Masters of the arcane, a life devoted to the study of all things magical and mystical. Such is the path of a wizard. The Wizard is no stranger to the world of fantasy, often depicted as a bearded old man with a pointy hat (thanks Tolkien) both wise and cunning. The 13th Age Wizard can be no different, or if you are truly a creative soul, a vastly different character from all the wizards of the past!
According to the layout of ease of play as seen on page 75 of the rule book, the wizard is the most difficult to play. I say sucks to that, it’s probably the most difficult to build but not necessarily to play. A player who decides to play a wizard has some options laid out for them…
So perhaps High Arcana is a bad example because it’s a “best of both worlds” type of talent, allowing you to choose a daily spell twice but also gaining the Counter Magic spell. There’s an infinite number of wizard builds that you can make and that definitely is an element of the class that makes it uniquely fun in relation to other systems.
What’s very nice as well is that the Wizard allows you to take on a similar role in combat to blocker or spoiler monsters. In essence, this means that you can prevent the enemy from imposing its will on your allies with spells like Invisibility Purge or Hold Monster. But you can also put debilitating effects to overcome the adversary such as Overcome Resistance or Rebuke.
The class does rely on its spells to keep it going, but don’t let that stop you from building a wizard with a big, honking sword! As I described in this post, it’s entirely possible to do without making your character 100% ineffective. It’s always a good thing to do something different, and yet again, 13th Age encourages you to do so.
Stay Metal \m/