Race
Race
Race
Ability Score Increases – +2 Int. Intelligence will be our main stat for the majority of our career.
Size – Medium. Custom Lineage lets us choose between small or medium size. Going Medium allows us to use
dimension door to get a Medium-sized ally out of harm’s way. If your whole party is Small, or you would not reach level
9 and never actually get to cast dimension door, you should be Small instead, in order to ride Medium sized mounts and
fit through small spaces.
Feat – Aberrant Dragonmark (+1 Con). Starting off with a feat allows us to get some extra spells (Light, Chaos Bolt),
mobility and protection early on. We round out our Con ability score, to a starting Con of 14.
Variable Trait – Darkvision. It’s usually more useful to have Darkvision than to have proficiency in another skill.
Languages – Common, Undercommon. We are picking Undercommon, as it is the most common language behind
Common.
Background (Custom)
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW, as page 125 of the PHB states: “The sample backgrounds in this
chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions. To
customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of
two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.”
Arcana proficiency will allow us to scribe scrolls during downtime. This is especially useful if there’s another Wizard in
the party who can learn spells from those scrolls, but even if not, it’s nice to have extra spells on hand. If you play with
the spell identification variant rule from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, proficiency in Arcana becomes even more
important.
We can use alchemist's supplies to make early money by crafting and selling alchemy items made each rest.
Our additional pick will be cobbler’s tools, which are not the flashiest tools in the game, but the ability to increase
movement speed in the exploration phase can very easily come in handy and hiding things can help you carry
contraband (or your arcane focus) into cities.
As always, tool usage and downtime activity can vary heavily from table to table, so talk to your DM before you commit
to anything. You can read more about tools and what might fit your campaign better here.
Cantrip Choice: Sacred Flame, Vicious Mockery, 1 st Level Spell Choice: Faerie Fire
We don’t have great choices here, but at least these key off of our Intelligence score.
Domain Abilities:
Spells:
Spells
Future Feats:
Fey touched (+1 Int at Wiz 4). Picking up this feat allows us to get some extra spells (Misty Step, Gift of Alacrity),
mobility and protection early on. We round out our Int ability score, to a Int of 18.
ASI: +2 Int (Wiz 8), maxing out our Int ability score to 20.