D&D 5E Rating the 1st level Wizard Spells

[Celebrim]

Just noticed the push effect of thunderwave serves one very valuable purpose: It allows you to move up, blast a bunch of mooks, and move back without provoking OAs. Remember that everyone can split-move in 5E. The AoE on thunderwave is also excellent for its level (albeit not as good as sleep); a 15-foot cube should be able to hit 3-4 foes pretty regularly.

This had been mentioned before, and the problem I see is that while you could do it, you wouldn't rely on it, because a successful save leaves you next to the target and stuck. Generally, since the maneuver only does about 7 damage per mook I can cover... maneuvering to get an extra target in range while risking being base to base just doesn't appeal to me. Going next to two or three on purpose? No deal.

Based on my experience with non-range emanations over the last 20 years or so, the opportunities' to use them where they get lots of mooks, don't get your friends, and don't leave you with a target on your forehead are fairly small. The number of ifs in that are just too large. As an evocation artist, this gets more attractive.

Ditto for the shoving things off pits and stuff. Sounds cool, but I'm known for loving complex 3d terrain, and yet opportunities actual to shove a foe off a high place or into a bonfire or whatever only come up every 80 hours of play or so.

Maybe it's me, but my suspicion is far more often than this would let me shove things off cliffs, it would alert every beasty in the dungeon where to find lunch. The fact that this thing reverberates for 300' more than makes up for any coolness cases where you shove the enemy into dangerous terrain, at least in any cases where you have proactive monsters. In something like Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, this spell is suicidal. Highlighting to the DM that you are making an extraordinarily unusual amount of noise is always bad.

In short, if I don't have a lot of slots I don't see this making the grade. If I have a lot of slots, I don't see wasting memorization on this.

 

[Falling Icicle]

So then they move out of it and then snipe you. The whole advantage negates disadvantage rule nerfs Fog Cloud pretty heavy. It rarely works the way the player expects it to unless the DM hasn't actually read the rules.

Battlefields aren't always open fields. The snipers might not have anywhere else to move where they have a clear shot at the players.

While this is true, the cost is high. And to tell you the truth, a Wizard can take a few shots a day. The Fighter is taking 12 shots a day, the Wizard can take 3.

I wasn't aware that the DM could only attack the wizard 3 times per day. D&D isn't an MMO. Fighters can't force the monsters to go after them and ignore the squishy characters. This is especially true for creatures that have ranged attacks.

Wow!!! An entire round!!!

/sarcasm off

Yes, Wow. Compare it to other defensive features that cost one's reaction, like uncanny dodge, the defensive duelist feat, and so on. They only apply to a single attack. Shield applies for a whole round, no matter how many creatures attack you or how many attacks they have. That's awesome.

Nice, but hardly the best 1st level wizard spell in the game. Sleep has that distinction.

Sleep is arguably better at very low levels, but it drops off in usefulness very quickly as monster HP inflation rapidly outpaces the scaling of that spell. Shield, on the other hand, is very valuable throughout a wizard's career.

Yeah, I think THL is a semi-solid spell against BBEGs. The problem is that it doesn't do much of anything against anyone else because the wizard is rarely going to cast it on anyone else. So, it sits in the prep list, waiting to be cast while other options are used.

Why wouldn't the wizard use it on anyone else? Disabling a monster and giving your allies advantage on their melee attack rolls against it is valuable against almost any creature. It's not as valuable against creatures that die easily in a single hit, but there are plenty of monsters that aren't BBEGs that the spell is very useful against.

 

[KarinsDad]

I wasn't aware that the DM could only attack the wizard 3 times per day. D&D isn't an MMO. Fighters can't force the monsters to go after them and ignore the squishy characters. This is especially true for creatures that have ranged attacks.

He's not. But look at a simple example.

Fighter with AC 20, wizard with AC 15. +4 to hit creature hits the fighter 25% of the time and the wizard 50% of the time.

But the fighter is out in front round in and round out, encounter in and encounter out, always in the thick of things. Most players who play wizards tend to rarely be in the thick of things.

So the fighter is attacked 40 times in a given adventuring day and gets hit that 25% or 10 hits.

The average wizard is attacked maybe 6 times in a given adventuring day and gets hit that 50% or 3 hits.

If the player of the fighter is willing to get hit 10 times per adventuring day, the player of the wizard should be willing to get hit at least 6 times per day (maybe even more). In the example above, the fighter is getting hit 10 times and the wizard 3 times, so my point is that the wizard can risk his life a few more times per day. Players tend to view fighters as these guys who are expected to take the risks. Wizards should do it sometimes too.

Yes, Wow. Compare it to other defensive features that cost one's reaction, like uncanny dodge, the defensive duelist feat, and so on. They only apply to a single attack. Shield applies for a whole round, no matter how many creatures attack you or how many attacks they have. That's awesome.

Mirror Image typically protects more total attacks, affects more types of attacks, protects more, and lasts a full minute (shy of being knocked down).

Color me unimpressed with a defensive spell that lasts a single round. Yes, it is a first level spell instead of a second level spell, but it's not that impressive.

Sleep is arguably better at very low levels, but it drops off in usefulness very quickly as monster HP inflation rapidly outpaces the scaling of that spell. Shield, on the other hand, is very valuable throughout a wizard's career.

Sleep wipes out 4 or so kobolds at 10th level, just like it does at 1st level. Whether a given DM throws kobolds at the PCs as part of an encounter determines whether it still has that usefulness.

In other words, this is DM dependent, not system dependent. 5E is all about the DM being able to throw a bunch of low level mooks at the PCs and still create a threatening situation.

And Sleep's out of combat usefulness (putting most people to sleep in an inn) doesn't change much either.

Sleep doesn't scale great, but it still scales in higher level slots and the first level version can always be used as the equivalent of a ~22 hit point single foe attack if the foe has fewer hit points. But the best part of Sleep is that it can be used to take down a foe without killing it and without taking it down to 0 hit points. I can easily envision high level casters using a 6th level slot for Sleep and throwing out 110 points of sleepiness in order to knock out a PC who has been mind controlled or some such.

Why wouldn't the wizard use it on anyone else? Disabling a monster and giving your allies advantage on their melee attack rolls against it is valuable against almost any creature. It's not as valuable against creatures that die easily in a single hit, but there are plenty of monsters that aren't BBEGs that the spell is very useful against.

The option to do so is always there, but the use of the tactic on a relatively average foe is sometimes subpar. Is it really helpful for the wizard to use up his action to maybe or maybe not use up the action of an average foe? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

Usually, it is better to save the spell for a tougher foe in a later fight than it is to use it on an average foe in an earlier fight. Not always, but often.

Using Sleep instead on an average foe is probably more optimal.

By BBEG, I just mean a tough foe. I don't necessarily mean a solo. It could be the equivalent of a lieutenant for example.

 

[Quartz]

Does your opinion of these spells change when used by other classes? It seems to me that, for example, the movement spells which you so scorn might be very useful to a Dex-based Eldritch Knight.

 

[Celebrim]

Does your opinion of these spells change when used by other classes? It seems to me that, for example, the movement spells which you so scorn might be very useful to a Dex-based Eldritch Knight.

Well, per the title, I'm evaluating these spells as it pertains to being a Wizard specifically. There are going to be a some cases where it matters. If you can cast spells while in armor, for example, Mage Armor is going to be of much less utility to you.

But in general, the reasons why I evaluate a spell as good or bad won't change that much. Whether or not +10 movement is good depends on two things:

a) How often is it the case in your game that you spend an entire action moving but are unable to close with the target and attack, where if you had 10' of additional movement, you wouldn't 'waste' the entire turn? There are a few variations of this with less absolute advantage that is obtainable, but they are IMO equally rare and of much less impact so we could consider them subcases of the best case. An example would be when you would be able to obtain flanking with 10' of additional movement but wouldn't without it, and it also happens that doing so has a meaningful value (you or an ally wouldn't have hit or as hard without it). Does it happen? Yes. Does it happen a lot? Not in my experience. Most of the time 30' is as good as 40'.
b) How often is it the case in your game that if you had +10' of additional movement, that you could force a foe to waste his entire turn just moving because they would be unable to close with you. Again, there are a few variations of this with less absolute advantage that is obtainable, but they are IMO equally rare and of much less impact so we could consider them subcases of the best case.

In my experience, small increases in speed rarely lead to significant advantages for the following reasons:

a) The foe has a ranged attack mitigating any advantage in positioning.
b) You have a ranged attack, mitigating any advantage in the foe's positioning.
c) It's not predictable when you need an increase in speed, and if it costs you an action to gain the increase in speed, this mitigates the increased value of your future actions because you otherwise could have spent that action profitably - including in many cases moving.
d) DMs generally favor small areas in which battles are conducted, mitigating most value to additional speed. There just usually isn't a lot of maneuver room anyway. Fights occur in 20' wide corridors or streets, or in 30'x40' room, or in similarly constrained locations.
e) Parties have to stick together if they want to survive. Thus, it's much more important that you not be slower than average than it is that you be faster than average. Being faster than average rarely leads to situations where you can exploit your speed fully, for fear of being separated, isolated, cut off from magical support (such as healing or auras or what not) and so forth.
f) Many monsters are simply so fast that any marginal increase in PC speed is meaningless for the purposes of attempting tactical positioning. You can't maneuver compared to dire tigers, fire elementals, djinns, or whatnot so investing resources in trying is generally ineffective. It's generally just more important for the party to maintain a cohesive tactical unit.
g) Even if you can obtain tactical advantage from movement, all you are really doing is moving agro from yourself to another party member who is less able to maneuver and who therefore soaks the attack for you. Thus, you really need to have some reliable damage sponge in the party before its anything but selfish to be even trying this sort of thing. I saw this sort of problem a lot with 3e Monks. The class was really good at surviving, but only because it was really good at abandoning the rest of the party.

The reason that Expeditious Retreat was evaluated higher than Longstrider is that the former is far more likely to yield a real tactical advantage regardless of what your class is. It's not as if there don't exist Wizard builds that gain advantages from tactical positioning.