Celebrim
Legend
So, I'm curious about the 5e spells. I'm looking at the ones in the basic rules, and here is what I think about the 1st level Wizard spells.
Burning Hands: 2 stars - The expected damage on single target is pretty low. It's reasonably effective if you can line up two or more targets. The big problem is the spell does not scale well, gaining relatively little for occupying higher level slots. SUGGESTED FIX: Base damage is 5d4 rather than 3d6, and also add 2d4 damage OR cone is also +5' larger (choose one) for each higher level slot you use.
Charm Person: 2 1/2 stars - It's a needed nerf of this classically broken spell, but they may have over did it, because its extremely vague about what it does and it only does it for a short time. Gets an extra star though because the spell scales fairly well, though this sort of thing only works if everything fails the saving throw which is increasingly unlikely. UPDATE: I just learned that the 'charmed' condition is well defined, and defined the way I would have defined it. This satisfies my feelings regarding the vagueness of the spell, but leaves me mystified regarding its nerfs to duration and awareness since with the strong definition I don't feel they are needed. Leaving it at 2 1/2 stars. SUGGESTED FIX: Duration increased to 8 hours and subject is unaware they've been charmed if they failed save.
Chromatic Orb: 3 stars - It's not bad. You can choose your damage type, which is critical. The damage is actually... pretty good for a 5e 1st level spell. I'd not be pleased to be casting this, but I wouldn't cry about it either.
Color Spray: 2 1/2 stars - Ug. This is awful. Granted, the 3e version was broken, but this got hit 3 or 4 times too many with the nerf bat. UPDATE: I must have been reading an older version of the text of this spell. The release version isn't that bad, which makes me feel much better about low level illusionists.
Comprehend Languages: 2 1/2 stars - This occasionally useful spell actually got a nice little boost in power, as it's now more useful for eaves dropping.
Disguise Self: 1 1/2 stars - Without knowing the non-magical disguise rules, my overall impression is that this is pretty weak. You generally only disguise yourself in life and death situations. If the disguise working is Russian roulette, you aren't going to take the chance. SUGGESTED FIX: Penetrating the disguise should be harder, and interact with character's deception skill synergistically. I don't understand the skill rules well enough to write that yet, but for example, if you have advantage on deception, it should cause disadvantage on the save or negate anyone's advantage on investigation when trying to penetrate your disguise. If you are proficient in deception, penetrating the spell should be at a penalty on the check, and so forth.
Detect Magic: 4 1/2 stars - While detect magic is one of the most important spells in the game and would be a bargain at any price, the latest version is a huge nerf compared to its prior incarnation.
Expeditious Retreat: 2 1/2 stars - In my game, this tends to go by the name 'Expeditious Charge'. The new version is not bad, but it probably won't be part of your starting repertoire. You are more likely make use of this at higher levels when you no longer need your 1st level spells for attack and the like, though its status as a concentration spell makes it a bit less desirable.
Feather Fall: 3 stars - Like Expeditious Retreat, this spell probably can't fit in your initial selection, but once you can move some of your reliance on attack and battlefield control into your higher level slots, utility like this is golden.
False Life: 3 stars - False life was always a fun spell. Having a nice barrier of life that you can renew makes your wizard much less fragile and much less reliant on in combat healing. It's probably not as good as Shield, but its still pretty decent and scales ok.
Find Familiar: 4 stars - They seem to have settled on not letting your familiar do much, but on the other hand you suffering no penalty if your familiar dies. This nicely solves the problem that in earlier editions, your familiar was more of a handicap than a resource. There isn't really any reason to not have a familiar now, and they are moderately useful. Although this is almost a text book definition of a class feature disguised as a spell, that's not all bad.
Fog Cloud: 1 1/2 stars - This is mostly only going to be useful if it confuses your DM or if it causes your DM to play the creatures as confused. It's not a reliable barrier or debuff. SUGGESTED FIX: On the round you exit the cloud, you must make a Perception save or you have disadvantage on attacks that round. Additionally, increase size of cloud by +5' per higher level spell slot you use.
Grease: 3 1/2 stars - Some much needed battlefield control, and one of the few spells that just might on average steal more actions than it costs to cast. SUGGESTED FIX: Using spell in a higher level spell slot should increase the side of the square by +5' per higher level spell slot.
Identify: 2 1/2 stars - Again, one of the most essential spells in the game and you'd take it regardless of what level it is. UPDATE: Just learned that everyone can identify magic items just by playing with them, which feels pretty gamist to me, but I understand why they did it (identify was just so essential). Still occasionally useful, but the traditional 100gp penalty for casting it no longer seems appropriate. Conservatively dropping 2 stars. Could be more depending on how a particular DM interprets the rules and the spells.
Jump: 1 star - I can certainly think of times where the spell is useful, but the way the wizard's spell economy works now, it's simply not going to have much time for spot light. I wish I could think of an easy fix.
Longstrider: 2 stars - Movement is cool, but unless you can realize advantages in the action economy with it, it mostly goes to waste. Again, I wish I had a good fix in mind.
Mage Armor: 2 1/2 stars - If you are getting attacked, you are doing it wrong. If someone in your party can benefit from this, they are doing it wrong. With only a few spells to cast, I have a hard time seeing this deserving a slot. At higher level, if you don't find a permanent solution, this might deserve a slot.
Magic Missile: 3 stars - For the first time, magic missile is actually a fairly useful spell at low level. It's not a lot of damage, but its very reliable, particularly at fairly long ranges. It loses a star though because it just doesn't scale well to higher levels. Every time you get a higher level spell, your enemies have gained a lot more proportionately than just 1/2 HD of health.
Ray of Sickness: 3 stars - I might gives this more, but between needing to hit and the target needing to fail the save and then the disadvantage having to matter, the number of times this successfully gains an advantage in actions is small. Although 2d8 damage isn't much, you always do the full damage (no save for half) so it scales better than some of the single target spells in the list and is less gimped in average damage compared to the others than you might think.
Shield: 3 1/2 stars - I have a hard time liking this spell. I like it only takes a reaction to negate an opposing action. I don't like that it simply does not scale to higher level. Still, it's something that may come into play at higher level anyway just because the bonus is fairly large in 5e terms. UPDATE: Feel better about the spell since apparently you can use it knowing the attack dice, allowing you to only use it when it matters. Being able to negate a known hit is fairly big, so bumping this up a full star. Best thing about it is that it scales well as being able to negate hits will never stop being useful. SUGGESTED FIX: At 3 1/2 to 4 stars, it really doesn't need a fix, but if this spell also lasted an additional round per higher level spell slot you used, it would be a 5 star spell... and right now, wizards don't seem to have a lot of 5 star options.
Silent Image: 2 1/2 stars - It's not bad, but a lot of it is going to depend on having DM willing to play along. I can think of uses, I just can't think of them coming up often. UPDATE: Bumping this up a half star because it potentially doubles as fog cloud and so forth, but its still going to suffer from needing a DM to play along so not willing to go higher.
Sleep: 5 stars: OMG. This is insanely good compared to anything I've looked at thus far. First, it does potentially massive damage (don't let the fact that it just puts things to sleep fool you). Secondly, it distributes that damage optimally across the battlefield exactly the way you would want to if you were given a choice. And thirdly, it actually scales up well, gaining 2HD worth of potency every time you gain 2HD!! This is a great battle shortening finisher that you can keep relying on over time. Arguably, even better than its already good earlier incarnations. Pretty much a must have spell. SUGGESTED FIX: Honestly, it's close to brokenly good. If the other spells were balanced, this one would need to be nerfed. If there was consensus that the low level wizard was too good, this would be the prime culprit. As is, I think we can leave it alone.
THL: 3 stars - It steals actions which is good. Trouble is, it only steal about as many actions as you spend. You aren't really winning on the action economy on the whole, and the sorts of monsters that would make this worth it - tend to be immune in one form or another (legendary resistance particularly). I can't really see myself relying on this heavily. SUGGESTED FIX: Fixing things in the action economy is always problematic. There is a fine line between good and broken. Can I see myself casting this? Yes. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd do it. So for now, leaving it alone.
Thunderwave: 1 1/2 stars: I think I actually prefer burning hands. It does less damage, is totally hazardous to your stealth, and that 4e'y push effect just really isn't going to come into play all that often because it doesn't reliably steal an action. It doesn't scale that well either. SUGGESTED FIX: Increases to 20' cube. And, if you have at least twice the HD of the target, they are also knocked prone on a failed save.
True Strike: 1 1/2 stars: Losing an action to potentially grant an action to an ally just isn't really worth it very often. UPDATE: I'll move this to my cantrip evaluation when I get around to that.
Witch Bolt: 1 1/2 stars: With the extremely limited slots you have, a tiny boost over a casting cantrip again and again just really isn't worth it. The scaling on the other hand isn't bad, and I might like this spell if it had more range than just 30' on top of its other problems. SUGGESTED FIX: This spell suffers from being low damage for a 1st level spell, and then low continuing damage compared to higher level cantrips and all around just never quite being good enough. So to start, I'd up the damage on the first round to 2d12.
Overall, there isn't much to choose from. There are a few decent spells, a few must haves like detect magic and identify, but there is a lot of filler that you could take that would really cripple your character. And I'm not seeing a real schtick here. Is the Wizard now a jack of all trades master of none?
Burning Hands: 2 stars - The expected damage on single target is pretty low. It's reasonably effective if you can line up two or more targets. The big problem is the spell does not scale well, gaining relatively little for occupying higher level slots. SUGGESTED FIX: Base damage is 5d4 rather than 3d6, and also add 2d4 damage OR cone is also +5' larger (choose one) for each higher level slot you use.
Charm Person: 2 1/2 stars - It's a needed nerf of this classically broken spell, but they may have over did it, because its extremely vague about what it does and it only does it for a short time. Gets an extra star though because the spell scales fairly well, though this sort of thing only works if everything fails the saving throw which is increasingly unlikely. UPDATE: I just learned that the 'charmed' condition is well defined, and defined the way I would have defined it. This satisfies my feelings regarding the vagueness of the spell, but leaves me mystified regarding its nerfs to duration and awareness since with the strong definition I don't feel they are needed. Leaving it at 2 1/2 stars. SUGGESTED FIX: Duration increased to 8 hours and subject is unaware they've been charmed if they failed save.
Chromatic Orb: 3 stars - It's not bad. You can choose your damage type, which is critical. The damage is actually... pretty good for a 5e 1st level spell. I'd not be pleased to be casting this, but I wouldn't cry about it either.
Color Spray: 2 1/2 stars - Ug. This is awful. Granted, the 3e version was broken, but this got hit 3 or 4 times too many with the nerf bat. UPDATE: I must have been reading an older version of the text of this spell. The release version isn't that bad, which makes me feel much better about low level illusionists.
Comprehend Languages: 2 1/2 stars - This occasionally useful spell actually got a nice little boost in power, as it's now more useful for eaves dropping.
Disguise Self: 1 1/2 stars - Without knowing the non-magical disguise rules, my overall impression is that this is pretty weak. You generally only disguise yourself in life and death situations. If the disguise working is Russian roulette, you aren't going to take the chance. SUGGESTED FIX: Penetrating the disguise should be harder, and interact with character's deception skill synergistically. I don't understand the skill rules well enough to write that yet, but for example, if you have advantage on deception, it should cause disadvantage on the save or negate anyone's advantage on investigation when trying to penetrate your disguise. If you are proficient in deception, penetrating the spell should be at a penalty on the check, and so forth.
Detect Magic: 4 1/2 stars - While detect magic is one of the most important spells in the game and would be a bargain at any price, the latest version is a huge nerf compared to its prior incarnation.
Expeditious Retreat: 2 1/2 stars - In my game, this tends to go by the name 'Expeditious Charge'. The new version is not bad, but it probably won't be part of your starting repertoire. You are more likely make use of this at higher levels when you no longer need your 1st level spells for attack and the like, though its status as a concentration spell makes it a bit less desirable.
Feather Fall: 3 stars - Like Expeditious Retreat, this spell probably can't fit in your initial selection, but once you can move some of your reliance on attack and battlefield control into your higher level slots, utility like this is golden.
False Life: 3 stars - False life was always a fun spell. Having a nice barrier of life that you can renew makes your wizard much less fragile and much less reliant on in combat healing. It's probably not as good as Shield, but its still pretty decent and scales ok.
Find Familiar: 4 stars - They seem to have settled on not letting your familiar do much, but on the other hand you suffering no penalty if your familiar dies. This nicely solves the problem that in earlier editions, your familiar was more of a handicap than a resource. There isn't really any reason to not have a familiar now, and they are moderately useful. Although this is almost a text book definition of a class feature disguised as a spell, that's not all bad.
Fog Cloud: 1 1/2 stars - This is mostly only going to be useful if it confuses your DM or if it causes your DM to play the creatures as confused. It's not a reliable barrier or debuff. SUGGESTED FIX: On the round you exit the cloud, you must make a Perception save or you have disadvantage on attacks that round. Additionally, increase size of cloud by +5' per higher level spell slot you use.
Grease: 3 1/2 stars - Some much needed battlefield control, and one of the few spells that just might on average steal more actions than it costs to cast. SUGGESTED FIX: Using spell in a higher level spell slot should increase the side of the square by +5' per higher level spell slot.
Identify: 2 1/2 stars - Again, one of the most essential spells in the game and you'd take it regardless of what level it is. UPDATE: Just learned that everyone can identify magic items just by playing with them, which feels pretty gamist to me, but I understand why they did it (identify was just so essential). Still occasionally useful, but the traditional 100gp penalty for casting it no longer seems appropriate. Conservatively dropping 2 stars. Could be more depending on how a particular DM interprets the rules and the spells.
Jump: 1 star - I can certainly think of times where the spell is useful, but the way the wizard's spell economy works now, it's simply not going to have much time for spot light. I wish I could think of an easy fix.
Longstrider: 2 stars - Movement is cool, but unless you can realize advantages in the action economy with it, it mostly goes to waste. Again, I wish I had a good fix in mind.
Mage Armor: 2 1/2 stars - If you are getting attacked, you are doing it wrong. If someone in your party can benefit from this, they are doing it wrong. With only a few spells to cast, I have a hard time seeing this deserving a slot. At higher level, if you don't find a permanent solution, this might deserve a slot.
Magic Missile: 3 stars - For the first time, magic missile is actually a fairly useful spell at low level. It's not a lot of damage, but its very reliable, particularly at fairly long ranges. It loses a star though because it just doesn't scale well to higher levels. Every time you get a higher level spell, your enemies have gained a lot more proportionately than just 1/2 HD of health.
Ray of Sickness: 3 stars - I might gives this more, but between needing to hit and the target needing to fail the save and then the disadvantage having to matter, the number of times this successfully gains an advantage in actions is small. Although 2d8 damage isn't much, you always do the full damage (no save for half) so it scales better than some of the single target spells in the list and is less gimped in average damage compared to the others than you might think.
Shield: 3 1/2 stars - I have a hard time liking this spell. I like it only takes a reaction to negate an opposing action. I don't like that it simply does not scale to higher level. Still, it's something that may come into play at higher level anyway just because the bonus is fairly large in 5e terms. UPDATE: Feel better about the spell since apparently you can use it knowing the attack dice, allowing you to only use it when it matters. Being able to negate a known hit is fairly big, so bumping this up a full star. Best thing about it is that it scales well as being able to negate hits will never stop being useful. SUGGESTED FIX: At 3 1/2 to 4 stars, it really doesn't need a fix, but if this spell also lasted an additional round per higher level spell slot you used, it would be a 5 star spell... and right now, wizards don't seem to have a lot of 5 star options.
Silent Image: 2 1/2 stars - It's not bad, but a lot of it is going to depend on having DM willing to play along. I can think of uses, I just can't think of them coming up often. UPDATE: Bumping this up a half star because it potentially doubles as fog cloud and so forth, but its still going to suffer from needing a DM to play along so not willing to go higher.
Sleep: 5 stars: OMG. This is insanely good compared to anything I've looked at thus far. First, it does potentially massive damage (don't let the fact that it just puts things to sleep fool you). Secondly, it distributes that damage optimally across the battlefield exactly the way you would want to if you were given a choice. And thirdly, it actually scales up well, gaining 2HD worth of potency every time you gain 2HD!! This is a great battle shortening finisher that you can keep relying on over time. Arguably, even better than its already good earlier incarnations. Pretty much a must have spell. SUGGESTED FIX: Honestly, it's close to brokenly good. If the other spells were balanced, this one would need to be nerfed. If there was consensus that the low level wizard was too good, this would be the prime culprit. As is, I think we can leave it alone.
THL: 3 stars - It steals actions which is good. Trouble is, it only steal about as many actions as you spend. You aren't really winning on the action economy on the whole, and the sorts of monsters that would make this worth it - tend to be immune in one form or another (legendary resistance particularly). I can't really see myself relying on this heavily. SUGGESTED FIX: Fixing things in the action economy is always problematic. There is a fine line between good and broken. Can I see myself casting this? Yes. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd do it. So for now, leaving it alone.
Thunderwave: 1 1/2 stars: I think I actually prefer burning hands. It does less damage, is totally hazardous to your stealth, and that 4e'y push effect just really isn't going to come into play all that often because it doesn't reliably steal an action. It doesn't scale that well either. SUGGESTED FIX: Increases to 20' cube. And, if you have at least twice the HD of the target, they are also knocked prone on a failed save.
True Strike: 1 1/2 stars: Losing an action to potentially grant an action to an ally just isn't really worth it very often. UPDATE: I'll move this to my cantrip evaluation when I get around to that.
Witch Bolt: 1 1/2 stars: With the extremely limited slots you have, a tiny boost over a casting cantrip again and again just really isn't worth it. The scaling on the other hand isn't bad, and I might like this spell if it had more range than just 30' on top of its other problems. SUGGESTED FIX: This spell suffers from being low damage for a 1st level spell, and then low continuing damage compared to higher level cantrips and all around just never quite being good enough. So to start, I'd up the damage on the first round to 2d12.
Overall, there isn't much to choose from. There are a few decent spells, a few must haves like detect magic and identify, but there is a lot of filler that you could take that would really cripple your character. And I'm not seeing a real schtick here. Is the Wizard now a jack of all trades master of none?
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