[5e] Best utility caster after wizard?

My absolute favorite thing to do in 5e is when I can find a niche spell that's perfect for a situation the party finds itself in.

This naturally draws itself to the prepared casters and especially the deep spell list and ritual casting of the wizard, but unfortunately wizard is also a generally good class which means there's usually someone looking to use it in a party, and while doubling up can be fun sometimes I like to have other options.

I'd like to ideally make something strong without any glaring weaknesses: I don't want to minmax utility off a cliff.

My front runner has been an arcana cleric, which enables Wish eventually and adds a handful of common wizard spells to its list, but I'm not sure the other features of arcana are all that great, and not getting heavy armor makes me a little leery of closing to melee for cleric staples like Spirit Guardians.

Any other cool setups that enable a lot of flexibility and utility?

Fiasco_Games,

I wouldn’t be too worried about lack of access to heavy armor on a cleric.

With 14 dex, medium armor and a shield You’re hanging out at 19 AC.

Full plate plus shield gets you 20 so you’re not far off. I don’t personally rate access to heavy armor as worth all that much as a class feature.

As far as pure Utility, don’t sleep on Knowledge Cleric either, though that depends on how much out of combat utility you’re going to be able to get out of those skills.

CandourPendragon,

Druids sound like what you’re looking for. Prepared casters, so they have the flexibility you mentioned, and their spell list is filled with exploration and problem-solving spells. They combine things like Charm Person with access to healing and some blaster spells, too. Not to mention the utility that comes with wild-shaping as the situation demands.

For subclasses, you really could pick anything except maybe Spores. Land expands your spell choices even more and regenerates some slots like a wizard, Moon focuses more on wild shapes, Shepherd adds summons into the mix, Dreams some healing and camping utility, Wildfire the usefulness of a familiar who can teleport itself and others, and Stars’ special wild shapes can help with maintaining concentration on a utility spell or having things to do in combat that don’t require you to dedicate spells prepared to combat much at all.

Persuader9494,
Persuader9494 avatar

These are all excellent points.

I think druid suffers a little from being so concentration-dependent, but in a campaign with an appropriate number of encounters that's not really a big deal, you just want to ride one or two concentration spells for most of an encounter. And even in a too-few-combat-encounters situation, druid isn't bad, they just won't be quite as overpowered as everyone else.

Stars has always been a front-runner for me: I don't like that its special form conflicts with Wild Shape utility, but with only a short rest to recharge them it's pretty easy to get back up and running if you need a scout form. And it gives you a lot of flexibility both in and out of combat.

wayneloche,

Bards, most of their spells will help in some way shape or form.

However, I’ve had a wizard and a paladin in a party at mid level and the paladin was the one that constantly had a silver bullet for any given adventure.

But it’s really just best to look at a given class / subclass and look at what kind of utility they provide wholistically (abilities, etc). Because you won’t beat a wizard at casting spells. It’s the whole point of the class.

Persuader9494,
Persuader9494 avatar

The problem I have with bard (and in general spontaneous casters) is that they can't change out spells except on leveling, and they have very few spells known.

So that's great if you want something like Enhance Ability that's going to be useful in a lot of situations, but it'd be very hard to take a spell like Locate Object, because it's a significant chunk of your spells known and you'd probably use it 3 or 4 times across an entire campaign.

But if you're a prepared caster, if it's looking like a situation where you'd want Locate Object, you can just prepare it that day, use it as needed, and then swap it back out for something more generally useful. That kind of approach is what I'm trying to build on.

TwistedFox,

The problem with that is that in practice, you'll often not have the spell prepared when you find out that you need it, and you won't have the luxury of waiting to the next day to prepare it. Buying it as a scroll will usually be quicker than waiting a day and preparing it, assuming it's in your spell book at all.

Persuader9494, (edited )
Persuader9494 avatar

I think in a lot of situations, particularly non-combat, there's plenty of time to handle things the next day. Combat tends to be very time-pressured while non-combat situations tend to not have meaningful time pressure.

The comment about the scroll is a good one: if I'm going to need Locate Object 3 times in the campaign as a wizard, and I'm certainly not taking it as one of my leveled spells, I'll have to obtain at least one scroll of Locate Object to have it as an option at all. How confident am I I'll only be able to find one, versus just finding 3?

This does only apply to the Wizard though, and might be a point against the Wizard doing this best. A Cleric is never more than 24 hours from having Locate Object available.

Any particular tricks to making scroll stockpiling easy? I guess it's really just up to the DM making them accessible and having income to use them.

TwistedFox,

At least in my games, finding objects tend to be under as much a time crunch as combat. Especially since locate object has a 1000ft range so if you wait too long the thief/bad guy will get away. Divination and scrying seems more reliable to me. But I agree for other utility spells. The wizard does get many more spells known than they can actually prep, so choosing them is not as painful for a wizard as it is for spontaneous casters.
Sadly, there is not a good way, that I know of, for getting those circumstancial scrolls without DM buy-in. It does help later in the game when teleporting to major metropolitan areas is viable.

Persuader9494,
Persuader9494 avatar

Yeah that's valid, the case where we've suddenly lost an item or are trying to take it might come up very suddenly. I was thinking more of a situation where you know the maguffin is in an area but don't know where, or are in the right house but need to find its hiding place: you often go into that with advance knowledge.

I chose Locate Object as my example spell because it's on a lot of spell lists so is plausibly something that could be used no matter what class other people suggested, which actually kind of cuts into the concept of wizard supremacy. Arcane Gate, Modify Memory, Seeming, Guards and Wars, Fabricate*, Control Water, and Speak with Dead are all also good candidates for "I don't know how often this would come up, but when it does boy howdy is it useful"

*Fabricate might be good enough to be learned by a spontaneous caster.

TwistedFox,

I'd probably say Bard is overall the best utility caster besides Wizard, as the Bard's Arcane Secrets gives you a limited spell selection from any class, starting at 10th level. A little late, but getting ANY 2 spells you want is pretty nice.

A pact of the tome genie warlock might be worth looking into. You get 3 cantrips more than normal, from any spell list you want. The Marid subtype gets lots of control spells added to their spell list, you get ritual casting, the Genie vessel can be a handy base or safe space for the party, and at higher levels you get limited wish and wish.

Persuader9494,
Persuader9494 avatar

That's definitely some powerful utility, you basically get to cherrypick the best stuff from the entire game.

But it's more "Bard does a few (granted, quite a few) things amazingly well" versus a wizard or druid getting to do anything on their spell list.

That being said, between this and your comment about scrolls I think I at least have to spec out a Creation bard and see how well it would approximate what I'm trying to do.

d20bard,

Also the bard subclasses can add great utility. Lore bard for more spells of any list, glamour bard if you table relies a lot on positioning (and tmp hp is nice), creation bard for items, and eloquence for social.

If you’re a bard you should honestly make your character last because it’s less flexible once done (spell known), but can fit any niche in construction.

Persuader9494, (edited )
Persuader9494 avatar

I'm certainly not denying Bard's utility power, it's just not quite hitting the "oh there's a spell for that" feel I wanted out of this character.

If you’re a bard you should honestly make your character last because it’s less flexible once done (spell known), but can fit any niche in construction.

I think we're kind of on the same page with this: bard can fill any role it wants very well, what I'm trying to do is fill a hundred weird niche scenarios. A bard can be a great skill monkey, blaster, controller, striker... whatever. you want.

But it can't really solve "we need to fortify this keep against a zombie horde that will arrive in a week", because the spells that would do that well aren't spells you can take for the other 99% of situations. A Druid preps Wall of Stone, Stone Shape, Plant Growth, Druid Grove, Move Earth, and Transmute Rock, and goes to town. A Bard might have one or two of those since some of them are actually pretty good for general use, but he won't be able to access all of them. And if for some reason he does, he won't have the toolkit for the next weird scenario that pops up.

d20bard,

Gotcha. In that case, I’d second Arcana cleric. Outside of that, you’re not going to get something that does what a wizard does nearly as well.

However, since I’m throwing stuff out here, Artificer might pique your interest as a wizard-lite with a compromise of flexibility and non-flex. On the one hand, prepared caster, wizard-like list, but only half the amount of spell levels and slots. On the other hand infusions, which can only be swapped on level up, but can be given to anyone.

At lvl 11, spell storing also lets you expand spells with a target of “self” to your allies, or can be used to double-up on concentration by getting a non-magical ally to do it for you. That opens doors for simply doing more with with low spell level buffs. It is also used INT mod times per day.

Battle smith and armorer are technically the “better” classes because they can do frontlining. But for widened support, Alchemist adds healing that the wizard typically can’t do and some random smaller buffs.

Persuader9494,
Persuader9494 avatar

I'm very intrigued by artificer, and I think you're absolutely right: it has utility reminiscent of bard, but gets a prepared list that swaps like a cleric/druid (no having to worry about getting access to the spell), and a bunch of other utility through infusions. Filling your hideout with sentient plant spies through replicating Pots of Awakening is exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. The spell list is a little shallow to me, definitely not the same depth as the wizard list especially since it cuts off at 5th, but there are a decent number of niche tools there.

If there ends up being a good niche for a Defender or Scout, Armorer is on my shortlist, especially because it can plausibly fill both roles with the same build.

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