D&D 5E Boop

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Undrave]

IMO (and I speak only for myself on this) I think that the primary issue that they have in 5e is that they have designed everything on a rough spell-equivalency system.

Because everything is so spell-dependent, the short cut for balance is to use spells. Which has a lot of advantages in terms of design, but also some drawbacks (if you think that it makes the spells seem kind of same-y, like I do).

But the game would really benefit from the addition of some new, martial characters that were dependent on ABILITIES and not SPELLS.

Even racial abilities are just 'you get spell X'. 5e is a Spell centric game for sure.

 

[Fenris-77]

Structurally the Wizard put too much into the spells instead of allowing class features to enhance them in a controller (battlefield manipulation) fashion. As to the controller role being not yet solidified hmmm I think tradition interfered even in 4e. I they could have grabbed the bull by the horns and allowed classic spells controller effects even if they weren't necessarily done that way originally. A fireball that leaves dangerous/difficult terrain over an area one square radius larger than its strike zone for instance.

(could bring tradition in with fluff... it smells of bat quano)

The Wizard is already the king of 5e control, I'm not sure how much better you want him to be. It all comes down to spell choice and action economy, as unsexy as that is. Sure, some control could be offloaded to class features form spells, but the class doesn't lack control ability at all.

@lowkey13 - Yup, Warlocks feel a lot different, and they're my favorite 5e casters for that exact reason. Playing one doesn't feel like playing a lightly reskinned wizard.

 

[Undrave]

The Wizard is already the king of 5e control, I'm not sure how much better you want him to be. It all comes down to spell choice and action economy, as unsexy as that is. Sure, some control could be offloaded to class features form spells, but the class doesn't lack control ability at all.

@lowkey13 - Yup, Warlocks feel a lot different, and they're my favorite 5e casters for that exact reason. Playing one doesn't feel like playing a lightly reskinned wizard.

Garthanos was talking about the 4e Wizard who was a 'controller' mostly by doing area of effects more than anything and was very light on class features.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Garthanos was talking about the 4e Wizard who was a 'controller' mostly by doing area of effects more than anything and was very light on class features.

The wizard was hardly light on class features - it had cantrips, implement mastery, rituals, power-swapping through it's spellbook - it was just hard to pin down how it's features supported it's Role. In the final analysis, I think, it's role support was mainly just in having OP dailies & AE at-wills.

It did make it very hard to come up with mechanics for other controllers.

At the same time, there were clear places where they pumped the breaks on other class's powers to keep them from stepping on the controllers' AE and condition-inflicting toes.

I dunno... it didn't start to show until they began pumping out additional options. Out of the book they could do their job well... The Wizard... nobody knew what a Controller was supposed to look like for the longest time and I wonder if they ever really got it right, my group almost never played Controllers.

It was, oddly, both the most nearly OP role, and the most nearly dispensable one.
The wizard was sole controller until the Invoker, which didn't illuminate things much, and the Druid, which, like the Wizard was pretty hung up on trying to hit the familiar bits from the past.

But, it seemed like the controller did three sorts of things:

1. AE damage, especially vs minions
2. Condition infliction, also often AE, or single-target lockdown.
3. Battlefield control - changing up the environment with zones, walls &c, or 'area interdiction,' changing the battlefield with the mere threat of all-creatures-effecting AEs, since, unlike effects-enemies AEs, they influence enemy tactics (ie 'soft control').

The 5e Wizard feels almost solely defined by mechanic: preparing spells from the spell book, adding spells to the book, and specializing in a one of the School (because that was how it was in 3e...). The only thing fluff-wise is "they learn magic from studying really really REALLY hard you guys!"

Except the most defining mechanic: 'memorization' or prepping into slots rather than casting spontaneously, is gone from 5e.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean .... kind of?

It depends on the level of abstraction you are using, I guess.

For example, I'd say that the Warlock is very, very different than the other classes. Even ignoring the lore, the mechanical differentiation makes it ... well, completely different in play. And druids have the shapeshifting, if you're into that sort of thing (not judging ... get ur freak on!).

But while some people get very hung up on preparation, etc., I just don't find that much that really separates sorcerers and wizards, or clerics and bards.

Well, preparation is huge. Possibly a bigger deal than most other differences. My wizard can play differently on different days, and prepare for what we know of the challenge ahead, which incentivizes research.
My warlock can kill stuff efficiently no matter what, but her only versatility is in rituals and a couple utility invocations.

beyond that, the wizard has rituals at all times, while the bard only has what they know and the cleric only what they prepare. In an actual session of play, those are all markedly different.

likewise, the spells lists themselves. If you look past meta game structure to what is actually happening, the spells are just as different as different class features. In fact, that is what they are, they’re just a type of class feature packaging.

but I can’t imagine any real spell analysis that finds thunderstep and acid arrow to be especially similar. Even more so, the types of spells that clerics have, or druids have, that no one else has. Or the Paladin Aura and smite spells. or the combinations of spells that only bards can have. Etc.

Then, even beyond all that, you’ve got bardic inspiration, song of rest, the difference in skills and what stats are likely to be higher and lower, turn undead and destroy undead, extra attack vs Cantrip dependency,

every single round of combat, and at every turn out of combat, these classes are doing wildly different things.

No wizard can ever throw a single target spell at two targets by spending a resource, and few non-wizards can regain long rest spell slots on a short rest. I can make two characters who in fiction are not at all of the same archetype using the wizard class. A Bladesinger is not the same as an illusionist or enchanter. And that’s with all the same base class features.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, preparation is huge. Possibly a bigger deal than most other differences. My wizard can play differently on different days, and prepare for what we know of the challenge ahead, which incentivizes research.

Very true. I wonder, is it legitimately part of the 'chassis' of the Cleric/Druid/Wizard that they prep spells? Because that versatility is the kind of thing you might expect from a class that represents tactical acumen, leadership, resourcefulness, &c. Of course, that recent UA expanded versatility a bit, if not too evenly, across the board...

Still it points to Cleric/Druid as having more versatile resources, as a better mechanical framework than the Bard, which is locked into the fixed resources of the known mechanic.

(… of course, that's still all mechanics-first... maybe that's what bothers me about the whole 'chassis' idea... because 5e class design is meant to be concept-first...)

 

[Garthanos]

Garthanos was talking about the 4e Wizard who was a 'controller' mostly by doing area of effects more than anything and was very light on class features.

Having a class feature that fits your role is actually valuable in showing hey this is what I do. Essentials actually did some of that (while forgetting the base spells were already more powerful). More than that many things could have been increased in control causing the base class to better express what it did. Then one could choose to pull it the other direction say with feats like ones to make your fire burn hotter for instance it could have allowed one to remove control effects (granted by class features) to gain more damage. Similar to how a ranger could take a feat and increase their control factor at the price of striker feature.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The wizard was hardly light on class features - it had cantrips, implement mastery, rituals, power-swapping through it's spellbook - it was just hard to pin down how it's features supported it's Role. In the final analysis, I think, it's role support was mainly just in having OP dailies & AE at-wills.

It was, oddly, both the most nearly OP role, and the most nearly dispensable one.
The wizard was sole controller until the Invoker, which didn't illuminate things much, and the Druid, which, like the Wizard was pretty hung up on trying to hit the familiar bits from the past.

But, it seemed like the controller did three sorts of things:

1. AE damage, especially vs minions
2. Condition infliction, also often AE, or single-target lockdown.
3. Battlefield control - changing up the environment with zones, walls &c, or 'area interdiction,' changing the battlefield with the mere threat of all-creatures-effecting AEs, since, unlike effects-enemies AEs, they influence enemy tactics (ie 'soft control').

Except the most defining mechanic: 'memorization' or prepping into slots rather than casting spontaneously, is gone.

Eh, it’s still preparing spells, though, which is close enough.

but the 4e Wizard was less beholden to the past, and more used it to do something genuinely unique in the system. Also, it’s not like implements did different things like they do in 4e, in any other edition. That was brand new. And a missed opportunity in 5e, IMO. I’d love to see different implements do different things.

Anyway, I always found the controller role pretty clear. Make the fight easier for the team by managing the whole battlefield and locking down enemies, thus keeping the team more safe and enabling better focus fire tactics. The wizard is very good at this.