Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards: Races 

An often overlooked wizard race option is goblin. Yes, you miss an Int bump, but the Dex and Con are nice and you get a lot in return. Wizards very often don't have a use for their bonus action, so a free disengage or hide every turn is awesome. Cast an illusion and hide, disengage and toss a wall between you and the enemy, so many options.

Tiefling: What about 'feral' variant? "Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Dexterity score increases by 2. This trait replaces the Ability Score Increase trait. "

Goliath wizards are great for casting Fist.

Would love to see an update with Tasha's optional rule for moving bonuses.

Love me some Hobgoblin wizard. Both for RP and mechanics, I love the idea of the smart, ruthless, aggressive wiz. Sauron, not Gandalf.

I want to mention the Vedalken from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. +2 Int +1 Wis - Not bad honestly. Sure, +1 Wis isn't ideal, but possible +1 to Wisdom Saves is a nice trick to have, especially with... Advantage on all Int/Wis/Cha saves - I love this. It's not locked to Magic effects, so a Dragon's Frightful Presence or any other mental save outside magic are usually PAINFUL, and to have advantage there is a good bonus. Intuition and proficiency in 1 skill (History, Arcana, Investigation, Sleight of hand) and 1 Tool (includes Thieve's Tools!) - not Character defining, but hey: better to have it available than to not. I definitely feel this is God Wizard quality, barring if your game allows GGtR as a book.

I think you kind of undersold the Purebloods blanket spell resistance. In my experience both in real life and in watching many D&D related channels, many game Masters disallow the Pureblood based on that one trait. Basically you're getting the 7th level Oath of Ancients Paladin ability, but better. At first level, for free.

I believe you overlooked one of the better races for the wizard. Which would be the lizard folk. No other race/class combo rhymes as well as the lizard wizard. I play one with the nickname Gizzard and have renamed Sleet Storm into Blizzard for maximum alliteration. Lizards also essentially give you a free permanent mage armor spell, a bonus to con for more HP and concentration checks, as well as a minor temporary hp heal off of a d6 innate melee attack on a bonus action for early levels. They also get tons of fun flavor abilities that can work well with spells in ways you wouldn't quite think. Such as using the mold earth cantrip to bury yourself under dirt because you can hold your breath for 15 minuites, you also have a swim speed to get around most swimming athletic checks. And the skills given for hunters lore have some great options to help fill out your usefulness to the party. And if your party isn't particularly squeemish, and your DM is particularly charitable, Cunning Artisan allows you to fashion body parts of fallen enemies into tools, what better part than the skin for that vellum you need to write your spells on? It might not be appropriate to discount the cost of adding a new spell entirely but it could certainly justify a discount.

The Deep Gnome's Stone Camouflage feature works underground as well as in rocky terrain. That enormously expands the range of situations where it can be used.

My favorites are (winged feral) tiefling and warforged, half-elf can come too, oh, and Vedalken is insane as well.

I played a half orc wizard mainly for a backstory. It worked out pretty well thanks to a very high Con and an extra chance to escape when I popped back up from 0hp.

I think that for most of the reasons that the Githyanki was recommended, the Mountain Dwarf is actually a fairly solid choice for certain wizard builds. You get +2 Con instead of a +1 Int (which isn't a bad trade), Medium Armor proficiency, resistance to a very common damage type, and a few decent weapons. You'll never be a fighter, but you have reasonable passive defenses without spells, and if you're playing a buff/controller wizard, the slightly lower intelligence doesn't hurt as bad. Pretty much every wizard build races to 20 Intelligence and then tries to shore up their weaknesses, but survivability is always an issue in early levels. Having more AC, more hit points, poison resistance, and the ability to not be useless in combat if you don't have the right spell available is actually a pretty good trade off for losing 1 spell save DC during that same time. A mountain dwarf at 12 will have the same Int as a Gnome, but is much more likely to survive to get that high in the first place.

Kenku illusionist wizard, with Keen Mind feat. Super-crisp reproduction of illusions and perfect replication of voices.

I know it sounds weird but I am playing a stout halfling wizard divener That I love. So far only third level but with many of my spells being ritual, and only one cantrip needing my Int stat, he has been very useful to the party. Sleep and fog cloud and a sling are his major combat actions. 15 int 16 dex 14 con makes a pretty good combo, [ it was standard array build]. almost always have something to do or add and the poison resistance has saved me. find familiar, alarm, unseen servant, detect magic, feather fall, comprehend language, detect thoughts and rope trick. only one non ritual not prepared. light Mending and Ray of Frost as cantrips, I am quite useful to my party. Love your vids btw

Thanks as always. I'd love to watch you break down the new artificer class and subclasses.

I think Mountain Dwarf deserves a mention. They can function similar to the Githyanki you mentioned. Access to Medium Armor. They of course don't get an intelligence bonus, but they +2 strength and +2 Con can still be put to good use, either dumping strength but keeping your modifier above 0 or making a character ready to use the blade cantrips and possibly even heavy armor. And in a dungeon delve style game I might say the Darkvision helps them over the extra spells and the Int bonus that the Githyanki has. Worth considering for the Abjuration Wizard/Tank role.

I wanted to be a Necromancer, so I took Human Variant with the skilled feat and proficiency in tools so I can use Fabricate to outfit my army

What do you think about taking Lucky as the level 1 variant human feat? It also offers concentration protection by letting you reroll a failed con check, but it's even more flexible because you can use it on those important knowledge checks, and it can even transmute disadvantage into super-advantage.

Waiting for the day a dm lets me use winged tiefling for a wizard.

One not mentioned, possibly because you weren't looking at Ravnica, but the Vedalken is pretty strong. It's the only race other than gnomes which gets a +2 Int, and it also gets a (slightly) better version of the Gnome Cunning ability. It doesn't get darkvision, and its secondary bonus is in Wisdom, but it's still a solid choice.

Warforged Envoy can be a great pick if you take a level of Cleric with Heavy Armor proficiency. With the racial Integrated Protection you can dump Strength and still have Heavy Armor AC, and with the +1 CON and 2 floating +1s you can start 16 INT 16 CON 14 WIS 12 DEX from the get-go. War and Forge Domains in particular is thematic for a Warforged and combines naturally with War Mages. Life/Nature might work depending on your theme. But two levels of Tempest Domain on an Evoker is my personal favorite, since it turns you into an Ironman-esque lightning robot that can dish out a ridiculous amount of damage with the Destructive Wave CD - max-damage Lightning Bolt is good, but max-damage Chain Lightning makes you an outright army killer.

Feral Tiefling on its own is decent. At least decent enough for my bladesinger to be fine with being a tiefling. I have lots of competition for my prepared spells and my reaction, so the fire resistance gives me the freedom to sometimes not prepare Absorb Elements.

Looking forward to your thought on races and Tasha.

Dragon Mark of Warding Dwarf from Wayfarer's guide to Eberron is crazy good for a wizard. +2 con, +1 int and +1 dex, free spells, and a d4 for history/investigation/thieves' tools checks (pick a criminal or urchin background). Edit: They're even more of a fit the new artificer UA though, Which is now a very strong MC option for Wizards.

I really like the Hobgoblin flavour for a wizard- has a bit of that martial aspect to it, is strategic and perhaps a bit out of place. Before them I was more into Dwarves- for some reason I like my wizards to be of the stocky and practical races when it comes to concept. As for the small conundrum, yeah it is kinda sad to not be able to bring allies with you. My halfling trickery cleric is going to have the same problem once he gets access to dimension door, but when it comes to a wizard I really like the idea of being able to cast reduce on myself and become tiny and fit into pockets and such. A tiny playable race would sound awesome to me.

I would love to see an update video with Tasha’s or even when the playtest stuff comes out and is finalized.

I tried Observant fear on a variant human wizard for RP purposes once and it’s very good. Your passive perception is so high at low levels it feels like an exploit, and it’s still very relevant. With the right DM you can pick up much information and stay out of trouble. Still can figure out how to passively investigate something to fully use the second part of the feat.

One of my favorite characters is hill dwarf abjurer. To get the mechanics to work out I recommend your 1st level is fighter for the HP and the proficiency in Con saves. Dwarves aren't penalized for wearing heavy armor with low strength which helps out with the ability scores. With a 16 con and the hill dwarf ability and the arcane ward, he's a beast of a tank.

I love my mountain dwarf wizard. Bonuses to con and war magic help with concentration, and dwarves get armor proficiencies so I only need a +2 to AC for max value. War magic also helps me not get hurt too. It’s a wizard build that will never need mage armor, and shield quickly becomes obsceleyte

Hi Chris, have you read through the new Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica? They've introduced a new race called the Vedalken which gets a +2 to Intelligence and +1 to Wisdom. They don't get a lot of racial feats, but one of the feats allows advantage on ALL Intelligence, Charisma, and Wisdom saving throws, which I find nice.

what about the fire genasi? +2 to con and a +1 to int. darkvision and spells. make your wizard healthier so that when you boost your con saves through that as well. plus extra burning hands is always nice. and i figured you'd want your con pretty high anyway to help with those saves. i am actually playing one right now and i have a maxed con while my int. is at a 19. cause i rolled stats put the 17 in con and the 18 in int. then at level four took resilient. my burning hands has a higher save than the rest of my spells which is pretty funny to me personally. also the thematic are pretty dope fire genasi blaster wizard? i'll take one please

Could use an update with simic hybrid and warforge envoy, over all, just wanted to say the spells you get from a race can be prepared as wizard spells without being taken, so if you have hellish rebuke, you can prepare it and cast it as a wizard.

Tabaxi wizard! 🐱 ever thought damn off by 5 meters for the perfect spot to cast this. Not the tabaxi wizard. :)

I just realized that castle with the train is basically Captain Kangaroo-set. Yes, I'm slow.

You didn't mention that the Gnome race has access to the Fade Away feat which is a really nice feat if you're on an odd Intelligence score (like a 17 for example).

Thank you.

I am looking forward for the updated video after tashas cauldren kf everything as at least you can give everybody a plus 2 to intelligence.

Good point about gnomes. However they're funny little fellas so it evens out

I'd like for you to do another video of this with more races. I know Warforged are an amazing Wizard race and would like to know what you think of them. They have +1 int +2 Con making you very tanky without losing anything. They also ignore most things a DM can throw at you like Heat/Cold, survival stuff, most con saves, ext... and mechanically they're immune to some things like Stink Cloud and drowning. The better than elf meditation thing in Sentry's Rest is always good. And that +1 AC makes your wizard much tankier and makes that 1 level cleric dip even better since once you get over 22 AC, each point of AC is way better than the last.

I think that WoTC to a certain extent wanted unlimited arcane ward (with regen outside of combat) since they intended on Armor of Shadows working with it.

One thing I like about Githyanki is instead of trying to boost their Dex, going against the common meta and keep Dex 10, have Str of 15 and get Heavy Armor proficiency. Now I'm wearing plate, with an Abjurer shield you have (if using average hit points) the same amount of hit points as most fighter type classes, but I'm a wizard. I'll look like a tank, like a fighter but can pull out all those wonderful spells. Once you hit 18 you pick Shield as your Lvl 1 that you can cast always and forever and after two minutes you can regain that 41 hit points of Aburer shield.

Playing a Githyanki Necromancer. Decide to see Treantmonk's opinion on Githyanki as a God Wizard Scroll to end of video and Treantmonk goes: "And finally we'll mention the Githyanki one more time...*puts up a picture of a Githzerai*" .... .... My Githyanki's eye starts twitching: "I wonder if I can animate a Treant..."

I always struggle finding good images for my wizards! Could you please tell me who is the artist of the High Elf wizard that you showed discussing the Bladesinger? Thank you and great video!

I think most good DMs seeing a PC planning to run a Deep Gnome Abjurer would probably homebrew a rule that casting Nondetection via Svirfneblin Magic would only restore health to an arcane ward once, or at most once per eight hours (the duration of the spell). It’d mean the feat was still a good choice, but not so exploit-y.

The Tiefling using charisma for his spellcasting is kinda mute due to what you said at the begining od your video on intelligence not being totally crutial as you can cast spells that don't require int bonus. Thaugmatory, Hellish Rebuke, and Darkness don't require high Charisma really except maybe the save for half damage on hellish rebuke. Having an int bonus and 3 free spells not requiring spell slots isn't bad.

Speaking of dumb loopholes and exploits to the Abjuration Wizard, as of Tasha's Cauldron the Eldritch Adept let's us take any one Warlock Invocation provided it has no prerequisites, Armor of Shadows has no prerequisites and allows you to cast Mage Armor at will without expending a spell slot or requiring material components Abjuration Wizard's ward never specified that a spell slot has to be expended to create/recharge the Ward and now you can cast a 1st level Abjuration spell at will. That and mage armor is always useful.

I'm sad that you didn't note the Feral Tiefling option that is also offered in SCAG. You can trade your +2 Charisma for +2 Dex, retaining your +1 int bonus. You can combine this Feral trait with the Winged Trait.

gotta love that tashas fixed this issue

5:49 Smurfgoblin ;p

For Hobgoblin wizard would you suggest Moderately armored over Warcaster at 4th level? I built mine at first considering going for a 2nd line booming blade halberd build but I'm quickly thinking I need to re-examine that and my DM is letting me reset somethings already when we hit 4th. I choose most of my spells considering a GOD type controller but I took Firebolt and Booming blade and we're running something with a LOT of fire-immune creatures.

would love to DM for you in a one-on-one campaign where you play a wizard with a sidekick

I'm sorry for not being up to snuff on my terminology, but what is a 'god wizard'? I keep hearing it used in the video but I can't seem to find enough context to understand what it insinuates.

I have an idea for a Tortle wizard that's want to play but I can't find a group to play with in my area.

Fighters get the most ASI's. It could be interesting to start as an INT 14 Fighter and then go Wizard past Level 8 or 12. At least RP-wise you could fit in some interesting story.

How about fairy? Int bonus, flying without concentration, Enlarge educe to compensate for the small size, free druidcraft..

There's always ways for a DM to punish winged races. For example they are obvious and standout so you will be noticed very easily in a crowd, flying is fun and all but you paint a massive target on your head, by the time Wizards get the Fly spell they have plenty of ways of defending themselves but at low levels? Instant priority target with your only defence being Shield. And finally in tight, narrow crawlspaces you might not even fit where most races could due to those wings, so you'll be stuck unless you can alter the properties of the passage to soft earth and have the Mold Earth cantrip, but are you really going to take those spells for that rare circumstances, wasting them for better spells?

Fire genasi also have +2 con +1 int

I've made the argument that races shouldn't have stat bonus' and either move them to the class you choose or just let the player add 2 points which would free up a lot of the racial choices since the stat bonus will limit a lot of these choices.

Vedlaken!

oh god tasha's made this so much complicated

Tortle - 17 AC and advantage on CON saves when in the shell. Cast something with Concentration, then shell up. Am I crazy, or this a race that other people ignore because it is rare and/or unusual?

So I guess Fairy is kinda the best now?

not a single mention of fire genasi :(

> The Jump spell is *pretty* circumstantial. Yes *shrug* - but you might as well. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SwYN7mTi6HM.html

What about Harengon?

Question: can midget Humans count as Small rules-wise?

No Fire Genasi? okay......

What about the Firesoul Genasi as Evoker?

Treantmonk... please explain why you think a Bladesinger with a longbow is a good idea... Bladesong only works when you're not using a weapon which requires two hands. You seem to be under this assumption that a ranged Bladesinger is a good build... it is not according to RAW.

I play a Forest Gnome, cast enlarge on myself thunder step now works you were saying? Lol

How about you explain your terms, like God Wizard.

You are CRAZY to say that a Wizard doesn't need Int compared to a Rogue needing Dex! Yes, you named a few spells (Fly, Tiny Hut) that don't rely on Int bonuses, which are very situational in combat. Besides being situational, think of what actions you would take in those same situations if you were a Rogue. Well, if a Wizard is casting Fly in combat, likely you're looking to escape melee. What would a Rogue do? Disengage and double move. Well, that doesn't rely on their Dex bonuses. But wait, no. The Fly spell is for something up high. Well, the rogue would then climb. And likely double move to get all of the way up. And guess what? That doesn't rely on the Drx bonus. Typically if Tiny Hut gets cast in combat for a spell slot (lol), you're in OMG, we're all going to die / I need safety mode. In that situation, again, the Rogue is likely disengaging and double moving ... Perhaps even triple moving and taking an attack of opportunity. And, as before, these actions won't rely on the Dex bonus. Now, I understand that this doesn't align 100%. Rogues might fire off an arrow instead of Fly, or Stealth instead of double move (both of which require Dex). But, the point is, these are very situational things. They don't always come up in every combat. And, if they do, other classes are likely performing actions that don't rely on their Primary Stat bonus because of the optimal action they need to take. I think you're grossly down playing the impact of an Int bonus comparitively to other classes. And in doing so, you're going to have a lot of people making not so great Wizards because there might be a battle that they need to cast Tiny Hut in combat ... Ugh.