D&D 5E Apprentice Wizard- Arcane Burst power

[Teemu]

There are some combinations of abilities (often, many combinations!) which can't be learned concurrently, yes. That's not what the claim is saying though. The claim is saying that any individual ability should, in some way, at least conceivably be learnable in the abstract. An individual ability that cannot ever be learned under any circumstances is a violation of this principle. Concatenating even two abilities together does not strictly guarantee that you should be able to do that, but any singular ability, in isolation, should be accessible to the player via some means; and if the ability is from official content, then an official means must exist to reach it (even if that means is "well you should have been playing an actual literal dragon if you wanted that, even though actual literal dragons officially aren't an option for player charactesr"), even if doing so would exclude literally everything else. Some means of acquisition for each individual ability should exist, even if no means exists for any given collection with more than one element.

Another common argument is something that popped up in this thread as well, which is something along the lines of, "I'm a master of my craft, a powerful wizard, yet this apprentice mage has a magical ability that I can't learn. This doesn't make sense and takes me out of the fantasy." This line of argument seems more prevalent to me and this is how it's usually presented. An NPC spellcaster stat block features a custom ability, and it feels off that a powerful PC of the same class couldn't ever learn or acquire said power. Yet that's going to happen even with full PC-NPC equivalency.

Anyway this is probably splitting hairs. I see the argument for learning NPC abilities coming from the POV I laid out. (And I don't think that it's a sound argument in any version of 5e.)

 

[NotAYakk]

Another common argument is something that popped up in this thread as well, which is something along the lines of, "I'm a master of my craft, a powerful wizard, yet this apprentice mage has a magical ability that I can't learn. This doesn't make sense and takes me out of the fantasy." This line of argument seems more prevalent to me and this is how it's usually presented. An NPC spellcaster stat block features a custom ability, and it feels off that a powerful PC of the same class couldn't ever learn or acquire said power. Yet that's going to happen even with full PC-NPC equivalency.

Anyway this is probably splitting hairs. I see the argument for learning NPC abilities coming from the POV I laid out. (And I don't think that it's a sound argument in any version of 5e.)

I am pretty qualified in a technical field. Say I'm level 10 ish.

A talented freshman physicist can probably solve entire categories of differential equations better than I can.

Learning how to solve DEs that well would take a fair amount of work for me.

I've sketched how, if a player wanted to emulate "throws off blasts of force magic" ability of one of these wizards, we could do it in the 5e framework without it being dominant. This requires me assuming that the monster block is a summary of what a foe would experience when fighting the monster, not a detailed description of the mechanics of how it exactly works; ie, an ability listed without use restriction doesn't have to be a cantrip, it just plausibly has to be used repeatedly in a fight with enough uses that the DM shouldn't bother counting it.

Now, I can see some value in having this pre-written up for you; but that massively increases the work required to come up with a monster stat block for something that is only useful for under 5% of uses of that stat block.

...

I see people saying that players have come to them asking about this ability. Has this ever happened without the player reading the stat block?

Because, in actual play, seeing 1d10+2 damage is going to be really hard to notice it isn't just a bog standard cantrip (either 1d10 or 2d6 or whatever).

 

[Yaarel]

Arcane Blast: 120' ranged spell or 5' reach melee, 1d6 force damage. At level 5, 11 and 17 this increases to 2d6, 3d6 and 4d6.

The cantrip has to be 1d8.

I want this to be a go-to weapon, with a satisfying amount of damage. Not some worthless situational backup for corner cases.

 

[NotAYakk]

The cantrip has to be 1d8.

I want this to be a go-to weapon, with a satisfying amount of damage. Not some worthless situational backup for corner cases.

It is force damage bypassing almost all forms of resistance, and it is both melee and range.

1d6 makes it a solid choice. Not a great one.

At 1d8 it is a better choice than firebolt in most situations; 19% less damage, melee and range, nearly unresisted damage type.

A new ability doesn't have to be the best cantrip in the game. In fact, if you implement an ability in the game that wasn't an option for wizard characters prior to this, logically it should be a quirky corner case ability rather than a dominant one.

And the ask was for "a PC must be able to do what an NPC does", not "it is efficient to do so". Here, get 2 feats and you can mimic the NPC wizards.

OTOH, at 1d8 it just becomes the default cantrip that everyone should probably have. And if that is your goal, go for it.

 

[nevin]

It is not really an Apprentice Wizard at level 5, it is more or a regular wizard NPC, they do 3 shots a round at 4d10 +2.
What they do in world is what ever suits your playstyle but I would say that D&D is not good a simulation. I know there are some here that would vehemently disagree with me but I did not believe this 30 years ago. GURPS or even RoleMaster is better for that style.
The statblocks are pretty much a suggestion. A given monster (NPC) statblock is a given level of challenge given by CR or experience awarded. You can refluff them how you like.

yeah this lazy way of doing a low level wizard is bound to cause issues. Players will see it and wonder why a minion apprentice was better than they are at combat and DM's will chime in with deal with it or other counter productive BS. If they are going to throw NPC's at PC's they should be willing to take the time to actually make NPC's that match character abilities. Dumb thing is an apprentice with a wand woudn't raise any complaints at all. It's the absolutely worst and not even the simplest way to handle it.

 

[Yaarel]

It is force damage bypassing almost all forms of resistance, and it is both melee and range.

1d6 makes it a solid choice. Not a great one.

At 1d8 it is a better choice than firebolt in most situations; 19% less damage, melee and range, nearly unresisted damage type.

A new ability doesn't have to be the best cantrip in the game. In fact, if you implement an ability in the game that wasn't an option for wizard characters prior to this, logically it should be a quirky corner case ability rather than a dominant one.

And the ask was for "a PC must be able to do what an NPC does", not "it is efficient to do so". Here, get 2 feats and you can mimic the NPC wizards.

OTOH, at 1d8 it just becomes the default cantrip that everyone should probably have. And if that is your goal, go for it.

I know. But 1d6 is worthless. Not worth it. Garbage.

1d6 takes an awesome spell and craps on it.

1d8 Force damage is a perk for being a mage. It is solid balance mathematically, anyway.

Firebolt does 1d10 − this is fine.

 

[nevin]

PCs and NPCs should not be required to use the exact same rules. However, the way I look at NPC Monsters is that they have behind the scenes "race/class abilities" that inform their action abilities.

See this works with monsters because no one has cognitive dissonance when the monster is different. When the NPC's who have 2 arms 5 fingers and the same class name can do things the party can't then it just causes Cognitive Dissonance and if it's better the players want it. Bad Bad way to handle things. It's like eating Ice Cream and telling the kids they can't have some because it's bad for them.

 

[nevin]

I know. But 1d6 is worthless. Not worth it. Garbage.

1d6 takes an awesome spell and craps on it.

1d8 Force damage is a perk for being a mage. It is solid balance mathematically, anyway.

or if it's just generic Arcane Damage it works as well. Just as long as it's not likely to be resisted.

 

[nevin]

Or just make it 1d6 plus Int Bonus and most wizards will do between 8 and 10 anyway.

 

[Yaarel]

or if it's just generic Arcane Damage it works as well. Just as long as it's not likely to be resisted.

My understanding is: "generic arcane damage" = Force