D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Lost Soul]

Um, thread title?

+1, Thank you very much!

 

[Lost Soul]

I find the magazine page count, combined with the number of species of oranges, tangerines, tangelos, and the remaining variety of such, to be lacking with respect to flavor variety as well. I was also disappointed in the health of the broccoli stems, and the basket weaving they were contained within.

That's what you were referring to as well, right?

Is your reply what happens when someone forgets to take their meds?

 

[Lost Soul]

You think 5e handled tangelos well?

You're dead to me. Dead I say!

(And yes, his comment has something to do with a complaint about 5e, but as his complaint lacks crucial information like...what class he's referring to for instance...it's sort of hard to comprehend what the heck his complaint is actually about. It could be about literally any spell-casting class, but seems specific to just one of them, or perhaps even one subclass of one of them. Or maybe he means all spellcasting classes. Or all full casters. Or Jello).

Since you just hastily responded to my post by mocking it you might have wanted to check my points.

Point A = spells known. Since a few casters only use the spells known mechanic(I.E. bards, sorcerers and warlocks) the inference to few spells know would point to those classes. Anyone with a basic knowledge of 5E would know this.

Point B = high level spells not worth their power tends to reference straight casters as high level spells are generally referenced in the 6th to 9th level range. Their is nothing earth shaking about these spells compared to any prior edition of Vancian spellcasting that D&D uses, whether that is Basic, 1E, 2E, 3E or 3.5. What strength 5E spells have is derived from the weakness of the 5E saving throw matrix. Example given of targeting saves based upon knowledge of certain classes or monsters having weak saves rather than the spell effect itself being powerful. This means the complaint is for full casters such as bards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, wizards & warlocks. Sorry that I have to be THAT specific and literally spell it out for you.

 

[Lost Soul]

5e casters get fewer slots than even a Wizard (let alone a Sorcerer) in 3.x, mainly due to not getting bonus slots for high caster stat, and, at high level, to getting fewer 6th+ level slots. But, aside from that, they still don't start with 1 slot at 1st level like a 1e magic-user, and, while they may not get as many slots at every level, they do get to cast them spontaneously, and are not subject to losing slots when interrupted, so they don't /waste/ as many slots as TSR-era casters tended to.

(of course, 4e had far fewer slots than other eds, but it made up for it with at-wills and short-rest-recharge slots, in addition to the handful of daily slots - 5e gives casters as many or more at-will attack cantrips as 4e, some short-rest-recharge slot mechanics, and daily slots more in keeping with earlier eds.)

Given all that, 5e is arguably the best of all possible editions for casters, overall.

Agreed. Heck, with saves scaling with character level, it could be argued that low-level spells are potentially too powerful to warrant so many slots...

IMHO, completely untrue. 5E is the worst edition for casters because they have to give you scaling damage cantrips to constantly make up for nerfed spells. You have to waste a 5th level slot to make up for what fireball can do in 2nd & 3rd edition. It won't ever reach the potential it had in basic or 1E. High level spells are a joke. The only dangerous ones are ones that target a poor save and even then most rely on the concentration mechanic so at best you get one of them. You cannot combo spells like in previous editions. You get the LEAST amount of high level spells in 5th edition and they have been heavily nerfed.

 

[Mistwell]

Since you just hastily responded to my post by mocking it you might have wanted to check my points.

Point A = spells known. Since a few casters only use the spells known mechanic(I.E. bards, sorcerers and warlocks) the inference to few spells know would point to those classes. Anyone with a basic knowledge of 5E would know this.

Point B = high level spells not worth their power tends to reference straight casters as high level spells are generally referenced in the 6th to 9th level range. Their is nothing earth shaking about these spells compared to any prior edition of Vancian spellcasting that D&D uses, whether that is Basic, 1E, 2E, 3E or 3.5. What strength 5E spells have is derived from the weakness of the 5E saving throw matrix. Example given of targeting saves based upon knowledge of certain classes or monsters having weak saves rather than the spell effect itself being powerful. This means the complaint is for full casters such as bards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, wizards & warlocks. Sorry that I have to be THAT specific and literally spell it out for you.

I am mocking it, lightly and with humor, because you obviously left out an important subject matter in your post. Instead of playing along, you're being defensive and insulting. You're now making the hyperbolic statement that literally anyone with basic knowledge of 5e should have understood what you meant despite numerous people, who all are quite experienced with 5e, saying they also didn't know what exactly you were referring to.

You can be more specific with your posts and get better responses, or you can be vague and insulting, and get worse responses. Right now, you're way overreacting apparently out of embarrassment more than anything else. There is no need for that. We were all being friendly to you, a peer, and not actually insulting you. We've all made vague posts before and had to clarify as well. But instead you're responding over the top. Is that really the impression you want to give people about who you are? That people shouldn't ever joke around and be playful with Lost Soul because he's prone to explode and treat it like a personal insult and lash out? Or would you rather just be able to laugh at yourself, and let everyone know you don't take things too seriously and can take a poke as well as give it on occasion?

As for your complaint...I am not seeing how it applies to the classes who literally know all the spells of their class, like Druid and Cleric. I also don't see how it applies to Warlock, who are built around the concept of a very few spells with slots that regenerate swiftly in a manner no other casters do. As for the remaining classes you mentioned, I think it was intentional, to pare back the relative power of those spellcasters to make them more closely align with the rest of the non-magic and half-magic and one-third-magic classes. Have you found in play that the classes you mentioned are underpowered relative to those other classes, or are you saying this purely in comparison to prior editions or on a theoretical basis?

 

[Hussar]

IMHO, completely untrue. 5E is the worst edition for casters because they have to give you scaling damage cantrips to constantly make up for nerfed spells. You have to waste a 5th level slot to make up for what fireball can do in 2nd & 3rd edition. It won't ever reach the potential it had in basic or 1E. High level spells are a joke. The only dangerous ones are ones that target a poor save and even then most rely on the concentration mechanic so at best you get one of them. You cannot combo spells like in previous editions. You get the LEAST amount of high level spells in 5th edition and they have been heavily nerfed.

But, the comparison should not be relative to other editions. It should be a comparison between what characters can do in this edition vs the challenges they will face in this edition.

You can't just say, "Well, in 3e, you could chain spells together, so, you should be able to do that in 5e too". It doesn't work that way. They are different games.

But, I will give you props for being the first person I've ever seen who's claimed that casters are too weak in 5e. Granted, I don't think they're too strong. I strongly disagree with the idea that 5e is tiered. 5e casters are pretty much on par with everyone else. Which is what it should be.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Umm.. the comment is based upon why does 5E suck. Casters spells known is pathetic. Sorcerers know 15 spells. That is not even two spells per spell level. Its a joke. High level spells are not worth their once per day weight as a daily power. They have been completely nerfed compared to high level spells in any previous edition, with the possible exception of 4rth and that is because 4E is a completely different animal so comparisons there are not fair. I did not know that I had to reference a previous post in this thread to make a complaint about 5E.

I didn't find that to be the case at all. My 5e Mountain Dwarf Transmuter KICKED ASS. Some types of spells seem to be a bit weaker, requiring concentration for instance, which isn't a HUGE big deal but can somewhat limit certain types of buff stacking.

As for the sheer power of high level spells... I just picked the 6th level spell Disintegrate as a simple straightforward example. The 1e version kills its target outright, unless it makes a save vs spell. The 5e version does 10d6+40 damage if it fails a DEX save. Now, a 1e AD&D level 13 fighter or wizard will save on an 8 (and probably has magical bonuses to that in most cases at those levels, possibly substantial ones since magic armor will count, as will rings of protection, some staves, etc.). The 5e 13th level target is making a DEX save, and he might reasonably have anywhere from a +0 to a +10 on that save and the DC is likely to be around 22 at that level. Even the guy with a great DEX save will need to roll a 12, most targets probably save 25-30% of the time IME.

In other respects these spells are fairly equivalent, 10d6+40 damage is unlikely to kill a 13th level target by itself, but it does have the advantage that even if the target doesn't die, they're badly hurt, and if they're hurt, they will die. Its a pretty good spell in 5e. Yes, eventually my 1e wizard gets to cast his version several times per day, if he cares to put all his slots into it.

The point is, I hardly felt constrained by 5e's spell lists. Each spell is slightly less 'bent' but the overall effect is quite strong. My Transmuter was easily the linchpin of the party. He did many of the key things that won battles, enabled entire strategies, and shaped much of the party's adventures. The existence of rituals and cantrips, as well as spell recovery, etc. and the ability to move spells up to higher slots to allow for a greater variety of options, was huge. My similarly leveled 1e MU had to have a Staff of the Magi, several other powerful items, and pen many scrolls, in order to achieve similar flexibility (and spent a fortune copying and buying spells too).

In the sense of a guy who could just obliterate you with one (lucky) spell cast, yeah, the 1e guy is a bit ahead there. In terms of actually delivering reliable and highly effective spell support to the party, the 5e wizard is hard to compete with. Honestly, I thought it was a bit much. I mean, my character was a pretty decent melee combatant on top of all that! Nothing like competitive with the Weapon Master, but he killed that nasty Bugbear king in Phandelver with an axe blow!

 

[Tony Vargas]

IMHO, completely untrue. 5E is the worst edition for casters because they have to give you scaling damage cantrips to constantly make up for nerfed spells

IDK, at will magic is pretty convenient, and much better to fall back in than a crossbow or darts!
Add to that all-spontaneous casting so slots are virtually never wasted and often applied optimally, and scaling favoring save-or-else spells so heavily, and you just don't need a lot of slots to dominate.

You have to waste a 5th level slot to make up for what fireball can do in 2nd & 3rd edition.

In 2nd &3rd, your fireball started at 5d and capped at 10. In 5e, it starts at 8d - it's probably not much worth up-casting unless you just didn't prep any higher level combat spells, but at high level, 8d vs a failed save is as good as 16 dice vs an all-but-auto save.

. The only dangerous ones are ones that target a poor save and even then most rely on the concentration mechanic so at best you get one of them. You cannot combo spells like in previous editions. You get the LEAST amount of high level spells in 5th edition and they have been heavily nerfed.

You get far more spells of high (and every other) level than in 4e, when casters superiority was at it's narrowest margin, and, the number of slots you start with is only part of the story - in 5e, there's never a slot lost or under-utilized because the spell you memorized never came up - or the other spell you memorized came up more times than you'd memorized it. You also don't lose slots to being interrupted. Casters may have less peak power in a hypothetical perfect storm of just the right spell in just tthe right situation vs just the right foes, none of whom happen to roll better than a natural 3 on their saves. But as a practical matter casters've never had it so easy..

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You get far more spells of high (and every other) level than in 4e, when casters superiority was at it's narrowest margin, and, the number of slots you start with is only part of the story - in 5e, there's never a slot lost or under-utilized because the spell you memorized never came up - or the other spell you memorized came up more times than you'd memorized it. You also don't lose slots to being interrupted. Casters may have less peak power in a hypothetical perfect storm of just the right spell in just tthe right situation vs just the right foes, none of whom happen to roll better than a natural 3 on their saves. But as a practical matter cazters've never had it so easy..

You forgot to mention the pleasure of rituals. No more need to waste half your low level slots on stuff like 'Detect Magic', it just has to be in your book. I mean, admittedly, there's a lot of utility spells that are NOT rituals (truth be told its hard to fathom what the logic was for what they chose) but even so its a nice little perk. Given that even a lot of your level 1 spells can be upleveled to do serious work at high levels, this is really non-trivial. I mean I can remember many a time when I used Detect Magic ritual a few times and then fired off a Thunderwave or a Sleep. Being able to turn Thunderwave into a high level power that can do some real damage AND being able to afford to have it and still Detect Magic is kinda nice!

 

[Hussar]

But, again, we have to compare like to like.

Are casters leaving non-casters or half casters in the dust? I don't think so. The non full casters are certainly capable of contributing meaningfully throughout the game at any level.

Gone are the days of CoDzilla where a 4 cleric party was probably the strongest party you could make. Sure, you get a lot more spells and you're not wasting them, but, you still have to remember that the 5e spell lists are minuscule compared to 3e, even core 3e. 3 years after release and casters have what, maybe a hundred spells total per class? That's about it. Compared to the THOUSANDS of spells that were available in 3e if you went beyond core, or, if we stick to core, just shy of 350 spells per class.

Again, I'm really not seeing the big issue here. Do casters get lots of versatility? Sure. That's the draw of playing a caster. But, your cleric is no longer able to drop a couple of spells and out fight the fighter and out blast the wizard. Depending on your domain spells, you might not have a single area of effect damage spell before 4th level as a cleric. And the buffing spells are FAR less effective, particularly when coupled with concentration limitations.

Or, put it another way. You can no longer have the improved invisible, flying wizard vaporizing armies. A double digit full caster in 3e could level a city by him or herself. Those days are gone.