Jack the Lad
Explorer
Well you made the definitive statement so what were your experiences?
Also, wow... whose had enough time to play the game up to level 12 since it was released?
Nothing's forcing you to start at level 1! We've hopped around at several levels, (up to 20) and found a whole bunch of interesting/broken things so far:
- Resilient (Con) + War Caster allows casters to essentially never fail Concentration checks because of damage (up to 99.8% odds of passing DC10).
- Necromancers can summon ridiculous numbers of skeletons, which are perfect dungeon-clearing tools and do surprisingly large amounts of damage.
- 5e's flexible spell prep and rituals system means casters sacrifice less than ever before to have their plot-breakingly versatile utility toolkit on tap.
- Bards can poach Ranger/Paladin capstone (level 5) spells starting at level 10, when Rangers/Paladins only gain access to them at level 17. By poaching smites the Bard can easily outdamage a Fighter.
- Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster casting is pretty pitiful (level 4+ spells are where it's at, and they only get 1).
- Even though the Sorceror is worse overall than the Wizard, Heighten Spell is utterly broken.
- Magic Jar allows you to permanently (until dispelled) take over another creature's body while simultaneously trapping their soul in a jar, able to perceive its surroundings but not to move or act in any way. Nightmarish. And overpowered - you retain your Int/Wis/Cha scores and class features, so it's a great way for a frail Wizard to get a big beefy body.
- Fighters 'going nova' with 6 or 8 attacks look exciting, especially if you're able to give them Advantage or if they can use a maneuver to get it, but after doing so they're stuck playing the same way they did at level 1.
- Monsters can eat OAs for breakfast, and keeping track of who's engaged with what is hard without a grid.
- A bunch of spell-specific stuff; Forcecage and Reverse Gravity neutering melee opponents with no save, Levitate allowing low level casters to cheese encounters with melee opponents by floating out of reach, Misty Step allowing Wizards to escape grapples, Animate Objects being the best thing ever for moving heavy stuff. Also Alter Self Flight from level 3, which I was glad to see was nerfed at release.
- Counterspell is absolutely crazy, and although it burns through spell slots it allows PC Wizards to shut down enemy spellcasters entirely. We had one very anticlimatic boss fight because of this. I'm amazed it wasn't changed for release.
- Blaster-wizards veer between oneshotting a group of enemies and feeling like the biggest badass ever and chipping away at a big enemy and feeling pitiful.
- Flame spells are surprisingly hard to use in built up areas unless you have no sense of right or wrong.
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