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

[pemerton]

What you want is excessive, game-breaking power. 5e doesn't say you can't have it, but you will have to be 'clever' or game the DM a bit to get there, it doesn't give it to you by default, in RAW, the way 3.x did, but it doesn't block you from ruining the game experience for everyone else like 4e did.

Ouch!

(Carry on.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ouch!

(Carry on.)

In retrospect, that was worded poorly. editing.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Not so much editing, just more passive, edition bashing garbage.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My concerns are variety. If I specialize in something, I want to do it well enough to be useable in combat. If I'm an enchanter, I want to be able to take a mind over in combat. I don't need to do multiple like 3E. I would like to have a very high chance of maintaining a single domination spell. That doesn't appear possible in this edition.

5E enchantment shines brightest in non-combat settings. That memory modification thing is very powerful for intrigue/politics, but enchanters in combat are mostly just the same as generalist wizards.

I'm not saying I don't like AD&D-style Dominate. I do, and it's great and very powerful. But AD&D and 5E are different games.

 

[The Wizard Dolomite]

I disagree. I felt weak at first until I got creative. I have affected the battlefield as much or more then anyone in the party by simply using my minor illusion cantrip.

 

[KarinsDad]

That's a ringing condemnation, considering how bad the poor rogue had it with SA - whole, stereotypically quite common, types of monsters flatly immune to start.

I don't see how the wizard could be said to have it that bad. Are all undead, constructs and oozes flat out immune to all his spells, all the time? No. Not even close. Some monsters are more resistant to some spells than others, and some relatively rare, 'Legendary,' ones have just onion-layers of won't-be-screwed-by-spells traits that probably aren't worth trying to peel through.

That's not nearly the same thing.

No, it's not the same thing. One class totally sucked once every so many encounters, and the other class partially sucks nearly every encounter and is mostly confined to a small list of the same old spells most of the time to even be partially effective.

One class is great most of the time and sucky sometimes. The other class is sometimes great and a little bit sucky most of the time.

 

[KarinsDad]

Some casters enjoyed playing overpowered class's and find it harder to enjoy their now less overpowered state even though they are still number one.

Got it.

A lot of what they lost should have never been there.


I'm sure that isn't everyone but there does seem to be a lot of now this dc/spell/feature sucks compaired to before, even from people willing to admite that before was not balanced.

Snark aside, how in the WORLD do you think that spell casters are number 1 in 5E?

I don't know of anyone who thinks this. Our Cleric rarely casts spells and she is one of the least effective meleers in our group (although the Bard is worse). From my experience, ranger archer types generally do the most damage and are the safest far in the back, melee types do a lot of damage and are the most durable, and spell casters show up once every four or five rounds to do a non-cantrip. It might be effective, it might not.

And Wizards are far from the most effective spell casters in 5E.

 

[KarinsDad]

The PP rules in RMC2, and even moreso those in RMSS, solve the problem, especially for low levels.

And the issue for high level RM is the 5 minute day, not underpowered casters!

Wow. Someone who knows RM. I think two guys in my group seriously want to get back to it.

 

[pemerton]

Wow. Someone who knows RM. I think two guys in my group seriously want to get back to it.

I GMed Rolemaster on a very regular basis from 1990 to 2008, so I know the system pretty well.

There is an active playtest of a revised version currently underway on the ICE site - though personally, if someone wanted to play a RM-style game I would recommend HARP these days.

 

[KarinsDad]

And shield is a fantastic spell in 5e, although I don't know it provides the combat utility that [MENTION=6667193]sunshadow21[/MENTION] was talking about.

5E Shield is nowhere in the ballpark of fantastic like it was in 3E, 2E, or 1E. A single round of protection (that may or may not even be effective at all if the enemy rolled high enough) would have been laughed at in the 70s, 80s, and 90s as a caricature of a real Shield spell. It's only accepted today as good because of a few years of the 4E mindset of "spells that only last a single round". But it's pretty much weaksauce as a Shield spell (still better than most any other 5E AC protection spell, but still weak as a Shield spell).


A 3E Abjurer could be protected for multiple (6+ round) encounters from a single Shield spell.


The two main redeeming qualities of Shield in 5E is that it does not have a facing limitation and it is cast as a reaction. But wizards are not surrounded 95+% of the time (earlier versions of Shield protected against 2 or 3 foes) and a reaction is nice, and getting 20 or 30 or more rounds in with the spell is a lot nicer.