.
Awesome video Chris. I love Armour of Agathys and this uses it to some wonderful effect! Thematically I'm wondering if it can work without the dip into Warlock to maintain wizard casting progression and overall flavour of the character, but only way to pick up AoA would be as a variant human and magic initiate. Any advice on avoiding the dip or do you think it's too far off the optimal path?
well, he *did* mention at the beginning that going hobgoblin isn't necessarily necessary. its good, no doubt, but human variant would also be able to pull this off just as well.
and really one of hte big draws of the race its racial ASI's. so it would also depend on if you're playing a 'legal character' (i.e. point buy/standard array). if you have better starting ability scores you can get away with more stuff without losing optimization.
Would a second level of warlock for invocations work out?
Armor of shadows gives you infinite uses of mage armor and therefore infinite out of combat arcane ward recharge work out? Touch a willing creature not wearing armor can be your familiar
Armor of Shadows specifically only lets you cast Mage Armor on yourself.
And you can't easily cheese that with this build because you're wearing armour.
Honestly I’m surprised you didn’t go Deep Gnome for Snirfvebellin (I can’t spell it) Magic for unlimited Non Detection.
I did mention that in my build preview vid.
Ah! I must’ve missed it.
@@TreantmonksTemple I am playing this one in the Tomb of Annihilation at lvl10 (1 warlock /9 wizard)
Sadly Hobgoblin and Hexblade not directly valid for Adventurers' League, because the race and subclass come from different books. Plenty of workarounds.
what about a mountain dwarf, then get dwarven weapon training, and dwarven armour trainng
So my deep gnome abjuration wizard with snirfneblin magic is an exploit, but your hobgoblin hexblade monstrosity is not? Okay dude.
How is casting nondetection any different than casting alarm as a ritual or armor of shadows other than it being slightly more convenient to the rest of the party?
Pretty cool, alternative ways to get Armor of Agathys and be 20 lvl of Wizard? I don't like the hexlock dip, i feel it a little cheap.
variant human with magic initiate feat?
Yeah, magic initiate could work
Magic Initiate some DMs limit it to one casting per day.
Treantmonk, assuming that the DM does accept that now you can use your slots on Armor of Agathys with magic initiate, would you think that would be better or worse than the dip?
And you can always dip another Warlock if Hexblade feels cheesy (or if you are playing with PHB+1 restriction)
Or a 3 level Paladin Oath of Conquest dip, but that's a big investment.
@@rpranger6115 i mean the way the feat is read that is how it is supposed to be run. But I would allow multiple castings using slots with it.
I don't remember. Can a wizard prepare the warlock spell after magic initiate? I know taking magic initiate wizard with wizard is like learning a spell for "free."
This is really late to ask but how viable is a variant human with Eldritch Adept feat (Armor of Shadows)? Dipping Hexblade feels a little dirty and harder to RP for me. Why not a dip in Artificer?
What is the free feat used for?
I love this build. Are there any major changes considered for race or multiclasses in the light of newer sources we have today? Is there a way of getting armor of Agathys without going to warlock?
Is there any way to do this while relying only on PHB and DMG as sources; so no Hexblade and Hex Warrior at level 1, no Eldritch Adept at level 1. Does this mean I have to dip into 2 levels of Warlock to get my first 2 Invocations? What's the best way to go about this?
No Svirfneblin for Nondetection spam?
This should not be a surprise as I did a build preview vid. If memory serves I discussed the Svirfneblin option at that time.
Ah I see.
Warlocks use Wizard foci. Couldn't the same focus be used for both Wiz and Warlock spells?
Yes
Hey Treantmonk, I was wondering why you take warlock first? Would it not be more efficient to take wizard first? Love the videos my dude. (The answer is probably obvious I’m just not seeing it)
I love this idea! But would it be completely ridiculous to take a level of sorcerer to get light, mending, message, and prestidigitation? Well, and the other sorcerer stuff too, but mostly the cantrips? Half the reason I don't play wizards is because of my FOMO with non-combat cantrips....
To be fair, I'm the guy who feels like druids should get druidcraft, clerics should get thaumaturgy, and wizards should get prestidigitation in addition to their other cantrips anyway, because it's largely flavor, and it drives me nuts having to choose between flavor and effectiveness.
I've not tried a wizard yet, this video will definitely be the base for my first one thanks @Treantmonk!
Can I ask why you started Warlock not Wizard and then pick up warlock after 1-5 levels? Just wondering what advantage doing it this way had.
The main advantage is the access to medium armor and shield at level 1. This means a 14 Dex is just fine. Armor of Agathys at level 1 is a secondary reason.
I was a dash disappointed to see the War Wizard be a Githyanki, because I think this Wizard subclass is the best for it. Thanks to Arcane Ward, you can take Heavily Armored at L4, pick up some Plate, and you have yourself a Tank Wizard.
It’s not dex so it’s a worse save, and you need 15 strength then. You only need 14 for medium armor and if you take medium armor master it’s 16 but
You get stealth
@@conradkorbol That's definitely another way you could take it, but that wastes the Gith's racial bumps and weapon proficiencies (it's pretty trivial to get to Str 15 when your race gives you a +2 bump). An argument can be made that a pure Wizard is unlikely to truly get mileage out of being proficient with good weapons, of course, but I think it's a nice little side perk. And I don't think a Tank Wizard build was getting all that much mileage out of Stealth anyway.
Roland Rivera to be honest I didn’t watch his other video. So I don’t know for sure what happened. However, this wizard gets magical resistance and I think passing dex saves easier and taking even less damage helps a lot.
You are correct that stealth may not be good, but if you are low on resources. Then stealth becomes awesome
Actually, heavily armored does not get you shield proficiency, only moderately armored does, so Gith really doesn't work any better for this build.
@@TreantmonksTemple shields are nice, but those incur the War Caster feat tax if you want to use them with a weapon, and the Hobgob's stat bumps line up poorly with weapon use in general. The build I have in mind dumps Dex into the ground, wields a greatsword to have an OA worth noting (especially once you do eventually cough up the feat for War Caster and can OA people with Booming Blade) while still being able to access components before eventually springing for War Caster (which I will, I'd just rather have Int 20 first), and still has a solid AC thanks to Plate. A Wizard with delusions of being a Fighter, if you will.
What if I get headband of intellect? I could go for higher CHA and actually make use of eldritch blast
How does this build work while equipping the shield? Even with the warcaster feat you need a free hand for material components. Armour of Agathys needs a material component, along with a number of spells on your list. Is it worth the actions to equip and unequip the sheild for the 1ac?
Edit: just realised you can draw and sheath your sword as a free object interaction to get to your components.
What reason is there to do the warlock version over just taking cleric?
If a player finds a wand that can cast abjuration magic, that should not count as the Wizards special ability since it is from a magic item right?
Never though a Warlock/Wizard build could be good before, I gotta say I'm rewatching this because of how good it is. Would there be any benefits/downsides of taking 2 levels of warlocks in your opinion. I think having a couple eldritch invocations as well as 2 pact magic slots could be helpful. Devil Sight, Mask of Many Faces, Misty Visions or (I know this vid came out before Tasha's) Eldritch Mind could be pretty great.
@@skymanta1222 Would that work for arcane ward or do you need to spend a spell slot?
@@skymanta1222 Yeah that’s the only thing, being an entire spell level behind the entire campaign sucks. Makes the build take much longer to get good.
Fun build :)
Hey treantmonk i have a question. Is it viable for the abjuration wizard to use a spear instead of a rapier? And if so, should I use another level in hexblade or take polearm mastery?
> Hobgoblin
Shouldn't it be called the Armaantidoggo then?
An armored hobgoblin armed with a dogslicer and a wrongbow.
In hopes of being seen soon. could this work with a lv1 artificer human variant taking magical adept (not sure about the name) and grab AoA from warlock? could grab shield of faith from artificer lv1 and get a total of 20 AC. could also skip resilient constitution. idk how artificer affects the min/max of this set.
Magic initiate does not work because u can only cast AOA at first lvl with that feat. Be a warding mark dwarf and you can do this tho 👍
You can't cast artifer spells with out a tool in your hand at lvl 1 btw.
I just don't buy the notion that the Warlock spell Armor of Agathys and an Abjurer's Arcane Ward work as you've described. To me, AW is a magical field that (RAW) 'absorbs damage' and 'takes the damage instead of you', so you can pretty plausibly imagine that its a type of magical force field, surrounding the Abjurer or at higher levels another PC the Abjurer chooses. AoA's features are triggered by a successful 'hit', but that hit first interacts with the AW, expending its HPs - therefore it does not interact with the AoA.
Or am I missing something?
I can see intuitively why you would think of it that way. Ultimately, what matters for AoA is that someone tried to attack us (in melee) and succeeded- they “hit” us- whether we take damage or our AW took the damage is irrelevant. As per the wording of the spell, as long as someone successfully *hits us with a melee attack* while we have the temp hit points for AoA, they take the damage. AW doesn’t stop us from getting hit, it just adds a buffer to our health.
I think this is the only fair interpretation of how AW works with effects that activate on a hit. If we,as an abjurer, were fighting a paladin, and the paladin successfully hit us with a melee attack and decided they wanted to add divine smite damage, we couldn’t turn around and say “no, sorry- you only hit my arcane ward so you can’t add your divine smite damage”.
Now, if there are effects that specifically require you to take *damage* and not just be hit, that might be a different story. For instance, I’ve heard Chris say that we don’t count any damage our arcane ward takes when calculating the DC of our concentration checks (he may bring it up in this video, I’m still watching). I had never considered that and tbh it’s not how I would have ruled it if I were dming and had not come across the idea in a video.
Have you had a chance to look at and begin critique the Ornomancer on Unearthed Arcana yet?
I normally don't look at UA. I think someone specifically requested me to look at this one, I can't remember if I did or not. If it becomes official, I will certainly review it carefully.
Hello, sorry, bit of a noob here. In minute 25.35 you talk about casting ''Armor of Agathays'' 3 times, increasing the THP that the spell gives you, if im I understanding correctly. I thought these kind of spells coundn't stack. Or is there a mechanic I'm missobservating, can u help me ?
He’s not talking about casting it three times in a row. What he means is that if he casts it once and he takes damage and AoA is depleted he can just cast it again later. If he uses all 3 of his spell slots in this way over the course of a day, AoA is effectively providing an additional 15 hit points, and that’s not even including getting the spell slots back on a short rest.
There isnt much mention of other races to play with this build. I think I see a gnome fighter build finally worth playing that isnt archery.
The race is pretty flexible as long as you do the warlock dip
I'm not sure if this is available but could your familiar drop ball bearings in the thunderwave zone? As shrapnel added to the thunderwave damage?
Dont you have to have Hellish Rebuke and Armor of Agathas prepared to use?
Great build! Would it be worth it to go Gnome for the Gnome Cunning?
Magic resistance is always nice to have. This build definitely works with other races
Which spell do you use to initiate your Arcane Ward? I usually use Mage Armor myself. In this case I suppose you could use Alarm???
You could use Alarm, I would just use Armor of Agathys if I'm expecting trouble.
When I'm an abjurer, I have my character be a bit paranoid or cautious and cast alarm every morning. I don't always cast mage armor but my group favors social over combat.
Ritual: alarm, and you can always reflavour it as transferring "strands of magical energy" into your ward if casting alarm a bunch of times to recharge it seems cheesy (for example if you have an hour of doing nothing between fights, or a short rest where you don't need HP but want to regain Arcane ward points...).
@@Bellathor very true but very cheese
@@anthonynorman7545 Using the warlock mage armor loophole or what was it, to recharge your arcane ward would be cheesing. This just seems lame until you realize that there is no real reason why you couldn't spend your magical energy to boost your arcane ward, it's not like you're gonna have a ton of free time to do it very often. The spell itself doesn't even matter, you could just say "I spend 10 minutes every morning channeling magic to create my arcane ward" without the effects of the alarm spell. Your char concept came to mind to me too, but I decided not to go the paranoid route haha.
How are you upcasting 'Armor of Agathas'?
Didn't you take only one level of Warlock (Hexblade)?
I thought that was a Warlock spell.
Or, are you allowed to cast a spell you know with with another class's spell slots if you multiclass?
Yes, you are allowed to do that. You can always cast any spells you have at your disposal using any spell slots you have, the slots and the spell don’t have to be from the same class.
No sleep spell?
To cast armor of aghathy lvl exemple 4 do you have to have the spell transcribed in your spell book? How does it work?
Not only do you not have to do this, you wouldn’t actually be able to. Learning a spell as a warlock gives you no means of transcribing it into your wizard spellbook- the spells you transcribe have to come from a physical source like a scroll or another spellbook. You can just use the spell slots of one class to cast a spell you learned from another class. For instance, if I were a level 1 cleric and a level 5 wizard, I could cast bless at level 3 if I wanted to using my wizard spell slots, even though it’s a cleric spell.
Off topic but where'd the Variant Monk video go?
I was wondering this myself. I wonder if he discovered an error and needed to re-record it? I had been meaning to watch it since I saw it posted and was all hyped up this morning only for it to have disappeared...
treantmonk.wordpress.com/
With some retrospect and feedback, I am re-working my Monk variant. For now, the video has been removed from RUclips until I have the revised version completed at which point I will be re-releasing it. I will post here when that happens.
Can you get armour of Agathis with magic adept feat and stay fully mage?
You can't upcast it then, and can only cast it once. The multiclass is pretty much needed for this build.
Does ritual spell like alarm work with arcane ward recovery?
Yes.
What should the stat line be for a variant human running this build? Also what feat would you take at first level?
Point buy or standard array? V Human is going to be way better off with Point Buy. In which case I would match these stats except 8 wisdom. Get War caster at level 1 and push up all the ASI's by one spot.
Ah ok! Yes I meant point buy. Thanks!
Also it’s interesting you mention an 8 in Wisdom. The character concept I’m playing is a teenager who wanted to study magic as a wizard but finds himself the victim of a deal his parents made. Hence the level of warlock. Having a high Int but a low Wis is perfect for a character who has little life experience.
...that being said I’m still going to take proficiency in Perception....if only because I’ve always thought that it was linked to both intelligence and wisdom.
What about powering your ward with Svirfneblin magic?
That is legal. I discuss it in my preview to the builds video as well as my races video.
@@TreantmonksTemple Ah I missed that, though I probably watched those videos (and that might be subconsciously where I got the idea from).
I'm a little confused about the release of these videos.
I know there was a schedule and all that, but both this and the War Mage had been out well before their planned release. I had expected The Grave Mage today.
Something I'm missing?
This was the release order from my notes. I had Bladesinger, Diviner, Enchanter, Evoker, Conjurer, Illusionist, War Mage, Abjurer, Necromancer and finally the Transmuter. I believe that's the order I promised in my Build Preview vid.
@@TreantmonksTemple I'm well aware of the release schedule, but I could swear that I saw this video uploaded to this channel a week ago. That's where the confusion stems from. That it seemed you were ahead of your schedule.
@@TheOverDemon I upload the videos early but leave them unlisted until the release date, at which point I switch them to public viewing, but if you check the playlist, you can often access them early. Anyways, Necromancer is now recorded (not edited or uploaded yet), but it should be up next Monday. I guess I could not put them in the playlist until the release date...but I don't really mind if people catch a sneak-peek.
@@TreantmonksTemple Oh, then it all makes sense. Look forward to Necromancer ^^
Will you make an onomancer wizard?
He doesn't do UA
Wait so does amor of agathis and hex curse stack?
Yep, AoA triggers when you’re hit, hex curse triggers on all damage rolls.
@@JaxonBurn Thsnk you :D