D&D (2024) Fireball is a C Tier Spell

[mellored]

Wasn't that the whole point of 5e's design, though? To make large numbers of weak enemies specifically a usable threat? If it's failed to do that, whether because they aren't a threat or because they're too annoying to actually use, it would seem to be a pretty significant admission either way.

Kinda.

4e did that with minions. But they ended up with. Boss ogre for lower levels, normal ogre for mid levels, and minion ogre for high levels. Which was pretty awkward.

So with 5e they wanted to keep AC and to-hit a lot more restrained. Now a goblin can still stab a level 20 fighter.

 

[Maialideth]

And go back to destroying items.

Which is exactly why Cone of Cold was invented and was a higher level spell than Fireball, it didn't damage all the valuable loot.

The way things are now, I don't see any reason why Cone of Cold couldn't be a 3rd-level spell with same scaling as Fireball and Lightning Bolt. I don't feel that Fireball necessarily needs to be changed, just that other AoE spells are equally valid options. There is no reason now not to choose Fireball as the AoE spell, any other spell of similar level and purpose is just not as good.

 

[Distracted DM]

spell sniper does not work on fireball

You're right. Haven't used that one in long time, forgot it's only for spells that require attack roll. Thx But rest of it still stands. It's magic mortar and if you use it as that, it's solid.

Fireball specifically goes around corners- I always took this to mean that it'd have an ignoring or reducing effect on cover.

 

[Maxperson]

Which is exactly why Cone of Cold was invented and was a higher level spell than Fireball, it didn't damage all the valuable loot.

The way things are now, I don't see any reason why Cone of Cold couldn't be a 3rd-level spell with same scaling as Fireball and Lightning Bolt. I don't feel that Fireball necessarily needs to be changed, just that other AoE spells are equally valid options. There is no reason now not to choose Fireball as the AoE spell, any other spell of similar level and purpose is just not as good.

I played with one DM who felt that Cone of Cold should shatter potions in glass/crystal vials, but that still wasn't too bad.

 

[ezo]

Which is exactly why Cone of Cold was invented and was a higher level spell than Fireball, it didn't damage all the valuable loot.

What do you mean it didn't damage all the loot? If you failed your save, your items still had to save vs. Frost as well or be destroyed. Granted, those saves were generally much easier to make compared to fire...

(You are referencing AD&D, right? If not then nevermind. )

 

[James Gasik]

A few months ago I had this huge encounter with a horde of zombies, thinking it would give the characters with Fireball a chance to shine. Silly me, I forgot about Spirit Guardians. Everyone just focused on staying alive and protecting the Cleric while everything slowly died. When I asked about Fireball and why they didn't use that, they all blinked at me in confusion.

"They couldn't really hurt us and they were going to die anyways, so why waste the spell slots?"

-Ironically, one of the players felt that Lightning Bolt would have been a better spell in the scenario, based on how the enemies were approaching, and said they wished they'd had it prepared.

 

[Maialideth]

What do you mean it didn't damage all the loot? If you failed your save, your items still had to save vs. Frost as well or be destroyed. Granted, those saves were generally much easier to make compared to fire...

(You are referencing AD&D, right? If not then nevermind. )

AD&D 2e Cone of Cold didn't damage items (but only did 1d4+1 cold damage per level). Fireball caused all exposed items to roll save vs magical fire, unless they were worn by a creature and that creature made a successful saving throw.
I actually thought the Fireball thing was an older rule, but my D&D Rules Cyclopedia description for Fireball doesn't mention it (though it wouldn't surprise me if it was mentioned somewhere else in the rules... they were not exactly user-friendly back then )

 

[Zardnaar]

Seems to me that this is not actually saying fireball is "C-tier."

What it's actually saying is, "Because DMs don't actually throw hordes of enemies at the party, that will make fireball 'C-tier.'"

Taking a thing out of its context and judging it by that out-of-context application is precisely what led to the almost total misjudgment of 3rd edition, where Monks were thought to be stupidly OP when they were actually one of the worst base classes ever printed.

It leads into the situation where it's hard to get much use out of it.

Old adventures sometimes they throw 50 orcs or whatever at you.

Most 5E encounters font for that and even if you hit say 4 targets on paper you deal decent damage but due to hit point inflation you do did all in effect.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wasn't that the whole point of 5e's design, though? To make large numbers of weak enemies specifically a usable threat? If it's failed to do that, whether because they aren't a threat or because they're too annoying to actually use, it would seem to be a pretty significant admission either way.

That was the idea.

Better spells exist now eg spirit guardians.

Copious healing as well. Hold your spell heal afterwards if required is better meta approach.

 

[Zardnaar]

To me that's not a design problem, that's a DM problem. I suspect we just have a whole crap-ton of not very creative DMs out there. If the DM throws out a horde encounter of low-level foes every dozen or so encounters and the player are bored with that (and yet for some reason aren't bored with singular solo monster encounters or equal-numbers-to-the party encounters)... that's the DM just setting up the scenarios in a very interesting way to make that horde encounter logical and narratively important.

RAW large numbers of critters bliw out the xp budget at least 5.0. 5.5 ditched it.

5E office products Mook encounters are rare and mooks are CR2 by level 8 or 10 roughly.

And they have buckets of HP leaving fireball a sad panda.

I use 5-8 monsters in most of my encounters. I use a lot of official ones but either buff them or go in under leveled eg level 6 party level 9 WotC dungeon.

Boss fights are usually DM specials. Few encounters I ran level 7/.

3 shadow demons.
1 devourer+4 ogre zombies refluffed in desecrated area

4 warlocks, 4 exploding zombies, 1 mage prepared battlefield joined by CR12ish DM special later. 6 glyphs of warding 4 in said encounter area.

We do have a fireball happy night cleric but often he doesn't win initiative soby the time he gets to go the others have often done their thing. He's had a couple of good ones but often it's someone else swapping places in initate order via alert feat.

Often the martial types have kilkd a few or other spellcasters are doing whatever negating the point of fireball in the first place.

He fireballed some orcs orog and elite orc group of 8 or so. Rolled above the 28hp average around 36iirc.