The final encounter in Tyranny Dragons against Tiamat was boring, especially as a caster. The fight consisting of casting a fly spell and watching the martial characters swing at Tiamat. They designed Tiamat to be completely immune to magic for all intents and purposes.
1. Immune to spells below 6th level, meaning cantrips and all but two spell slots at level 15. You have 1 7th and 1 8th level spell slot at 15th level to possibly affect her.
2. Immune to most types of energy or resistance. It doesn't much matter considering she is immune to all your spells below 6th level including your cantrips.
3. Multiple uses of Legendary Resistance in case one of your two spell slots happens to affect her.
4. Resistant to damage from non-magical weapons making animate objects marginally useful for damage.
So the entire fight was designed to make casters useless in combat. Basically, you buff the martials and stand around doing nothing. If this is the kind of encounter design we can expect from WotC, I see no reason to play a caster at all.
The leader of the Cult's activities, Severin, was a complete push over. He didn't last a round or two. We obliterated him with ease.
The fight consisted of Tiamat's heads coming through one per round while the martials unloaded on her with bless, smites, action surges, superiority dice, and a vow. We healed the paladin, since he was the main target of her ire due to al the smite damage he unloaded. The barbarian/fighter used reckless with his superiority dice doing a ton of damage using Great Weapon Mastery. Once he ran out of superiority dice and had done well over 150 to 200 damage, he swung without Great Weapon Mastery.
Cleric healed and stayed out of combat to maintain bless. Bard cast Circle of Power and fly. Not sure if it was intended, but we allowed Circle of Power to work against Tiamat's breath weapons considering them magical effects, since dragons are listed as magical creatures and their breath weapons were considered magical in 3rd edition. No way to determine other than DM choice, creature description, and recent precedent, so we allowed it to work. My wizard pretty much stood around doing nothing. Fortunately, he didn't need to do anything.
Not a very fun encounter for a caster. I imagine the martials had fun swinging. It was all over fairly quick. 500 plus hit points gets eaten up pretty quick by a Great Weapon using Fighter/Barbarian with a magic dragon slaying sword and a smiting paladin using Vow of Enmity.
Life as a wizard: The wizard is pretty powerful when the deck isn't stacked against him by designers that make opponents with flashing neon signs that say "Only martials may kill this. Buff them and read a book."
Positives:
1. Spell list is the most versatile of the casters. You have the largest spell selection. You get the most spells by virtue of class progression. You can change your memorized spells as needed per day. You can easily put any new spells found into your spell book. No other class has this level of versatility or even close to it.
2. You are the best at using ritual magic. You don't need to use a precious memorization slot for a ritual spell. You especially don't need to use an even more precious spell known slot for a ritual spell. As long as the spell is in your book, you get to use it as a ritual. No other class can so conveniently use ritual spells. There are a few ritual spells like Leomund's Tiny Hut and Contact Higher Plane (once the Int save is trivial) that are useful.
3. I found the evocation specialist enjoyable. The boosted damage from adding my ability modifier to evocation spell damage helped at times. The ability to maximize spell damage was occasionally useful, especially for clearing trash.
Negatives:
1. End encounter monster design is geared to neuter casters in this edition. Legendary Resistance coupled with all the other spell resisting special abilities makes for a feeling of uselessness as an end game caster that pretty much forces you to buff the martials and let them swing at things. Most other encounters you're highly useful, but end game encounters against Legendary Creatures are built to make casters useless. You might as well be throwing pebbles at a stone wall in those encounters. I can't say it is particularly enjoyable as a player.
Overall, the wizard is a wizard. Life is easier for you. You get to travel more efficiently than everyone else with teleport and other travel spells. You have access to a vast array of spells that will grow as more books are released. You are the master of AoE effects. You have lots of offensive, defensive, and utility options that no one else but another caster has access to. Life is good as a high level wizard the vast majority of the time both in and out of combat. I would definitely play a wizard again, though I would try a different specialization.
1. Immune to spells below 6th level, meaning cantrips and all but two spell slots at level 15. You have 1 7th and 1 8th level spell slot at 15th level to possibly affect her.
2. Immune to most types of energy or resistance. It doesn't much matter considering she is immune to all your spells below 6th level including your cantrips.
3. Multiple uses of Legendary Resistance in case one of your two spell slots happens to affect her.
4. Resistant to damage from non-magical weapons making animate objects marginally useful for damage.
So the entire fight was designed to make casters useless in combat. Basically, you buff the martials and stand around doing nothing. If this is the kind of encounter design we can expect from WotC, I see no reason to play a caster at all.
The leader of the Cult's activities, Severin, was a complete push over. He didn't last a round or two. We obliterated him with ease.
The fight consisted of Tiamat's heads coming through one per round while the martials unloaded on her with bless, smites, action surges, superiority dice, and a vow. We healed the paladin, since he was the main target of her ire due to al the smite damage he unloaded. The barbarian/fighter used reckless with his superiority dice doing a ton of damage using Great Weapon Mastery. Once he ran out of superiority dice and had done well over 150 to 200 damage, he swung without Great Weapon Mastery.
Cleric healed and stayed out of combat to maintain bless. Bard cast Circle of Power and fly. Not sure if it was intended, but we allowed Circle of Power to work against Tiamat's breath weapons considering them magical effects, since dragons are listed as magical creatures and their breath weapons were considered magical in 3rd edition. No way to determine other than DM choice, creature description, and recent precedent, so we allowed it to work. My wizard pretty much stood around doing nothing. Fortunately, he didn't need to do anything.
Not a very fun encounter for a caster. I imagine the martials had fun swinging. It was all over fairly quick. 500 plus hit points gets eaten up pretty quick by a Great Weapon using Fighter/Barbarian with a magic dragon slaying sword and a smiting paladin using Vow of Enmity.
Life as a wizard: The wizard is pretty powerful when the deck isn't stacked against him by designers that make opponents with flashing neon signs that say "Only martials may kill this. Buff them and read a book."
Positives:
1. Spell list is the most versatile of the casters. You have the largest spell selection. You get the most spells by virtue of class progression. You can change your memorized spells as needed per day. You can easily put any new spells found into your spell book. No other class has this level of versatility or even close to it.
2. You are the best at using ritual magic. You don't need to use a precious memorization slot for a ritual spell. You especially don't need to use an even more precious spell known slot for a ritual spell. As long as the spell is in your book, you get to use it as a ritual. No other class can so conveniently use ritual spells. There are a few ritual spells like Leomund's Tiny Hut and Contact Higher Plane (once the Int save is trivial) that are useful.
3. I found the evocation specialist enjoyable. The boosted damage from adding my ability modifier to evocation spell damage helped at times. The ability to maximize spell damage was occasionally useful, especially for clearing trash.
Negatives:
1. End encounter monster design is geared to neuter casters in this edition. Legendary Resistance coupled with all the other spell resisting special abilities makes for a feeling of uselessness as an end game caster that pretty much forces you to buff the martials and let them swing at things. Most other encounters you're highly useful, but end game encounters against Legendary Creatures are built to make casters useless. You might as well be throwing pebbles at a stone wall in those encounters. I can't say it is particularly enjoyable as a player.
Overall, the wizard is a wizard. Life is easier for you. You get to travel more efficiently than everyone else with teleport and other travel spells. You have access to a vast array of spells that will grow as more books are released. You are the master of AoE effects. You have lots of offensive, defensive, and utility options that no one else but another caster has access to. Life is good as a high level wizard the vast majority of the time both in and out of combat. I would definitely play a wizard again, though I would try a different specialization.
Last edited:
