My favorite interpretation of a divination wizard is that one guy who is like "sometime soon, this building is going to be burnt to the ground". Their party asks them "How do you know this?" and the wizard just lights a torch and says "No reason, but we should probably leave here, fast"
I'm making a circus freak fortune teller who seizes his glimpses of the future to sustain his lies and manipulations, it's really funny to have a peek of the outcomes of your actions the way you desire
my favorite divination wizard that I've played doesn't know how to see into the future but thinks he does, though he's way better at the other aspects of divination like seeing into other planes than most other wizards
I'd hate to imagine how expensive it'd have been if your parents ever took you to a Build A Bear store. Thousands of dollars in debt and a court case of people drowning under a pile of stuffed animals.
My Conjuration wizard is the son of a demon with the same name. Whenever cultists try to summon his father, they summoned him instead. He learned Conjuration to figure out how to stop that.
My current wizard character is a mousefolk whose ancestors were the equivalent of Vikings and uses carved runes and bones as a "spellbook" with an awakened spellbook as a backup. He's also our group's chef. He's also 7 years old (which is around a third of the lifespan for his species) and 2 ft tall. It started out as a joke of a character concept and turned into my favorite character to play so far.
I played with a mousefolk divination wizard and a rabbitfolk wolf totem barbarian. They were both like 2 feet. I was a 7 feet tall pandafolk cleric of knowledge. Absolutely insane party.
I like the idea of a wizard who went to prison, and learned spells from the writing scratched into his cell by the previous occupant. Copied the text as tattoos on his skin. Requires a mirror screwed onto the end of his staff to see the harder to reach places.
i literally just started making a wizard/artificer that uses his own body as a catalyst, test-subject, and over-glorified experiment to become the world greatest living magic item. he has tons of stitches, holes, and soldered on arcane runes to modify his body so he can prove his dedication to invention and innovation
My forever unrun character is an eldritch knight that went to paladin school to piss off his evil noble family, but he flunked out and fakes being a paladin with cleric initiate
I'm running for a character who is almost exactly this concept, except he's a paladin flunkie who's deluded himself into thinking he's a real paladin. He's one of the best characters I've run for, so I hope you get to play yours!
Reminds me of my beloved Bran, divine soul sorcerer who claimed to be a Baldur cleric, when was in fact a Loki sorcerer.. such a manipulative power playing false prophet lol
I've also taken a stab at fake paladin, mine was a celestial warlock with pact of the blade, took eldritch smite ASAP so that I could keep up with our real paladin, neat character, fun concept. stupidly weak.
It’s the same with most of the classes- so many cliches that many of us grow weary of. I’m currently playing a Druid in Ebberon based on Australian Aboriginal culture which is proving really satisfying.
Probably one of my favorite videos so far. Not "what can it do" but "what it can be". I like how he broke down the psychology of what someone who focuses on a certain school would be motivated by.
Very much this. Show that necromancers don't have to be moustache twirling villains that do nothing but make skellingtons. Maybe you are a doctor or alchemist trying to pursue the ultimate goal of doing no harm to include curing death itself. Perhaps an anti-cleric archetype, having seen how callously divine beings use and discard mortals, wants to prove that through knowledge and effort mortals can free themselves from being pawns on the board and lead people to go full no gods no masters. Maybe undead are used as a form of automation to do dangerous or demanding work for the betterment of the living.
Your videos have stayed consistently interesting since the start. While being experimental does mean being at the whims of fate a little bit, one of the big draws of your channel is that it’s unpredictability keeps it feeling rounded and new every time. Can’t put a price on that
I had a food wizard. Human variant with the gourmand feet at level 1. Cloistered scholar and found a cursed spatula that was his spell casting focus. His spell book was a recipe book, his spells smelled of spices, and his magic missiles were forks. The cursed spatula required him to prepare a nice meal everyday. Otherwise he would get 1 level of exhaustion (but only ever 1).
With Tasha's Cauldron out, you could take the Artificer initiate feat and have Chef's utensils as your spellcasting focus. Reminds me of the Food Wars anime!
I absolutely love people break molds, like a rogue who took up the thiefing/hitman business to support his aging parents, and he then has to lie to them so they don't become concerned or afraid of him
I kinda want to play a werewolf Hunter who who chose her profession in order to find a cure for the curse so she can cure her grandmother who she has to tie up every full moon for everyone's protection. (Little red ridinghood motifs everywhere.)
@@nickwilliams8302 Parents being dead is only a bad backstory if that is basically the whole backstory. It's a perfectly viable backstory element if it's not just meant to create "tragic" drama.
My first wizard was a necromancer. How I made him was that he didn't specifically use necromancy, but he saw no problem with it. It was apart of the magical spectrum, and no different than the other kinds. His reason was "If you turn a blind eye to 1 kind of magic, then you're blind to what knowledge lies ahead of you"
I love that mentality, my first wizard (also a necromancer) was just like that, in pursuit of knowledge, he did have a code to follow for raising the dead though, only those who truly acted in an evil way would be resurrected as a zombie, no innocent or confused souls. Also if you're looking for a more interesting necromancer, might I suggest looking up "Astoshan the gray necromancer" Narrated by All things D&D. Stay Strong my fellow wizards!
my first wizard was also a necromancer. however mine was not so nice lol. He was essentially an alcoholic sicence experiement gone wrong that liked eating animals alive as well as rotting things. had an obsession with lichdom due to having been brought up by their creator with such high expectations.
My first wizard was a horribly unlucky but idealistic and naive necromancer who thought that if he got strong enough, he could replace the menial workers of society with zombies, so that humanity could advance to a more civilized age. Then he died horribly in a cave in.
Same. First necromancer I played was essentially an occult researcher and expert, who wanted to challenge the negative stereotypes tied with taboo magics. She was also a goth, so it was pretty fun to play lol.
I remember you doing something like this sorta when you were talking about warlock patrons. I've actually wanted to do a video like this myself, even. I love character concept spitballing.
Idea: A warlock that thinks its a cleric but doesnt know purely because the pact it made was with a cursed mirror that makes the warlock see images of its self made super beautiful which enchants the user and tells it to do things. The kicker is the warlock is a Kuo-Toa
The majority of magic is Transmutation magic. What is transmutation? Turning one thing into another, for example what school is 'Fireball', many of you will say "evocation" but it is in fact Transmutation. When I use it on this bandit it turns him from a 'bandit' into a 'corpse'. With some more fire you can transmute the corpse into ash. Properly processed, that ash can become lye, which is a main ingredient for soap. Transmutation is a wonderful thing. Be sure to wash your hands.
@@isaacgraff8288 I'd argue that's because the schools of magic are a lot like the Various STEM fields or Genre in art. Ultimately the distinction is entirely made up by the cultural in question. Where does mathematics end and physics begin in practical application? Is star Wars a science fiction or a futuristic high fantasy? Well useful for analysis the distinction is often a post-hoc trick of language rather then an objective reality. This also extends to spellcasting traditions for example. In 5e RAW the act of casting clerical spells doesn't vanish with the death of a god (Forgotten realms being setting dependent to this feature of clerics) Nor does the loss of a Patron actually cause the Warlock to lose their magic. So why wouldn't a Wizard look at Divine magic users and think "Okay so what you're doing in effect is magic rooted in faith rather then access or study to arcane forces. Effectively using force of will to substitute for all the above." ? Thus we can see that the distinction between Divine, Arcane and even perhaps Psionic magic is simply a cultural distinction created by the various methods to the same end.
I want a capitalist necromancer. He sees the undead as perfect labor. His nemesis is the communist druid. (Edit: please, fewer arguments about the systems mentioned. Not the place.)
alternate theory: Communist necromancer. He uses the dead to provide labor for the state. his nemesis is the capitalist druid, who sees exchange of goods and services as a natural part of human nature
In the world I currently DM, the living have discovered that after death they'll need to eternally work to repay their taxes in a very capitalist hell, so they turned undead and now we have Communist skeletons waging revolution against death
@@patheronaetherson2860 They'll also be able to oush themselves more than living workers and are more likely to create surplus, preventing economic scarcity causing a crash. Only really works for renewable resources though.
"The more you make, the more you learn you can do." That quote can be applied to many things in life, you just have to go out there and keep making things. It doesn't matter if you start out bad, or if you aren't great at learning it. What matters is that you keep going forward and keep at it. At some point your hard work will pay off, and you'll learn to make something beautiful.
I have an aasimar war mage that is "the champion of Mystra" because her parents were some of the best clerics of Mystra, and now, Mystra rewards them by giving knowledge of the arcane to her daughter. The wizard hates Mystra now and just wants to sleep
Nothing wrong with that, he's basically can negotiate an entire workforce salary only to himself provided he can do the job alone. He's basically that Naruto teacher (Yamato if I'm not mistaken)
This might actually be an important question for DMs who are world building. If a wizard isn't a part of an adventuring party, how else do they make a living? This could come into play in a player's backstory. (What they did before becoming an adventurer)
construction workers are paid really well and their work is a lot more enjoyable than fast food, thats like saying the best job he could get was an engineer.
Hot damn this was a really good video. I keep telling my players that this sort of character creation creates some of the coolest characters, but now that you’ve put it in video I think they’ll understand it better. Thanks for being inspirational as always.
I would go crazier with these ideas if I was giving the examples but I think keeping them more grounded and simple makes it a better explanation for people who don't already go off the wall. It's good.
Currently in love with my wizard. I wanted to be a priest or someone of holy stature but narrow minded and poor at foresight, so instead of a cleric I made a wizard. He still fills the role of being knowledgeable of numerous things to be helpful. His efforts are focused on study of ancient texts of his God and the destruction of knowledge from those who would bring forth heretical knowledge. Even down to the detail of casting spells he reads off prayers and acts of bravery in his sacred texts and then evoking a feat similar to the act with the spell being cast, Thunderwave for example is cast by him shouting, "In the Lady's name, all that oppose her disciples words are beaten and bloodied"
I started playing a Gnome wizard with the Order of the Scribes subclass. His story is that of an expelled student that now hates the arcane academy and its methods. Since he does not have the means to formally study the arcane arts, he just go on to trick people to show/give him scrolls and spellbooks (or just sneak into a library) and copy spells as fast as he can. And my DM keeps giving me "normal sentient items", which are slowly making my character go full schizophrenic while he watches the love triangle between his spellbook, quill and ink...
Well I think it depends how well they internalize that there is no future. what I mean is no ONE future. what they see are possible futures that they can use portent dice to influence and make those futures happen at specific times. I'm playing a Divination wizard in the campaign I'm in right now, and while she may have a vision in her sleep that scares her, she'll comfort herself with that fact, the future is never set in stone, what the divination wizards see are possibilities.
Your character Chebus inspired me to create my own wizard. He was the son of a chef, but he felt something strange. His mom was a wizard, someone who taught him magic. As a way to honor his family, he became a chef wizard. He wrote his spells in a cook book, his recipes for magic reflect his equations of food. Mechanically he is a dwarf scribe who has the chef feat.
I love this concept. I also really like your takes on Enchantment, Illusion, and Necromancy. I've always though most forms of Enchantment and Illusion were more evil than most necromancy. I even once played a necromancer who just wanted to heal and protect people but realized too late they were going down a dark path so he decided to double-down and start learning how to actually fuck with life force
Enchantment, at least to me, is _far_ worse than necromancy. When I'm dead I don't mind what you do with my body much, I'm already dead after all, but leave my living mind alone.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 That's largely because D&D necromancy is a bit weird, and is JUST using magic to make a corpse walk around. In most fiction and mythology undeath involves your soul being bound back into your corpse and forced to remain there in a perpetual state of spiritual and sometimes physical suffering. This is why in so much fiction when an undead is killed people refer to that person as having been "freed" or "put to rest." But yeah, in D&D when it's just some bones animated by a simple spell then enchantment is way worse.
My last wizard is a lizardfolk that found a copy of a book from another dimension, went mad while trying to translate it and now just kinda pulls magic out of his ass, saying that the book is teaching him magic, believing that if he finally translate it he will gain absolute knowledge. The book is the french edition of the lord of the ring if you are wondering.
My current character is a lizardfolk wizard that found the spellbook on a body. He was a druid at the time so he asked an archfey to help him understand the arcane. And now he's a bladesinger druwarzard. Druid 1/ warlock 1/ wizard 3 at the moment
the illusion part went a direction i really wasn't expecting since my first character idea was a gnome stage magician illusionist. great video! i would love this to become a series!!
Some quick ideas for alternative spellbooks: -strings with knots tied in specific places -tattoos on wizard's own body -rocks. Not even necessarily runic ones, just funny rocks they find in streams -extension of above: literally just random junk they pick up when they learn something they want to remember. Broken cups, playing cards, spoons, chicken bones, dead flowers and other otherwise worthless stuff like that -little clay statues -sketchbook with drawings referencing spells. So kind of like typical spellbook, but without words. Maybe the wizard is illiterate?
Honestly the first wizard I made had a sketchbook he'd draw in, and then his drawings would come to life. Only played him for a one-shot scenario, sadly. Don't even remember which tradition he followed.
The first character I made was a halfling bard. A happy and jolly little guy, He'd go down to the docks and listen to sea-shanties by the sailors talking of the horrors of the deep. The sea-shanties were so different to what his village had ever heard that he dedicated his life to sharing them. But he couldn't quite get it right because he didn't fully understand the dark and gritty world.... thus adventuring.
I play A Dwarven Abjurer who became a mage inorder to teach his clan the powers of the Arcane, his spellbook was a stone slate that worked like a clock in which the pointer hands will point at the body movement and the words that they speak to summon the spell and the other would point at the components. All illusion magic would require the same movement to twine the magic thread into illusion. He was an Abjurer because on his travels, he met a young sorcerer/warlock, human and another player, that accidentally made a deal with a fiend when raiders killed his family. He chose Abjuration inorder to shut down his pupils wild magic surges and to eventually release the pact that the sorcerer made
They could be the mortician taxidermist whos an upstanding citizen and piller of the community who needs to know necromancy as they aren't a cleric and dont have access to divine spells. They use necromancy to manipulate dead bodies to prepare and care for the dead. He can cause decay and reanimation but he can also stop it. He could also be religious and his spellbook could be a holy text with spells written between margins and on the edges of pages.
If nothing else, a taxidermied corpse will look and smell much better, and keep for longer. Not exactly efficient as minions, though, since making and repairing them is labor intensive in a way animating whatever remains are on hand is not.
I had an idea for a change in the find familiar spell. If it wasn’t home brewed a bit it would be a bit underpowered, but it’s such a cool idea! I want to make a wizard that is covered in jewelry and they can activate their jewelry with the find familiar spell. Some ideas I had was a spider ring, humming bird earrings, and a snake bicep band. I feel like it would be so cool to use as a tinkering wizard.
Thank you so much for this video, it really exemplifies what i mean when i say that classes are mostly just mechanics for you to put a skin on. For wizards speciffically ive made a meteorologist evocator, a naruto esque illusionist with the spy background and whose spells are secret techniques contained in ninja scrolls, and a diviner archeologist who believes the past reveals the future
I absolutely love the concept of using other modifiers for casting. I feel like Constitution based casting should be used more often, and Strength would be fun if in order to command a particular magic you have to overpower it physically, like say... gravity. To be able to direct the gravity pulses your magic creates, you have to physically move it.
"The only real constant between all wizards is a general understanding of magic and the need for a repository for spells that they can't remember." My Wizard Of Invention Who Uses Reckless Casting: Ah f***, let's see. Oh, I cast fireball.
"He was the wizard of a thousand kings...and I chanced to meet him one night, wandering...he told me tales, and he drank my wine...me and my magic-man kinda feelin' fine!"
When talking about the focuses and motivations of the different schools, I can’t help but think of how much a love the Lore Master. They study magic for Magic’s sake. Like a Transmuter or Evoker but even deeper, wanting to know how the fundamentals of the force of magic work
In my opinion, Aelwyn Abbernant from Dimension 20: Fantasy High is a very good characterisation for an abjuration wizard. -Spoilers for FH seasons 1 & 2 Context for people who don't know the show: (it's really good by the way) In the story, the Abbernant family is a very toxic family of elven wizards, with Angwyn being a controlling father and an enchantment master, Arianwen being a quiet but somewhat-caring mother, Adaine being the youngest daughter and a skilled divination caster, and my focus-Aelwyn; an abjuration wizard. Adaine is antagonized by Aelwyn and the rest of her family, as Aelwyn is very clearly the favorite child of her mother and father. Aelwyn, however, feels guilty and ashamed of her not doing anything, simply due to her fear of her parents' expectations. To summarize a long comment, Aelwyn is an abjuration wizard, and she makes so many barriers around herself, both magically and mentally, that she isn't who she wants to be at all. Her wards are a survival mechanism to keep her parents' favor, and can only come crashing down in the most dire of circumstances.
I have a wizard named Sedgby Carmichael. He's your stereotypical wizard, the frail old man with a stick (only four hit points at level 1). I pretty much just use him and his particular way of doing magic as a way of justifying the spell slot system. Basically, his staff has a large curved bit towards top; this is where he ties strips of paper/leather that has his spells. To use a spell, he removes a slip, and it turns into magical energy that he shoots at his opponents. The strips tied to his staff are prepared spells and arcane foci, and I guess he just memorizes the spells, or maybe he has them written down somewhere.
"Maeby their lack of comunicative skills let them to seek aliens, demons and gods to make friends" I can't be the onlyone who thinked in YunYun trying to invocate a devil to be her friend
@J M Although, Yunyun just appears in the second season and forward, so you'll have to be patient. Which won't be hard, since everything before it is already hilarious
My last wizard was a rock gnome that got obsessed with the Fae, and dived headlong into book after boom on the feywild. Most of these books were written by elves, so along with the more of the fey, he absorbed the Elvis biases of superiority, and truly believed that only the elves could truly understand the Fae. He left home for an elvish city to study the Fae, becoming a conjurer. While in the city, he got into a relationship with a elf who fed in to this elvish superiority mindset, causing him to slowly shed all aspects of gnomish culture in favour of the elvish, eventually growing to reject all things gnome. She crafted him a necklace that enabled him to forgoe sleep, allowing him to engage more fully in all aspects of elvish society. Over the course of the relationship, she’d add other transmutations to the necklace, changing his feature, granting him height, and eventually making him indistinguishable to an elf. However, the relationship was on a decaying path, and she broke it off after a time. The conjurer left the elvish, and now wonders the land, focusing their energies entirely on their studies of the Fae, and living every day trying to be the best elf they can be.
3:28 IS THAT JOCRAP?! Crap guide to D&D!? But I’m all seriousness you should be very afraid of him and his fireballs. A character based entirely around fearing Jocrap’s fireball is not a bad idea. For anyone wondering what the heck I’m talking about, search YT for Jocat’s ‘A crap guide to D&D,’ and the wiggler character is called Jocrap. Seriously it is worth watching the entire series
I would like a part 2 of this video where it covers the other subclasses of the wizard: School of Bladesinging, War Magic, Chronurgy, Graviturgy and Order of Scribes. Who agrees?
Really liked this idea/format. Finding new ways to make the common part of a class/character stand out has always been interesting to me. A bard that doesn't sing but uses paintings as his way of express, a wizard that uses his poetic skills to remember his spells. Would love to see more of this for other classes. As always, thanks for the great content.
Best wizard I ever made was divination. He was a homeless, con artist fortune teller who could actually see people's future, but he always just told them what they wanted to hear (People try to not pay fortune tellers if they get answers they don't like). Sometimes actually altering the course of their lives by accident from giving them false confidence. It lead to a variety of comical deaths and heroic triumphs for many NPCs.
Imagine a Divination wizard who saw a great disaster in the future, came to terms with it, and will stop an nothing to make sure it happens, no matter who gets in his way. Astor, the Prophet of Doom from Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is a cool example, I totally want to play a character like this in the future
Wizard is one of my favorite classes, so excuse me while I use the chance to explain my personal wizard. Grok the “Unliving” is a Goblin Necromancy Wizard whose “spellbook” is a series of bones he’s inscribed everything on and keeps in his backpack. Due to backstory circumstances, he happens to be quite possibly the only well read Goblin in the world. This means he dreams of creating the hypothetical “Goblin Nation” of “Gobrinium” and elevating his species beyond cowards and bandits into a respectable group of people. Why did he study Necromancy? Because he sure as hell isn’t convincing any fellow Goblin of his movement with rhetoric, so an army of dead people is the next best thing. First forced tribal unification, then elevation, then the bitches. He adventures for the purpose of fundraising, power acquisition, and alliance brokering, and is more than happy to start intricately explaining all his political crap on anyone who asks and unironically will cite Thay as an example that undead slave labor works or criticize the sheer excessiveness of Ebberon’s last war. The fun is that he’s still a fucking Goblin so everything I just described is said by me doing a mid Cockney accent and copious amounts of casual goblin slang. Real booyagh, baby
Funny think is, I'm writing a campaign that centers around a magical circus that travels around Faerun trying to keep some magical stones out of the hands of an old Netharese cult. One of the Lieutenants is a divination wizard that oversees the carnival part of the circus from her tent where she plays the role of a fortune teller. So, the bit about diviners totally seemed like it read my notes on the character. Oh, and the cult they're fighting against is trying to resurrect Karsus... So... um... Fun times ensues?
Now I have the urge to make a Alchemist Transmutation Wizard, whose spell book is actually various forms of alchohol. Absithe for Abjuration, Red Wines for Conjuration, Whites for Illusion, Whiskeys for Evocation, Stout for Necromancy, Ale for Transmutation, Sake for Divination and Fruity Liqueurs for Enchantment
Wizard comes across a dead goblin... (Casts animate dead) “Cyrus?” (Zombie goblin rises up) “Yes, Pa?” “I got a chore for ya, boy...” That is the most ***ed up and awesome character idea I’ve heard in a while...
Maybe you could elaborate on things covered in "The Complete Guide to *(insert race, class, or specialty class)*" book series done by TSR in the days of AD&D 2e and how it can be applied/translated into 5e
She wasn't super groundbreaking, but I had a tiefling wizard girl that I was really excited to play until I realized that our party had no healer... she was basically a sorority/valley girl wizard that transcribed all her spells either in glitter gel pen or by embroidering them onto her dress! I can't wait to play her in another campaign
I made a wizard lore master in 3.5 who was also an army veteran with 19 strength. The orc chieftain we fought was surprised when I challenged him to a wrestling mach at 3rd level and won.
0:44 Stibble’s codex of companions: “am I a joke to you?” Seriously dude, you have done a great job on stibbles codex and the whole channel in general and you deserve every inch of success you have earned so far. You definitely are capable of staying dedicated to something and making it great just like you did with stibbles codex, which once again is really great. I cannot say that enough.
I'm gonna make a wizard where instead of a Grimoire with it's spells whritten to prepare, he has a recipe book full of sandwuiches, and in order to prepare a spell he needs to make and eat a sanduich from the recipe book to feel the taste, and remember the spell he wants to prepare and cast. This is gonna be a pain to role-play, but my "spellbok" will certainly be indecipherable, hahahaha
@@corinnebloom7005 haha, go on! I would love to see this idea. But i sugest to use it in a low level canpaing only where you don't have that many spells, and make every ingredient of the sandwich remember you of a spell, instead of needing to eat one sandwich for every single spell to prepare. This way you make a sandwich with peanut butter, jelly, cheese, mayonese, eggs, meat, tomato, lettuce and there you go. 8 spells in a sandwich to make your life easier
Fantastic video. A wizard backstory I recently made for a weekly campaign was a college dropout whose spellbook is hastily etched in the margins of some throwaway class notes.
I just love the thought of an Abjuration Wizard who grew up in a town obsessed with physical prowess, so They learn abjuration magic and claim to be their villages greatest mage, which They are because they’re the only mage in that village.
I used to play a necromancer wizard who wanted to be a cleric, but wasn't very religious and focused more on the physical aspect of healing than the process of healing itself. His spellbook was part anatomy textbook with diagrams of muscles and bone structures and part dictionary with translations of different languages and religious texts he read when he was studying. "Raise Dead" was more "restart certain parts of the brain to make the body move again" than "imbue the body with a fragment of a soul". Of course, he couldn't actually heal, but that was his end goal: devise a healing spell for wizards.
I have this idea for a necromancer who is a senile old man and after he bought the spell book of an ancient necromancer, he believes he's helping people. Like, someone dies, he raises their body and says that they're all healed and all better. Mostly this is a joke character but still.
My current wizard is the void wizard pathfinder subclass. She mainly focuses on divination and basically worships space. She considers mortal hierarchies, and even divine ones, as pointless in the face of the vastness of the universe, but she sees undeath and meddling with souls as against the will of the stars. She is a drow and built her underground wizard tower up into the surface so she could commune with the stars. While she has spellbooks as a normal wizard, she studies her spells by staring into the night sky and observing certain constellations while burning incense that relates to different schools of magic.
I've made two major wizard characters that I've used in games. Both I loved the new angle of approaching it. One was a Human Divination wizard who was the nephew of a count, and while spending hours in the expansive castle library practiced his first spells, he went down the divination route after receiving a few disconnected visions that don't add up, so he wanted to find out the missing info. The other was a Dragonborn Abjuration wizard who was an expert at linguistics, and researched a number of different ancient texts to learn about planer travel and how to close dangerous portals and protect his colleagues with barriers.
A concept I'm thinking of is an Aereni High Elf Arcana Cleric/Wizard that's blind. He was taught to rub his hands over magical writings to read the slight divots of the words as those writings were written to memorize his spells. He knows how to read but he reads with his hands. Along with that, his "spellbook" is structured like a book of prayers. Each incantation is a prayer to Mystra structured around what the spell itself does. As he learns new spells, he makes up a prayer for Mystra that he writes in his book.
As a necromancer, I'd be like a mad scientist making biotech, like a living gun that is parasitically attached to my arm and shoots acid. Because necromancers have control over life and death.
I just bought your book yesterday and I love it. I love animals and especially of the magical kind! I was hoping to make a character dedicated to the research and study of magical critters in the world so the tracking system included helps out as well!
I’m gonna just say, a Wizard should always have a physical object/s for their spellbook. The reason I say this is because it needs to be possible to destroy it.
My friend once suggested a spellcaster who can never remember any of their spells, and from their the idea evolved into a senile old gnome who spouts out nonsense, hoping for something to happen. Any words or phrases that do work are written down on post-it notes which get attached to his staff.
This all also kinda works for character writing in general. Every character has a "power" that effects the world around them, be it a silver tongue or a lot of money in the bank. As long as you know the basics of what a school of magic does (like Runesmith explained) the psychology behind that power can apply to however it manifests. Great work man.
One of the only wizards I've made was Willibar the Wondrous, a traveling illusionist gnome who performs both actual illusion magic and practical stage magic. He loves misdirection and subterfuge in creating spells, but not because of any malicious intentions. To him, it's just fun! He's definitely got the appearance of an old man, but he's much more of an energetic and kindly old man who acts a lot like a little kid sometimes. I've been thinking of stuff like his spellbook recently though, and these ideas are pretty helpful! Wizards are an interesting class that is unfortunately often stuck with a certain character stereotype that is honestly just not fun to play (in my opinion) so I really liked this video!
I recently made a wizard and while he did have a standard spellbook, he carried strips of leather where he engraved magical runes on. Each strip correlates to a specific spell, and he ties his prepared spells into his quarterstaff. This made my staff work as both a melee weapon and arcane focus. It was a lot of fun.
Dude! A video like this for every class type would be absolutely amazing!! Break the mold for necromantic wizards! I'm playing a warlock right now, with a background that involved a traitorous family and years of abuse under the heel of Iuz cult slavers. He doesn't trust easily and withholds a lot of himself from his party. As a result, I choose spells that rely on charm, evasion and damage at a distance. His warlock patron, a Great Old One (The One Full of Stars) pushes him towards action against Aberrations, but otherwise he uses his warlock features to not deal with people directly. He doesn't have a single spell that relies on touch, and uses Mage Hand or his familiar any time he needs to actually interact with anything. I would love to see you do more in-depth videos about expressing personality through your spell or domain choices, akin to this video.
I’ve never played dnd but I really want to, I was inspired by the critical role character Caleb widowgast to want to play a tragic wizard. The backstory I’ve though of goes as follows: the character was the first born of the greatest house of magic in his land, and yet he failed to meet his father’s expectations for his talents. When his siblings were born and later found to have the talent their father sought he would basically every shunned by him. (Potential allowing a dm to insert a reason for this weakness, like a different father or a seal). Things would come to a head when the father had efforts to distance himself and the family from the firstborn child, and to declare one of the other sibling the heir of the house. This would cause the first born to be approached by an entity who would offer him the power to prove himself to his family but it would b a trap. Upon accepting the deal he would fall unconscious and wake up in his burning home. When he eventually makes it outside he finds the dead bodies of his family and the figure he’d struck a deal with. The figure would reveal itself to be a demon and infuse the first born with the blood of his family to increase his magic powers but this would also leave him with the demons Mark. Afraid of being caught and accused of practicing dark magic. He would be forced to flee. Thus marking the end of the backstory I’ve described it to my friend as a setup where the party might thing they are looking for an ncp only to learn they were traveling with that person the whole time. Thanks if you read all that
My favorite interpretation of a divination wizard is that one guy who is like "sometime soon, this building is going to be burnt to the ground". Their party asks them "How do you know this?" and the wizard just lights a torch and says "No reason, but we should probably leave here, fast"
If you cant go to the future, just bring the future to you. I like it
I'm making a circus freak fortune teller who seizes his glimpses of the future to sustain his lies and manipulations, it's really funny to have a peek of the outcomes of your actions the way you desire
my favorite divination wizard that I've played doesn't know how to see into the future but thinks he does, though he's way better at the other aspects of divination like seeing into other planes than most other wizards
King from one punch man energy 😂
Every wizard is a divination wizard as long as they tell you what they're about to do.
I once made a Bard who thought he was a wizard, remembered his spells through mnemonic devices
That's awesome!😂 and funny
Genius
I mean that's basically what a lore bard is
Dude that's super clever. Nice.
Lol, that'd be fun
Getting to the end of this video was really tough. Had to resist the urge to build twelve new wizards every second of the way.
I'd hate to imagine how expensive it'd have been if your parents ever took you to a Build A Bear store. Thousands of dollars in debt and a court case of people drowning under a pile of stuffed animals.
That’s the fun I get the most from
Had me scared me in the first half, not gonna lie
My Conjuration wizard is the son of a demon with the same name. Whenever cultists try to summon his father, they summoned him instead. He learned Conjuration to figure out how to stop that.
That's a cool idea, and an interesting excuse to explore "true name" magic, a concept that as an Eragon fan I find very appeling
That is fricking awesome.
Thats hilarious lol
@@boitata2617 Reminds me of Naming from Changling: The Dreaming.
Not sure if its sad or awesome that the solution is to make a "new name" for them self.
My current wizard character is a mousefolk whose ancestors were the equivalent of Vikings and uses carved runes and bones as a "spellbook" with an awakened spellbook as a backup. He's also our group's chef.
He's also 7 years old (which is around a third of the lifespan for his species) and 2 ft tall.
It started out as a joke of a character concept and turned into my favorite character to play so far.
in my experience, the short joke characters are the most fun to play
I had a wizard who was really stupid(like 7 int) but she thought that she is a genius and never understood why her spells doesn't work.
@@shinykitsunelive I keep pitching the concept of #teamfunsize to my group where no one is allowed to be over 5' tall.
@@Twitch_Fox a perfect dnd party
I played with a mousefolk divination wizard and a rabbitfolk wolf totem barbarian.
They were both like 2 feet.
I was a 7 feet tall pandafolk cleric of knowledge.
Absolutely insane party.
I had a Goliath Wizard that had his spellbook engraved in his tattoos across his body. When he cast a spell they lit up.
I like the idea of a wizard who went to prison, and learned spells from the writing scratched into his cell by the previous occupant. Copied the text as tattoos on his skin. Requires a mirror screwed onto the end of his staff to see the harder to reach places.
@@Bluecho4 his more important spell is tattooed into his scrotum
@@DizzyDisco93 That's a good place to inscribe "Enlarge/Reduce"
@@Zirkalaritz Alter Self would do the trick, just have the wizard do the Ricardo look.
i literally just started making a wizard/artificer that uses his own body as a catalyst, test-subject, and over-glorified experiment to become the world greatest living magic item. he has tons of stitches, holes, and soldered on arcane runes to modify his body so he can prove his dedication to invention and innovation
Name him bondrewd......and do experiments on kids
The Omnissiah blessed your character!
Sounds truly like a Simic
Sounds perfect for a warforged armour artificer/ wizard
@@jackbelmont4389 This suggestion is truly SUBARASHII!
My forever unrun character is an eldritch knight that went to paladin school to piss off his evil noble family, but he flunked out and fakes being a paladin with cleric initiate
I'm running for a character who is almost exactly this concept, except he's a paladin flunkie who's deluded himself into thinking he's a real paladin. He's one of the best characters I've run for, so I hope you get to play yours!
Reminds me of my beloved Bran, divine soul sorcerer who claimed to be a Baldur cleric, when was in fact a Loki sorcerer.. such a manipulative power playing false prophet lol
I've also taken a stab at fake paladin, mine was a celestial warlock with pact of the blade, took eldritch smite ASAP so that I could keep up with our real paladin, neat character, fun concept. stupidly weak.
this seems like an absolutely great way to fix the "all wizards are the same" stereotype
It’s the same with most of the classes- so many cliches that many of us grow weary of. I’m currently playing a Druid in Ebberon based on Australian Aboriginal culture which is proving really satisfying.
@@joemacleod-iredale2888 nice
If all wizards are the same in your eyes, the only thing that should mean is that your wizard will be unique ;)
I think my last wizard was a riff on Rune Sorcerer Louie. Spent his time drinking and getting into fist fights.
@@shanehudson3995 please tell me he had a dump Str, that would be just hilarious :D
Probably one of my favorite videos so far. Not "what can it do" but "what it can be". I like how he broke down the psychology of what someone who focuses on a certain school would be motivated by.
Same.
Hell yeh. I’d love to see a whole ass video for how to break the mould with a necromancer.
Break the "mold". *accidentally creates the last of us*
Alchemist's Supplies along with the Poisoner's and/or Herbalism Kits may be needed for the mo(u)ld. The Catapult spell can help in this pursuit
Yes a whole video of how to break a mouth of a necromancer
Mmmm fireball! 🔥 🔥 🔥
Very much this. Show that necromancers don't have to be moustache twirling villains that do nothing but make skellingtons. Maybe you are a doctor or alchemist trying to pursue the ultimate goal of doing no harm to include curing death itself. Perhaps an anti-cleric archetype, having seen how callously divine beings use and discard mortals, wants to prove that through knowledge and effort mortals can free themselves from being pawns on the board and lead people to go full no gods no masters. Maybe undead are used as a form of automation to do dangerous or demanding work for the betterment of the living.
Your videos have stayed consistently interesting since the start. While being experimental does mean being at the whims of fate a little bit, one of the big draws of your channel is that it’s unpredictability keeps it feeling rounded and new every time. Can’t put a price on that
I had a food wizard. Human variant with the gourmand feet at level 1. Cloistered scholar and found a cursed spatula that was his spell casting focus. His spell book was a recipe book, his spells smelled of spices, and his magic missiles were forks. The cursed spatula required him to prepare a nice meal everyday. Otherwise he would get 1 level of exhaustion (but only ever 1).
XD amazing
With Tasha's Cauldron out, you could take the Artificer initiate feat and have Chef's utensils as your spellcasting focus.
Reminds me of the Food Wars anime!
I absolutely love people break molds, like a rogue who took up the thiefing/hitman business to support his aging parents, and he then has to lie to them so they don't become concerned or afraid of him
I'm confused. Why are you talking about "breaking moulds" in the context of a Rogue PC who is a hitman and a thief?
@@nickwilliams8302 Because what other profession would a guy think his loving parents wouldn't approve of? Besides prostitution
@@ravnemagne9598 Yeah, I get that. And I love it when players come up with a backstory other than, "My parents are DEEAAAAD!"
I kinda want to play a werewolf Hunter who who chose her profession in order to find a cure for the curse so she can cure her grandmother who she has to tie up every full moon for everyone's protection. (Little red ridinghood motifs everywhere.)
@@nickwilliams8302
Parents being dead is only a bad backstory if that is basically the whole backstory. It's a perfectly viable backstory element if it's not just meant to create "tragic" drama.
My first wizard was a necromancer. How I made him was that he didn't specifically use necromancy, but he saw no problem with it. It was apart of the magical spectrum, and no different than the other kinds. His reason was "If you turn a blind eye to 1 kind of magic, then you're blind to what knowledge lies ahead of you"
I love that mentality, my first wizard (also a necromancer) was just like that, in pursuit of knowledge, he did have a code to follow for raising the dead though, only those who truly acted in an evil way would be resurrected as a zombie, no innocent or confused souls. Also if you're looking for a more interesting necromancer, might I suggest looking up "Astoshan the gray necromancer" Narrated by All things D&D. Stay Strong my fellow wizards!
my first wizard was also a necromancer. however mine was not so nice lol. He was essentially an alcoholic sicence experiement gone wrong that liked eating animals alive as well as rotting things. had an obsession with lichdom due to having been brought up by their creator with such high expectations.
My first wizard was a horribly unlucky but idealistic and naive necromancer who thought that if he got strong enough, he could replace the menial workers of society with zombies, so that humanity could advance to a more civilized age. Then he died horribly in a cave in.
Same. First necromancer I played was essentially an occult researcher and expert, who wanted to challenge the negative stereotypes tied with taboo magics.
She was also a goth, so it was pretty fun to play lol.
"you must study all aspects of the force" - emporor palpatine
I remember you doing something like this sorta when you were talking about warlock patrons.
I've actually wanted to do a video like this myself, even. I love character concept spitballing.
Idea: A warlock that thinks its a cleric but doesnt know purely because the pact it made was with a cursed mirror that makes the warlock see images of its self made super beautiful which enchants the user and tells it to do things. The kicker is the warlock is a Kuo-Toa
@@thegenuinepotato8107 I like that character concept
rememer*
The majority of magic is Transmutation magic. What is transmutation? Turning one thing into another, for example what school is 'Fireball', many of you will say "evocation" but it is in fact Transmutation. When I use it on this bandit it turns him from a 'bandit' into a 'corpse'. With some more fire you can transmute the corpse into ash. Properly processed, that ash can become lye, which is a main ingredient for soap. Transmutation is a wonderful thing.
Be sure to wash your hands.
@@isaacgraff8288 I'd argue that's because the schools of magic are a lot like the Various STEM fields or Genre in art.
Ultimately the distinction is entirely made up by the cultural in question. Where does mathematics end and physics begin in practical application? Is star Wars a science fiction or a futuristic high fantasy? Well useful for analysis the distinction is often a post-hoc trick of language rather then an objective reality.
This also extends to spellcasting traditions for example. In 5e RAW the act of casting clerical spells doesn't vanish with the death of a god (Forgotten realms being setting dependent to this feature of clerics) Nor does the loss of a Patron actually cause the Warlock to lose their magic. So why wouldn't a Wizard look at Divine magic users and think "Okay so what you're doing in effect is magic rooted in faith rather then access or study to arcane forces. Effectively using force of will to substitute for all the above." ?
Thus we can see that the distinction between Divine, Arcane and even perhaps Psionic magic is simply a cultural distinction created by the various methods to the same end.
I want a capitalist necromancer. He sees the undead as perfect labor. His nemesis is the communist druid.
(Edit: please, fewer arguments about the systems mentioned. Not the place.)
alternate theory: Communist necromancer. He uses the dead to provide labor for the state. his nemesis is the capitalist druid, who sees exchange of goods and services as a natural part of human nature
In the world I currently DM, the living have discovered that after death they'll need to eternally work to repay their taxes in a very capitalist hell, so they turned undead and now we have Communist skeletons waging revolution against death
@@godzilla660 Undead labor is always best for a commie since they'll not revolt or starve
@@patheronaetherson2860 They'll also be able to oush themselves more than living workers and are more likely to create surplus, preventing economic scarcity causing a crash. Only really works for renewable resources though.
I have an aspiring mafioso Necromancer. The Dead Don't Snitch, The Dead Don't Need a Cut
"The more you make, the more you learn you can do." That quote can be applied to many things in life, you just have to go out there and keep making things. It doesn't matter if you start out bad, or if you aren't great at learning it. What matters is that you keep going forward and keep at it. At some point your hard work will pay off, and you'll learn to make something beautiful.
I have an aasimar war mage that is "the champion of Mystra" because her parents were some of the best clerics of Mystra, and now, Mystra rewards them by giving knowledge of the arcane to her daughter.
The wizard hates Mystra now and just wants to sleep
I can imagine my Wizard, studying year after year in transmutation only to leave wizard school and the best job he can get is a construction worker
D&D is supposed to be an escape, why do you do this to us.
Nothing wrong with that, he's basically can negotiate an entire workforce salary only to himself provided he can do the job alone. He's basically that Naruto teacher (Yamato if I'm not mistaken)
That or he becomes a billionaire, building damn near everything-proof housing and fortifications in record time.
This might actually be an important question for DMs who are world building.
If a wizard isn't a part of an adventuring party, how else do they make a living? This could come into play in a player's backstory. (What they did before becoming an adventurer)
construction workers are paid really well and their work is a lot more enjoyable than fast food, thats like saying the best job he could get was an engineer.
Hot damn this was a really good video. I keep telling my players that this sort of character creation creates some of the coolest characters, but now that you’ve put it in video I think they’ll understand it better. Thanks for being inspirational as always.
I would go crazier with these ideas if I was giving the examples but I think keeping them more grounded and simple makes it a better explanation for people who don't already go off the wall. It's good.
Currently in love with my wizard. I wanted to be a priest or someone of holy stature but narrow minded and poor at foresight, so instead of a cleric I made a wizard. He still fills the role of being knowledgeable of numerous things to be helpful. His efforts are focused on study of ancient texts of his God and the destruction of knowledge from those who would bring forth heretical knowledge. Even down to the detail of casting spells he reads off prayers and acts of bravery in his sacred texts and then evoking a feat similar to the act with the spell being cast, Thunderwave for example is cast by him shouting, "In the Lady's name, all that oppose her disciples words are beaten and bloodied"
I didn’t ask how to make my wizard, I said I cast FIREBALL
A fellow monk I see
jocat's alt located
Wall of water
People like you are why abjuration exists in the first place.
(This is a joke, not an insult.)
@@DanteTorn *sad counterspell noises"
I started playing a Gnome wizard with the Order of the Scribes subclass.
His story is that of an expelled student that now hates the arcane academy and its methods.
Since he does not have the means to formally study the arcane arts, he just go on to trick people to show/give him scrolls and spellbooks (or just sneak into a library) and copy spells as fast as he can.
And my DM keeps giving me "normal sentient items", which are slowly making my character go full schizophrenic while he watches the love triangle between his spellbook, quill and ink...
Being able to glimpse the future as a divination wizard makes me wonder how high the rate of insanity is among them
Yes
Well I think it depends how well they internalize that there is no future. what I mean is no ONE future. what they see are possible futures that they can use portent dice to influence and make those futures happen at specific times.
I'm playing a Divination wizard in the campaign I'm in right now, and while she may have a vision in her sleep that scares her, she'll comfort herself with that fact, the future is never set in stone, what the divination wizards see are possibilities.
Ever met a kuo-toa?
Basically the same rate of insanity those guys have.
Runesmith: “I can make a whole video on breaking the mold for necromantic wizard.”
Me: Please do, that would be awesome!
I agree
Honestly
3:55 Kill Six Billion Demons! So glad to Runesmith knows about it!
Your character Chebus inspired me to create my own wizard.
He was the son of a chef, but he felt something strange. His mom was a wizard, someone who taught him magic.
As a way to honor his family, he became a chef wizard. He wrote his spells in a cook book, his recipes for magic reflect his equations of food.
Mechanically he is a dwarf scribe who has the chef feat.
I love this concept. I also really like your takes on Enchantment, Illusion, and Necromancy. I've always though most forms of Enchantment and Illusion were more evil than most necromancy. I even once played a necromancer who just wanted to heal and protect people but realized too late they were going down a dark path so he decided to double-down and start learning how to actually fuck with life force
Honestly, Enchantment is just Necromancy that you do on living people.
Actually necromancy is just enchantment that you do on dead people.
Enchantment, at least to me, is _far_ worse than necromancy.
When I'm dead I don't mind what you do with my body much, I'm already dead after all, but leave my living mind alone.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 That's largely because D&D necromancy is a bit weird, and is JUST using magic to make a corpse walk around. In most fiction and mythology undeath involves your soul being bound back into your corpse and forced to remain there in a perpetual state of spiritual and sometimes physical suffering. This is why in so much fiction when an undead is killed people refer to that person as having been "freed" or "put to rest."
But yeah, in D&D when it's just some bones animated by a simple spell then enchantment is way worse.
D&D necromancy is quite soft IMO, though I imagine it's for balancing reasons and probably some lore issues.
@@DanteTorn It's because they can't let the player command his own endlessly renewable perfectly obedient army.
My last wizard is a lizardfolk that found a copy of a book from another dimension, went mad while trying to translate it and now just kinda pulls magic out of his ass, saying that the book is teaching him magic, believing that if he finally translate it he will gain absolute knowledge. The book is the french edition of the lord of the ring if you are wondering.
Sound better for some wild magic sorcerer imo. ^^
My current character is a lizardfolk wizard that found the spellbook on a body. He was a druid at the time so he asked an archfey to help him understand the arcane. And now he's a bladesinger druwarzard. Druid 1/ warlock 1/ wizard 3 at the moment
I'll totally steal the idea of going mad over a mundane book (from another world), thank you very much
the illusion part went a direction i really wasn't expecting since my first character idea was a gnome stage magician illusionist.
great video! i would love this to become a series!!
It's very simple. I see Runesmith, I click.
As am I friend
yes
Indeed. This is the truth
The big cilcc
Si
Some quick ideas for alternative spellbooks:
-strings with knots tied in specific places
-tattoos on wizard's own body
-rocks. Not even necessarily runic ones, just funny rocks they find in streams
-extension of above: literally just random junk they pick up when they learn something they want to remember. Broken cups, playing cards, spoons, chicken bones, dead flowers and other otherwise worthless stuff like that
-little clay statues
-sketchbook with drawings referencing spells. So kind of like typical spellbook, but without words. Maybe the wizard is illiterate?
Honestly the first wizard I made had a sketchbook he'd draw in, and then his drawings would come to life. Only played him for a one-shot scenario, sadly. Don't even remember which tradition he followed.
The first character I made was a halfling bard.
A happy and jolly little guy, He'd go down to the docks and listen to sea-shanties by the sailors talking of the horrors of the deep.
The sea-shanties were so different to what his village had ever heard that he dedicated his life to sharing them. But he couldn't quite get it right because he didn't fully understand the dark and gritty world.... thus adventuring.
I play A Dwarven Abjurer who became a mage inorder to teach his clan the powers of the Arcane, his spellbook was a stone slate that worked like a clock in which the pointer hands will point at the body movement and the words that they speak to summon the spell and the other would point at the components. All illusion magic would require the same movement to twine the magic thread into illusion. He was an Abjurer because on his travels, he met a young sorcerer/warlock, human and another player, that accidentally made a deal with a fiend when raiders killed his family. He chose Abjuration inorder to shut down his pupils wild magic surges and to eventually release the pact that the sorcerer made
Idea for a Necromancer wizard: A taxidermist.
To me, a taxidermist sounds more like a necromancer druid.
@@thesexybatman263 Necrobotany
Mine is an apothecary
They could be the mortician taxidermist whos an upstanding citizen and piller of the community who needs to know necromancy as they aren't a cleric and dont have access to divine spells. They use necromancy to manipulate dead bodies to prepare and care for the dead. He can cause decay and reanimation but he can also stop it. He could also be religious and his spellbook could be a holy text with spells written between margins and on the edges of pages.
If nothing else, a taxidermied corpse will look and smell much better, and keep for longer. Not exactly efficient as minions, though, since making and repairing them is labor intensive in a way animating whatever remains are on hand is not.
I had an idea for a change in the find familiar spell. If it wasn’t home brewed a bit it would be a bit underpowered, but it’s such a cool idea! I want to make a wizard that is covered in jewelry and they can activate their jewelry with the find familiar spell. Some ideas I had was a spider ring, humming bird earrings, and a snake bicep band. I feel like it would be so cool to use as a tinkering wizard.
Thank you so much for this video, it really exemplifies what i mean when i say that classes are mostly just mechanics for you to put a skin on.
For wizards speciffically ive made a meteorologist evocator, a naruto esque illusionist with the spy background and whose spells are secret techniques contained in ninja scrolls, and a diviner archeologist who believes the past reveals the future
I absolutely love the concept of using other modifiers for casting. I feel like Constitution based casting should be used more often, and Strength would be fun if in order to command a particular magic you have to overpower it physically, like say... gravity. To be able to direct the gravity pulses your magic creates, you have to physically move it.
"The only real constant between all wizards is a general understanding of magic and the need for a repository for spells that they can't remember."
My Wizard Of Invention Who Uses Reckless Casting: Ah f***, let's see. Oh, I cast fireball.
"He was the wizard of a thousand kings...and I chanced to meet him one night, wandering...he told me tales, and he drank my wine...me and my magic-man kinda feelin' fine!"
When talking about the focuses and motivations of the different schools, I can’t help but think of how much a love the Lore Master. They study magic for Magic’s sake. Like a Transmuter or Evoker but even deeper, wanting to know how the fundamentals of the force of magic work
I'd love to see one of these videos for every class. Clerics, fighters and Rogues could benefit quite a bit from it I think.
In my opinion, Aelwyn Abbernant from Dimension 20: Fantasy High is a very good characterisation for an abjuration wizard. -Spoilers for FH seasons 1 & 2
Context for people who don't know the show: (it's really good by the way) In the story, the Abbernant family is a very toxic family of elven wizards, with Angwyn being a controlling father and an enchantment master, Arianwen being a quiet but somewhat-caring mother, Adaine being the youngest daughter and a skilled divination caster, and my focus-Aelwyn; an abjuration wizard. Adaine is antagonized by Aelwyn and the rest of her family, as Aelwyn is very clearly the favorite child of her mother and father. Aelwyn, however, feels guilty and ashamed of her not doing anything, simply due to her fear of her parents' expectations.
To summarize a long comment, Aelwyn is an abjuration wizard, and she makes so many barriers around herself, both magically and mentally, that she isn't who she wants to be at all. Her wards are a survival mechanism to keep her parents' favor, and can only come crashing down in the most dire of circumstances.
I have a wizard named Sedgby Carmichael. He's your stereotypical wizard, the frail old man with a stick (only four hit points at level 1). I pretty much just use him and his particular way of doing magic as a way of justifying the spell slot system. Basically, his staff has a large curved bit towards top; this is where he ties strips of paper/leather that has his spells. To use a spell, he removes a slip, and it turns into magical energy that he shoots at his opponents. The strips tied to his staff are prepared spells and arcane foci, and I guess he just memorizes the spells, or maybe he has them written down somewhere.
Please do more of these! The entirety of this video was amazing to listen to, and I hope you do the same style of video for the other classes!
3:54 Don't think I didn't see the cheeky Kill Six Billion Demons panel
"Maeby their lack of comunicative skills let them to seek aliens, demons and gods to make friends"
I can't be the onlyone who thinked in YunYun trying to invocate a devil to be her friend
Poor Yunyun. :(
Oh shit, I just realized how fucked was my grammar on this coment
@J M **shoots a death glare at JM**
@J M Although, Yunyun just appears in the second season and forward, so you'll have to be patient.
Which won't be hard, since everything before it is already hilarious
My last wizard was a rock gnome that got obsessed with the Fae, and dived headlong into book after boom on the feywild. Most of these books were written by elves, so along with the more of the fey, he absorbed the Elvis biases of superiority, and truly believed that only the elves could truly understand the Fae.
He left home for an elvish city to study the Fae, becoming a conjurer.
While in the city, he got into a relationship with a elf who fed in to this elvish superiority mindset, causing him to slowly shed all aspects of gnomish culture in favour of the elvish, eventually growing to reject all things gnome. She crafted him a necklace that enabled him to forgoe sleep, allowing him to engage more fully in all aspects of elvish society. Over the course of the relationship, she’d add other transmutations to the necklace, changing his feature, granting him height, and eventually making him indistinguishable to an elf.
However, the relationship was on a decaying path, and she broke it off after a time. The conjurer left the elvish, and now wonders the land, focusing their energies entirely on their studies of the Fae, and living every day trying to be the best elf they can be.
Id love a video this for every class.
3:28 IS THAT JOCRAP?! Crap guide to D&D!?
But I’m all seriousness you should be very afraid of him and his fireballs. A character based entirely around fearing Jocrap’s fireball is not a bad idea.
For anyone wondering what the heck I’m talking about, search YT for Jocat’s ‘A crap guide to D&D,’ and the wiggler character is called Jocrap. Seriously it is worth watching the entire series
I would like a part 2 of this video where it covers the other subclasses of the wizard: School of Bladesinging, War Magic, Chronurgy, Graviturgy and Order of Scribes. Who agrees?
Really liked this idea/format. Finding new ways to make the common part of a class/character stand out has always been interesting to me. A bard that doesn't sing but uses paintings as his way of express, a wizard that uses his poetic skills to remember his spells.
Would love to see more of this for other classes. As always, thanks for the great content.
I played a wizard who would cast spells with his war hammer, he was a dwarf so he had medium armor proficiency, but didn't multiclass
Best wizard I ever made was divination. He was a homeless, con artist fortune teller who could actually see people's future, but he always just told them what they wanted to hear (People try to not pay fortune tellers if they get answers they don't like). Sometimes actually altering the course of their lives by accident from giving them false confidence. It lead to a variety of comical deaths and heroic triumphs for many NPCs.
Imagine a Divination wizard who saw a great disaster in the future, came to terms with it, and will stop an nothing to make sure it happens, no matter who gets in his way. Astor, the Prophet of Doom from Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is a cool example, I totally want to play a character like this in the future
Wizard is one of my favorite classes, so excuse me while I use the chance to explain my personal wizard.
Grok the “Unliving” is a Goblin Necromancy Wizard whose “spellbook” is a series of bones he’s inscribed everything on and keeps in his backpack. Due to backstory circumstances, he happens to be quite possibly the only well read Goblin in the world. This means he dreams of creating the hypothetical “Goblin Nation” of “Gobrinium” and elevating his species beyond cowards and bandits into a respectable group of people. Why did he study Necromancy? Because he sure as hell isn’t convincing any fellow Goblin of his movement with rhetoric, so an army of dead people is the next best thing. First forced tribal unification, then elevation, then the bitches.
He adventures for the purpose of fundraising, power acquisition, and alliance brokering, and is more than happy to start intricately explaining all his political crap on anyone who asks and unironically will cite Thay as an example that undead slave labor works or criticize the sheer excessiveness of Ebberon’s last war. The fun is that he’s still a fucking Goblin so everything I just described is said by me doing a mid Cockney accent and copious amounts of casual goblin slang.
Real booyagh, baby
Funny think is, I'm writing a campaign that centers around a magical circus that travels around Faerun trying to keep some magical stones out of the hands of an old Netharese cult. One of the Lieutenants is a divination wizard that oversees the carnival part of the circus from her tent where she plays the role of a fortune teller. So, the bit about diviners totally seemed like it read my notes on the character.
Oh, and the cult they're fighting against is trying to resurrect Karsus... So... um... Fun times ensues?
Now I have the urge to make a Alchemist Transmutation Wizard, whose spell book is actually various forms of alchohol. Absithe for Abjuration, Red Wines for Conjuration, Whites for Illusion, Whiskeys for Evocation, Stout for Necromancy, Ale for Transmutation, Sake for Divination and Fruity Liqueurs for Enchantment
This is the best kind of D&D content: inspiring ideas for stories and characters. Keep it up!
Wizard comes across a dead goblin...
(Casts animate dead)
“Cyrus?”
(Zombie goblin rises up)
“Yes, Pa?”
“I got a chore for ya, boy...”
That is the most ***ed up and awesome character idea I’ve heard in a while...
Maybe you could elaborate on things covered in "The Complete Guide to *(insert race, class, or specialty class)*" book series done by TSR in the days of AD&D 2e and how it can be applied/translated into 5e
She wasn't super groundbreaking, but I had a tiefling wizard girl that I was really excited to play until I realized that our party had no healer... she was basically a sorority/valley girl wizard that transcribed all her spells either in glitter gel pen or by embroidering them onto her dress! I can't wait to play her in another campaign
"The more you make, the more you learn you can do." That's some tasty yummy wizardly wisdom.
5:56 to 5:59, *THANK YOU RUNESMITH, MY GOD YOURE SO WISE*
I always thought Strength-casting would be cool but I've still never gotten to do it.
5:42 I miss Konosuba
5:53 My human friend once played a mountain troll with gauntlets of earth control; The D.M. limited the amount of earth to double my carryweight.
I made a necromancer recently named Kyra, and I'm trying to focus on the healing aspect of necromancy, it's so fun
I made a wizard lore master in 3.5 who was also an army veteran with 19 strength. The orc chieftain we fought was surprised when I challenged him to a wrestling mach at 3rd level and won.
Especially the wizard!
0:44
Stibble’s codex of companions: “am I a joke to you?”
Seriously dude, you have done a great job on stibbles codex and the whole channel in general and you deserve every inch of success you have earned so far. You definitely are capable of staying dedicated to something and making it great just like you did with stibbles codex, which once again is really great. I cannot say that enough.
I'm gonna make a wizard where instead of a Grimoire with it's spells whritten to prepare, he has a recipe book full of sandwuiches, and in order to prepare a spell he needs to make and eat a sanduich from the recipe book to feel the taste, and remember the spell he wants to prepare and cast. This is gonna be a pain to role-play, but my "spellbok" will certainly be indecipherable, hahahaha
Yes I'm stealing this!
You may be interested in my Gnomes condiment golems.
@@corinnebloom7005 haha, go on! I would love to see this idea. But i sugest to use it in a low level canpaing only where you don't have that many spells, and make every ingredient of the sandwich remember you of a spell, instead of needing to eat one sandwich for every single spell to prepare. This way you make a sandwich with peanut butter, jelly, cheese, mayonese, eggs, meat, tomato, lettuce and there you go. 8 spells in a sandwich to make your life easier
Fantastic video. A wizard backstory I recently made for a weekly campaign was a college dropout whose spellbook is hastily etched in the margins of some throwaway class notes.
I kinda want this video about breaking the mold about necromancers now.
I just love the thought of an Abjuration Wizard who grew up in a town obsessed with physical prowess, so They learn abjuration magic and claim to be their villages greatest mage, which They are because they’re the only mage in that village.
Bakuretsu bakuretsu la la la~
I used to play a necromancer wizard who wanted to be a cleric, but wasn't very religious and focused more on the physical aspect of healing than the process of healing itself. His spellbook was part anatomy textbook with diagrams of muscles and bone structures and part dictionary with translations of different languages and religious texts he read when he was studying. "Raise Dead" was more "restart certain parts of the brain to make the body move again" than "imbue the body with a fragment of a soul". Of course, he couldn't actually heal, but that was his end goal: devise a healing spell for wizards.
5:43 I appreciate the background “expurosion”. It gives the impression that Megumin is outside your door pestering you
I have this idea for a necromancer who is a senile old man and after he bought the spell book of an ancient necromancer, he believes he's helping people. Like, someone dies, he raises their body and says that they're all healed and all better. Mostly this is a joke character but still.
I mean yeah thats cool and all but I could just be an old bearded guy in a robe throwing fireballs.
My current wizard is the void wizard pathfinder subclass. She mainly focuses on divination and basically worships space. She considers mortal hierarchies, and even divine ones, as pointless in the face of the vastness of the universe, but she sees undeath and meddling with souls as against the will of the stars. She is a drow and built her underground wizard tower up into the surface so she could commune with the stars. While she has spellbooks as a normal wizard, she studies her spells by staring into the night sky and observing certain constellations while burning incense that relates to different schools of magic.
*So what, ... Your telling me i can do more than just commit mass Genocide through Arsine*
I've made two major wizard characters that I've used in games. Both I loved the new angle of approaching it.
One was a Human Divination wizard who was the nephew of a count, and while spending hours in the expansive castle library practiced his first spells, he went down the divination route after receiving a few disconnected visions that don't add up, so he wanted to find out the missing info.
The other was a Dragonborn Abjuration wizard who was an expert at linguistics, and researched a number of different ancient texts to learn about planer travel and how to close dangerous portals and protect his colleagues with barriers.
Uu. What do you know, this was actually something I needed right now. Thank you :)
A concept I'm thinking of is an Aereni High Elf Arcana Cleric/Wizard that's blind. He was taught to rub his hands over magical writings to read the slight divots of the words as those writings were written to memorize his spells. He knows how to read but he reads with his hands.
Along with that, his "spellbook" is structured like a book of prayers. Each incantation is a prayer to Mystra structured around what the spell itself does. As he learns new spells, he makes up a prayer for Mystra that he writes in his book.
I convinced my friends to all be wizards for the next campaign
.
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Our DM hates wizards.
Huh you guys are fighting orcus or something?
He's going to start making you guys track spell components lmao
As a necromancer, I'd be like a mad scientist making biotech, like a living gun that is parasitically attached to my arm and shoots acid. Because necromancers have control over life and death.
"I could make a whole video on breaking the mold for necromantic wizards"
Please do.
I just bought your book yesterday and I love it. I love animals and especially of the magical kind! I was hoping to make a character dedicated to the research and study of magical critters in the world so the tracking system included helps out as well!
I’m gonna just say, a Wizard should always have a physical object/s for their spellbook.
The reason I say this is because it needs to be possible to destroy it.
Man, I really hope you do more of these. A fresh new look at the classes is never a bad idea.
My friend once suggested a spellcaster who can never remember any of their spells, and from their the idea evolved into a senile old gnome who spouts out nonsense, hoping for something to happen. Any words or phrases that do work are written down on post-it notes which get attached to his staff.
This all also kinda works for character writing in general. Every character has a "power" that effects the world around them, be it a silver tongue or a lot of money in the bank. As long as you know the basics of what a school of magic does (like Runesmith explained) the psychology behind that power can apply to however it manifests.
Great work man.
I've just realized ittachi might be a level 20 illusion caster...
One of the only wizards I've made was Willibar the Wondrous, a traveling illusionist gnome who performs both actual illusion magic and practical stage magic. He loves misdirection and subterfuge in creating spells, but not because of any malicious intentions. To him, it's just fun! He's definitely got the appearance of an old man, but he's much more of an energetic and kindly old man who acts a lot like a little kid sometimes. I've been thinking of stuff like his spellbook recently though, and these ideas are pretty helpful! Wizards are an interesting class that is unfortunately often stuck with a certain character stereotype that is honestly just not fun to play (in my opinion) so I really liked this video!
Poggerz
I recently made a wizard and while he did have a standard spellbook, he carried strips of leather where he engraved magical runes on. Each strip correlates to a specific spell, and he ties his prepared spells into his quarterstaff. This made my staff work as both a melee weapon and arcane focus. It was a lot of fun.
Dude! A video like this for every class type would be absolutely amazing!! Break the mold for necromantic wizards!
I'm playing a warlock right now, with a background that involved a traitorous family and years of abuse under the heel of Iuz cult slavers. He doesn't trust easily and withholds a lot of himself from his party. As a result, I choose spells that rely on charm, evasion and damage at a distance. His warlock patron, a Great Old One (The One Full of Stars) pushes him towards action against Aberrations, but otherwise he uses his warlock features to not deal with people directly. He doesn't have a single spell that relies on touch, and uses Mage Hand or his familiar any time he needs to actually interact with anything. I would love to see you do more in-depth videos about expressing personality through your spell or domain choices, akin to this video.
I’ve never played dnd but I really want to, I was inspired by the critical role character Caleb widowgast to want to play a tragic wizard.
The backstory I’ve though of goes as follows: the character was the first born of the greatest house of magic in his land, and yet he failed to meet his father’s expectations for his talents. When his siblings were born and later found to have the talent their father sought he would basically every shunned by him. (Potential allowing a dm to insert a reason for this weakness, like a different father or a seal). Things would come to a head when the father had efforts to distance himself and the family from the firstborn child, and to declare one of the other sibling the heir of the house. This would cause the first born to be approached by an entity who would offer him the power to prove himself to his family but it would b a trap.
Upon accepting the deal he would fall unconscious and wake up in his burning home. When he eventually makes it outside he finds the dead bodies of his family and the figure he’d struck a deal with. The figure would reveal itself to be a demon and infuse the first born with the blood of his family to increase his magic powers but this would also leave him with the demons Mark. Afraid of being caught and accused of practicing dark magic. He would be forced to flee.
Thus marking the end of the backstory
I’ve described it to my friend as a setup where the party might thing they are looking for an ncp only to learn they were traveling with that person the whole time.
Thanks if you read all that