Green Mage or Loremaster?

[Ulthar]

I hate that I cannot edit the names after I create a character. My first one I spent a long time rolling up and tweaking but did not capitalize her name. So now all the other characters appear correct in dialogue and its driving my OCD crazy.

I thought that eventually the cantrips would be useless at higher levels and I did not want to rest constantly so I picked green mage for the bow.

Should I have chosen Loremaster and made my Mage slot more of a true caster?

I find myself having a hard time with not stereotyping either a high elf or a human mage simply because of the bonuses.

I also found it hard not to take a rogue, I took a Ranger that is a hybrid with lockpicking, I am hoping that wasn't dumb either?

[aerendhil]

choices, choices ...

[Zzyl_tsw]

I played on november EA (finishing at lvl5) with a paladin, a ranger with lockpicking, a mage elf loremaster, and a dwarf life priest. I had no real issue.

Yesterday i just created a full human party because lighting rule changed since, and i want to 'enjoy" the lighting mechanic a bit.

To "answer" more direclty your question :

Ranger with dex and lockpicking is fine, but as you do not have the double expertise rogue have, you might have less success opening chest on average if you do not reload.

Regarding races and bonus, Innate bonus are really different (resistance, movement for sylvan elf), but statwise it depends how you create your character.
-> random roll
-> Average distribution
-> point buy (max 15 without race bonus)
-> fully free

So at worst you can go full free and add a +1 or +2 where you want.

For the mage, well, i also had a hard choice.
In november i did not choose the green one because my wizard was an elf and had already a bow proficiency. I took a loremaster, but it really seems mostly for the fluff and some skill check.
I do not know how often we get scroll, so you mostly get some additionals spells, while the shock one is clearly more battle oriented

[Cassilda]

Green Mage is still decent for the expended spell list alone, in a world without Druids. But yeah, the bow features are not good compared to simple cantrip damage progression. Escpecially since you don't get multiple attack as a wizard.

Meanwhile the Loremaster just give you more of what make wizards a good class. More knowledge and more known wizard spells.

Do you want a lore übernerd, or do you want more spells options ? Just forget about the bow.

[lefty1117]

I went with Loremaster on this first full playthrough, and I also gave her old timirian language so she can interpret ancient writing. So I'm going more for lore based playthrough rather than try to min/max (which I'll do on the second time!). One thing I noticed though playing 5e is that casters don't really need ranged weapons anymore. Between firebolt, eldritch blast, etc, these are basically unlimited ammo ranged attacks.

[blackclove]

I'm just in it as a Greenmage for the goodberries.

I like having a rogue, so no ranger for me. She stealths up and backstabs the crap out of things. So far, she is a way better fighter than my paladin is. Against that goblin dungeon, she just walked up to one, rapier sneak attacked it, walked around the corner and used cunning action to hide again. She took them out one by one while they had no idea she was there. They only got one attack off the entire battle when the damn cleric got spotted :)

[Ulthar]

Thank you everyone!

I think this must be the stereotype:
Human or Half-Elf Paladin
High Elf Mage
Dwarf Life Priest
Ranger or Rogue.

Seems like they are the most interesting. I hate to start over but now I feel like when you say "Double lockpicking" for rogues -that sounds better. I really liked the ranger though - especially for Forest stuff.

[Bagger]

I mean...
I play:
Dwarf Lightning Cleric
Halfing Motherland Paladin
Human Loremaster Wizard
High Elf Greenmage Wizard

Halfling is lowlife and got thieves' tools with 15 dex. It's working fine.

[bbii]

Elf Green mage can give you a ranger without a ranger. Elf gives you longsword and longbow and Green mage gives you leather armor and you gain access to Ranger spells.

[Indure]

My two cents:

Green mage starts off strong, but will just get weaker as you level. Cantrips will outscale your bow and the bonus spells overlap your ranger and cleric.

[WillpowerTX]

A high Dex elf mage with a longbow has some advantages for the first few levels at least since 1d8 +4 or 5 beats a 1d10 Firebolt (that doesn't set things ablaze) any day. When 2d10 comes along, on average cantrips might have a small edge but not on average in play so far. Now if the Greenmage Archery started to include the extra bow Attacks, now there is a stronger case to be made for Greenmages especially if you invest in Bracers of Archery, and then don't need to be an elf to use a longbow. And if Minor Globe of Invulnerability comes into play, that bow with some nice poison arrows will be the bomb versus bad CON save mages!

Love Loremasters for making scrolls, and magic items, just don't know why it seems to take way more than the stated number of successes to make stuff at times (and have seen 15/8 successes all too often) which screws with the crafting dynamic completely!

[PorkSocks]

Originally posted by Indure:

My two cents:

Green mage starts off strong, but will just get weaker as you level. Cantrips will outscale your bow and the bonus spells overlap your ranger and cleric.

You don't necessarily pick Green Mage for the bow. The spell selections along are strong, and enough to justify over Shock Mage benefits. If your mage also happens to have really great DEX, the bow and light armor are major benefits. Don't forget they also have Archery fighting style, making their bow potentially more average damage due to higher accuracy than the 2d10 firebolt. Add in the Entangle effect for crowd control, and it is a clear winner with high DEX.

[Cosmo 🐲]

Greenmage with the Hunter's Mark spell and a bow, is pretty strong

[Indure]

Originally posted by PorkSocks:

Originally posted by Indure:

My two cents:

Green mage starts off strong, but will just get weaker as you level. Cantrips will outscale your bow and the bonus spells overlap your ranger and cleric.

You don't necessarily pick Green Mage for the bow. The spell selections along are strong, and enough to justify over Shock Mage benefits. If your mage also happens to have really great DEX, the bow and light armor are major benefits. Don't forget they also have Archery fighting style, making their bow potentially more average damage due to higher accuracy than the 2d10 firebolt. Add in the Entangle effect for crowd control, and it is a clear winner with high DEX.

Green mage gets:
1. Fighting style archery: +10% hit chance with bows
2. Light armor
3. spell list: Faerie Fire, Hunter's Mark, Goodberry, Detect Poison and Disease, Longstrider, Barkskin, Pass Without Trace, Lesser Restoration, Find Traps, Protection from Poison, Create Food, Daylight.
4. Magical Arrow: Your arrow can transform into a vine on impact. The target must make a Strength saving throw or be restrained until the end of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1). All uses recharge at the end of a long rest.

Bow proficiency is already available via High Elf the most common wizard race. Light armor can be obtained via 2 different background selections. As for the spell list, they are fairly niche and are going to be duplicated if you have a cleric or ranger in your party.

Magic arrow isn't too bad, but the strength save is less than desirable since most melee characters (who you want to restrain) have high strength, while characters who are perfectly happy to cast spells or attack at range (not worth restraining) do not.

Compared to the shock arcanist a +10% to hit with bows and the chance to pin opponents doesn't seem to compare to having all evocation spells cast at +1 their normal spell level, or arcane fury that adds +9 to your evocation damage at level 10.

[Blackmage]

Everyone was orgasming for Shock Arcanist and Greenmage in Early Access. But I always liked Loremaster for some reason. And now that we can see what the Loremaster gets at level 10, its gotta be Loremaster all the way every day! Four extra prepared spells? Yes please!!! Wizards are already broken for their spell diversity, and the Loremaster just broke the whole class even further.

Greenmage is still okay, but best for levels 1-4. Lets face it, the Ranger spell list is insignificant. Yeah, it's got Goodberry and Hunter's Mark. But Rations are a non-issue. And by the time you get to level 5, your Wizard isn't going to be shooting a bow for 1d8+1d6 anymore. They're going to be hurling Fireballs and Lightning Bolts for 8d6.

[PorkSocks]

A few responses in no particular order:
**+2 to hit does not mean +10% to hit. If you would go from hitting on an 11 to hitting on a 9 for instance (going from a 50% chance to hit to 60%), it is +20% to hit.

**Light armor proficiency isn't available through any background that I can tell, but medium armor is available through one. Having Medium armor prof does not grant light armor prof. Very high dex characters prefer light armor. Shock mages are locked into Sellsword if they want armor while green mages can take whatever they like.

**Standout Spells Notes:
- Faerie fire (excellent spell, great for boss fights)
- Hunter's mark (which you won't use conc on often)
- Goodberry (best low level heal + Rations)
- Pass Without Trace (excellent for all stealth teams like mine)
- Doubles up on some other spells clerics have that have some occasional use, reducing the burden to memorize them or to double down if they are great for the occasion.

The Shock Mage benefits are great, but I find that more damage usually doesn't carry you like options do on Cataclysm where the enemies have far more HP. Crowd Control tricks and other cheese are what gets you through.