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

[mlund]

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

The problem isn't the Max or the Mean, it is the floor. The problem with reducing the damage dice and adding the raw modifier (turning Firebolt into some sort of arcane Shortbow) is that it scales poorly: 1d6 + 3 is fine; 2d6 + 4 is poor; 3d6 + 5 is just sad; 4d6 + 5 ... are you even trying anymore? I admire the simplicity in the system, though. It just makes levels 1-4 awkward, with streaks of hits with miserable damage.

I'm not in any way claiming it's unbalanced. My 3rd level Wizard lead off a fight with a 62 damage casting of shatter on two mounted enemies and their steeds. His net output is just fine. It just doesn't make the string of Fire Bolts and Shocking Grasps that dealt 1 damage per hit any more enjoyable. "Hit for 1. Hit for 1. Miss. Hit for 1. Miss." is a kind of disappointing / boring series over 5 turns.

Marty Lund

 

[keterys]

To be honest, I consider Healing Word's range at least as important as its action.

But it's become clear I'm used to a very different game in which maneuvering for touch range would often spell an opportunity attack or be literally impossible due to terrain and enemies.

We did use cure wounds last session, though. The druid got knocked out of her shapeshift at the same time that a melee person got dropped, the imp was killed, and I was nowhere near able to help (far away maintaining fly in an area of half-speed terrain). Our DM upgraded the dragon we were fighting so that he could use wing buffet every legendary action, and that you saved against the prone not the damage, so the dragon was doing ~50 auto-damage to everyone next to it each round, or that wouldn't have happened. Anyhow, a goodberry or potion would have worked just as well, but the druid wanted to move and shapeshift again so the cure wounds was just as good as any other available option.

 

[KarinsDad]

A wizard of 17th level or higher spending a 9th level slot to kill a challenge 6 creature like a medusa, or a challenge 5 creature like a werebear, is not a problem. The demi-lich is somewhat more problematic, but I'd argue that the problem lies with the design of the demi-lich, not with power word kill.

I'll grant you the medusa and the werebear as I wasn't looking at CR.

But, do you say the same for the lich? A Mummy Lord?

Personally, I do not consider low hit points, lots of resistances, immunities, and abilities to be a monster (especially undead) design flaw.

Just wondering, did you also find the domain power of the 3e Death domain broken? It was basically the same thing, except 1d6/level instead of a flat 100.

5E isn't 3E. 5E is a game with saves every round (for the most part). PWK does not fit that design model.

Fights are supposed to be over in 3-4 rounds anyway.

Sure, easy or medium ones. But hard or deadly ones? Is a lich a medium encounter for a 4 PC party of level 17 adventurers? No, it's deadly, but it can be taken out in round 1 or 2. Two Rakshasa or two Vampires goes from a hard encounter to an easy encounter in the first round.

Granted, there are not (yet) many monsters that match this situation. But the issue is there nonetheless.


And yes Meteor Swarm can wipe out a powerful encounter quickly. But there are still saving throws and potentially resistances/immunities or other abilities involved (or even allies in the way for most types of wizards) which can turn Meteor Swarm into a bit of a dud. We have a PC in our 5th level group that will almost never die from a meteor swarm (unless already injured) and will sometimes still be conscious; and another PC who would sometimes be barely unconscious after getting hit with a Meteor Swarm (but he would die if he failed the save).

 

[KarinsDad]

His net output is just fine. It just doesn't make the string of Fire Bolts and Shocking Grasps that dealt 1 damage per hit any more enjoyable. "Hit for 1. Hit for 1. Miss. Hit for 1. Miss." is a kind of disappointing / boring series over 5 turns.

I've seen worse cantrip runs in 5E over multiple encounters.

 

[Celtavian]

To be honest, I consider Healing Word's range at least as important as its action.

But it's become clear I'm used to a very different game in which maneuvering for touch range would often spell an opportunity attack or be literally impossible due to terrain and enemies.

We did use cure wounds last session, though. The druid got knocked out of her shapeshift at the same time that a melee person got dropped, the imp was killed, and I was nowhere near able to help (far away maintaining fly in an area of half-speed terrain). Our DM upgraded the dragon we were fighting so that he could use wing buffet every legendary action, and that you saved against the prone not the damage, so the dragon was doing ~50 auto-damage to everyone next to it each round, or that wouldn't have happened. Anyhow, a goodberry or potion would have worked just as well, but the druid wanted to move and shapeshift again so the cure wounds was just as good as any other available option.

At higher level for nearly the same resource you can use aid to the same effect as healing word. Unless you're benefitting from the bonus action. How can terrain and enemies cause AoOs for your cleric? Doesn't the cleric set up with your melees to deliver other touch spells that might be needed? There is no need for the cleric to move in and out causing AoOs. How are they getting AoOs? Terrain and enemies that cause constant AoOs makes seems strange. Why would they do that? Your cleric can also fight in melee or up close. They have very few pure ranged attack spells that get disadvantage when used. I see no situation that occurs with any regularity that would cause AoOs either due to terrain or enemies with your cleric setting up in touch range. The cleric usually has amongst the most hit points in the group. Usually second or third unless they are poorly built or the player makes different style choices. For example, my current cleric will end at 20 with roughly 229 hit points. Not much behind the fighter. Maybe you don't allow feats as Tough is a good one for a cleric.

If you are operating with next to no healing and all damage dealers without dying, that does not seem like a difficult game (though that is relative). You should be dying at higher level quite often in a hard game using only healing word. Let's illustrate an example. You're fighting a dragon. You get a character back up with healing word. Dragon claw attack hits, character drops. Second claw attack hits. Character misses two death saves automatically due to crit. Even if the dragon bites different PC. Next character goes, dragon's legendary action wing buffet means character dead. He is only one away from death after a single extra claw hit after falling. Is your DM not going for the kill when you guys fall? Our DM does go for the kill. It's very easy to kill a PC after they fall to make sure the healing weeble-wobble effect doesn't happen.

If your DM doesn't go for the kill after you fall, I can see you choosing healing word. Our DM stopped that strange product of the game by going for the kill when we figured out under the new rules a paladin could effectively keep someone up for an insane amount of time with Lay on Hands and that we were spending a 1st level spell to keep someone up even at high level. He felt the resource expenditure by the party was minimal to keep someone at full combat effectiveness, so killing party members was the answer he decided the bad guys would take to stop this from happening.

Once we read the rules, we found out how easy it to die. Melee attack in five feet gets advantage to hit and is an automatic crit that causes two missed death saves. When fighting legendary creatures, even their lair actions can be used to finish someone in that state. We lost a few party members to the lair actions after they had fallen.

Is your DM going for the kill after you fall? If the answer is no, then I understand your game and your choices.

 

[keterys]

Adding stat to cantrips is a good idea. That said, you should also reduce the dice when you do, so they don't end up more effective than using martial ranged weapons.

 

[Celtavian]

Yes, the argument for HW over CW is quite clear, athough I can also see [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION]'s reasons for favouring CW in certain circumstances.

I think the cure wounds versus healing word comes down to play-style. I'm thinking Karinsdad and Keterys would switch to cure wounds the moment they heard the cry, "Healer. Kill it." and everything in the room came after them. It's very important that the cleric stay with the martials, so they don't end up in a position to get surrounded and jacked. They often spend a few rounds casting nothing to keep a low profile. Let the wizard draw the "Wizard. Kill it." call.

We were told the same thing about damage in 3E. Then we tried running the cleric in a more offensive manner, it ended up the getting the cleric killed a bunch. Once the cleric goes down, the party is in a lot of trouble. It wasn't worth it to play the cleric as heavy offense. They can't take the targeting once the enemy figures out who the cleric is and gets them in range to attack. Most of our 3E combat clerics were built for healing and survivability due to the way we play. When the enemy knew who we were, the cleric was the first one targeted. They had to live because once the party brought the cleric down, we couldn't take the damage exchange the DM had designed.

That's our play-style. I can see how playing a fairly standard game where the DM doesn't play the enemy targeting healers and arcane casters once they are known choosing to run in a different fashion. As I explained in another post, the enemies go for the kill in our game. Breath of Life was a life saver many times in Pathfinder. Unfortunately in this edition, you can't build a cleric with quickened heal able to cast it twice in a round. Revivify is expensive. It's so easy to kill someone in this game and so hard to stop it unless the initiative falls right.

 

[keterys]

At higher level for nearly the same resource you can use aid to the same effect as healing word.

Except it doesn't stack, has half the range, requires an action, uses up higher level spell slots, and isn't available to as many classes. But yes, aid + cure wounds is a much more sensible package than just cure wounds.

How can terrain and enemies cause AoOs for your cleric? Doesn't the cleric set up with your melees to deliver other touch spells that might be needed?

_You_ just covered how your cleric stays back around a corner to avoid having his concentration broken! Nevermind that _anyone_ grouping up is just going to get tagged by AE and lose their concentration. That last battle included a dragon with 60-ft cones that it used on both of its turns, melee guys who literally dropped onto us from nowhere, as well as attacking from a more expected/scouted flank, along with a necklace of missiles hurling NPC (so, a fireball every turn). The entire ground was difficult terrain so only the two flyers I was maintaining and the melee who had boots to ignore the difficult terrain weren't impeded.

At lower level, we still had dragons, flameskulls, and lightning-breathing drakes, so things really haven't changed much from that angle on the AE front. On the supporting melee front, corridor chokepoints don't tend to work; goblins, toads, spiders, fliers, lots of things just traipse on through to the backline, nevermind that any engagement in such a setup will almost always call for reinforcements from another angle if they're available.

It's also often important to maintain multiple tactical points, for example holding off reinforcements at one point, rescuing an injured NPC at another, and dealing with the primary target at a 3rd. If the cleric is doing any of those, their ability to move to someone doing another is compromised, as well it should. This is sufficiently true that in some cases the fighter might be more than a full move away from the cleric, nevermind in a situation that might provoke attacks to get to.

Like I said, pretty different game from yours.

You're fighting a dragon. You get a character back up with healing word. Dragon claw attack hits, character drops. Second claw attack hits. Character misses two death saves automatically due to crit.

So use cure wounds instead. Odds are high that the character still drops in the same number of hits, because the difference cured is small. Further, you're now more grouped up for the dragon's wing buffets and breath weapon, which mean that your healing gap is even worse.

The real question, though, is why the dragon gets another turn. It can't drop anyone in the first turn when it shows up or you're setting up, it might drop someone in the second if it gets one, it's dead before it gets a 3rd.

If your DM doesn't go for the kill after you fall, I can see you choosing healing word.

That theory does not apply to the games I know. There are uses for cure wounds, and I would take it - AFTER healing word. There's no question there are situations in which cure wounds is better than healing word. Like I said earlier, about 1/6th of the time.

And the better option than both of those is for the enemies to never get another turn, instead. But, sometimes you got to heal, it does happen.

When fighting legendary creatures, even their lair actions can be used to finish someone in that state. We lost a few party members to the lair actions after they had fallen.

Yep, we were definitely worried when he dropped both our tank and our "healer" (the imp) in the same round, but thankfully he had used all 3 upgraded wing buffets (now that I look at it, he was doing more than the standard damage since it's impossible to roll 19 on 2d6+6 and he did 50-something over the 3 times he did it, doing it as a single action not a double action, _and_ not allowing a save to negate the damage like usual. wow). He was also trying to stay flying out of range of melee attacks while using his breath weapon every round, which is solid given how much damage we do with melee.

So, yeah, he was trying to present a real upscaled challenge, not just playing tag.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

At higher level for nearly the same resource you can use aid to the same effect as healing word. Unless you're benefitting from the bonus action.

...unless you're already under the effect of Aid.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think the cure wounds versus healing word comes down to play-style. I'm thinking Karinsdad and Keterys would switch to cure wounds the moment they heard the cry, "Healer. Kill it." and everything in the room came after them.

Doubtful. 2 more hit points at low level (or even 4 in a second level slot) typically makes little difference in a fight, especially at the cost of movement and an action. You seem to be seriously overestimating the value of Cure Wounds.

That's our play-style. I can see how playing a fairly standard game where the DM doesn't play the enemy targeting healers and arcane casters once they are known choosing to run in a different fashion. As I explained in another post, the enemies go for the kill in our game.

How do you know that in standard games, DMs do not play the enemy targeting healers and arcane casters once they are known? Where do you get your data on this from? Based on what I have read here on the forums over the years, that's not a reasonable assumption.


In our game, we have 5 PCs out of 6 that can cast spells and 4 of those 6 PCs can heal. We now have a 7th player who currently is running an NPC, but will soon run his own PC. He decided upon a Druid. So how exactly does the DM target the healers and arcane casters when 6 out of 7 PCs match one or both of those descriptions? Maybe it's because the players in my game made it difficult for NPCs to determine who the healer or the arcane spell caster is. Since my players rarely cast healing spells in combat in 5E, it's tough for the NPCs to know who the healer might be.

Or maybe it's because as DM, I try to not let metagame information influence my NPC decision making.