Abjurer Wizard: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Protective wards and magic stopping spells make the abjurer a highly defensive wizard subclass.

The abjuration school of magic specialises in protective magics that end harmful effects and banish evil or malevolent entities. Abjurers specialise in this form of magic, placing defences and barriers on themselves and allies.

Abjurers are the most resilient wizards available with a lot of features that protect themselves and others. They’re also pretty good at ending nasty spell effects too. If you want a wizard that can survive and help allies to survive too, then this is the right subclass for you.

Revised for D&D 2024, this guide will take you through tactics and optimisations you can use on your own abjurer.

At a glance

A wider range of spells than any other class
Capable of casting more spells than any other class
Cast powerful wards to protect yourself and allies
Powerful dispellers of magic

4/5 – Solid protective features and enhanced dispel magic makes this a good, team playing subclass.

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

The abjurer gets a little bit of a glow up in D&D 2024 with the following the main changes from the 2014 version:

Improved arcane ward: You can now refill your arcane ward using a bonus action and can apply resistances and immunities to damage dealt before damage is dealt to the ward.
Spellbreaker – New ability: Counterspell and dispel magic granted as prepared spells. Dispel magic can be cast as a bonus action and you add your proficiency bonus to the ability check.
More abjuration spells: Some spells were recategorised as abjuration spells meaning you have a few more spells to choose from for your abjuration savant feature.

Related articles

Abjurer features

Yolande high elf wizard DnD 2024 — Wizard: Wizards of the Coast

Abjuration savant – Lv3

How it works

Gain an abjuration spell from the Wizard’s spell list for every level of wizard spell slots you have and gain another abjuration spells each time you gain a new level of wizard spells. These spells go into your spellbook.

Tactics

The big thing here is picking effective spells. Some of your best options include; mage armor, protection from evil and good, shield, arcane vigor, counterspell, dispel magic, banishment and symbol.

Just be aware that you get counterspell and dispel magic as standard, but that’s not until level 10 which is a long time to wait for these spells.

Arcane ward – Lv3

How it works

Create a protective ward that absorbs an amount of damage equal to 2 x your wizard level + your intelligence modifier. This ward takes damage instead of you until it is depleted. Its barrier can be replenished when you cast abjuration spells or by expending a spell slot.

Tactics

More durability is great for a really vulnerable class. It’s worth just having this in action as often as possible.
Make sure you have some regular use abjuration spells in your repertoire to replenish this. Shield can work nicely, as can mage armor, but having a few options is ideal for different situations.
Just be aware that the abjuration spells you cast must use a spell slot to replenish your ward.
It’s also more worthwhile to cast a spell than just expend a spell slot on this. But sometimes that won’t work as circumstances don’t need an abjuration spells. In these circumstances, you still have the ability to replenish your ward.

Projected ward – Lv6

How it works

You can now use a reaction to use your ward to protect someone else.

Tactics

Just be aware that this consumes your reaction so you won’t be able to cast spells like shield on the same round.
You’ll also be less protected yourself so it takes a very nice abjurer to share their ward. But this can be very useful to prevent a potentially fatal wound.

Spellbreaker – Lv10

How it works

You always have counterspell and dispel magic prepared. Dispel magic can be cast as a bonus action and you can add your proficiency bonus to the ability check.

Tactics

2 of the best protective spells in the game.
Having the flexibility to cast dispel magic as a bonus action is very handy and allows you to launch cantrips on the same turn so you can dish out some damage too.
If you have multiple casters, you’ll be the best option to dispel magical effects with that boost to the ability check. This means you should prioritise yourself to handle these things where possible.

Spell resistance – Lv14

How it works

Gain advantage on saving throws against spells and resistance to spell damage.

Tactics

You’re just tough against spells now. Enjoy your new found hardiness!

How good is the abjurer subclass?

If you want a resilient wizard and one that can protect the rest of the party, then the abjurer is your best option.

They have solid features and with plenty of defensive options and enhanced dispel magic makes them a solid team player too.

4/5

Building an optimised abjurer

Wizard diviner 2024 — Wizard: Wizards of the Coast

Abjurers hone in on protective magic, but building one is largely similar to building most wizards. The focus remains on casting a broad range of spells, boosting resilience where possible and utilising your knowledge for skills.

Below I’ve put together some advice for building an optimised abjurer:

Ability scores

Recommended options

Intelligence: Your spellcasting ability and the one you’ll use for a lot of your skill proficiencies. This ability should be your priority.
Dexterity: Arcane ward will absorb some of the damage you receive, but you’ll receive a lot more damage without a decent AC. This is where dexterity comes in. The higher your AC, the less you’ll get hit. Handily, this works alongside mage armor (which you can grab with abjuration savant) or the lightly armored feat. This means your dexterity investment isn’t wasted as these kick in.
Constitution: More hit points will make you even more durable. You’ll also want this for decent concentration saving throws. There aren’t a lot of important abjuration spells that require concentration at low to mid levels. Protection from evil and good and banishment are probably the only decent ones. But you will want to be casting other spells that require concentration.

Options to avoid

Strength: Dump, you’ve got no use for strength.
Wisdom: Only useful for some skills and saving throws, otherwise, not worth investing in.
Charisma: This is mostly for face skills and these don’t come naturally to a wizard so I wouldn’t invest much here.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	8
Dexterity	15	14
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	15	15
Wisdom	8	12
Charisma	8	10

Skills

Recommended options

Arcana: Common knowledge skill and you have the intelligence to back it up.
History: Another common intelligence skill.
Investigation: Investigation comes up a fair bit and as one of the few intelligence based classes, you’re in a good place to help here.
Nature: This feels like the domain of rangers and druids, but as an intelligence skill, this is another that a wizard is well placed to focus on.
Religion: Unless you have a cleric in the party, religion proficiency can be useful for all that religious lore you need to know.

Options to avoid

Insight: Not a bad skill, but it’s based around wisdom and works alongside face skills, both of which, you’re poor at. So I wouldn’t bother with this on a wizard.
Medicine: Another wisdom based skill and tends to be inferior to a healing spell. I’d prefer either taking a species with light healing like an Aasimar, grabbing some potions or taking the magic initiate cleric origin feat to grab healing word (or just leave healing to others).

Species/race

As a potent spellcaster but also a fairly vulnerable character, you’ll want a species that helps with the following:

Resilience: If you want to lean further into the durability aspects of the abjurer, you could take a species that provides things like resistances, more hit points or even flight. Resistances are applied to damage before your arcane ward absorbs the damage now, making these extra worthwhile for the 2024 abjurer. And the less damage you take, the more you can share the protection of your arcane ward with your allies.
Innate spellcasting: You’re the go to class for a range of spells that can be used. Having a few extras in your repertoire remains very useful, especially as these will add to your prepared spells.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Damage resistances work nicely with your arcane ward’s protections and some light healing works well with the protective nature of the subclass. But you’re mainly here for temporary flight which will keep you a lot safer in nasty battles.
Elf (2024): An extra skill and darkvision are both helpful. You’re mainly here for the innate spellcasting though. High Elf is a good option for misty step and an extra cantrip. Drow is good for buffs and debuffs with the likes of faerie fire and darkness.
Gnome (2024): Gnomish cunning is great against magical effects. Just be aware that this will become slightly redundant at level 14 when you get spell resistance. The features aren’t exactly the same, but most intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws are from spells and abjurers are protected against these in a similar way. This makes Gnomes fine for low level play, but not worth taking for higher level play. Minor illusion and speak with animals are better options than the Rock Gnome gives.
Human (2024): If you need to boost your skill proficiencies to take full advantage of all those knowledge skills, then Human’s a good option. The consistent supply of heroic inspiration is useful too. However, the extra origin feat is probably the trait you want most, especially if you want to grab something like the tough origin feat, which is normally only available with backgrounds that don’t work for the wizard.
Tiefling (2024): 4 extra spells known is mainly what you’re after here. I’d favour the infernal legacy.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 with ability score increases, origin feats and skills all now linked to your background.

For a wizard, I’d prioritise intelligence and then one of dexterity or constitution with the below being your best options:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Artisan	Strength, dexterity, intelligence	Crafter	Investigation, persuasion	One kind of artisan’s tools
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves’ tools
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Sage	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Magic initiate (wizard)	Arcana, history	Calligrapher’s tools
Scribe	Dexterity, intelligence, wisdom	Skilled	Investigation, perception	Calligrapher’s tools

I’d say that sage and scribe are probably your best options. I might have preferred magic initiate from another class for a better range of spells, but more spells from the plentiful wizard’s spell list is not bad thing.

Feats

Origin feats

I’d say the below are your best origin feats for an abjurer:

Alert: Wizards will often want to use their first turn in combat blasting off a nice big AoE spell while martials are safely out of the way and before enemies start to split up. This means going early in combat and alert will help with this.
Lucky: Advantage on d20 tests and disadvantage on your aggressors is universally useful. Especially as avoiding getting hit is one of the best ways to not lose concentration.
Magic initiate: Grab some extra spells known from another spell list (or from your own). A good way to make yourself even more flexible with spellcasting.
Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky, you give to your friends).
Skilled: If the party needs a bit more proficiency in knowledge skills, you’re a good candidate for that. This can bump up your number of skill proficiencies a decent bit.
Tough: Really valuable extra hit points if you want to boost your durability even more.

General feats

At level 4, you can start picking up general feats. These are some of the better options for a wizard:

Fey touched: Misty step is great for staying safe. Plus you get more spells known. You can read my fey-touched guide for more advice.
Lightly armored: If you don’t want to keep spending spell slots on mage armor, then you could invest in this, especially as studded leather and a shield will give you better AC than mage armor. Mage armor is very easy to grab for an abjurer though with abjuration savant so if you’re unsure which feat to go with, it’s easy enough not to bother with this.
Mage slayer: Great for disrupting spellcasters and gives you something similar to legendary resistance.
Resilient: You don’t naturally have proficiency in constitution saving throws, but these are important for maintaining your concentration. You could grab the constitution increase to help here.
Ritual caster: If you feel like you’re struggling to have enough of the spells you want available to you, then this is the best way to boost your utility with more spells gained through this feat than any other. You can check out my full guide to ritual casting for more tips.
Shadow touched: Invisibility and an illusion spell are great for a caster class.
Spell sniper: Great for bypassing cover and getting some extra range on your spells.
War caster: Mainly great for better concentration, but there’s a few other benefits here too.

Weapons

If you’ve got a decent dexterity, a light crossbow may do more damage than your cantrips early on. Once you hit level 5 though, cantrips will certainly be outperforming weapon attacks.

Really, the only reason to go with weapons over spells is if you happen to be caught in an anti magic field, a silence spell or something similar. Grab a light crossbow and dagger just in case.

Alternatively, you could use true strike with a light crossbow which would allow you to benefit from using intelligence for the attack, the damage increases from cantrips cast when you’re at higher levels and a better damage type while still getting the damage bonus from your ability score modifier.

Armor

You may have an arcane ward for protection, but it won’t last long if you don’t have a decent AC. Unfortunately, wizards don’t come with armor proficiency of any kind as standard. But the good news is mage armor is an abjuration spells so you can easily pick it up with abjuration savant.

If you want to go for a slightly higher AC, but at the cost of a feat, you could take lightly armored for light armor and shield proficiency. This will give you 1 more AC than mage armor will give if you take studded leather and a shield.