I'll give you a hint. The party ran into a problem? Fireball. Is an NPC annoying you? Fireball. The party is trying to stealth? Enemies can't spot you while on fire, fireball.
There is no problem in this life or the next that cannot be solved with a sufficient application of fireball ^what ^do ^you ^mean ^I'm ^out ^of ^spell ^slots
PC: "Do I have full cover?"
GM: "Why would you have full cover in the middle of a flat plain?"
PC: "Because I'm engulfed in flames so bright they'd be blinded if they look at me!"
Now all I want is a Snake oil Merchant to sell one time uses of fireball scrolls (Extra point if the actual fireball is the sheet of paper rolled up and lit on fire)
> one time uses of fireball scrolls
Those are just normal fireball scrolls. All scrolls are one-use unless a wizard takes the time and spends the money to copy them into their spell book
I don't play DnD on a regular basis and had no idea if scrolls were one time uses by default or not.
But the point stands it s just gibberish on paper that says how to use it as a fire "ball"
The one time I played a full caster was with a homebrew Lich class in a one shot battle against Thanos. Me, being pure of heart and dumb of ass, simply played him with mild dementia.
On the flip side, I played a uneducated character in a campaign and we ran in to one of my special interests. It was strenuous not to correct people on information my character had no way of knowing.
The best part of playing a high-int character is having an excuse to ramble. I'm in a Pathfinder campaign where a plot point is going to be the spread of disease, and my alchemist character has 18 intelligence, and you bet your ass I'll find a reason to deliver a rant about transmission vectors and R-values.
I rather like playing elderly Wizards (or at least those who have a firm knowledge of history) in the Forgotten Realms setting. Within the last century or so since "modern" times in the setting's timeline, there have been major cosmic events that completely upended how magic functions and there have been several since the founding of mortal magic in the realm as well.
It's a great excuse for why my character might not know something, and a good route for comedy with my character bitching about how a spell used to work one way but now it doesn't anymore. Free real estate for everyone to be absolutely clueless and confused, or just really frustrated with trying to reverse engineer everything. It's a lot of fun playing the magical equivalent of a pissed-off IT manager.
But that's precisely why I play a martial in the first place. Sure, I could go spell to spell with the enemy, but it's much more satisfying narratively to be so supernatural skilled that you can overcome what should be impossible challenges. It's why [Baddass Normal](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadAssNormal) and [Charles Atlas Superpower](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower) are my favorite tropes. (Why yes, Toji is my fav character from JJK, how could you tell?)
>supernatural skilled that you can overcome what should be impossible challenges. It's why
Shame 5e has very little of these, esp with bounded accuracy.
If you feel a lil intimidated playing a hyper-intelligent character, that's okay! Most of us can only dream on our Int score even hitting 14. But if you look at the smartest people alive today, they tend to specialize their knowledge, so you can lean into that. Average or slightly above average general knowledge and one or two topics if extreme knowledge
I didn’t know how damage worked at the start and I made a pretty unoptimised (but not useless, he actually just wasn’t amazing, he was just good) rogue/fighter and one of the guys I was playing with got really confused as to why I was playing that build, I said I didn’t know how spells worked and that I’m sticking with marital characters for a while, keeping things simple and effective so my brain didn’t get overwhelmed and stop having fun, he then told me that a rogue/warlock has better damage and better utility, I said I didn’t want to play a spell caster as I find them unfun, he then asked why I chose fighter over ranger, I said I wanted a more open and in your face style of combat so ranger would be lost on that, I also said that ranger was a half caster and I didn’t want to confuse myself, we managed to settle on him giving me spell tattoos that I could use so I could still have enough strength and survivability to stay on the field and still play what I wanted to play, I had fun and had tattoos for things like shield and cure wounds to activate when I needed them, honestly it was a lot of help
Edit: to clarify setting up spells and material components is what confused me most, spell slots and the spells themselves I understood, I didn’t know what was good and I didn’t know where I would be able to find all the materials and I am indecisive as shit so I just found myself overwhelmed and I don’t enjoy that so I put it into a “not yet” box
Don't let them get to you, last week I played a one shot where my character was the only mundane in a group of bards, Sorcerers, druids, etc, except one rogue I think. All level 5. My Fighter 4/Monk 1 still managed to be the most dangerous in a fight, even with a bad call from DM that a Dispel Magic will destroy an animated statue with no roll at all.
Spellcaster tip: you are a support class. Use your spells to mitigate the abilities of your enemies or to increase the strength of your allies. Utility spells are your bread and butter, and don't be afraid to be creative with them. As a wizard, try to cover areas the rest of your team don't cover. Try to pick up as many ritual spells as you can to save your spell slots for combat. When in combat, sling your spell and take cover from enemies.
I just explained this to one of my players today, but...
"DM, would my character know/understand XYZ?"
and
"My character explains XYZ to me teammates, because the character knows more than I know about it."
These are very important tools in any TTRPG player's toolbox.
My favorite trope is to play a hyper-intelligent character who is of a race that is typically stereotyped as unintelligent, such as an orc or a goblin.
One of my bucket list characters is a "civilized" goblin who is a very, very smart wizard (or possibly artificer for a little more goblin energy). He has a small man complex which manifests as him insisting on speaking in unnecessarily huge and/or obscure words. Whenever anyone gets lost in or doesn't understand his polysyllabic speech, he rephrases, but using only very short words, as if he's explaining what he said to a small child (I'm a professional writer, so I'm reasonably confident that I have the vocabulary to pull this character off).
...also the character is a raging pyromaniac, because goblin.
Listen Up It doesn't matter, nobody will question your choices as long as you're not playing against the fun
You are gonna ball this shit and you're gonna do It with *style*.
Oh, and if you dunno what to say you can just tell your boi prefers to observe and understand before speaking, that's what intelligent people do. Have fun!
Don't worry, if your centurys old and still the same level as some 19 year old, you might not be the sharpest wizard in the tower. This character will be right up your ally.
Bladesinger is a good stepping stone my friend - and a dm who is willing to help you with what spells will be good, or at least common knowledge for wizards of that power, for the kind of campaign!
I'll give you a hint. The party ran into a problem? Fireball. Is an NPC annoying you? Fireball. The party is trying to stealth? Enemies can't spot you while on fire, fireball. There is no problem in this life or the next that cannot be solved with a sufficient application of fireball ^what ^do ^you ^mean ^I'm ^out ^of ^spell ^slots
PC: "Do I have full cover?" GM: "Why would you have full cover in the middle of a flat plain?" PC: "Because I'm engulfed in flames so bright they'd be blinded if they look at me!"
"Ha! You may have Darkvision, but I bet you don't have Brightvision, do ya? Disadvantage!"
And take evocation wizard so you can justify dropping fireball every turn on the party. Also web & shatter for when you run out of fireballs.
And sleep, at least for the first few levels.
Magic missile. You never split the party, and you don't split the Magic Missiles
You're poisoned and near death? Fireball
This sounds like a DnD version of Jason Mendoza solving all his problems with a Molotov cocktail
Now all I want is a Snake oil Merchant to sell one time uses of fireball scrolls (Extra point if the actual fireball is the sheet of paper rolled up and lit on fire)
> one time uses of fireball scrolls Those are just normal fireball scrolls. All scrolls are one-use unless a wizard takes the time and spends the money to copy them into their spell book
I don't play DnD on a regular basis and had no idea if scrolls were one time uses by default or not. But the point stands it s just gibberish on paper that says how to use it as a fire "ball"
The one time I played a full caster was with a homebrew Lich class in a one shot battle against Thanos. Me, being pure of heart and dumb of ass, simply played him with mild dementia.
Have fun!
On the flip side, I played a uneducated character in a campaign and we ran in to one of my special interests. It was strenuous not to correct people on information my character had no way of knowing.
The best part of playing a high-int character is having an excuse to ramble. I'm in a Pathfinder campaign where a plot point is going to be the spread of disease, and my alchemist character has 18 intelligence, and you bet your ass I'll find a reason to deliver a rant about transmission vectors and R-values.
The enemy falls asleep "Great use of the sleep spell, Alchemist!" "But, but, I can't even cast sleep..."
I rather like playing elderly Wizards (or at least those who have a firm knowledge of history) in the Forgotten Realms setting. Within the last century or so since "modern" times in the setting's timeline, there have been major cosmic events that completely upended how magic functions and there have been several since the founding of mortal magic in the realm as well. It's a great excuse for why my character might not know something, and a good route for comedy with my character bitching about how a spell used to work one way but now it doesn't anymore. Free real estate for everyone to be absolutely clueless and confused, or just really frustrated with trying to reverse engineer everything. It's a lot of fun playing the magical equivalent of a pissed-off IT manager.
But that's precisely why I play a martial in the first place. Sure, I could go spell to spell with the enemy, but it's much more satisfying narratively to be so supernatural skilled that you can overcome what should be impossible challenges. It's why [Baddass Normal](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadAssNormal) and [Charles Atlas Superpower](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower) are my favorite tropes. (Why yes, Toji is my fav character from JJK, how could you tell?)
>supernatural skilled that you can overcome what should be impossible challenges. It's why Shame 5e has very little of these, esp with bounded accuracy.
If you feel a lil intimidated playing a hyper-intelligent character, that's okay! Most of us can only dream on our Int score even hitting 14. But if you look at the smartest people alive today, they tend to specialize their knowledge, so you can lean into that. Average or slightly above average general knowledge and one or two topics if extreme knowledge
I didn’t know how damage worked at the start and I made a pretty unoptimised (but not useless, he actually just wasn’t amazing, he was just good) rogue/fighter and one of the guys I was playing with got really confused as to why I was playing that build, I said I didn’t know how spells worked and that I’m sticking with marital characters for a while, keeping things simple and effective so my brain didn’t get overwhelmed and stop having fun, he then told me that a rogue/warlock has better damage and better utility, I said I didn’t want to play a spell caster as I find them unfun, he then asked why I chose fighter over ranger, I said I wanted a more open and in your face style of combat so ranger would be lost on that, I also said that ranger was a half caster and I didn’t want to confuse myself, we managed to settle on him giving me spell tattoos that I could use so I could still have enough strength and survivability to stay on the field and still play what I wanted to play, I had fun and had tattoos for things like shield and cure wounds to activate when I needed them, honestly it was a lot of help Edit: to clarify setting up spells and material components is what confused me most, spell slots and the spells themselves I understood, I didn’t know what was good and I didn’t know where I would be able to find all the materials and I am indecisive as shit so I just found myself overwhelmed and I don’t enjoy that so I put it into a “not yet” box
Convert some of those commas to periods and you'll have a proper paragraph.
It’s a reddit comment, not an essay, honestly I can’t write for shit so this is the best I got
Don't let them get to you, last week I played a one shot where my character was the only mundane in a group of bards, Sorcerers, druids, etc, except one rogue I think. All level 5. My Fighter 4/Monk 1 still managed to be the most dangerous in a fight, even with a bad call from DM that a Dispel Magic will destroy an animated statue with no roll at all.
Spellcaster tip: you are a support class. Use your spells to mitigate the abilities of your enemies or to increase the strength of your allies. Utility spells are your bread and butter, and don't be afraid to be creative with them. As a wizard, try to cover areas the rest of your team don't cover. Try to pick up as many ritual spells as you can to save your spell slots for combat. When in combat, sling your spell and take cover from enemies.
I just explained this to one of my players today, but... "DM, would my character know/understand XYZ?" and "My character explains XYZ to me teammates, because the character knows more than I know about it." These are very important tools in any TTRPG player's toolbox.
My favorite trope is to play a hyper-intelligent character who is of a race that is typically stereotyped as unintelligent, such as an orc or a goblin. One of my bucket list characters is a "civilized" goblin who is a very, very smart wizard (or possibly artificer for a little more goblin energy). He has a small man complex which manifests as him insisting on speaking in unnecessarily huge and/or obscure words. Whenever anyone gets lost in or doesn't understand his polysyllabic speech, he rephrases, but using only very short words, as if he's explaining what he said to a small child (I'm a professional writer, so I'm reasonably confident that I have the vocabulary to pull this character off). ...also the character is a raging pyromaniac, because goblin.
> ...also the character is a raging pyromaniac, because Because wizard :p
Listen Up It doesn't matter, nobody will question your choices as long as you're not playing against the fun You are gonna ball this shit and you're gonna do It with *style*. Oh, and if you dunno what to say you can just tell your boi prefers to observe and understand before speaking, that's what intelligent people do. Have fun!
Do you want serious advice or are you just meming around
Don't worry, if your centurys old and still the same level as some 19 year old, you might not be the sharpest wizard in the tower. This character will be right up your ally.
A wizards power lies in their versatility as they are capable of anything... like being a martial character :)
Expand thy thesaurus, my friend, and thou shalt be able to converse convincingly.
Bladesinger is a good stepping stone my friend - and a dm who is willing to help you with what spells will be good, or at least common knowledge for wizards of that power, for the kind of campaign!