D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Cadence]

I don't think it is a bad idea to have mystical warriors with strange powers. 5E is full of such archetypes available to play. I don't understand why folks who want special powers with their sword and board grog don't play one of those instead of demanding that the fighter turns into a demigod.

I'm guessing it's similar to why some folks want a dedicated non-spell psionic class, non-magic Warlord, something new Witch, etc...

 

[Minigiant]

Have you played a fighter and experienced this? I have never met anyone (anecdotal), that while playing, were upset by their friend the wizard

I've seen it with 5 new DMs.

It why I will never play a 5e fighter with a DM of less than 5 year experience.

 

[TheSword]

With Metamagic adept taken a couple of times Wizards are awesome fun to play. Not broken, but it is nice to be flexible on the bounce and be able to change energy types, boost save difficulty and twin spells like haste and fly.

 

[FrozenNorth]

To this, I would ask what problems it has caused at your table? (Not in an accusing way, just curious.)

From a DM side, it becomes more of a challenge designing an adventure or a dungeon that gives everybody an opportunity to shine while trying not to impact player agency or verisimilitude.

From a player side, no one appreciates their niche being stepped on.

Most of the examples have a wizard on their own overshadowing the fighter. In practice, what you are more likely to see is a party characters that end up making the fighter feel redundant.

To harken back to @Maxperson example of 6-8 combat encounters per day, suppose you have a party that is made up of a fighter, cleric, wizard and valor bard. They run through 6-8 combats encounters before resting. The wizard uses Web, Banishment and Fireball to trivialize three of them. The Valor Bard trivializes another two with Eyebite and Hypnotic Pattern. The Trickery Cleric trivializes another encounter with Polymorph. The last two encounters are bypassed by the Wizard and the Bard each casting Dimension Door. The fighter ends the day having contributed very little, and all three casters still have a large number of spells left over.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

How many 18th level wizards do you imagine pick Jump?

Probably none. I mostly brought it up to illustrate a point. That while a wizard could beat the Champion at it's own game, but it's considered a subpar option for the wizard to do so. Which means that the Champion's jumping ability isn't strong, it's just the only option they have.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What people? I am actually asking anyone for specific and personal examples.

When I step back, I can easily see it being a problem. It's like a pond in the backyard that might breed mosquitoes. Yet every time my friends and I are in the backyard, we are never bitten. The problem can be seen, but not felt.

Yup, several times. Once in a six person group: fighter, rogue, wizard, warlock, ranger and bard. Ironically, on paper, it was the rogue that should have been overshadowed, with an invisible familiar and a trapspringing ranger, but between sneak attack, expertise and lots of skills, they always remained relevant.

Once in a four person group: fighter, paladin, rogue, bard. Despite the fact that storywise, the fighter should have received a lot of the spotlight, they kept fading into the background.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I don't think it is a bad idea to have mystical warriors with strange powers. 5E is full of such archetypes available to play. I don't understand why folks who want special powers with their sword and board grog don't play one of those instead of demanding that the fighter turns into a demigod.

I don't think that it's a bad idea to have mystical warriors with strange powers either. But if you have mystical warriors in a movie with Paul Blart Mall Cop, you have a comedy, not a heroic fantasy. Now, D&D isn't so bad that fighters are actually Paul Blart, but it trends in that direction. That's the issue. A high level fighter adventuring alongside mystical warriors should be 100% Beowulf and 0% Paul Blart, and that's not really entirely the case. I'd gauge the actual game at something more like 67% Beowulf/ 33% Blart.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Also, here’s the thing: the two players who played fighters, very unlikely to play fighters again. So to some extent, a self-correcting problem.

 

[Bill Zebub]

One poster said that belts give "super" strength. A different user questioned whether or not that would constitute "super."

The disagreement on this is evident of how widely divergent opinions are of what D&D represents, and what kind of fiction is appropriate. Some people imagine 20 Strength as Herculean, and others think of it as very strong but not extraordinary.

And there's textual evidence either way: it's stronger than a warhorse, and yet (nearly) every martial PC gets it early in their career.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Have you played a fighter and experienced this? I have never met anyone (anecdotal), that while playing, were upset by their friend the wizard.


What people? I am actually asking anyone for specific and personal examples.

When I step back, I can easily see it being a problem. It's like a pond in the backyard that might breed mosquitoes. Yet every time my friends and I are in the backyard, we are never bitten. The problem can be seen, but not felt.

I can think of a number of examples, but the best one is from a group of newbies that I ran for a few years back (this was the same group with the traitorous wizard that I mentioned earlier in the thread).

One of the players had a ranger who was a cool character. He even got very lucky with a deck of many things and ended up with Artura Pendragon as his follower. But he ended up asking me if he could retire his ranger and roll a druid instead. And, while he didn't say so, I have strong reason to believe that it was because the wizard was often overshadowing the group, despite that I, as DM, was working hard to make sure that everyone got spotlight time and cool things. Moreover, he seemed happier once he was able to play a full caster, even though he seemed to miss his ranger and often inquired as to what was happening to him.