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

[sithramir]

Well it just occurred to me something about this edition that becomes relevant here. They have removed base attack bonus and instead now have proficiency bonus which is equal to all. The balancing factor of this edition is now shifted. A fighter doesn't have a better chance to hit than a wizard or cleric or rogue like in the old days. This balance is done through damage.

The fighter needs to do more damage than others to balance that out. He should consistently do more damage and he does. A rogue should be situational and do more damage but only when he's able to sneak. This adds up to mostly more damage but probably less than a good fighter. If he's able to stay into combat or hidden he can get more damage a lot more often still which is great. They added the multi-attack with movement to further balance fighters from rogues/clerics, etc.

A wizard can dual wield daggers at first level and do 2d4+dex/str and be similar in damage to a fighter in some regards without spells. As levels progress the martial characters damage should increase which it does. The wizard can try to be a melee fighter still but he's balanced by lower hps, less AC without taking other options to build said character.

Because of more damage the monsters now have more HPs. So in a lot of ways this hurts the wizard and he really suffers at lower levels but he's going to shine more and more as he gets more options for spells/damage, etc. The martial types will increase only HPs and damage but a lot less in other options.

Level 5 is a pretty big jump for wizards just like it is for a fighter who gets extra attack at 5. I am not happy with how wizards are forced into a few options compared to other editions but it is the lower levels still. Fly and fireball and haste at level 5 can drastically affect the outcomes of fights.

Hold person for instance being used as a 3rd level slot can be pretty powerful compared to a fighters attack, a fireball can do some serious area damage, fly can make some encounters a joke for a wizard AND allow you fly over something a martial character cannot. Heck, haste the fighter at level 5 and now he has 2 attacks + additional bonus attack, +2 AC, etc and can use surge, etc. It's a pretty scary buffer spell.

I guess i'm just not as convinced as I was before about wizards. For instance, 3.5 wizard magic missile was 1d4+1 and at level 4 would only be 2d4+2. Well now it's immediately 3d4+3 at level 1 and still is more at level 4. So it's probably similar in power (since monsters have more HPs now).

I guess we're going to be forced to use sleep to really be as useful.

My hope is a future book will add to cantrips to give some of the cool powers you could use back in 3.5 days which I miss. Like you could jump 20' or do certain powers just for 1 round, etc. Little things that make cantrips and battle more interesting for a wizard. More "options" that aren't overpowering in battle but help make-up for some of the other spell nerfs to balance things.

Just my thoughts.

 

[animal chubs]

yep but they get cool later. i focus on support, and use counter, gust of wind and dispell magic right now. but at sl 4 I get animate undead for free and polymorph and some other spell that i forgot about. I am the anti-mage, mage! so dont feel bad though, later on you will get good spells and be uber awesome. just get magic missile and fireball for now and own some people.

 

[seebs]

Make a list of cantrips that can be used 2 rounds out of 3 to shape an encounter because cantrips at low level are the wizard's bread and butter.

This comparison is exactly wrong.

The rogue can do at least some damage every round, and a fair bit some rounds.

The wizard can't "reshape an encounter" two out of three rounds, nor should he be able to, because that's much too powerful to be a reliable occurrence.

If you want to do something most rounds, dual-wield daggers and stab. You won't do much damage, but you'll do something most rounds. Your chance to hit won't be much worse than the rogue's. Or use cantrips for free ranged attacks. And then, sometimes, you will get to do things which have much, much, larger effect.

Wizards tend to have more sweeping effect, but not as often.

And honestly, the real issue here is...

When someone points out a thing a wizard can do, you point out how it could fail. When you talk about the rogue, you talk about what they will often succeed at. You're not using comparable standards for them, and that's especially bad because a significant part of the designed tradeoff is that the wizard's interesting game changers are not things that happen every turn.

If you really want to understand this, first start by looking up all the spells with the ritual tag. A wizard can arrange to use those without burning slots. Want warnings during your long rest? Use alarm as a ritual. Need more scouting? A familiar will cost you 10gp. Even minor illusion can do you a ton of good if you are reasonably creative about using it.

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually, if I'm remembering correctly, fog cloud is amazing but situational; you need to be attacked by ranged foes for it to do its job. I may be thinking of earlier editions, though.

It can be amazing, especially the round after it is cast. But, it is also situationally weak as well (DM dependent).

Say the wizard casts it around the party to protect them. The PCs are surrounded by a boatload of mooks. The enemies are low level and have a less chance to hit the PCs than the PCs have to hit the mooks.

Inside the Fog Cloud, the mooks are at disadvantage to hit the PCs because they cannot see them. However, the PCs cannot see the mooks either, so the chances to hit a blind creature has advantage. Advantage and disadvantage cancel out. Why cast the spell? It does nothing in this scenario other than allowing the spell casters to cast "to hit" spells without disadvantage.

Another example, again, the wizard casts it to protect the PCs. Enemy archers try to attack from outside. Again, advantage and disadvantage cancel out, at least on round one where the NPCs knew which squares the PCs were in. Here is where the DM comes in. If the DM allows the PCs to move around inside the Fog Cloud without the enemies being able to hear where they went, then it becomes amazing as a protection spell. The foes have to guess which square the PCs are in. If the DM does not do that, then the spell basically does nothing.

Alternatively, the wizard casts the spell adjacent to the PCs to create concealment on a flank. Here, the PCs can see (because they are not in the Fog Cloud), so any enemy archers or spell casters on the other side of the cloud have disadvantage. This is probably the best use for this spell. Our melee and ranged guys hit normally any foes in the cloud (advantage cancels disadvantage), but ranged guys on both side are at disadvantage. Their melee guys inside the cloud are at disadvantage. However, their melee guys can just move away without provoking. They give up ground (which might matter).

KD, I'm most interested in how you plan to fix it if you think wizards are underpowered. That's a lot more interesting to me than complaining or debating that they are.

I think allowing spell casters to concentrate on two spells at a time would help. I think putting a -2 on savings throws after the first one is missed would help (disadvantage is probably too strong, but in 3E, there was no second saving throw, instead of save or suck, it's save or suck a little). I think making spells like Shield last for a minute would help. The concept of protecting yourself for a single round, or spells lasting for a single round seems so 4E-ish.

EDIT: unless you're just having fun with the debate and don't want a solution, in which case, carry on!

I always have fun debating. I sometimes debate and play devil's advocate on a weak POV, just to see what other people write. But, not in this case.

 

[Celebrim]

KD, I'm most interested in how you plan to fix it if you think wizards are underpowered. That's a lot more interesting to me than complaining or debating that they are.

So far KD hasn't convinced me that 5e Wizards are weak, but rather that they have a problem that they haven't had since 1e. Namely, that 5e Wizards are narrow rather than versatile. Basically, if you boil down his argument, it seems to come down to the true statement, "If you don't take the best spell available at each level, for example Sleep, the resulting character cannot influence the combat as reliably as other classes making more optimal choices."

It would seem to me that the problem is then that what is lacking at 1e is diverse options for how you influence the combat and not just 1 spell that everyone seems to agree is superior in reliability and potential scope to all the other choices. The fix would to me appear to be, "Make more alternative good spells so that being a low level wizard feels less like you have to be a Hypnomancer.

Or, if those people who know 5e better than I do don't agree, then at least show KD build options that do showcase the wizard's versatility. There seems to be general agreement that KD's wizard is poorly built, and possibly poorly utilized. But most proposed solutions seem to either amount to a) choose sleep or b) get a DM that is more flexible with the rules. Either that or they are conceding he's mostly right, but claiming that it is alright because at N level Wizards rock - an approach to 'balance' I thought we'd agreed since the 1e era wasn't really fun for everyone.

I am not convinced KD is right, but I agree with him that people are providing very little useful contradiction.

 

[hayek]

That use of Charm Person is now explicitly removed in 5E. Even if you take him out drinking, he knows that he was charmed. The number of situations in which Charm Person is now useful has probably been cut in at least half by that restriction, at least for me.

It seems like all influence spells are like this in 5E, utterly useless to cast in any situation where you don't plan on killing or knocking out the target shortly anyway.

For me, this is most definitely a feature not a bug. What's the point of a social/charismatic/face character if all of your social skills are completely out-classed by a simple 1st level wizard spell. I found Charm Person in past editions to be ridiculously over-powered, most importantly in destroying the niche of any social character.

Player: "I use my wiles and charms to sidle up to the guard, trying to get a read on whether he's the type that might take to a bribe or a plea for-" DM: "Sorry, he's already the drooling puppy dog of the ugly, crotchety wizard. Did you think your character was supposed to help out in social interactions? Ha, no... silly player. You have someone in the party capable of casting a 1st level wizard spell... Your social skills aren't needed here. Glad you put all those resources into them, though."

Beyond trampling other players, it always seemed way overpowered in general - there's no point (or at least no tension) in a social interaction scene when the wizard can just charm anyone that needs persuading. At best it becomes not a social interaction scene, and just a 'did he make his saving throw' moment - yes, success! no, fight!

I find this new version a fantastic compromise, just like the Knock spell, which used to demolish any purpose to the rogue being able to pick locks. Now with both Knock and Charm Person, the wizard can offer an interesting, but limited, shortcut to these problems, but in most situations they're ideally left to the character whose specialty it is to handle such matters.

 

[Piratecat]

So far KD hasn't convinced me that 5e Wizards are weak, but rather that they have a problem that they haven't had since 1e. Namely, that 5e Wizards are narrow rather than versatile. Basically, if you boil down his argument, it seems to come down to the true statement, "If you don't take the best spell available at each level, for example Sleep, the resulting character cannot influence the combat as reliably as other classes making more optimal choices."

It would seem to me that the problem is then that what is lacking at 1e is diverse options for how you influence the combat and not just 1 spell that everyone seems to agree is superior in reliability and potential scope to all the other choices. The fix would to me appear to be, "Make more alternative good spells so that being a low level wizard feels less like you have to be a Hypnomancer.

If so, that's a great problem. It's simply fixed with new spells, which are inevitably going to come (and which are fun for players to create themselves.)

 

[trentonjoe]

It can be amazing, especially the round after it is cast. But, it is also situationally weak as well (DM dependent).

Say the wizard casts it around the party to protect them. The PCs are surrounded by a boatload of mooks. The enemies are low level and have a less chance to hit the PCs than the PCs have to hit the mooks.

Inside the Fog Cloud, the mooks are at disadvantage to hit the PCs because they cannot see them. However, the PCs cannot see the mooks either, so the chances to hit a blind creature has advantage. Advantage and disadvantage cancel out. Why cast the spell? It does nothing in this scenario other than allowing the spell casters to cast "to hit" spells without disadvantage.

Another example, again, the wizard casts it to protect the PCs. Enemy archers try to attack from outside. Again, advantage and disadvantage cancel out, at least on round one where the NPCs knew which squares the PCs were in. Here is where the DM comes in. If the DM allows the PCs to move around inside the Fog Cloud without the enemies being able to hear where they went, then it becomes amazing as a protection spell. The foes have to guess which square the PCs are in. If the DM does not do that, then the spell basically does nothing.

Alternatively, the wizard casts the spell adjacent to the PCs to create concealment on a flank. Here, the PCs can see (because they are not in the Fog Cloud), so any enemy archers or spell casters on the other side of the cloud have disadvantage. This is probably the best use for this spell. Our melee and ranged guys hit normally any foes in the cloud (advantage cancels disadvantage), but ranged guys on both side are at disadvantage. Their melee guys inside the cloud are at disadvantage. However, their melee guys can just move away without provoking. They give up ground (which might matter).

I used fog cloud last night. It basically caused a group of guys to give up their actions to get out of it. It was pretty effective.

I think someone mentioned this below but wizard spells are now situationally effective. Sometimes sleep is a good option, sometimes magic missile is a good option, sometimes fog cloud is a good option.....depends on the sometimes!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think allowing spell casters to concentrate on two spells at a time would help. I think putting a -2 on savings throws after the first one is missed would help (disadvantage is probably too strong, but in 3E, there was no second saving throw, instead of save or suck, it's save or suck a little). I think making spells like Shield last for a minute would help. The concept of protecting yourself for a single round, or spells lasting for a single round seems so 4E-ish.

I ain't no anti-spellcaster crusader, but frig, man, that sounds like that would make wizards the Uberclass. And be a PITA to track. That is not a little adjustment in power, that is basically "Wizards get to pwn the shnart out of you every round." Which is something no other class does.

But that's just me. You want 'em to dominate, go wild. Heck, do it and post your experiences! Agree or disagree, I'm sure it'd be an interesting window into pushing the game around.

 

[aramis erak]

Well it just occurred to me something about this edition that becomes relevant here. They have removed base attack bonus and instead now have proficiency bonus which is equal to all. The balancing factor of this edition is now shifted. A fighter doesn't have a better chance to hit than a wizard or cleric or rogue like in the old days. This balance is done through damage.

Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins can have a 2 point bonus to hit over others with ranged weapons.
For fighters, from level 1; rangers and paladins from level 2.

Plus, Barbarians, Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins are more likely to have high strength... allowing heavier armor and more weapons and gear.