D&D 5E Low Level Wizards Really Do Suck in 5E

[KarinsDad]

Is your party doing anything besides going from fight to fight? Is there any exploration or interaction opportunity to use magic creatively? If the campaign is just a series of combat encounters then I would probably want to play another class.

Well, it's HotDQ. Without too many spoilers, we did the Greenest fights. Then we did rearguard. Then we set up an ambush site at rearguard twice (the second one was a huge fight, we were trying to whittle down the bad guys by having them come to us). Then I had a chance to cast Suggestion on a captured foe, but the party was split on which of two plans to use, so I ended up with the idea to go to Berdusk to sell stuff and buy supplies. We did that, but did little roleplaying in Berdusk because we were on a mission to save an NPC, so we were rushing. There were some PC rangers from Berdusk that we met up with, but they were good guys, so no casting spells on them. And then we infiltrated with disguise (where I did get to cast Disguise Self, but only on myself) a dungeon of bad guys where we didn't fight right away, but we eventually did a divide and conquer strategy (the DM did that to us too btw). We now just finished that, went back to Greenest, and are moving on.

I really think that if a Wizard does not take Sleep in 5E, it's a long hard slog.

 

[77IM]

During our last encounter, my 3rd-level arcane trickster rogue made great tactical use of grease against some mounted foes (ouch) and sleep against a guy trying to flee the combat who we wanted to question.

I imagine if I had twice as many spells I'd probably be doing stuff like use silent image to erect false walls and cut off half the enemies, phantasmal force as a single-target lockdown (as an illusion it requires the target's action to make an Investigation check, instead of "save ends" like with hold person and most other lockdowns), and maybe tossing the occasional flaming sphere around for a while to dish 2d6 damage per round as a bonus action. I'd also like to point out that mirror image is a fantastic defensive spell that doesn't require concentration. Also I really hope you used true strike on the round before you unleashed scorching ray for the greatly increased hit rate and 26% chance to crit at least once.

Seriously, rope trick???

 

[Sacrosanct]

I like thread topics like these, because then I remember the deluge of threads that were created when 5e first came out with official "at will" cantrips and spell descriptions, and everyone was up in arms about how overpowered the wizard was.

Maybe if people are complaining it's too powerful, and other are complaining it's not powerful enough, it's juuuuust right...

 

[FireLance]

My group is also playing through Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and the PC wizard in the party seems to be pulling his weight. What I recall him doing is:

1. Making use of his (hawk) familiar to scout and keep track of targets in overland chases.

2. Making use of suggestion to turn enemies against each other (one notable suggestion to one of our more honor-bound enemies that he had been betrayed by one of his allies and should attack him immediately led to him challenging that ally to a one-on-one duel, leaving us free to take down his other ally first and only turning our attention to him after he won the duel).

Admittedly, some of the above may have been due to lenient calls on the part of the DM, but at the very least, he was able to plausibly arrange matters to make the DM comfortable enough to afford him that leniency.

 

[Bupp]

Sorry, not seeing where wizards are really better off now than they were before. Practically every spell is weaker. Practically every spell has a significantly lesser effect. Practically every save spell results in a save every round. The wizard can only use one buff spell (which tends to be weaker than earlier editions). And the cantrips really are a joke.

I don't think the idea was to make wizards better off than they were before. In fact, I think they had it pretty good. To me this feels like how magic-users used to be. You sucked at low levels in exchange for future power.

 

[KarinsDad]

My group is also playing through Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and the PC wizard in the party seems to be pulling his weight. What I recall him doing is:

1. Making use of his (hawk) familiar to scout and keep track of targets in overland chases.

I haven't used my hawk for specifically tracking targets, but I have used it for scouting and in Greenest to spot groups of foes. Fairly limited (10 or 15 minutes of time out of about 40 hours of playing). I use it once in a while (maybe 3 or 4 times now), but it hasn't really been a deciding factor ever.

2. Making use of suggestion to turn enemies against each other (one notable suggestion to one of our more honor-bound enemies that he had been betrayed by one of his allies and should attack him immediately led to him challenging that ally to a one-on-one duel, leaving us free to take down his other ally first and only turning our attention to him after he won the duel).

Admittedly, some of the above may have been due to lenient calls on the part of the DM, but at the very least, he was able to plausibly arrange matters to make the DM comfortable enough to afford him that leniency.

Yeah. A suggestion to attack an ally is something that many DMs would not consider a safe action. For example, dueling an ally is actually a fairly obvious harmful to the target act ("or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell."). Any action that is extremely likely to harm the target (like the one you mention) should probably automatically fail.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't think they do suck at low levels. Some of those at wills are pretty darn good. Heck, some of them are guaranteed damage, which none of the martial classes really get. I have a 4th level monk with magic initiate just because some of those cantrips are always useful. So imo, 5e wizards are much more effective than 1e ones. Maybe not as good as 3e, but who really wants that ;-)

 

[Chocolategravy]

So over the course of the day you bothered to cast 2 offensive spells and ended up doing 21 damage. Where is the problem? You seem overly intent on casting as few spells as possible over the course of a game day which was made pretty clear with your witchbolt thread where everyone told you not to use it because it sucks and you insisted on using it anyway. I'd say use flaming sphere to minimize spell use and maximize damage, but it sounds like your combats are so easy and short there isn't a lot to be done anyway.

 

[practicalm]

The wizard in my campaign figured out that at most levels you can only prepare one more spell but get to learn two. He has been focusing on picking up rituals that help the party in non-combat situations. He just got to level 5 and picked up water breathing.

Even as an evoker wizard he mostly focused on things like web to create area denial spaces to allow focus enemies into narrower spaces. He uses magic missile and thunder wave when enemies clump up. I don't think he has sleep or he has used it maybe once. The ranger picked up spike growth so now the ranger creates the area denial space and the wizard is picking up fireball.

The wizard's player doesn't care about damage but instead works with the ranger to focus on tactical considerations, keeping out of the fray. We'll see what happens now that he has fireball but the players focus has been on having fun not racking up damage comparisons.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I agree with the sentiments of others in this thread. Why are you expecting to do as much damage as the fighters when you didn't pick a school designed for damage dealing? The beauty of wizards is that they get to do a whole bunch of stuff, not just do damage, which is essentially all fighters are even good at. In an ambush, why not use Silent Image to lure some of them away, potentially splitting the group you're ambushing in half? Why not use Arcana to find out what Kobold are afraid of, and then use Minor Illusion to make the sound of that creature and scare some of them away? Color Spray can be used to take out a ton of additional creatures, especially at low levels. Fighting a dozen kobold? Blind them all in one fell swoop! If the problem is that you're rolling really badly, why not ask the DM if you can take the average damage for all your spells? Burning hands should have done 13 damage total, 9 to someone who fails, 4 to someone who does. Especially against Kobold, who save less than half the time, and die instantly from Burning Hands. Fog Cloud does something none of the other PCs can do, heavily obscure an area, and potentially allow for some awesome chemistry with a rogue and ambushing. Webs are always good for the difficult terrain and lightly obscuring properties, and weaker creatures will find it nearly impossible to escape if they become restrained. How on earth does Crown of Madness suck? It does exactly what suggestion does, except you can tell the creature to attack its friends! And its a wisdom save, which hardly any low level creatures are good at! That's fantastic. Instead of using Hold Person, why not use Levitate? Raises them up on a constitution save, and they don't come down until you let them.

Much of your complaints dont seem to be with the actual spells themselves, but the luck of the roll. I DM'd for a 10th level wizard that did Hold Person on a 13th level barbarian for the full 10 rounds because he sucked with his wisdom save so much. I've also had a room full of ambushing kobold be totally vaporized by a burning hands spell that a 1st level wizard cast. But the truly humorous thing to me is that of all the complaints about wizards on this board, this is the only one I've seen about how much they suck, and not how overpowered they are.