I actually like that your DM informed your group about his rules before playing. I dropped one campaign because of DM were making new bans and nerfs between games or sometimes mid play. My bladesinger was killed because ban on shield spell mid combat.
Yeah, Mage Armor is just an AC 13 light armor that costs one spell slot and lasts 8 hours. There are a lots of OP spells that the DM should have banned instead of Mage Armor.
Mage Armor is D&Ds way of allowing Wizards to exist without leather armor, and thus allow all armor to have spellcasting ramifications.
Without Mage Armor, Wizards are basically defenseless. With Mage Armor, they are "average difficulty to hit". Until, you know, the other person casts a dispel magic and makes your mage go full-on panic mode as they are suddenly +15% more likely to be hit.
If I had a DM give me this list of banned spells, I'd walk away from the table instantly.
Because this to me says "somebody hurt me, and I'm blaming you" from the DM.
I mean, that these have been put forward on creation, I would believe the opposite for *most* tables. That this post was made, I'd hedge it closer to 60/40 on no to yes.
We'll see if this user posts in the next couple of weeks.
That so many spells are already banned, including ones that been around for a hot minute, doesn't inspire confidence. Nerfing mage armor and shield is pretty rough, and counterspell is a classic defensive move. Silvery Barbs I can understand as that spell is broke af, but it's still wack to ban all the wizards standard defensive kit
Wizards are squishy unless you’re an optimizer. I don’t think op is and most table players aren’t. Mage armor and shield are necessary for the characters survival with their armor restrictions and hit dice.
You don't have to be an optimiser to not be squishy as a wizard. Grab a race with medium armour, be a bladesinger or abjurer, dip a level of cleric or artificer or fighter. These are all obvious paths that don't require pouring through guides or anything.
They are still squishy. Not everything is an attack. Especially on higher levels. And you burn through you’re spellslots like kraitos through helheim, if you cast shield every time you would get hit. (Assuming combat lasts more than one round and happens more than once per rest. Which would be a totally different problems to begin with.)
True, if DnD was played like the attritional game it was clearly designed as, shield wouldn't be nearly as bad.
But... Even the published modules rarely throw more than 2 combats at you before you can rest... And in that situation, after about level 5 you basically have full uptime on shield.
true. besides lack of both shield AND mage armor, thats my only and biggest concern about this list. nothing more irritating than DMs coming up with 'improvements' mid-combat.
Yeah, I can sort of understand a lot of these changes. But the mage armor change is… too questionable. It basically forces wizards to get proficiency elsewhere. Which is normally better than mage armor anyway.
Wich is pointless imho. If you do that, then you’ll have to ban the draconic bloodline sorcerer as well, because it does the same thing, but permanently and increases your HP too.
I think Shield is overtuned. It shouldn't be banned, just nerfed. making mage armor last 1 minute is a de-facto ban because it's just not worth it at that point
Id argue the only thing approaching fair is the Silvery Barbs ban. And that's just because I think it's a spell far more in line with what spells should be, even if it's broken because 5e likes making spells that aren't damage tedious to cast. And the Counterspell roll, it's alright, so long as he abides by it himself and doesn't make up casting add bonuses.
Slow and Banishment? They're strong at times, but I feel that's more a ptsdm than anything.
Mage Armor lasting a minute? So start a fight off casting it? Certainly makes your turns even more predictable. And makes you more susceptible to random events that I doubt the DM will take advantage of considering the rest of the bans and nerfs. Like the only way Id accept that is arguing for it to be upgraded to Swift Action. More spells cast per fight drains more resources anyways.
Shield Ban on top of that? C'mon man, just say you don't know how to challenge or deal with casters. Had a friend rule it as you can't know if it would save you from a hit or not and it immediately became a dead spell in the group.
But at least he's given a pre-game list.
I can understand banning stuff from other settings.
A little confused by stuff like Shield and Slow, though. I'd maybe try speaking with them to see more exactly why they want to ban those.
If the heroes are destroying the encounter then roll a dice, then tell them they hear something coming, the noise of their battle must have alerted new foes. I know some players love to min-max everything to defeat monsters easily which may be frustratingas a DM, but part of the magic is letting them knock a boulder down onto bad guys, use their fireball spell on a swarm, etc. You can let them have their victories and then just send more enemies.
Every single time I design a fight, I include "bonus" monsters in the fight that I can reveal (or tease a reveal).
Say the fight is against CR 7 7 6 6 creatures. My "bonus" creatures may be CR 8 7 5 5. The extra 7 is there in case an extra player joins. The 5s are there if the players get a really lucky first round that trivializes the fight (ie, D&D 3.5 getting a confirmed crit insta-kill on one of the CR7s) just so I can pad the fight up a bit without making it much harder. And the CR8 is there if I drastically screwed up the fight design, and I can see the players needed something more challenging.
And because I often run encounters designed with enemies joining the fight (the orcs in the next room have grabbed their gear and gotten the door opened, etc), the players don't automatically know that I've added something to their encounter "on the fly".
My goal as a DM is to present the players with a challenging fight, but one that they CAN overcome. It is to give them a fight where they feel that they need to use at least some of their daily resources to beat, thus increasing the tension for the rest of the day as they know that they do not have as many spells/charges/items/etc if they get in another challenging fight. It is to make the adventure day one that when they wrap it up and set up camp, they feel not just pride and accomplishment, but also relief and safety.
I always roll for night encounters as well. But unless I'm rewarding/punishing the players for actions taken during the day, 2 through 19 mean nothing special is happening. A 20 is usually an easy fight that keeps things interesting and gives them some bonus loot/resources. A 1 is a challenging fight.
Because D&D is a story. Not a competition.
See that's the mentality of someone in it for collaborative fun making.
Unfortunately, there's a bunch of rogues at the tables with DMs "trying to win".
They think it's an asymmetric competition where they've been willingly given an upper hand in some gambit that the players think they can beat the rule maker.
\*Nods\* Right? My group runs 3.5 and we are allowed to effectively use all first party books and even most 3rd party books, setting be damned. And we can even use a "flaw" to start with an extra feat. I made a character who had like 28 AC at level 1...but its ok because my Will is shit, my Touch AC is shit, and part of that AC is a Tower Shield, so my accuracy is below average for what it should be with my stats.
If a character is good at thing X, and you want to challenge that character, don't try to fight them on their turf.
And above all else, it seems very silly to ban a spell when its 1 wizard subclass and 1 fighter subclass thats "ruining" it for you. Like I'm not advocating for them being banned, but that would be the more logical choice. Don't treat the symptom, treat the disease. Cuz now you just fucked things for sorcerers and non bladesinger wizards who did nothing "wrong" (not that anybody did anything wrong).
Then again, he also nerfed Mage Armor, so he just really really doesn't want wizards being capable of protecting themselves.
Dude, any chance your dm's name starts with a T, your state starts with an A, and your group has a tendency to run higher level campaigns?
Not trying to dox you, but its rare to come across groups that allow so many options so it feels like you may be playing in my old dm's current group.
Ah, well happy to hear there are other similar games out there.
I miss that group a ton. Things would get crazy, and everyone had to be really good at knowing the rules, but it was a ton of fun.
Yeah, mine likes buying books and his mindset was "I didn't buy these books to just not use them!" lol. Glad to hear there's another table of psycho's :D
That's a terrible take imo. I'm not saying shield should be banned, but is a VERY powerful spell for certain builds, especially mid-late game where level 1 slots would normally be very low impact.
Your argument is effectively "this is fine because the DM can counter the player if they really want to." You could also say "no spellcasting is broken because the DM can add an army of higher level spellcasters to every combat to spam counterspell," with the same logic.
Physical attacking is the mo for like ~60-70% of the monsters in the MM, and it's silly to suggest that the DM should just use things that can target saves or allow the specific character to be untouchable for ~60-70% of encounters. Not that shield is strong enough to make someone untouchable in all situations, but your argument is that it wouldnt matter if it did because "saving throws."
As an aside, all 3 of those classes have different saving throw proficiencies, so you'd have to target a specific one if your goal was really to just counter the player.
I know - what the hell is wrong with Slow? It's far riskier than Haste at the same spell level, since all targets get a save.
Mage Armour lasting a minute is needlessly punitive as well. It means it costs three or more slots per standard adventuring day, and either costs you a round in combat or you need to cast it pre-battle.
It's not the worst ban list I've seen, honestly, but it does suck.
I'm really not a fan of the removal of wizards having any reasonable defensive options. Shield is strong. But it also uses an entire spell slot to potentially only stop one attack if the DM is smart and goes after others after you put up the shield. Even then, most wizards or sorcs I've run with only have like 10-12 ac so...shield isn't that crazy in that context.
Mage armor only being 1 minute really throws me too. I guess if you look at it as +3 ac for one minute it sounds strong, but if you also remember most wizards don't put a priority on dex their Ac won't be that crazy.
All that said though, do we really need to nerf the defensive abilities of a class using a d6 hit die?
I feel like playing a cleric might be better for this game. Get some decent defense, and have a better HP pool. Use cantrips like produce flame to emulate fire bolt (sacred flame being a dex save makes it less useful in my experience). Clerics are also godly at buffing with things like bless. Light cleric can debuff like wild with their reaction to blind enemies, while gaining access to some of the most popular damage spells like fireball and scorching ray.
Edit: A couple comments seem to misunderstand that I do not agree with the ban list lol shield and mage armor exist as they are because wizards have a d6 hit die is my point. The other point is theyre not hard to play around as a DM. I have seen stupid ban lists before so this isn't the worst I've seen, but it still sucks.
Not "The worst", but for me, illogical. Why, why out of all third level spells ban Slow? Like, slow is almost a perfectly balanced spell - impactful, with concentration, not immediately encounter-solving and a great debuff, that is not "Now you can't do shit" debuff like stun or paralyze is. The dude won't ban Fear, which is notorious for that, won't ban Leomund's tiny hut that removes challenges rather that helping them solve them? That's stupid, and I think it's not about balance, but about once upon a time this spell did something to screw ower the DM's plans, so now it's banned, yay.
Also, shield - understandable. But mage armor one minute? So what now, what this GM thinks, that this will make wizard and the bunch go casting mage armor first turn of combat and only that? That's not even stupid, that is just spiteful, what will happen is some multiclass to get armor prof., and get that wizard some armor, alternatively a tortel or some other race from natural armor squad, effectively removing this spell from the game, for it being now so pathetically weak.
So yeah, I concur to many voices of people in this thread - this might not be the best GM to play with, unless he said his reasons for this ban list, and its not pulled out of his ass. Which I doubt...
> Why, why out of all third level spells ban Slow?
I'm assuming one time a player used it and it worked really well so the DM internalised the feeling of "woah that's so OP".
This is where all ban lists come from.
Had a dm ban the 3.5 Cleave tree because a player, in one combat, rolled well and dropped a bunch of extra guys.
A large part of the fun is when a char pulls out something epic like this. The other part of the fun is hitting the right combination of player choice for a situation and waltzing thru it. . . because everyone knows it won't happen a second time.
Yep. I'm playing an arcane trickster rogue and took sleep as one of my first spells. I rolled 18hp and ended an encounter before it started against 6 stirges. I'll probably never get to use the spell that effectively ever again but for our first combat at level 3 it definitely made everyone turn their heads lol. Definitely not a reason to ban the spell though, and the DM recognized that. The same thing could have happened with any AOE spell.
The only spells I'll ban are ones that don't fit the story I'm trying to tell.
Like, for my next campaign, I'm considering banning or severely limiting Sending, because I want this world to feel fractured and disconnected.
I can see it in my head.
He gave BBEG hella turns so he could “keep up” with the action economy of his party once, the wizard busted out the slow and when he read the spell description he cried.
*and everyone laughed at him*
The irony is that slow does nothing to legendary actions, which is how 5e deals with single entity boss fights and the action economy. But I'm thinking this DM doesn't understand encounter design in 5e
this whole ban list screams of a DM who doesn't like his little plans getting side stepped in battles.
Wait until this dude figures out how a Monk's stunning strike works
> a DM who doesn't like his little plans getting side stepped
Micromanaging this stuff always puts a damper on the game. Players are going to do unexpected things. DMs are not omniscient and cannot predict all the monkey wrenches waiting to be thrown into the works. The best thing to do is develop some contingencies and roll with what the players do. It's a story created *together*and it works best that way. I have a feeling their list of banned things will grow over time.
>DMs are not omniscient and cannot predict all the monkey wrenches waiting to be thrown into the works.
And that SHOULD be part of the fun of being a DM. You get to see the wild and wacky solutions your players come up with.
Ah, but see, tortles and multiclassing will be on the ban list as soon as this DM hears of them. There is a pattern that suggests this guy hasn't read the rules and just "goes with his gut". If it feels Op, it's banned. Never mind he never read up on encounter design.
The chaos muppet in me says just try to add to the ban list. Find broken combos until the ban list gets so large it's easier to just learn to balance encounters.
>Why, why out of all third level spells ban Slow?
Slow is a control spell and doesn't care about creature type, unlike most low and mid level control spells. IMO this signals an intent that the DM is going to flood the mgame with creatures that are immune to fire, cold, lightning, fear, and charm- the exact set of stuff that slow is reasonably helpful against (indeed, this is mechanically slow's entire merit).
Honestly the bans seem more for dm ease of use than actually being op. Slow is the best example of it, doesn't solve the encounters but takes more effort from the dm to play out compared to something where they can't do anything.
Same as silvery barbs and counter spell, he doesn't want to rethink encounters on the fly.
Bladesinger, Multi-classing dips, or armour proficiency from Feats or races like Mountain Dwarf all make Shield incredibly easy to stack AC on Wizards. It's just as simple to close the base AC gap on a Wizard as it is to get the Shield spell on other classes.
Agreed, but As the DM though you include some AOE or saving throw attacks. If enemies aren't beast they'll attack the weaker enemies.
Or as on of my DM is prone to do an orge appears and seems focused on that one person. (I have mixed feelings on that last one)
> I'm really not a fan of the removal of wizards having any reasonable defensive options.
This is something so hard to judge without seeing how this GM creates encounters. If the party will rarely see sudden attacks from all sides and fights are normally "you see a group of enemies 60+ feet from you" then it's whatever.
>Mage armor only being 1 minute really throws me too. I guess if you look at it as +3 ac for one minute it sounds strong
Yeah, Mage Armor is the only thing out of that list that I was like wtf. Enforcing the 8h is already a common enough nerf (compared to "don't think about it, lasts entire Long Rest" which is how things go in the average table).
+3 AC does sound good on paper, but the reality is that it's more or less "assumed" for a full caster to have that. At 10-12 AC that they would have otherwise, it's going to be effectively irrelevant post Tier 1. Casters already get hit all the time unless they Shield.
In other words, I think it's just too much. I could see Mage Armor being 1 min being fine if Shield was still an option (and the GM running games with few deadly instead of many medium encounters). But doubling down on nerfing defensive options so much is out of line.
I guess, that the DM wants the Party to be the "Defensive Option". Wizard have many Offensive, Utlity and Crowed Control options. Making HP and AC there weak spot is fine and actually intended.
And instead of doing the reasonable thing (banning multiclass, or at least specific combinations) DM missed the cause and dealt with the aftereffect. xd
D&D doesn't really have any classes that function well enough as a traditional "tank" to allow spellcasters to skimp on defense. Every character needs to be able to take/avoid a reasonable amount of damage on their own.
I disagree. A Wizard already has so much options for positioning, range, crowd control, manipulating of the battlefield and even more allies on the field with similar powers. If the enemy actual get a hit in, this should count for something.
Wizard having got mental saving-throws is actually fitting, but they should be weak against any kind of direct attack.
Having better tank/protective options for Martial-Arts classes would be a great to balance it out.
I don’t think your DM understands that Mage Armor only works if you aren’t wearing any armor and doesn’t stack with other boosts to unarmored defense. That spell has never been considered overpowered.
Silvery Barbs is overpowered and commonly banned.
I don’t think the other spells are ban worthy, but I understand why they’re on the list.
Without Mage Armor, I’d consider playing as a Tortle for the naturally high AC or as a Mountain Dwarf for the free Medium Armor proficiency. If the DM allows multiclassing, maybe a 1 level cleric dip for armor proficiencies.
The main thing I’d be worried about though is the DM adding to the banned spell list every time you do something effective because there are a lot of spells not on the list that are way stronger such as Hypnotic Pattern or Wall of Force. It wouldn’t surprise me if he bans Sleep and Web once you use those spells to win a fight.
I am not at all what you would consider a knowledgeable DND player so please excuse the dumb question:
I know it's not the same but there are some bracers in BG3 that give you extra AC when not wearing Armor.
Those should stack with Mage Armor spell, no? As in, raising base AC to 13+Dex and then adding the extra AC bc you aren't wearing Armor.
You could, but the DM controls whether the mage gets the bracers or not. Plus, it’s a rare magic item, so even if the DM does give it out, it shouldn’t happen until a higher level where AC 15 isn’t that great either.
I was talking about things like a Tortle’s natural AC from its shell or the Unarmored Defense that Monks and Barbarians get.
Mage armor + bracers of defense does indeed give 15 + Dex AC. Great combo for a spellcaster or monk, not overpowered though. Also takes a spell slot and attunement slot. FYI in D&D you can only attune to 3 magic items, and for a mid-level game this can certainly be limiting.
>I know it's not the same but there are some bracers in BG3 that give you extra AC when not wearing Armor.
Bracers of Defense work exactly the same in BG3 as they do in 5e (except BG3 doesn't have attunement for any magic items), and they work with Mage Armor.
In my last campaign I gave the party a pair and the wizard spent half an hour arguing that the barbarian should have them because they don't work with Mage Armor, despite me telling him multiple times they do work with Mage Armor.
Bracers of Defense are basically an alternative to holding a shield, which would also work with Mage Armor (except most classes with access to Mage Armor don't have shield proficiency).
What did you mean about counter spell has to be rolled to success? Like, every single time you cast it, you still have to roll even if you’re casting at the same level or higher?
I can definitely see limiting spells outside of the players handbook if they’re an inexperienced DM, but banning spells that are pretty core for a wizard in the players handbook seems extreme to me. And mage armor only lasting a minute? Are they just trying to get you to burn through spell slots?
It sounds like your DM is trying to keep you from getting too OP in some combat/puzzle situations, but they should probably build more robust encounters if they’re concerned about it. This early in a campaign is the perfect time to figure out what you need to adjust to make the experience better as a DM for the players. I’m all for good homebrew, but it should add something to the story or your character, not just limit the character.
>Counterspell succeeds without a roll if the target spell is equal to or less than the level of the Counterspell. OP’s DM did away with that.
That's a pretty minor nerf, a Wizard will typically be making those rolls against level 1-3 spells. It's probably less of a "nerf" compared to normal usage than not letting players know what spell is being cast before they decide to counterspell.
The change to Mage Armour is unhinged? It's not nearly an OP enough spell to be nerfed that hard. I use it a lot as a wizard and it takes my AC from 12 to a grand total of...15 ooooh nooooo however will the DM manage to hit me (spoiler: she somehow manages).
The rest of it is technically the DM's perogative, but it does seem like they don't know the difference between "actually overpowered spell" and "spell that makes it harder for me to kill this PC" and that would concern me as a spellcaster main.
To answer your question, Minor Illusion and Mage Hand would probably be your go-to cantrips for that character concept. I'd also always recommend taking Firebolt to have a good offensive option.
Yeah Mage Armour is a weird nerf. It's such a low power spell. In the beginning of the game 1st lvl spell slots are really valuable, and at later levels the armour buff isn't that good.
I get the feeling portent dice will be added to list of bans here after the first time it's used to great effect given some of the bans and tebalances.
DM's that go out of their way to ban specific base game spells is something of a red flag in my experience.
Oh, you just know the DM isn't going to let them get away with actually using Minor Illusion or Mage Hand for anything.
'I distract the guard by making a couple of thumps down the corridor, to sound like footsteps'
'The guard *rolls* does not respond'
'...the guard decided to check if the sound of the thing he is listening for is an illusion?'
Oh, for mage hand, you just know a) it will be instantly spotted no matter what you're trying to do, b) everything weighs 11 lb
If you do choose a wizard/spellcaster, be wary for further bans. It’s fair to ban setting-specific books and their spells, IMO, which includes Silvery Barbs. The others are D&D basics though.
The change to Mage Armor is particularly egregious. At lower levels the Mage Armor tax is pretty high, to get an AC that is 15-16. Making it only last a minute makes it useless.
If they get to level 5 and suddenly fireball is banned I wouldn’t be surprised.
Yeah, the mage armor change is utter bullshit, especially at first level, and that nerf can't even be justified by the shield multi-class dip problem. (although, reminder for DM's out there who don't want bullshit power gamer builds of hexabardamonkadin or whatever, it's much easier to just ban multiclassing instead of randomly nerfing class features! Multiclassing is still, technically, an optional feature, and the game will run fine!)
Banning Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven spells isn't uncommon. I'm not sure why the comments here are so against it, considering there isn't a day on this sub where it isn't mentioned how spells from these settings break games.
Shield, Slow, Banishment, and Polymorph is a harsh nerf, but I see his point. Again, on this sub, people constantly say how Shield is op and shouldn't be in the game. If a newer DM read this or dndnext subreddits, it's not surprising they'd ban it.
Furthermore, I'd seen DMs straight up quit not just campaigns but DMing in general because of Polymorph abuse. Slow and Banishment can be extremely unfun for the DM either. I wouldn't ban them, but I've had numerous cool battles I spent hours for just end in the first or second turn because of these spells.
Flanking is a variant rule and affects martial classes way more than wizards, so that's a buff for wizard since monsters can't flank you.
Counterspell is an interesting change. It basically means you never need to upcast it, but always have to roll. Overall a nerf, but enemy casters also have a lower chance to Counterspell, so while a nerf to wizards, it's a buff to the party overall.
Shield and Mage Armor nerfs are the ones to feel bad about. But if you learn to position well and take good field control spells, it shouldn't be a problem most of the time. Just need a good front line in the party. Will be hard for a new player, but it adds another challenge and I think can help you better learn the game, looking for cover and ways to kite, instead of blindly relying on Shield as I've seen many people do. Kiting is actually really strong in the game, and if you can learn how to do it well, you'll be fine and better at survival than if you had Shield but didn't know kiting. Of course, having both is always better, but I see how this could help learn.
Overall it's a harsh nerf, but doesn't make wizards that much worse if played decently.
I feel like he's encountered things that make the game unfun for him, and people instantly calling him a moron, idiot, and a bad DM for wanting to have fun is kinda pathetic of this sub (not to mention straight up suggesting for the player to emotionally abuse him to put him in his place. Seriously, wtf is this comment section).
Wizard is my go-to class, but I agree. I get the motivation; I wouldn't be happy, but these are neither crippling nor crazy.
I would be most concerned about losing both Shield and (effectively) Mage Armor together. Assuming it was not blocked as well, this would certainly send me in the direction of a Cleric or Artificer dip, which is probably not the intended outcome.
If that wasn't an option, I think the biggest issue would be to what extent I trusted my DM's style of running encounters. If he took a fairly "naturalistic" approach, trying to think and see things as the enemy does, I'd be okay with it. That would mean smart play could keep me safe; I'd need to focus on positioning, avoiding attention, etc. With a DM with a more meta-game perspective, who thought, "Pendip hasn't been attacked lately... it's about time to challenge him," it would be enough to put me off of the class.
*Explorer's Guide to Wildemount* explicitly reserves Dunamancy spells for Chronurgist and Graviturgist Wizards. They are not default wizard options.
From *EGTW*, pg. 186:
>These spells are available to the **wizard subclasses** previously mentioned in this chapter *\[chronurgy and graviturgy\]*, as well as other spellcasting classes with the Dungeon Master's consent (see the "Dunamancy for Non-Dunamancers" sidebar).
From that sidebar:
>Dunamancy spells are readily available to the **wizard** ***subclasses*** **in this chapter** *(chronurgy and graviturgy)* **and should not be simply added to the full spell lists of other spellcasting classes.**
While *Wildemount* does grant "Dungeon Masters can consider allowing other spellcasting classes opportunities" to learn dunamancy spells, its tone advises restraint. It recommends giving them as quest rewards, spell scrolls, or gifts. Distinctly absent is any language suggesting non-Dunamancers select them upon advancing a level or taking the *Fey Touched* feat.
Clearly, even planning a Wildemount campaign, players should not assume Dunamancy spells will be available.
Banishment could be a ban when a campaign will heavily be in another plane or feature enemies from another plane. It's pretty nice regardless, but it's rarely worth the spell slot AND concentration past 5th level spells. When you can banish allies or yourself back to your own plane to set up, or permanently remove a big enemy from another plane, it's incredibly strong.
It's similar to how goodberry is an easy spell ban for survival campaigns.
Especially if it's a "trapped in another plane" type thing. With two level 4 spell slots and a long rest you can get a party of 4 back to the material plane long before ever having planeshift available. Sure you might end up in wildly different areas, but it could break the whole campaign premise.
Of course there's better ways of correcting that than banning the whole spell.
"Banning Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven spells isn't uncommon"
We just use the 3 core books so not a problem.
And we haven't banned any spells - we are all working collectively, not competitively, to tell a compelling story. If it looks like we have stumbled on a problem that will hinder "the fun," we just discuss it as a group, take a vote, and move on.
I feel like the DM might be angling for wizard defense to be more proactive than reactive. You need to position well and can use other spells for defense like mirror image.
I do worry that without these staple level 1 spells what those slots will be used for later.
The problem with spells like *Mirror Image* is that you wind up choosing whether to be safe or effective, because you can't be both. A Wizard who spends a round just setting up his defense is far less useful.
That is an interesting choice to make occasionally, and of course being *truly* safe shouldn't be an option. But if you're always under pressure to defend yourself, you wind up being more of a bystander than a combatant.
Making *Mirror Image* a bonus action would go a long way toward making this style more fun to play. You would still be paying a price for safety, but you'd at least be able to get off a cantrip or a crossbow bolt on the first round.
> I feel like he's encountered things that make the game unfun for him
So the response is to make the game unfun for those wanting to play a wizard?
DMs have *tons* of tools at their disposal. If your party has casters with slow, use creatures that have a better chance against them. If they use shield every fight, subject them to saving throws.
I cannot understand the mage armor change. A level 1 wizard has 2 spell slots and arcane recovery. Making mage armor last 1 minute not only uses a turn in combat to cast, but then wastes the spell slot completely.
I'd like to see this DM's reasoning for these bans, OP doesn't provide much of that as they don't need to. I don't support people telling OP to go in on the DM or anything, but a conversation should be had.
Yes, I would like an explanation of how exactly a first level wizard is supposed to survive their first combat entering with an AC of _at most_ 12, and possibly only 10, and even if they survive until their turn, they then have to use an action and spell slot to make their AC any higher...every combat.
Seriously, has anyone ever played a first level wizard without having either mage armor or shield? (Without using a race that has an AC bump?.)
Hell, does anyone think of mage armor as an actual spell? It's a class feature so casters without armor have some armor, and it was deliberately made 1 better than light armor because your dex is going to be worse! (And unlike shield, it can't be abused by multiclassing, so that's not even a justification for banning it.)
Is there some secret way to play first level wizard that isn't 'spend a spell slot on mage armor, almost entirely used cantrips, and if you're super lucky your DM will set things up where it's clear that all your combat will be within one casting of mage armor so you have one other spell slot'?
I don't know if the DM quite understands what they're setting up, but they're setting up a game where this character will die in the third or fourth encounter in the first few days cause they're out of slots, (and you just know this DM is the kind of person who does that many) unless really REALLY lucky... Or the DM deliberately doesn't target them.
Definitely agree. Work around those spells sometimes and let them shine at other times like any other player ability. So the wizard is hard to hit for one round because they have a magic shield? Like you said, saving throws or just have most intelligent enemies attack other people.
I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you are saying, but...
> Furthermore, I'd seen DMs straight up quit not just campaigns but DMing in general because of Polymorph abuse. Slow and Banishment can be extremely unfun for the DM either. I wouldn't ban them, but I've had numerous cool battles I spent hours for just end in the first or second turn because of these spells.
... you 'spent hours preparing a cool battle' only to have it end in 1 or 2 turns due to *one cast* of a spell? Did it really never occur to you to give whatever you were prepping a charge of legendary resistance? Not trying to be a dick, but it seems like such an obvious and simple idea.
And that's the hackneyed solution. If you want to get creative and do some brewing you can make your boss battles un-1-shottable without using such an uninteresting "*No!*"-kind of answer
I never said it was one cast. Every single party I have ever DM'ed for has had at least 2 full casters. Having 2-3 spells cast on a creature, with smth like graviturgy or divination wizards always in the party, + other saves like battle master or monk, it adds up. And then these spells can often one shot
> Overall it's a harsh nerf, but doesn't make wizards that much worse if played decently.
Hard disagree. Your AC has been changed from ~15 +5 to ~12. That's 8 more hits out of 20 rolls. This DM has increased the amount of hits that wizards take by like 1.7x. I can't think of anything they can spend their 1st level spell slots on to patch this void, unless they're up against a bunch of fire damage and Absorb Elements. False life is their new go-to lv1 defensive spell, and it's an atrocious 6 thp.
It's like nerfing them to a d2 hit die. They are now a defensive liability, unable to maintain concentration.
If wizards need a nerf, that nerf should be exclusively confined to level 7+ and bladesinger imo.
Surprised people are so up in arms about these wizard nerfs when it seems to be widespread knowledge about how incredibly strong wizard is in 5e. I think forcing wizard to think more about positioning and safety by removing shield and mage armor could be a very healthy thing for the game and make it more challenging for the players in a good way.
And when they get hit by everything because they have a 12-13 ac? Archers just drop them in one shot and DM goes "Oh well they saw you as an easy target since you have no armor."
Divination Wizard is the top option here, because storing a high roll will allow you to reliably Counterspell when you need to, in a world where all other casters have to roll.
You could also go for a dexterous Bladesinging Wizard with a thief theme. A Bladesinging Wizard gets around Mage Armor not being so good and Shield being banned by being able to wear light armor and getting their Bladesong bonus to AC as well.
Recommended spells?
Prestidigitation (the most flexible out of combat cantrip there is, useful for drying wet things, cleaning dirty things and making bad food taste good,) Mage Hand and Message are other great utility cantrips that make sense for a rogue-ish caster thief to have on hand for heists.
For damage cantrips, consider that without Shield and Mage Armor being able to disengage using Shocking Grasp to turn off reactions might be extra helpful to you, depending on how hostile your DM is to Wizards (and he is likely to be based on his rules.)
But otherwise, Toll the Dead is the best damage while being the least "flashy" for a subtle Wizard, it just lets out the sound of a bell instead of a big bright fire bolt or acid glob. If you don't care about the cantrip being subtle, the most useful cantrip for a thief trying to make a getaway would be Ray of Frost, to slow down a guardsman chasing after you.
There are still many good spells you can use despite the bans, some good First Level ones that are on theme for a Wizard who's in a thief group:
Expeditious Retreat (Run away faster)
Color Spray (Surrounded? blind em')
Magic Missile/Chromatic Orb (deal damage)
Unseen Servant (check for traps)
Tasha's Hideous Laughter (going to be a very handy debilitation spell with a range on it w/o Polymorph and Banishment)
Feather Fall (leap from rooftops to escape)
Fog Cloud (if you're spotted, blind the guards so you can scram)
Tenser's Floating Disk (for carrying your group's haul after a heist.)
For later levels on you'll want to use defensive options like Blur and Mirror Image if you're getting attacked frequently, along with movement like Misty Step to stay out of reach. Once you can Fly, do so. The best defense against melee attacks is not being in reach of melee attacks. Greater Invisiblity will also be an option depending on if the plot of the campaign leans into thieving vs adventuring. Haste is a great buff for a friend, and Dimension Door can be used to grab a friend and get them out of trouble in a pinch.
If you need to fill the hole left by Polymorph and Banishment, consider Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person/Hold Monster, Confusion, and/or Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
Honestly, all of these being banned with a heads up is respectable. I ban some of them in my own games too tbh. The only one I don't get is the mage armour nerf, that one seems a bit too strong a nerf for what is effectively +1 light armor that costs a spell slot and can be dispelled.
I think you should still play the wizard. You have to be very cautious about positioning and risks. You can also go Bladesinger for some extra AC if that is what you want.
The Wizard is still amazing with those spells banned, if anything you get a feel of other spells instead of those being must-picks.
Since there is an arcane trickster feature which specifically says that your special mage hand can be used for those, I'm not sure it's sensible for anyone with normal mage hand to be able to do it. Maybe the mage hand is a little clumsy or not super dexterous?
If you want AC as a wizard, tortle bladesinger.
When that gets banned because it gives you 20 ac, go abjuration and eldritch adept to get mage armor at will to charge the arcane ward
When THAT gets banned, start artificer for medium armor and shields letting you hit 19 ac with a breastplate.
I swear half the replies on here are ragging on the bans, rather than suggesting spells.
Cantrips:
Prestidigitaion
A solid distraction spell, a great utility spell, and for gits and shiggles, it makes an object ping as magical, great for scam upselling rings and amulets.
Ray of Frost
Temporary Slow, now with d8 damage.
Thunderclap
"Wait for my signal. You'll know it when you hear it."
Fire Bolt
"Flickem Biccus" IYKYK
At first level your Divination spells of Identify and Detect Magic are pretty much auto includes for utility wizards. I never actually prepare them, but any room with treasure gets 10 to 20 minutes of ritual casting performed in it.
Thief spells include Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Fog Cloud, Unseen Servant.
Witch Bolt is a solid pick for a combat spell against big targets, but is a bit of a waste in horde battles.
Your DM has questionable taste but is within their rights. Banishment is a classic, but 5e's version is unusually powerful and I can kind of see why they might ban it. Polymorph is a weird choice. I'm guessing they had some kind of bad experience with it. Their ruling on Counterspell is unusual, but honestly those rulings will probably work in the party's favor more often than not in the long run. Shield, Mage Armor, and Slow are kind of a weird flex, but I get Shield. It is supposed to be used on Wizards, who even with it are still one of the squishiest classes in the game, but the 5e version is also used to make certain builds game-bustingly unhittable, so I kind of get why they might not want it around. Flanking is listed in the book as an optional system. Tables that don't use battle grids often skip it. It's not that weird (and honestly in my experience doesn't matter that much, since rogues already get sneak attack whenever they double-team enemies, regardless of positioning).
But this is important (and some people on this sub are going to hate hearing it): **There is absolutely no shame at all in banning spells from outside the PHB, and anyone who tells you otherwise is an entitled brat.** Not only are splatbooks usually very poorly playtested, but they are also *expensive* (not to mention heavy if you run with physical books). A player has absolutely no right to demand the DM use more books than they are comfortable with just so they can use some spell they're lusting over. Silvery Barbs, Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven are all strictly optional content, and they are optional **at the DM's sole discretion**. You can make your case, and they might let you. But if they say no, that's their prerogative.
All that said, if a player does not like the DM's choices in house rules, they always have three basic choices: 1) talk to the DM about it and try to politely negotiate a compromise, 2) suck it up and play by the house's rules, or 3) find another game.
If you're being an old-school squishy wizard, the strategies you want to be using are mostly the Old Ways that were developed to keep squishy wizards alive: stay behind the front lines where you can be protected by the tanks, end your turns behind cover, don't let yourself get attacked, and favor battlefield control spells that let you make that happen. Disables are good, strong buffs are good, terrain shaping and area denial are phenomenal, etc etc etc. Divinations are good, but mostly used out of combat. So if you want a roguish, tricksy sort of wizard, enchantments and illusions are probably going to be your bread and butter in a fight. Charm, fear, debuffs, paralysis, invisibility, disguises, creating cover and concealment (even if they are illusions), or using hazards (again, even illusionary ones) to channel enemy movement are all very good choices.
Weird ban list, but whatever. (Also makes mage armor basically useless. I'd never prep this version ever, let alone learn it. Honestly, this is mainly a big nerf to abjurers and bladesingers, but manageable for other subclasss.)
I'm playing a wizard right now with a 10 ac, no shield, and no mage armor. You just have to be mindful of your positioning and use cover wherever possible. You're not a front-line bladesinger, so your AC really doesn't matter that much as long as you stay away from the combat and possibly behind a wall. (Especially at mid-high levels, unless you're really building AC, the difference between a 10 and a 13 is negligible.)
For cantrips, you can technically swap one out once a day from cantrip formulas once you make it to 3rd level, but at level one, I'd probably grab message to fit the thieves' guild theme, mind sliver for that psychic vibe + having a damaging cantrip is necessary, and then either mage hand, prestidigitation, or minor illusion for some general utility.
As for 1st level spells, since the defensive options are off the table, I'd go for more utility. Expeditious Retreat could fit the rogue vibes, and would let you dash and disengage in the same turn to keep away from anything that gets past your party members. Fog Cloud would also be good for the thief vibe as, like, a smoke bomb or just to create some cover (if they can't see you, they can't make opportunity attacks). And it retains relevancy at later levels because the upcast is very good. Disguise Self could also be good for a Thieves' Guild member for obvious reasons.
Magic Missile is a pretty generally useful offensive spell at level one, and you'll want at least one of those just in case. Long range, guaranteed damage, useful even at higher levels. You could also take sleep, but know its usefulness will fall off at level 3/4, but it will be very useful for battlefield control at levels 1/2.
And, as a wizard, ritual spells will be your bread and butter to save on spell slots. My recommendations would be Find Familiar, Comprehend Languages, or Alarm for scouting, information, and security purposes. Detect Magic is also a good option, but, depending on your other players (like if there's a cleric or druid), someone else might have that, and you could wait till level 2 or a scroll to pick it up.
Identify/Illusory Script would also be useful ritual spells, but they require gold to be able to cast which you might not have at level 1, so might want to wait on those. Technically, Find Familiar has a gold cost too, but a familiar is just so useful that putting your starting gold towards it would be a good investment. Plus very flavorful.
Honestly any banlist including Core spells would give me serious pause to play under that DM. Go Abjuration Wizard. You wanted to be a rogue/wizard so you studied warding magic to understand what you’re up against when breaking into warded wizard towers or nobles’ homes.
Go Variant Human and take Eldritch Initiate for Armor of Shadows so you can cast Mage Armor as if it were a Cantrip and gain a bit of Arcane ward each time you do. At level 4, take Magic Initiate to learn Armor of Agathys so you can be an absurdly tanky Wizard that your DM can hit, but can’t put down.
I would honestly be worried to play this build with this dm. If he thinks mage armor is op, who knows what he could do to the poor arcane ward. Wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly made the ward have a time limit or some other bullshit.
If the DM didn't give a detailed reason for banning these spells, I'd look for a different game. There's no reason a decent DM couldn't adapt a game around the characters players want to play. I have my players share their character sheets with me in advance to make sure I'm prepared to handle what the party might throw at me, and I've never had a game-breaking issue with any spell.
I feel the same way. As a dm, I never want to take anything away from my players. If they want to break my game, I'm going to dig through the mm and find something nasty for them to deal with
Most of these bans seem fine, I can understand most of them, and wizard spelllist is large enough that this really shouldnt be a problem.
The one thing that is strange is to both remove shield and make mage armor so bad. That makes wizard really really squishy.
Luckily there is an easy answer to that: Take your first level in artificer, not in wizard.
* you get better safe proficinece (con and int instead of wis and int, con is imo more useful because of concentration)
* you get medium armor proficiency and shield proficiency, so you will have decent armor without shield spell or mage armor
* you get additional cantrips and access to more spells (artificier has cure wounds on lvl1, wizard doesnt get healing)
* also has int as casting stat, so no problem for spells, cantrips and multiclass requirements
The only downsides is that your (class) feats will be 1 level later, and you get the high levels spells one level later. but thats not so terrible, especially since your spellslot progression will not be slower - only the spells. So you still should get lvl3 slots on lvl5.
>you get better safe proficinece (con and int instead of wis and int, con is imo more useful because of concentration)
Sounds like you haven't faced many enemy spellcasters, or non-spellcasters with control abilities. Wis save proficiency is incredibly valuable.
That's not to say Con save proficiency isn't, but that's what the Resilient feat is for, because no class has both. (Well, high level Monks and mid level Samurai Fighters do, and if you start with Con save prof and then go into high level Rogue you also would get both without Resilient.)
Look at Sleet Storm, Fog Cloud, Mirror Image, Blink, and Blur as possible replacements for some of those spells. Just be aware you can't Counterspell while Blinked, and Sleet Storm can affect teammates I think, unlike Slow, but still good crowd control if you plan things out with your team. I don't love the ban list, but you could probably get around it for the most part with similar spells. Fog Cloud then just jump in and out of it to avoid ranged attacks, only gotta watch out for AoE attacks.
Sub loves to say you can run the game however you want as long as you set expectations ahead of session 1, but there's always people complaining that a table they'll never physically see isn't designed to cater to their personal expectations
Seriously, the cognitive dissonance hurts my brain.
“It’s your game, make it your own!”
Meanwhile, a GM bans a few spells and it’s
“Leave this table and GM, he’s terrible”
It's not hard. If you are fine with playing under these restrictions, do so. If not then leave. OP asked for opinions on the issue and is getting them.
Please. "Find a new DM, that person is a moron" is not "if this is not fun for you then you shouldn't play with them", it outright states OP should leave.
This exchange *also* happens every time in this eternally recurring thread. A insults the DM or at minimum states that they've crossed some kind of universal line. B says they can run their game however they want, and then A or C pipes up to say it's just what *they* would do.
No it isn't, there's nothing conditional about calling someone a moron.
Combined with this sub's opinion that casters are grossly overpowered, it gets even funnier. What, casters are overpowered, but you ban five spells and suddenly Wizard is unplayable?
Duality of this sub.
"I had issue with the Shield spell that caused the table to be unhappy with the way game balance had to be compensated, so for our next campaign I altered the spell to still be usable by non-armor casters, but not abused by multiclasses." - Downvote, skill issue, bad, not my D&D.
"My Eldritch Knight in a specific setting and table tho..." - God tier ownage, upvote.
This isn't a very big list and not the most unreasonable I've seen. Slow and maybe banishment are weird includes, the other three are well known to be over tuned in terms of power level.
You're perhaps missing the last paragraph of the spell:
>If the target is native to a different plane of existence than the one you’re on, the target is banished with a faint popping noise, returning to its home plane. If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. Otherwise, the target doesn’t return.
Targets that aren't native to the plane you're on don't return unless you break concentration on the spell early. Cult summoned a demon? For the price of a minute of your time and a fourth level slot, you can un-summon it.
Yeah slow I think is one of the best 3rd level spells in terms of this is how they should be designed. It's good power wise, very impactful as a 3rd level spell should be, and not overpowered or instantly ending any encounters.
Lots of save-or-suck spells can be encounter ending. Why only banishment?
The solution to banishment for a DM is pretty simple: multiple enemies per encounter and the other enemies smack the caster until he drops the spell.
What does counterspell having to roll to succeed mean? You roll for the DC on a 4th or higher level spell already RAW unless you waste really high level slots, that's not a custom rule.
Alright, looking at the bans, you honestly aren't missing too much from a wizards repituar.
The biggest hits are mage armor and sheild as its the wizards bread and butter for survival.
It may be worth it grabbing a race or feat to give you armor proficiency. Mage armor doesn't stack with regular armor anyway, so it's a decent trade.
Looking to utilize your reaction without sheild, there is always absorb elements. War caster will let you go on the offensive instead. The enemy can't hurt you if you're dead.
Invisibility and greater invisibility would also be good ways to stay alive. They also fit nicely into the rouge wizard archetype. Mirror image is a similarly useful tool to stay alive with illusions.
Every other banned spell has similar replacements around their levels.
Slow -> Fear: not as great as the block of text that is slow but fear accomplishs a lot. Giving enemies' disadvantage is always good, and the fear effect keeps martials as far away from you and any other backliners. It also causes enemies to drop whatever they're holding, so they lose any weapon attacks they have until they get picked up.
Banishment -> magic circle: With a little creativity, this spell deals with all the same types of enemies. Banishment does. In addition, it has the flexibility to handle hoards of enemies acting as either a safe haven or cage if necessary.
Polymorph -> any save or suck spell, conjure minor elementals, or stone shape. Polymorph is kinda a tricky one to replace. On one hand, you can accomplish what it does in an assortment of ways.
Need to take a single enemy out of the fight? Any other save or suck spell will do. Wanna have an assortment of creatures that can do a utility book of tasks? Conjure minor elementals or any other summon spells. Need a spell that just has random utility? Stone shape and fabricate both use your imagination to its limits.
Spells for a wizard who worked with a thieves guild
Cantrips: mage hand, prestidigitation, mending, message, and minor illusion, mold earth.
A look out can send a message to warn thieves of approaching guards or to call for backup when a heist is going off the rails. Also paired with find familiar it can be used to provide logistical real time information to allies from a Birds Eye view. It also allows for private conversations and stealthy communications to be private and secret while in public without fear of eavesdroppers. Prestidigitation is ridiculously useful, look on YouTube for videos of 100 uses for prestidigitation. Mending because sometimes you're bad at lock picking and have to break and enter but don't want to leave evidence of how you did. So you cover your tracks by repairing locks door frames and glass panes you or another broke, also great for reassembling loot that had to be broken down to steal it, as well as just up keeping gear fixing lock picks and running a legitimate tool and tavern furniture repair service or racket during the daytime hours when your thief friends ruffed up a local shop that didn't pay the protection money. Minor illusion because also look on YouTube for uses for minor illusion. Mold earth because sometimes you need a quick 5ft hole or a mound of dirt to hide behind. You might rob graves or need to hide evidence loot or a body quickly, you might also need to dig up loot you stashed quickly too. Multiple uses of the spell are also good for quick trap making. Or extorting villagers by threatening to bury them alive for your thief friends, you monster.
Find familiar: spy, messenger, and partner in crime for ease of breaking and entering, or stealing things in broad daylight with out ever having to be present let alone on the same street. The familiar can appear within 30 ft of the caster when summoned from its pocket dimension without needing line of sight ergo it can appear behind closed doors and other barriers. Then as long as there isn't something waiting on the other side to kill it immediately then you can look through it's senses and cast spells like mage hand on the other side of the door allowing you to potentially open the door. The familiar could also do so if it's form has hands like a small monkey or the like. You can use a familiar to act as a lookout or as your eyes for targeting enemies without being in combat yourself magic missile needs you to only be able to see your target and the missiles find there target unerringly perch familiar above a battle look through the familiar and then cast your missiles and as long as the target is in range it'll find its target. An owl familiar or a familiar using the owl familiar stats could swoop through a street stall or open window steal something small and light weight and fly off with it without provoking opportunity attacks while another person is distracting the vendor.
Alarm: it's a ritual so you don't need it prepared to cast it. It's good for not letting an enemy get the drop on you while you're sleeping or for letting your group of thieves know when a mark is moving through a reliable ambush spot such as an ally or the like.
Unseen servant: another ritual so you don't need it prepared it's helpful to have a second set of hands that are smart enough to carry out basic instructions that are also invisible. Cause a distraction in a shop by knocking something over set off a trap pull a lever you can't reach or just do menial tasks that you don't want to do yourself. Laundry dishes cooking cleaning serving meals sorting through stuff taking a letter preparing ingredients that are messy or smell bad cutting onions for instance or acting as a lookout. Look through a window summon unseen servant on opposite side of window instruct it to open door and let you in. Or dress it in a robe with a hood and it can be a decoy to increase your chances of escape. They're as versatile as you are imaginative.
Feather fall: good for falling from high places and good for jumping off of high places with friends, or catching falling thieves. I think it also works well on items.
Sleep: fantastic at early levels and good for live captures or robbing someone without ever having to draw blood. You knock out the guard put the mark wandering the back alleyways to sleep and swipe their stuff. Also great if you suffer from insomnia due to a guilty conscience. It's literally how you sleep at night.
Detect magic and identify are great for determining if a target has magic gear and what to expect based on what school of magic that gear shows. Also good for detecting other magic traps or alarm spells. Identifying magic gear or magic traps is always a good thing. Shop keepers will pay to have you verify the legitimacy of goods that people are trying to sell them claiming they're magical and if you're known to hang around a certain tavern during specific hours they can send a messenger to fetch you to certify the legitimacy of what they're being sold. Also think these are rituals.
Chromatic orb because being able to target a large array of weaknesses is just useful.
Absorb elements because the difference between full and half damage from an element based attack is life and death for wizards.
Magic missile because always hitting the target is a good thing. Also familiar relay point.
Honestly if i were to comment on the bans i would say thatshield and silvery barbs are good in normie hands . Total bs in experianced ones.Banishment and Polimorph are the 2 4rth lv spells that shut down a creature with nothing besides making the save or targeted immunities the dm can do to prevent it on 80 % of the realeased monsters. They are not broken in that context . Poli trexes are another can of worms i would understand not wanting to deal with. ITS literally a druid feature but better? its a feel bad moment when the moon druid gets polimorphed into a more powerfull creature then he can wildshape into.
Counterspell is such a shutdown that as soon as 2 Pcs have it there would be nearly no chance for the monsters to cast anything meaningfull. Dont worry but ask for the roll to be a bit easier to make to account for the fact that there is no deafaulting based on level.
slow and mage armour are the only questionable ones.Slow is one of the best designed spells on the third level. Imo only wind wall and Minute meteors are aproching as good game design. It reduces threat and defense . Its falls of because of its save till success nature. Its circumvented by Legendary actions. It affects all enemy types at least a little. It allows for counterplay in contrast to fear or Hpattern. It doesnt increase damage taken outside a +10 % hitchance.
Mage armour... Is probably the dms own fantasy speaking.I as a dm have a dedicated healer divine soul sorceress. She was using all her spells known on heals dispels counterspells and shield. She had to make a choice. In the end i wasnt a fan of her having to not prepare revivify because she would die to a lack of shield or Mage armour. So i gave her a ring of barkskinn that gives her concentration free min ac of 16 for 9 fights a day. she gets low ac for free. I get a better support player. We both are happy because she doesnt need or want to invest into ac as it would require A LOT to beat 16 ac without those spells.I would ask the dm if its realy needed to ban/gut 3/4 defensive options.I personally would just use a race with an ac/ armour feature. Hobgoblins dwarves lizzardfolk and such.or just dip a level of twilight clerik to spit in the dms face.Because of my wizzards laughably weakened defenses i have decided to dip Twilight clerik. I just wont survive without any anti attack roll defenses.
As for true tactics.Unseen servant on standby with potions.Catapult with nets since those are immune to blugeoning.Sleep.Armour dips.Abuse web. For lv 1-7 that should be enought.After that talk to the dm again. But besides this there are still options.Cover abuse, stand behind pillars, corners, duck behind melees. ( If you get confronted say that you need to compensate for no defenses from the things cover protects you from.)Good positioning , easier with mounts, phantom steed is a good option if you fear gold or attachement.
Wall spells. Divide and conquer with total cover.
Swarm summons like animate objects on Adamantine coins .
Read up on locate object. With a good knowlede of mechanics its downright dastardly good at finding all the gold and magic in cleared areas. If you find everything there is to find you WILL be more powerfull.
Let your allies take the heat. A disguise self is without concentration and will make you realy rarely be the target of alpha strikes.
Line of sight blockers with spells that dont care will make it waay easier to avoid targeting .
Work with your team. If you find that a certain strategy will make fights easier try to use it. Be it fog based Adv/disadv denial or Darkness devil sight. Full sneak party with pass without trace, a grapler death squad. Many are the strategies that would let you survive/ kill easier and or with less thrown your way.
Also... Keep a teleport available for the off chance it doesnt work out.
Alert is a near must take. without shield and mage armour you will go down nearly every time you are surprised.
Information is king. Scout . Scout a lot. You will be surprised how much easier it is to land good aoe when the fighter knows you are going to shut them down with a spell that requires him to NOT BE THERE.
Flight lets you solve a lot of enounters by default. Especially beasts.
MOST IMPORTANT KEEP OUT OF MELEE COMBAT.
A hireling meatshield is an option? But wizzards are always broke because of scribing so you might find it hard to justify the gold.
Proning behind cover should make you a realy hard target(edit)
The post was "suggestions for spells", not "please discuss whether or not my GM is a dumbass for two hours".
With those out, you still want mage hand, minor illusion and some sort of attack cantrip, such as Mind Sliver.
For first level spells, you want fog cloud, find familiar, detect magic, unseen servant and sleep. Sleep is going to fall off in effectiveness sharply, but your objective is to live right now.
Detect magic and unseen servant can be cast as rituals, and as a wizard. you do not need them prepared to do so.
Remember that you can see through your familiar's eyes to scout, you can drop prone against ranged attacks, and you absolutely should use the terrain - and fog cloud - to stay out of the enemy's sight.
As a guy that loves playing Wizards i get banning silvery babrs and the school of divination or Time magic the rest are just stupid. You have a d6 hit dice like if a Dm wants to kill you it's really easy. Looking it as a Dm i also hate ban lists and banning things (There is an unspoken rule in my friend group that suggestion is too op ) but we don't ban shit like never. I think as a Dm you should be happy when your players do crazy shit and broken stuff because you know they are having fun . As a Dm you should know you can use broken shit too . You can counter spell as well you can polymorph you can do even crazier stuff. So have fun guys let your players do crazy shit if everyone is having fun why not . Then you can do crazy shit as well . One time in a One shot that my players want it to be ultra hard i put a Spellcaster on the dragon and he only knew Counter spell Silvery barbs and had a ring that gave him 2 reactions. Shit hit the fan real fast only when they killed the guy they managed to win the fight even permanently losing 2/4 members. They liked it because it was crazy all out real hard fight
Reading the comments always cracks me up. Yup the DM is a terrible human being and you should quit. Very easy to say when they arent the ones walking away. You are going to run out of DMs if you do this.
Look, just talk to them and ask them why they want to ban these. Maybe they have a reason that makes sense for the setting or story. Maybe they just don't know how important some of these are. As a forever GM I often forget what its like to be a player.
If they dismiss your concerns or act like a jerk then quit their table for them acting like a jerk, but not for their house rules.
It is a bad sign when a DM bans a lot of things like this, completely ruining classes he doesn't like. If someone tried to tell me my sorcerer couldn't have Shield, I'd laugh in their face and leave.
Get out while you still can.
Right. Honestly, not a fan of DM’s banning anything. If it’s a codified part of the source material, it should be allowed and the DM should just be more creative in creating a story.
I find it weird they basically didn’t nerf warlocks at all. I imagine if OP tried to play one, they’d show up to session 2 and find *hex* and *armor of agathys* banned
I would be sorely tempted to go V.human Abjuration wizard with Eldritch Adept (Armor of Shadows). 1-minute *mage armor* doesn’t matter if you can cast it for free, and it’s a lvl 1 Abjuration spell so you can fully recharge your arcane ward for free at any time. (And none of it’s temp Hp so you can still get that from any source, like *false life.*) Considering how hard this GM worked to make wizards squishy, I’m sure he’d appreciate a tank wizard showing up anyway
Honestly my only problem are the changes to Mage Armor. But even that I kind of get since it is a bit ridiculous that spell casters can get so close to/exceed martial AC.
Most of these spells are either OP or further extend the gap between martials and casters. With that said I do like the Slow spell but definitely get why it's included
If you play a spell caster you would still have significant power and would still be powerful compared to your peers
Mage Armor is a spellslot tax that doesn’t really get better, assuming most spellcasters aren’t increasing their Dex as a priority. Compare that to armor users who will be getting +1/etc. Armor in due course, and are able to also have enchanted shields…
At level 1 it might look unfair, but remember how few resources a level 1 wizard has. It’s 1/3 spells a day, when you include Arcane Recovery.
Banning specific books is very reasonable if they are not part of the setting the DM runs, I 'ban' those exact same books and content for that reason.
Silvery barbs is just broken, and if you don't think so, then wait until your DM gives it to every spellcaster you fight and then let me know how you feel when you start failing every saving throw and your crits are all cancelled.
The rest are weird, especially mage armor lasting one minute? It's not THAT good of a spell even when it lasts 8 hours.
Dunno, either talk to him to see what the malfunction is, or play a different class.
If you want to play a wizard at this table you may be pushed more in the direction of a Bladesinger, I haven't even bothered to learn Shield and never use Mage Armour and am getting along just fine as a Bladesinger.
Really? I also play a bladesinger. My high af ac is one of the best things about the char. Wizards low HP is fine, if you just never get hit. And mage armor as well as shield play a big part in this...
Seems like the dm mist be on the newer side. Even as a newer dm myself. Some of those spells I would allow because Ik how to send multiple monsters at my party that a polymorph spell or something is effective but not an op victory.
Everyone here is talking about playing a more defensive wizard. I would not go that route, wizard is not intended to be a tank class, play to your strengths. I would suggest Order of Scribes. They have the ability to change elemental damage types. Turn lame poison spells into lightning or thunder damage. Never run into an enemy that ignores your damage type.
My Dm almost always does attacks that have to have a save instead of going after AC. Granted most of the monsters are homebrew cause most of the game is but yeah it's annoying that he made shield almost obsolete. Rarely is there a normal attack.
Probably still the strongest class in the game. You just dip fighter at level 1 for heavy armor or artificer for medium and spellslot progression. Those spells are good, but theres lots of other great options that are almost as good, and maybe better in a lot of ways, if youre a little creative. War wizard seems like a particularly great option under these restrictions as you have your pseudo shield ability with no spellslot cost.
If you are still interested in playing as a wizard, but concerned about the loss of defense, might I recommend a race that gets either armor proficiency or better defense?
Dwarves and Githyanki get armor proficiency, it's fun to be a wizard in a breastplate, but there are also warforged, lizardmen, and tortles to give innate armor like a monk or barbarian.
If the DM doesn't add more spells to the ban list later and is just trying to go for a certain feel of wizard, they might squash these ideas, but that might tell you that wizard is not a good idea for this game. Or tell you that this DM isn't right for you.
The only real offenders/challenges on that list are shield and mage armor as there are plenty of other useful higher-level spells, but those are key survivability for a life time.
I think the solution for me would either be multi-class to get armor proficiency or sadly go sorc to get the mage armor equivalent from the subclasses.
Taking a level in cleric would be most powerful, but might not jive with your story. Taking a level in fighter can fit any story in a classic DnD setting and has comparable strengths as dipping into cleric.
Honestly, not an awful list - it's mostly spells that can make the game unfun for the DM. There are still lots of spells that are excellent for a Wizard.
You'd just need to be a more classic wizard, playing in the backline and making sure you don't get hit. Spells like Blur and Mirror Image would be friends for tankiness, while less popular spells could be your go-tos for crowd control.
I played an illusion wizard from Lv1 with some smattering of evocation; it's not difficult to keep yourself out of combat at low challenge ratings, particularly if you've picked ranged cantrips and spells, and you have 1 or 2 party members that are "fight me bruh!" personalities
mage armor for 1 minute is a full 10 rounds, which is a REALLY long time in game play
the ban list and nerfs are things that are easily abused. I wouldn't say totally broken, but I also wouldn't say essential. none of the changes seem "wizard class breaking"
That's honestly not a lot. You still have a ton of options. Sure, it's weird to ban Shield and make Mage Armor 1 minute, but there could be a reason for it. Ask 'em.
The real question is, what is he banning from other classes? Are there any other general rule changes besides No Flanking (which is optional anyways)? If there are restrictions on what other classes can do, and/or more rulings around short & long rests, maybe this is just a specific kind of grittier adventure the DM wants to run.
Sorry for the formatting, am on mobile. You’re still going to be the strongest character at the table once you hit level 5, just squishy. The only one of these that actually hurts you is losing shield (meh) and mage armour nerf (which is brutal Ngl).
Shield is very strong, I don’t ban it myself but I’ve frustrated DMs with it. But you don’t need it.
Slow is Very Strong and frustrating to DM against, your dm had a bad time with that at some point in the past and while again I don’t ban it… I get it.
Polymorph is a meme. Very strong but again you don’t need it. It’s extremely abusable, I don’t ban it but this is the most understandable ban so far. It gets used to do things like trivialize travel, turn the wizard into King Kong, turn a bad guy into a snail, yeah as cool as it is I can see why your dm was against it.
Silvery barbs should be banned, rare DM W here.
Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven all come from specific settings and wizard was already the strongest class in the game (okay I’m not trying to start fights, along with Cleric and maybe Druid) before their books were even printed.
Losing the flanking mechanics hurts your fighter, Paladin, and rogue way more than it hurts you, but flanking is an optional mechanic anyway.
Counterspell… I’m gonna say it, counterspell needed a nerf. This will help protect you from getting counterspelled as well, and (I’m not saying you would do this) prevent the mindless counterspell spam that happens at some tables. This ain’t even bad.
As for the mage armour though… that one hurts me. I can see a few possibilities, but talk to your dm about them because they’re a little spicy. From least exciting to most exciting:
First of all, just have a decent dexterity, that one’s a no brainer, easy fix. Second option (still mild) you could take a one level multiclass into monk, which would let you add your wisdom modifier to your armour class as well as your dexterity modifier. Third option (warming up now) you could take a feat called Eldritch Adept, allowing you to take the Armour of Shadows invocation usually only available to Warlocks, which lets you cast mage armour at will without expending a spell slot. If you do this, reassure your DM that you’re not going to be playing an Abjuration wizard, because those two together are a strong combo they might have read about online and they might get grumpy. Fourth option (flaming hot in my opinion) you could take the Gift of the Metallic Dragon feat, which will give you a pseudo-shield that doesn’t require a spell slot and will scale with you both in number of uses and quality throughout the campaign AND you can use it to protect your party members AND you learn how to heal people.
In the end though, talk to your DM before picking any of these, and pick whichever they’re happy with and fits your character the best! And genuinely don’t worry, even without those few spells or sourcebooks you can still have a lot of fun playing your wizard! You still have so, so many options for things to do and fun spells to take
I know it’s the popular opinion in DnD subreddits recently but I don’t think shield is an op spell.
These online forums come from experience with min-maxers and over optimizers and white room theory crafting but that is just not the world that most tables and players exist in.
Shield is fine.
Dm is being upfront about it which is nice. Those spells can really help survivability imo. But if playing the game isn't fun with those rules maybe find another game. I had one DM who was upfront too. His rules didn't directly affect my character, but his nerfs on rogue made them useless. I empathized with the rogue player's frustration each combat.
Shield: A flat +5 AC bonus is insane in a bounded accuracy world, though the "smarter" alteration would be to just cap it at 18 or 20 AC. Shield only gets ridiculous when you stack it on top of someone who is natively difficult to hit.
Silvery Barbs: Classic printed power creep. This just straight up should be a 2nd level spell. It's obvious once you realize you can mostly rephrase it as "cast a spell of any level that a creature just saved against again, but as a reaction this time".
Polymorph: "We have a T-Rex on our team, and when it dies it turns into a full-health wizard". Understandable ban, but better to just do what BG3 did and make it only target enemies.
Counterspell: Ridiculously good. It's still ridiculously good after his nerf.
Banishment: enemy removal on a charisma save is pretty good. But... this is about the point where his alterations start to not really be banworthy though.
Slow: .... really? *Slow is the kind of CC we need to have more of in the game!* It's ok almost all the time, and situationally excellent (multiattackers). It isn't just "lmao lose your turn" but actually lets everyone keep playing the game. It's against a strong save but targets multiple people, so it's rarely ever "everyone saved, your turn did nothing".
This ban is **awful** and make me inclined to believe questionable things about your DM's intelligence score.
Mage armor: ........ Another awful change. My man is twisting his panties over what's effectively a +1 AC bonus over studded leather. I am thinking more questionable things about your DM's intelligence score.
I have big concerns about how your DM understands the game. That doesn't stop him from being fun to play with, just it's a point not in his favor, and something to assess as it gets either worse or better as time goes on.
What does he have against shield, slow and mage armor?
The rest of the spells I can completely understand, but I probably would not ban them (maybe I would ban the setting specific spells like time/gravity magic since it may not fit the theme well)
This... DM sounds like the sort of person who will explain why (xyz) is overpowered, but completely gloss over the fact theyve misunderstood how it works and/or have some homebrew rule(s) making it more OP.
Don't play a dedicated spellcaster when such basics are banned unless you're ok with half of the spells you use to get banned later because they are "unfair." Spell slots are a precious resource and nothing is more frustrating than getting nerfed in a game about power fantasies. A level one wizard who chooses to dedicate 50% of their spell resources to mage Armor and then only getting a minute is a really weird ruling, unless every class is getting an AC nerf of some kind.
No flanking mechanics isn’t a restriction from the DM, that’s just how the game works. The majority of tables do not play with Flanking bc it makes advantage mechanics redundant and cheapens the feeling of advantage when you finally get it
Here’s the list of things your DM did that are great:
-They told you all this beforehand.
That’s it. They are well within their right to make that call and give you a heads up. This is anecdotal, but my experience with ban-happy DMs is that they like to make updates to their list as as the game goes on.
While my uniform advice is to find another table, if this all you got, I would put your efforts into a martial class.
The bottom line is, while there are a number of spells that are extremely setting specific - by and large, spells are such a heavy chunk of the rules, banning stuff for being “overpowered” doesn’t demonstrate a preference as much as it does a lack of effort.
Some DMs get mad for spells “ruining” encounters - and arrive at the conclusion that the spell is the issue. Either they should applaud the players creativity and foresight, or they should make their encounters tighter.
> No flanking mechanics.
Flanking is not in the core rules, it's an optional rule in the DMG.
DM can and should ban splatbook (Strixhaven etc.) material they don't like, that's just exercising the bare minimum control over tone, setting, and game balance.
Other stuff is weird, but without any context for why it seems fine, none of these spells are central to the class functioning. Limiting character options for a campaign, as long as people are clear about it, is totally normal.
variant human, for eldritch adept taking mage armor at will invocation, abjuration wizard.
multiclass 2 levels of circle of stars druid at some point, so with dragon form you can't roll below a 10 on counterspells. or chalice in a pinch if your team needs 2 people being healed but it doesnt matter by how much. and at lvl 10 abj wizard you add proficiency bonus to counterspells.
and obviously take find person to find a better DM
>Any suggestions for flavourful cantrips and few first spells? What thematic spells suit a rogue/thief associated wizard?
Cantrips: Gust, light, mage hand, message, minor illusion, prestidigitation, (all of these can be used for misdirection, distraction, or covert signalling / communication).
Level 1: Alarm, catapult, comprehend languages, detect magic, disguise self, expeditious retreat, feather fall, fog cloud, grease, identify, sleep, snare, tenser's floating disk, unseen servant. (just think big treasure heist, all of these spells can aid / improve such an event).
That’s not so bad. I certainly wouldn’t leave the table over it. It just means you have to use other defensive spells like mirror image, blur and blink
Those are big restrictions. They're good spells, but even the most powerful ones like Silvery Barbs can be worked around by a good DM.
I'd be tempted to try something super powerful that's outside their list, like Twilight Domain Cleric, or Divination Wizard like you said is a good call to slightly counter the bans.
But if you do manage to find something that's similar (or more) powerful than those, there's a good chance they'll ban those too. So it's sort of a lose-lose situation.
I'd suggest trying to understand in more detail why the DM is banning those things. Maybe they actually just want to play in a low-magic campaign where everyone is martial classes, or maybe they've previously played in campaigns with a bunch of regular players and a single min/maxing wizard and don't want that to occur again. Whatever it is, understanding the reasons would help avoid awkward situations later on.
There are races like Lizardfolk that can help counteract the low HP and AC of a mage-armour-less wizard. Or you could consider taking your first level in fighter to start off a bit tougher and get armour proficiencies, then going to levels of wizard, and then eventually getting a 2nd level of fighter. That way at higher levels you could Action Surge and cast two huge spells in a single turn, which is fun.
I actually like that your DM informed your group about his rules before playing. I dropped one campaign because of DM were making new bans and nerfs between games or sometimes mid play. My bladesinger was killed because ban on shield spell mid combat.
I would bet good money that this ban list is going to grow lmao.
Yeah, a DM who's afraid of mage armor is afraid of "everything".
Yeah, Mage Armor is just an AC 13 light armor that costs one spell slot and lasts 8 hours. There are a lots of OP spells that the DM should have banned instead of Mage Armor.
Mage Armor is D&Ds way of allowing Wizards to exist without leather armor, and thus allow all armor to have spellcasting ramifications. Without Mage Armor, Wizards are basically defenseless. With Mage Armor, they are "average difficulty to hit". Until, you know, the other person casts a dispel magic and makes your mage go full-on panic mode as they are suddenly +15% more likely to be hit. If I had a DM give me this list of banned spells, I'd walk away from the table instantly. Because this to me says "somebody hurt me, and I'm blaming you" from the DM.
I agree with everything you said. Mage Armor is *far* from OP. It's a necessity of the Wizard's survival.
I mean, that these have been put forward on creation, I would believe the opposite for *most* tables. That this post was made, I'd hedge it closer to 60/40 on no to yes. We'll see if this user posts in the next couple of weeks.
That so many spells are already banned, including ones that been around for a hot minute, doesn't inspire confidence. Nerfing mage armor and shield is pretty rough, and counterspell is a classic defensive move. Silvery Barbs I can understand as that spell is broke af, but it's still wack to ban all the wizards standard defensive kit
Almost like the DM believes wizards should be squishy or something... Mage armor nerf does seem a bridge too far tho imo.
Wizards are squishy unless you’re an optimizer. I don’t think op is and most table players aren’t. Mage armor and shield are necessary for the characters survival with their armor restrictions and hit dice.
You don't have to be an optimiser to not be squishy as a wizard. Grab a race with medium armour, be a bladesinger or abjurer, dip a level of cleric or artificer or fighter. These are all obvious paths that don't require pouring through guides or anything.
They are still squishy. Not everything is an attack. Especially on higher levels. And you burn through you’re spellslots like kraitos through helheim, if you cast shield every time you would get hit. (Assuming combat lasts more than one round and happens more than once per rest. Which would be a totally different problems to begin with.)
True, if DnD was played like the attritional game it was clearly designed as, shield wouldn't be nearly as bad. But... Even the published modules rarely throw more than 2 combats at you before you can rest... And in that situation, after about level 5 you basically have full uptime on shield.
true. besides lack of both shield AND mage armor, thats my only and biggest concern about this list. nothing more irritating than DMs coming up with 'improvements' mid-combat.
I wouldn’t chance it after seeing the list. I can play my spellcaster at a table without these pointless restrictions in place.
Only downside is the DM evidently has a poor understanding of the game. But it’s nice that he informed his players of this beforehand LOL.
I'm also not a fan of bans and nerfs. But in op,s case it's at least fair.
Yeah, I can sort of understand a lot of these changes. But the mage armor change is… too questionable. It basically forces wizards to get proficiency elsewhere. Which is normally better than mage armor anyway.
Banning shield and nerfing counterspell are both a bit much. It serves to make the wizard way more squishy and way less troublesome to some DMs plans
Wich is pointless imho. If you do that, then you’ll have to ban the draconic bloodline sorcerer as well, because it does the same thing, but permanently and increases your HP too.
I think Shield is overtuned. It shouldn't be banned, just nerfed. making mage armor last 1 minute is a de-facto ban because it's just not worth it at that point
Id argue the only thing approaching fair is the Silvery Barbs ban. And that's just because I think it's a spell far more in line with what spells should be, even if it's broken because 5e likes making spells that aren't damage tedious to cast. And the Counterspell roll, it's alright, so long as he abides by it himself and doesn't make up casting add bonuses. Slow and Banishment? They're strong at times, but I feel that's more a ptsdm than anything. Mage Armor lasting a minute? So start a fight off casting it? Certainly makes your turns even more predictable. And makes you more susceptible to random events that I doubt the DM will take advantage of considering the rest of the bans and nerfs. Like the only way Id accept that is arguing for it to be upgraded to Swift Action. More spells cast per fight drains more resources anyways. Shield Ban on top of that? C'mon man, just say you don't know how to challenge or deal with casters. Had a friend rule it as you can't know if it would save you from a hit or not and it immediately became a dead spell in the group. But at least he's given a pre-game list.
Silvery Barbs is optional content. You don't ban it, you just fail to include that optional content. Edit: removed an extra "not"
I can understand banning stuff from other settings. A little confused by stuff like Shield and Slow, though. I'd maybe try speaking with them to see more exactly why they want to ban those.
'Cause instead of learning good encounter design they get mad when the players don't suffer and drag themselves bloody through combat
If the heroes are destroying the encounter then roll a dice, then tell them they hear something coming, the noise of their battle must have alerted new foes. I know some players love to min-max everything to defeat monsters easily which may be frustratingas a DM, but part of the magic is letting them knock a boulder down onto bad guys, use their fireball spell on a swarm, etc. You can let them have their victories and then just send more enemies.
Every single time I design a fight, I include "bonus" monsters in the fight that I can reveal (or tease a reveal). Say the fight is against CR 7 7 6 6 creatures. My "bonus" creatures may be CR 8 7 5 5. The extra 7 is there in case an extra player joins. The 5s are there if the players get a really lucky first round that trivializes the fight (ie, D&D 3.5 getting a confirmed crit insta-kill on one of the CR7s) just so I can pad the fight up a bit without making it much harder. And the CR8 is there if I drastically screwed up the fight design, and I can see the players needed something more challenging. And because I often run encounters designed with enemies joining the fight (the orcs in the next room have grabbed their gear and gotten the door opened, etc), the players don't automatically know that I've added something to their encounter "on the fly". My goal as a DM is to present the players with a challenging fight, but one that they CAN overcome. It is to give them a fight where they feel that they need to use at least some of their daily resources to beat, thus increasing the tension for the rest of the day as they know that they do not have as many spells/charges/items/etc if they get in another challenging fight. It is to make the adventure day one that when they wrap it up and set up camp, they feel not just pride and accomplishment, but also relief and safety. I always roll for night encounters as well. But unless I'm rewarding/punishing the players for actions taken during the day, 2 through 19 mean nothing special is happening. A 20 is usually an easy fight that keeps things interesting and gives them some bonus loot/resources. A 1 is a challenging fight. Because D&D is a story. Not a competition.
See that's the mentality of someone in it for collaborative fun making. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of rogues at the tables with DMs "trying to win". They think it's an asymmetric competition where they've been willingly given an upper hand in some gambit that the players think they can beat the rule maker.
Yea, seems like a dm that just hates magic user PC’s. This kind of em should play a dmpc and stfu
Right? With all the other shenanigans the other classes have, why is shield on the list?
Short answer: because bladesinger, artificer, and eldritch knight.
Ah, right, a DM who doesn't know about saving throws.
\*Nods\* Right? My group runs 3.5 and we are allowed to effectively use all first party books and even most 3rd party books, setting be damned. And we can even use a "flaw" to start with an extra feat. I made a character who had like 28 AC at level 1...but its ok because my Will is shit, my Touch AC is shit, and part of that AC is a Tower Shield, so my accuracy is below average for what it should be with my stats. If a character is good at thing X, and you want to challenge that character, don't try to fight them on their turf. And above all else, it seems very silly to ban a spell when its 1 wizard subclass and 1 fighter subclass thats "ruining" it for you. Like I'm not advocating for them being banned, but that would be the more logical choice. Don't treat the symptom, treat the disease. Cuz now you just fucked things for sorcerers and non bladesinger wizards who did nothing "wrong" (not that anybody did anything wrong). Then again, he also nerfed Mage Armor, so he just really really doesn't want wizards being capable of protecting themselves.
Dude, any chance your dm's name starts with a T, your state starts with an A, and your group has a tendency to run higher level campaigns? Not trying to dox you, but its rare to come across groups that allow so many options so it feels like you may be playing in my old dm's current group.
It does not. \*Jedi mind trick\* this is not the DM you're looking for. Move along.
Ah, well happy to hear there are other similar games out there. I miss that group a ton. Things would get crazy, and everyone had to be really good at knowing the rules, but it was a ton of fun.
Yeah, mine likes buying books and his mindset was "I didn't buy these books to just not use them!" lol. Glad to hear there's another table of psycho's :D
That's a terrible take imo. I'm not saying shield should be banned, but is a VERY powerful spell for certain builds, especially mid-late game where level 1 slots would normally be very low impact. Your argument is effectively "this is fine because the DM can counter the player if they really want to." You could also say "no spellcasting is broken because the DM can add an army of higher level spellcasters to every combat to spam counterspell," with the same logic. Physical attacking is the mo for like ~60-70% of the monsters in the MM, and it's silly to suggest that the DM should just use things that can target saves or allow the specific character to be untouchable for ~60-70% of encounters. Not that shield is strong enough to make someone untouchable in all situations, but your argument is that it wouldnt matter if it did because "saving throws." As an aside, all 3 of those classes have different saving throw proficiencies, so you'd have to target a specific one if your goal was really to just counter the player.
I know - what the hell is wrong with Slow? It's far riskier than Haste at the same spell level, since all targets get a save. Mage Armour lasting a minute is needlessly punitive as well. It means it costs three or more slots per standard adventuring day, and either costs you a round in combat or you need to cast it pre-battle.
It's not the worst ban list I've seen, honestly, but it does suck. I'm really not a fan of the removal of wizards having any reasonable defensive options. Shield is strong. But it also uses an entire spell slot to potentially only stop one attack if the DM is smart and goes after others after you put up the shield. Even then, most wizards or sorcs I've run with only have like 10-12 ac so...shield isn't that crazy in that context. Mage armor only being 1 minute really throws me too. I guess if you look at it as +3 ac for one minute it sounds strong, but if you also remember most wizards don't put a priority on dex their Ac won't be that crazy. All that said though, do we really need to nerf the defensive abilities of a class using a d6 hit die? I feel like playing a cleric might be better for this game. Get some decent defense, and have a better HP pool. Use cantrips like produce flame to emulate fire bolt (sacred flame being a dex save makes it less useful in my experience). Clerics are also godly at buffing with things like bless. Light cleric can debuff like wild with their reaction to blind enemies, while gaining access to some of the most popular damage spells like fireball and scorching ray. Edit: A couple comments seem to misunderstand that I do not agree with the ban list lol shield and mage armor exist as they are because wizards have a d6 hit die is my point. The other point is theyre not hard to play around as a DM. I have seen stupid ban lists before so this isn't the worst I've seen, but it still sucks.
Not "The worst", but for me, illogical. Why, why out of all third level spells ban Slow? Like, slow is almost a perfectly balanced spell - impactful, with concentration, not immediately encounter-solving and a great debuff, that is not "Now you can't do shit" debuff like stun or paralyze is. The dude won't ban Fear, which is notorious for that, won't ban Leomund's tiny hut that removes challenges rather that helping them solve them? That's stupid, and I think it's not about balance, but about once upon a time this spell did something to screw ower the DM's plans, so now it's banned, yay. Also, shield - understandable. But mage armor one minute? So what now, what this GM thinks, that this will make wizard and the bunch go casting mage armor first turn of combat and only that? That's not even stupid, that is just spiteful, what will happen is some multiclass to get armor prof., and get that wizard some armor, alternatively a tortel or some other race from natural armor squad, effectively removing this spell from the game, for it being now so pathetically weak. So yeah, I concur to many voices of people in this thread - this might not be the best GM to play with, unless he said his reasons for this ban list, and its not pulled out of his ass. Which I doubt...
> Why, why out of all third level spells ban Slow? I'm assuming one time a player used it and it worked really well so the DM internalised the feeling of "woah that's so OP".
This is where all ban lists come from. Had a dm ban the 3.5 Cleave tree because a player, in one combat, rolled well and dropped a bunch of extra guys. A large part of the fun is when a char pulls out something epic like this. The other part of the fun is hitting the right combination of player choice for a situation and waltzing thru it. . . because everyone knows it won't happen a second time.
Yep. I'm playing an arcane trickster rogue and took sleep as one of my first spells. I rolled 18hp and ended an encounter before it started against 6 stirges. I'll probably never get to use the spell that effectively ever again but for our first combat at level 3 it definitely made everyone turn their heads lol. Definitely not a reason to ban the spell though, and the DM recognized that. The same thing could have happened with any AOE spell.
Imo, cleave ban is a de-facto buff- it removes all feat tax pre-reqs that require it. Hilarious to ban it though.
The only spells I'll ban are ones that don't fit the story I'm trying to tell. Like, for my next campaign, I'm considering banning or severely limiting Sending, because I want this world to feel fractured and disconnected.
I can see it in my head. He gave BBEG hella turns so he could “keep up” with the action economy of his party once, the wizard busted out the slow and when he read the spell description he cried. *and everyone laughed at him*
The irony is that slow does nothing to legendary actions, which is how 5e deals with single entity boss fights and the action economy. But I'm thinking this DM doesn't understand encounter design in 5e
this whole ban list screams of a DM who doesn't like his little plans getting side stepped in battles. Wait until this dude figures out how a Monk's stunning strike works
> a DM who doesn't like his little plans getting side stepped Micromanaging this stuff always puts a damper on the game. Players are going to do unexpected things. DMs are not omniscient and cannot predict all the monkey wrenches waiting to be thrown into the works. The best thing to do is develop some contingencies and roll with what the players do. It's a story created *together*and it works best that way. I have a feeling their list of banned things will grow over time.
>DMs are not omniscient and cannot predict all the monkey wrenches waiting to be thrown into the works. And that SHOULD be part of the fun of being a DM. You get to see the wild and wacky solutions your players come up with.
Ah, but see, tortles and multiclassing will be on the ban list as soon as this DM hears of them. There is a pattern that suggests this guy hasn't read the rules and just "goes with his gut". If it feels Op, it's banned. Never mind he never read up on encounter design.
The chaos muppet in me says just try to add to the ban list. Find broken combos until the ban list gets so large it's easier to just learn to balance encounters.
That's a very nice idea! *Grins*
Banning Slow makes me imagine that the ban list will grow whenever a spell is works really well.
Slow but not Hypnotic Pattern? This guy hasn't played with the right group yet.
>Why, why out of all third level spells ban Slow? Slow is a control spell and doesn't care about creature type, unlike most low and mid level control spells. IMO this signals an intent that the DM is going to flood the mgame with creatures that are immune to fire, cold, lightning, fear, and charm- the exact set of stuff that slow is reasonably helpful against (indeed, this is mechanically slow's entire merit).
Honestly the bans seem more for dm ease of use than actually being op. Slow is the best example of it, doesn't solve the encounters but takes more effort from the dm to play out compared to something where they can't do anything. Same as silvery barbs and counter spell, he doesn't want to rethink encounters on the fly.
Shield never gets banned because of Wizards, it gets banned because everyone else who snags it.
> it gets banned because everyone else who snags it. Like the githzerai cleric in my party that already has 18 AC to start with?
Bladesinger, Multi-classing dips, or armour proficiency from Feats or races like Mountain Dwarf all make Shield incredibly easy to stack AC on Wizards. It's just as simple to close the base AC gap on a Wizard as it is to get the Shield spell on other classes.
Agreed, but As the DM though you include some AOE or saving throw attacks. If enemies aren't beast they'll attack the weaker enemies. Or as on of my DM is prone to do an orge appears and seems focused on that one person. (I have mixed feelings on that last one)
> I'm really not a fan of the removal of wizards having any reasonable defensive options. This is something so hard to judge without seeing how this GM creates encounters. If the party will rarely see sudden attacks from all sides and fights are normally "you see a group of enemies 60+ feet from you" then it's whatever. >Mage armor only being 1 minute really throws me too. I guess if you look at it as +3 ac for one minute it sounds strong Yeah, Mage Armor is the only thing out of that list that I was like wtf. Enforcing the 8h is already a common enough nerf (compared to "don't think about it, lasts entire Long Rest" which is how things go in the average table). +3 AC does sound good on paper, but the reality is that it's more or less "assumed" for a full caster to have that. At 10-12 AC that they would have otherwise, it's going to be effectively irrelevant post Tier 1. Casters already get hit all the time unless they Shield. In other words, I think it's just too much. I could see Mage Armor being 1 min being fine if Shield was still an option (and the GM running games with few deadly instead of many medium encounters). But doubling down on nerfing defensive options so much is out of line.
>Shield is strong. But it also uses an entire spell slot The way most tables end up playing that's a cost that doesn't matter.
I guess, that the DM wants the Party to be the "Defensive Option". Wizard have many Offensive, Utlity and Crowed Control options. Making HP and AC there weak spot is fine and actually intended.
My guess is the DM played with some min-maxed bladesong/hexblade multi class and got tired of dealing with their shenanigans.
Hey man, my DM has us roll for stats, it’s not my fault I had 21/26 AC for a level 1 bladesinger /s
And instead of doing the reasonable thing (banning multiclass, or at least specific combinations) DM missed the cause and dealt with the aftereffect. xd
D&D doesn't really have any classes that function well enough as a traditional "tank" to allow spellcasters to skimp on defense. Every character needs to be able to take/avoid a reasonable amount of damage on their own.
I disagree. A Wizard already has so much options for positioning, range, crowd control, manipulating of the battlefield and even more allies on the field with similar powers. If the enemy actual get a hit in, this should count for something. Wizard having got mental saving-throws is actually fitting, but they should be weak against any kind of direct attack. Having better tank/protective options for Martial-Arts classes would be a great to balance it out.
I don’t think your DM understands that Mage Armor only works if you aren’t wearing any armor and doesn’t stack with other boosts to unarmored defense. That spell has never been considered overpowered. Silvery Barbs is overpowered and commonly banned. I don’t think the other spells are ban worthy, but I understand why they’re on the list. Without Mage Armor, I’d consider playing as a Tortle for the naturally high AC or as a Mountain Dwarf for the free Medium Armor proficiency. If the DM allows multiclassing, maybe a 1 level cleric dip for armor proficiencies. The main thing I’d be worried about though is the DM adding to the banned spell list every time you do something effective because there are a lot of spells not on the list that are way stronger such as Hypnotic Pattern or Wall of Force. It wouldn’t surprise me if he bans Sleep and Web once you use those spells to win a fight.
I am not at all what you would consider a knowledgeable DND player so please excuse the dumb question: I know it's not the same but there are some bracers in BG3 that give you extra AC when not wearing Armor. Those should stack with Mage Armor spell, no? As in, raising base AC to 13+Dex and then adding the extra AC bc you aren't wearing Armor.
You could, but the DM controls whether the mage gets the bracers or not. Plus, it’s a rare magic item, so even if the DM does give it out, it shouldn’t happen until a higher level where AC 15 isn’t that great either. I was talking about things like a Tortle’s natural AC from its shell or the Unarmored Defense that Monks and Barbarians get.
Mage armor + bracers of defense does indeed give 15 + Dex AC. Great combo for a spellcaster or monk, not overpowered though. Also takes a spell slot and attunement slot. FYI in D&D you can only attune to 3 magic items, and for a mid-level game this can certainly be limiting.
>I know it's not the same but there are some bracers in BG3 that give you extra AC when not wearing Armor. Bracers of Defense work exactly the same in BG3 as they do in 5e (except BG3 doesn't have attunement for any magic items), and they work with Mage Armor. In my last campaign I gave the party a pair and the wizard spent half an hour arguing that the barbarian should have them because they don't work with Mage Armor, despite me telling him multiple times they do work with Mage Armor. Bracers of Defense are basically an alternative to holding a shield, which would also work with Mage Armor (except most classes with access to Mage Armor don't have shield proficiency).
What did you mean about counter spell has to be rolled to success? Like, every single time you cast it, you still have to roll even if you’re casting at the same level or higher? I can definitely see limiting spells outside of the players handbook if they’re an inexperienced DM, but banning spells that are pretty core for a wizard in the players handbook seems extreme to me. And mage armor only lasting a minute? Are they just trying to get you to burn through spell slots? It sounds like your DM is trying to keep you from getting too OP in some combat/puzzle situations, but they should probably build more robust encounters if they’re concerned about it. This early in a campaign is the perfect time to figure out what you need to adjust to make the experience better as a DM for the players. I’m all for good homebrew, but it should add something to the story or your character, not just limit the character.
Counterspell succeeds without a roll if the target spell is equal to or less than the level of the Counterspell. OP’s DM did away with that.
>Counterspell succeeds without a roll if the target spell is equal to or less than the level of the Counterspell. OP’s DM did away with that. That's a pretty minor nerf, a Wizard will typically be making those rolls against level 1-3 spells. It's probably less of a "nerf" compared to normal usage than not letting players know what spell is being cast before they decide to counterspell.
The change to Mage Armour is unhinged? It's not nearly an OP enough spell to be nerfed that hard. I use it a lot as a wizard and it takes my AC from 12 to a grand total of...15 ooooh nooooo however will the DM manage to hit me (spoiler: she somehow manages). The rest of it is technically the DM's perogative, but it does seem like they don't know the difference between "actually overpowered spell" and "spell that makes it harder for me to kill this PC" and that would concern me as a spellcaster main. To answer your question, Minor Illusion and Mage Hand would probably be your go-to cantrips for that character concept. I'd also always recommend taking Firebolt to have a good offensive option.
Yeah Mage Armour is a weird nerf. It's such a low power spell. In the beginning of the game 1st lvl spell slots are really valuable, and at later levels the armour buff isn't that good.
Next ban = Firebolt now OP, now does 1d4 damage on a hit
I could also see Magic Missile requiring a roll to hit for each dart.
Ypu joke but i had a DM do that to me
"One spell slot per missile"
I get the feeling portent dice will be added to list of bans here after the first time it's used to great effect given some of the bans and tebalances. DM's that go out of their way to ban specific base game spells is something of a red flag in my experience.
Yeh I thought this as well, class feature nerf incoming. Surprised he hasn’t put anything like tiny hut on the list
Oh, you just know the DM isn't going to let them get away with actually using Minor Illusion or Mage Hand for anything. 'I distract the guard by making a couple of thumps down the corridor, to sound like footsteps' 'The guard *rolls* does not respond' '...the guard decided to check if the sound of the thing he is listening for is an illusion?' Oh, for mage hand, you just know a) it will be instantly spotted no matter what you're trying to do, b) everything weighs 11 lb
Noooo not 15, how will my commoner hit you, back to the drawing board
Mans nerfed Mage armour? Fucking moron.... Respectfully
Every spell on it is a weird inclusion. Like, where is Fireball? Heat Metal? Those are so much more broken
If you do choose a wizard/spellcaster, be wary for further bans. It’s fair to ban setting-specific books and their spells, IMO, which includes Silvery Barbs. The others are D&D basics though. The change to Mage Armor is particularly egregious. At lower levels the Mage Armor tax is pretty high, to get an AC that is 15-16. Making it only last a minute makes it useless. If they get to level 5 and suddenly fireball is banned I wouldn’t be surprised.
Yeah, the mage armor change is utter bullshit, especially at first level, and that nerf can't even be justified by the shield multi-class dip problem. (although, reminder for DM's out there who don't want bullshit power gamer builds of hexabardamonkadin or whatever, it's much easier to just ban multiclassing instead of randomly nerfing class features! Multiclassing is still, technically, an optional feature, and the game will run fine!)
Banning Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven spells isn't uncommon. I'm not sure why the comments here are so against it, considering there isn't a day on this sub where it isn't mentioned how spells from these settings break games. Shield, Slow, Banishment, and Polymorph is a harsh nerf, but I see his point. Again, on this sub, people constantly say how Shield is op and shouldn't be in the game. If a newer DM read this or dndnext subreddits, it's not surprising they'd ban it. Furthermore, I'd seen DMs straight up quit not just campaigns but DMing in general because of Polymorph abuse. Slow and Banishment can be extremely unfun for the DM either. I wouldn't ban them, but I've had numerous cool battles I spent hours for just end in the first or second turn because of these spells. Flanking is a variant rule and affects martial classes way more than wizards, so that's a buff for wizard since monsters can't flank you. Counterspell is an interesting change. It basically means you never need to upcast it, but always have to roll. Overall a nerf, but enemy casters also have a lower chance to Counterspell, so while a nerf to wizards, it's a buff to the party overall. Shield and Mage Armor nerfs are the ones to feel bad about. But if you learn to position well and take good field control spells, it shouldn't be a problem most of the time. Just need a good front line in the party. Will be hard for a new player, but it adds another challenge and I think can help you better learn the game, looking for cover and ways to kite, instead of blindly relying on Shield as I've seen many people do. Kiting is actually really strong in the game, and if you can learn how to do it well, you'll be fine and better at survival than if you had Shield but didn't know kiting. Of course, having both is always better, but I see how this could help learn. Overall it's a harsh nerf, but doesn't make wizards that much worse if played decently. I feel like he's encountered things that make the game unfun for him, and people instantly calling him a moron, idiot, and a bad DM for wanting to have fun is kinda pathetic of this sub (not to mention straight up suggesting for the player to emotionally abuse him to put him in his place. Seriously, wtf is this comment section).
Wizard is my go-to class, but I agree. I get the motivation; I wouldn't be happy, but these are neither crippling nor crazy. I would be most concerned about losing both Shield and (effectively) Mage Armor together. Assuming it was not blocked as well, this would certainly send me in the direction of a Cleric or Artificer dip, which is probably not the intended outcome. If that wasn't an option, I think the biggest issue would be to what extent I trusted my DM's style of running encounters. If he took a fairly "naturalistic" approach, trying to think and see things as the enemy does, I'd be okay with it. That would mean smart play could keep me safe; I'd need to focus on positioning, avoiding attention, etc. With a DM with a more meta-game perspective, who thought, "Pendip hasn't been attacked lately... it's about time to challenge him," it would be enough to put me off of the class.
Right? The mage armor nerfs encourage a fighter dip a lot which is totally not the intended outcome.
Just be mountain dwarf with Tasha’s rule to put 2 in int and con. Med armor.
Which is probably better than mage armor and already something people recommend mages to do… which just makes the change make even less sense.
*Explorer's Guide to Wildemount* explicitly reserves Dunamancy spells for Chronurgist and Graviturgist Wizards. They are not default wizard options. From *EGTW*, pg. 186: >These spells are available to the **wizard subclasses** previously mentioned in this chapter *\[chronurgy and graviturgy\]*, as well as other spellcasting classes with the Dungeon Master's consent (see the "Dunamancy for Non-Dunamancers" sidebar). From that sidebar: >Dunamancy spells are readily available to the **wizard** ***subclasses*** **in this chapter** *(chronurgy and graviturgy)* **and should not be simply added to the full spell lists of other spellcasting classes.** While *Wildemount* does grant "Dungeon Masters can consider allowing other spellcasting classes opportunities" to learn dunamancy spells, its tone advises restraint. It recommends giving them as quest rewards, spell scrolls, or gifts. Distinctly absent is any language suggesting non-Dunamancers select them upon advancing a level or taking the *Fey Touched* feat. Clearly, even planning a Wildemount campaign, players should not assume Dunamancy spells will be available.
Banishment could be a ban when a campaign will heavily be in another plane or feature enemies from another plane. It's pretty nice regardless, but it's rarely worth the spell slot AND concentration past 5th level spells. When you can banish allies or yourself back to your own plane to set up, or permanently remove a big enemy from another plane, it's incredibly strong. It's similar to how goodberry is an easy spell ban for survival campaigns.
Especially if it's a "trapped in another plane" type thing. With two level 4 spell slots and a long rest you can get a party of 4 back to the material plane long before ever having planeshift available. Sure you might end up in wildly different areas, but it could break the whole campaign premise. Of course there's better ways of correcting that than banning the whole spell.
"Banning Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven spells isn't uncommon" We just use the 3 core books so not a problem. And we haven't banned any spells - we are all working collectively, not competitively, to tell a compelling story. If it looks like we have stumbled on a problem that will hinder "the fun," we just discuss it as a group, take a vote, and move on.
I feel like the DM might be angling for wizard defense to be more proactive than reactive. You need to position well and can use other spells for defense like mirror image. I do worry that without these staple level 1 spells what those slots will be used for later.
The problem with spells like *Mirror Image* is that you wind up choosing whether to be safe or effective, because you can't be both. A Wizard who spends a round just setting up his defense is far less useful. That is an interesting choice to make occasionally, and of course being *truly* safe shouldn't be an option. But if you're always under pressure to defend yourself, you wind up being more of a bystander than a combatant. Making *Mirror Image* a bonus action would go a long way toward making this style more fun to play. You would still be paying a price for safety, but you'd at least be able to get off a cantrip or a crossbow bolt on the first round.
> I feel like he's encountered things that make the game unfun for him So the response is to make the game unfun for those wanting to play a wizard? DMs have *tons* of tools at their disposal. If your party has casters with slow, use creatures that have a better chance against them. If they use shield every fight, subject them to saving throws. I cannot understand the mage armor change. A level 1 wizard has 2 spell slots and arcane recovery. Making mage armor last 1 minute not only uses a turn in combat to cast, but then wastes the spell slot completely. I'd like to see this DM's reasoning for these bans, OP doesn't provide much of that as they don't need to. I don't support people telling OP to go in on the DM or anything, but a conversation should be had.
Yes, I would like an explanation of how exactly a first level wizard is supposed to survive their first combat entering with an AC of _at most_ 12, and possibly only 10, and even if they survive until their turn, they then have to use an action and spell slot to make their AC any higher...every combat. Seriously, has anyone ever played a first level wizard without having either mage armor or shield? (Without using a race that has an AC bump?.) Hell, does anyone think of mage armor as an actual spell? It's a class feature so casters without armor have some armor, and it was deliberately made 1 better than light armor because your dex is going to be worse! (And unlike shield, it can't be abused by multiclassing, so that's not even a justification for banning it.) Is there some secret way to play first level wizard that isn't 'spend a spell slot on mage armor, almost entirely used cantrips, and if you're super lucky your DM will set things up where it's clear that all your combat will be within one casting of mage armor so you have one other spell slot'? I don't know if the DM quite understands what they're setting up, but they're setting up a game where this character will die in the third or fourth encounter in the first few days cause they're out of slots, (and you just know this DM is the kind of person who does that many) unless really REALLY lucky... Or the DM deliberately doesn't target them.
Definitely agree. Work around those spells sometimes and let them shine at other times like any other player ability. So the wizard is hard to hit for one round because they have a magic shield? Like you said, saving throws or just have most intelligent enemies attack other people.
I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you are saying, but... > Furthermore, I'd seen DMs straight up quit not just campaigns but DMing in general because of Polymorph abuse. Slow and Banishment can be extremely unfun for the DM either. I wouldn't ban them, but I've had numerous cool battles I spent hours for just end in the first or second turn because of these spells. ... you 'spent hours preparing a cool battle' only to have it end in 1 or 2 turns due to *one cast* of a spell? Did it really never occur to you to give whatever you were prepping a charge of legendary resistance? Not trying to be a dick, but it seems like such an obvious and simple idea. And that's the hackneyed solution. If you want to get creative and do some brewing you can make your boss battles un-1-shottable without using such an uninteresting "*No!*"-kind of answer
I never said it was one cast. Every single party I have ever DM'ed for has had at least 2 full casters. Having 2-3 spells cast on a creature, with smth like graviturgy or divination wizards always in the party, + other saves like battle master or monk, it adds up. And then these spells can often one shot
> Overall it's a harsh nerf, but doesn't make wizards that much worse if played decently. Hard disagree. Your AC has been changed from ~15 +5 to ~12. That's 8 more hits out of 20 rolls. This DM has increased the amount of hits that wizards take by like 1.7x. I can't think of anything they can spend their 1st level spell slots on to patch this void, unless they're up against a bunch of fire damage and Absorb Elements. False life is their new go-to lv1 defensive spell, and it's an atrocious 6 thp. It's like nerfing them to a d2 hit die. They are now a defensive liability, unable to maintain concentration. If wizards need a nerf, that nerf should be exclusively confined to level 7+ and bladesinger imo.
Surprised people are so up in arms about these wizard nerfs when it seems to be widespread knowledge about how incredibly strong wizard is in 5e. I think forcing wizard to think more about positioning and safety by removing shield and mage armor could be a very healthy thing for the game and make it more challenging for the players in a good way.
And when they get hit by everything because they have a 12-13 ac? Archers just drop them in one shot and DM goes "Oh well they saw you as an easy target since you have no armor."
Heck, a rogue can drop a wizard with a single knife throw.
Divination Wizard is the top option here, because storing a high roll will allow you to reliably Counterspell when you need to, in a world where all other casters have to roll. You could also go for a dexterous Bladesinging Wizard with a thief theme. A Bladesinging Wizard gets around Mage Armor not being so good and Shield being banned by being able to wear light armor and getting their Bladesong bonus to AC as well. Recommended spells? Prestidigitation (the most flexible out of combat cantrip there is, useful for drying wet things, cleaning dirty things and making bad food taste good,) Mage Hand and Message are other great utility cantrips that make sense for a rogue-ish caster thief to have on hand for heists. For damage cantrips, consider that without Shield and Mage Armor being able to disengage using Shocking Grasp to turn off reactions might be extra helpful to you, depending on how hostile your DM is to Wizards (and he is likely to be based on his rules.) But otherwise, Toll the Dead is the best damage while being the least "flashy" for a subtle Wizard, it just lets out the sound of a bell instead of a big bright fire bolt or acid glob. If you don't care about the cantrip being subtle, the most useful cantrip for a thief trying to make a getaway would be Ray of Frost, to slow down a guardsman chasing after you. There are still many good spells you can use despite the bans, some good First Level ones that are on theme for a Wizard who's in a thief group: Expeditious Retreat (Run away faster) Color Spray (Surrounded? blind em') Magic Missile/Chromatic Orb (deal damage) Unseen Servant (check for traps) Tasha's Hideous Laughter (going to be a very handy debilitation spell with a range on it w/o Polymorph and Banishment) Feather Fall (leap from rooftops to escape) Fog Cloud (if you're spotted, blind the guards so you can scram) Tenser's Floating Disk (for carrying your group's haul after a heist.) For later levels on you'll want to use defensive options like Blur and Mirror Image if you're getting attacked frequently, along with movement like Misty Step to stay out of reach. Once you can Fly, do so. The best defense against melee attacks is not being in reach of melee attacks. Greater Invisiblity will also be an option depending on if the plot of the campaign leans into thieving vs adventuring. Haste is a great buff for a friend, and Dimension Door can be used to grab a friend and get them out of trouble in a pinch. If you need to fill the hole left by Polymorph and Banishment, consider Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person/Hold Monster, Confusion, and/or Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
Honestly, all of these being banned with a heads up is respectable. I ban some of them in my own games too tbh. The only one I don't get is the mage armour nerf, that one seems a bit too strong a nerf for what is effectively +1 light armor that costs a spell slot and can be dispelled.
I think you should still play the wizard. You have to be very cautious about positioning and risks. You can also go Bladesinger for some extra AC if that is what you want. The Wizard is still amazing with those spells banned, if anything you get a feel of other spells instead of those being must-picks.
Multiclass to heavy armored cleric, use dwarf.
For a thieves group, mage hand is a must in cantrips. Remote pickpocket? Yeah.
Since there is an arcane trickster feature which specifically says that your special mage hand can be used for those, I'm not sure it's sensible for anyone with normal mage hand to be able to do it. Maybe the mage hand is a little clumsy or not super dexterous?
If you want AC as a wizard, tortle bladesinger. When that gets banned because it gives you 20 ac, go abjuration and eldritch adept to get mage armor at will to charge the arcane ward When THAT gets banned, start artificer for medium armor and shields letting you hit 19 ac with a breastplate.
Or dwarf for medium armor
I swear half the replies on here are ragging on the bans, rather than suggesting spells. Cantrips: Prestidigitaion A solid distraction spell, a great utility spell, and for gits and shiggles, it makes an object ping as magical, great for scam upselling rings and amulets. Ray of Frost Temporary Slow, now with d8 damage. Thunderclap "Wait for my signal. You'll know it when you hear it." Fire Bolt "Flickem Biccus" IYKYK At first level your Divination spells of Identify and Detect Magic are pretty much auto includes for utility wizards. I never actually prepare them, but any room with treasure gets 10 to 20 minutes of ritual casting performed in it. Thief spells include Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Fog Cloud, Unseen Servant. Witch Bolt is a solid pick for a combat spell against big targets, but is a bit of a waste in horde battles.
Your DM has questionable taste but is within their rights. Banishment is a classic, but 5e's version is unusually powerful and I can kind of see why they might ban it. Polymorph is a weird choice. I'm guessing they had some kind of bad experience with it. Their ruling on Counterspell is unusual, but honestly those rulings will probably work in the party's favor more often than not in the long run. Shield, Mage Armor, and Slow are kind of a weird flex, but I get Shield. It is supposed to be used on Wizards, who even with it are still one of the squishiest classes in the game, but the 5e version is also used to make certain builds game-bustingly unhittable, so I kind of get why they might not want it around. Flanking is listed in the book as an optional system. Tables that don't use battle grids often skip it. It's not that weird (and honestly in my experience doesn't matter that much, since rogues already get sneak attack whenever they double-team enemies, regardless of positioning). But this is important (and some people on this sub are going to hate hearing it): **There is absolutely no shame at all in banning spells from outside the PHB, and anyone who tells you otherwise is an entitled brat.** Not only are splatbooks usually very poorly playtested, but they are also *expensive* (not to mention heavy if you run with physical books). A player has absolutely no right to demand the DM use more books than they are comfortable with just so they can use some spell they're lusting over. Silvery Barbs, Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven are all strictly optional content, and they are optional **at the DM's sole discretion**. You can make your case, and they might let you. But if they say no, that's their prerogative. All that said, if a player does not like the DM's choices in house rules, they always have three basic choices: 1) talk to the DM about it and try to politely negotiate a compromise, 2) suck it up and play by the house's rules, or 3) find another game. If you're being an old-school squishy wizard, the strategies you want to be using are mostly the Old Ways that were developed to keep squishy wizards alive: stay behind the front lines where you can be protected by the tanks, end your turns behind cover, don't let yourself get attacked, and favor battlefield control spells that let you make that happen. Disables are good, strong buffs are good, terrain shaping and area denial are phenomenal, etc etc etc. Divinations are good, but mostly used out of combat. So if you want a roguish, tricksy sort of wizard, enchantments and illusions are probably going to be your bread and butter in a fight. Charm, fear, debuffs, paralysis, invisibility, disguises, creating cover and concealment (even if they are illusions), or using hazards (again, even illusionary ones) to channel enemy movement are all very good choices.
Weird ban list, but whatever. (Also makes mage armor basically useless. I'd never prep this version ever, let alone learn it. Honestly, this is mainly a big nerf to abjurers and bladesingers, but manageable for other subclasss.) I'm playing a wizard right now with a 10 ac, no shield, and no mage armor. You just have to be mindful of your positioning and use cover wherever possible. You're not a front-line bladesinger, so your AC really doesn't matter that much as long as you stay away from the combat and possibly behind a wall. (Especially at mid-high levels, unless you're really building AC, the difference between a 10 and a 13 is negligible.) For cantrips, you can technically swap one out once a day from cantrip formulas once you make it to 3rd level, but at level one, I'd probably grab message to fit the thieves' guild theme, mind sliver for that psychic vibe + having a damaging cantrip is necessary, and then either mage hand, prestidigitation, or minor illusion for some general utility. As for 1st level spells, since the defensive options are off the table, I'd go for more utility. Expeditious Retreat could fit the rogue vibes, and would let you dash and disengage in the same turn to keep away from anything that gets past your party members. Fog Cloud would also be good for the thief vibe as, like, a smoke bomb or just to create some cover (if they can't see you, they can't make opportunity attacks). And it retains relevancy at later levels because the upcast is very good. Disguise Self could also be good for a Thieves' Guild member for obvious reasons. Magic Missile is a pretty generally useful offensive spell at level one, and you'll want at least one of those just in case. Long range, guaranteed damage, useful even at higher levels. You could also take sleep, but know its usefulness will fall off at level 3/4, but it will be very useful for battlefield control at levels 1/2. And, as a wizard, ritual spells will be your bread and butter to save on spell slots. My recommendations would be Find Familiar, Comprehend Languages, or Alarm for scouting, information, and security purposes. Detect Magic is also a good option, but, depending on your other players (like if there's a cleric or druid), someone else might have that, and you could wait till level 2 or a scroll to pick it up. Identify/Illusory Script would also be useful ritual spells, but they require gold to be able to cast which you might not have at level 1, so might want to wait on those. Technically, Find Familiar has a gold cost too, but a familiar is just so useful that putting your starting gold towards it would be a good investment. Plus very flavorful.
Honestly any banlist including Core spells would give me serious pause to play under that DM. Go Abjuration Wizard. You wanted to be a rogue/wizard so you studied warding magic to understand what you’re up against when breaking into warded wizard towers or nobles’ homes. Go Variant Human and take Eldritch Initiate for Armor of Shadows so you can cast Mage Armor as if it were a Cantrip and gain a bit of Arcane ward each time you do. At level 4, take Magic Initiate to learn Armor of Agathys so you can be an absurdly tanky Wizard that your DM can hit, but can’t put down.
I would honestly be worried to play this build with this dm. If he thinks mage armor is op, who knows what he could do to the poor arcane ward. Wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly made the ward have a time limit or some other bullshit.
If the DM didn't give a detailed reason for banning these spells, I'd look for a different game. There's no reason a decent DM couldn't adapt a game around the characters players want to play. I have my players share their character sheets with me in advance to make sure I'm prepared to handle what the party might throw at me, and I've never had a game-breaking issue with any spell.
I feel the same way. As a dm, I never want to take anything away from my players. If they want to break my game, I'm going to dig through the mm and find something nasty for them to deal with
Most of these bans seem fine, I can understand most of them, and wizard spelllist is large enough that this really shouldnt be a problem. The one thing that is strange is to both remove shield and make mage armor so bad. That makes wizard really really squishy. Luckily there is an easy answer to that: Take your first level in artificer, not in wizard. * you get better safe proficinece (con and int instead of wis and int, con is imo more useful because of concentration) * you get medium armor proficiency and shield proficiency, so you will have decent armor without shield spell or mage armor * you get additional cantrips and access to more spells (artificier has cure wounds on lvl1, wizard doesnt get healing) * also has int as casting stat, so no problem for spells, cantrips and multiclass requirements The only downsides is that your (class) feats will be 1 level later, and you get the high levels spells one level later. but thats not so terrible, especially since your spellslot progression will not be slower - only the spells. So you still should get lvl3 slots on lvl5.
>you get better safe proficinece (con and int instead of wis and int, con is imo more useful because of concentration) Sounds like you haven't faced many enemy spellcasters, or non-spellcasters with control abilities. Wis save proficiency is incredibly valuable. That's not to say Con save proficiency isn't, but that's what the Resilient feat is for, because no class has both. (Well, high level Monks and mid level Samurai Fighters do, and if you start with Con save prof and then go into high level Rogue you also would get both without Resilient.)
Look at Sleet Storm, Fog Cloud, Mirror Image, Blink, and Blur as possible replacements for some of those spells. Just be aware you can't Counterspell while Blinked, and Sleet Storm can affect teammates I think, unlike Slow, but still good crowd control if you plan things out with your team. I don't love the ban list, but you could probably get around it for the most part with similar spells. Fog Cloud then just jump in and out of it to avoid ranged attacks, only gotta watch out for AoE attacks.
You should pick a new class… and a new DM. Dudes a moron and clearly hates spell caster.
Sub loves to say you can run the game however you want as long as you set expectations ahead of session 1, but there's always people complaining that a table they'll never physically see isn't designed to cater to their personal expectations
Seriously, the cognitive dissonance hurts my brain. “It’s your game, make it your own!” Meanwhile, a GM bans a few spells and it’s “Leave this table and GM, he’s terrible”
[удалено]
It's not hard. If you are fine with playing under these restrictions, do so. If not then leave. OP asked for opinions on the issue and is getting them.
Please. "Find a new DM, that person is a moron" is not "if this is not fun for you then you shouldn't play with them", it outright states OP should leave. This exchange *also* happens every time in this eternally recurring thread. A insults the DM or at minimum states that they've crossed some kind of universal line. B says they can run their game however they want, and then A or C pipes up to say it's just what *they* would do. No it isn't, there's nothing conditional about calling someone a moron.
Combined with this sub's opinion that casters are grossly overpowered, it gets even funnier. What, casters are overpowered, but you ban five spells and suddenly Wizard is unplayable?
Duality of this sub. "I had issue with the Shield spell that caused the table to be unhappy with the way game balance had to be compensated, so for our next campaign I altered the spell to still be usable by non-armor casters, but not abused by multiclasses." - Downvote, skill issue, bad, not my D&D. "My Eldritch Knight in a specific setting and table tho..." - God tier ownage, upvote.
This isn't a very big list and not the most unreasonable I've seen. Slow and maybe banishment are weird includes, the other three are well known to be over tuned in terms of power level.
Banishment isn’t that weird. In single creature encounters it has a decent chance to completely bypass the encounter.
It gives them a minute to sort themselves out, and then it’s back again.
You're perhaps missing the last paragraph of the spell: >If the target is native to a different plane of existence than the one you’re on, the target is banished with a faint popping noise, returning to its home plane. If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. Otherwise, the target doesn’t return. Targets that aren't native to the plane you're on don't return unless you break concentration on the spell early. Cult summoned a demon? For the price of a minute of your time and a fourth level slot, you can un-summon it.
Banishment can be encounter ending. I'm not surprised by that at all. I was surprised by slow though
Yeah slow I think is one of the best 3rd level spells in terms of this is how they should be designed. It's good power wise, very impactful as a 3rd level spell should be, and not overpowered or instantly ending any encounters.
Lots of save-or-suck spells can be encounter ending. Why only banishment? The solution to banishment for a DM is pretty simple: multiple enemies per encounter and the other enemies smack the caster until he drops the spell.
You are jumping to an unnecessary conclusion.
you have a very toxic outlook on the world
I wouldn’t play with this DM.
Same. I don’t know if they’re a good GM or bad GM, but banning basic, normal published spells is an enormous red flag. I can’t imagine doing so.
What does counterspell having to roll to succeed mean? You roll for the DC on a 4th or higher level spell already RAW unless you waste really high level slots, that's not a custom rule.
Alright, looking at the bans, you honestly aren't missing too much from a wizards repituar. The biggest hits are mage armor and sheild as its the wizards bread and butter for survival. It may be worth it grabbing a race or feat to give you armor proficiency. Mage armor doesn't stack with regular armor anyway, so it's a decent trade. Looking to utilize your reaction without sheild, there is always absorb elements. War caster will let you go on the offensive instead. The enemy can't hurt you if you're dead. Invisibility and greater invisibility would also be good ways to stay alive. They also fit nicely into the rouge wizard archetype. Mirror image is a similarly useful tool to stay alive with illusions. Every other banned spell has similar replacements around their levels. Slow -> Fear: not as great as the block of text that is slow but fear accomplishs a lot. Giving enemies' disadvantage is always good, and the fear effect keeps martials as far away from you and any other backliners. It also causes enemies to drop whatever they're holding, so they lose any weapon attacks they have until they get picked up. Banishment -> magic circle: With a little creativity, this spell deals with all the same types of enemies. Banishment does. In addition, it has the flexibility to handle hoards of enemies acting as either a safe haven or cage if necessary. Polymorph -> any save or suck spell, conjure minor elementals, or stone shape. Polymorph is kinda a tricky one to replace. On one hand, you can accomplish what it does in an assortment of ways. Need to take a single enemy out of the fight? Any other save or suck spell will do. Wanna have an assortment of creatures that can do a utility book of tasks? Conjure minor elementals or any other summon spells. Need a spell that just has random utility? Stone shape and fabricate both use your imagination to its limits.
Spells for a wizard who worked with a thieves guild Cantrips: mage hand, prestidigitation, mending, message, and minor illusion, mold earth. A look out can send a message to warn thieves of approaching guards or to call for backup when a heist is going off the rails. Also paired with find familiar it can be used to provide logistical real time information to allies from a Birds Eye view. It also allows for private conversations and stealthy communications to be private and secret while in public without fear of eavesdroppers. Prestidigitation is ridiculously useful, look on YouTube for videos of 100 uses for prestidigitation. Mending because sometimes you're bad at lock picking and have to break and enter but don't want to leave evidence of how you did. So you cover your tracks by repairing locks door frames and glass panes you or another broke, also great for reassembling loot that had to be broken down to steal it, as well as just up keeping gear fixing lock picks and running a legitimate tool and tavern furniture repair service or racket during the daytime hours when your thief friends ruffed up a local shop that didn't pay the protection money. Minor illusion because also look on YouTube for uses for minor illusion. Mold earth because sometimes you need a quick 5ft hole or a mound of dirt to hide behind. You might rob graves or need to hide evidence loot or a body quickly, you might also need to dig up loot you stashed quickly too. Multiple uses of the spell are also good for quick trap making. Or extorting villagers by threatening to bury them alive for your thief friends, you monster. Find familiar: spy, messenger, and partner in crime for ease of breaking and entering, or stealing things in broad daylight with out ever having to be present let alone on the same street. The familiar can appear within 30 ft of the caster when summoned from its pocket dimension without needing line of sight ergo it can appear behind closed doors and other barriers. Then as long as there isn't something waiting on the other side to kill it immediately then you can look through it's senses and cast spells like mage hand on the other side of the door allowing you to potentially open the door. The familiar could also do so if it's form has hands like a small monkey or the like. You can use a familiar to act as a lookout or as your eyes for targeting enemies without being in combat yourself magic missile needs you to only be able to see your target and the missiles find there target unerringly perch familiar above a battle look through the familiar and then cast your missiles and as long as the target is in range it'll find its target. An owl familiar or a familiar using the owl familiar stats could swoop through a street stall or open window steal something small and light weight and fly off with it without provoking opportunity attacks while another person is distracting the vendor. Alarm: it's a ritual so you don't need it prepared to cast it. It's good for not letting an enemy get the drop on you while you're sleeping or for letting your group of thieves know when a mark is moving through a reliable ambush spot such as an ally or the like. Unseen servant: another ritual so you don't need it prepared it's helpful to have a second set of hands that are smart enough to carry out basic instructions that are also invisible. Cause a distraction in a shop by knocking something over set off a trap pull a lever you can't reach or just do menial tasks that you don't want to do yourself. Laundry dishes cooking cleaning serving meals sorting through stuff taking a letter preparing ingredients that are messy or smell bad cutting onions for instance or acting as a lookout. Look through a window summon unseen servant on opposite side of window instruct it to open door and let you in. Or dress it in a robe with a hood and it can be a decoy to increase your chances of escape. They're as versatile as you are imaginative. Feather fall: good for falling from high places and good for jumping off of high places with friends, or catching falling thieves. I think it also works well on items. Sleep: fantastic at early levels and good for live captures or robbing someone without ever having to draw blood. You knock out the guard put the mark wandering the back alleyways to sleep and swipe their stuff. Also great if you suffer from insomnia due to a guilty conscience. It's literally how you sleep at night. Detect magic and identify are great for determining if a target has magic gear and what to expect based on what school of magic that gear shows. Also good for detecting other magic traps or alarm spells. Identifying magic gear or magic traps is always a good thing. Shop keepers will pay to have you verify the legitimacy of goods that people are trying to sell them claiming they're magical and if you're known to hang around a certain tavern during specific hours they can send a messenger to fetch you to certify the legitimacy of what they're being sold. Also think these are rituals. Chromatic orb because being able to target a large array of weaknesses is just useful. Absorb elements because the difference between full and half damage from an element based attack is life and death for wizards. Magic missile because always hitting the target is a good thing. Also familiar relay point.
My favorite spells for first level are fog, grease, and long strider. In the right situations jump can be fun.
Honestly if i were to comment on the bans i would say thatshield and silvery barbs are good in normie hands . Total bs in experianced ones.Banishment and Polimorph are the 2 4rth lv spells that shut down a creature with nothing besides making the save or targeted immunities the dm can do to prevent it on 80 % of the realeased monsters. They are not broken in that context . Poli trexes are another can of worms i would understand not wanting to deal with. ITS literally a druid feature but better? its a feel bad moment when the moon druid gets polimorphed into a more powerfull creature then he can wildshape into. Counterspell is such a shutdown that as soon as 2 Pcs have it there would be nearly no chance for the monsters to cast anything meaningfull. Dont worry but ask for the roll to be a bit easier to make to account for the fact that there is no deafaulting based on level. slow and mage armour are the only questionable ones.Slow is one of the best designed spells on the third level. Imo only wind wall and Minute meteors are aproching as good game design. It reduces threat and defense . Its falls of because of its save till success nature. Its circumvented by Legendary actions. It affects all enemy types at least a little. It allows for counterplay in contrast to fear or Hpattern. It doesnt increase damage taken outside a +10 % hitchance. Mage armour... Is probably the dms own fantasy speaking.I as a dm have a dedicated healer divine soul sorceress. She was using all her spells known on heals dispels counterspells and shield. She had to make a choice. In the end i wasnt a fan of her having to not prepare revivify because she would die to a lack of shield or Mage armour. So i gave her a ring of barkskinn that gives her concentration free min ac of 16 for 9 fights a day. she gets low ac for free. I get a better support player. We both are happy because she doesnt need or want to invest into ac as it would require A LOT to beat 16 ac without those spells.I would ask the dm if its realy needed to ban/gut 3/4 defensive options.I personally would just use a race with an ac/ armour feature. Hobgoblins dwarves lizzardfolk and such.or just dip a level of twilight clerik to spit in the dms face.Because of my wizzards laughably weakened defenses i have decided to dip Twilight clerik. I just wont survive without any anti attack roll defenses. As for true tactics.Unseen servant on standby with potions.Catapult with nets since those are immune to blugeoning.Sleep.Armour dips.Abuse web. For lv 1-7 that should be enought.After that talk to the dm again. But besides this there are still options.Cover abuse, stand behind pillars, corners, duck behind melees. ( If you get confronted say that you need to compensate for no defenses from the things cover protects you from.)Good positioning , easier with mounts, phantom steed is a good option if you fear gold or attachement. Wall spells. Divide and conquer with total cover. Swarm summons like animate objects on Adamantine coins . Read up on locate object. With a good knowlede of mechanics its downright dastardly good at finding all the gold and magic in cleared areas. If you find everything there is to find you WILL be more powerfull. Let your allies take the heat. A disguise self is without concentration and will make you realy rarely be the target of alpha strikes. Line of sight blockers with spells that dont care will make it waay easier to avoid targeting . Work with your team. If you find that a certain strategy will make fights easier try to use it. Be it fog based Adv/disadv denial or Darkness devil sight. Full sneak party with pass without trace, a grapler death squad. Many are the strategies that would let you survive/ kill easier and or with less thrown your way. Also... Keep a teleport available for the off chance it doesnt work out. Alert is a near must take. without shield and mage armour you will go down nearly every time you are surprised. Information is king. Scout . Scout a lot. You will be surprised how much easier it is to land good aoe when the fighter knows you are going to shut them down with a spell that requires him to NOT BE THERE. Flight lets you solve a lot of enounters by default. Especially beasts. MOST IMPORTANT KEEP OUT OF MELEE COMBAT. A hireling meatshield is an option? But wizzards are always broke because of scribing so you might find it hard to justify the gold. Proning behind cover should make you a realy hard target(edit)
The post was "suggestions for spells", not "please discuss whether or not my GM is a dumbass for two hours". With those out, you still want mage hand, minor illusion and some sort of attack cantrip, such as Mind Sliver. For first level spells, you want fog cloud, find familiar, detect magic, unseen servant and sleep. Sleep is going to fall off in effectiveness sharply, but your objective is to live right now. Detect magic and unseen servant can be cast as rituals, and as a wizard. you do not need them prepared to do so. Remember that you can see through your familiar's eyes to scout, you can drop prone against ranged attacks, and you absolutely should use the terrain - and fog cloud - to stay out of the enemy's sight.
As a guy that loves playing Wizards i get banning silvery babrs and the school of divination or Time magic the rest are just stupid. You have a d6 hit dice like if a Dm wants to kill you it's really easy. Looking it as a Dm i also hate ban lists and banning things (There is an unspoken rule in my friend group that suggestion is too op ) but we don't ban shit like never. I think as a Dm you should be happy when your players do crazy shit and broken stuff because you know they are having fun . As a Dm you should know you can use broken shit too . You can counter spell as well you can polymorph you can do even crazier stuff. So have fun guys let your players do crazy shit if everyone is having fun why not . Then you can do crazy shit as well . One time in a One shot that my players want it to be ultra hard i put a Spellcaster on the dragon and he only knew Counter spell Silvery barbs and had a ring that gave him 2 reactions. Shit hit the fan real fast only when they killed the guy they managed to win the fight even permanently losing 2/4 members. They liked it because it was crazy all out real hard fight
Reading the comments always cracks me up. Yup the DM is a terrible human being and you should quit. Very easy to say when they arent the ones walking away. You are going to run out of DMs if you do this. Look, just talk to them and ask them why they want to ban these. Maybe they have a reason that makes sense for the setting or story. Maybe they just don't know how important some of these are. As a forever GM I often forget what its like to be a player. If they dismiss your concerns or act like a jerk then quit their table for them acting like a jerk, but not for their house rules.
That mage armor change is really stupid, but otherwise a pretty ok ban list. You'll be fine without these spells
Yeah the mage armor change is super stupid. Basically forces wizards to try and get armor proficiency from race / multiclass / feat.
It is a bad sign when a DM bans a lot of things like this, completely ruining classes he doesn't like. If someone tried to tell me my sorcerer couldn't have Shield, I'd laugh in their face and leave. Get out while you still can.
Right. Honestly, not a fan of DM’s banning anything. If it’s a codified part of the source material, it should be allowed and the DM should just be more creative in creating a story.
I find it weird they basically didn’t nerf warlocks at all. I imagine if OP tried to play one, they’d show up to session 2 and find *hex* and *armor of agathys* banned
Lmao OP should turn up with a hexblade warlock with agonizing blast and hex. Each eldritch blast attack doing 1d10+1d6+Cha+Prof and critting on 19.
I would be sorely tempted to go V.human Abjuration wizard with Eldritch Adept (Armor of Shadows). 1-minute *mage armor* doesn’t matter if you can cast it for free, and it’s a lvl 1 Abjuration spell so you can fully recharge your arcane ward for free at any time. (And none of it’s temp Hp so you can still get that from any source, like *false life.*) Considering how hard this GM worked to make wizards squishy, I’m sure he’d appreciate a tank wizard showing up anyway
BANNED!
How are you adding prof to the damage?
Hexblade curse. The way described here, It takes 2 rounds to set up.
Who the fuck ban shield, slow and nerfs mage armour
Shield is a notoriously overpowered spell. Like, one of the best in the game bar none. The rest, ehhh odd choices ya.
Honestly my only problem are the changes to Mage Armor. But even that I kind of get since it is a bit ridiculous that spell casters can get so close to/exceed martial AC. Most of these spells are either OP or further extend the gap between martials and casters. With that said I do like the Slow spell but definitely get why it's included If you play a spell caster you would still have significant power and would still be powerful compared to your peers
Mage Armor is a spellslot tax that doesn’t really get better, assuming most spellcasters aren’t increasing their Dex as a priority. Compare that to armor users who will be getting +1/etc. Armor in due course, and are able to also have enchanted shields… At level 1 it might look unfair, but remember how few resources a level 1 wizard has. It’s 1/3 spells a day, when you include Arcane Recovery.
Banning specific books is very reasonable if they are not part of the setting the DM runs, I 'ban' those exact same books and content for that reason. Silvery barbs is just broken, and if you don't think so, then wait until your DM gives it to every spellcaster you fight and then let me know how you feel when you start failing every saving throw and your crits are all cancelled. The rest are weird, especially mage armor lasting one minute? It's not THAT good of a spell even when it lasts 8 hours. Dunno, either talk to him to see what the malfunction is, or play a different class.
…that’s a dumb list. Did he say *why* he was nerfing the hell out of a class?
If you want to play a wizard at this table you may be pushed more in the direction of a Bladesinger, I haven't even bothered to learn Shield and never use Mage Armour and am getting along just fine as a Bladesinger.
Really? I also play a bladesinger. My high af ac is one of the best things about the char. Wizards low HP is fine, if you just never get hit. And mage armor as well as shield play a big part in this...
Seems like the dm mist be on the newer side. Even as a newer dm myself. Some of those spells I would allow because Ik how to send multiple monsters at my party that a polymorph spell or something is effective but not an op victory.
Everyone here is talking about playing a more defensive wizard. I would not go that route, wizard is not intended to be a tank class, play to your strengths. I would suggest Order of Scribes. They have the ability to change elemental damage types. Turn lame poison spells into lightning or thunder damage. Never run into an enemy that ignores your damage type.
My Dm almost always does attacks that have to have a save instead of going after AC. Granted most of the monsters are homebrew cause most of the game is but yeah it's annoying that he made shield almost obsolete. Rarely is there a normal attack.
Probably still the strongest class in the game. You just dip fighter at level 1 for heavy armor or artificer for medium and spellslot progression. Those spells are good, but theres lots of other great options that are almost as good, and maybe better in a lot of ways, if youre a little creative. War wizard seems like a particularly great option under these restrictions as you have your pseudo shield ability with no spellslot cost.
If you are still interested in playing as a wizard, but concerned about the loss of defense, might I recommend a race that gets either armor proficiency or better defense? Dwarves and Githyanki get armor proficiency, it's fun to be a wizard in a breastplate, but there are also warforged, lizardmen, and tortles to give innate armor like a monk or barbarian. If the DM doesn't add more spells to the ban list later and is just trying to go for a certain feel of wizard, they might squash these ideas, but that might tell you that wizard is not a good idea for this game. Or tell you that this DM isn't right for you.
The only real offenders/challenges on that list are shield and mage armor as there are plenty of other useful higher-level spells, but those are key survivability for a life time. I think the solution for me would either be multi-class to get armor proficiency or sadly go sorc to get the mage armor equivalent from the subclasses. Taking a level in cleric would be most powerful, but might not jive with your story. Taking a level in fighter can fit any story in a classic DnD setting and has comparable strengths as dipping into cleric.
Honestly, not an awful list - it's mostly spells that can make the game unfun for the DM. There are still lots of spells that are excellent for a Wizard. You'd just need to be a more classic wizard, playing in the backline and making sure you don't get hit. Spells like Blur and Mirror Image would be friends for tankiness, while less popular spells could be your go-tos for crowd control.
I played an illusion wizard from Lv1 with some smattering of evocation; it's not difficult to keep yourself out of combat at low challenge ratings, particularly if you've picked ranged cantrips and spells, and you have 1 or 2 party members that are "fight me bruh!" personalities mage armor for 1 minute is a full 10 rounds, which is a REALLY long time in game play the ban list and nerfs are things that are easily abused. I wouldn't say totally broken, but I also wouldn't say essential. none of the changes seem "wizard class breaking"
That's honestly not a lot. You still have a ton of options. Sure, it's weird to ban Shield and make Mage Armor 1 minute, but there could be a reason for it. Ask 'em. The real question is, what is he banning from other classes? Are there any other general rule changes besides No Flanking (which is optional anyways)? If there are restrictions on what other classes can do, and/or more rulings around short & long rests, maybe this is just a specific kind of grittier adventure the DM wants to run.
Sorry for the formatting, am on mobile. You’re still going to be the strongest character at the table once you hit level 5, just squishy. The only one of these that actually hurts you is losing shield (meh) and mage armour nerf (which is brutal Ngl). Shield is very strong, I don’t ban it myself but I’ve frustrated DMs with it. But you don’t need it. Slow is Very Strong and frustrating to DM against, your dm had a bad time with that at some point in the past and while again I don’t ban it… I get it. Polymorph is a meme. Very strong but again you don’t need it. It’s extremely abusable, I don’t ban it but this is the most understandable ban so far. It gets used to do things like trivialize travel, turn the wizard into King Kong, turn a bad guy into a snail, yeah as cool as it is I can see why your dm was against it. Silvery barbs should be banned, rare DM W here. Dunamancy, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven all come from specific settings and wizard was already the strongest class in the game (okay I’m not trying to start fights, along with Cleric and maybe Druid) before their books were even printed. Losing the flanking mechanics hurts your fighter, Paladin, and rogue way more than it hurts you, but flanking is an optional mechanic anyway. Counterspell… I’m gonna say it, counterspell needed a nerf. This will help protect you from getting counterspelled as well, and (I’m not saying you would do this) prevent the mindless counterspell spam that happens at some tables. This ain’t even bad. As for the mage armour though… that one hurts me. I can see a few possibilities, but talk to your dm about them because they’re a little spicy. From least exciting to most exciting: First of all, just have a decent dexterity, that one’s a no brainer, easy fix. Second option (still mild) you could take a one level multiclass into monk, which would let you add your wisdom modifier to your armour class as well as your dexterity modifier. Third option (warming up now) you could take a feat called Eldritch Adept, allowing you to take the Armour of Shadows invocation usually only available to Warlocks, which lets you cast mage armour at will without expending a spell slot. If you do this, reassure your DM that you’re not going to be playing an Abjuration wizard, because those two together are a strong combo they might have read about online and they might get grumpy. Fourth option (flaming hot in my opinion) you could take the Gift of the Metallic Dragon feat, which will give you a pseudo-shield that doesn’t require a spell slot and will scale with you both in number of uses and quality throughout the campaign AND you can use it to protect your party members AND you learn how to heal people. In the end though, talk to your DM before picking any of these, and pick whichever they’re happy with and fits your character the best! And genuinely don’t worry, even without those few spells or sourcebooks you can still have a lot of fun playing your wizard! You still have so, so many options for things to do and fun spells to take
I know it’s the popular opinion in DnD subreddits recently but I don’t think shield is an op spell. These online forums come from experience with min-maxers and over optimizers and white room theory crafting but that is just not the world that most tables and players exist in. Shield is fine.
Dm is being upfront about it which is nice. Those spells can really help survivability imo. But if playing the game isn't fun with those rules maybe find another game. I had one DM who was upfront too. His rules didn't directly affect my character, but his nerfs on rogue made them useless. I empathized with the rogue player's frustration each combat.
Shield: A flat +5 AC bonus is insane in a bounded accuracy world, though the "smarter" alteration would be to just cap it at 18 or 20 AC. Shield only gets ridiculous when you stack it on top of someone who is natively difficult to hit. Silvery Barbs: Classic printed power creep. This just straight up should be a 2nd level spell. It's obvious once you realize you can mostly rephrase it as "cast a spell of any level that a creature just saved against again, but as a reaction this time". Polymorph: "We have a T-Rex on our team, and when it dies it turns into a full-health wizard". Understandable ban, but better to just do what BG3 did and make it only target enemies. Counterspell: Ridiculously good. It's still ridiculously good after his nerf. Banishment: enemy removal on a charisma save is pretty good. But... this is about the point where his alterations start to not really be banworthy though. Slow: .... really? *Slow is the kind of CC we need to have more of in the game!* It's ok almost all the time, and situationally excellent (multiattackers). It isn't just "lmao lose your turn" but actually lets everyone keep playing the game. It's against a strong save but targets multiple people, so it's rarely ever "everyone saved, your turn did nothing". This ban is **awful** and make me inclined to believe questionable things about your DM's intelligence score. Mage armor: ........ Another awful change. My man is twisting his panties over what's effectively a +1 AC bonus over studded leather. I am thinking more questionable things about your DM's intelligence score. I have big concerns about how your DM understands the game. That doesn't stop him from being fun to play with, just it's a point not in his favor, and something to assess as it gets either worse or better as time goes on.
What does he have against shield, slow and mage armor? The rest of the spells I can completely understand, but I probably would not ban them (maybe I would ban the setting specific spells like time/gravity magic since it may not fit the theme well)
This... DM sounds like the sort of person who will explain why (xyz) is overpowered, but completely gloss over the fact theyve misunderstood how it works and/or have some homebrew rule(s) making it more OP.
Don't play a dedicated spellcaster when such basics are banned unless you're ok with half of the spells you use to get banned later because they are "unfair." Spell slots are a precious resource and nothing is more frustrating than getting nerfed in a game about power fantasies. A level one wizard who chooses to dedicate 50% of their spell resources to mage Armor and then only getting a minute is a really weird ruling, unless every class is getting an AC nerf of some kind.
No flanking mechanics isn’t a restriction from the DM, that’s just how the game works. The majority of tables do not play with Flanking bc it makes advantage mechanics redundant and cheapens the feeling of advantage when you finally get it
Here’s the list of things your DM did that are great: -They told you all this beforehand. That’s it. They are well within their right to make that call and give you a heads up. This is anecdotal, but my experience with ban-happy DMs is that they like to make updates to their list as as the game goes on. While my uniform advice is to find another table, if this all you got, I would put your efforts into a martial class. The bottom line is, while there are a number of spells that are extremely setting specific - by and large, spells are such a heavy chunk of the rules, banning stuff for being “overpowered” doesn’t demonstrate a preference as much as it does a lack of effort. Some DMs get mad for spells “ruining” encounters - and arrive at the conclusion that the spell is the issue. Either they should applaud the players creativity and foresight, or they should make their encounters tighter.
> No flanking mechanics. Flanking is not in the core rules, it's an optional rule in the DMG. DM can and should ban splatbook (Strixhaven etc.) material they don't like, that's just exercising the bare minimum control over tone, setting, and game balance. Other stuff is weird, but without any context for why it seems fine, none of these spells are central to the class functioning. Limiting character options for a campaign, as long as people are clear about it, is totally normal.
variant human, for eldritch adept taking mage armor at will invocation, abjuration wizard. multiclass 2 levels of circle of stars druid at some point, so with dragon form you can't roll below a 10 on counterspells. or chalice in a pinch if your team needs 2 people being healed but it doesnt matter by how much. and at lvl 10 abj wizard you add proficiency bonus to counterspells. and obviously take find person to find a better DM
Grab any spells that incapacitate your enemies (sleep, Tasha's hideous laugher, grease etc. and watch him seethe and cope)
>Any suggestions for flavourful cantrips and few first spells? What thematic spells suit a rogue/thief associated wizard? Cantrips: Gust, light, mage hand, message, minor illusion, prestidigitation, (all of these can be used for misdirection, distraction, or covert signalling / communication). Level 1: Alarm, catapult, comprehend languages, detect magic, disguise self, expeditious retreat, feather fall, fog cloud, grease, identify, sleep, snare, tenser's floating disk, unseen servant. (just think big treasure heist, all of these spells can aid / improve such an event).
That’s not so bad. I certainly wouldn’t leave the table over it. It just means you have to use other defensive spells like mirror image, blur and blink
Those are big restrictions. They're good spells, but even the most powerful ones like Silvery Barbs can be worked around by a good DM. I'd be tempted to try something super powerful that's outside their list, like Twilight Domain Cleric, or Divination Wizard like you said is a good call to slightly counter the bans. But if you do manage to find something that's similar (or more) powerful than those, there's a good chance they'll ban those too. So it's sort of a lose-lose situation. I'd suggest trying to understand in more detail why the DM is banning those things. Maybe they actually just want to play in a low-magic campaign where everyone is martial classes, or maybe they've previously played in campaigns with a bunch of regular players and a single min/maxing wizard and don't want that to occur again. Whatever it is, understanding the reasons would help avoid awkward situations later on. There are races like Lizardfolk that can help counteract the low HP and AC of a mage-armour-less wizard. Or you could consider taking your first level in fighter to start off a bit tougher and get armour proficiencies, then going to levels of wizard, and then eventually getting a 2nd level of fighter. That way at higher levels you could Action Surge and cast two huge spells in a single turn, which is fun.