Have a spell for every siutation in your Daggerheart campaign with the Wizard!
The wizard provides a reliable starting point for a spellcaster in Daggerheart. You lack the variety of spells you might get in D&D starting out, but there’s a bit more flexibility in the build thanks to malleable aspects like ancestries and experiences.
Concept: Reliable battlefield caster
The goal here is not to create a wizard focussed on one area but rather a dependable one that can adapt to what the fight demands while still contributing outside of combat through utility and lore knowledge.
Starting Choices
Wizard class abilities
The wizard doesn’t necessarily have the strongest core abilities. Prestidigitation works similarly to the spell in D&D, offering you the ability to create harmless magical tricks. This is useful from a roleplay point of view (bamboozle some low intelligence hostiles out of combat or curry favour with the children of a community you visit), but you can also use it to cause distractions and draw enemy attention elsewhere.
Strange Patterns is definitely beneficial, but tough to depend on. At the start of the day, pick a number from 1-12. When you roll it on a Duality Die, gain Hope or clear Stress. You can change the chosen number after a long rest.
Ancestry: Seaborne
Seaborne continues to be a generically useful ancestry. When you roll with Fear, your wizard gains tokens you can spend to add +1 to an action roll, per token spent. Tokens clear at the end of a session.
This is a bit of a situational bonus, mostly useful for pushing important rolls over the line. It creates a nice silver lining that softens the blow of rolling with fear. Bear in mind that these do not replenish until the next time you come to play Daggerheart, use them wisely and save for a roll that it is vital you succeed in!
Subclass: Battle Mage
This subclass affords your wizard an additional hit point slot for a little more staying power, which is welcome as you won’t be using heavy armor or have invested in evasion. The more important part of this subclass is the fact that when you succeed with Fear on an attack roll, you deal an extra 1d10 magic damage. This will not happen all the time, but when it does the enemy force will really feel it. This almost goes without saying, but the more you attack, the more likely it is that this will happen, but the GM is stacking up Fear as you do, so its a bit of a double edged sword.
Ancestry: Clank
The clank has a simple advantage, adding +1 to an experience, making the bonus a total of +3. The smartest thing to do here is to establish an experience as broadly around spell casting as your GM will allow. Of course, this would be very powerful, so its likely they would recommend you make the experience centred on a particular type of spell. In which case you could choose a combat magic, if thats also too broad for your GM you could choose a certain element.
Attributes
| Stat | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 0 | Kept neutral, the Wizard relies on other party members for muscle |
| Presence | +1 | Worth adding a little extra here, as one of the smarter party members, Wizards can be called on to do some talking |
| Agility | -1 | We need to prioritise non-physical abilities for this class |
| Knowledge | +2 | Core stat for casting and damage output |
| Finesse | 0 | Neutral for now |
| Instinct | +1 | Useful for awareness and out of combat checks to investigate |
Domain Cards
Bolt Beacon
Deals 1d8+2 damage and inflicts Vulnerable, opening the target to increased damage from all sources. Not much to add here, it’s just generically quite strong and the vulnerable status is particularly good if the party is teaming up on one enemy. In Daggerheart your party decides the initiative and this makes a perfect opener for your team.
Book of Ava
While none of these are highly synergistic with buffing, Tava’s Armor is excellent for shoring up frontliners.
Choose one of the following effects each time you use this card:
Power Push: Push a melee-range enemy to far range and deal 1d10+2 damage (on a spellcasting roll).
Tava’s Armor: Touch an ally to grant +1 to Armor until next rest or until this is cast again.
Ice Spike: Make a spellcasting roll to deal 1d6 damage, by greeting an ice spike within far range.
Equipment
Greatstaff – The best option for a knowledge based class, 1d6 core damage and the ability to roll an extra damage die on a hit, discard the lowest. When not using a spell, this still gives us a decent chance at good damage.
Leather Armor – No specific advantages outside of decent damage thresholds. Gambeson, has worse thresholds but makes evasion stronger, however our own evasion is already lacking and a bonus won’t help much, so we are better off with leather armor in this case.
How it all comes together
This build plays as a classic wizard: you control enemy positions, weaken them for allies, and provide utility where needed. The Seaborne feature is a nice bonus for making key rolls more reliable but isn’t the focus of the build.
Bolt Beacon is your bread-and-butter opener, softening targets for your team. Power Push and Ice Spike let you manage battlefield space, while Tava’s Armor can keep allies alive in critical moments.
Key strengths:
- Solid mix of damage, control, and utility
- Capable of influencing both melee and ranged fights
- Contributes meaningfully to non-combat encounters
Things to watch out for
- Low evasion can make avoiding attacks tricky
- Lack of armor or abilities that grant armor slots mean you wont be taking hits well
- Reliant on positioning and timing to maximise impact
