D&D 5E (2014) Are Wizards really all that?

[GMforPowergamers]

I want a 15+ rogue to be able to teleport between shadows and steal someone's luck/memories/identity.

yes please... steal your breath, steal your memory, steal the concept of loss...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If you play the way most DMs I know run it, where wizards can place their AoEs with pinpoint accuracy, then it's not really an issue. Just target above them so you get the rope but not the hangman. As an added bonus, if you don't "shatter" the rope, you might shatter whatever it's tied to (two chances to succeed).

Which is really another realism thing that I see a lot of DMs let spells slide on. Dropping AoEs with perfect accuracy,

Thank you for pointing the aiming thing out!

Agree about spell accuracy. I've played that it takes an Arcana check, and on a failure the actual epicenter is in a random nearby square.

"Oops....sorry, guys."

back in 2e and 3e we made casters make dex attack rolls to place AOEs precisely... I don't even remember where we got that from. However we have liong since given up on that,

 

[Scott Christian]

Right, but by that reasoning if the rules read that you can lift/drag x lbs, you shouldn't need to make a check to lift/drag x lbs.

It's not practical from a DMing standpoint. How often do you hear DMs complain that their players never retreat (when these kinds of checks could well be the reason why).

It's not even especially realistic. Both soldiers and firemen have heavy kits and are trained to rescue comrades wearing similarly heavy kits. So my level 20 fighter with 20 strength is inferior to a real world volunteer fireman? It's because the DM just decided, in the heat of the moment, to err on the side of caution, because martial.

I agree with everything you are saying, but we were talking about pinpointing an area of effect spell.

I think though, from your post, maybe the reason DMs do this is because we have all tried to lift a drunk friend or kid who is true dead weight - and it is hard. Maybe it is because they have real life experience with it that they feel a roll is needed. I don't know if that is true, but am just trying to come up with reasons why.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Meh, in this case there was probably an ally who could have done it.

Also, dropping items is a free action.

Right. But that means that whatever the wizard was holding (staff of power?) has been dropped in order to pick up the corpse.

And even if one rules that you can drop multiple objects (staff, then later on corpse) what about pushing a corpse that weighs more than your encumbrance capacity? Is that a free action?

As for picking up the corpse, the rules give some examples of things that can be done in conjunction with action and movement, including things like "pick up a dropped axe". I personally wouldn't include "pick up a corpse" in that list, but that's a judgment call.

All I'm saying is that the Wizard was granted a lot of leeway in that scenario.

 

[Bill Zebub]

because we have all tried to lift a drunk friend

Exactly this. It is hard.

If people are going to handwave things that rely on Strength, it's no wonder Strength seems useless to so many.

 

[Scott Christian]

The wizard could have been designed the same way as the fighter, pushed by the design into focusing on a narrow range of spells. For example, in order to learn fireball, they first need to learn burning hands and then scorching ray. They'd be no less conceptually a wizard as a result.

The fighter could be a lot more than it is, without being one iota less of a fighter for it. Just for starters, manuverability. How can you call yourself a fighter if you can't even get to the fight any faster than the arthritic wizard? The typical strength fighter has a terrible selection of very short range weapons. There's a lot more to fighting than just swinging a weapon around repeatedly. 4e demonstrated that you can have a fighter that is highly tactical. I get that a lot of folks didn't like the particulars of the implementation, but it was a fantastic idea that could certainly be achieved using far less controversial mechanics. Babies & Bathwater...

I don't understand this approach for the wizard. The wizard's niche is they are versatile. Hence, many spells. So if you make them limited, then why have a sorcerer or warlock. Wizards are the masters of magic. I have no problem with the way they designed them. Nor do I have any objections to the fighter or paladin or ranger. It just doesn't seem to be an issue at any table or for any campaign I have played or run.

But when you look at it, it is loopy.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

That's why my current Wizard is a Goliath, deals with a lot of these issues.

 

[Yaarel]

I would LOVE it if the game was actually broken up into Levels 1-10 (as per many D&D adjacent games) in a PHB1 and then have WotC publish Levels 11-20 in a separate book.

When dividing the 5e Players Handbook into two separate books, a lower-tier (LT) Players Handbook and an upper-tier (UT) Players Handbook.

The lower tier can include a Master tier.

I advocate four-level tiers.

Levels: Tier
1-4: Student (apprentice, page) ≈ Basic
5-8: Professional (journeyer, squire, adventurer) ≈ Expert
9-12: Master (guildmaster, knight)≈ 1e Name Level ≈ Champion

The LT Players Handbook has full Master tier, representing the 1e name levels, when the character attracts followers and builds an institution such as a fortress, wizard school, religious community, paladin order, thieves guild, and so on. The player should have freedom to design the legacy that the character builds.

Likely, many campaigns end with the Professional tier at level 8.

But there are campaigns that press on for a bit longer before retiring their characters, and the Master tier is for them to leave their mark in the world. When the players create new characters, they can members of the family previous characters, or pages in the fortress of the Knight, or apprentices in the school of the Wizard.

The Master tier enriches the D&D experience even for those who campaigns that only use the lower-tier Players Handbook.


The upper-tier Players Handbook is for a more superheroish D&D. A community of world-shakers, archwizards and other grandmasters. Epic is an option that the DMs Guide already touches on, and the upper-tiers can advance into it.

Levels: Tier
13-16: Grandmaster (Archwizard, Noble/Lord/Lady) ≈ Master
17-20: Legend ≈ Immortal
21-24: Epic

The Grandmaster deals with other Grandmasters, whether as allies or rivals, striving to reshape the world. This is a superhero. Or a League of Superheroes battling against a League of Supervillains.

The characters step out of a medievalesque world into a realm of sorcery and magic, and power.

The Legend tier gains some form of immortality. Compare 4e. This can be an archfey, a lich, a demigod, or whatever. Some means of living forever.

The Epic tier acquires a "portfolio", a means to personally influence some aspect of the cosmos itself. "Boons" replace class features when leveling in the epic tier. A boon is a superpowerful feat. The boon may or may not relate to the class, depending on which boon the player chooses.

Same with MM1 & MM2 or DMG1 & DMG2.

Yeah. A lower-tier (LT) Monster Manual and an upper-tier (UT) Monster Manual.

I suspect the DMG need not divide, but can give all kinds of variant options for any levels.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I don't understand this approach for the wizard. The wizard's niche is they are versatile. Hence, many spells. So if you make them limited, then why have a sorcerer or warlock. Wizards are the masters of magic. I have no problem with the way they designed them. Nor do I have any objections to the fighter or paladin or ranger. It just doesn't seem to be an issue at any table or for any campaign I have played or run.

But when you look at it, it is loopy.

The issue is not that they are versatile, it's that they are the most versatile, as /more powerful, and reliable and they increase that versatility and power at a higher slope than Fighters as they level.

"Great at everything" isn't a good niche. And many of the earlier edition safe guards that off set this power and versalitilty -- lower number of spell slots, longer casting times and spell disruption, very low HPs, etc. -- are gone.

At different tables this can feel lessoned -- some don't play to high level, some enforce 6-8 encounters per long rest, some use narrative fiat to make others more important, etc. -- but IMO it's not great design to have this much of a gap and rely on unexplained table norms.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

When dividing the 5e Players Handbook into two separate books, a lower-tier (LT) Players Handbook and an upper-tier (UT) Players Handbook.

Absolutely would endorse this if it solves the mythic martial divide.

LT Fighters get a simple swing at it and a complex A5e like manuver Fighter.

I could see a UT Fighter that gets guarunteed magic items as one variant to preserve the "skilled normal" asthetic.

Then you have the Mythic Martial whose power gets triggered somehow -- dipped in river styx, blessed by a god, god blood activated, etc. -- and has mythic martial type abilties as we've been discussing as part of their "essence".