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

[Sacrosanct]

Can you show different methods that reliably allow the wizard to either prevent 2.5 damage a round or boost an allies damage by 2 damage a round? That is, can the Wizard dominate the action economy, either by debuffing enemies, buffing allies, or stealing actions? .

This is going to be really hard because there are so many different factors and variables impacted. Let's use the aforementioned fog cloud for instance. Let's say you cast fog cloud on four opponents. They all now have disadvantage on their attacks. How much damage is prevented because of that? What if there were 6 enemies affected? What if all enemies used their action to get out of the fog cloud, and thus you've prevented ALL damage for a round.

It's really tremendously scenario dependent.

 

[fuindordm]

I can't find the post I saw this morning, but someone suggested the problem is not with the way the class is built but with the spell variety offered.

I think this makes sense. 1e and 2e saw heavy reliance by low-level wizards on a handful of effective spells: sleep, MM, charm person... This happened not because the other spells couldn't be encounter-changing, but because no sensible wizard would prepare a highly situational spell over one that was likely to be useful in any encounter.

3e did a better job of giving each school of magic some interesting and effective spells. I think they also consciously tried to do this because the basic structure of specialization didn't change between 2e and 3e. If you block access to some schools, you have to make sure any specialist has something useful to do. Thus we saw innovations like True Strike and Ray of Enfeeblement as a good 1st level spell.

I didn't play 4th edition enough to comment, but at-will cantrips were a good idea and I'm glad they retained it.

But in 5th edition, there is something that feels odd about the mix of low-level spells. There are some cantrips that feel more powerful/useful than some 1st-level spells, which doesn't seem right. And by making all wizards generalists, maybe the designers didn't feel the need to build a spell list that has uniform school coverage. I think KD has a valid complaint, that there isn't enough variety among the spells to support different styles of wizarding well at low levels.

I think the best and easiest solution is to come up with more wizard spells, and in particular each specialty should have a nice "signature spell" at low levels to support abjurers feeling like abjurers, etc.

In an earlier post, I suggested that a 1st-level abjuration spell that gives 1d4 + Int temporary HP to all allies within 10' might be comparable in effectiveness to the sleep spell and very useful to the party.

For diviners, True Strike is a very logical choice, but the designers dropped the ball given the basic structure of combat in 5e -- anyone can give up an action to give an ally advantage on another attack, because having advantage is roughly equivalent to having two attack rolls (worse, obviously, because you can't get two hits). All True Strike does is let you do this for yourself, on the next round. That sounds like a generic combat action anyone can do: "I want to not attack this round, but try out several different stances and moves to look for a weakness in the Knight's defenses". I think a reasonable DM would give this player exactly the same effect as True Strike!

But the spell could be fixed by changing it to a +5 to your next attack roll, so that you can potentially stack it with advantage for a nearly guaranteed hit. (Think of it as the inverse and natural counter to Shield.) And that would be worth doing, at least some of the time, for those times when it's more important to be sure of hitting.

I'm sure this thread can come up with other useful suggestions for new spells to support different styles of magician. The "are they/aren't they" debate is just going around in circles now.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think True Strike gets the short stick. People seem to forget that not only does it grant you advantage, it can also be used to cancel out disadvantage (a scenario where I personally find it to have true value).

 

[fuindordm]

I think True Strike gets the short stick. People seem to forget that not only does it grant you advantage, it can also be used to cancel out disadvantage (a scenario where I personally find it to have true value).

It's true that it can cancel disadvantage under any conditions, any time, without requiring a judgement call. Therein lies its only virtue. But it is also too expensive, because sacrificing an action to gain advantage somewhere is kind of built into the combat system. So I think TS would be as useful as other good 1st level spells if it granted a flat bonus that can stack with advantage as I just proposed, or if its casting time were reduced to a bonus action or reaction.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You'll notice that I said spell casters, not wizards. And of course, it would apply to NPC casters.

As far as tracking things go, this is not that difficult. NPC spell casters tend to be few and far between, and how hard is it of the player of the PC spell caster to keep track of which spell he cast, whether it was last round or not, and whether he has two concentration spells up. It doesn't sound that tough.

Yeah, I don't know what your non-spellcasters can do to compete with that. "Hi, I'm a champion fighter, I might get a crit this round. Oh, I see you're a war Cleric who can concentrate on two spell effects at once, guess between Divine Favor, Shield of Faith, War Priest, and your bonus proficiencies you can do everything I can do and then some, I suppose I'll just sit here and patiently wait my turn to be not as effective as you, or would you prefer to rest after every encounter, m'lord?"

I'm not debating that your house rule might work for your table -- try it and see! Worst thing that'll happen is that people gravitate toward spellcasters instead of non-spellcasters and maybe you'll turn a few encounters into cakewalks ("NPCs can do it to" isn't a really great defense when the party is facing beholders and behirs, not NPC spellcasters). Hardly the end of the world. Post the results!

I do think that these would not make good rules for the game overall, though, for reasons of balance and complexity.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yeah, I don't know what your non-spellcasters can do to compete with that. "Hi, I'm a champion fighter, I might get a crit this round. Oh, I see you're a war Cleric who can concentrate on two spell effects at once, guess between Divine Favor, Shield of Faith, War Priest, and your bonus proficiencies you can do everything I can do and then some, I suppose I'll just sit here and patiently wait my turn to be not as effective as you, or would you prefer to rest after every encounter, m'lord?"

First off, the Cleric could only do that a few times a day and if he does, that means very few healing spells.

Second this same thing happened in 3E, 3.5, and Pathfinder.

I do not think Pathfinder would have been as popular as it was if Clerics could take over the role of Fighters merely by having two protection spells up in a given encounter.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is going to be really hard because there are so many different factors and variables impacted. Let's use the aforementioned fog cloud for instance. Let's say you cast fog cloud on four opponents. They all now have disadvantage on their attacks. How much damage is prevented because of that?

It depends.

It could be zero damage prevented. If the foes just walk out of the effect and attack normally.

Or, if the foes walk out the other side and attack with ranged weapons. Both PCs and NPCs are at disadvantage.


Not every PC is a spell caster. If an NPC spell caster were caught in a Fog Cloud and walked to the opposite side, he could then Fireball the PCs with no penalty and most of the PCs attacks against him would have disadvantage.


Fog Cloud is a very poor example because it rarely gives that much of an advantage to PCs and can actually be used by NPCs in many cases to their advantage.

 

[Rhenny]

Another huge change in 5e that makes comparing wizards in 5e to wizards in previous editions very difficult is the way 5e wizards can prepare spells and use spell slots to cast them any way they wish. The increase in utility and choices that come to bear in each situation is amplified by this flexible spell casting.

Even a 5th level wizard (with an 18 intelligence) can prepare 10 spells. As long as he or she has a high enough spell slot, he or she can cast any of the spells at any time. If we compare this with the pure Vancian (prepare a specific spell slot), 5e spellcaster is light years ahead on versatility. This also means that as long as the wizard has enough spell slots, he/she has more versatility than any of the melee or specialty classes. (Clerics may have even more versatility than wizards since they gain free preparation of domain spells and they gain other abilities, many of which are combat oriented).

 

[Mort]

Another huge change in 5e that makes comparing wizards in 5e to wizards in previous editions very difficult is the way 5e wizards can prepare spells and use spell slots to cast them any way they wish. The increase in utility and choices that come to bear in each situation is amplified by this flexible spell casting.

Even a 5th level wizard (with an 18 intelligence) can prepare 10 spells. As long as he or she has a high enough spell slot, he or she can cast any of the spells at any time. If we compare this with the pure Vancian (prepare a specific spell slot), 5e spellcaster is light years ahead on versatility. This also means that as long as the wizard has enough spell slots, he/she has more versatility than any of the melee or specialty classes. (Clerics may have even more versatility than wizards since they gain free preparation of domain spells and they gain other abilities, many of which are combat oriented).

Right.

Combine this with the fact that wizards can cast any ritual spell they know, at any time (without any spell slot expended or need to have it prepared even), as long as they have over 10 minutes and their versatility expands even further.

 

[Mort]

I do not think Pathfinder would have been as popular as it was if Clerics could take over the role of Fighters merely by having two protection spells up in a given encounter.

IIRC you can have up to 3 effects active in Pathfinder and IMO it was still too many.

Again IMO, I think setting the number of effects at 1 was a great move.