Best Builds for a Chronurgy Wizard in D&D 5e

The Chronurgy Wizard is an interesting class choice, forgoing the usual fire and brimstone of aggressive Wizard classes to instead manipulate the battlefield, giving your teammates more time and your opponents less. For those looking to change the outcome of battle through careful planning and supportive tactics, this is the class for you. 

This guide will go over the basics of the Chronurgy Arcane Tradition, giving players insight into preferred stats, races, backgrounds, feats, spells, and multiclass options. This way, whatever your DM throws at you, you’ll be prepared. Hell, you’ll have been prepared long before they even thought of what to throw at you.

Best Chronurgy Wizard Build Options

Stats

• Strength – Unimportant, lowest points possible.
• Dexterity – Semi-important. Useful for initiative, saving throws, and Wizard AC.
• Constitution – Semi-important. Useful for saving throws and max HP.
• Intelligence – Most important, highest points possible. Primary spellcasting attribute.
• Wisdom – Mostly unimportant. Useful for some saving throws.
• Charisma – Unimportant, lowest possible points. 

Races

• Gnome – Gnomes give +2 INT, as well as +1 DEX or CON depending on the subrace. Also have an advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic. The best general choice.
• Vedalken – Vedalken give +2 INT and +1 WIS. They also provide an advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic. Make sure your DM is okay with races from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica.
• Variant Human – +1 to two stats of your choice, preferably INT/CON or INT/DEX, and allows access to one free Feat, discussed later. The free Feat can be very strong early.

Background

• Mage of High Sorcery or Sage – Gives proficiency in Arcana and History. Backgrounds are more for RP purposes, so the benefits are minimal.

Feats

• Alert – +5 to initiative, you can’t be surprised, and creatures you don’t see don’t gain an advantage on attack rolls against you. Pairs well with the Chronurgy Wizard’s Temporal Awareness ability to give yourself tons of bonuses to initiative.
• Metamagic Adept – You learn two metamagic options and gain 2 sorcery points. Choose Extended Spell and Quickened Spell as your two metamagic options to continue with the theme of manipulating action economy.
• War Caster – You have an advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration, and when taking an attack of opportunity, you can instead cast a single target spell on the target. Keeps your spells going, and has an added bonus of better opportunity attack options.
• Lucky – You can reroll one d20 or force to reroll an attack roll against you three times per long rest. Generally useful in any situation. 

Spells

Chronurgy Wizards have access to a number of unique spells, as well as the entirety of the Wizard spell list. This list will contain the most notable and useful of the Chronurgy-specific spells. 

• Gift of Alacrity – 1st level spell. For eight hours, give a target +1d8 to initiative rolls. Pairs incredibly well with other initiative-boosting feats and passive abilities. It may not be worth using too often early in the game, but it becomes a solid use of a level 1 spell slot later on.
• Fortune’s Favor – 2nd level spell. Lasts for one hour. Gives an ally the ability to reroll a d20 on an attack roll, spell check, or saving throw one time. Alternatively, if the ally has been attacked, they can use the spell to roll a d20, a give the lower of the two dice to the enemy attacker as their attack roll. 
• Pulse Wave – 3rd level spell. Targets in a 30-foot cone must make a CON saving throw. Creatures take 6d6 force damage on a failed save, or half of that on a successful save. If they fail, the targets are also pushed or pulled 15 feet, depending on your choice. The spell is solid damage, mixed with an interesting utility effect that can hit several targets. 
• Temporal Shunt – 5th level spell. As a reaction, you can make an enemy who is attacking or starting to cast a spell make a WIS saving throw. If they fail the saving throw, they vanish, only reappearing at the start of their next turn. Taking an enemy out for a whole turn is insane, and as a reaction even better. One of the best Chronurgy spells.

Multiclass Options

• Wizard/Fighter 2 – Two levels in Fighter give you Action Surge, allowing you to take another action in one turn. This pairs nicely with other spells that manipulate the action economy and enables you to start fights with multiple big spells. Also gives some amount of bonus health, as well as proficiency with all armor/shields.
• Wizard/Sorcerer 3 – Gives players access to metamagic, similar to the feat above. This grants players three sorcery points, which can be raised to five if paired with the metamagic adept feat. More Quickened and Extended spells is nice, but keep in mind that you will have to raise your CHA to 13 to level the Sorcerer class. 
• Wizard/Artificer 1 – Only requires one level, but grants proficiency in Con saving throws, and grants proficiency with shields and armor up to medium. A nice upgrade with a very small requirement.

With all this in mind, becoming a master Chronurgist who warps time and space on the battlefield is within your grasp. Remember, there’s no time like the present unless you’re a Chronurgy Wizard. Then you can just make the present any time you want.

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