Warmage Feats Guide

Warmage Accessory

These are the best feats to take while playing the Warmage, the definitive cantrip caster base class for 5th edition. 

Warmages turn the simplest of magics, cantrips, into masterful strategy and tactics. With special techniques called Warmage Tricks, these focused casters can become a surprising powerhouse in combat.

While “best” means whatever you decide when you’re building your character, here are some flavorful feats you can choose that synergize well with existing class features or add new storytelling flavor! 

Origin Feats

You’ll choose your Origin feat with your background as you decide what your Warmage did before becoming an adventurer. Consider picking one to match your Arcane Initiation at level 1; this feature tells you where your Warmage first learned the basics of magic, as well as giving you two cantrips and a skill proficiency to start. 

Magic Initiate: Wizard

If your Warmage was initiated as a Tower Apprentice you might choose the Sage Background, adding two cantrips and a first-level spell to expand your magical options at the start of your adventure. Pick up Protection from Evil and Good or Shield as a Wizard initiate, or take the Guide background and pick Faerie Fire as a Druid initiate, to buff your combat potential.

Tough

Match the Farmer background with the Survivalist Arcane Initiation and pick up Tough, which gives you two extra hit points per character level. Warmages make effective front line fighters, so you may need the extra HP. 

Lucky

As a Warmage, you start out powerful, but you become insanely powerful if you can reliably land Critical Hits with your spells and magnify that damage further with Arcane Surge. That’s where Lucky comes in! It’s always useful to slip out of harm’s way and land a few clutch spell attack rolls, but the Advantage it provides really starts to pay off when you score a crit!

General Feats

A Warmage can take additional feats at levels 4, 8, 12, and 16. Here are some great feats to choose as you level up.

Remember if you take the House of Knights subclass, you get a Fighting Style Feat at level 7; Great Weapon Fighting gives you an excellent damage boost when you use your Manifest Weapon ability to summon something two-handed like a greataxe. 

Spell Sniper

Warmages have a host of ranged spell attack options like Force Dart and Magic Daggers. If you’re fighting at range, the Spell Sniper benefits simply can’t be beat. Pick up this feat as a House of Darts Warmage to bullseye your targets with impossible trick shots, no matter who is standing in your way. Plus, if you have Spell Sniper, you can skip otherwise essential Tricks like Extended Range and Flexible Range, and pick up other Tricks instead!

Elemental Adept

If you’re a fan of fighting up-close and personal, pick up the Elemental Adept feat to match the Warmage’s blade cantrips (Arc Blade, Burning Blade, or Frigid Blade), dealing damage on a weapon attack while still activating your Warmage abilities. No more 1s on your damage dice and you bypass resistances. So nice, you’ll want to take it twice!

Spellfire Adept

If you’re playing with the Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun sourcebook, you can use this feat to channel your own vitality into the wild, all-consuming flame called spellfire, expending two Hit Dice and adding them to your damage roll once per turn when you deal Radiant damage. The Radiant Cantrip Warmage Trick lets you change virtually any spell’s damage to Radiant once per turn as well. Bypassing Resistance to that damage is the cherry on top.

War Caster

The biggest (and perhaps only) reason to take War Caster is the ability to cast a spell as a Reaction. You can’t use Arcane Surge outside of your turn, but you can deal an enormous blow with Warmage Edge, effectively doubling your damage output whenever someone is foolish enough to turn their back on you.

Epic Boons

Every class can take an Epic Boon feat at 19th level to augment the capstone abilities of your class. For a Warmage, consider these two:

Boon of Poison Mastery

Also in the Heroes of Faerun sourcebook, this feat lets you deal max damage from Poison once per turn, and you’ve had the Poison Spray cantrip in your back pocket since level 1. With 7d12 + Int damage at level 19, you’re dealing 89 damage, or 173 if you use your Arcane Surge ability to double the damage dice you roll. It’s an unstoppable toxic contagion (as long as the target doesn’t have outright Immunity to Poison at this level)!

Boon of Combat Prowess 

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we can’t recommend this feat enough for raw damage output. Once per turn this Epic Boon lets you turn a hit into a miss; if your class makes attack rolls, this is the mechanically optimal choice.

Do you agree with our picks? How do you build your Warmage in 5.5E? Let us know in the comments below or in our Discord! There’s a Warmage-specific channel for all your theory-crafting and cantrip-stacking needs.

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Get the Warmage in Valda’s Spire of Secrets, or go deeper with more subclasses and spell in the Complete Warmage!