Goodness. You downplay the versatility power of the wizard so much that if I valued your posts as gospel I would think that the wizard seriously needs buffs! Very rare and specific situations where the poor wizard can do greatness, unlike those sorcerers with their super powerful metamagic.
I mean, really. There's no point debating with you.
Ridiculing his responses instead of being capable of refuting them doesn't give much credence to debating with you.
Alright, the sorcerer goes and takes Ritual Caster. It gives him 2 ritual 1st lvl ritual spells. That can boost out 6th level sorcerer from 7 spells known to 9, versus the wizard's 16 spells. This doesn't magically close the gap.
It provides the opportunity to perform rituals, and also to pick up more rituals. You are still basing your argument on the assumption the number of spells known is a significantly superior option compared to other benefits not available and then arguing as if it were true. That's just begging the question and a common fallacy.
The point is that ritual casting is available in similar format to wizards and it's more available than the bard version of the same ability.
Meanwhile, the abjuration wizard picks up Lightly Armored. It gives him access to padded leather armor, 12+DEX AC, plus a +1 to his DEX. This is either 1 less AC if the DEX is bumped to an odd number, or equal AC plus extra DEX-related bonuses (saves mostly, both vs. attacks and adventuring) if the DEX is bumped to an even number. This either is close to closing the gap, or equals (and exceeds) it.
Incorrect. They end up with the same DEX bonus in the end depending on when they top up that last point of it. Neither will leave it odd. The armor you are taking from the feat is still a lower AC than mage armor or draconic resilience provides so you are actually still at an AC deficit in your example in comparison for the wizard.
You aren't even correct on the AC from the armor type. Padded and leather are AC 11 plus DEX mod. Studded leather is AC 12 plus DEX mod. Just continuing to run mage armor or draconic resilience is AC 13 plus DEX mod and your feat plus +1 DEX isn't catching the same AC without additional DEX invested beyond the sorcerer by at least 1 more DEX point than the feat also added.
And you conveniently ignored the "extra 6 HP" argument: that the abjuration wizard is getting at least 16 extra HP from his ability, that he can lend to his allies, and that he can recharge to further its potency.
The protection granted by casting ABJURATION spells? ;-)
If you look back at the spell list under discussion, that was the mage armor spell that is no longer there in lieu of a feat and counterspell, which requires a very situational moment for that 3rd level spell slot that also loses a casting of either fireball or haste in having done so.
In order to make use of the ability, the wizard needs to restrict his spells more to the appropriate school (like Jester stated earlier in the thread) and that impacts the spells the wizard is applying. In an argument about versatility you are bringing up a restriction on that versatility. If you suggest going back to not spending the feat for armor then the wizard still ends up down that 1st-level slot compared to the sorcerer but also has an easy method of adding a 16 hp ward. The ward is decent but it doesn't stop the character from being the lowest hit points for a sleep spell and doesn't respond to things like the healer feat or spells.
The sorcerer gets, hm, one good spell that the wizard doesn't have access to? How many spells does the wizard get that the sorcerer doesn't? How many good ones? You REALLY think it's equal? You're going to fight this too? We can. Go look up all the wizard-exclusive spells vs. the sorcerer ones.
I do think it's equal because the sorcerer still gets good spells to which the wizard also has access. The lack of a lot of differences in spells doesn't make the available options any weaker. That's another standard fallacy.
To be quite clear, none of options a, b, or c become any better than options a or d just because the first list of options is longer. Spells are ranked based on relative power in a given spell level with the general situation of all spells of the same level being roughly equal. What's better is often in the eye of the beholder.
The sorcerer doesn't need as many options as long as the options the sorcerer has include good options. Exclusive != superior.
You're still nitpicking an illustrative example that was made in a response to a different subject. I have no idea why, but I'll entertain it.
If you have no idea why then perhaps you might not understand things quite as well as you think. (jk) ;-)
First of all, flaming sphere hits multiple foes. You do not use this against one creature. You use something else against one creature (wizard spell versatility, remember?).
Flaming sphere doesn't hit multiple opponents. They are required to end their turn within range of it for that to happen on just need to move to avoid it. What makes this spell good is it promotes movement and soft terrain control so it can open up opportunity attacks. The spell damage is easy to avoid. What it doesn't do is offer the single target spike that the sorcerer had with a quickened 2nd level spell and followup cantrip.
The wizard uses flaming sphere as a bonus action to attack one of the creatures or one creature on top of a cantrip attack for bonus damage. That's part of the versatility in having the spell. Using a different spell doesn't remove the option for a sorcerer to use a spell.
Flaming sphere is a good spell and has it's advantages. Flaming sphere being a good spell doesn't mean the sorcerer doesn't also have a good different spell to use. You can't win an argument based on the options that are not available while ignoring the options that are.
Pyrotechnics is good, and wizards can afford to have "one trick ponies," as you underplay it.
One trick ponies that are never or rarely used make little difference and in using it runs the spell slots out so they become no-trick ponies while the sorcerer just casts more spells. That's a wizard shooting himself in the foot more than an advantage.
Finally, if we're rearranging the wizard spell list optimally, I may not even take levitate. No, I'm not going to cobble together a list just for you. I'll entertain this conversation but not waste that much time on it. You can. Feel free to.
That's too bad. Every time someone cobbles the list it demonstrates how little advantage that list really has. We're back to simply having about 1 more option per spell level that doesn't necessarily come in to play and when it does loses another option that would have been useful later because of spell slot costs.
Anyone with basic knowledge of rituals in 5e knows they're meant for out of combat utility. To start downplaying their effectiveness because of difficulty casting in combat is downright absurd.
An example given to which I responded was for a combat use so, duh, I never expected it to be useful, but out of combat uses still carry little impact because they're usually covered by skills, other useful spells (like alter self), or replaced by a feat.
You're not even correct about concentration, only 2 out of 18 rituals available require concentration.
Of course I'm right and you don't know the rules. ;-)
"L o n g e r C a s t i n g T im e s
Certain spells (
including spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell,
and you must maintain your concentration while you do so (see “Concentration” below). If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over."
As for the leomund's hut example, two ways it shines:
1) There's not always "safe rest areas" as you describe. Say you're making camp in a dangerous environment, like a dungeon (as adventurers generally find themselves in), and your party is low on resources to handle a fight in the night. You set it up so wandering monsters don't ruin your night.
2) you're in a position where you have to defend a location from enemies you know will arrive later on. Maybe you're defending a town. Maybe you've set up a defense in a narrow tunnel. Whatever the situation, you cast it, and now you have an impenetrable defense in that spot. It's tactical. The opponents can't assault your spot, and if they try, they eat arrows while you have no fear of reprisal.
So yes, you are underestimating rituals.
Now you are using the combat application of the ritual for which you stated it has out of combat applications. It's situational, 1 ritual and not indicative of all rituals, not big enough to defend a town, and allows the enemies to simply move somewhere else.
I can just find a place to hide for an hour, with advantage on the roll using enhance ability, and rest for an hour on a sorcerer. This also gets back to things like barricading doors, other spells, wilderness vs city vs dungeon, etc. It's not common enough or impacting enough to outweigh other benefits that happen more often (like bonus damage during combat) just because the option might present itself once in a while. The frequency of your example doesn't lend it credibility.
Wizards get more, many more spells available, and many more good spells. That's my point. (For what reason, I don't know.)
2 at 1st level isn't many, it progresses over time (several levels), and still works out to about 1 single choice per spell level. That's 1 spell option that is still traded off for another in it's casting due to spell slots. A moment of usefulness due to the extra spell in one round is a moment lacking usefulness in another because the spell slot has already been used.
More spells doesn't equal to better options. It equals to different options at different times. This might present an opportunity or it might not but it doesn't prevent the sorcerer from having a useful option. It provided different strengths at different times due to different advantages.
We are saying that the sorcerer's metamagic was intended to balance out their lack of spell versatility, by giving them ways to modify the limited spells they know to cover their bases. But in practice, the limited metamagics and plain bad metamagics leave something to be desired.
THAT is what we're arguing in this thread before Jester and yourself derail things in "oh but the wizard's good things aren't that good."
Reread the OP. It was "no rituals, less spells, no preparation, expanded list blah blah wizards have nice stuffs". It's based on the idea that the versatility isn't there when there is versatility, just less than a wizard, when versatility is one of the points of playing a wizard. If those are the qualities a player wants then play the wizard; that's what they do. Or play a druid; that's also what they do.
Complaining that a sorcerer lacks the abilities of a wizard does appear that the player just wants a wizard with the sorcerer tag attached to it. Metamagic is that good and it is exclusive. As it is there is very little benefit to playing any other spell caster over a sorcerer and the only reason not to play a sorcerer is the more restricted spell selection that isn't much more restricting at all when a person looks at how many more spells that really means for other arcane spell casters.
What's worse, the arguments you use ignore other benefits. In your case you missed at least 2 rules that you didn't have correct in what I quoted above alone.
The bottom line is that sorcerers are not hard done by. They have good spell options. They have opportunities for other options. They have strong class mechanics. If you think someone disagreeing with you on an internet forum when it's information directly listed in the OP is a derailment I don't think you understand what that means. There's nothing off topic because we're discussion items off a bullet list in the OP.
You might need to smile more. ;-)
