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

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's one of many new terms that was dreamed up for use against 4e in the edition war. It's a little stilted as a result. If it were presented as one of many styles instead of one of two (and if styles were presented as different ways of enjoying any game, rather than reasons for loving/hating specific games), it'd be easier to take seriously.
And CaS doesn't even need to be called out as a style. Approach a game like a game? Not exactly a defining, exclusive thing.

As I understand it and use the term, they both approach D&D as a game, but people like myself who deliberately eschew "balanced" encounters and consider the game to start long before initiative is rolled aren't playing the same game as someone who insists on encounter balance and balanced classes that all contribute equally to each encounter. We could call it Type A and Type 1 if you prefer, or freeform vs encounter-balanced. In any case, I don't believe in "balanced" encounters but I do believe in Niven's Laws and I try to follow those while playing, including "it is a sin to waste the reader's [player's] time."

 

[The Wizard Dolomite]

Guns were invented in the 13th century.

The Industrial Revolution started in the mid-18th century. There's a reason why plate armor and two handed swords were created when they were, and barbed wire wasn't created until it was (and razor wire much later than that). Earlier manufacturing technologies could not manage it. Have all of the high tech stuff in your games that you want. But don't expect other people to think it plausible.

You seem to be going way out of your way to rationalize why your DM allowed a cantrip to give the restrained condition without a saving throw.

No, a pipe that someone held and stuck a fuse in the end was invented in the 12th century, the type of guns used in pathfinder didnt come along until centuries later. And if you think they needed the industrial revolution to create barbed wire.... Your the one stretching to rationalize why everything sucks my friend. Theres a difference between being able to make something and being able to mass produce something. Theres also the fact that there wasnt much need for it to be invented before the mass settling of the open spaces of the western united states, along with the cattle farming.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What a strange philosophy. PCs do not win equal fights because the DM makes it easy for them and does not play the monsters lethally.

PCs win basically equal fights because of spells and special abilities. D&D has always been that way.

Superior spells and special abilities are what we call a "force advantage". D&D 5E encounter design is designed to give the PCs a force advantage in almost every combat, because dying half the time in not fun in a game where combats are intended to be frequent. Not just the DM, but the game designers themselves are going easy on you. I think that's a boring way to play, so I don't use the encounter design rules.

And if you think they needed the industrial revolution to create barbed wire....

My understanding is that wire-drawing is actually pretty advanced technology.

 

[Celtavian]

Sorry, I'll drop it. I don't think my group is unusual; if anything my point was more that you can ignore the encounter building rules completely and still have a fun game as long as the players accept challenges voluntarily.

I have found every group is unusual in D&D. Almost every single one does the game differently from table to table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As I understand it and use the term, they both approach D&D as a game,

All the more reason CaS is meaningless. But I'm not so much worried about how you use the term, as the use of it promoting the false dichotomy...

...and I am going to quibble about the meaning of 'balanced.'

but people like myself who deliberately eschew "balanced" encounters and consider the game to start long before initiative is rolled aren't playing the same game as someone who insists on encounter balance and balanced classes that all contribute equally to each encounter. We could call it Type A and Type 1 if you prefer, or freeform vs encounter-balanced. In any case, I don't believe in "balanced" encounters but I do believe in Niven's Laws and I try to follow those while playing, including "it is a sin to waste the reader's [player's] time."

'Balance' gets misconstrued.

Encounter balance doesn't mean every encounter gives the same level of challenge, it just means when the DM designs an encounter, it'll present something closer to the intended level of challenge. That intended level of challenge might be 'cakewalk' or 'overwhelming.' That encounter design might be altered based on how the party comes to have the encounter, or even deferred until the DM knows the starting conditions (depending on how easy it is to adjust vs design encounters in the system in question - or perhaps on how often the party avoids encounters or seeks out unexpected ones!).

Class balance doesn't mean all classes make the same contributions, or even theoretically 'equal' ones (which is pretty difficult to measure, let alone achieve), but that each class presents the player with a meaningful, viable choice. A large enough theoretical inequality between classes might render one non-viable - whether that inequality is in easily quantified raw power, or in versatility, or highly situational (since RPGs can cover a lot of situations, or campaigns fall into a rut). A lack of even conceptual differences between two classes would render the choice between them meaningless - people couldn't even tell which class you were playing, until a mechanical resolution came up where they displayed some arbitrary difference that ultimately, gave the same result.

Identical classes or only one class are sometimes held up as examples of 'perfect balance,' when, in fact, they are extreme, and entirely hypothetical, examples of imbalance. Likewise, monotony is not an example of encounter balance, but of using only a small sub-set of possible encounters.

Taking that into account:

but people like myself who deliberately eschew "balanced" encounters and consider the game to start long before initiative is rolled aren't playing the same game as someone who insists on encounter balance and balanced classes that all contribute equally to each encounter.

Now, I think what you were getting at is not balanced encounters, but challenge level with regards to encounters, and not balanced classes, but the extreme case of imbalance of having identical classes.

Some folks may try to make every encounter an exactly equal challenge, but I doubt it's commonplace. Certainly, no version of D&D has ever suggested doing so in its encounter guidelines. So, in that sense, you're defining CaW by contrasting it with an alternative style that, quite possibly, doesn't exist.

Similarly, while some versions of D&D have had pretty bad class balance, none have been so bad as to have only one viable class choice, nor to consist of identical classes (not even close). So, again, in that same sense, you're defining CaW by contrasting it to an alternative that doesn't exist, at all, at least, not in the context of D&D.

We could call it Type A and Type 1 if you prefer, or freeform vs encounter-balanced. In any case, I don't believe in "balanced" encounters but I do believe in Niven's Laws and I try to follow those while playing, including "it is a sin to waste the reader's [player's] time."

I don't think the label matters.

A better example might be the difference between tailored and status-quo encounters. Tailored encounters are designed to give a specific challenge to the actual party being played - again, that specific challenge might be anything from 'utterly trivial' to 'absolutely unwinnable,' but is more likely in-between, as trivial & unwinnable scenarios do tend to be a waste of time. Status-quo encounters, OTOH, are designed based on the concept of the world. If the DM envisions a dragon the size of a jumbo jet living on top of a mountain, there it is. If it happens to need to have 90 HD and do 1000 damage with it's breath weapon based on the system for dragon-creation, too bad for anyone that annoys it.

Neither of those is necessarily strictly CaW or CaS, I don't think - and, indeed, you could conceivably come up with the exact same encounters using either method, just using a different process - but I'm guessing the status-quo approach would feel right for a CaW fan.

 

[Celtavian]

One of the things about a thread like this, that looks into a blanket judgement about a class is that campaigns are going to vary wildly - with styles, and with different interpretations of the rules, let alone optional rule modules or acknowledged variants. It's not going to be quite as cut-and-dried as 3.5 with RAW & oberoni, or 4e clarity/balance.

In a sense that means campaign anecdotes matter even less - in another sense it means RAW doesn't matter at all.
:shrug:

That is true. RAW doesn't matter at all. Never has save for a few legalistic groups where a strong personality attempts to shove the rules down DM's throat and he allows it to happen.

 

[The Wizard Dolomite]

Superior spells and special abilities are what we call a "force advantage". D&D 5E encounter design is designed to give the PCs a force advantage in almost every combat, because dying half the time in not fun in a game where combats are intended to be frequent. Not just the DM, but the game designers themselves are going easy on you. I think that's a boring way to play, so I don't use the encounter design rules.



My understanding is that wire-drawing is actually pretty advanced technology.

As I said, the way its done to mass produce it perhaps but it can be done in midevil times just not on a large scale. Here is a video of it being made, a smith could twist this wire, it doesnt take the industrial revolution to make barb wire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OfWmUEV5B8. Industrial revolution is when everything was industrialized, not when everything was invented.

 

[Celtavian]

Not to call shenanigans, but I'm calling shenanigans.

Fortunately shenanigans don't much matter on a message board.

Even if the PCs average AC 18, the gnolls would get at least 200 attacks (and probably more) against the PCs in 20+ rounds and do well over 400 points of damage in return. How exactly do these third level PCs suck up 80 points of damage each with a single cure wounds spell?

Our average AC is indeed 18 for our front line warriors.

What does your DM do, send 4 gnolls at a time against you?

Yes. We didn't give him a choice. We rarely give the DM a choice as to where the battle will take place. We aren't players that walk into a room and spread out attacking as individuals. We're a coordinated group. We choked them in a hallway around a corner to prevent missile attacks. The wizard set up a flaming sphere in a 10 foot wide hallway, so the gnolls couldn't mass to start archery fire from behind without getting burned. The wizard as I told you we do, stayed around the corner so that his concentration couldn't be broken. He used his bat familiar hiding up in a corner and action to look through its senses to coordinate hitting with his flaming sphere to control the gnolls. The cleric cast bless and also moved back and forth behind Total Cover to prevent getting struck by any archers occasionally dropping sacred flame and heals.

The monk and fighter archer drew them into the ambush. The monk moves fast enough that the gnolls had no chance of catching him. He used the Dodge Action while retreating. The archer took up position to move back and forth around the corner to hammer with his bow. The warlock/fighter and the monk held the choke point. The warlock fighter is a human with Heavy Armor Mastery, fiend pact that allowed him to gain temporary hit points, the monk is a monk/rogue. He used an occasional Dodge to reduce his chances to hit. In general, we focused on the target fighting the warlock because each timed he downed a gnoll, eh gained 6 temporary hit points. The temporary hit points along with Heavy Armor Mastery make for a very tough combination to bring down. Much harder than a gnoll.

Let's just say a 3rd level wizard is very effective in a hallway choked off.

This is how the majority of our fights go. It's pretty rare that the opponent dictates the battlefield to us. We retreat if we cannot turn the battlefield in our favor. We had to retreat last night from assaulting an evil temple. Priest was too tough backed up by his undead. Had to run and come back another day. That happens sometimes. You can't win them all. 20 skeletons, 20 zombies, a CR 8 legendary high priest in a temple with lair actions, and a CR 2 adept was too strong.

You keep claiming how tough your DM is, but does he knock your PCs prone and pin/grapple them there and kill them with his superior numbers with advantage? Evidently not. It sounds like the tactics of the party are a lot better than your DM's if he cannot manage to kick your butt with 23 higher level foes.

The DM has 23 foes. Are you telling us that he never crits? He never swamps a squishy PC and takes him out?

Or does he do this in a 5 foot wide corridor so that you guys fight one gnoll at a time? Why bother?

Crits aren't a very big deal, especially at low level in this game. You know that man. You could crit in this game and do 2d6+2 and still roll 5 points or something. It's not like 3E where crits were devastating. Though Orc greataxe crits are still damn nasty.

10 foot wide corridor. Why bother? Because we dictate where we fight, not the enemy. We dictate the battlefield and tactics, not the opponent. Isn't that our option as players? Or as a DM do you make that impossible even when the players are willing to do whatever is needed to make it happen through intelligent play?

Btw, if this is some sort of "we shoot down at them from the top of the cliff face" and we can jump back into total cover (and get partial cover against their readied bows) and we suck down a bunch of healing potions in total safety when injured and they cannot melee us and we fake them out with a Minor Illusion of a scarecrow bowman to get some of their readied attacks to miss us type of scenario, then you are misleading people here.

No. Only the archer, cleric, and wizard maintained total cover. The monk and warlock alternated offensive and defensive actions as needed while being healed by the cleric to stand in the hallway and hold the horde back.

And the 3rd level wizard, he made it work. A flaming sphere in a 10 foot wide hallway makes twenty gnolls fairly fangless. How's that for a low level wizard contributing? Without that single tactical control spell, that fight is a whole damn lot harder. The gnolls wanted to mass to push the party back. They could not do that effectively with the flaming sphere in place.

It was a long fight. Though after they had beat the Fang, the two pack leaders, the regular gnolls were quick.

You do realize in this game Stealth characters with expertise have a huge advantage scouting? We have a trickery cleric in our group that gives Advantage on Stealth Rolls to the rogue/monk. The rogue/monk has Expertise Perception and Stealth. He is a high wisdom and dex character. It is almost impossible for anything at this current level to not be surprised or easily scouted by him.

That is in brief parts of the explanation as to why we won as easily as we did. We had an ideal character for standing up to a lot of attackers (warlock/fighter with heavy armor mastery and the ability to generate constant temporary hit points giving our frontline fighter incredible durability), a supreme scout with exceptional mobility (wood elf monk/rogue), a wizard with a key spell (flaming sphere), the ability to deliver strong damage at range behind our martials (archer), and a cleric focused on healing and buffing. It all adds up to fairly easy fights.

Three fourths of our group are min/maxers that look for maximum group coordination. The wizard doesn't min/max as much as the three of us, but is a good tactician. You can believe what you want. We won the fight. It wasn't very hard, though it was long. We used one, maybe two, cure wounds spells, a bless, and an aid spell.

Just an FYI if you play a cleric in the future and aren't aware, aid is a very powerful spell. The way it is currently designed it will act as an AoE heal for 5 hit points, though you can also use it for its intended purpose to boost hit points prior to entering battle. If you use it as a spot heal, the five hit points can help at any time.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Now, I think what you were getting at is not balanced encounters, but challenge level with regards to encounters, and not balanced classes, but the extreme case of imbalance of having identical classes.

Some folks may try to make every encounter an exactly equal challenge, but I doubt it's commonplace. Certainly, no version of D&D has ever suggested doing so in its encounter guidelines. So, in that sense, you're defining CaW by contrasting it with an alternative style that, quite possibly, doesn't exist.

Similarly, while some versions of D&D have had pretty bad class balance, none have been so bad as to have only one viable class choice, nor to consist of identical classes (not even close). So, again, in that same sense, you're defining CaW by contrasting it to an alternative that doesn't exist, at all, at least, not in the context of D&D.

I don't understand the bolded part, feel free to restate it if you think it's important. RE: your second paragraph, I'm not referring to a style that expects all encounters to be exactly the same. I'm referring to a style that expects the DM to build encounters according to the encounter budgets listed in the Basic Rules and the DMG. E.g. rarely make Deadly encounters, follow the "adventuring day" XP budget guidelines, not use monsters with a higher CR than the player level. People with such expectations exist, at least on the Internet (and presumably therefore in real life). Such people should know that I have no intention of using those rules, and that's the primary thing I intend to communicate by saying I believe in Combat As War.

A better example might be the difference between tailored and status-quo encounters. Tailored encounters are designed to give a specific challenge to the actual party being played - again, that specific challenge might be anything from 'utterly trivial' to 'absolutely unwinnable,' but is more likely in-between, as trivial & unwinnable scenarios do tend to be a waste of time. Status-quo encounters, OTOH, are designed based on the concept of the world. If the DM envisions a dragon the size of a jumbo jet living on top of a mountain, there it is. If it happens to need to have 90 HD and do 1000 damage with it's breath weapon based on the system for dragon-creation, too bad for anyone that annoys it.

Neither of those is necessarily strictly CaW or CaS, I don't think - and, indeed, you could conceivably come up with the exact same encounters using either method, just using a different process - but I'm guessing the status-quo approach would feel right for a CaW fan.

I think you could conceivably build tailored encounters with a CaW mindset, but I agree with you that CaW fans will hear about your hypothetical 90 HD dragon and think, "Hey, that sounds cool. Maybe I should do that." It was certainly my reaction.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As I said, the way its done to mass produce it perhaps but it can be done in midevil times just not on a large scale. Here is a video of it being made, a smith could twist this wire, it doesnt take the industrial revolution to make barb wire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OfWmUEV5B8. Industrial revolution is when everything was industrialized, not when everything was invented.

This is a bit of a tangent so I won't pursue it too far, but: the setup in your video looks pretty high-tech to me. Remember, the issue isn't twisting the wire, it's getting the wire in the first place. My limited understanding of history tells me that making wires out of hard metals like iron ("wire-drawing") is fairly advanced. A quick Google search tells me that I may be partially wrong: there are references to drawing iron for music strings as early as 1540 A.D, before the Industrial Revolution occurred. So maybe you could produce barbed wire with medieval technology.

Ref:

http://download-v2.springer.com/sta...8120e3eb7f163376cf71811329b30592dbd427bb5760f