Why I Always Root for the Wizard with 4 Hit Points
Every table has one. You know the player. They roll up a wizard, they put the best score into Intelligence, and they walk away with a whopping four hit points and a spellbook full of dreams.
I have watched that wizard get sneezed on by a goblin and go down. I have watched that wizard get startled by a bat. I once watched a wizard fall off a stool that he was standing on to cast a spell, and I’m not talking about in the game. I mean the actual stool, in my actual dining room.
I love that guy. I will always love that guy.
Here’s why. The wizard is the character most likely to fail in dramatic fashion, which also makes him the character most likely to succeed in dramatic fashion. Nobody remembers the fighter who hit the orc with a sword. Everybody remembers the wizard who tried to cast Fireball in a closet.
There was a night years ago when a wizard in my Pathfinder group tried to cast Invisibility on himself so he could sneak past a guard. He rolled badly. Something went sideways. Instead of turning invisible, the guard turned invisible. The poor man stood there, blinking at nothing, and then did what any reasonable person would do when his own hands disappear: he screamed, dropped his spear, and ran out of the building.
The wizard looked at me and said, “Okay. So that’s what I meant to do.”
That’s my favorite kind of hero. The one who fails at the plan and wins anyway, then takes credit like a champion.
There’s a reason I root for these folks. I spent years as an editor, and an editor spends most of his life championing the person nobody else believes in. A manuscript with a great idea and rough sentences. A writer with talent and no confidence. You learn to look for the spark under the mess. When I sit down at a gaming table, I carry that habit with me. I’m always looking for the spark under the mess.
The wizard with four hit points is all spark and no armor. He knows twelve languages and can’t open a pickle jar. And every time he stands up in front of a dragon with a trembling finger and a half-remembered incantation, I’m on the edge of my chair, because I know this might be the moment.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s a chicken. Either way, we all remember it.
So here’s to the squishy ones. The scholars. The overthinkers. The ones who read the manual cover to cover and then still blow up the kitchen. If you play one, play him with your whole heart. Give him a catchphrase. Give him color-coded notes. Let him say “Now, according to the text” before every spell, so that your friends have time to take cover.
I’ll be the one in the corner, rooting for you.
Terry Neil lives in Northern Wisconsin, games four nights a week, and shares his home with a German shepherd named Coog. Meet Terry.