D&D 5E What is REALLY wrong with the Wizard? (+)

[Zubatcarteira]

The issue with Wizard is that a lot of spells are insanely overpowered. It goes for other casters as well, but Wizards have the most spells and can do the most crazy stuff with them.

 

[Stoutstien]

Potential balance issues and pacing problems aside they take up a huge portion of design space and go about in a very uninspired fashion. They are spell casting 'the class'.
narratively it's hard to image why they are doing the adventuring life thing last a build up to become a BBEG.

The ease at which wizards solve problems can make them boring to play. It's like using a machining shop when everyone else is using sticks and mud. Accomplishing something with limited tools feels so much more clever than applying one of the ten pre-made answers in your bag.

All full casters fall in this category for me.

 

[Incenjucar]

Potential balance issues and pacing problems aside they take up a huge portion of design space and go about in a very uninspired fashion. They are spell casting 'the class'.
narratively it's hard to image why they are doing the adventuring life thing last a build up to become a BBEG.

All full casters fall in this category for me.

I don't disagree, but it's been ages since I've dealt with them outside of 4E. My 4E invoker was already pretty devastating despite me focusing on flavor over power, and that's the edition where casters had the least excessive utility.

 

[James Gasik]

So, I sort of get this one. But IME it isn't so much about "wanting non-magical classes to be unable to do likewise" as it is about keeping the game grounded. Also, IME spellcasting-players rarely care as much about the more mundane tasks, such as setting up a campsite.

That's true, but they could do it if they wanted to, with Unseen Servant. Or Leomund's Portable Fallout Shelter. Or a Magnificient Mansion or convenient personal demiplane!

 

[DND_Reborn]

Can you give any actual gameplay examples you've experienced?

I don't think anyone has actually played a wizard in a D&D game I've been in since 2E. In my circle you mostly just make snide comments about wizards and play something more interesting.

Then... no?

This is the biggest issue IME when people talk about Wizards (or spellcasters in general, or any class) as a problem--they rarely can give actual examples.

Their capability to "solve problems" IME has been very limited due to spell selection, having sufficient spell slots, or desiring to waste a spell slot which might be needed later.

That's true, but they could do it if they wanted to, with Unseen Servant. Or Leomund's Portable Fallout Shelter. Or a Magnificient Mansion or convenient personal demiplane!

LOL true enough. But this relates a different issue in 5E: the shift from 1st level spells to cantrip status, such as unseen servant. LTH also became a super-barrier spell instead of a convenience like it was in AD&D. Magnificent Mansion is so high level have you actually seen it used in regular play? I know I haven't... And frankly considering even if it could be used, what Wizard would use their (likely) sole 7th level slot for it, or even bother having it prepared?

 

[tetrasodium]

Cantrips are an issue.
I see different thoughts on this:
1) Combat cantrips make wizards boring pew pew all the time. Magic is less magical. (Along with this, but perhaps a separate issue, even utility-type cantrips can make magic feel less magical).
2) The opposite view: being able to pew pew is more magical than firing a crossbow when running out of spell slots.
3) Cantrips such as light and dancing lights make environmental factors such as darkness a non-issue.

In a word "cantrips", but it's the thought process & priorities that created them as is. I think it will take an MMO analogy to distill that huge collection of mechanics that down though.

Take your average MMO, you've got tanks, strikers/glass cannons/dps, healers, controllers, & various hybrids of those. Somewhere in there is a mix of things like buffing &/debuffing (usually split between healers & controllers). Those groups break down further though you've got tanks & you've got tanks that are good enough to remember by name & check with when you need a tank... You've got controllers & controllers you remember by name to check with when you need one.... It goes like that so on & so forth down the line until you get to group two... Group two are people you remember by name & consider leaving groups that contain them... That's where you hit the DPS who can't manage their aggo the healers who don't know how to juggle cooldowns, the controllers who don't know how & when to use their skills vrs pointless "nukes", so on down the line. 5e has too many elements that play out like someone did a focus group among group 2 & decided their needs were what the other group was really desperate for too. Unfortunately wizards as a class were decimated by the results & they were given pointless nukes they never wanted to make up for the hash made of their party role when someone tried to make them into pointless dps. For the last 8 years there's been a lot of catering towards trying to make wizards appeal to group2 but I'm not sure anyone at wotc cares what people who enjoyed playing wizards(group1 analog) need or want because group2 is huge.

 

[James Gasik]

But ok, real play example.

We were fighting a demon that had been summoned by some cultists. Now, the demon was quite powerful for our level, but if we could get to this altar and destroy it, we could banish it for good. The problem, of course, was the demon itself was doing a great job of preventing us from getting there.

We spent many combat rounds barely surviving, with the Cleric doing their level best to keep us from falling. I actually started to think we might even win after I got a good critical hit in.

Then the Wizard said "aha, I got it!" and suddenly (courtesy of a failed Dex save), the demon was trapped in a resilient sphere, so all we needed to do was casually stroll up to the altar and destroy it, exiling the demon.

In that moment, I felt like all our efforts had been for nothing. The damage we took, the damage we dealt, the whole battle, and in the end, one low roll and poof, it was all over.

The more I thought about it, the problem wasn't the spell. It certainly seemed like an indestructible sphere of force was the kind of thing magic should be able to do. It was more how very little of the best spells the Wizard has care one iota about what the rest of the party is doing. One spell can turn a battle into a mopping up operation, where you're just finishing off foes that are technically alive, but no longer any threat.

Or worse, there's nothing even left to stab!

If more spells worked like sleep, color spray, or the various power words, it wouldn't feel like the Wizard is on an entirely different battlefield, I think.

The revelation I finally had, however, was not that the spell was unreasonable compared to the rest of the spells in the game- but that someone had decided this was something magic could do long ago, and that had never really been challenged.

And attempts to reign in magic, as I said before, are usually met, not with "hey great, balanced magic", but people feeling like Clerics and Wizards no longer feel like the miracle workers they feel they should be. And you can't bring Fighters and Rogues up to their level, because they the complaint is they feel "too magical", "ungrounded", and "unbelievable" (see The Book of Nine Swords or 4th edition).

 

[Incenjucar]

Then... no?

This is the biggest issue IME when people talk about Wizards (or spellcasters in general, or any class) as a problem--they rarely can give actual examples.

Their capability to "solve problems" IME has been very limited due to spell selection, having sufficient spell slots, or desiring to waste a spell slot which might be needed later.

Fire indeed hot is not something I need to figure out by shoving my hand onto a stove. I'd be a rather poor game tester and developer if that were the case. In 4E my invoker had a spell called Walls of Hestavar that gave you ten spaces worth of wall that you could place, and which was roughly equivalent to Wall of Stone. It trivialized encounters fairly often because it locked creatures in place, blocked their line of sight, prevented them from entering or leaving, etc. AND it provided travel utility.

 

[James Gasik]

Then... no?

This is the biggest issue IME when people talk about Wizards (or spellcasters in general, or any class) as a problem--they rarely can give actual examples.

Their capability to "solve problems" IME has been very limited due to spell selection, having sufficient spell slots, or desiring to waste a spell slot which might be needed later.


LOL true enough. But this relates a different issue in 5E: the shift from 1st level spells to cantrip status, such as unseen servant. LTH also became a super-barrier spell instead of a convenience like it was in AD&D. Magnificent Mansion is so high level have you actually seen it used in regular play? I know I haven't... And frankly considering even if it could be used, what Wizard would use their (likely) sole 7th level slot for it, or even bother having it prepared?

I admit I haven't seen MMM used in 5e, since I've yet to be in a high level 5e game. But I know I found the spell (and similar effects, like 4e's feywild bole) to be amazing things to have available, especially when adventuring in extremely dangerous places.

As to why Leomund's Super Dimensional Fortress is so good now; I got nothing. I used to love the spell, now I hate it, because I've had to deal with so many abuses concerning it's use in 5e, and the truly inane "rulings" made regarding it.

 

[cbwjm]

Only thing wrong I feel is that they could do with some more features spread across the early to mid levels, otherwise they're fine.