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Melkor’s Advanced Guide to Wizardry: Archmages, spell lists, and you!

Let’s fix the archmage in 5E D&D, starting with the spell loadout. Greetings fellow nerds, nerdettes, and gamers! I am your humble host Kenneth Woody (aka Melkor the Mage), and today we’ll be discussing ways to fix a monster that a lot of 5E D&D worlds have — the archmage.

What makes the archmage special?

An archmage is a powerful (and usually quite old) spellcaster dedicated to the study of the arcane arts. Benevolent ones counsel kings and queens, while evil ones rule as tyrants and pursue lichdom. Those who are neither good nor evil sequester themselves in remote towers and locales to practice their magic without interruption. From this blurb alone you would expect a supremely powerful master wizard, right? Then why doesn’t their prepared spell list reflect that? Let’s discuss ways to change that, and make an encounter with an archmage that much more interesting.

The archmage (spells mostly)

Attributes

Archmages are medium creatures (d8 hit dice, 4.5 hp per level on average) and can be any race of humanoid. They can also be of any alignment under the sun. The reason I bring alignment up, in this case, is simply this. Something like alignment can have a huge impact on the spells you’ll pick up as a caster in general. Wizards of a good alignment wouldn’t normally prepare or even bother learning necromancy spells like animate dead for example, while a neutrally-aligned wizard would try to learn all forms of magic, both “good” and “evil” to bolster their arsenal. Evil-aligned wizards would mostly take a page out of dear old Fistandantilus’s book — often quite literally… Looking at you Raistlin. But now let’s get to the loadout of spells and dissect each spell level. Yes, even the cantrips. Not even the at-will spells are safe from my scrutiny!

First off, there are next to no spells from the school of Illusion (and yes, I’m well aware of the archmage’s at-will invisibility). But aside from the at-will illusions in the base archmage spell list, the only other illusion spell is, of course, mirror image.

Archmage spell list (presented in the 5E D&D Monster Manual

• Cantrips (at-will): fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp
• 1st-level (4 slots): detect magic, identify, mage armor, magic missile
• 2nd-level (3 slots): detect thoughts, mirror Image, misty step
• 3rd-level (3 slots): counterspell, fly, lightning bolt
• 4th-level (3 slots): banishment, fire shield, stoneskin
• 5th-level (3 slots): cone of cold, scrying, wall of force
• 6th-level (1 slot): globe of invulnerability
• 7th-level (1 slot): teleport
• 8th-level (1 slot): mind blank
• 9th-level (1 slot): time stop

Let’s break this down, and get some way better spell options in here, starting with the cantrips.

Overall, the base archmage has some very strong cantrip choices overall. Fire bolt is one of the most picked cantrips and one of my personal favorites in 5E D&D. Light is a very strong cantrip in a lot of cases, so it can stay. Mage hand is another great out of combat cantrip, much like prestidigitation, and light.

But, shocking grasp is where some problems lie. Not only is it a range of touch, but it’s also largely situational. I’m not saying it’s a bad cantrip option, in fact it’s actually quite a decent option. But, once you weigh in spells like misty step, which is a bonus action 30-foot teleport, thunderwave, which is a 15-foot cube with the potential to knock creatures away from you and deafen them at the same time, the usage of shocking grasp starts to wane in comparison to things like fire bolt, chill touch, and ray of frost.

Overall, my top 5 picks for cantrips are light, mage hand, minor illusion, prestidigitation, and your choice from fire bolt, ray of frost, or chill touch (personally, I’ll go with ray of frost, or chill touch). Minor illusion is one of the most powerful cantrips, or rather it suffers from a lot of the problems of the school of Illusion –creativity. In the hands of a clever player or Dungeon Master, minor illusion can almost completely bypass the early levels of a dungeon, as well provide a way for the party rogue to ambush unsuspecting creatures, lurking in the said dungeon.

Onto the 1st-level spells and yes, I will be mentioning some spell mastery picks as well. Spell Mastery is what player wizards gain access to at 18th level, one of the better features on the wizard’s list overall. Simply put, a wizard can select two spells from their spellbook, one 1st-level and 2nd-level, and can cast them at their lowest levels without spending spell slots.

The base archmage’s 1st-level spells aren’t bad in any means. Detect magic and identify sometimes need to be prepared. Most times, however, they do not. Here’s my suggestion for spells to consider preparing for this level. Consider taking the shield spell as one of your Spell Mastery choices. This will grant you a considerably strong reaction. Once you’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s take the ritual spells off of our prepared spell loadout. This will free up some more options. Since the archmage can effectively prepare up to 23 wizard spells let’s finish off the 1st-level list with thunderwave and absorb elements.

For 2nd-level, the spells here are largely great on the whole. I could go on for a while about different spells to have taken instead. but here it’s really only one spell needing to be changed. You can argue not really needing to prepare mirror image on this level at all. Considering you still have invisibility as a Spell Mastery that gives you an immensely powerful spell to cast at-will. I personally would either prepare the blindness/deafness spell instead of mirror image or prepare the suggestion spell. The suggestion spell is one of the most useful enchantment spells for any wizard (Sorcerer can even twin suggestion for some hilarious results).

As far as 3rd-level spells instead of lightning bolt, I would take fireball. I know fire is resisted by a whole lot of creatures, but a sphere is a lot easier to position than a line. Fly is a great spell, but you’re going to want to have feather fall prepared if you take this spell. Hypnotic pattern is a powerful spell to take, and by the same end so is major image or really any Illusion spell on this level honestly. Personally, fear is far better on this level since having a way to frighten creatures is very useful. Lastly, I suggest taking the slow, or blink spells. Blink is arguably one of the best defensive options in the game since it doesn’t require concentration. It simply lasts 1 minute. Blink also works great in combination with other utility spells like mirror image, and even fire shield. Bottom line, if you take the blink spell, do not change the 2nd-level spell list.

So, here’s what we have changed so far (and the rest of the alterations). Keep in mind the archmage can prepare up to 23 wizard spells.

• Cantrips (at-will): light, mage hand, minor illusion, prestidigitation, ray of frost
• 1st-level (4 slots): mage armor, magic missile, thunderwave
• 2nd-level (3 slots): suggestion (or mirror image if you prepare blink), misty step, detect thoughts
• 3rd-level (3 slots): Counterspell, fireball, dispel magic, slow (fear is an amazing control option as well, and blink is an amazing defensive).
• 4th-level (3 slots): banishment, hallucinatory terrain, polymorph
  Fire shield is largely fine here, as it grants resistances to both fire and cold damage depending on the shield you choose. Stoneskin is largely a waste here in my opinion, but it is still perfectly valid.
• 5th-level (3 slots): cone of cold, mislead, scrying, wall of force, mislead or geas
  My reasons for choosing these spells is this. Cone of cold is a superb area of effect blasting spell. Scrying is a great spell overall for information gathering, and wall of force is outright amazing as a defensive option. Mislead is in close contention with the geas spell for out of combat preparation spells. Geas allows the caster to have a slave for a month. Mislead, however, does require concentration. And it’s worth it, provided you’re crafty enough with Illusion spells. What mislead does is this: you become invisible for the duration of the spell. At the same time, an illusory double of you appears where you are standing. The double remains there for the duration, which is up to an hour. The invisibility ends if you attack or cast a spell. You can use your action to move your illusory double up to twice your speed and make it gesture, speak, and behave in whatever way that you choose. You can see through its eyes and hear through its ears as if you were located where it is. On each of your turns as a bonus action, you can switch from using its senses to using your own, or back again. While you are using its senses, you’re blinded and deafened in regard to your own surroundings.
• 6th-level (1 slot): I recommend having a contingency spell in place, meaning you need to have had the spell prepared at some point. Globe of invulnerability is a great spell overall. On the other hand, so are sunbeam, and chain lightning.
• 7th-level (1 slot): Plane shift. Seriously this spell is a near instant kill on things with no way to get back to where you are. Teleport is still a great spell here. If you’re into nuclear builds, however, take delayed blast fireball over teleport and pray to whatever god is listening you get at least 3 rounds off from time stop. If you’re in to screwing over enemies by trapping them, forcecage — quite possibly my favorite evocation spell in the game — has your name written all over it.
• 8th-level (1 slot): Mind blank is a powerful defensive spell here. I’m not going to dispute the fact that immunity to psychic damage and a lot of other effects makes for a sexy defensive spell option. But maze is a far more useful spell. It allows you to banish a creature you can see within 60 feet into a labyrinthine demiplane. The target remains there for the duration, or until it escapes the maze. The affected target can use its action to attempt to escape. When it does so, it makes a DC 20 Intelligence check. If it succeeds, the spell ends (a minotaur or goristro will automatically succeed). When the spell ends, the affected target reappears in the space it left, or, if that space is occupied, in the nearest unoccupied space.
• 9th-level (1 slot): Time stop is simply the best spell to have prepared here in most situations. If you need to blast your foes down, then meteor swarm is your friend. All of the spells here are great options, and that’s even if you want a spell prepared on this level.

Now let’s look at the best ways to utilize the Monster Manual archmage spells. The results are explosive… and tend to get bloody sometimes. Only sometimes, we’re making progress at least. Much like the mage, the archmage’s ability scores imply an aversion to melee combat, a strong self-preservation impulse, and a strategically and tactically savvy view of the battlefield. One can infer, by reading between the lines, the archmage is a wizard of the School of Abjuration. Magic Resistance (Spell Resistance) is a feature that Abjuration wizards obtain at 14th level. Mechanically this doesn’t really mean all that much since Magic Resistance is the only abjuration school feature the Monster Manual gives the archmage. Even still, this inference adds a dash of flavor to our archmage’s personality. Abjuration is the magic of prevention. All other things being mostly equal, this wizards primary goal is to shut you down. The mage’s spells topped out at 5th level, but the archmage’s go all the way up to 9th, with only one spell slot each of the top four levels. Essentially the thought process behind the 6th through 9th-level spells are strictly defensive. And as such, you should keep these guidelines in mind.

1. When in doubt (or when you need to think about what defensive spell to use): Cast time stop. This is especially handy depending on what types of damage are hurting you the most. If it’s weapons that pierce, cast stoneskin. Well time to switch it up to wall of force. If it’s low to mid-level spells, switch to globe of invulnerability. If you just need to GTFO, time stop, then cast teleport.
2. Keep in mind the archmage is always down 3 spell slots before combat starts. One 1st-level spell slot for casting mage armor, one 4th-level for casting stoneskin, and finally, it’s only 8th-level spell slot for mind blank. So we now have immunity to psychic damage, as well as the charmed condition. Knowing this can help you factor in a lot more stuff with this encounter.
3. When in doubt swap the spells with other options! Seriously, how many things deal psychic damage? Sometimes having plane shift or prismatic spray prepared instead of this spell can really shake things up. Don’t be afraid to shake up the spells on creatures that prepare spells.

In conclusion

Archmages are the pinnacle (for the most part), of mortal spellcasters, and wizards in general. And as such, they have access to over 200 spells (221 spells total if my memory serves me correctly). The sheer number of spells at their fingertips is mind-boggling, and as such, there isn’t really one combination that is better than the other.

But there are some spells that will really crank things up a notch. Spells like forcecage are immensely useful in situations where you may not want to fight something, but instead, choose to trap it long enough so you and your party can escape and regroup. Fireball is a great blasting spell overall, and really shouldn’t be overlooked. Conjure minor elementals, or conjure elemental are great choices for wizards (like myself), who would rather send a mess of little guys, or one big ol’ boy to harass hostile creatures (or have a swarm of magma mephits to keep you company on a cold winter’s night).

Whatever your reason for having some spells on your list, it’s sure to be an interesting wizard. As always, nerds, nerdettes, and gamers, game on! One last thing. I’m in the midst of making a prestige class for the archmage (for players!). It should hopefully be out soon for your reading pleasure.

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