DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Agree 100%. Unfortunately for fighters...
D&D 5E What Level is the Wizard vs. the Fighter?
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Particularly seeing as Wizards can use daggers too...
Neonchameleon
Legend
Even the feats aren't that great; they don't stack that well and are a choice of things that weren't good enough last time. Essentially after you have your two primary stat boosts and one to two feats (great weapon master and sentinel stack nicely, as does crossbow expert and sharpshooter) you're more or less done. You've the half-feats (heavy armour master and crusher/piercer/cutter) so there's a case for level 12. That said the level 11 boost is huge so it's really not worth bailing just before that.
Yeah. It's more or less 2-3 ASI to get a 20 and 2 feats that match your style and you cap out.
Every ASI or Feat is lateral versatility after that. +CON for HP.
Neonchameleon
Legend
I'd have said 1.5-2 feats to get a 20 (I don't think I've often seen someone with a 15 in their prime stat) and sometimes you can complete in one feat; Polearm Master with spear or staff + shield comes to mind. (It's an excellent combination for a paladin with the duelist style for this reason).
The monk might be an exception where you also want +Wis.
Bacon Bits
Hero
Agree 100%. Unfortunately for fighters...
That's not a unique aspect of fighters, though. Really only monks, paladins, artificers, and rogues have any payoff at levels 11-20, and monks have that persistent MAD problem. Rangers, barbarians, and warlocks get unappealing pretty fast. Even the spellcasters aren't that worth it if not for their higher spell levels. Capstones are pretty consistently not worth the tier 4 doldrums; truly only wizard and druid have potent capstones. If spells at levels 7-9 weren't bonkers absurd -- and even then only a few of them are truly bonkers absurd -- the game would be more clearly undeveloped above level 10. It should not remotely be a surprise that so few WotC published adventures reach deep into those levels.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wizard cast dagger yet.
Neonchameleon
Legend
Monks, paladins, artificers, and rogues and every single class that can cast 9th level spells. And honestly rogues don't have much of one after level 11 (while the fighter third attack at level 11 is pretty good).
But the higher level spells are huge. And that includes for warlocks (while a couple of their high level invocations are pretty nice). And I don't consider blindsense, slippery mind, and elusive to be all that for the rogue.
@FrogReaver
Yaarel
He Mage
Heh, slot 2, Cloud Of Daggers.
Bacon Bits
Hero
You realize I mentioned that later? You're just looking silly because you stopped reading.
Wizard higher level spells are huge. They're huge at every level. It's a dumb spell list.
Bard starts with or can get enough wizard spells to be huge.
Sorcerers are good-ish, but that's mainly because their spell list is just wizard with a bunch of unique utility removed. Nevermind that you stop adding more new spells at level 15, meaning all but one of your 8th and all of your 9th level spells come at the cost of lower level spells known. Still, they get teleport and wish, so they're wizard enough. Sorcerers are not great at it, but they can generally still do it.
Druid higher level spells are decent, but druid low level spells are really uneven, and the class has a general problem with far to many concentration spells. Much like how ranger is grossly overloaded on bonus actions, druids are overloaded on concentration. The fact that wild shape blocks spellcasting for basically the whole game just exacerbates the problem. The game still doesn't do a great job with polymorph effects. The class seems to have levels with a billion good spells and then those with nothing worthwhile.
Cleric higher level spells are mostly garbage, while cleric lower level spells are pretty good. I genuinely found it difficult to pick a 7th, 8th, or 9th level spell for a cleric from just the PHB. Tasha's makes it better, but the spells are mostly very narrow, which is the general problem with the class's spell list. Yeah, sure, gate is totally busted. It also gets really boring almost immediately.
Warlocks don't have as good a spell list as wizard or sorcerer. But it doesn't really matter that much if they did, because they never stop being wands of eldritch blast. The rest of their spellcasting is simply too shallow. They get so little of anything between 2nd and 11th level -- which is 90% of the game -- that the class is pretty universally known almost exclusively for it's multiclassing potential. Worse, they don't get teleport or wish with mystic arcanum. Don't get me wrong, higher level spells are still better than what non-casters get, and I said as much. However, my experience is that the effectiveness of casters is mainly in pumping out 3rd, 4th, and 5th level spell effects while burning 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level slots on reactions for defense. Warlock can't do any of that. That's why nobody stick around.).
My experience is that those abilities are more relevant when you get them that they would be if you'd gotten them 7 levels earlier. They're good because they're all abilities that are more useful at high level. The fact that sneak attack keeps scaling basically for free makes the class more than worthwhile.
