What I found really surprising is that everyone in the group still considered my character “useless”. The campaign completed, and since my wizard was introduced, not a single character had died. My character was declared “useless”Ī couple months of playing and my character did not directly cause a single HP of damage to an enemy, nor did he use a single “save or die”. I still remember the DM asking me, “So what DO you do then?” When I explained I would be putting up walls, fogs, buffing, debuffing, etc. In the first combat, I was encouraged to use my fireball, and the group was quite confused when I told them that I didn’t have Fireball, lightning bolt or even magic missile. I had an idea how I could help the group without dominating the action, and I came back with a Wizard character. I felt really bad and retired the character at the end of the session and promised to build something less dominating. Nevertheless, the party sorcerer died in one of the fights.
What he neglected to mention was that this group did not optimize their characters, so when I arrived with my Goliath charge-build, I overshadowed the rest of the fighter-types in the group entirely. He told me to build an optimized character. The group was playing a “killer” campaign and the party had been TPK’d and character individual deaths were rampant and he figured they could use another player. A player in a D&D group I belonged to invited me to join another group he ran with another group of friends. I’ve told this story before, but here it is again. Wizard is my favorite, but I really do.honest. Treantmonk himself plays other classes too. This guide is written from the point of view of a wizard, but not just any wizard, a snobbish bookworm, "I am the greatest" wizard. Will find me far less opinionated than you find the style of this guide. If you do, by all means let me know in the comments and we can have a discussion if you desire. I will be expressing it strongly, but yes, you are entitled to disagree. Also, this is by and large an opinion paper, so I will be expressing opinion regularly.
Throughout this guide my tongue is planted squarely in my cheek, and yes, I can be a cheeky monkey. Update: 2020: Guide updated by TomFinn to match videosĪ note about style: First off should be my note about style, hopefully before all the players of other classes out there get all upset. Treantmonk’s Guide to Wizards, Being a god (5th edition)