Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
Yeah, but in my mind, that simply makes 5th-level really the onset of mid-level with 9th and getting to high level. Anything beyond 14th was just unlikely to happen in my experience.
D&D 5E Low Level Wizards Really Do Suck in 5E
Yeah, but in my mind, that simply makes 5th-level really the onset of mid-level with 9th and getting to high level. Anything beyond 14th was just unlikely to happen in my experience.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
It depends on if you did gold as xp or not. Without it, as so many groups house rules, then yes it was very unlikely that you would hit high mid to high levels. Monster experience alone combined with level drain kept you from rising to high level.
Dessert Nomad
Adventurer
Yeah, this idea that wizards were 'better' when they threw darts most of the time and had a single spell that wouldn't work if the party encountered skeletons or elves instead of today when they will fight by using spells, cast lots of utility magic every day (like mage hand, unseen servant, comprehend languages, detect magic, minor illusion, prestidigitation, identify), and have twice as many full casts, most of which are still effective against skeletons is beyond anything I can come with with a response to. How could one argue with that? It's just a thing of strange beauty.
Dessert Nomad
Adventurer
Not in my experience - just how many 16+ stats were you playing with in 1e? It was pretty unusual to have half of your stats as high as 16 in most ability generation systems - and if I had something like 1x 18 and 1x 16 for a wizard I would put the 18 in int and 16 in con without hesitation, the difference between 1d4 and 1d4+2 is huge while going from AC 10 to AC 8 really isn't.
Henry
Autoexreginated
I have to agree -- in 1e, sleep was keyed to hit dice (which never change) instead of to hit points (which constantly change), meaning in D&D5 you can whittle a foe into sleep territory. Get them down to their last 20 or 30 hit points, and you can end the fight early.
Not to mention, darts were quite frankly crap in the 1e days, 3 attacks or not. A whopping average of 3 to 5 damage or so -- woo-hoo!
You have to be a fighter with double weapon specialization for darts back then to be worth anything, because that measly wizard with the 20 To hit AC 0, and the +1 or +2 to hit if you were lucky enough to have a 16 or 17 DEX, was pretty much not hitting anything, except as lucky shots, especially since most critters had an AC of anywhere from 8 to 4 at low level (12 to 16 in 5e terms) -- and would for about 5 levels.
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Henry
Autoexreginated
It depends on whether you were using that very abusive Unearthed Arcana system, where you rolled 9d6 (keep the best three) for your INT, etc. Most of the time, our groups used the ones from the DMG, most often either 3d6 12 times (keep best six scores) or 4d6 for each score, drop lowest.
Aiden_Keller_
First Post
I think you choose poorly.
Wizard is whatever you make it...and it looks like you wanted a GOD!...
Wizard is whatever you make it...and it looks like you wanted a GOD!...
Zardnaar
Legend
1E sleep and chromatic orb. Also 3d3 darts are the equivalent of 3d6 or 3d8 these days relative to monster hp.
And 1E UA method V got used a lot. Hell we used it last year in a non 1E game just to see what would happen.
Bigger problem for the 5E wizard is the other arcane classes got buffed along with some of the clerics.
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Dessert Nomad
Adventurer
It is truly impressive how many people loved it when wizards did not cast spells, but instead hurled darts at the enemy. Truly amazing.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
You're assuming that you got to place your stats.
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