Baldur's Gate 3 wizard build guide: How to craft the best wizard

There's a lot of fun to be had as a spellcaster in Baldur's Gate 3, especially with the vast selection of spells and the creative ways to use them. As a wizard, you are the spell specialist of the group, with access to the widest variety of spells.

Whatever wizard you want to create, everything you need to know about creating the perfect Baldur's Gate 3 wizard is covered below!


Baldur's Gate 3 Best Wizard Build

Characters created in Baldur's Gate 3 boil down to a selection of:


  • Stroke / Sub-stroke
  • Class / subclass
  • Origin
  • skills
  • capacity
  • exploits

As a wizard, this also includes cantrips and spells.

However, don't worry about creating the most efficient helper in Baldur's Gate 3.

As in all of my other Baldur's Gate 3 build guides, you are encouraged to create the character you would most like to play in BG3. If you follow this guide like a loose framework, it will be much easier for you to design the best Baldur's Gate 3 wizard for you.

Baldur's Gate 3 Wizard Starter Class Features

  • 6 hit points + constitution modifier
  • 3 wizard spells
  • 6 wizard spells
  • 4 wizard spells prepared
  • Wizard Spell Slots
  • Intelligence Saving Roll Skill
  • Wisdom Saving Throw Skill
  • Dagger skill
  • Darts Mastery
  • Sling skill
  • Competence of shift personnel
  • Light Crossbow Skill
  • Arcane Recovery (Action)

Best Wizard Races

Although there are eight "base" races in Baldur's Gate 3, there are actually 16 sub-races. Your race is important because what you choose has a permanent impact on your character's stats. Some races have abilities like Darkvision and built-in skills.



One of the coolest features of BG3 is that there's often some role-playing involvement in your choice of race, which can change the results of various quests and dialogues across Faerûn. Your dwarf wizard, for example, will not be treated the same by the world and its inhabitants as your Githyanki wizard.

Baldur's Gate 3 wizard build guide: How to craft the best wizard

The Sorcerer's primary stat is Intelligence, but his saving throws are based on Intelligence and Wisdom. As explained below, the main stat needs of your BG3 wizard should at least inform your choice of race.

However, as I will say many times throughout this guide, feel free to create a race/class setup if that sounds interesting to you.

Intelligence influences the wizard's ability to cast spells. It also influences their saving throws and their aptitude for intelligence-based skill checks.

The following races offer the highest starting bonus to Intelligence:

  • skin elf (+1)
  • Tiefling Mephistopheles (+1)
  • Tiefling Asmodée (+1)
  • Human (+1)
  • Githyanki (+1)
  • Half-elf (+1 when allocated)

Wisdom also influences the mastery of the wizard's saving throw. It also influences how you will get Wisdom-based skill checks.

The following races provide the best starting bonus to Wisdom in Baldur's Gate 3:

  • Wood Elf (+1)
  • Human (+1)
  • Half-elf (+1 when allocated)
  • Nain d'or (+1)

Don't forget to pay attention to a race's unique skills and perks. The race with the most relevant stat advantage isn't always the one you should go with.


Depending on the type of wizard you want to create, including specific bonuses and special features, you should consider the following racial attributes.


Status Effect Resistance:

  • Tieflings gain Infernal Resistance, which gives 50% resistance to all fire damage.
  • All elf, drow, and half-elf races gain faerie ancestry, which blocks any status affliction that puts your wizard to sleep or makes them charmed.
  • Gold Dwarf gains dwarven resilience, which grants advantage on saving throws against poison, and resists poison damage.

Skills:

  • All elf subraces gain keen senses, which grants proficiency in the Perception skill.
  • The Wood Elf and Half-Wood Elf gain the Mask of Nature, which grants the ability to master the Stealth skill.
  • Lightfoot Halfling has a bonus called Naturally Stealthy. This grants proficiency in stealth checks.

Darkvision:

  • Many races (Elf, Drow, Half-Elf, Tiefling, Dwarf) get Darkvision, which allows them to see 12 meters further in areas without light.
  • Drow gets an even better version, Superior Darkvision, which allows them to see 24 meters farther in areas without light.
  • Humans, Githyanki, and Halflings lack the very useful darkvision feature and require a certain amount of light to see properly.
  • Everyone except Drow benefits from Darkvision (Spell), which grants 18 yards of darkvision but disappears after the spell is broken.

Movement Speed:


  • Wood Elf and Half Wood Elf have increased movement speed of 10,5m (up from standard 9m) per turn.
  • The halfling and dwarf have a reduced movement speed of 7,5m (down from the standard 9m) per turn.

Miscellaneous Features:

  • Gold Dwarf also has Dwarf Stamina, which grants an additional max hit point per level.
  • Lightfoot Halfling also gets lucky, forcing you to re-roll whenever you roll a 1. This can be great in tough spots!
  • Githyanki gains an additional skill in any skill of her choice.

It should also be noted that there are BG3 races that are proficient in weapons and armor. This lets you combine weapons and armor that your BG3 Wizard wouldn't normally be proficient at.


Here are the weapon and armor skills by race:

  • Elf: Longsword Proficiency, Shortsword Proficiency, Longbow Proficiency, Shortbow Proficiency
  • Drow: Rapier Proficiency, Shortsword Proficiency, Hand Crossbow Proficiency
  • Githyanki: Light Armor Proficiency, Medium Armor Proficiency, Short Sword Proficiency, Long Sword Proficiency, Greatsword Proficiency
  • Gold Dwarf: Battle Ax Proficiency, Hand Ax Proficiency, Light Hammer Proficiency, Warhammer Proficiency
  • Shield Dwarf: Battle Ax Proficiency, Hand Ax Proficiency, Light Hammer Proficiency, Warhammer Proficiency, Light Armor Proficiency, Medium Armor Proficiency

Baldur's Gate 3 wizard build guide: How to craft the best wizard

Selecting the race can also give your Baldur's Gate 3 magician a bonus Cantrip or a spell you can cast whenever you want.

You'll choose your Wizarding Cantrips from the Class screen, but it doesn't hurt to coordinate your race selection around additional cantrips you can get for free. Here are the races that give you a Cantrip bonus:

  • High Elf & High Half-Elf: Choisissez entre Acid Splash, Blade Ward, Chill Touch, Dancing Lights, Fire Bolt, Friends, Light, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Poison Spray, Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp ou True Strike
  • Drow & Drow Half-Elf: Dancing Lights
  • Zariel & Asmodeus Tiefling: Thaumaturgie
  • Tiefling Mephistopheles: Mage Hand
  • Githyanki: Githyanki Psionics: Mage Hand

Wizard of Baldur's Gate 3 Core Abilities

You can manually assign your helper starting abilities from the following:

  • Strength
  • Dexterity
  • Constitution
  • Intelligence
  • Wisdom
  • Charisma

Baldur's Gate 3 wizard's saving throws are based on his Intelligence (INT) and Wisdom (WIS) ability. These are the two most important stats for your Wizard build.

Whatever your other decisions, make sure your wizard's Intelligence score is the highest. Intelligence dominates your BG3 Sorcerer's ability to cast spells, which is quite (er, very!) important given how central spells are to what a Sorcerer does.

Of course, try not to ignore Wisdom, which influences your wizard's saving throw against certain effects. Wisdom can also heavily influence interactions outside of combat, meaning it's worth allocating extra points to both Wisdom and Intelligence.

You can put points into Dexterity, for example, to bolster your wizard's initiative score and get the first hit on an opponent. Adding points to Charisma can make your wizard a bit more silver.

Baldur's Gate 3 wizard build guide: How to craft the best wizard

Best Wizard Skills

Wizards in Baldur's Gate 3 can choose two proficiency skills, in addition to those they receive from their race and origin.

Put that main Intelligence ability to work and start your BG3 wizard with Arcane, Nature, History, Investigation, and/or Religion skills. However, you can choose skills that seem interesting for the character you want to play instead.

The wizard can choose to master two of the following skills:

  • Arcane (Intelligence)
  • Investigation (intelligence)
  • History (Intelligence)
  • Insight (wisdom)
  • medicine (wisdom)
  • Religion (Intelligence)

Note: Mastery is equivalent to an immediate +2 modifier for the skill in question.

Skills automatically receive a +1 modifier for every two points allocated to their corresponding ability, with 10 (+0) as a baseline. Skills also receive a -1 modifier to associated skills whenever a stat drops to 9 or less.

For example, a wizard in Baldur's Gate 3 who has 9 points of strength also has an immediate -1 modifier for athletics, while a wizard who has 16 points of dexterity also has an immediate +3 modifier for stealth. .

Reminder: All elf characters start with a mastery of perception. The Wood Elf, Lightfoot Halfling, and Wood Half-Elf characters start with a mastery of stealth. Githyanki wizards can choose up to three proficiency skills instead of two, and they can even pick up skills not normally available to wizards.

Best Wizard Backgrounds

Backgrounds are the genesis of your wizard Baldur's Gate 3 background story, and they include two additional skills.

Although a wizard naturally cannot bend nature, this useful skill can be unlocked by playing as a Githyanki.

Do not choose Urchin or Criminal if you are playing as Lightfoot Halfling, Wood Elf or Half-Wood Elf, because you will have the same Stealth skill twice.

Similarly, Elf (who is gaining her own mastery of perception) shouldn't take Sailor's background.

Baldur's Gate 3 wizard build guide: How to craft the best wizard

Baldur's Gate 3 Wizard Subclasses

Wizard subclasses in D&D are plentiful, but only a few are available in BG3 during Early Access.

As a wizard, you choose your subclass at 2nd level. The ones you can currently play with are Evocation School and Abjuration School, whose wizards respectively behave differently from each other in several ways.

We will come back to this a little later. But first, let's start with some features that are the same across all Assistant subclasses.

Magic spells:

  • acid splash
  • blade guard
  • Chill Touch
  • dancing lights
  • fire bolt
  • friends
  • Light
  • mage's hand
  • poison spray
  • Ray of Frost
  • Shocking take
  • real strike

Wizard spells (1st level):

  • burning hands
  • charming person
  • color spray
  • To disguise oneself
  • Expedited retirement
  • false life
  • autumn feather
  • Find a Familiar
  • fog cloud
  • Grease
  • To jump
  • Longstrider
  • mage armor
  • magic missile
  • Protection from evil and good
  • sickness ray
  • Sleep
  • A wave of thunder
  • witch bolt

Additionally, all wizards gain Arcane Recovery, an action that restores all spell slots without needing to rest. It can be used once a day.

school of evocation

Sorcerers of the School of Evocation, also known as Evokers, aim to channel the elemental energies of the world around them.

The nifty perk of the School of Evocation's magic is sculpting spells, a feature that allows the Evoker's allies to automatically pass saving throw tests while in the spell zone of the Evocator.

This means an Evoker can sit behind the party and cast spells like Thunderwave and Scorching Ray without fear of harming their own party members.

The following spells are exclusive to Evocation School:

  • sickness ray
  • autumn feather

Abjuration School

Abjuration school wizards focus on playing a defensive role in the group. Their enchantments and wards are designed to ease an otherwise daunting passage through hostile territory.

The Abjuration School Wizard's special function is Arcane Ward. Just as it looks, this protection prevents the user from taking up to 3 points of damage. The twist is that this beacon restores its own hit points each time the wizard casts an abjuration spell.

The following spells are exclusive to the School of Abjuration:

  • Protection from evil and good
  • To jump

And with that, you've learned everything you need to know when first building your Baldur's Gate 3 wizard! If you found this build guide helpful, please consider sharing it with other players. Stick with GameSkinny for more Baldur's Gate 3 tips and strategy guides as we progress deeper into Faerûn.

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