D&D 5E Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards 5e

[FormerlyHemlock]

You can fairly categorize most games as emphasizing these three elements: 1) Combat, 2) Exploration, 3) Social Interaction. Each game will involve those aspects to differing degrees, and it's fair to say one campaign may emphasize one of those things at the expense of the other two, or two of them at the expense of the third. But I think you exaggerate when you say there are millions of scenarios you'd need to account for. Not really - most things come down to one of those three elements, and you can talk about generalizations concerning each ability, option, and spell concerning those three aspects of games. I mean sure, we know if you are facing only fire demons then your fire spells might not be so useful - but you also know most games are not just facing only fire demons. You can generalize, which is what such guides are about. And the generalizations are useful - they are a stepping off point for discussion, a baseline for new players or players new to a class to look at, they can be fun to read, there's all sorts of useful stuff with these guides. It's why they've been popular threads for decades now.

You need to account for high magic vs low magic worlds; rest frequency; whether your campaign takes place in cramped dungeons vs. open spaces (i.e. is 60' range on an ability a significant limitation?); party size; whether your DM tailors combats to PCs; whether your DM leans more on foe quantity or quality (do you fought hordes or boss monsters or both at high level--affects the desirability of nova tactics); whether your DM metagames monster tactics or RPs them; whether your DM and/or fellow players are GOOD at tactics when they try to be; availability and affordability of auxiliary troops; treasure accrual rates; whether transport and logistics are a concern for your DM (affects both minions and the desirability of spells like Goodberry, Mending, and Fabricate); whether poisons can be bought or made; and... that's all I can think of in sixty seconds. Oh, and how fast your fellow PCs are, and whether tactical recon is a thing for your fellow players. And whether your DM follows DMG encounter-building guidelines or lets you fight Iron Golems at first level, and how likely he is to make up new abilities on the spot (like letting Tarrasques and Iron Golems their rocks like fire giants when he sees first level characters killing them). Does your DM grant kill XP, and does it have to be an actual kill. Okay, more I think I'm really done for now.

Trying to generalize over all those factors is intractable. All you can do is state some assumptions and then explore certain spells within those assumptions. E.g. "If your game features open terrain and sandboxing, Expeditious Retreat and a cantrip enable power leveling on melee-centric monsters like Iron Golems." "If minions are a thing, Fabricate can give them all AC 18 (chain mail and shield) for just the cost of some scrap iron and charcoal."

Intractable.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

oops post.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

Please don't send people elsewhere to read your replies. Thanks.

No problem. Didn't know it was a rule, it won't happen again.

 

[Mistwell]

You need to account for high magic vs low magic worlds; rest frequency; whether your campaign takes place in cramped dungeons vs. open spaces (i.e. is 60' range on an ability a significant limitation?); party size; whether your DM tailors combats to PCs; whether your DM leans more on foe quantity or quality (do you fought hordes or boss monsters or both at high level--affects the desirability of nova tactics); whether your DM metagames monster tactics or RPs them; whether your DM and/or fellow players are GOOD at tactics when they try to be; availability and affordability of auxiliary troops; treasure accrual rates; whether transport and logistics are a concern for your DM (affects both minions and the desirability of spells like Goodberry, Mending, and Fabricate); whether poisons can be bought or made; and... that's all I can think of in sixty seconds. Oh, and how fast your fellow PCs are, and whether tactical recon is a thing for your fellow players. And whether your DM follows DMG encounter-building guidelines or lets you fight Iron Golems at first level, and how likely he is to make up new abilities on the spot (like letting Tarrasques and Iron Golems their rocks like fire giants when he sees first level characters killing them). Does your DM grant kill XP, and does it have to be an actual kill. Okay, more I think I'm really done for now.

Trying to generalize over all those factors is intractable. All you can do is state some assumptions and then explore certain spells within those assumptions. E.g. "If your game features open terrain and sandboxing, Expeditious Retreat and a cantrip enable power leveling on melee-centric monsters like Iron Golems." "If minions are a thing, Fabricate can give them all AC 18 (chain mail and shield) for just the cost of some scrap iron and charcoal."

Intractable.

You really don't have to account for all those things for a guide to be useful. Watch:

Fireball is a generally pretty good damage spell, because it tends to do more damage to a group than other spells of a similar level.

Implied in that sentence, of course, that it's not as good against things resistant or immune to fire, or against a single creature, or in a tight room where your own party will be hit, etc.. But that parts obvious for anyone with a vague basic understanding of the spell and game. It's a fair generalization - a good stepping off point for discussion of the spell relative to other spells.

If you don't find it useful, that's fine. But, it would be nice if you acknowledged others do.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

You really don't have to account for all those things for a guide to be useful. Watch:

Fireball is a generally pretty good damage spell, because it tends to do more damage to a group than other spells of a similar level.

Implied in that sentence, of course, that it's not as good against things resistant or immune to fire, or against a single creature, or in a tight room where your own party will be hit, etc.. But that parts obvious for anyone with a vague basic understanding of the spell and game. It's a fair generalization - a good stepping off point for discussion of the spell relative to other spells.

If you don't find it useful, that's fine. But, it would be nice if you acknowledged others do.

Here's my 2c on the discussion (not that it was asked for, but I'll give it anyway)

I've been roleplaying 1-2/week for about 34 years now. That's lots of campaigns, lots of groups, lots of DM's, lots of different systems.

There are patterns that occur in scenarios that have consistently repeated regardless of the variables, and there are certain tactics that have proven to be effective regardless of the variables. Not in every fight, not in every campaign, but fairly reliably over what the quick math in my head is thousands of sessions.

That's just my personal experience mind you, but I bet I've had 50+ DM's over that period.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You really don't have to account for all those things for a guide to be useful. Watch:

Fireball is a generally pretty good damage spell, because it tends to do more damage to a group than other spells of a similar level.

Implied in that sentence, of course, that it's not as good against things resistant or immune to fire, or against a single creature, or in a tight room where your own party will be hit, etc.. But that parts obvious for anyone with a vague basic understanding of the spell and game. It's a fair generalization - a good stepping off point for discussion of the spell relative to other spells.

If you don't find it useful, that's fine. But, it would be nice if you acknowledged others do.

You'd seriously want to read a "guide" full of truisms? Well, you're somebody, so clearly I must therefore acknowledge that some people want it. Granted then.

But my sympathies are obviously with those who don't desire to write such a guide because it's a waste of time. I've already given you some examples of sentences that I think belong in a guide, and they're not nearly as generic as your Fireball observation. In fact I think the only useful guide would consist of observations on conditions under which a given spell excels, so a given player can index himself based on play style. "Let's see, my DM uses small grids, all our battles are in 120' rooms or less, we like offense more than defense and prefer nova rounds, and the DM likes mobs of melee trash more than archers or lone champions. Yep, Fireball will be good for me."

The key quality a guide should be conveying is INSIGHT. Who cares what the subjective gold/blue/red rating is--what matters is the understanding of the spell that the reader gains, so he can do his own ratings during play, of that spell and others.

 

[DaveDash]

I apologize to anyone who's posts I miss, there really is quite a bit to respond to. I'm going to do my best. I did promise to respond to the rest of this detailed post...
They can indeed by quite powerful when they are applicable and they stick. However, lots of spells can be powerful, and many only provide one save (or none) and work on most creatures, and may not even require concentration. Overall, Hold Monster is the more versatile, so I prefer it, and despite it's limitations, I gave it the "ok" rating. Yes, I've seen both these spells end a combat though. Keep in mind that with these guides I'm comparing these spells against each other. Spells I rank red can still be useful, or even powerful, I'm just saying that of the pool of spells available, I think they come up on the low end.
.

When you DC is 18, and you're fighting a high level NPC with a Wisdom save of +0, then hold Person is the "I win button" in the game. Even creatures with really high Wisdom Saves still have around 50/50 chance of being stunlocked by this spell when your DC starts getting high.

At low levels it's not that great, at high levels it's freaking amazing. You can take out CR20 NPC's with a 2nd level spell.

Forcecage is actually similar, and you've rated that as a poor spell. It's kind of broken. The only thing that makes it not broken is the fact you can only cast it once per day, but it's your "I win" against anything huge size or smaller, including many Dragons. Getting the material components is easy. My group got them after killing a enemy caster with those components, but once you get high levels 1500gp worth of rubies is easy to come by.

Are you playing high level games?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Forcecage is actually similar, and you've rated that as a poor spell. It's kind of broken. The only thing that makes it not broken is the fact you can only cast it once per day,

Four times per day at twentieth level. (Theoretically as many as six times with epic boons, not like that's ever going to happen in most games.)

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion: Luxurious and completely safe accommodation and nosh for yourself and up to 99 more people for the cost of 5gp

Two small corrections: it's a one-time cost of 15 gp, not a per-casting cost of 5 gp. Perhaps more significantly, it is not completely safe, it is only 99.9% safe. Your extraplanar mansion can be invaded by someone casting Gate.

RE: Teleport,

However, you could cast Plane Shift twice. The first time, go somewhere benevolent, like the base of Mount Celestia, then cast a second time, stating the keep of Mulsantir as your destination. No mishap, no missing the location, just reliable (indirect) teleport. What am I missing?

Precision. Teleport can get you to a particular spot. Plane Shift can get you to a Waterdeep or to a teleportation circle within Waterdeep; Teleport can get you to the Salty Seaurchin on the Waterdeep waterfront, or to your research lab.

(Also Plane Shift wouldn't work in the phlogiston.)

 

[Celtavian]

You can make money in down time with any spell, if that's your thing. I'm inclined to keep my down time open for scribing spells, research, or that kind of thing.

Some DMs are stingy. I need a way to keep my cash up for simulacrum.

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the trickery domain either. They get a bunch of strange powers that I'm not sure how to use effectively, the one you are referring to included.

I hope you reevaluate the Trickery domain if you do a cleric guide. It is probably the best domain for a cleric. Why? I'll lists the reasons in order for you to evaluate:

1. Bonus spells are amazing for a cleric. Almost every single spell is one a cleric doesn't have. Every single spell is useful in some aspect of the game whether combat, social, or exploration. Compare the bonus spell list for Trickery versus all the other bonus spells list. I think you'll see their value.

2. The abilities. Give Advantage on Stealth at will. No limit per day. Lasts for an hour. Advantage on Stealth in this edition is amazing.

3. Invoke Duplicity: This ability is incredibly interesting. It allows you to deliver touch spells at range. Or attack someone from near total cover or out of sight range. It also allows you to heal from range. You can deliver touch spells like contagion, cure from range, cast spells like lesser restoration, and it also makes an opponent decide who they are going to attack: you or your perfect image. Not to mention the ability to gain advantage in melee combat without spending any kind of action if you do happen to be in combat.

I've used my shadow to fight while standing 40 or 50 feet from the battle. It wanders around healing people and blasting away with sacred flame or other spells while I'm relaxing somewhere within sight of the battle, but nowhere near it. At the highest level you can have up to four of the duplicates spread about the battlefield near party members for delivery of important cures or restoratives while blasting away from various shadows making opponents choose to attack. Unless your DM can somehow show why the opponent would know exactly who was real and who was not.

Read the ability..."you create a perfect illusion of yourself." I'll provide more feedback as I use the ability more. The Trickery Domain has been incredibly useful so far.

Lots of spells screw up an enemy if they fail their save. Lots of spells of lower level than either of these screw up the enemy more severely than these do. They are both slotted at too high a level for what you get IMO.

I can see why it is slotted where it is. Not many spells do Psychic damage and apply the Frightened condition at the same time. Though like you I'm leaning towards Evard's Black Tentacles as the better spell at this level.

P.S. I have to add, I get a chuckle out of thinking of ending Tomb of Horrors final battle with:
1) A skull is floating in the middle of the room, what do you do?
2) "I cast Power Word Kill"
3) Oh. (flips through MM). Wow. Uh...it dies. See you guys next week.

I was kind of shocked. Talk about ruining an adventure.

A spell that may need reevaluation after dealing with it tonight and reading it with an eye for the details: dominate person

1. The target does not get a new save for doing something against its nature. Only damage allows a new save. You could have someone kill their entire family and they get no new save until they take damage.

2. If you take control of an attacker that doesn't often enter into battle like an archer or a caster, you can unleash a lot of power on the enemy without damage ever occurring to the dominated creature.

3. There is no skill to determine if the creature is dominated. Detect magic is not easy to cast in a timely manner. It's not easy to detect domination.

4. You could dominate a creature and have it give over its weapon, spell book, other valuables. Or take it out of the battle for the duration with one missed save. It gets no more saves until it takes damage.

It seems like a more useful spell given how easy it is to have an enemy fight its allies without ever getting another save.

 

[Aloïsius]

After reading the guide, I have two distinct impressions :
- that 5e need a tome of magic, because of lack of spells. I mean, some schools have zero spells at some levels.
- that there is so much "old edition relics" combined with the new concentration rules inside the spells that balance is often, errrr, strange. Thus a high number of "red" and "brown" spells.

Now, reading the answers in this thread, maybe things are not that bad. However, I still think a little more playtest could have been done there...