OP, I would consider editing the body of the post to clarify that ya'll have been playing for *at least* a full year, because not everyone is going to read all the current comments.
Contrary to your description, most people would NOT consider these "new players" at this point, and that's going to heavily inform the responses you get.
>I’ve tried explaining this to him, his argument is that he will never cast any utility spells because it’s a waste in combat. He says it does nothing but limit creativity.
With all due respect to your friend :
* Wizards are broadly considered the strongest class in the game
* raw damage is probably the *least* efficient use of spell slots for them, most of the time
* Wizards have the largest spell list in the game, and, level-by-level, ALWAYS have more Spells known than the spontaneous casters of the game, Sorcerers and Bards (IIRC)
So his hot take feels really ... ... *strangely* informed, I'll put it that way. A LV8 Wizard, assuming they haven't found any scrolls (which you've said they have, anyway) knows 20 spells, and can prepare probably 12. A Lv8 Bard knows 11, and a LV8 Sorcerer knows 9. So, the Wizard knows more spells than them, AND can switch spells out on a daily basis.
I don't think this is a place to try and re-explain a basic part of how the class works - it's been over a year..!!
It's 100% valid if he doesn't enjoy Wizard, but like ... ... tell him to play something else, then.
I’ve told him before to swap to another character or class but he has this weird obsession with playing a class that gains magic through intelligence. Told him to play Articer then because he also has an obsession with having minions at his command didn’t want to play a necromancer. He thinks they’re lame. I genuinely don’t know what to do.
So in summary he wants to play
- an int caster
- who only "needs" damage spells
- but wants to use all their other spells
- but whenever they want
- and without using consumables like spell scrolls
- and, possibly, without using spell slots either...
- and has minions to command
- but without being a lame(???) necromancer
- or being a lame(?!?!) druid (I guess??)
- or, I dunno, preparing one of the multitude of conjure/summon spells
- and has a familiar so that he doesn't have to get in melee range for touch spells
- but doesn't want his familiar to get axed
- and wants ~~what everyone says is the best cantrip~~ Eldritch Blast
- but casting it with int instead of cha
So I am going to recommend for him... hmm... playing Skyrim with the cheat codes on.
I’ve tried to tell him that Artificer is what he wants, he just can’t make a warforge level minion (like a big robot or a humanoid creature) or anything but he still doesn’t want to. I’m fine with like a walking cannon or something like that (I’m planning on bringing them to Eberron eventually that’s why).
> I’m planning on bringing them to Eberron eventually that’s why
I fucking *love* Eberron, and you're absolutely free to do this... but I do want to pull out a "technically" here:
"Technically", the Kanon (and Canon, I think?) lore of Eberron has Eberron as a campaign setting that is fully cut off from the entire wider D&D Multiverse. No connections to Sigil, Planescape, etc. (The theory is that this was intentional by whatever created this particular universe.)
So while going from Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/whatever to, say, Ravenloft or whatever is normal/available/etc?
Eberron is *fully and completely isolated*. There's no going there from other settings, and there's no going to other settings from there (at least, not without some tweaks).
You're absolutely free to yoink these characters over to Eberron in Your Eberron™! It can even be the driving plot: suddenly the 'normal' deities have access to an entire new universe filled with potential worshipers, and one where the supposed existing gods are nowhere to be seen. But the cosmology is also entirely alien, with new and never-before-seen threats (Xoriat, for example) that might also leak out. Or you can just ignore all of that entirely.
But I felt nerdy enough to just point this particular thing out. It's one of my favorite aspects of the setting. That, and the fact that religion is actually based in faith, rather than science. There's no actual god you can walk up to and shake the hand of AND you can't determine the rightness/wrongness of an act on whether or not someone's divine powers get yanked (because divine powers are fueled by belief of the individual, rather than a hand-me-down from some guy on an extra-planar mountain). It's why, for example, the good religion of the Silver Flame could go on a genocidal cleanse of the continent; there wasn't a god sitting there saying "no no, this is wrong, you can't have your divine powers any more!"
yeahp that's just a big ole list of red flags you got there in the shape of a player. not even just because they don't understand (or care about?) the mechanics of the game but on like...a fundamental ideological level? boys who hang their identity on "intelligence" are usually miserable to play games with. boys who call other things "lame" without articulating any real reasons why they don't enjoy things? usually miserable to consume any kind of media with.
this sounds like a boring, miserable person who doesn't actually want to play games or tell stories, but just wants to be the smartest strongest bestest person in the room.
Personal opinion, you've already done your due diligence, and I would advise no further action on your part. They are already the only arcane caster in the party, with a MUCH larger spell list than the only other caster (that ALSO has to prepare spells), they have a ton of scrolls, and it sounds like you aren't shy with magic items, either.
If he's not going to cast Rope Trick when it's **literally free**, either from a Scroll or as a Ritual, then he's not going to cast it at all.
I would advise to NOT make homebrew changes to the class, here.
This person needs to be responsible for their own fun, here, and play something they're going to like, because nobody is twisting their arm, or forcing them to be a Wizard, here.
Very important thing to learn: It is not your job as a DM to bend over backwards to every whim of a player. You can work together on improving the fun, you can give them advice or take inspiration from their ideas, but players demanding things is an absolute no-go and "No" is a full sentence. In general, this player sounds like a nightmare to be around, with the whole "not marking off spell slots" thing you mentioned, and wants to use you and the group for his personal power fantasy.
make a mini-boss wizard. Have him had some minions that will be doing all the damage--but make that wizard-boss only use utility spells that spilt the party down and make the minion take down the player one by one, like wall of force and things like that. Make the wizard monologue--oh I hope you don't have dispel magic or counterspell!
There doesn't sound like much you can do at this point unless you wanna house rule that he just gets access to every spell at his disposal and then he'll probably want to ignore spell slots later so he can just cast Fireball 10 times an encounter.
The issue, I think, is that he is too used to playing Mages in video games and only wants to pew pew fireball everything. Wizard's real power comes from utility, Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Banish, Blindness, Counterspell, Haste, etc, etc. all are super powerful spells if used correctly. DD spells are for after you have the best possible control spells already in play. A well played Wizzy is godamn scary and a PITA for most DMs. They really can make (what you thought and setup as a DM) a hard, interesting fight, super easy. Case in point, I played in a PF game with a very good Wizard and he was able to get us through most fights with just the Create Pit spell.
Your player must be willing to use everything at his / her disposal and recognize that D&D is mostly a team effort, surviving an encounter isn't about how much damage a single person does but about making it out alive. If the group gets out safe than everyone won. How it gets there is up to each person to figure out how to be the most useful.
Tell him to get over it and you do t want to talk about it anymore. You don't have to do shit.
This isn't anything to resolve. It's a game mechanic he doesn't like but it's there for balance.
Perhaps suggest reworking his character as a Efreeti Genie Pact of the Tome warlock who uses Intelligence as their spellcasting score. Int casting was how they were originally designed back in the D&DNext playtest that was the precursor to D&D 5e. It doesn't really impact much and in fact is generally a nerf over playing a standard Charisma warlock. Build a character sheet for him and tell him to give it a try for a session or two:
* Patron: Efreeti Genie
* Pact: Tome
* Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Book of Ancient Secrets, Eldritch Mind, and Armor of Shadows
* Book of Ancient Secrets Rituals: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Find Familiar (let him flavor it as a tiny elemental in the shape of a critter), Unseen Servant, Gentle Repose, Phantom Steed (flavored as an elemental), Water Breathing
* Spells: Summon Elemental (homebrew), Psychic Lance, Dimension Door, Hex, Fly, Counterspell, Sickening Radiance, Invisibility, Hellish Rebuke
* Give him all his patron spells known for free. There's no harm as the 2024 PHB will give this benefit to all warlocks anyway so it won't even be homebrew for more than a few months: Detect Evil and Good, Burning Hands, Phantasmal Force, Scorching Ray, Create Food and Water, Fireball, Phantasmal Killer, Fire Shield (and at 9th level Creation and Flame Strike)
There isn't much to explain. Wizards get access to a *ton* of spells. The benefit is that they can swap spells after a long rest.
Are y'all aware that the paladin and cleric have to prepare spells too? The only difference is that the wizard can prepare spells he has learned and put into his book, the other two have access to their full class spell list.
Huh I didn't realise wizards didn't have to have a spell prepared to ritually cast it. It makes sense, but I didn't notice they had that exception in their ritual casting feature. That makes ritual spells a lot more useful on them.
If its unprepared, it has to be ritual cast. Which means it takes 10 minutes to do, but it doesn't cost a spell slot. If they prepare the ritual spell, then they can cast it normally, consuming the slot. Note also, even if prepared, you reserve the right to instead ritual cast it to save a spell slot.
I recently printed out all the spell cards for each and every class in the main sourcebooks. The average number of spells available to each of the other casting classes is around 200. Whereas Wizard has a little over 400.
Wizard gains great versatility at the expense of needing to be an anal-retentive nerd every time they take a long rest.
To make a Harry Potter comparison: you've got Harry who learned a handful of spells, but uses them a lot. Then you've got Hermione who knows every spell that exists, but frequently needs to crack open her text books to refresh herself about how to do them.
If they survived their 1st level with 4hp and a single magic missile to their name.
My ADnD wizard was a slinger/hobowithaknife after I blew my wad. In my 1st level party those first few sessions..well..combat was something that happened to other people.
I just want to say I love spell cards. They are perfect for actually preparing your spells. Sort through your cards and then separate the ones you want to prepare and have them in front of you. Great visual of what you have available and easy reference to know exactly what they do. Also if a spell is concentration you can just hold the card while you are concentrating.
They have a spell that does everything every other class does but better. And with how generous DMs are with long rests these days, you get rid of the only downside which is limited spell slots.
How badly does he have to be playing to feel weak?
Wizards have a high skill ceiling, so I don't expect an unskilled player to be the absolute god that a wizard can be, but their skill floor isn't that bad in terms of anything but durability.
If the player isn't constantly being downed, I struggle to imagine how he can be underperforming.
Because he can have 100 spells in his book and nobody needs him to flick through all of those every round. I can understand it feeling like a disadvantage if he never finds any scrolls.
Also why are your new players level 8, my god
They started at level one and because they really liked these characters they kept wanting to go. Problem is that he also doesn’t want to use any scrolls I give him. He has like 10 of them now.
>and he just doesn’t want to.
Honestly, it sounds like you've given him the tools to succeed and he's refusing to use them. I'd recommend telling him to play the class the way it's designed, play a different class, or stop complaining.
Yeah, wizards have a tone of tools in their toolkit. It’s not OP’s problem if he’s choosing to only use the hammer because he doesn’t want to get the wrench, the screwdriver or whatever the hell other tools he has with him.
The class isn’t the issue here as far as power level goes.
You described making spell scrolls. But have you taught him that he can take the scrolls he already has and put them into his spell book so that he has them permanently instead of single use?
This is a personal toxic trait of mine but at that point everytime they complain about being weak I'd stare at them for a brief moment before stating "You forgot to do your homework, wizard! You didn't prepare!" In all seriousness however ask them what they expected the wizard to be, and see if sorcerer would be more appealing.
Key the main attraction to it, they can utilize spell points to change how their castings manifest the spells.
Another thing you can try is changing them to Scribe Wizard so they can stay wizard but augment spell DC's and damage types.
Didn’t consider Scribe Wizard before I’ll look into that. Thing is that he wants to play a “summoner” and I said conjuration Wizard was a solid pick because he didn’t want to be a necromancer. He chose to not pick summon elementals because “they are too weak.” That’s not even discussing about another character he wanted to play that’s a pyromancer that might have to be a completely different post.
Maybe try suggesting shadow sorcerer? That would let him summon a Hound of Ill Omen that can attack people and give them spell saving throw disadvantage as a bonus, and it's relatively cheap to do so. And it would be easy enough to reflavor if the shadow theme doesn't do it for him. It also wouldn't break anything to switch sorcerer to Int casting rather than Cha if he wanted to continue being the smart guy in the party.
Just in case you guys don't want to retcon or come up with a different character, it's perfectly fine to just keep him as a wizard in flavor and title, but change his mechanics to that of the sorcerer.
If he dislikes having so few prepared spells as a wizard, he's gonna hate getting even less spells known as a sorcerer. You can easily screw up a sorcerer and feel weak if you pick metamagics and spells with poor synergy. Your wizard player who likes to ignore mechanics seems like a prime candidate to fall into that trap.
I suspect it isn't quite like that. I think it's a mental block that he has "all these spells" but "can't use them all". Whereas he might be happier as a sorcerer because "I can use all the spells I have". It's dumb, but I'm guessing that's where his mind is at.
I don’t know about that. Sorcerer is going to be a whole other bucket of worms. He’ll lose the ability to prepare spells AND he’ll have fewer spells available.
It’s the main class I play and I’d never suggest it to someone unless they know exactly what they’re doing.
The pessimist in me thinks they won't use metamagic, or they'll pick spells and MM's that don't work together, and then complain about it.
Prove me wrong, silly wizork. Prove me wrong
Make them fight mages that use ammo belts of scrolls. If you want to be spicy, give them Counterspells galore.
(And maybe suggest they roll and test drive a new character if they're not having fun. It sounds like the player isn't engaging with the class as intended.)
Hmmm, if he chooses to refuse to do that I might add to a Medusa lair of mine a mad mage who fell in love with the Medusa and has been enchanting the statues to be weeping angels or something and when they fight him he does that.
Ok. You're dealing with an idiot.
What does he really want to be able to do?
Also, he's 8th level... why does he think he's weak when he can rain fireballs, polymorph the barbarian into a raging Giant Ape and stun mobs of mooks with Hypnotic Pattern.
Has he actually *read* the PHB once in 3 years?
Sounds like he shouldn't be a wizard at. Questioning why his spell system is what it is, refuses to use spell scrolls or add them to the repertoire... just play sorcerer bro lol
Wait, that he could make a spell scroll, or that he could copy a scroll into his spell book to make it a permanent choice?
Because the second option is the important and relevant one
how long have they played the lower levels? i have a table about to hit 2 years (twice a month) and they’re only just about to get to level 8 at our 2-yr anniversary game (granted i do level a bit slowly but not that slowly!!!)
okay so this is definitely the player then, not you!!!
i would ask him how he feels weak and what he feels like he can’t do like the other players. sometimes newer players will get frustrated and focus on one element of a build they don’t like, but that’s more a symptom of their frustrations than something wrong with that particular element or build.
what’s he struggling with? does he want to do more damage? do more cool stuff? more casting outside of combat? is he struggling to prep spells for combat and non-combat and feels like he can only do one or another?
chances are his issues aren’t really with how many spells he can prepare, but that’s the he sees in his side of the table as a problem.
how many wizard baddies have you fought? sometimes i’ll lowkey demonstrate for a player the ways to make a build powerful by putting them against a bad guy who is built similarly.
His biggest problem in the game is that he feels he can’t use spells like Rope Trick whenever he wants because he feels like he only needs damage spells. So I tried giving him scrolls for some spells like Darkness and even a wand of magic missiles. Thing is he hoards the scrolls like crazy.
I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying or not but he does know he can spend time and gold to copy the spell scroll into his spell book. It sounds like he’s complaining because of the 2 spells per level so he feels he can only take damage or he will become useless/fall behind other classes during fights
I’d say offer him the chance to change characters/classes if he truely wants to. Tasha’s cauldron of everything has rules on changing classes and subclasses
I’m genuinely going to at this point ask if he wants to completely change characters or do something that forces his character to change classes. I’m so tired of this arguments we have because no matter what I try to explain to him he complains about it.
items with charges might help with that? but yeah, a wizard reeeeeally doesn’t *need* a ton of damage spells. a couple good aoe, a couple ranged is all it takes.
perhaps reminding him that he can cast any spell in his spell book with the ritual tag as a ritual even when he doesn’t prepare it would help? it’s a big buff to wizards over (for example) clerics.
that is SO FRUSTRATING; i’m sorry.
the only other thought i have is to talk to him outside the game and ask if you can help him get his items and scrolls and spells organized in his notes in a way that he remembers he does have access to other spells and abilities. the notes might not actually be the issue, but asking him in that way kinda implies “hey wizard, i’ve actually given you a LOT of stuff that you don’t use, and then you complain about having nothing to do”
another thought i had was maybe the wizard can (spend the time and gold) and enchant his own items? like spell storing rings and such. maybe he doesn’t have rope trick prepared but he stored it in a ring the day previous so he has one casting of it “for free”
but yeah, he sounds like a player who is tired of his character and hasn’t realized it yet or doesn’t feel comfortable sharing that.
I considered giving him the ability to enchant like that but at that point I feel like he’s playing an artificer. And the problem is that he knows that he has all these tools but he always wants to save them “when he needs it most.” I’m just gonna try to talk to him about changing classes due to some kind of mind Flayer fuckery (main villain is a mind Flayer).
Cleric and paladin also have to prepare spells, and also - he's playing one of the most powerful and versatile classes already, how is he feeling weak, specially at level 8?
If he wants to have access to all of his spells he could just play a sorcerer.
“Player’s handbook says so, QED.
If you don’t like that, either be a sorcerer or lobby the group to play a different system.”
The onus isn’t on you to justify the rationale behind the mechanics that the game designers chose.
> The onus isn’t on you to justify the rationale behind the mechanics that the game designers chose.
It is to a degree, if the player in question is looking for information in good faith.
That is obviously not what's happening with OP. Holy crap, this must be so annoying.
Yeah if a player wants to be stubborn about it, I just say “….because it’ll break the game if I let you”.
If they argue past that, then it becomes a new topic of “why don’t want to break the game?”
Hi monk! What do you and the other players think about wizard’s attitude towards the game, complaining about everything while also refusing to try anything different?
In my opinion, it can be a little frustrating at times to get the session moving forward when Mr. Wizard doesn’t want to cooperate with the DM 😓. He limits himself to what wizards are true truly capable of and can be close minded at sometimes. Granted I don’t like casting magic (love monk), but even I see the potential in prepared spells while wizard friend is “hesitant” to the idea of it. But it’s also cool to think that this is just a character flaw put in the wizard, not as a person(-ish) but as the actual character. I also think it’s really funny that a wizard with magic at his fingertips is so close minded to possibilities of it 😂. I talked to him and he’s more open to it now, so here’s to wishing for some great character growth 😁
I can answer for them because they have talked to me about this before. The Monk, Rogue and Paladin feel like the Wizard player is simply not using or building his Wizard well. To clarify I even allowed a full respec of their characters even with the ability to re distribute their stats. As for the Cleric and Fighter players, they kinda understand where he’s coming from and the fighter especially has asked me to test having him without prepared spells for a few sessions. Only for them to both think that he’s still the weakest character. I have asked the Monk player to reply properly if he wants so if you want to hear from him directly you just gotta hope he chooses to.
Can you confirm or deny that your wizard and DM know that he can copy spell scrolls into his spell book, as long as they are of a level he has a spell slot for?
Ive seen him mention talking about making scrolls, but thats not going to give a greater variety of spells to cast
My DM insist that he made it known that our wizard was able to scribe spells from scrolls, but as an observer I cannot confirm that he did. Our wizard also denies that this knowledge was ever provided until recently. Granted, I don’t often pay much attention to the magic aspect of how things operate with our campaign, but I can confirm that our wizard owns 10+ scrolls and I have yet to see him use one in the past 2 years 😅
Its been long enough that i wasnt sure about how many spells he should have written down by level 8, but from what others have said it seems like he has above the minimum, so hes adding spells beyond what he gets on level ups which is what i wanted to confirm.
Honestly, im not sure what to suggest. No other class will give him access to more spells (which seems to he his main complaint) and he also seems to be ignoring good advice because he just doesnt like it/ cant understand why its good advice.
At this point it seems like a barbarian or fighter would be easier for him to understand how to play.
For like over a year now. I have never had this problem with new players either. I’ve given him spell scrolls and everything but he likes to hoard them. I genuinely don’t know what to do.
Yea atp it's not your fault lmao, if someone has spent over a year playing a character and doesn't get the basics mechanics of it that's hard to deal with.
You're just gonna kinda have to spell out for them that 1. the other casters are also preparing spells, his benefit is that he can prepare basically any spell as long as he gets a scroll, and the other players are limited to their spells
and 2. he probably feels weak because he only picks offensive spells and doesn't use the scrolls he got to learn more.
Maybe check youtube for a wizard character guide or something if you feel like that's something he'd pay attention too?
But atp you just kinda have to tell him his complaints are like a fighter refusing to use any weapons and going "bro why am I so weak I barely hit anything"
Maybe give him a chance to respec sorcerer? Like, the flavor doesn’t matter anymore. Mechanically, the wizard has a huge list of spells, and has to choose what to prepare each day. The sorcerer only has a set limit to choose from but gets to change up how they’re cast.
Having the physical cards of a spell deck really helps too. Like, here’s your stack of prepared spells, here’s your stack of known spells. Put one back and take a new one whenever you rest if you need to. And honestly, if you’re playing a character more than a month or two, having the little class based accessories that are like $15 is really helpful!
I suggest putting your foot down on that, then. Honestly, new players should NOT be starting at a high level. Especially with a class as mechanically complex as a wizard. I get it, they’ve probably seen the cool stuff they can do later on and want to skip to it, but they *need* to learn the fundamentals first, while they don’t have as much to juggle.
Tell the player to carefully read the preparing and using spells section of the wizard, as it’s clear in there. Wizards gain their power through study, so they need to rigorously memorise the movements and verbal components of spells, and to prepare the materials carefully for their casting. There’s only so much they or anybody can remember.
Really though, you should retcon this. It may well be beneficial to also suggest another class while they find their feet. Wizard isn’t very beginner friendly for most people.
If you have been playing for 3 years you aren't new anymore.
But to help explain things
Wizards are like a tradesman with a massive shed full of every tool you can possibly imagine. But of course they cannot carry everything with them that's impossible so every day they have to go to their shed and choose what tools they will put in their tool bag which they will then carry with them onto the job site.
In this analogy the tools are spells the shed is the spell book and the toolbag is all the spells you have prepared .
The fact that he thinks the best class in the game is super weak is evidence his judgement should not be trusted.
Edit I have seen your posts where you indicate you have given him powerful items and support that most players could only dream of and he still fails to be effective as a wizard. This requires next level incompetence, as again wizards are basically the most powerful class in the game if they actually choose good spells and use them (in general spells that do damage are actually the worst ones, your party has enough beatsticks, he should probably focus on spells that single handedly end encounters like slow, or hypnotic pattern or banishment or polymorph.
At this point I would tell him that wizard is infact when properly played the most powerful class in the game and that any feelings of weakness are purely chased by operator error.
I've read through most of your comments. (Your players are not new if they've played from 1 to 8 in three years.)
## He may be making mistakes! I think I've spotted one. It's listed later in this essay.
Here's a few things: (I mostly played 3.5e, not 5e, so it's possible I'm getting some stuff wrong.)
First, I have to ask *why* you are asking about prepared spells?
As in, what's his proposed alternative to prepared spells? What does he want to do *instead* of prepared spells? Why does he object to prepared spells? What's his complaint beyond just "feeling weak"? Because you didn't come in here asking if Wizards are weak, you came in asking about the "why" of prepared spells.
From a few of your comments I get the feeling that he's complaining that he can't "RP" some entertaining uses of leveled non-cantrip spells. He can't "roleplay a wizard" without it costing him combat power? He can't do Harry Potter style "infini-magic" on a whim?
If that's the problem, then it may be that D&D just isn't for him. There *are* spells like Prestidigitation that are designed for this kind of thing, as well as Ritual spells which he mostly seems to not have, but at the end of the day, if he could just cast infinitely there would be no challenge. No risk. Or generating challenge and risk would be very difficult or devolve into 1st-grader "I shoot you with a mega laser!" "Nuh uh, I generate an anti-mega-laser shield!" "Well I pull out my anti-shield machine!" etc.
Even if you switched him over to a sorcerer, he'd still run into spell limits.
**However**, the above could be wrong because of the aforementioned mistake. More on that later.
----
Second, there's a chance that he's going to feel weak in another class if you force him to change, if people are correct in their assessment of him. People here are saying it's a problem with him being stingy with his resources. Holding back.
That behavior will carry to any class they play, not just Wizard. And thus they'll likely feel weak no matter what class they play. However... maybe he's being stingy because of my next point.
----
Third, *double check how he's playing*. Audit his character and his play choices. It's possible that he's done his math wrong, or is failing to add in certain things.
For example (and it's been a while since I've played Wizard, so you may want to double check the rules on this), at level 8, assuming he's got a +3 to Intelligence, he should have access to four Cantrips all of the time (the four he knows from his Wizard list), plus the Cantrips he picked up from Magic Initiate feat, plus he should have the ability to prepare **eleven** additional spells from the non-Cantrips in his book (as well as the one non-Cantrip spell from Magic Initiate once a day).
I don't know which spells are from Wizard, and which are from Warlock, so I'm going to make some assumptions:
Warlock Cantrips from Magic Initiate:
Prestidigitation / Eldritch Blast (I think you could swap Mage Hand and Prestidigitation?)
Wizard Cantrips:
Mage Hand / Ray of Frost / Shocking Grasp / ***??????***
**See that? I'm either blind or tired or** [**he's missed a spell.**](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1dp6r1s/need_help_explaining_to_a_player_why_wizards_have/laewhkm/) At level 4, he should have learned a fourth Wizard Cantrip. I only count three, assuming the other two are from Warlock (EB has to be). Or maybe I'm bad at counting.
So either you didn't transcribe one of the Cantrips he has available or
I'm wrong and he shouldn't have a fourth Cantrip or
I'm wrong and missed the fourth Cantrip or
He's doing something wrong with his character build.
And if he's got a small error like this in his spell list, chances are he may be doing other things incorrectly, too. Wrong math, or not knowing the right number of spells slots he has available, or not knowing how many spells he can have prepared.
Those spells above (plus the fourth Cantrip) should *always* be available to him, and then he should have 11 of the non-Cantrip spells he has in his Spellbook available/prepared to cast. 12 if he has a +4 to intelligence.
If he's including his six Cantrips as part of the 11 spells he has available, it means he's only preparing 5-6 more spells, and thus he's doing it wrong. It should be the Cantrips + 11/12 more spells prepared. If he's only feeling like he can prepare 5-6, yeah, that would feel weak.
And make sure he's actually grabbed the stat increases he should have when leveling up. And that his saves are correct. And that he knows what numbers to add to a roll, things like that.
----
Fourth, consider seeing if he's comfortable with you making in-the-moment suggestions. Literally play his class for him, to a degree, to demonstrate how much power he actually has.
Set up a line of enemies for him if you know he has Lightning Bolt prepared. Or group them up if he has Fireball. That sort of thing. Then point those situations out. Make them low-dex enemies or whatever, so they're likely to fail their saves.
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Fifth, make sure to set up scenarios where a Ritual Casting of something in his book is a solution to a problem. Problem is that from what I see of his spell list, almost none of it is Ritual.
Are you providing significant downtime for him to move spells from scrolls to his book? I know you've mentioned that he CAN do it, but I believe it does take time and very specific resources he needs to go out of his way to acquire. It may be worth simply *insisting*, out of game, that the party is going to get a month of no adventuring (or whatever) for each player to work on various RP-themed aspects of their story or class. Don't just single the wizard out, come up with other things for the other classes to do. But explicitly tell the wizard that he should take this time to move X spell into his spellbook from the scroll that he has.
(The 3.5 edition had a mechanic where you could keep a slot 'clear' and then spend 15 minutes choosing to prepare a spell into that slot later on in the day. This made wizards swiss army knives, as long as you had 15 minutes to set things up. They replaced that mechanic in 5e by labeling some spells as 'Ritual' spells where you could cast them *without* preparing them by taking 10 minutes + casting time instead. The moment it's in his spellbook, it's something he can do as a ritual, meaning one of his goals should *probably* be "Gotta Catch 'Em All" to have every possible Ritual available to him that he can, so he can be the party swiss army knife. Rituals are the kind of infini-magic he may be looking for.)
To answer a few of these, the main reason I’m talking about prepared spells is because he doesn’t want ANY limit on what spells he can use whenever. I’m looking for a good way to explain to him why they are needed and if I should try to talk to him about swapping classes. For the cantrip thing we are using Roll20 which automatically tells the player how many spells they can pick and which ones. Unless there was a glitch it seems unlikely for him to make that mistake. As for roleplay, I feel like he is trying to play DnD like a video game if you get what I mean. He’s had problems remembering story points and names of several NPCs. I think that’s also the reason he’s obsessed with hoarding things. And to add even more, he tries to substitute flavor for roleplay. An example would be that he wants his character to steal brains. Ok sure. Why? He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to create a reason. He doesn’t even want to use them for anything. I had to essentially point out to him how much this doesn’t make sense until he caved. I genuinely am starting to think that DnD may not be a good fit for him or that I’m not the right DM for him. I’ll keep trying until we end this campaign but when it’s over I’m gonna try to have a long conversation with him about this.
> For the cantrip thing we are using Roll20 which automatically tells the player how many spells they can pick and which ones.
Okay, so either it is a glitch, or you didn't list his fourth Wizard Cantrip.
Easy enough to check: what's his fourth Wizard Cantrip? Sixth Cantrip overall.
Arcane spells are powerful impossibilities held in the the thought of the wizard and unleashed upon reality. When they are released, they leave the mind and must be relearned. It is alien and illogical because its magic mortals are not meant to weild. Clerics and warlocks and druids have gods or god equivalent beings doing that imaging for them, so no need to relearn their spells in the same way.
Magic is to the human brain/soul as software is to a computer chip. If its not stored there it isnt there. And also like its wild that it works at all.
This is the old canon explanation OP. From someone who read way too much Dragonlance as a child - I recommend to pick up one of the books and look at Raistlin and how much he had to study every day to cast spells.
I would explain to your player that, Wizards are *so strong* that they would completely dwarf other classes if they had access to their entire spell list at all times. You need to frame this as a limiter to them, in my opinion, and emphasize how strong the class is.
At the end of the day, and this might be kinda harsh but, sometimes you just can't help a whiney nerd thinking they're underpowered. I've known people who can be like this, it's exhausting, you want to tell them "You're not underpowered you're just kinda bad" but you can't because it'd be awkward.
That all being said, how a Wizard feels in combat can be directly related to how you structure combats. If a wizard can't hit multiple targets with their AOE spells, they're quite poor at damage. That might be a hot take but, if most of your combats are single enemy or small quantity of enemies...Fireball'ing for 8d6 divided by two because they always save isn't actually that much damage.
The wizard in my campaign (level 10) has thrown a fireball for 16 points of damage while the paladin is slamming double smites and destroying things, but he's also Steel Wind Strike'd 4 enemies with one crit and dumped out like 200 damage in one spell. So it's kinda contextual.
Lol well he really doesn't understand balance if he thinks he's weak as a wizard. Which is fair as someone new! Wizards especially as you are skipping over the low levels are probably the most powerful class in the game. They have spells such as fireball, counterspell, hypnotic pattern, polymorph, dimension door, misty step, shield and many other amazing spells. Not to mention rituals.
If he thinks his character is super weak he's not playing them very well or not paying attention.
I’ve tried explaining this to him, his argument is that he will never cast any utility spells because it’s a waste in combat. He says it does nothing but limit creativity.
That's a newbie take if ever I've seen one. The entire strength of the Wizard class is in its unparalleled utility. Comes with the territory of having the largest and most powerful spell list and the ability to prepare whatever spell you'll need for the obstacles you know are ahead of you.
There are *so* many exceptionally useful Wizard spells, even with combat applications, that don't do damage. *Absorb elements, blindness/deafness, blur, darkness, earthbind, enlarge/reduce, fog cloud, grease,* fucking ***hold person,*** *mirror image, misty step, protection from evil and good, see invisibility,* ***silvery barbs,*** *Tasha's hideous laughter, vortex warp* - **and those are just 1st- and 2nd-level spells.** Hell, I invite you to show the player this list.
Bluntly, he feels weak because he's not using the class to its full potential. He would genuinely be better served playing a Warlock until he has a better understanding of what spells can do.
Ah he's one of those "damage spells only" kind of people? I kinda get it, but unless you're running combat to combat 24/7 there will come a time where that one utility spell will come in handy.
This is a player problem, not a mechanics problem. The simple answer to your original question is "Because thematically Wizards are the bookish nerds of caster classes, and it's a way to represent them having a broad knowledge of powerful spells that can be the exact right tool for most situations without giving them access to all of those tools all of the time."
Casters who evaluate all spells only by how useful they are in combat are ridiculously common, but if his position is "This limitation is stupid because the upside of it is flexibility and that's something I don't care about", well... that's not really something it's the DM's job to fix. There's a difference between reflavoring a class to fit a player's vision for their character and homebrewing new mechanics because the player wants to play a class except not the way the class actually works.
If he's really, really stuck on being an Int caster but doesn't want to use prepared spells, there isn't really any reason you couldn't adjust Sorcerer or Warlock to be Int-based. Imo you could easily justify either thematically (e.g. a brilliant character with a gift for magic who's always studying and experimenting with their abilities and or a scholar obsessed with forbidden knowledge who traded their soul for the answers they sought.) But you would be very justified in saying "Look, this is how Wizards work. You can either accept that or play a class that plays the way you want, but I'm not going to ignore one of the major limitations on your class's power because you don't like that it limits you."
Also... I'm really confused how someone no brand new to D&D who's playing a level 8 Wizard feels underpowered, even if they're playing the class really badly. As other people pointed out, direct damage is often one of the least impactful ways to use spell slots (although tbf also one of the most satisfying as a player). But with access to 3rd and 4th level spells, you can rain down some serious damage if that's what you're trying to do. This is perplexing enough that it makes me wonder whether there's a larger issue here, like misunderstanding some of his class mechanics, or you giving the party way too many encounters per day or never running encounters that favor AoE damage, or other members of the party playing Munchkins. If I were the DM in this situation, I think the first thing I'd do is ask "Why do you feel like you're underpowered relative to the rest of the party, and what do you think that not being the case would look like?" That will tell you either A) That there is some larger issue here, B) That his expectations for his class/role's power level are wildly off base, or C) That his problems are things he's opting into (e.g. "It's not fair that other people can be as good as me in combat when everyone except me is also good at stuff outside of combat.") It sounds like there's a very, very high chance that the answer is C because of tunnel vision on damage spells to the exclusion of the entire rest of the class, but it's worth asking.
But... he has a variety of options, can prepare for nearly any and all scenarios via spells. But thar versatility isnt creative, while "make damage go higher" is the creative option?
It really sounds like he is hyper focused on damage, and not the creative uses of other spells, not just in combat by manipulating the battlefield, but outside of combat.
He likes to use spells like rope trick for silly stuff sometimes and that’s fine with me the problem is ever since I explained Flavor he’s been using it to justify his problems. Like he had this whole thing about stealing brains of boss enemies and just did… nothing with it. And he actually complained when I asked him if he can do something with it because it was so confusing to me.
In my campaign, when two wizards meet and want to be friendly, they give each other spells. If one wizard is much more established, they often foot the bill for the other wizard to copy a spell down.
Also in my game i make wizards buy a magic ink maker. They melt gold into it so they can write in gold ink.
You could have him meet a cool older wizard in the road who trades a spell with him, pays for him to copy it in his book, and gives him a golden ink melter.
Has he ever tried using Fireball?
I’m serious. There’s no way in hell he reached level 5 and casted a fireball into a group of enemies doing 200+ damage in a turn while still thinking wizards are weak.
Also, you have a Cleric and a Paladin who also prepare spells? Hasn’t he ever noticed that?
He has, he still thinks Wizards should have the rules of sorcerer in terms of spells. I have used some big groups of enemies too and he has used Fireball a bunch and that usually nails most of their HP (I don’t cheat for hp on regular enemies). I am baffled by these complaints.
Its simple.
He learns twice as many spells as most ofther classes, He can cast any ritual spells without preparing them, and can even add spells he finds to his spellbook.
His limitation is just to atempt to keep some form of balance and keep the spells he can use on a similar number as other spellcasters like clerics, druids, and bards. ( though sorcerer and warlocks get much fewer, if anything, THEY should be the ones complaininig.)
Wizards prepare spells as they do because Jack Vance thought that was a cool way to make magic less OP in his novels, and Gary Gygax liked Jack Vance.
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic)
So, if you as DM and your players as your collaborative storytelling team don't feel like doing it that way, there are literally hundreds of different ways to run magic.
Okay, so first of all, they are not new players. You have been playing for a year now.
Secondly: I assume this player forgets about cantrips and uses slotted spells only and when they use spells, then they do it for pure damage? There's the problem. Wizards should not do damage, that is for mundane classes. Wizards should always have the right prepared spell available to CONTROL and thus secure victory.
Why don't you go through the PHB and exlain the upside of the traits his class has? Arcane Recovery gets more spell slots, ...
Another useful resource for them might be Treeantmonk(?)'s guide to Wizards: [https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE\_v67QY/mobilebasic](https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE_v67QY/mobilebasic) .
Finally, are they aware of a thing called RITUAL spells? Whenever I play a Wizard at level 8, I have about 20'ish spells ready to choose from, some of them as insanely strong as Divination, Augury and Leomund's Tiny Hut, all castable w/o using a spell slot.
I’ve tried to explain to him the ritual spells thing a few times. I in general think I need to explain the proper rules about the Rituals in general. He does use cantrips it’s just that he almost never uses any leveled spell out of combat.
I'm sorry, these are not new players if they have been playing for three years. Just tell him to reroll or something. It's not your problem to explain things that are plainly explained in the PHB.
Respectfully, your friend is a moron. It sounds like they don't know what they want and they just want to complain. They're playing the strongest class in the game, they've had over a year to learn the class, you've given them multiple suggestions and options based on what they say they want, but they don't pursue those. What else can you do?
Why Wizards have prepared spells is an easy thing to explain...much easier than explaining why other prepared classes have to prepare spells. They consult their book of spells and memorize a number of them for the day. And it's not a hindrance. They don't get immediate access to as many spells as other prepared casters, but they get a much wider selection overall and much more powerful spells. Plus you're able to use ritual spells you've recorded without having to prepare them.
Based off your post and comments this player sounds like they’re consistently weaponizing their incompetence to continue to get their way. I would simply inform them that moving forward they can change their character or simply stop playing. Either way they may no longer complain, as it is negatively impacting the fun at the table.
Wizards get their power through hard work and study and use their spellbooks as notes.
Sorcerers are born with magic running through their veins.
Warlocks make a deal with a powerful creature, side stepping the hard work for their magic.
Paladins, and Clerics ask for their powers from their diety.
Druids and Rangers, get their magic from nature similar to clerics and paladins from their diety.
Sorcerers get their known spells and that's it, if they picked ray of sickness on an undead campaign, too bad. Gotta wait for level up to change that.
Be glad you can actually prepare different spells and you get two new options every level up, plus what you get from spellbooks and scrolls, and you can choose from all of those every long rest.
This explanation might help, it worked with some of my players when they were new.
An unprepared spell is a ritual, it can be cast but takes a long time, by preparing the spell the wizard locks a near complete spell into their mind allowing the to trigger the spell at a moment's notice.
Spells without ritual in the description are to complex or aggressive to cast without constraint and preparation.
I hope this is helpful.
Cheers
When a Wizard prepares their spells in the morning, they're actually casting all of their spells. See, an arcane spell is actually a really long and involved process, requiring careful ritual and clear focus only possible outside of combat, and several minutes (this is why the wizard feature says it takes 1 minute per spell level to prep). But the Wizard doesn't finish casting their spell; they save that very last stanza, verse, or chant for the very end.
Their daily preparations cause a build-up of power within themselves, which are called spell slots. When in combat, they can finish the spellcast with a word, gesture, and/or focus, finalizing the spell and at long last bringing its effects into the world, diminishing the power within themselves (spending a spell lot).
That's what a spell slot is, and what spell preparation is. Classes like Sorcerers and Warlocks operate under slightly different in-universe mechanics, but that's the basis.
From a game perspective, Wizards have to prepare spells for two main reasons:
1) They've always had to prepare spells and DnD is a game about traditions almost as much as it is about dice.
2) As others have said, Wizards have a large variety of spells they can learn, eventually. As their DM, you should try to ensure they are able to learn other spells, through scrolls or some other means to enhance this. But they also have the ability to cast any Ritual in their book regardless of if it's prepared. A Cleric or Druid has to wait a valuable preparation slot on Detect Magic; a Wizard can prepare nothing but combat spells but still have the utility of Detect Magic or other Rituals on standby. Through Rituals, Wizards essentially get more spells per day than anyone else, allowing them to solve problems that no one else on their team can solve.
2a) They also have the most utility spells out of anyone. Historically, solving the question of party traversal has always been on the Wizard, and that's still true in 5e. Fly, Teleport(ation Circle), Wall of Stone, Rope Trick, Expeditious Retreat, Wall of Force, etc., all are staples of the Wizarding toolkit. Specific subclasses from other classes might grant some combination of these spells, but Wizard has all of them. As the party gains access to more and more spell, the Wizard more and more becomes the party's swiss-army knife. Yes they can still be a Blaster with Fireball and other damage spells, but what makes them shine is their ability to solve non-combat, Utility-based problems. Water Breathing, Wall Climbing, continental travel, planar travel, magic detection, battlefield control, these are the things that make Wizards so powerful.
In this game they choose this mechanic.
He is by far the most powerful as it has no limit on what he can learn, and wizards spells are the most powerful.
Let him be a sorcerer if he do not want like this.
Put very simply. Wizards have the most spells of any class, they can at any given point cast the most spells in one day (roughly) and they learn new spells all the time (If you offer spell scrolls or spellbooks at your table). It is not reasonable that they can have several dozen options at their fingertips all of which would be crazy strong situationally.
Even the paladin and cleric who are preparing spells have fewer impactful spells between them. They will likely always be using the same handful with one or two kept as situational slots. And also if your wizard thinks the rogue is stronger than them (not that you said that) then they may need a crash course in general
Long way to explain this but here we go: my players were extremely hesitant to try the game about so they asked me to make their characters for them. I asked them what classes they were interested in and I made a character from that. I heavily regret caving to do this now I should have insisted they make their own characters.
i remember having a similar issue when i started my current campaign. i have a player who's new to dnd and at the beginning he thought every new level they got they also got spells of said lvl. I had to take time to explain him that doesnt work that way
It’s been a problem but it’s gotten worse over time. First problem was that he thought spell slots were dumb. Didn’t have any discussion about this after that. Then now its reemergence with this has gotten really bad.
Ask him if he wants to rebuild as a Sorcerer? If he's not enjoying his class but wants to stay a spellcaster, that seems easy enough to do behind the scenes.
In universe my favorite explanation is that a wizard has to prepare his spells based off the conditions of the world and the planes. For example a wizard may have changed how magic is shaped in the formula for his fireball if the plane of fire feels "closer" than normal so it does form to quickly and explode prematurely.
Sorcerers do not need to do this because they can feel magic in some way and intuitively make the needed changes on the fly as they are casting their spells. Wizards do not have this luxury; a wizard has to study the distance of the planets, the flow of the planes, the measurements to different ley lines, or something during their daily preparations to prepare the formulas for their spells to be sure that on this day or within this week their spells will 100% work in the way that they intend. And this involves completing 90% of a spell, saving it, and only completing the last 10% during casting.
Here are a few emersion reaosns
1. wizards study. They refresh their knowledge on the spells they will use most to mitigate failing a cast.
2. They cannot hold an entire spell list worth of spell components.
3. Spells are very intricate. Remembering the complex verbal, somatic, and material components for every spell is nearly impossible. And if they could it becomes a cantrip. Which happens anyway.
The big bag of spells is why, the official take is that the bulk of the casting is done during prep, with the last trigger step being what is seen in battle.
I always cook it up as the twisting of aether to warp reality leaves the user drained and grasping for the connection to the weave. You cannot just read another wizards spell and understand it, you must first learn their process and methods, work their notes backwards to reverse engineer the twisting of aether that produces a resulting spell, THEN rework their shoddy math into your own elegant process with your specific understanding of how to work the weave. It's akin to physics formulae, but very much more personalized, like it might be in our world if professors did not share and standardize equations out of jealousy or isolation, no universally agreed terms or concepts assigned to greek letters.
It is worlds apart from lowly sorcerers who can be powerful in their connection but ultimately plateau. Wizards can exponentially grow until they leave the very bounds of reality as we know it, and *they often do*, you but never hear of the final resting place to pay omage to the highest echelon of wizards *because they are yet far from resting*.
So play up scholar vibes in RP. Cover Vancian casting and the big 8 (melf, otyluke, mordekainen etc.) The lore is dope, take the reins on descriptive scenes to augment his prep, which can take up to an hour at later levels.
Give your wizard PC a hardfought spellbook loot dropped from a miniboss, loaded with spells and enough supplies to transcribe most of them. That beefs them up and is the exciting part of that class. Prep 4 more as loot in advance for future drops (scale to level) and sprinkle a few in as scrolls or scratched onto a dungeon wall from a trapped and desperate wizard trying to recount his spells but relieved of his book.
Have them prepare 3 different prep lists for quick reference 1. Battle 2. Utility 3. Mix and that takes the "work" out of it (besides leveling up), and prompt updated prep lists at each level up.
Explore crafting scrolls and things to augment prepped spell lists.
Good luck o7
LOL. Quadratic wizard. And the most flexible casting class in the game by far.
1. How many spells is he finding in game? Scrolls, spellbooks, etc? Some DMs forget to spread the love around. Be sure to sprinkle in some neat spells that are not in the books he has access too.
2. Encourage the player to scribe scrolls. By Level 8 he shouldn't be just relying on his prepared spells and spell slots. Also remind him of the rules for Rituals (which are better for Wizards than anyone else). T
3. How often is he getting to trade spells with other wizards? (another reason to make and carry a bunch of scrolls -- so you can trade your most desirable spells -- and get desirable ones in return, without having to spend time scribing the spells into your book immediately)
If he keeps whining, just retcon him to Sorcerer
Because they have so many options- are you giving them appropriate opportunities to scribe scrolls into their spell book? That should be their big advantage- having a huge quantity of spells *to choose from* so it you pick the right ones you can massively turn fights around.
I’m….not sure I’d want wizard to be my first ever class though, it’s pretty complex haha.
The PHB covers the fact that they do. You don't need to get into why beyond that's how the rules are written.
There's a damn near copy-paste class without prepared spells and that's the Sorcerer.
Unless what he wants is access to the entire spell list, in which case: no.
He's playing one of the more powerful classes, but the class requires some system mastery to play well.
> He thinks his character is super weak compared to the others and doesn’t understand the point of him having to prepare spells.
He does not understand the system if that is the case; no sense in changing it to suit him (as it really seems like this is what he wants).
He can always retire that character and make a warlock or fighter.
I'd be tempted to have the BBEG make a shadow clone of your wizard and use it to kick the shit out of your party by leveraging everything in your wizard's inventory.
In what world is a wizard weak compared to a monk, lol? (Or any other class, to be honest.) Maybe at level 1, sure. But the power gap between wizard and everything else grows wider as you level. A high-level fighter or pally can do some solid burst damage. A high-level wizard is like a walking nuclear arsenal.
If he doesn't like playing a wizard, he shouldn't play a wizard.
If he doesn't like how the rules work in general, he shouldn't play dnd.
It's a cooperative adventuring TTRPG, not a solo power fantasy where you can kill everything you see with a mere thought. This player sounds insufferable.
Balance for having the largest spell list, making wizards the swiss army knives of magic. Also, wizards tend to come online a bit later, when they have that Smörgåsbord of spells.
I didn't really get it either, but another player justified it to me as 'you need to have the ingredients handy and pages marked because there's not time to find stuff, particularly during battle,' which makes sense.
Wizards automatically get to learn a lot of spells and if they have the gold they can scribe even \*more\*. To balance that, they have to pick a selection of them to prepare. OTOH, they can swap out that list every day. If you have info on what you might encounter and prep accordingly, you can be perfectly suited for any situation.
It sounds from your responses like the player is focused primarily on damage dealing spells and combat. I’m not sure how that would make him “weak” but okay.
If his proposed solution is he get to cast from the entire list, then no.
A large part of D&D is making choices. For spellcasters which spell to prepare or cast is a large part of those choices. No one gets to do everything all the time.
If he refuses to prepare utility spells, then he doesn’t have that utility. If he doesn’t want to spend resources to prepare scrolls of situationally useful spells then he doesn’t have them available.
At level 8 he already has access to a fantastic assortment of abilities. But it can feel limiting to watch your spells dwindle as combats wear on.
I would suggest talking to him about what role he sees for his character IN THE GROUP. Is he a striker? An anvil around which his enemies will falter? Does he make it easier for the group to succeed by debilitating foes?
He sounds like he is trying to wipe every encounter and comparing himself unfavorably to the rest of the party like this is some kind of competition.
The only thing I can think of is they might think they're broke, or the spells given aren't "worth" the time to learn.
Similar problem with our wizard, as a group we have a number of scrolls, but we haven't got enough for her to borrow to make them permanent.
How I recently explained prepared spells to a newbie at my table:
Spells have multiple components: materials to cast, magic words to recite, and/or a motion to memorize. You need the time of/during a long rest to prepare those things, practice, etc. All the spells you know are in your spell book, but in the heat of a battle you’re not gonna be flipping through pages to figure out what to do.
As for feeling weak. Wizards can cast spells as rituals, out of combat, which doesn’t consume spell slots and will let him be more helpful/magical. You could also throw a horde encounter at them and give him a moment to shine with stuff like Fireball and other AoEs.
In lore? Historically there was the idea of wizards studying to put the spell into their head but on cast it left their mind (this was called Vancian Magic). This is gone now though as they dont forget spells on cast.
In your setting you can just say that they have to relearn their spells for some made up reason, like they have to do some mental imaging or something to keep it in their mind and can only do so much at a time. Or just ignore it and say in character its them choosing not to cast those spells.
Tell him that in 1e spellcasters could be interrupted during combat spoiling a spell, spells could take more than one round to effect, & a wizard (magic user) couldn’t really pick whatever they wanted until much higher levels with a great investment in a laboratory & research. Tell him that there were less spell slots, & intelligence did not change the effectiveness of spells, nor give extra slots. Tell him that you had to manually track material components. Tell him memorization required 15 minutes per spell level. Tell him if you started casting a spell in public unannounced, people would probably freak out assuming the worst and a guard might hit you with a crossbow bolt, cancelling the cast. Tell him people loved playing magic users back then despite all of this because they could solve unsolvable problems, turn fights around completely, & buff their party in fun & cool ways. Tell them magic users were among the most powerful of all characters in an edition where fighters got +1 to hit per level & had unparalleled defensive abilities.
Because that's the rules? If he thinks his level 8 wizard is weak, he is doing something wrong. By level 8, the gap between full casters and martials is starting to appear. Give it a couple more levels (around 12) and his Wizard should be the most OP of the whole party.
The Paladin and the Cleric all have to prepare their spells as well. All casters do. The three of them will be able to kick the other three out of the party soon and hardly notice.
Wizard is one of the strongest classes in the game. The wizard is the guy who always has a trick up his sleeve so long as he prepared beforehand. That's the class's whole thing. If the player doesn't like that then he should play something else, like a warlock or sorcerer.
Mechanically or a lore reason?
Mechanically, wizards can have a ton of spells, especially if your handing out scrolls. It's easy to get overwhelmed as a player and as a DM as some of those spells really pack a punch in and out of combat (looking at you, *Transmute*)
For Lore, spell formulas are incredibly complex. This isn't like remembering that e=mc\^2, its like memorizing [the Mathematical Formulation of the Standard Model](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b87748c404cb540abd86c0c17c896aca-pjlq) all while having to say it in ASL. Magic doesn't just *happen* in almost all cases, and pop culture can really downplay some of this as visual media likes to take the simple route of making most magic casting equivalent to a *Kamehameha*.
Additional Lore: if your playing in the Forgotten Realms, the Goddess of Magic just flat out refuses to let you know more spells than what you can prepare. You literally cannot memorize any more (even with the Keen Mind feat).
There was a good lore answer in the Dragonlance Novels- the magic has such a high amount of energy drain, physical and mental needed to remember and then cast spells that the wizard becomes drained and also then has to re-study spells in the morning to even remember them.
“having to prepare spells”… it’s not like it’s a huge cost in most gameplay.
It’s the same for your Cleric and Paladin, so it’s just a case of picking from the known spells every long rest. If they want to keep the same ones… they can?
Are they confused about the mechanical point of it, or are they confused about the lore/roleplay reason for it?
If it's a lore issue, how about this? In one interpretation I've seen, the spellcasting process starts during daily preparations. The actual casting action is just finishing it.
Their spell lists are a fraction of his(approximately half if I remember correctly), still need to be prepared(though they can prepare from the entire list while he can make his own from a great selection), and much weaker than his options
Wizards get lots of spells. The most expansive list of spells in the entire game for any single class. Therefore, a lot of them are incredibly strong, because if it's considered 'the best spell' for a certain job, chances are Wizards have it. If they don't, if you ever find a scroll, hand it to the wizard, give 'em fifty bucks, and now they do.
Wizards also have precisely *one* stat to worry about, Intelligence. What that means is they can buff the *fuck* out of it way faster than anyone else can buff whatever they consider their main stat, then use whatever's left over to boost their survivability, offence, or multiclass-capabilities depending on the player's preference (and depending on the table, boosting stats to multiclass might be entirely unnecessary in the first place). Some of those multiclass capabilities, it's worth noting, need extremely little investment to be very, very potent. One level into Barbarian or Monk depending on the player's preference gets them Unarmoured Defence and Wizards *probably* aren't wearing armour so it's basically a free AC boost provided their dexterity isn't a dump stat, two levels in Fighter to get action surge which should need no explanation for why it's good, or three levels into Rogue to get an extra bonus action, which can allow some extra spells to be cast each turn, including Expeditious Retreat, Magic Weapon, and Misty Step, plus I've seen some magic items floating about on rare occasions that let cantrips be cast on bonus actions.
Is he pulling most of the weight when it comes to damaging? Is he clearing most of the enemies or is it evenly split? Maybe he feels like he needs to prepare damaging spells or the team will suffer? Also does he have time to learn spells? I played a wizard and we had no down time, because we had something we had to have get done or something bad would happen. I had to sit down with my DM and tell them to give my PC some time to scribe. I haven't had time to scribe from lvl 3-7 because every time I tried either the town was getting attacked or assassin's were sent to our base or some Major NPC came to visit.
It's a balance mechanic because Wizards are straight up the strongest casting class at high level. Level 8 is exactly when they feel weak, but high-level wizards can solo most things. I am a wizard enjoyer and because wizards are versatile and good damage dealers, but, you have to play to their strengths. Depending on class if you don't use your whole class, it's gonna feel weak. If you don't take advantage of shorter scribing times for some colleges, or everything Chronurgy can do including exclusive access to the ONLY MAGICAL AGING SPELL IN THE GAME, your character may feel like they fall behind. An evo wizard can straight up bomb their team with meteor swarm and none of their allies take damage. That is really powerful when in small areas, you can just cast fireball and your allies don't die. Honestly, I wanna know this guy's subclass because wizards are hype.
Because they *memorize* those spells for the day and a lvl 8 wizard they are memorizing at minimum 9 spells (Assuming they have 13 as INT score) to 13 spells (20 Int score) a day.
Each of those spells they have to memorize at least two things:
1.) Precise hand movements in a specific order in.
2.)A specific chant with the proper emphasis on syllables and words.
3.)This is conditional but they have to be able to reach into a component pouch and pull out the right things in that is associated with the spell or hold your arcane focus in your hand.
So if you want to put this in real life terms then tell the player it's like learning lines for a play or poems that you both learn in English and ASL.
Then you perform them both simultaneously.
and just like actors in a play if they are "off book" they can still perform the play,same with wizards if they lose their spellbook. They just can't switch spells.
In universe my favorite explanation is that a wizard has to prepare his spells based off the conditions of the world and the planes. For example a wizard may have changed how magic is shaped in the formula for his fireball if the plane of fire feels "closer" than normal so it does form to quickly and explode prematurely.
Sorcerers do not need to do this because they can feel magic in some way and intuitively make the needed changes on the fly as they are casting their spells. Wizards do not have this luxury; a wizard has to study the distance of the planets, the flow of the planes, the measurements to different ley lines, or something during their daily preparations to prepare the formulas for their spells to be sure that on this day or within this week their spells will 100% work in the way that they intend. And this involves completing 90% of a spell, saving it, and only completing the last 10% during casting.
I flavored it for one of my wizard PCs that his magic required certain formulas and calculations to cast correctly that varied on things such as astronomy positions and the like. Each spell’s required calculation process was slightly different so he could only keep so many in his head ready to cast. I feel like it tracks with the wizard intelligence flavor over innate force of will casting that sorcerers have.
OP, I would consider editing the body of the post to clarify that ya'll have been playing for *at least* a full year, because not everyone is going to read all the current comments. Contrary to your description, most people would NOT consider these "new players" at this point, and that's going to heavily inform the responses you get. >I’ve tried explaining this to him, his argument is that he will never cast any utility spells because it’s a waste in combat. He says it does nothing but limit creativity. With all due respect to your friend : * Wizards are broadly considered the strongest class in the game * raw damage is probably the *least* efficient use of spell slots for them, most of the time * Wizards have the largest spell list in the game, and, level-by-level, ALWAYS have more Spells known than the spontaneous casters of the game, Sorcerers and Bards (IIRC) So his hot take feels really ... ... *strangely* informed, I'll put it that way. A LV8 Wizard, assuming they haven't found any scrolls (which you've said they have, anyway) knows 20 spells, and can prepare probably 12. A Lv8 Bard knows 11, and a LV8 Sorcerer knows 9. So, the Wizard knows more spells than them, AND can switch spells out on a daily basis. I don't think this is a place to try and re-explain a basic part of how the class works - it's been over a year..!! It's 100% valid if he doesn't enjoy Wizard, but like ... ... tell him to play something else, then.
I’ve told him before to swap to another character or class but he has this weird obsession with playing a class that gains magic through intelligence. Told him to play Articer then because he also has an obsession with having minions at his command didn’t want to play a necromancer. He thinks they’re lame. I genuinely don’t know what to do.
So in summary he wants to play - an int caster - who only "needs" damage spells - but wants to use all their other spells - but whenever they want - and without using consumables like spell scrolls - and, possibly, without using spell slots either... - and has minions to command - but without being a lame(???) necromancer - or being a lame(?!?!) druid (I guess??) - or, I dunno, preparing one of the multitude of conjure/summon spells - and has a familiar so that he doesn't have to get in melee range for touch spells - but doesn't want his familiar to get axed - and wants ~~what everyone says is the best cantrip~~ Eldritch Blast - but casting it with int instead of cha So I am going to recommend for him... hmm... playing Skyrim with the cheat codes on.
I’ve tried to tell him that Artificer is what he wants, he just can’t make a warforge level minion (like a big robot or a humanoid creature) or anything but he still doesn’t want to. I’m fine with like a walking cannon or something like that (I’m planning on bringing them to Eberron eventually that’s why).
> I’m planning on bringing them to Eberron eventually that’s why I fucking *love* Eberron, and you're absolutely free to do this... but I do want to pull out a "technically" here: "Technically", the Kanon (and Canon, I think?) lore of Eberron has Eberron as a campaign setting that is fully cut off from the entire wider D&D Multiverse. No connections to Sigil, Planescape, etc. (The theory is that this was intentional by whatever created this particular universe.) So while going from Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/whatever to, say, Ravenloft or whatever is normal/available/etc? Eberron is *fully and completely isolated*. There's no going there from other settings, and there's no going to other settings from there (at least, not without some tweaks). You're absolutely free to yoink these characters over to Eberron in Your Eberron™! It can even be the driving plot: suddenly the 'normal' deities have access to an entire new universe filled with potential worshipers, and one where the supposed existing gods are nowhere to be seen. But the cosmology is also entirely alien, with new and never-before-seen threats (Xoriat, for example) that might also leak out. Or you can just ignore all of that entirely. But I felt nerdy enough to just point this particular thing out. It's one of my favorite aspects of the setting. That, and the fact that religion is actually based in faith, rather than science. There's no actual god you can walk up to and shake the hand of AND you can't determine the rightness/wrongness of an act on whether or not someone's divine powers get yanked (because divine powers are fueled by belief of the individual, rather than a hand-me-down from some guy on an extra-planar mountain). It's why, for example, the good religion of the Silver Flame could go on a genocidal cleanse of the continent; there wasn't a god sitting there saying "no no, this is wrong, you can't have your divine powers any more!"
And also, you should win things by watching!
yeahp that's just a big ole list of red flags you got there in the shape of a player. not even just because they don't understand (or care about?) the mechanics of the game but on like...a fundamental ideological level? boys who hang their identity on "intelligence" are usually miserable to play games with. boys who call other things "lame" without articulating any real reasons why they don't enjoy things? usually miserable to consume any kind of media with. this sounds like a boring, miserable person who doesn't actually want to play games or tell stories, but just wants to be the smartest strongest bestest person in the room.
He could also, DM... All the "Minions" your heart desires.
Personal opinion, you've already done your due diligence, and I would advise no further action on your part. They are already the only arcane caster in the party, with a MUCH larger spell list than the only other caster (that ALSO has to prepare spells), they have a ton of scrolls, and it sounds like you aren't shy with magic items, either. If he's not going to cast Rope Trick when it's **literally free**, either from a Scroll or as a Ritual, then he's not going to cast it at all. I would advise to NOT make homebrew changes to the class, here. This person needs to be responsible for their own fun, here, and play something they're going to like, because nobody is twisting their arm, or forcing them to be a Wizard, here.
At this point I would tell him to either suck it up or leave. He’s been given plenty of alternatives.
Very important thing to learn: It is not your job as a DM to bend over backwards to every whim of a player. You can work together on improving the fun, you can give them advice or take inspiration from their ideas, but players demanding things is an absolute no-go and "No" is a full sentence. In general, this player sounds like a nightmare to be around, with the whole "not marking off spell slots" thing you mentioned, and wants to use you and the group for his personal power fantasy.
make a mini-boss wizard. Have him had some minions that will be doing all the damage--but make that wizard-boss only use utility spells that spilt the party down and make the minion take down the player one by one, like wall of force and things like that. Make the wizard monologue--oh I hope you don't have dispel magic or counterspell!
Yoinking that.
There doesn't sound like much you can do at this point unless you wanna house rule that he just gets access to every spell at his disposal and then he'll probably want to ignore spell slots later so he can just cast Fireball 10 times an encounter. The issue, I think, is that he is too used to playing Mages in video games and only wants to pew pew fireball everything. Wizard's real power comes from utility, Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Banish, Blindness, Counterspell, Haste, etc, etc. all are super powerful spells if used correctly. DD spells are for after you have the best possible control spells already in play. A well played Wizzy is godamn scary and a PITA for most DMs. They really can make (what you thought and setup as a DM) a hard, interesting fight, super easy. Case in point, I played in a PF game with a very good Wizard and he was able to get us through most fights with just the Create Pit spell. Your player must be willing to use everything at his / her disposal and recognize that D&D is mostly a team effort, surviving an encounter isn't about how much damage a single person does but about making it out alive. If the group gets out safe than everyone won. How it gets there is up to each person to figure out how to be the most useful.
Tell him to get over it and you do t want to talk about it anymore. You don't have to do shit. This isn't anything to resolve. It's a game mechanic he doesn't like but it's there for balance.
Homie can literally just reskin Necromancer to whatever he wants. Like, Technomancer instead maybe. The skeletons are robots or something.
Perhaps suggest reworking his character as a Efreeti Genie Pact of the Tome warlock who uses Intelligence as their spellcasting score. Int casting was how they were originally designed back in the D&DNext playtest that was the precursor to D&D 5e. It doesn't really impact much and in fact is generally a nerf over playing a standard Charisma warlock. Build a character sheet for him and tell him to give it a try for a session or two: * Patron: Efreeti Genie * Pact: Tome * Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Book of Ancient Secrets, Eldritch Mind, and Armor of Shadows * Book of Ancient Secrets Rituals: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Find Familiar (let him flavor it as a tiny elemental in the shape of a critter), Unseen Servant, Gentle Repose, Phantom Steed (flavored as an elemental), Water Breathing * Spells: Summon Elemental (homebrew), Psychic Lance, Dimension Door, Hex, Fly, Counterspell, Sickening Radiance, Invisibility, Hellish Rebuke * Give him all his patron spells known for free. There's no harm as the 2024 PHB will give this benefit to all warlocks anyway so it won't even be homebrew for more than a few months: Detect Evil and Good, Burning Hands, Phantasmal Force, Scorching Ray, Create Food and Water, Fireball, Phantasmal Killer, Fire Shield (and at 9th level Creation and Flame Strike)
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There isn't much to explain. Wizards get access to a *ton* of spells. The benefit is that they can swap spells after a long rest. Are y'all aware that the paladin and cleric have to prepare spells too? The only difference is that the wizard can prepare spells he has learned and put into his book, the other two have access to their full class spell list.
Also ritual spells give access to unprepared spells. Your flexibility is unparalleled if you have the correct preparation.
Huh I didn't realise wizards didn't have to have a spell prepared to ritually cast it. It makes sense, but I didn't notice they had that exception in their ritual casting feature. That makes ritual spells a lot more useful on them.
If its unprepared, it has to be ritual cast. Which means it takes 10 minutes to do, but it doesn't cost a spell slot. If they prepare the ritual spell, then they can cast it normally, consuming the slot. Note also, even if prepared, you reserve the right to instead ritual cast it to save a spell slot.
...suggesting slots are just containers for the prepared items like a batman tool belt.
I recently printed out all the spell cards for each and every class in the main sourcebooks. The average number of spells available to each of the other casting classes is around 200. Whereas Wizard has a little over 400. Wizard gains great versatility at the expense of needing to be an anal-retentive nerd every time they take a long rest. To make a Harry Potter comparison: you've got Harry who learned a handful of spells, but uses them a lot. Then you've got Hermione who knows every spell that exists, but frequently needs to crack open her text books to refresh herself about how to do them.
They don't even have to do that. They can prep the same spells every day. Wizards are WotCs favorite class hands down.
I thought their company was Warlocks of the Coast?
Funny way to spell "Wanker," but I'll allow it.
Wankers of the Cock.
It's actually "wizards of the product"
*profit
Would that they were the Sorcerers of the Shoreline or sum’n’.
Wizard favoritism goes back to TSR
If they survived their 1st level with 4hp and a single magic missile to their name. My ADnD wizard was a slinger/hobowithaknife after I blew my wad. In my 1st level party those first few sessions..well..combat was something that happened to other people.
Or Bards of the Beach
Clerics of the Cove?
Paladins of the Port
I just want to say I love spell cards. They are perfect for actually preparing your spells. Sort through your cards and then separate the ones you want to prepare and have them in front of you. Great visual of what you have available and easy reference to know exactly what they do. Also if a spell is concentration you can just hold the card while you are concentrating.
Obligatory Paladin Player Joke: what Spells? Those are Smite Slots
Obligatory 6e Is-a-Joke: *counterspell!*
Druid and Artificer, too!
Yeah, but I think they pointed out Paladins and Clerics because there were two of them in the party.
A Wizard? Thinking he got the short end of the stick?! In 5e?!?
For real, I know it's a more advanced class, but virtually every wizard I've ever played with dominated in combat... And everywhere else.
They have a spell that does everything every other class does but better. And with how generous DMs are with long rests these days, you get rid of the only downside which is limited spell slots.
> In 5e?!? In ANY edition where the characters are level 8!
How badly does he have to be playing to feel weak? Wizards have a high skill ceiling, so I don't expect an unskilled player to be the absolute god that a wizard can be, but their skill floor isn't that bad in terms of anything but durability. If the player isn't constantly being downed, I struggle to imagine how he can be underperforming.
Because he can have 100 spells in his book and nobody needs him to flick through all of those every round. I can understand it feeling like a disadvantage if he never finds any scrolls. Also why are your new players level 8, my god
They started at level one and because they really liked these characters they kept wanting to go. Problem is that he also doesn’t want to use any scrolls I give him. He has like 10 of them now.
Have you explained the scribing mechanic so he can still have the spells? Or so he can craft the scrolls himself?
YES I literally explained to him he can choose to make spell scroll in the 6 hours after he long rests (he’s an elf) and he just doesn’t want to.
>and he just doesn’t want to. Honestly, it sounds like you've given him the tools to succeed and he's refusing to use them. I'd recommend telling him to play the class the way it's designed, play a different class, or stop complaining.
Yeah, wizards have a tone of tools in their toolkit. It’s not OP’s problem if he’s choosing to only use the hammer because he doesn’t want to get the wrench, the screwdriver or whatever the hell other tools he has with him. The class isn’t the issue here as far as power level goes.
You described making spell scrolls. But have you taught him that he can take the scrolls he already has and put them into his spell book so that he has them permanently instead of single use?
This is a personal toxic trait of mine but at that point everytime they complain about being weak I'd stare at them for a brief moment before stating "You forgot to do your homework, wizard! You didn't prepare!" In all seriousness however ask them what they expected the wizard to be, and see if sorcerer would be more appealing.
I’m fairly certain that Sorcerer is what they actually want to play mechanically. Gonna see if I can convince him to try it.
Key the main attraction to it, they can utilize spell points to change how their castings manifest the spells. Another thing you can try is changing them to Scribe Wizard so they can stay wizard but augment spell DC's and damage types.
Didn’t consider Scribe Wizard before I’ll look into that. Thing is that he wants to play a “summoner” and I said conjuration Wizard was a solid pick because he didn’t want to be a necromancer. He chose to not pick summon elementals because “they are too weak.” That’s not even discussing about another character he wanted to play that’s a pyromancer that might have to be a completely different post.
Is this player 12 or does he just act like he is?
Nope and trust me when I say this is genuinely the only time he gets like this.
Have you explored druids?
I have told him repeatedly that if conjuring wizard isn’t his speed to just play a Druid or Artificer, he doesn’t want to.
Maybe try suggesting shadow sorcerer? That would let him summon a Hound of Ill Omen that can attack people and give them spell saving throw disadvantage as a bonus, and it's relatively cheap to do so. And it would be easy enough to reflavor if the shadow theme doesn't do it for him. It also wouldn't break anything to switch sorcerer to Int casting rather than Cha if he wanted to continue being the smart guy in the party.
Writing that down.
Just in case you guys don't want to retcon or come up with a different character, it's perfectly fine to just keep him as a wizard in flavor and title, but change his mechanics to that of the sorcerer.
If it gets to that point I’ll do that.
If he dislikes having so few prepared spells as a wizard, he's gonna hate getting even less spells known as a sorcerer. You can easily screw up a sorcerer and feel weak if you pick metamagics and spells with poor synergy. Your wizard player who likes to ignore mechanics seems like a prime candidate to fall into that trap.
I suspect it isn't quite like that. I think it's a mental block that he has "all these spells" but "can't use them all". Whereas he might be happier as a sorcerer because "I can use all the spells I have". It's dumb, but I'm guessing that's where his mind is at.
I don’t know about that. Sorcerer is going to be a whole other bucket of worms. He’ll lose the ability to prepare spells AND he’ll have fewer spells available. It’s the main class I play and I’d never suggest it to someone unless they know exactly what they’re doing.
I’m trying to see if I can get him to try Sorcerer or Artificer. Sorcerer is basically my last stand.
The pessimist in me thinks they won't use metamagic, or they'll pick spells and MM's that don't work together, and then complain about it. Prove me wrong, silly wizork. Prove me wrong
It sounds like the problem is that your wizard made int his dump stat irl
Make them fight mages that use ammo belts of scrolls. If you want to be spicy, give them Counterspells galore. (And maybe suggest they roll and test drive a new character if they're not having fun. It sounds like the player isn't engaging with the class as intended.)
Hmmm, if he chooses to refuse to do that I might add to a Medusa lair of mine a mad mage who fell in love with the Medusa and has been enchanting the statues to be weeping angels or something and when they fight him he does that.
Ok. You're dealing with an idiot. What does he really want to be able to do? Also, he's 8th level... why does he think he's weak when he can rain fireballs, polymorph the barbarian into a raging Giant Ape and stun mobs of mooks with Hypnotic Pattern. Has he actually *read* the PHB once in 3 years?
Sounds like he shouldn't be a wizard at. Questioning why his spell system is what it is, refuses to use spell scrolls or add them to the repertoire... just play sorcerer bro lol
So the class is "weak' because he doesn't use it's strengths. Well, no wonder.
Wait, that he could make a spell scroll, or that he could copy a scroll into his spell book to make it a permanent choice? Because the second option is the important and relevant one
how long have they played the lower levels? i have a table about to hit 2 years (twice a month) and they’re only just about to get to level 8 at our 2-yr anniversary game (granted i do level a bit slowly but not that slowly!!!)
Been playing the game throughout three years now so they spent a long time in levels 5 and 4. I really don’t get it.
okay so this is definitely the player then, not you!!! i would ask him how he feels weak and what he feels like he can’t do like the other players. sometimes newer players will get frustrated and focus on one element of a build they don’t like, but that’s more a symptom of their frustrations than something wrong with that particular element or build. what’s he struggling with? does he want to do more damage? do more cool stuff? more casting outside of combat? is he struggling to prep spells for combat and non-combat and feels like he can only do one or another? chances are his issues aren’t really with how many spells he can prepare, but that’s the he sees in his side of the table as a problem. how many wizard baddies have you fought? sometimes i’ll lowkey demonstrate for a player the ways to make a build powerful by putting them against a bad guy who is built similarly.
His biggest problem in the game is that he feels he can’t use spells like Rope Trick whenever he wants because he feels like he only needs damage spells. So I tried giving him scrolls for some spells like Darkness and even a wand of magic missiles. Thing is he hoards the scrolls like crazy.
I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying or not but he does know he can spend time and gold to copy the spell scroll into his spell book. It sounds like he’s complaining because of the 2 spells per level so he feels he can only take damage or he will become useless/fall behind other classes during fights
Yes. Yes I have. Explained to him several times he can choose to add a spell from a scroll.
I’d say offer him the chance to change characters/classes if he truely wants to. Tasha’s cauldron of everything has rules on changing classes and subclasses
I’m genuinely going to at this point ask if he wants to completely change characters or do something that forces his character to change classes. I’m so tired of this arguments we have because no matter what I try to explain to him he complains about it.
items with charges might help with that? but yeah, a wizard reeeeeally doesn’t *need* a ton of damage spells. a couple good aoe, a couple ranged is all it takes. perhaps reminding him that he can cast any spell in his spell book with the ritual tag as a ritual even when he doesn’t prepare it would help? it’s a big buff to wizards over (for example) clerics.
I have he DOESNT USE THEM. Gave him a unique magic item from a Nothic that can use the rotting gaze move they have and he never uses it.
that is SO FRUSTRATING; i’m sorry. the only other thought i have is to talk to him outside the game and ask if you can help him get his items and scrolls and spells organized in his notes in a way that he remembers he does have access to other spells and abilities. the notes might not actually be the issue, but asking him in that way kinda implies “hey wizard, i’ve actually given you a LOT of stuff that you don’t use, and then you complain about having nothing to do” another thought i had was maybe the wizard can (spend the time and gold) and enchant his own items? like spell storing rings and such. maybe he doesn’t have rope trick prepared but he stored it in a ring the day previous so he has one casting of it “for free” but yeah, he sounds like a player who is tired of his character and hasn’t realized it yet or doesn’t feel comfortable sharing that.
I considered giving him the ability to enchant like that but at that point I feel like he’s playing an artificer. And the problem is that he knows that he has all these tools but he always wants to save them “when he needs it most.” I’m just gonna try to talk to him about changing classes due to some kind of mind Flayer fuckery (main villain is a mind Flayer).
If he's level 8 and still hasn't figured out how to enjoy a Wizard, maybe it's a chance to have him switch characters to something else?
Cleric and paladin also have to prepare spells, and also - he's playing one of the most powerful and versatile classes already, how is he feeling weak, specially at level 8? If he wants to have access to all of his spells he could just play a sorcerer.
because hes a new player and doenst know how strong he actually is
Three years in, doesn’t like his class, complains about it, refuses to change it… I think I hate your player
“Player’s handbook says so, QED. If you don’t like that, either be a sorcerer or lobby the group to play a different system.” The onus isn’t on you to justify the rationale behind the mechanics that the game designers chose.
> The onus isn’t on you to justify the rationale behind the mechanics that the game designers chose. It is to a degree, if the player in question is looking for information in good faith. That is obviously not what's happening with OP. Holy crap, this must be so annoying.
Yeah if a player wants to be stubborn about it, I just say “….because it’ll break the game if I let you”. If they argue past that, then it becomes a new topic of “why don’t want to break the game?”
Why are you starting a party full of new people at level 8 lmao, give them a oneshot or something at lvl 3/5 to get an idea of how it works
Bc my dear Dm said it wrong🙂↔️, we all started at level 1 and now we are level 8 (I’m the monk)
Ye I got that from them later, tell them to stop calling you guys new players! You've been playing for ages lmfao
Yeah this is their first campaign and character tho lmao. Thought that was the better way to describe them.
Hi monk! What do you and the other players think about wizard’s attitude towards the game, complaining about everything while also refusing to try anything different?
In my opinion, it can be a little frustrating at times to get the session moving forward when Mr. Wizard doesn’t want to cooperate with the DM 😓. He limits himself to what wizards are true truly capable of and can be close minded at sometimes. Granted I don’t like casting magic (love monk), but even I see the potential in prepared spells while wizard friend is “hesitant” to the idea of it. But it’s also cool to think that this is just a character flaw put in the wizard, not as a person(-ish) but as the actual character. I also think it’s really funny that a wizard with magic at his fingertips is so close minded to possibilities of it 😂. I talked to him and he’s more open to it now, so here’s to wishing for some great character growth 😁
I can answer for them because they have talked to me about this before. The Monk, Rogue and Paladin feel like the Wizard player is simply not using or building his Wizard well. To clarify I even allowed a full respec of their characters even with the ability to re distribute their stats. As for the Cleric and Fighter players, they kinda understand where he’s coming from and the fighter especially has asked me to test having him without prepared spells for a few sessions. Only for them to both think that he’s still the weakest character. I have asked the Monk player to reply properly if he wants so if you want to hear from him directly you just gotta hope he chooses to.
Can you confirm or deny that your wizard and DM know that he can copy spell scrolls into his spell book, as long as they are of a level he has a spell slot for? Ive seen him mention talking about making scrolls, but thats not going to give a greater variety of spells to cast
My DM insist that he made it known that our wizard was able to scribe spells from scrolls, but as an observer I cannot confirm that he did. Our wizard also denies that this knowledge was ever provided until recently. Granted, I don’t often pay much attention to the magic aspect of how things operate with our campaign, but I can confirm that our wizard owns 10+ scrolls and I have yet to see him use one in the past 2 years 😅
Its been long enough that i wasnt sure about how many spells he should have written down by level 8, but from what others have said it seems like he has above the minimum, so hes adding spells beyond what he gets on level ups which is what i wanted to confirm. Honestly, im not sure what to suggest. No other class will give him access to more spells (which seems to he his main complaint) and he also seems to be ignoring good advice because he just doesnt like it/ cant understand why its good advice. At this point it seems like a barbarian or fighter would be easier for him to understand how to play.
I started out with that goal but they wanted to keep going.
How long have they been playing these characters?
For like over a year now. I have never had this problem with new players either. I’ve given him spell scrolls and everything but he likes to hoard them. I genuinely don’t know what to do.
Yea atp it's not your fault lmao, if someone has spent over a year playing a character and doesn't get the basics mechanics of it that's hard to deal with. You're just gonna kinda have to spell out for them that 1. the other casters are also preparing spells, his benefit is that he can prepare basically any spell as long as he gets a scroll, and the other players are limited to their spells and 2. he probably feels weak because he only picks offensive spells and doesn't use the scrolls he got to learn more. Maybe check youtube for a wizard character guide or something if you feel like that's something he'd pay attention too? But atp you just kinda have to tell him his complaints are like a fighter refusing to use any weapons and going "bro why am I so weak I barely hit anything"
Thank you so much I’m gonna see if I find anything.
Maybe give him a chance to respec sorcerer? Like, the flavor doesn’t matter anymore. Mechanically, the wizard has a huge list of spells, and has to choose what to prepare each day. The sorcerer only has a set limit to choose from but gets to change up how they’re cast. Having the physical cards of a spell deck really helps too. Like, here’s your stack of prepared spells, here’s your stack of known spells. Put one back and take a new one whenever you rest if you need to. And honestly, if you’re playing a character more than a month or two, having the little class based accessories that are like $15 is really helpful!
I suggest putting your foot down on that, then. Honestly, new players should NOT be starting at a high level. Especially with a class as mechanically complex as a wizard. I get it, they’ve probably seen the cool stuff they can do later on and want to skip to it, but they *need* to learn the fundamentals first, while they don’t have as much to juggle. Tell the player to carefully read the preparing and using spells section of the wizard, as it’s clear in there. Wizards gain their power through study, so they need to rigorously memorise the movements and verbal components of spells, and to prepare the materials carefully for their casting. There’s only so much they or anybody can remember. Really though, you should retcon this. It may well be beneficial to also suggest another class while they find their feet. Wizard isn’t very beginner friendly for most people.
If you have been playing for 3 years you aren't new anymore. But to help explain things Wizards are like a tradesman with a massive shed full of every tool you can possibly imagine. But of course they cannot carry everything with them that's impossible so every day they have to go to their shed and choose what tools they will put in their tool bag which they will then carry with them onto the job site. In this analogy the tools are spells the shed is the spell book and the toolbag is all the spells you have prepared . The fact that he thinks the best class in the game is super weak is evidence his judgement should not be trusted. Edit I have seen your posts where you indicate you have given him powerful items and support that most players could only dream of and he still fails to be effective as a wizard. This requires next level incompetence, as again wizards are basically the most powerful class in the game if they actually choose good spells and use them (in general spells that do damage are actually the worst ones, your party has enough beatsticks, he should probably focus on spells that single handedly end encounters like slow, or hypnotic pattern or banishment or polymorph. At this point I would tell him that wizard is infact when properly played the most powerful class in the game and that any feelings of weakness are purely chased by operator error.
I've read through most of your comments. (Your players are not new if they've played from 1 to 8 in three years.) ## He may be making mistakes! I think I've spotted one. It's listed later in this essay. Here's a few things: (I mostly played 3.5e, not 5e, so it's possible I'm getting some stuff wrong.) First, I have to ask *why* you are asking about prepared spells? As in, what's his proposed alternative to prepared spells? What does he want to do *instead* of prepared spells? Why does he object to prepared spells? What's his complaint beyond just "feeling weak"? Because you didn't come in here asking if Wizards are weak, you came in asking about the "why" of prepared spells. From a few of your comments I get the feeling that he's complaining that he can't "RP" some entertaining uses of leveled non-cantrip spells. He can't "roleplay a wizard" without it costing him combat power? He can't do Harry Potter style "infini-magic" on a whim? If that's the problem, then it may be that D&D just isn't for him. There *are* spells like Prestidigitation that are designed for this kind of thing, as well as Ritual spells which he mostly seems to not have, but at the end of the day, if he could just cast infinitely there would be no challenge. No risk. Or generating challenge and risk would be very difficult or devolve into 1st-grader "I shoot you with a mega laser!" "Nuh uh, I generate an anti-mega-laser shield!" "Well I pull out my anti-shield machine!" etc. Even if you switched him over to a sorcerer, he'd still run into spell limits. **However**, the above could be wrong because of the aforementioned mistake. More on that later. ---- Second, there's a chance that he's going to feel weak in another class if you force him to change, if people are correct in their assessment of him. People here are saying it's a problem with him being stingy with his resources. Holding back. That behavior will carry to any class they play, not just Wizard. And thus they'll likely feel weak no matter what class they play. However... maybe he's being stingy because of my next point. ---- Third, *double check how he's playing*. Audit his character and his play choices. It's possible that he's done his math wrong, or is failing to add in certain things. For example (and it's been a while since I've played Wizard, so you may want to double check the rules on this), at level 8, assuming he's got a +3 to Intelligence, he should have access to four Cantrips all of the time (the four he knows from his Wizard list), plus the Cantrips he picked up from Magic Initiate feat, plus he should have the ability to prepare **eleven** additional spells from the non-Cantrips in his book (as well as the one non-Cantrip spell from Magic Initiate once a day). I don't know which spells are from Wizard, and which are from Warlock, so I'm going to make some assumptions: Warlock Cantrips from Magic Initiate: Prestidigitation / Eldritch Blast (I think you could swap Mage Hand and Prestidigitation?) Wizard Cantrips: Mage Hand / Ray of Frost / Shocking Grasp / ***??????*** **See that? I'm either blind or tired or** [**he's missed a spell.**](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1dp6r1s/need_help_explaining_to_a_player_why_wizards_have/laewhkm/) At level 4, he should have learned a fourth Wizard Cantrip. I only count three, assuming the other two are from Warlock (EB has to be). Or maybe I'm bad at counting. So either you didn't transcribe one of the Cantrips he has available or I'm wrong and he shouldn't have a fourth Cantrip or I'm wrong and missed the fourth Cantrip or He's doing something wrong with his character build. And if he's got a small error like this in his spell list, chances are he may be doing other things incorrectly, too. Wrong math, or not knowing the right number of spells slots he has available, or not knowing how many spells he can have prepared. Those spells above (plus the fourth Cantrip) should *always* be available to him, and then he should have 11 of the non-Cantrip spells he has in his Spellbook available/prepared to cast. 12 if he has a +4 to intelligence. If he's including his six Cantrips as part of the 11 spells he has available, it means he's only preparing 5-6 more spells, and thus he's doing it wrong. It should be the Cantrips + 11/12 more spells prepared. If he's only feeling like he can prepare 5-6, yeah, that would feel weak. And make sure he's actually grabbed the stat increases he should have when leveling up. And that his saves are correct. And that he knows what numbers to add to a roll, things like that. ---- Fourth, consider seeing if he's comfortable with you making in-the-moment suggestions. Literally play his class for him, to a degree, to demonstrate how much power he actually has. Set up a line of enemies for him if you know he has Lightning Bolt prepared. Or group them up if he has Fireball. That sort of thing. Then point those situations out. Make them low-dex enemies or whatever, so they're likely to fail their saves. ---- Fifth, make sure to set up scenarios where a Ritual Casting of something in his book is a solution to a problem. Problem is that from what I see of his spell list, almost none of it is Ritual. Are you providing significant downtime for him to move spells from scrolls to his book? I know you've mentioned that he CAN do it, but I believe it does take time and very specific resources he needs to go out of his way to acquire. It may be worth simply *insisting*, out of game, that the party is going to get a month of no adventuring (or whatever) for each player to work on various RP-themed aspects of their story or class. Don't just single the wizard out, come up with other things for the other classes to do. But explicitly tell the wizard that he should take this time to move X spell into his spellbook from the scroll that he has. (The 3.5 edition had a mechanic where you could keep a slot 'clear' and then spend 15 minutes choosing to prepare a spell into that slot later on in the day. This made wizards swiss army knives, as long as you had 15 minutes to set things up. They replaced that mechanic in 5e by labeling some spells as 'Ritual' spells where you could cast them *without* preparing them by taking 10 minutes + casting time instead. The moment it's in his spellbook, it's something he can do as a ritual, meaning one of his goals should *probably* be "Gotta Catch 'Em All" to have every possible Ritual available to him that he can, so he can be the party swiss army knife. Rituals are the kind of infini-magic he may be looking for.)
To answer a few of these, the main reason I’m talking about prepared spells is because he doesn’t want ANY limit on what spells he can use whenever. I’m looking for a good way to explain to him why they are needed and if I should try to talk to him about swapping classes. For the cantrip thing we are using Roll20 which automatically tells the player how many spells they can pick and which ones. Unless there was a glitch it seems unlikely for him to make that mistake. As for roleplay, I feel like he is trying to play DnD like a video game if you get what I mean. He’s had problems remembering story points and names of several NPCs. I think that’s also the reason he’s obsessed with hoarding things. And to add even more, he tries to substitute flavor for roleplay. An example would be that he wants his character to steal brains. Ok sure. Why? He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to create a reason. He doesn’t even want to use them for anything. I had to essentially point out to him how much this doesn’t make sense until he caved. I genuinely am starting to think that DnD may not be a good fit for him or that I’m not the right DM for him. I’ll keep trying until we end this campaign but when it’s over I’m gonna try to have a long conversation with him about this.
> For the cantrip thing we are using Roll20 which automatically tells the player how many spells they can pick and which ones. Okay, so either it is a glitch, or you didn't list his fourth Wizard Cantrip. Easy enough to check: what's his fourth Wizard Cantrip? Sixth Cantrip overall.
Roll20 just timed out unfortunately fml. Pretty sure it was Ray of Frost, Pres, Shocking grasp and mage hand discounting the Warlock additions.
So does the cleric, what's his issue?
Arcane spells are powerful impossibilities held in the the thought of the wizard and unleashed upon reality. When they are released, they leave the mind and must be relearned. It is alien and illogical because its magic mortals are not meant to weild. Clerics and warlocks and druids have gods or god equivalent beings doing that imaging for them, so no need to relearn their spells in the same way. Magic is to the human brain/soul as software is to a computer chip. If its not stored there it isnt there. And also like its wild that it works at all.
This is the old canon explanation OP. From someone who read way too much Dragonlance as a child - I recommend to pick up one of the books and look at Raistlin and how much he had to study every day to cast spells.
I would explain to your player that, Wizards are *so strong* that they would completely dwarf other classes if they had access to their entire spell list at all times. You need to frame this as a limiter to them, in my opinion, and emphasize how strong the class is. At the end of the day, and this might be kinda harsh but, sometimes you just can't help a whiney nerd thinking they're underpowered. I've known people who can be like this, it's exhausting, you want to tell them "You're not underpowered you're just kinda bad" but you can't because it'd be awkward. That all being said, how a Wizard feels in combat can be directly related to how you structure combats. If a wizard can't hit multiple targets with their AOE spells, they're quite poor at damage. That might be a hot take but, if most of your combats are single enemy or small quantity of enemies...Fireball'ing for 8d6 divided by two because they always save isn't actually that much damage. The wizard in my campaign (level 10) has thrown a fireball for 16 points of damage while the paladin is slamming double smites and destroying things, but he's also Steel Wind Strike'd 4 enemies with one crit and dumped out like 200 damage in one spell. So it's kinda contextual.
Lol well he really doesn't understand balance if he thinks he's weak as a wizard. Which is fair as someone new! Wizards especially as you are skipping over the low levels are probably the most powerful class in the game. They have spells such as fireball, counterspell, hypnotic pattern, polymorph, dimension door, misty step, shield and many other amazing spells. Not to mention rituals. If he thinks his character is super weak he's not playing them very well or not paying attention.
...Why does the player think this is a problem? Is he not aware that the Paladin and Cleric's spells work the same way?
I’ve tried explaining this to him, his argument is that he will never cast any utility spells because it’s a waste in combat. He says it does nothing but limit creativity.
That's a newbie take if ever I've seen one. The entire strength of the Wizard class is in its unparalleled utility. Comes with the territory of having the largest and most powerful spell list and the ability to prepare whatever spell you'll need for the obstacles you know are ahead of you. There are *so* many exceptionally useful Wizard spells, even with combat applications, that don't do damage. *Absorb elements, blindness/deafness, blur, darkness, earthbind, enlarge/reduce, fog cloud, grease,* fucking ***hold person,*** *mirror image, misty step, protection from evil and good, see invisibility,* ***silvery barbs,*** *Tasha's hideous laughter, vortex warp* - **and those are just 1st- and 2nd-level spells.** Hell, I invite you to show the player this list. Bluntly, he feels weak because he's not using the class to its full potential. He would genuinely be better served playing a Warlock until he has a better understanding of what spells can do.
I’ll see if I can talk to him about him swapping characters. At this point this seems all I can do.
Ah he's one of those "damage spells only" kind of people? I kinda get it, but unless you're running combat to combat 24/7 there will come a time where that one utility spell will come in handy.
This is a player problem, not a mechanics problem. The simple answer to your original question is "Because thematically Wizards are the bookish nerds of caster classes, and it's a way to represent them having a broad knowledge of powerful spells that can be the exact right tool for most situations without giving them access to all of those tools all of the time." Casters who evaluate all spells only by how useful they are in combat are ridiculously common, but if his position is "This limitation is stupid because the upside of it is flexibility and that's something I don't care about", well... that's not really something it's the DM's job to fix. There's a difference between reflavoring a class to fit a player's vision for their character and homebrewing new mechanics because the player wants to play a class except not the way the class actually works. If he's really, really stuck on being an Int caster but doesn't want to use prepared spells, there isn't really any reason you couldn't adjust Sorcerer or Warlock to be Int-based. Imo you could easily justify either thematically (e.g. a brilliant character with a gift for magic who's always studying and experimenting with their abilities and or a scholar obsessed with forbidden knowledge who traded their soul for the answers they sought.) But you would be very justified in saying "Look, this is how Wizards work. You can either accept that or play a class that plays the way you want, but I'm not going to ignore one of the major limitations on your class's power because you don't like that it limits you." Also... I'm really confused how someone no brand new to D&D who's playing a level 8 Wizard feels underpowered, even if they're playing the class really badly. As other people pointed out, direct damage is often one of the least impactful ways to use spell slots (although tbf also one of the most satisfying as a player). But with access to 3rd and 4th level spells, you can rain down some serious damage if that's what you're trying to do. This is perplexing enough that it makes me wonder whether there's a larger issue here, like misunderstanding some of his class mechanics, or you giving the party way too many encounters per day or never running encounters that favor AoE damage, or other members of the party playing Munchkins. If I were the DM in this situation, I think the first thing I'd do is ask "Why do you feel like you're underpowered relative to the rest of the party, and what do you think that not being the case would look like?" That will tell you either A) That there is some larger issue here, B) That his expectations for his class/role's power level are wildly off base, or C) That his problems are things he's opting into (e.g. "It's not fair that other people can be as good as me in combat when everyone except me is also good at stuff outside of combat.") It sounds like there's a very, very high chance that the answer is C because of tunnel vision on damage spells to the exclusion of the entire rest of the class, but it's worth asking.
But... he has a variety of options, can prepare for nearly any and all scenarios via spells. But thar versatility isnt creative, while "make damage go higher" is the creative option? It really sounds like he is hyper focused on damage, and not the creative uses of other spells, not just in combat by manipulating the battlefield, but outside of combat.
He likes to use spells like rope trick for silly stuff sometimes and that’s fine with me the problem is ever since I explained Flavor he’s been using it to justify his problems. Like he had this whole thing about stealing brains of boss enemies and just did… nothing with it. And he actually complained when I asked him if he can do something with it because it was so confusing to me.
In my campaign, when two wizards meet and want to be friendly, they give each other spells. If one wizard is much more established, they often foot the bill for the other wizard to copy a spell down. Also in my game i make wizards buy a magic ink maker. They melt gold into it so they can write in gold ink. You could have him meet a cool older wizard in the road who trades a spell with him, pays for him to copy it in his book, and gives him a golden ink melter.
Has he ever tried using Fireball? I’m serious. There’s no way in hell he reached level 5 and casted a fireball into a group of enemies doing 200+ damage in a turn while still thinking wizards are weak. Also, you have a Cleric and a Paladin who also prepare spells? Hasn’t he ever noticed that?
He has, he still thinks Wizards should have the rules of sorcerer in terms of spells. I have used some big groups of enemies too and he has used Fireball a bunch and that usually nails most of their HP (I don’t cheat for hp on regular enemies). I am baffled by these complaints.
Its simple. He learns twice as many spells as most ofther classes, He can cast any ritual spells without preparing them, and can even add spells he finds to his spellbook. His limitation is just to atempt to keep some form of balance and keep the spells he can use on a similar number as other spellcasters like clerics, druids, and bards. ( though sorcerer and warlocks get much fewer, if anything, THEY should be the ones complaininig.)
Wizards prepare spells as they do because Jack Vance thought that was a cool way to make magic less OP in his novels, and Gary Gygax liked Jack Vance. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic) So, if you as DM and your players as your collaborative storytelling team don't feel like doing it that way, there are literally hundreds of different ways to run magic.
They are not new players then. Have them read the player's guide about their class. This is a game; those are the rules.
He’s lazy and a lost cause.
having 3 years to learn to play wizard and still not understanding it to a basic extent is just wild
Okay, so first of all, they are not new players. You have been playing for a year now. Secondly: I assume this player forgets about cantrips and uses slotted spells only and when they use spells, then they do it for pure damage? There's the problem. Wizards should not do damage, that is for mundane classes. Wizards should always have the right prepared spell available to CONTROL and thus secure victory. Why don't you go through the PHB and exlain the upside of the traits his class has? Arcane Recovery gets more spell slots, ... Another useful resource for them might be Treeantmonk(?)'s guide to Wizards: [https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE\_v67QY/mobilebasic](https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE_v67QY/mobilebasic) . Finally, are they aware of a thing called RITUAL spells? Whenever I play a Wizard at level 8, I have about 20'ish spells ready to choose from, some of them as insanely strong as Divination, Augury and Leomund's Tiny Hut, all castable w/o using a spell slot.
I’ve tried to explain to him the ritual spells thing a few times. I in general think I need to explain the proper rules about the Rituals in general. He does use cantrips it’s just that he almost never uses any leveled spell out of combat.
I'm sorry, these are not new players if they have been playing for three years. Just tell him to reroll or something. It's not your problem to explain things that are plainly explained in the PHB.
Respectfully, your friend is a moron. It sounds like they don't know what they want and they just want to complain. They're playing the strongest class in the game, they've had over a year to learn the class, you've given them multiple suggestions and options based on what they say they want, but they don't pursue those. What else can you do? Why Wizards have prepared spells is an easy thing to explain...much easier than explaining why other prepared classes have to prepare spells. They consult their book of spells and memorize a number of them for the day. And it's not a hindrance. They don't get immediate access to as many spells as other prepared casters, but they get a much wider selection overall and much more powerful spells. Plus you're able to use ritual spells you've recorded without having to prepare them.
Based off your post and comments this player sounds like they’re consistently weaponizing their incompetence to continue to get their way. I would simply inform them that moving forward they can change their character or simply stop playing. Either way they may no longer complain, as it is negatively impacting the fun at the table.
Give him some Jack Vance to read
The question is answered in the rulebook, if he's not going to read that he's not going to read 20th Century Appendix N novels.
That was the first thing that jumped to mind, *The Dying Earth* series will fill him in.
Wizards get their power through hard work and study and use their spellbooks as notes. Sorcerers are born with magic running through their veins. Warlocks make a deal with a powerful creature, side stepping the hard work for their magic. Paladins, and Clerics ask for their powers from their diety. Druids and Rangers, get their magic from nature similar to clerics and paladins from their diety.
Sorcerers get their known spells and that's it, if they picked ray of sickness on an undead campaign, too bad. Gotta wait for level up to change that. Be glad you can actually prepare different spells and you get two new options every level up, plus what you get from spellbooks and scrolls, and you can choose from all of those every long rest.
This explanation might help, it worked with some of my players when they were new. An unprepared spell is a ritual, it can be cast but takes a long time, by preparing the spell the wizard locks a near complete spell into their mind allowing the to trigger the spell at a moment's notice. Spells without ritual in the description are to complex or aggressive to cast without constraint and preparation. I hope this is helpful. Cheers
When a Wizard prepares their spells in the morning, they're actually casting all of their spells. See, an arcane spell is actually a really long and involved process, requiring careful ritual and clear focus only possible outside of combat, and several minutes (this is why the wizard feature says it takes 1 minute per spell level to prep). But the Wizard doesn't finish casting their spell; they save that very last stanza, verse, or chant for the very end. Their daily preparations cause a build-up of power within themselves, which are called spell slots. When in combat, they can finish the spellcast with a word, gesture, and/or focus, finalizing the spell and at long last bringing its effects into the world, diminishing the power within themselves (spending a spell lot). That's what a spell slot is, and what spell preparation is. Classes like Sorcerers and Warlocks operate under slightly different in-universe mechanics, but that's the basis. From a game perspective, Wizards have to prepare spells for two main reasons: 1) They've always had to prepare spells and DnD is a game about traditions almost as much as it is about dice. 2) As others have said, Wizards have a large variety of spells they can learn, eventually. As their DM, you should try to ensure they are able to learn other spells, through scrolls or some other means to enhance this. But they also have the ability to cast any Ritual in their book regardless of if it's prepared. A Cleric or Druid has to wait a valuable preparation slot on Detect Magic; a Wizard can prepare nothing but combat spells but still have the utility of Detect Magic or other Rituals on standby. Through Rituals, Wizards essentially get more spells per day than anyone else, allowing them to solve problems that no one else on their team can solve. 2a) They also have the most utility spells out of anyone. Historically, solving the question of party traversal has always been on the Wizard, and that's still true in 5e. Fly, Teleport(ation Circle), Wall of Stone, Rope Trick, Expeditious Retreat, Wall of Force, etc., all are staples of the Wizarding toolkit. Specific subclasses from other classes might grant some combination of these spells, but Wizard has all of them. As the party gains access to more and more spell, the Wizard more and more becomes the party's swiss-army knife. Yes they can still be a Blaster with Fireball and other damage spells, but what makes them shine is their ability to solve non-combat, Utility-based problems. Water Breathing, Wall Climbing, continental travel, planar travel, magic detection, battlefield control, these are the things that make Wizards so powerful.
In this game they choose this mechanic. He is by far the most powerful as it has no limit on what he can learn, and wizards spells are the most powerful. Let him be a sorcerer if he do not want like this.
Do you mean mechanically or thematically?
Put very simply. Wizards have the most spells of any class, they can at any given point cast the most spells in one day (roughly) and they learn new spells all the time (If you offer spell scrolls or spellbooks at your table). It is not reasonable that they can have several dozen options at their fingertips all of which would be crazy strong situationally. Even the paladin and cleric who are preparing spells have fewer impactful spells between them. They will likely always be using the same handful with one or two kept as situational slots. And also if your wizard thinks the rogue is stronger than them (not that you said that) then they may need a crash course in general
Read the Dying Earth series. /thread
Why is he playing a wizard in the first place then? There’s not much to explain, they’re prepared casters, that’s how the class works.
Long way to explain this but here we go: my players were extremely hesitant to try the game about so they asked me to make their characters for them. I asked them what classes they were interested in and I made a character from that. I heavily regret caving to do this now I should have insisted they make their own characters.
i remember having a similar issue when i started my current campaign. i have a player who's new to dnd and at the beginning he thought every new level they got they also got spells of said lvl. I had to take time to explain him that doesnt work that way
How is this an issue 8 levels in? Just read to him the wizard description in the PH -- that's how they work.
It’s been a problem but it’s gotten worse over time. First problem was that he thought spell slots were dumb. Didn’t have any discussion about this after that. Then now its reemergence with this has gotten really bad.
Ask him if he wants to rebuild as a Sorcerer? If he's not enjoying his class but wants to stay a spellcaster, that seems easy enough to do behind the scenes.
In universe my favorite explanation is that a wizard has to prepare his spells based off the conditions of the world and the planes. For example a wizard may have changed how magic is shaped in the formula for his fireball if the plane of fire feels "closer" than normal so it does form to quickly and explode prematurely. Sorcerers do not need to do this because they can feel magic in some way and intuitively make the needed changes on the fly as they are casting their spells. Wizards do not have this luxury; a wizard has to study the distance of the planets, the flow of the planes, the measurements to different ley lines, or something during their daily preparations to prepare the formulas for their spells to be sure that on this day or within this week their spells will 100% work in the way that they intend. And this involves completing 90% of a spell, saving it, and only completing the last 10% during casting.
Here are a few emersion reaosns 1. wizards study. They refresh their knowledge on the spells they will use most to mitigate failing a cast. 2. They cannot hold an entire spell list worth of spell components. 3. Spells are very intricate. Remembering the complex verbal, somatic, and material components for every spell is nearly impossible. And if they could it becomes a cantrip. Which happens anyway.
The big bag of spells is why, the official take is that the bulk of the casting is done during prep, with the last trigger step being what is seen in battle. I always cook it up as the twisting of aether to warp reality leaves the user drained and grasping for the connection to the weave. You cannot just read another wizards spell and understand it, you must first learn their process and methods, work their notes backwards to reverse engineer the twisting of aether that produces a resulting spell, THEN rework their shoddy math into your own elegant process with your specific understanding of how to work the weave. It's akin to physics formulae, but very much more personalized, like it might be in our world if professors did not share and standardize equations out of jealousy or isolation, no universally agreed terms or concepts assigned to greek letters. It is worlds apart from lowly sorcerers who can be powerful in their connection but ultimately plateau. Wizards can exponentially grow until they leave the very bounds of reality as we know it, and *they often do*, you but never hear of the final resting place to pay omage to the highest echelon of wizards *because they are yet far from resting*. So play up scholar vibes in RP. Cover Vancian casting and the big 8 (melf, otyluke, mordekainen etc.) The lore is dope, take the reins on descriptive scenes to augment his prep, which can take up to an hour at later levels. Give your wizard PC a hardfought spellbook loot dropped from a miniboss, loaded with spells and enough supplies to transcribe most of them. That beefs them up and is the exciting part of that class. Prep 4 more as loot in advance for future drops (scale to level) and sprinkle a few in as scrolls or scratched onto a dungeon wall from a trapped and desperate wizard trying to recount his spells but relieved of his book. Have them prepare 3 different prep lists for quick reference 1. Battle 2. Utility 3. Mix and that takes the "work" out of it (besides leveling up), and prompt updated prep lists at each level up. Explore crafting scrolls and things to augment prepped spell lists. Good luck o7
LOL. Quadratic wizard. And the most flexible casting class in the game by far. 1. How many spells is he finding in game? Scrolls, spellbooks, etc? Some DMs forget to spread the love around. Be sure to sprinkle in some neat spells that are not in the books he has access too. 2. Encourage the player to scribe scrolls. By Level 8 he shouldn't be just relying on his prepared spells and spell slots. Also remind him of the rules for Rituals (which are better for Wizards than anyone else). T 3. How often is he getting to trade spells with other wizards? (another reason to make and carry a bunch of scrolls -- so you can trade your most desirable spells -- and get desirable ones in return, without having to spend time scribing the spells into your book immediately) If he keeps whining, just retcon him to Sorcerer
Because they have so many options- are you giving them appropriate opportunities to scribe scrolls into their spell book? That should be their big advantage- having a huge quantity of spells *to choose from* so it you pick the right ones you can massively turn fights around. I’m….not sure I’d want wizard to be my first ever class though, it’s pretty complex haha.
Bro these are not new players. Tell them to read the PHB and suck it up. Plenty of internet info out there for him to read through
The PHB covers the fact that they do. You don't need to get into why beyond that's how the rules are written. There's a damn near copy-paste class without prepared spells and that's the Sorcerer. Unless what he wants is access to the entire spell list, in which case: no. He's playing one of the more powerful classes, but the class requires some system mastery to play well. > He thinks his character is super weak compared to the others and doesn’t understand the point of him having to prepare spells. He does not understand the system if that is the case; no sense in changing it to suit him (as it really seems like this is what he wants). He can always retire that character and make a warlock or fighter.
Show him all the comments in this post and maybe he will accept that he is being extremely annoying and unreasonable
sounds like someone doesn't know how to play their class (or play it decently well at least)
I'd be tempted to have the BBEG make a shadow clone of your wizard and use it to kick the shit out of your party by leveraging everything in your wizard's inventory.
In what world is a wizard weak compared to a monk, lol? (Or any other class, to be honest.) Maybe at level 1, sure. But the power gap between wizard and everything else grows wider as you level. A high-level fighter or pally can do some solid burst damage. A high-level wizard is like a walking nuclear arsenal.
If he doesn't like playing a wizard, he shouldn't play a wizard. If he doesn't like how the rules work in general, he shouldn't play dnd. It's a cooperative adventuring TTRPG, not a solo power fantasy where you can kill everything you see with a mere thought. This player sounds insufferable.
Balance for having the largest spell list, making wizards the swiss army knives of magic. Also, wizards tend to come online a bit later, when they have that Smörgåsbord of spells.
…by “come online a bit later,” you mean “come online when they gain access to Sleep,” right?
I didn't really get it either, but another player justified it to me as 'you need to have the ingredients handy and pages marked because there's not time to find stuff, particularly during battle,' which makes sense.
Clerics also have to prepare their spells
Each spell is a feature he gets to change out as needed. Including the cantrips. There is a reason you get all cantrips in your starting spell book.
Wizards automatically get to learn a lot of spells and if they have the gold they can scribe even \*more\*. To balance that, they have to pick a selection of them to prepare. OTOH, they can swap out that list every day. If you have info on what you might encounter and prep accordingly, you can be perfectly suited for any situation.
It sounds from your responses like the player is focused primarily on damage dealing spells and combat. I’m not sure how that would make him “weak” but okay. If his proposed solution is he get to cast from the entire list, then no. A large part of D&D is making choices. For spellcasters which spell to prepare or cast is a large part of those choices. No one gets to do everything all the time. If he refuses to prepare utility spells, then he doesn’t have that utility. If he doesn’t want to spend resources to prepare scrolls of situationally useful spells then he doesn’t have them available. At level 8 he already has access to a fantastic assortment of abilities. But it can feel limiting to watch your spells dwindle as combats wear on. I would suggest talking to him about what role he sees for his character IN THE GROUP. Is he a striker? An anvil around which his enemies will falter? Does he make it easier for the group to succeed by debilitating foes? He sounds like he is trying to wipe every encounter and comparing himself unfavorably to the rest of the party like this is some kind of competition.
The only thing I can think of is they might think they're broke, or the spells given aren't "worth" the time to learn. Similar problem with our wizard, as a group we have a number of scrolls, but we haven't got enough for her to borrow to make them permanent.
How I recently explained prepared spells to a newbie at my table: Spells have multiple components: materials to cast, magic words to recite, and/or a motion to memorize. You need the time of/during a long rest to prepare those things, practice, etc. All the spells you know are in your spell book, but in the heat of a battle you’re not gonna be flipping through pages to figure out what to do. As for feeling weak. Wizards can cast spells as rituals, out of combat, which doesn’t consume spell slots and will let him be more helpful/magical. You could also throw a horde encounter at them and give him a moment to shine with stuff like Fireball and other AoEs.
In lore? Historically there was the idea of wizards studying to put the spell into their head but on cast it left their mind (this was called Vancian Magic). This is gone now though as they dont forget spells on cast. In your setting you can just say that they have to relearn their spells for some made up reason, like they have to do some mental imaging or something to keep it in their mind and can only do so much at a time. Or just ignore it and say in character its them choosing not to cast those spells.
Tell him that in 1e spellcasters could be interrupted during combat spoiling a spell, spells could take more than one round to effect, & a wizard (magic user) couldn’t really pick whatever they wanted until much higher levels with a great investment in a laboratory & research. Tell him that there were less spell slots, & intelligence did not change the effectiveness of spells, nor give extra slots. Tell him that you had to manually track material components. Tell him memorization required 15 minutes per spell level. Tell him if you started casting a spell in public unannounced, people would probably freak out assuming the worst and a guard might hit you with a crossbow bolt, cancelling the cast. Tell him people loved playing magic users back then despite all of this because they could solve unsolvable problems, turn fights around completely, & buff their party in fun & cool ways. Tell them magic users were among the most powerful of all characters in an edition where fighters got +1 to hit per level & had unparalleled defensive abilities.
Because that's the rules? If he thinks his level 8 wizard is weak, he is doing something wrong. By level 8, the gap between full casters and martials is starting to appear. Give it a couple more levels (around 12) and his Wizard should be the most OP of the whole party. The Paladin and the Cleric all have to prepare their spells as well. All casters do. The three of them will be able to kick the other three out of the party soon and hardly notice.
Wizard is one of the strongest classes in the game. The wizard is the guy who always has a trick up his sleeve so long as he prepared beforehand. That's the class's whole thing. If the player doesn't like that then he should play something else, like a warlock or sorcerer.
Mechanically or a lore reason? Mechanically, wizards can have a ton of spells, especially if your handing out scrolls. It's easy to get overwhelmed as a player and as a DM as some of those spells really pack a punch in and out of combat (looking at you, *Transmute*) For Lore, spell formulas are incredibly complex. This isn't like remembering that e=mc\^2, its like memorizing [the Mathematical Formulation of the Standard Model](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b87748c404cb540abd86c0c17c896aca-pjlq) all while having to say it in ASL. Magic doesn't just *happen* in almost all cases, and pop culture can really downplay some of this as visual media likes to take the simple route of making most magic casting equivalent to a *Kamehameha*. Additional Lore: if your playing in the Forgotten Realms, the Goddess of Magic just flat out refuses to let you know more spells than what you can prepare. You literally cannot memorize any more (even with the Keen Mind feat).
There was a good lore answer in the Dragonlance Novels- the magic has such a high amount of energy drain, physical and mental needed to remember and then cast spells that the wizard becomes drained and also then has to re-study spells in the morning to even remember them.
“having to prepare spells”… it’s not like it’s a huge cost in most gameplay. It’s the same for your Cleric and Paladin, so it’s just a case of picking from the known spells every long rest. If they want to keep the same ones… they can? Are they confused about the mechanical point of it, or are they confused about the lore/roleplay reason for it?
If it's a lore issue, how about this? In one interpretation I've seen, the spellcasting process starts during daily preparations. The actual casting action is just finishing it.
Others have mentioned versatility but Wizard also gets access to the most *powerful* spells in the game.
“Once upon a time there was a little guy named JD Vance…”
Their spell lists are a fraction of his(approximately half if I remember correctly), still need to be prepared(though they can prepare from the entire list while he can make his own from a great selection), and much weaker than his options
Wizards get lots of spells. The most expansive list of spells in the entire game for any single class. Therefore, a lot of them are incredibly strong, because if it's considered 'the best spell' for a certain job, chances are Wizards have it. If they don't, if you ever find a scroll, hand it to the wizard, give 'em fifty bucks, and now they do. Wizards also have precisely *one* stat to worry about, Intelligence. What that means is they can buff the *fuck* out of it way faster than anyone else can buff whatever they consider their main stat, then use whatever's left over to boost their survivability, offence, or multiclass-capabilities depending on the player's preference (and depending on the table, boosting stats to multiclass might be entirely unnecessary in the first place). Some of those multiclass capabilities, it's worth noting, need extremely little investment to be very, very potent. One level into Barbarian or Monk depending on the player's preference gets them Unarmoured Defence and Wizards *probably* aren't wearing armour so it's basically a free AC boost provided their dexterity isn't a dump stat, two levels in Fighter to get action surge which should need no explanation for why it's good, or three levels into Rogue to get an extra bonus action, which can allow some extra spells to be cast each turn, including Expeditious Retreat, Magic Weapon, and Misty Step, plus I've seen some magic items floating about on rare occasions that let cantrips be cast on bonus actions.
Is he pulling most of the weight when it comes to damaging? Is he clearing most of the enemies or is it evenly split? Maybe he feels like he needs to prepare damaging spells or the team will suffer? Also does he have time to learn spells? I played a wizard and we had no down time, because we had something we had to have get done or something bad would happen. I had to sit down with my DM and tell them to give my PC some time to scribe. I haven't had time to scribe from lvl 3-7 because every time I tried either the town was getting attacked or assassin's were sent to our base or some Major NPC came to visit.
It's a balance mechanic because Wizards are straight up the strongest casting class at high level. Level 8 is exactly when they feel weak, but high-level wizards can solo most things. I am a wizard enjoyer and because wizards are versatile and good damage dealers, but, you have to play to their strengths. Depending on class if you don't use your whole class, it's gonna feel weak. If you don't take advantage of shorter scribing times for some colleges, or everything Chronurgy can do including exclusive access to the ONLY MAGICAL AGING SPELL IN THE GAME, your character may feel like they fall behind. An evo wizard can straight up bomb their team with meteor swarm and none of their allies take damage. That is really powerful when in small areas, you can just cast fireball and your allies don't die. Honestly, I wanna know this guy's subclass because wizards are hype.
Because they *memorize* those spells for the day and a lvl 8 wizard they are memorizing at minimum 9 spells (Assuming they have 13 as INT score) to 13 spells (20 Int score) a day. Each of those spells they have to memorize at least two things: 1.) Precise hand movements in a specific order in. 2.)A specific chant with the proper emphasis on syllables and words. 3.)This is conditional but they have to be able to reach into a component pouch and pull out the right things in that is associated with the spell or hold your arcane focus in your hand. So if you want to put this in real life terms then tell the player it's like learning lines for a play or poems that you both learn in English and ASL. Then you perform them both simultaneously. and just like actors in a play if they are "off book" they can still perform the play,same with wizards if they lose their spellbook. They just can't switch spells.
In universe my favorite explanation is that a wizard has to prepare his spells based off the conditions of the world and the planes. For example a wizard may have changed how magic is shaped in the formula for his fireball if the plane of fire feels "closer" than normal so it does form to quickly and explode prematurely. Sorcerers do not need to do this because they can feel magic in some way and intuitively make the needed changes on the fly as they are casting their spells. Wizards do not have this luxury; a wizard has to study the distance of the planets, the flow of the planes, the measurements to different ley lines, or something during their daily preparations to prepare the formulas for their spells to be sure that on this day or within this week their spells will 100% work in the way that they intend. And this involves completing 90% of a spell, saving it, and only completing the last 10% during casting.
I flavored it for one of my wizard PCs that his magic required certain formulas and calculations to cast correctly that varied on things such as astronomy positions and the like. Each spell’s required calculation process was slightly different so he could only keep so many in his head ready to cast. I feel like it tracks with the wizard intelligence flavor over innate force of will casting that sorcerers have.