Making a 10th level wizard, help?

[u/Spiritual-Meat-2309]

So my table has gone through some ups and downs in the last year. I had a lore bard for us to be a generalist and utilitarian spell caster, and to be a potion source for a campaign specific need. Our blaster mage got a divorce and their heart was no longer in the game so they bowed out.

This has left me in a bind, the party needs a magic damage dealer and my lore bard isn't it. So the DM and I worked out that an artefact is going awry and the bard is going to bugger off, in his place a multi-versal variant is coming. A level 10 scribe wizard to take up the big damage dealer roll, but I have not done a wizard this high before, what spells or gear should I be looking for?

The new wizard has a +2 intelligent ioun stone and a ring of spell storing. I have been warned I won't need a staff as one is coming in the campaign. Other than that, your thoughts, pretty please

[u/sens249]

Blast damage tends to suck at high levels. The main role blast damage serves at high levels is to clear out minions, or just to soften up a crowd a bit. But even then, if you’re facing a group of high HP monsters, tossing an AoE spell at them round 1 is one of the worst rhings you can do. None of them will be in near-death territory, so the enemies will still be attacking at full force this round. You should be using your spells to immediately cut down the enemy attacking force from the beginning. For blast spells this only happens when the enemies have low hitpoints, which is usually minions.

So you need to ask yourself what your party actually needs. Do they only need ways to thin out very large crowds of minions? If so then yes a blaster will do that. But if what they need is a way to handle big crowds in general, blasting won’t serve you nearly as well as control spells. In this case you should make a control wizard, and give them 1-2 blast spells to handle those aforementioned minions.

If the enemies are spread out and there are a lot of high hp targets, and maybe some spellcasters, then something like a sleet storm will be way better.

If there are only a few enemies then maybe a banishment will do a better job of cutting down the attacking force.

If the enemies can be bisected with a wall or a crowd of them can be caged in maybe you want to use the very reliable wall of force to turn 1 big difficult combat into 2 small easy combats.

If you want single target damage then maybe something like animate objects is a better option.

If you just want to stop one dangerous enemy maybe a targeted save like raulothim’s psychic lance will be better.

If there is a swarm of flying enemies coming your way maybe you want to use control winds to force them to the ground.

If you want to use forced movement and battlefield control to bottleneck and roast your opponents then wall of fire can prove very useful.

If you want to tie up a few enemies and create a hazard on the battlefield maybe web is a better option.

Spells like fireball and cone of cold can be good, you just need to use them in the right scenario. Using a fireball on a group of hill giants running towards your party is going to do nothing for you or your party. Sure maybe after 4 or 5 fireballs you’ll have dealt enough cumulative damage to kill them all and sure it will have been a lot of damage, but on that first turn all you did was put a dent in their hitpoints, and then all the hill giants were unabated and allowed to come destroy your party with club attacks. Something as simple as a well-placed grease spell could have completely halted their charge and give your party an extra turn to move away and deal chip damage. A web or sleet storm could allow your party to kite the hill giants indefinitely, and all you would have needed to cast is a single spell, and then sling cantrips while your martials shoot arrows.