Wizards class in Baldur’s Gate 3 is not only complex but they are most susceptible to enemy’s attacks. Due to many magic spells and cantrips at their disposal, Wizards are divided into different schools. For this guide, we will mainly focus on School of Enchantment wizard that is proficient with enchantment scrolls in BG3.
School of Enchantment wizards in BG3 are jack of all trades with their focus on manipulation and survivability. Their core strength lies in using enemies as their shields and to turn them against their own allies. Enchantment wizards can also cast special enchantments on their party members and ally creatures. In this guide we will be covering this complex yet fascinating build in details.
Starting abilities and skills for Wizard School of Enchantment
Things will change a lot as you progress in Baldur’s Gate 3 as this is the true beauty of role-playing games. However, we have selected some specific things to start your journey as a School of Enchantment wizard in BG3.
Race: Elf. This race provides 4 perks including Base Racial speed (9m per turn movement), increased proficiency with swords and bows, ability to see in the dark up to 12m and the best of all Fey Ancestry (can’t be put to sleep and you will always have an upper hand in saving throws against charmed).
Subrace: High Elf. This subrace grants you an additional cantrip Fire Bolt that deals moderate fire damage to surrounding enemies.
Spells and Cantrips: As a starting bonus when using High Elf race with Wizard class in Baldur’s Gate 3, you gain 3 cantrips and 6 starting spells. For cantrips we recommend Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp and Minor Illusion. For starting spells, you can’t go wrong with Charm Person, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Sleep, Mage Armor, Magic Missile and False Life.
Ability points distribution: 8 Strength, 13 Dexterity, 14 Constitution with +2 bonus, 15 Intelligence with +1 bonus (primary ability), 12 Wisdom and 8 Charisma.
Skills: Arcana, Acrobatics, Investigation, Insight, Perception, Persuasion and Sleight of Hand.
Prepared Spells: Mage Armor, False Life, Magic Missile and Sleep.
Best background
Backgrounds in Baldur’s Gate 3 play an extremely important role in describing a whole build and how will it operate. For the School of Enchantment Wizard build, we recommend going with Guild Artisan. This background provides additional Insight and Persuasion to our build.
These traits not only allow us to investigate a character or a situation but also gives us enough charisma to woo a person or people with minimal effort. Both traits come in handy during investigation sequences and solving puzzles.
Best Feats for Wizard School of Enchantment build
Feats are unique passive abilities that you can unlock only three times in Baldur’s Gate 3. These skills known as feats are not class-specific, however, if you select them correctly to match the race and background of your build, you will reap a lot of bonuses later in the game.
The first feat slot unlocks at level 4, the second at level 8, and the third at level 12. We will tell you which feats you can select to match the playstyle of Wizard School of Enchantment subclass in BG3
Level 4: Ability Improvement. Add two more points into Intelligence to bring it up to 18. This improves your Intelligence checks with a +4 modifier.
Level 8: War Caster Concentration. This feat allows you to have an advantage on saving throws so you can maintain concentration.
Level 12: Magic Initiate Warlock. One of the most interesting feats, this allows you to learn two level 1 spells and one cantrip from warlock spell tree. The more the merrier.
Best Spells for Wizard School of Enchantment build
In this section, we will list the magic spells from each tier that you can prepare to use with your Enchantment Wizard in Baldur’s Gate 3. Below are the recommended magic spells, use the ones that you think will suit your playstyle better.
Level 1: For first level we recommend Mage Armor (provides extra armor class), False Life (doubles your HP instantly), Magic Missile (deals moderate damage to enemies) and Sleep (puts enemies to sleep until you hit them).
Level 2: This branch of magic spells unlocks at character level 3. We recommend Hold Person (allows you to incapacitate a humanoid enemy and if they are within 3m, you always land a critical hit), Crown of Madness (makes the humanoids mad, and they attack any creatures in the vicinity), Melf’s Acid Arrow (deals 4d4 acid damage to enemies), Scorching Ray (deals 6d6 fire damage), and Misty step (teleport to any free space within 18m radius) spells.
Level 3: For level 3 magic spells we recommend Glyph of Warding (create magical glyphs on the floor to inflict specific magic damage on the enemy that touches it), Hypnotic Pattern (creates a patten that hypnotize creatures that see it. They can’t attack you), Protection from Energy (touch the creature you conjured to make them immune to elemental attacks) and Lightning Bolt (does 8d6 damage on enemies in a row).
Level 4: For the level 4, our choices for magic spells are Confusion (confuse creatures by making them attack randomly or miss their turns), Conjure Minor Elemental (conjure a small elemental to fight on your side).
Level 5: We are talking about big boys’ spells now. For level 5 we recommend Dominate Person (force a humanoid to fight for you and attacks enemies with a wisdom saving throw) and Hold Monster (paralyse any creature and if they are within 3m range, every attack is critical on them).
Level 6: For the ultimate class of spells we recommend Otto’s Irresistible Dance (creature starts dancing and lose its turn, while attacker gains advantage on attack rolls) and Disintegrate (deals 10d6+40 force damage to enemies). However, you can only use 1 of them.
Best armor and weapons
Weapon: Staff of Crones. This two-handed bludgeoning stick allows you to cast ray of Sickness magic spell without using a magic slot.
Rings: Ring of Poison Resistance and Ring of Protection.
Amulet: The Sapphire Spark. This rare necklace adds additional damage to any magic missile you fire towards enemies.
Clothing: Prisoner’s Robe. This piece of clothing increases Dexterity skill by 2 and inflicts additional poison damage on enemies by 1d4.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Wizard School of Enchantment build level progression
Level progression plays an important role for wizard class, as it is here where you can select the respective school. In this section, we will look at the levels and what kind of unique abilities, skills or spells unlock with each level. However, we will be avoiding health increment or other stats in this section.
Level 1: The first level of Wizard class allows you to choose various cantrips and magic spells. You can prepare 2 magic spells in the level 1 slots.
Level 2: As soon as level 2 unlocks, you get the chance to select your school or subclass for Wizards. In this case, we will be going with the School of Enchantment. One special ability that you get at level 2 for School of Enchantment Wizard in BG3 is Hypnotic Gaze. This skill allows the players to charm enemies and incapacitate them for the next two turns. The number of magic slots increases to 3 (all level 1).
Another important skill is Enchantment Savant. This allows you to learn any enchantment scroll from any level at half the gold cost.
Level 3: At level 3, players can finally access magic spells from second tier and gain three more magic spell slots in the process (1 for level 1 and 2 for level 2).
Level 4: You can now learn a new cantrip and one feat of your liking. We recommend Friends enchantment. One more magic slot for level 2 magic spells.
Level 5: At level 5 of the Wizard Enchantment build in BG3, you gain access to level 3 magic spells. In addition, you get two more magic slots for level 3 magic spells.
Level 6: A new subclass feature, Instinctive Charm, unlocks at this level. It allows you to charm an enemy into attacking someone else. One more spell slot also unlocks for level 3 magic spells.
Level 7: At level 7 of the Wizard class, you gain access to the next tier of magic spells, level 4. You now have one more magic slot for level 4 spells.
Level 8: One more magic spell slot unlocks for level 4 spells, and you can now unlock one more feat.
Level 9: Level 5 magic spells unlock at this point. You now have access to 14 magic slots with another +2 increment.
Level 10: One more magic slot (level 5 spells) and a new cantrip (True Strike) slots unlock. At level 10, you can access a new subclass feature Split Enchantment. This feature allows you to hit two enemies with your enchantments that normally targets only one enemy.
Level 11: You gain access to level 6 magic spells. One more spell slot unlocks for level 6 magic spells, making the total number of slots 16.
Level 12: Final level. Unlocks new and final feat slot.
