Bard Faerie Fire in Tier 1

[Dausuul]

Because you picked the most unrepresentative creature imaginable to compare with. Nothing is perfectly representative but Orcs are a lot more representative of the types of encounters you will face than helmed horrors (one of the only immune to psychic damage creatures). When you cherry pick and don't even try at a semi-representative comparison then it's not a reasonable example.

You are leaning way too hard on that idea of "representative." No single encounter can ever stand in for the huge variety of foes that PCs will face, even at tier 1. Anyone following your approach in this thread would end up with a PC perfectly optimized to face an endless parade of orcs lined up in quartets, and largely unsuited to a real campaign.

As someone running an actual tier 1 campaign with an actual bard in the party who actually uses faerie fire, he gets good work out of that spell. Not always, not in every encounter. But certainly enough to justify his decision to take it. The scenario where the PCs are facing tough enemies who take a few rounds to grind down is quite common. Likewise, large groups of foes (eight to twelve) crop up on the regular. Neither of those situations is covered by the "four orcs" example, and both favor the use of faerie fire over your proposed alternatives.

Can you bring any play experience to this discussion? Or do you just want a white room debate about how to deal with four orcs, utterly unrelated to real games of D&D?

 

[FrogReaver]

You are leaning way too hard on that idea of "representative." No single encounter can ever stand in for the huge variety of foes that PCs will face, even at tier 1. Anyone following your approach in this thread would end up with a PC perfectly optimized to face an endless parade of orcs lined up in quartets, and largely unsuited to a real campaign.

As I said orcs aren't perfectly representative, nothing is. But orcs are much more representative than helmed horrors. If you have another tier 1 creature that's fairly representative that you might face in a specific sized group I'll be happy to take a look. Unless something is significantly different about that enemy (high hp, high ac, size of the group etc) then the orc example should represent it fairly nicely. So what else do you have in mind? Because at this point all I see is "ohhh advantage is soo good, yea advantage". To compare advantage with DW you have to quantify and the only way to really do that with 2 very dissimilar skills is to look at examples.

As someone running an actual tier 1 campaign with an actual bard in the party who actually uses faerie fire, he gets good work out of that spell. Not always, not in every encounter. But certainly enough to justify his decision to take it.

No doubt. The question isn't whether it's a spell worth taking, it's whether the bard has other spells in tier 1 that are more effective. Of course in an actual campaign taking faerie fire because it works about the same throughout all tiers while sleep and DW fall off pretty hard in later tiers is also a consideration even if DW or some other spell is better in tier 1.

The scenario where the PCs are facing tough enemies who take a few rounds to grind down is quite common.

Can you supply an example?

Likewise, large groups of foes (eight to twelve) crop up on the regular. Neither of those situations is covered by the "four orcs" example, and both favor the use of faerie fire over your proposed alternatives.

Sure, in that scenario DW isn't very good because only affecting 1/8 to 1/12 creatures is a very minor benefit. Even killing 1/8 or 1/12 enemies outright is a very minor benefit. I agree. This is a scenario FF is much better for IMO.

Can you bring any play experience to this discussion? Or do you just want a white room debate about how to deal with four orcs, utterly unrelated to real games of D&D?

How can play experience tell you which is better?

 

[FrogReaver]

Assuming 1 ally is next to an enemy then DW has 3 possibly outocmes

DW misses (35%) -> you still deal half damage (5 avg)
DW hits but the single OA misses (22.75%) -> you will deal DW 3d6 dmg (10.5 avg)
DW hits and the single OA hits (42.25%) -> you will deal damage and the ally will deal damage -> estimated (20 avg)

 

[Autumn Bask]

How can play experience tell you which is better?

It tells us that you have actually experienced this game and the things that you're trying to talk about, and aren't just an avid theorycrafter. Play experience isn't trivial. It's literally the game. That's why people playtest UAs and don't just math them out.

 

[FrogReaver]

It tells us that you have actually experienced this game and the things that you're trying to talk about, and aren't just an avid theorycrafter. Play experience isn't trivial. It's literally the game. That's why people playtest UAs and don't just math them out.

But that doesn't tell you which option is better... So how does gameplay experience actually reveal which is the better option?

 

[BluejayJunior]

But that doesn't tell you which option is better... So how does gameplay experience actually reveal which is the better option?

Because it reveals the actual gameplay experiences that would favor one over the other. I've seen FF used pretty well by our bard. He doesn't have DW. But I can't think of any actual experiences where he's cast it and DW would have been a better option. That may not be the case in your games. But we have fought against large groups of enemies quite a bit. And the forced movement hasn't been something we've missed. Usually, we want to enemy to stay next to the barbarian and fighter/cleric rather than give him the opportunity to get around them and get to the wizard and bard. As the case might be if the OA misses or doesn't kill him. In my experiences, we've had more opportunities for FF to shine than we have for DW (or Thunder Wave, our bard's favorite spell, which is comparable in use to DW, though it doesn't do as much damage or provoke OAs, it's still used to push enemies around).

 

[FrogReaver]

Because it reveals the actual gameplay experiences that would favor one over the other. I've seen FF used pretty well by our bard. He doesn't have DW. But I can't think of any actual experiences where he's cast it and DW would have been a better option.

Or hear me out... you don't really know that DW would or wouldn't have been better in any of those scenarios because you haven't analyzed the scenario in detail or simulated those scenarios enough to form any kind of actual conclusion that FF was better.

That may not be the case in your games. But we have fought against large groups of enemies quite a bit.

Sure but in tier 1 compared to fighting 1-5 enemies how much is that quite a bit?

And the forced movement hasn't been something we've missed. Usually, we want to enemy to stay next to the barbarian and fighter/cleric rather than give him the opportunity to get around them and get to the wizard and bard.

Typically having an enemy move it's speed away from you means that it would have to move it's speed back to where it was before. The closest the enemy could get and attack would be back to where it was before. I suppose it could dash and try to get beside someone other than the barbarian or fighter/cleric but then it's also taken a bunch of damage and lost an attack.

As the case might be if the OA misses or doesn't kill him. In my experiences, we've had more opportunities for FF to shine than we have for DW (or Thunder Wave, our bard's favorite spell, which is comparable in use to DW, though it doesn't do as much damage or provoke OAs, it's still used to push enemies around).

Or hear me out, you misjudge which situations would have actually been a moment for DW to shine... How does play experience answer that criticism? Isn't analysis or simulation needed to answer this?

 

[Dausuul]

If you have another tier 1 creature that's fairly representative that you might face in a specific sized group I'll be happy to take a look. Unless something is significantly different about that enemy (high hp, high ac, size of the group etc) then the orc example should represent it fairly nicely. So what else do you have in mind?

2 veterans. 3 bugbears. 4 giant spiders. 8 skeletons.

All of these are encounters that I would not hesitate to throw at tier 1 PCs. Most are significantly harder than 4 orcs, but tough fights are part of the game--indeed, tough fights are where good spell selections matter the most. I'd rather have the best spell for the boss fight and a sub-optimal spell for a minor skirmish than vice versa.

How can play experience tell you which is better?

...Are you seriously asking this? You don't see the point of looking at how the spell holds up when used by actual players in an actual game?

 

[Autumn Bask]

But that doesn't tell you which option is better...

Oh, it... it doesn't? Really? You think that?

So how does gameplay experience actually reveal which is the better option?

I'm tired of you having a monopoly on all the questions. So riddle me this: If play experience doesn't matter, why do you think the designers for 5e use playtesting to balance their game? Why release the UAs before officially releasing classes, when they could just run a program to do the math for every possible scenario? Take a weighted average, and then BOOM, they're done.

 

[FrogReaver]

Oh, it... it doesn't? Really? You think that?



I'm tired of you having a monopoly on all the questions. So riddle me this: If play experience doesn't matter, why do you think the designers for 5e use playtesting to balance their game? Why release the UAs before officially releasing classes, when they could just run a program to do the math for every possible scenario? Take a weighted average, and then BOOM, they're done.

Strawman much? I didn't say play testing doesn't matter. I said you can't determine if FF or DW is better simply by playing the game a few dozen times. You need analysis to answer that question which is what you object to me doing for some weird reason.