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

[KarinsDad]

Death Ward in particular should be standard for anyone planning on facing an evil anything. It's your insurance against surprises like disintegration traps. Lasts for eight hours with no concentration, IIRC. (AFB.)

The PCs do not always know what they will be going up against. At least in my campaign.

 

[Celtavian]

Well, artifacts can still affect the antimagic field protected demilich.

But the best solution is to just wait out the duration of antimagic field.


In other words, RUN!!!!!!!!!

Hard to do. He can pretty much keep one player encased in antimagic indefinitely with his lair action.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The PCs do not always know what they will be going up against. At least in my campaign.

That's why it's great that Death Ward is useful against pretty much anything. As I said, if an evil wizard jumps you with 9th level spells with no warning right in the middle of your nap, your problems are much bigger than PWK anyway, so it makes sense to at least focus on a party who is at least combat-ready. And Death Ward absolutely deserves to be part of the standard combat-ready package. It lasts for eight hours, no concentration required, and it guarantees that you'll survive mind flayer brain-sucking, red dragon breath, Meteor Swarm, PWK, one banshee wail, etc. It's no panacea but what's not to like? If you have someone who can cast it without crippling their spellcasting for the rest of the day (i.e. multiple spell slots 4th level and up) you should probably cast it, more than once. IMO.

BTW, I remembered another mitigation for PWK: Revivify. Pretty sure that takes only one round to cast, which counters 9th level PWK in the action economy. If PWK had a save that would look even worse.

PWK wouldn't look so bad if you replaced the HP requirement entirely with a save. Save or die, straight up, no HP limit. You had mentioned raising the HP limit in conjunction with adding a save I'm not sure whether you considered going that far or of you were just going to raise it to 140 or so, which would still be meh.

 

[KarinsDad]

That's why it's great that Death Ward is useful against pretty much anything. As I said, if an evil wizard jumps you with 9th level spells with no warning right in the middle of your nap, your problems are much bigger than PWK anyway, so it makes sense to at least focus on a party who is at least combat-ready. And Death Ward absolutely deserves to be part of the standard combat-ready package. It lasts for eight hours, no concentration required, and it guarantees that you'll survive mind flayer brain-sucking, red dragon breath, Meteor Swarm, PWK, one banshee wail, etc. It's no panacea but what's not to like? If you have someone who can cast it without crippling their spellcasting for the rest of the day (i.e. multiple spell slots 4th level and up) you should probably cast it, more than once. IMO.

BTW, I remembered another mitigation for PWK: Revivify. Pretty sure that takes only one round to cast, which counters 9th level PWK in the action economy. If PWK had a save that would look even worse.

PWK wouldn't look so bad if you replaced the HP requirement entirely with a save. Save or die, straight up, no HP limit. You had mentioned raising the HP limit in conjunction with adding a save I'm not sure whether you considered going that far or of you were just going to raise it to 140 or so, which would still be meh.

Save or die is just flat out unappetizing. The real issue is that 3E style PWK just doesn't mesh well with 5E mechanics. 5E is about saving throws. PWK is not. Spells that do not have saves or have a single save in 5E have effects that are fairly easy to counter (Sleep, Color Spray, Hypnotic Pattern). One could claim that Revivify is an easy counter to PWK, but having a PC in a party that can cast it and having it prepped makes it a bit more problematic than the simplicity of the counters to the other spells.


And Death Ward is single target. Casting 5 Death Wards to protect the entire 5 PC party is fairly costly, even at real high level. To protect the party 24 hours a day, it would be 15 spells.

Granted, if one is only protecting one PC, then it's 3 casts a day by the Cleric (or the Paladin). Still, it's not exactly a cheap solution. It can be ok if the Cleric (and/or Paladin) just cast it on themselves to ensure that they survive to get other PCs back conscious or alive.


Revivify is good. Our 5th level Cleric wants to have it prepped, but she is in Undermountain and she hasn't found that many diamonds.

Course, Revivify has a downside as well (other than the diamond acquisition problem). Coming back at 1 hit point can put a PC back into unconscious fairly quick.


But my basic takeaway from this is that PWK is just not a good fit for the 5E rules and should be modified by each DM accordingly if he thinks the same.

One potential solution that I see to it is the two save solution. It doesn't matter how many hit points a creature has, he has to make a save. If he fails, then at the end of his next turn, he has to save again. If he fails twice, he dies. This puts it on par with some of the petrification effects.

 

[sithramir]

How about no save but you just go unconscious at 0 HP? You might die from death saves or live but easy to finish off as well but not auto suck? Maybe too weak?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

How about no save but you just go unconscious at 0 HP? You might die from death saves or live but easy to finish off as well but not auto suck? Maybe too weak?

Extremely weak. Remember that PWK is already very weak for a 9th level spell. If you're going to nerf it, give it some compensating advantages at the same time.

 

[mlund]

The only real annoying part about being a low-level wizard is that your Cantrips don't add your Intelligence Modifier to your damage. Your damage floor with the blasted things is just terrible.

Marty Lund

 

[Celtavian]

The only real annoying part about being a low-level wizard is that your Cantrips don't add your Intelligence Modifier to your damage. Your damage floor with the blasted things is just terrible.

Marty Lund

I don't much understand why they didn't allow the casters to add their stat to cantrip damage. Doesn't seem like it would make a significant difference. I might add it as a house rule later.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I don't much understand why they didn't allow the casters to add their stat to cantrip damage. Doesn't seem like it would make a significant difference. I might add it as a house rule later.

Because the INTENT is that martial characters (being limited to more mundane general actions) deal more damage than casters.

 

[Delandel]

Because the INTENT is that martial characters (being limited to more mundane general actions) deal more damage than casters.

I agree that martials should be doing more damage in general. Adding +stat to cantrip damage wouldn't change that though, since martials all get extra damage sources from levels 1-2: sneak attack, smite, rage, fighting style, etc. For some reason most spellcasters get +stat damage pretty late, I think the levels 6-11 range.

Speaking as someone that has been playing a blaster sorcerer from level 2 and currently 7, yeah, I wish +stat damage was baseline in cantrips. The only problem ones would be cantrips that hit multiple targets, those shouldn't get +stat (poison spray I think it was?).

I remember the early sorcerer levels were pretty miserable in combat. You run out of spells fast, and if the DM isn't generous with long rests the cantrips are waaaay lower in damage. It just felt bad doing 2 damage for your turn while the barbarian is just 1 shotting everything.

Then again, I'm level 7 now, and I get to polymorph into a giant ape and out-barbarian the op barbarian. From garbage early levels to disgusting broken later. 5e doesn't know the concept of "balance" or "power scaling."