Zardnaar
Legend
Zard you drunken kiwi you've been hooking into that Australian wine again.
I put it on a glass!!!
ENworlds funny with a lot of assumptions built around 65% hit chances and 65% chance of failing saves. Rookie numbers in a real game you can and should exceed that.
Spells like conjure elemental Elementals may look great in youtube thumb nails but it's mostly a theoretical ability.
In various other threads people don't seem to know how you kill a 200-400 hp whatever in a turn, fireball is an overpowered spell and simulacrum is broken (maybe with wish). Los of assumptions made. Oh and spellcasters reign supreme.
ECOM3 also posted a campaign recap of level 2-20. This week I'm running 3 games and we have done stress testing at levels 6-12. We did not use 10 rings or vicious weapons or stack spell DC items. Swords of speed, a flanetongue on some builds and +1 and 2 weapons or wand/rods/drums were used, 1 level 12 PC had a staff of power (barely used).
So how do you wipe out a CR 14 critter with 200-300 hp or a dragon in 1 round. Even CME is going to struggle. Well in my haze of Australian wine, Ukrainian beer and cider and Lithuanian beers I'll break some things down. Downside of getting old hangovers tend to last a whole January but you can avoid them staying by drunk. In NZ a bottle of wine we call that breakfast.
The BG3 effect.
Alot of players have keyed or are familiar with BG3. BG3 isn't that great in terms of things like magic items or wet+lightning. But it does go to level 12 so casuals are seeing higher level abilities tgat exist in 5E typical genes often don't reach. Or if they do it's going to take 6 months to a year of rest life time. I also gives you ideas on how to kill a red dragon and it's minions in a round or two. Ansur and Cazador can also be taken out in a round. Transferable skills to 5E. Cazador say hello to Ottos irresistible dance.
This drunken kiwi beat owner mode using the worst classes and banning the obvious power combos.
The 2024 effect
2024 generally buffed damage for martial types. They also buffed a lot of low level control spells. Counterspell kinda got nerfed but it's still useful. According to ENworld though casters are over powered and you don't need martials (lol) And fireballs broken (lol x2). Twin spell kinda got nerfed as you can twin haste anymore. You can however twin a lot of spells for 1 Sorcery point. Ball breaking control spells.
There's a heap of ball breaking control spells that "prove" spell casters are better. But there's a big flaw in that assumption. Control spells don't generally kill things. They restrict an enemies options. There's a few like hunger of hadar but the damage is fairly mediocre with 5E hit point bloat.
Feats are no longer optional and the magic adept spells let you pick up level 1spells you can key off your primary caster ability. In 2014 you would probably pick shield. In 2024 I would suggest spells like bless, command, tashas hideous laughter, Chromatic Orb. All of these can be upcast and command and tashas can be twinned.
The Great Lie.
Fireballs an overpowered spell. Maybe for direct damage it's also situational imho. Overall it's a B tier spell and it's about the best damage dealing spell. I'm biased against poison and fire damage as well. Generally I would argue that caster direct damage is mediocre and you're nerfing your character. Due to martial buffs even warlocks are mediocre at damage now. This includes the bladelock with the exception of a kick ass magic item. Warlocks are good at upcasting things though. If only there was a way of easily gaining level 1 upcastable spells. Complete mystery there beer time.
Spellcasters generally should not bother with damage imho. Cantrips sure, knowing fireball sure. Dont build around it though. I recommend building for control/support instead. They're good at it. The best striker spellcasters aren't very good at it until later.
So strikers. Generally the frenzy and zealot barbarians are good at it, great weapon or dual wielding fighters, low level to mid level Rangers, mid and high level Paladins. Easy to bud and effective. Due to 5E hit point bloat they don't deal enough damage. We need to ramp that up. Think double or triple damage maybe more. Assuming a 4-5 person party
Striker
Striker
Suport/control ( eg glamor bard, cleric)
Control
5th Control
Control with a bit of Striker is also fun. Eg fiendpact warlock+Agonizing Blast.
Using 65% failure rate on flunked spells look at what low level upcasts of tashas hideous laughter or command: halt or prone pull off. How about twinning them? The creme de la creme though is paralyzing an opponent. Hold Person and Monster both do this. Paralyzing an opponent doubles damage within 5', incapacitates them and stops them moving and threatening. Double damage from melee and point blank ranged spells and advantage to hit. Good time to smite or action surge. Easy to set up fairly common in real game. If you can't paralyze them look at blindness, command, hideous laughter.
Ramping it up even further level 10 cleric divine intervention plus hallow: vulnerable. If something is paralyzed as well it's vulnerable+free critical hits. Action surge time. You get double the attacks, each hit is a critical hit and you double the damage. It's not that hard to set up either you're essentially pressing buttons. That's how you do it I didn't write the rules.
If you cant be bothered with using fireball at all there's always slow and hypnotic pattern type spells. Not everything will flunk a save but enough generally does. New alert feat also let's you manipulate the initiative count.
So does it work in real games. Yes it does even using ENworlds pretend numbers they like throwing around I have seen a simple level 1 ir 2 spell slot twin a spell shutting down 2/3 CR 14 critters. A 9th wizard can use hold monster on a single critter sorcerer hits 2. Upcast to 6th level its 2 vs 3 targets. A sorcerer will run out of high level spell slots before they run out of Sorcery points. Odds are at least 1 flunks a save with no effort required.
My 5 person party if you pace yourself well won't run out of spell slots either. Round one may require minimal set up fight may end round 2 or round 3 is mop up. Some critters might make a save but then they're facing spellcaster number 2 and/or have to survive a broadside from striker 1 or 2. Depending on how initiative goes.
By the mid levels with somewhat casual players (2 or 3 veteran player across 3 groups) this is what I'm seeing. Once they figure out advantage feeding, new command spell or other ball breaking spell and can combo it with a half decent striker they can steam roll most things. Martials are probably doing the killing the spellcasters help them do that.
TLDR version. Double thy damage, stunlock them using trivial low level resources, half decent strikers to kill stuff fast. Optimize the party/team.
Time for another drink.
I put it on a glass!!!
ENworlds funny with a lot of assumptions built around 65% hit chances and 65% chance of failing saves. Rookie numbers in a real game you can and should exceed that.
Spells like conjure elemental Elementals may look great in youtube thumb nails but it's mostly a theoretical ability.
In various other threads people don't seem to know how you kill a 200-400 hp whatever in a turn, fireball is an overpowered spell and simulacrum is broken (maybe with wish). Los of assumptions made. Oh and spellcasters reign supreme.
ECOM3 also posted a campaign recap of level 2-20. This week I'm running 3 games and we have done stress testing at levels 6-12. We did not use 10 rings or vicious weapons or stack spell DC items. Swords of speed, a flanetongue on some builds and +1 and 2 weapons or wand/rods/drums were used, 1 level 12 PC had a staff of power (barely used).
So how do you wipe out a CR 14 critter with 200-300 hp or a dragon in 1 round. Even CME is going to struggle. Well in my haze of Australian wine, Ukrainian beer and cider and Lithuanian beers I'll break some things down. Downside of getting old hangovers tend to last a whole January but you can avoid them staying by drunk. In NZ a bottle of wine we call that breakfast.
The BG3 effect.
Alot of players have keyed or are familiar with BG3. BG3 isn't that great in terms of things like magic items or wet+lightning. But it does go to level 12 so casuals are seeing higher level abilities tgat exist in 5E typical genes often don't reach. Or if they do it's going to take 6 months to a year of rest life time. I also gives you ideas on how to kill a red dragon and it's minions in a round or two. Ansur and Cazador can also be taken out in a round. Transferable skills to 5E. Cazador say hello to Ottos irresistible dance.
This drunken kiwi beat owner mode using the worst classes and banning the obvious power combos.
The 2024 effect
2024 generally buffed damage for martial types. They also buffed a lot of low level control spells. Counterspell kinda got nerfed but it's still useful. According to ENworld though casters are over powered and you don't need martials (lol) And fireballs broken (lol x2). Twin spell kinda got nerfed as you can twin haste anymore. You can however twin a lot of spells for 1 Sorcery point. Ball breaking control spells.
There's a heap of ball breaking control spells that "prove" spell casters are better. But there's a big flaw in that assumption. Control spells don't generally kill things. They restrict an enemies options. There's a few like hunger of hadar but the damage is fairly mediocre with 5E hit point bloat.
Feats are no longer optional and the magic adept spells let you pick up level 1spells you can key off your primary caster ability. In 2014 you would probably pick shield. In 2024 I would suggest spells like bless, command, tashas hideous laughter, Chromatic Orb. All of these can be upcast and command and tashas can be twinned.
The Great Lie.
Fireballs an overpowered spell. Maybe for direct damage it's also situational imho. Overall it's a B tier spell and it's about the best damage dealing spell. I'm biased against poison and fire damage as well. Generally I would argue that caster direct damage is mediocre and you're nerfing your character. Due to martial buffs even warlocks are mediocre at damage now. This includes the bladelock with the exception of a kick ass magic item. Warlocks are good at upcasting things though. If only there was a way of easily gaining level 1 upcastable spells. Complete mystery there beer time.
Spellcasters generally should not bother with damage imho. Cantrips sure, knowing fireball sure. Dont build around it though. I recommend building for control/support instead. They're good at it. The best striker spellcasters aren't very good at it until later.
So strikers. Generally the frenzy and zealot barbarians are good at it, great weapon or dual wielding fighters, low level to mid level Rangers, mid and high level Paladins. Easy to bud and effective. Due to 5E hit point bloat they don't deal enough damage. We need to ramp that up. Think double or triple damage maybe more. Assuming a 4-5 person party
Striker
Striker
Suport/control ( eg glamor bard, cleric)
Control
5th Control
Control with a bit of Striker is also fun. Eg fiendpact warlock+Agonizing Blast.
Using 65% failure rate on flunked spells look at what low level upcasts of tashas hideous laughter or command: halt or prone pull off. How about twinning them? The creme de la creme though is paralyzing an opponent. Hold Person and Monster both do this. Paralyzing an opponent doubles damage within 5', incapacitates them and stops them moving and threatening. Double damage from melee and point blank ranged spells and advantage to hit. Good time to smite or action surge. Easy to set up fairly common in real game. If you can't paralyze them look at blindness, command, hideous laughter.
Ramping it up even further level 10 cleric divine intervention plus hallow: vulnerable. If something is paralyzed as well it's vulnerable+free critical hits. Action surge time. You get double the attacks, each hit is a critical hit and you double the damage. It's not that hard to set up either you're essentially pressing buttons. That's how you do it I didn't write the rules.
If you cant be bothered with using fireball at all there's always slow and hypnotic pattern type spells. Not everything will flunk a save but enough generally does. New alert feat also let's you manipulate the initiative count.
So does it work in real games. Yes it does even using ENworlds pretend numbers they like throwing around I have seen a simple level 1 ir 2 spell slot twin a spell shutting down 2/3 CR 14 critters. A 9th wizard can use hold monster on a single critter sorcerer hits 2. Upcast to 6th level its 2 vs 3 targets. A sorcerer will run out of high level spell slots before they run out of Sorcery points. Odds are at least 1 flunks a save with no effort required.
My 5 person party if you pace yourself well won't run out of spell slots either. Round one may require minimal set up fight may end round 2 or round 3 is mop up. Some critters might make a save but then they're facing spellcaster number 2 and/or have to survive a broadside from striker 1 or 2. Depending on how initiative goes.
By the mid levels with somewhat casual players (2 or 3 veteran player across 3 groups) this is what I'm seeing. Once they figure out advantage feeding, new command spell or other ball breaking spell and can combo it with a half decent striker they can steam roll most things. Martials are probably doing the killing the spellcasters help them do that.
TLDR version. Double thy damage, stunlock them using trivial low level resources, half decent strikers to kill stuff fast. Optimize the party/team.
Time for another drink.
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