Welcome to part 3 of my War Mage guide! If you haven't watched part 1 or 2 yet, you will want to watch them first, the links are down below. In this video I am going to explain how I would make a Melee Wizard. This one is about focusing on a single target in melee using a sword and spells in harmony. For Part 1 of this build: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l6-eiNGVyqi7ZmQ.html For Part 2 of this build: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/et5yeLRi0qvWYWw.html Here's the link to the final build: ddb.ac/characters/17282474/8Hip6R

Yeah, this guy is straight up Vader. Even his melee is powered by his magic, and he's wielding power that no mere warrior can compare to.

1: Githyanki: Language, Thieve’s Tools. Fighter 1: Athletics, History, Defence, Far Traveller, 14/12/14/15/8/8, Chain, Great Sword, Long Sword, Light Crossbow, Dungeoneer’s Pack 2: Wizard 1: Green-flame blade, Minor Illusion, Ray of Frost, Find Familiar, Shield*, False Life*, Disguise Self*, Absorb Elements*, Detect Magic 3: Wizard 2: War mage, Expeditious Retreat*, Comprehend Languages 4: Wizard 3: Web*, Flaming Sphere*, Disguise Self(*) 5: Wizard 4: War Caster Feat, Booming Blade, Mirror Image*, Darkvision* 6: Wizard 5: Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Fear* 7: Wizard 6: Darkvision(*), Counterspell*, Dispel Magic* 8: Wizard 7: Greater Invisibility*, Polymorph*, Web(*) 9: Wizard 8: ASI INTx2, Dimension Door*, Fireshield 10: Wizard 9: Animate Objects*, Flaming Sphere (*), Wall of Force Polymorph(*) 11: Fighter 2: [Action Surge] 12: Fighter 3: Battle master, Smiths Tools, Menacing Attack, Pushing Attack, Precision Attack (If not going to level 20, take Fighter 4) 14: Wizard 11: Lightning Lure, Bigby’s Hand*, Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Contingency, Mass Suggestion* 16: Wizard 13: ASI INTx2, Programmed Illusion, Soul Cage* Simulacrum, Crown of Stars* 18: Wizard 15: Plane Shift, Forcecage*, Demi Plane, Maze* 20: Wizard 17: Alert Feat, Mind Blank*, Antipathy Sympathy, Wish*, True Polymorph

Love this build, mostly because neither I, nor anyone I play with ever considered that a strength wizard could be anything other than a goofy thought experiment that would only just kinda work in a mechanical sense. They would exist primarily for some fun RP. This Build isn't that, its actually a solid, competitive build. I'm going to share this with some of my buddies to get their take on it. I anticipate some fun theory craft using this wizard subclass as inspiration.

I think this is my favorite of your wizard builds. Looks like a total blast. :)

I really like this as an alternative to paladin/sorcerer for a melee gish. I wish there were more options for intelligence based characters like this one, since it’s much easier for me to role play an intelligent character than a charismatic one

Chris... just let me play Tensers Transformation!

I like the idea of once reaching 10th level in wizard using Haste so you gain a +4 to your AC and can make an additional attack. Given it takes away the chance to deal damage with spells like flaming sphere but as a lower level spell it has use with the additional mobility, defense, and if you happen to get GWM and utilize precision attack from battle master the damage is still good

Coming back to this, I feel like Echo Knight would, again, open this build up to so many shenanigans. In this build's case, using echo positioning and teleportation really makes your target REALLY consider its options vis a vis Flaming Sphere and Booming Blade even harder. It does really mess with your bonus action, though, so I'm not sure it's actually a good build option, but I love the EK so much I wanna try it.

Hey, I've Just found your Channel trough a friend indication, and i'm loving It, keep up The good work, i'm enjoing a lot the Diviner Build

I learned a lot about 5e from these videos!

Playing a very similar build - these ideas work. I'm currently level 9 War Mage and level 2 Fighter. Thinking of just 1 more level of Fighter before going back to wizard. Psi Warrior or Battle Master are good fits. Chris is very convincing so I'll probably go Fighter 3. Default AC 23 means I use Arcane Deflection more than Shield. Your level 2 WM abilities are amazing. Focus on control, utility & versatile combat spells. Set the scene & then let everyone play off you to be most effective. You can kick out damage, but don't be surprised when everyone around you is doing more. About level 9 this really starts singing, so I wouldn't recommend for lower level campaigns. We are planning for level 20.

Amazing build Chris! It plays very well if you want to play a Jedi-like character, I think. It's something I tried to do in the past with the Bladesinger, but this build seems very fun to play with! Thanks again for the great content!

I kind of like having Blur as a tankier option at lower levers and not having to wait for improved invisibility.

I'm a huge fan of your videos, I love listening to them on commutes but unfortunately dont have unlimited mobile data to watch for long periods of time. Have you ever considered uploading an mp3 audio version to spotify in the form of a podcast? Just an idea but would be kick ass.

would this strategy work with a hobgoblin? if I take medium armor at 4 and war caster at 8 or would I REALLY be missing a lot without the fighter levels?

Looking at making something based on this for an AL character. Is losing out on Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade a deal breaker for it though since War Wizard is from XGtE and those cantrips are from SCAG?

Animated objects flavor idea for people who want to make just one attack. You rev up your blade, as bits of metal from your belt magnetically attach to the blade and start impossibly whirring and spinning like the gnashing maw of a shark or similarly large mouthed animal. Engage animated saw blade!

I like how Canadian's say offense.

I think this one is my favorite build so far, i always liked the idea of a battle mage, using weapons and armor, well done! One question: do you think spell mastery is worth taking instead of the third level of fighter? Having unlimited shield is nice, but you already have the arcane deflection and the manouvers sounds pretty awesome...

Since this is an intelligence base melee character what do you think of taking Psi Warrior from the new Tasha's book as your third level fighter archetype?

Also, if people keep bringing up tenser... What can you do to make it work? Can you build something around it?

I do like Tenser's transformation here, I see it more as an improved polymorph (for the temporary hp and the ability to retain a lot of your damage and fighter qualities)

Chris, now that Tasha's is out and Tasha's otherworldly guise doesn't have some of the restrictions that tensers has, would you consider using this spell? I would probably go 2 lvls fighter, 1 lvl order cleric and rest in war wizard. Since most reason to take githyanki are negated by starting fighter and the ability score flexibility for harengon, I really do like Harengon here, add on the jump spell and you've got a buff bunny with lots of spells zipping around the battlefield.

How does your table deal with summons like Animated Objects for instance with rolling multiple attacks and separate damage etc? Do you house rule rolls together or anything?

Very well fleshed out guide. I was considering running something similar in an upcoming campaign myself. I'd be starting as a different race and background for flavor/RP reasons, but other than that I had pretty much the same thing in mind. The DM will let us start with a free feat ("taken" at level 1, so no war caster if starting as fighter), and I was wondering what could work well. I was thinking maybe taking Crusher to more reliably trigger booming blade would be a neat synergy. Any other potential feats come to mind in this circumstance?

What do u think about Familiars + Dragon's breath, specially at low levels?

I'm see the benefits of the 3rd level of fight with the subclass, but would that out weigh wizard lvl18 getting spell mastery plus an extra 5th lvl spell slot? I was thinking of making a character like this and stumbled along this video after I already made rough draft.

If available Echo Knight would now be a superior 3rd level option correct? Would this tempt you to switch back to fighter earlier?

Treantmonk, is there a story behind how you got your name and can we expect any monk builds in the future after all these wizards? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Way of the Four Elements and if there is a good way to make it work RAW. And if not, then what would your Treantmonk Variant fix for it be?

Which Action Surge would you take if you were doing a Dex build?

question is how does echo knight play with this

Would you consider going Echo instead of Battle Master? Seems like a more powerful choice?

For this build, I agree that tenser's isn't worth it. You don't get much out of an extra attack. However, if you went Paladin instead of fighter, a 2nd attack means another chance to smite. Here's my AL Legal Build. V.Human Paladin 2/War Wizard 17/Hexblade 1. Str 13->14 ->16 +3/+3 Dex 9 -1/-1 Con 13->14 +2/+8 Int 15->16 ->18 ->20 +5/+5 Wis 10 0/+6 Char 13 +1/+7 Feats: V.human: Res(Con) Wizard 4: +2 Str Wizard 8: War Caster Wizard 12: +2 Int Wizard 16: +2 Int Take Paladin for 1st. I'd Wizard to 5th for haste, then take my 2nd Paladin level. Then I'd take wizard to 11th for tensers. Then take hexblade. I'd take hex and armor of Agathys as my 2 spells. Now, I may have this wrong, but when contingency goes off, you aren't considered to be casting a spell. So, you could have a contingency that when you run out of temp HP from tensers, a 5th level armor of Agathys goess off. You now have 25 more temp HP (after you've burned through your initial 50). Additionally, Tenser's incentives you to use arcane deflection (not a spell), which is great when you eventually get deflecting shroud.

Would you reccomend echo knight over battlemaster?

Chris, I have been wondering how you word your contingency-trigger for dimension door. Everything I've seen states that you must specify exactly where you are going to teleport when you cast the spell...not when it triggers.

My DM doesn’t allow two leveled spells per turn.. and frankly, I can’t seem to find anything online that says otherwise. But I really love this build even if I can only cast one leveled spell at a time

Soooo... question you said we would be giving up 5d8 if we chose the transformation spell, but by not using it you’re giving up 4d12 because of the now two attacks. Proficiency with str and con saves and 50 temps for possibly 2 fights... maybe.... so would transformation be better while hasted or if you’re going to use your action surge? You can only use booming blade once right? So, would the 6d12 with haste be better or 8d12 if twf? Or that could be 12 d12 added if using action surge right? This is my first time reading the spell but transformation seems better in certain situations in which you really don’t take account. For instance, party members buffing. I know it can’t be counted on all the time, but it seems to me if i had a wizard playing this spec, we better have a traditional wizard also or a buffer of some sort. Or say you went two weapon fighting that would be an extra 6d12 damage and 8d12 with haste and I don’t even know how the fighter thing works with it.... I don’t think you get an extra off hand attack with action surge or do you? 4d8+9+8d12 with haste or 3d8+6+6d12 without haste with advantage every round or 4d6+6+2d8+10d4+40 with animate objects, booming blade and haste if they don’t move. 4d6+6+5d8+10d4+40 if they do move. Holy crap! How would action surge work with this? I just know something is dead lol.... Although, this is all negated basically if you miss the booming blade. Sorry, this intrigued me... and all my calculations are probably wrong it’s super late 🤣.

I have a character concept for a Mountain Dwarf fighter dip then war wizard, should I forgo Warcaster altogether and pump INT with ASIs since I will start with 14? Con will be 16 though

In your conjurer video you have low int and concentrate on your summons. What do you do with your action though when concentrating? With low int I'm not sure about spells you'll cast

Any thoughts on sentinel

Something that was not covered explicitly that I feel was important- how do you deal with issues with your focus? Do you need to have a real free hand to access it/component pouch? Do you do the classic drop weapon and pick it up next turn?

Great job again. Thanks for showing how a few changes can really affect the build. I put this buried under another comment, but I figured it was worth getting your opinion: @Липинский Владимир if you want to be nasty, use walloping ammunition from Xanathar's Guide to everything as the tiny objects you animate. 1. They're magical, so they bypass the non-magical resistance of some monsters. 2. They're tiny, so you get 10 of them attacking at a time. 3. Any creature damaged by a Walloping ammunition is knocked prone unless it passes a DC 10 strength save. That save is easy, but having to make it up to 10 times per round means a natural 1 is gonna happen eventually. 4. They are a common magical item which means the average DM will likely sell them to you for 25 to 50 gp each.

Does anyone know what.Software is used to make home brew classes that look like the official material? I’ve seen a ton of really cool builds and some crap ones, but there are some that, if I didn’t know better, I would think came out of source book.

Curiosity. Aside from a DM having something like an Alhoon have access to it, when is Tenser’s Transformation useful? Because this isn’t the first time you e completely dismissed the spell as useless and I’m curious when it could be useable

wouldnt pushing something already trigger BB's secondary dmg? Or is it specified that they have to move willingly?

Anyt different spell choices for the pure Wizard build?

Steel wind strike?

I would have to play this build to have a more informed opinion, but I think the effectiveness of Fire Shield sounded a bit overstated. The secondary damage is risky to trigger, especially while concentrating on a huge spell like animate objects. I get that this character is amazing at concentration saves, but appropriate CR creatures like the Roc, Remorhaz, or a Young Dragon can put out 30-50 points of damage on a single hit. Which also brings up a secondary concern; this character's HP is much lower than martial tanks, meaning it won't take very many hits before he's down. I think I would typically prefer to save that 4th level spell slot for Greater Invisibility and only use Fire Shield if I knew it would give me a relevant resistance. I don't think Action Surging for it plus Animate Objects sounds like a great idea, but again, maybe actually trying the character would change that opinion. Edit: I'm specifically referring to the idea of action surging for Fire Shield plus Animate Objects. That's what I thought sounded overstated, not the spell itself.

What if you animate sliver objects like 10 pure sliver coins you carry around?

What do you make of steel wind strike?

Isn't it slightly counterproductive to use both fire shield and animate objects (with action surge) during the same encounter? We are providing other targets to our enemies while at the same time we would kind of want them to attack us and take damage from the fire shield. Second wind (and later on soul cage) would also help when using fire shield, cause it would counter some of the pressure on our HP, and it uses a bonus action, just like animate objects. I guess using both is great for diverting attention from us, but given how good our concentration is (so there is no real need to worry all that much about losing concentration on something even as good as animate objects), I don't see the value in that. Unless we don't care about resources of course and we just want to hit the maximum damage we can. Though, if we do care about resources, wouldn't it be better to use fire shield in conjunction with something like grappling and perhaps even a flaming sphere (though it uses those bonus actions that we might want to use to regain hp) or, and save that 5th level slot for another fight? I am thinking that Bigby's hand would be a better use of that 5th level slot if we really wanted one or two enemies to really focus on us (and fire shield would compensate for the damage we would take). Our mental saves are weak (mainly wisdom). Fear will be the least of our problems since we are only losing our sword damage and we don get to tank (though it would hurt to get frightened after we used a 4th level slot on fire shield; or a 2nd level slot on mirror image even). But becoming charmed or stunned or dominated or incapacitated or paralyzed or anything else (mind blasted!) that would occur from a failed mental save, will hurt us a lot. Since we have both dispel magic and contingency, could we perhaps use them together to form some sort of defense? I was expecting scatter no matter what. It combos great with forcecage. Hmm, soul cage has a use (advantage on attack) that plays well with using plane shift offensively (which will be less of a problem since we have an easier time being in melee compared to other wizards). Wait.... no antimagic field?!!! I was so expecting that from when you said at part 1 that there are advantages to doing a str build.

I have some comments on the whole character: 1) I like the cantrip choices and when you pick them, except for Minor Illusion and Lightning Lure. Minor Illusion is cool and good but I think Prestigiditation is a much better choice for a character that goes around slaughtering enemies. Use Prestigiditation to clean your plate armor! Just personal preference though. Lightning Lure at level 10 is kinda "eh", I really like the cantrip on an Eldritch Knight for example, but at level 10 casting that cantrip means you're not doing something much more amazing. I like the fact you can protect allies with it though, because you can pull an enemy that is attacking an ally into your attack range, and if they want to keep attacking that ally they need to move out of your range, triggering a Booming Blade opportunity attack. I loved this combination with my Eldritch Knight, but with that character I was doing that thing by level 3, and by level 7 I was able to cast Lightning Lure AND do an attack as a bonus action, so it had a much stronger use. 2) Shadow Blade isn't really useful if you compare its damage to a Greatsword. If you really need a magic weapon you can really just cast the Magic Weapon spell and have a similiar result. The strength of Shadow Blade with such a character is being able to upcast it, I think you should have mentioned it since the main drawback of this spell on this character is the lack of Extra Attack. 3) Haste should have been an option in my opinion. The major drawback of Haste is that you really don't want to lose concentration on it. The first problem is that once you cast Haste you basically cannot cast another concentration spell even if you wanted. The second problem is losing concentration because of taking damage, but between War Caster and Con save proficiency it isn't a problem at all. The way Haste works is that you take that Action to cast it, and immediately after that action you can take the additional Haste action to make a weapon attack. It won't have Booming Blade but it's a cool consolation for what it will give you later: 1 Booming Blade + 1 Attack each turn, which is great in my opinion. I would also go for something that deals AoE damage since I think it's always a cool thing to have on a character that aims to deal damage. 4) I would have taken Storm Sphere. It doesn't have the same synergy of Flaming Sphere with Booming Blade, but in one spell you get crowd control and a bonus action attack, a lot of value out of a single spell slot. Plus, Lightning damage is a better damage type than Fire in general. 5) I do really have a bias against Animated Objects. The fact it doesn't deal magical damage really lowers its damage potential, let's be honest, most things are gonna be resistant to non-magical physical damage at this point. It still deals great damage for a bonus action, but it's still a spell that doesn't offer that much versatility. I would have taken Bigby's Hand right on the spot because it offers the versatility you need at that level. It doesn't have the same damage potential of Animated Objects, it doesn't have the sheer control power of Wall of Force, but it can do single target good damage and still offer good control over a single enemy. You can upcast it for great damage too. 6) I often defend Tenser's Transformation because I think it's not as bad as people say, but this time I have to agree with you. You gain Extra Attack and your attacks deal more damage, but you cannot use all the magic shenanigans, starting from Booming Blade going to Flaming Sphere and Bigby's Hand, eccetera.

Oafense?

A way to make tensers transformation work ( though i would not advice it) paladin 2/ fighter 2/ wizard 11. You can with action surge and tensers transformation make 2 maxed out and 2 lvl 4 divine smites in a turn..

Why does Animate Objects spell deal non-magical damage? The Sage Compendium clearly states that anything created by a spell or fueled by a spell slot is magical. Sure, I know that the spell targets non-magical objects. But they clearly become magical - they gain semblance of life, movement and even flying speed, sometimes. Seems pretty magical to me. If balance is a concern, I still don't get it. First, this spell is fueled by a fifth level slot; it's a huge resource cost. At that level, it's reasonable to expect a spell do damage bypassing resistance to non-magical attacks. Second, introducing this spell to a game does not make a character OP. At the level one might get Animate Objects, the DM has a multitude of ways to circumvent this spell or even render it useless. For example, the objects animated by the spell are vulnerable to AoE attacks; moreover, they have poor speed and fast opponents may easily avoid them, especially if such opponents have fly speed. Our DM's ruled that the objects animated vie this spell do magical damage, and most encounters we've been in during that campaign have still been challenging enough. Partly because our DM has used the aforementioned tactics against us. I'm not trying to dictate what's right here, I'm just explaining my reasoning and honestly asking: why is it common to rule that Animate Objects spell deals non-magical damage? Seems strange to me.

But Tenser's Transformation is one of the best debuffs in the game. You cast it and the target is completely nerfed, *no save* - I don't understand why you hate on it so much.

Proficiency in smith tools + fabricate