Best Feats for Abjuration Wizard 5e
by Prince Phantom
Standing as further evidence to prove my point that Wizards are actually the best tank class, this school focuses entirely on defense. It does this primarily by providing an Arcane Ward, a separate pool of HP distinct from our own and not temporary HP (meaning it stacks with temporary HP) that takes damage before we do until it runs out.
All totaled, this ward gives us as much or more HP than a barbarian on average, and is even rechargeable by casting abjuration spells, which just so happens to be one of the best schools of magic. Granted, defense is really all this subclass offers, but the base Wizard is already so good that I don’t mind one bit. Feat selection will be pretty standard with a few notable exceptions.
Best Feats for Abjuration Wizard 5e
War Caster (Lv 4): The one defensive thing this subclass doesn’t do is protect our concentration, sorta. If our ward takes all of the damage from an attack while we are concentrating, we don’t need to make a save. This means that we definitely don’t need this feat as much as other wizards, but you should probably still consider it.
Eldritch Adept: Armor of Shadows: Our ward recharges whenever we cast an abjuration spell, and recharges HP equal to twice the level of the spell. This invocation allows us to cast Mage Armor, a 1st level abjuration spell, at will. This allows us to cast the spell over and over again to recharge our ward in a matter of minutes at most, easily fast enough for us to have a full ward at the beginning of each combat and giving us a massive amount of extra total HP over the course of the day. Every Abjurer should be grabbing this invocation somehow, either through this feat or two levels of Warlock. Going a few levels of Warlock also gets us Armor of Agathys, a spell we feature heavily in our Prickly Old Man build on this website!
Telekinetic (Lv 8): The 5ft push provided here is very helpful in putting enemies in bad situations and removing friends from worse situations. Our own AoE spells like Wall of Fire or Sickening Radiance are great options, and any ally in a grapple or needing to disengage will love us for saving them. The improvement to Mage Hand and an increase to our Intelligence make this a must have.
Resilient Constitution (Lv 12) : Again, we might be tempted to skip this thanks to our ward, but I’d say it’s still probably worth it, especially if you are rounding up your constitution to a higher modifier. If you find that you rarely even have to make concentration checks thanks to your ward, skip this for now and consider it again at level 16.
Tough (Lv 12): For those of you who just want all of the HP, here’s how you do that. You can be extra crazy and play a Hill Dwarf for an additional +1 HP per level, though this is mostly a meme as there are much better race options.
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