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

DND_Reborn said:

Then all this falls under either "Spells are too powerful" or "Too Large a Spell List"...

But again, many of these aren't exclusive to wizards. Only three of your examples (Find Familiar, Simulacrum, Wall of Force) are for Wizards only. So, really, more of the "Spells are too powerful" issue probably.

Click to expand...

I gave a list of 8 overpowered spells (should have been 9 by adding Polymorph). If you say “only 3 are wizard exclusive”, you’re missing the point.

No other class can prepare all 9 spells. Some of the full caster classes can prepare one or two, and many have additional constraints.

More generally, if the spells wizards cast are overpowered, and they have access to too large a variety of spells, than wizards are overpowered.

DND_Reborn said:

They aren't. That is just one type of buffing. And many other classes have access to the same spells. You seem to be singling out Wizards, when it isn't the class so much as the spells in the game.

Click to expand...

There are a lot more overpowered spells on the Wizard’s list than on other lists. And, if the wizard has access to a large number of overpowered spells, and a large number of different overpowered spells, and the wizard can cast a lot of spells, then the wizard is overpowered.

DND_Reborn said:

So, looking at Tasha's, since you brought it up. Here is the count of the spells in Tasha's and how many classes have access to each spell. No spell is exclusive to a single class.

Artificer: 6
Bard: 2
Cleric: 2
Druid: 3
Paladin: 2
Ranger: 3
Sorcerer: 10
Warlock: 15
Wizard: 18

So, Wizard's get more, certainly, but Warlock's aren't far behind. And Sorcerer's, although nearly half of Wizard's, are still third.

Click to expand...

You miscounted. Wizards get 23 new spells. Out of 21 new spells printed.

That is because they also get access to augury, speak with dead, enhance ability and divination. Hey, 4 extremely useful utility spells. Several of which are rituals that don’t cost slots.

Third, you are aware that you are reinforcing my point when I say that Wizards get the lion’s share of new spells when you recognize that sorcerers, the other class with only spellcasting features, gets half the spells wizards do, and that clerics and druids get extremely few new spells.

DND_Reborn said:

But, if you continue to look into Tasha's, Sorcerers gain two more Metamagic options as well as a new class feature, Warlocks gain an entirely new Patron as well as 8 new Invocations, while Wizards gained... "cantrip versatility." Their "thing" is access to a lot of spells since they get nothing else. (FWIW, I am not saying they don't have too much, but that is all they have...)

Click to expand...

Did you miss the new spells wizards get and Scribe Wizard? It is powerful subclass.

Can't speak for anyone else... but the last time I played a Wizard and "solved" a challenge the DM had put in front of us by using one of my spells, none of the other players were mad at me for doing so or thought I "stole the spotlight". On the contrary, they were quite happy to get past the challenge with a minimum of loss or bloodshed.

I would not be surprised if quite a lot of other tables play the same way... where no one cares how or who helped us get past the sleeping Adult Green Dragon... everyone's just glad that we did.

CreamCloud0 said:

entirely tangentially, i had always interpreted that scene as saying that shadowfax was the king of the horses because that sounds exactly like something that would be in LotR and which was why he was some kind of intelligent super-horse who was gandalf's friend, learning shadowfax is just a regular horse is kind of dissapointing.

Click to expand...

Shadowfax IS the king of horses. He's legendary and nothing remotely close to "normal". See Staffan's comment right above yours.

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the wizard class as far as its own structure goes. There are 2 things I think have been or have become particularly problematic:
1) Too broad a spell list. In 5e it's less of a problem than it was becoming in 3e. But there seems to have been an idea that if it's a magic spell (unless clearly just a cleric/druid thing), it belongs on the wizard list. That bloated the hell out of the list and, at least in 3e, gave them spells that should have been better balanced just on a more thematic list. Fortunately, this seems to be less of a problem in 5e and I hope it stays that way.
2) Saving throws have fundamentally changed from 1e. And I don't mean shifting to 3 stat-based ones then 6 stat-based ones. I mean the way they used to be dependent on hit dice/level of the target alone and got progressively harder on the spell casters as they got more powerful and fought level-appropriate targets. That made the save or die spell the king when it could be a frustrating crapshoot in 1e/2e. In 1e, by the time a caster got 5th level spells, spell saves against critters with the same HD were a 50/50 check (assuming the fighter saving throw matrix for the target). In 5e, the ability to crank up the DC from the wizard side is toned down from 3e days, but the target's saves tend to be particularly weak.
One possible solution: beef up saving throws of monsters. Then you can reintroduce the bloodied condition and give the target disadvantage on saving throws once they hit it. Then the save or end encounter spells work better after the monster is softened up first.

My general problem is that D&D is a game based around class trope fantasy, and I don't think the ability to remake your entire trope should exist within one class. No class should be able to raise a horde of undead on Wednesday, charm your way through a social engagement on Thursday, and be a flying firebomber on Friday.

Granted, every prepared caster class has this problem, but being able to switch your function is core to the wizard identity in a way that doesn't seem to affect clerics and druids as much.

I also understand that to a lot of players, this fungibility is the core gameplay aspect they want to protect, so I realize that this difference in expectation is an intractable problem.

Horwath said:

Are you trying to pull a sneaky GURPSing of D&D?

Consider me interesting.

I have a variant for ranger:

Ranger a la carte; be the Ranger that you want to be...

Right now people want for Ranger to be everything and anything: A woodsman, a marksman, a tracker, a beastman, a dualwielding storm of swords, an expert, some kind of wilderness rogue, a naturalist healer, some level of druid-like spellcaster. Ranger can be all of those, but maybe not the same...

www.enworld.org

Click to expand...

Still working on it.

CreamCloud0 said:

entirely tangentially, i had always interpreted that scene as saying that shadowfax was the king of the horses because that sounds exactly like something that would be in LotR and which was why he was some kind of intelligent super-horse who was gandalf's friend, learning shadowfax is just a regular horse is kind of dissapointing.

Click to expand...

I thought the same thing.

That kind of sucks.

FrozenNorth said:

I gave a list of 8 overpowered spells (should have been 9 by adding Polymorph). If you say “only 3 are wizard exclusive”, you’re missing the point.

Click to expand...

A couple points:

1. A 18th or higher level Bard can prepare all 9 of these spells. Every single one of them, at the same time on the same player. Not only can he get all 9 of these he can also pick up Mass Heal, Shadow of Moil and Temple of the Gods to boot which is flat impossible for any single class Wizard to do.

2. Two of these are not all that powerful

Hypnotic Pattern is often cited as a strong spell but in terms of mechanics it isn't. RAW it is actually pretty weak for a 3rd level slot because it does not take away any actions on the turn you are shaken out of your stupor. Use HP on a group of 20 Orcs and 19 fail their save and all 19 should be up and attacking the Wizard's party again the very next round. If at least one intelligent enemy makes the initial save it should never last more than 2 rounds. Even if all of them fail the save, once you damage one of them they should be able to all get out of it unless you can kill that one you damage before his turn.

The reason it is strong in play is because the DMs nerf the enemies or buff the spell. Either they say the Orcs are too stupid to shake their allies out of it, or alternatively they say if one Orc #1 just used his action to shake Orc #2 out of it then Orc #2 can't use his action on the same turn to shake out Orc #3 even though he is no longer charmed or incpacitated and the rules do not support this idea of taking actions from those who are no longer charmed.

Find Familiar is also not that powerful. If you use a slot to cast it, it is even weak I would say. It is also available to any character at all, even a non-caster through the Magic Initiate or the Ritual Caster feats. Like HP it is powerful in play because of the DMs. They refuse to target familiars and on the rare occasion they do kill them, they allow the party time to recast it as a ritual. A thrown rock will usually kill a Wizards familiar in one attack.

Baron Opal II said:

I don't have a problem with this in principle as long as it isn't a chance to have the spell function at all.


Edit: Oh, I still use the aging from spellcasting. Right now it only really matters for raise dead when the cleric asks the party "why should I give up a year of my life for this person?" It gives pause.

Click to expand...

I just wanted to clarify, are you saying "as long as the wizard's spell doesn't fail"?

I think that's exactly the thing. A fighter's attack can fail. A thief's stealth check can fail. A thief's attack for sneak attack damage can fail. Why are spellcasters given this blanket protection against failure? Especially when they have plenty of resources (i.e. lots of slots plus unlimited scaling cantrips).

I remember people complained about fighters in the Next playtest having the ability to do damage on a miss. Why would this be different? (and having played with that fighter and his fighting styles was really interesting in terms of more engagement, and the minor damage on a miss didn't hurt anything.)

If I was going to implement some sort of spell failure system, I'd have the spell casting roll include the save in either the difficulty to cast, or some other mechanic. This would result in spells either moving, being dropped, etc.

A different approach would be as many mentioned, curated spell lists for different casters with minimal crossover, to really make a "diviner" feel different than a "necromancer" or "evoker" or whatever. In lieu of spell success rolls, I'd be in favor of less slots, and less spells available to a particular caster.

FrozenNorth said:

I gave a list of 8 overpowered spells (should have been 9 by adding Polymorph). If you say “only 3 are wizard exclusive”, you’re missing the point.

No other class can prepare all 9 spells. Some of the full caster classes can prepare one or two, and many have additional constraints.

More generally, if the spells wizards cast are overpowered, and they have access to too large a variety of spells, than wizards are overpowered.

Click to expand...

I really have no idea why you are even discussing this anymore... I already said it falls until the "Spells are too powerful" and/or "Too Large a Spell List" issues...

FrozenNorth said:

There are a lot more overpowered spells on the Wizard’s list than on other lists. And, if the wizard has access to a large number of overpowered spells, and a large number of different overpowered spells, and the wizard can cast a lot of spells, then the wizard is overpowered.

Click to expand...

I really have no idea why you are even discussing this anymore... I already said it falls until the "Spells are too powerful" and/or "Too Large a Spell List" issues...

FrozenNorth said:

You miscounted. Wizards get 23 new spells. Out of 21 new spells printed.

That is because they also get access to augury, speak with dead, enhance ability and divination. Hey, 4 extremely useful utility spells. Several of which are rituals that don’t cost slots.

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you just meant "new" spells that Wizard got because you said each new publication gives them the bulk of spells or something.

If you want to include "old" spells which Wizards now have access, too, then yes it is 23. But then, look at Sorcerers in that same light, they get 21, only 2 less.

FrozenNorth said:

Third, you are aware that you are reinforcing my point when I say that Wizards get the lion’s share of new spells when you recognize that sorcerers, the other class with only spellcasting features, gets half the spells wizards do, and that clerics and druids get extremely few new spells.

Click to expand...

So now you are going back to discussing just "new spells"...? Make up your mind LOL!

Did I ever say Wizards don't get more spells? I seem to recall actually saying that is the reason WHY they get more, it is all they have. While Sorcerers also rely solely on spells for their features, at least they have something else they can do with them, and they did get to more Metamagic features as well.

FrozenNorth said:

Did you miss the new spells wizards get and Scribe Wizard? It is powerful subclass.

Click to expand...

Did you miss that I didn't include subclasses for ANY of those other casters because they all get them (2 or 3 each)?

And most of them are "powerful" subclasses (Welcome, Tasha, let me introduce you to Power Creep. ). FWIW, I don't even use Tasha's stuff... 90% of it anyway, because it is too powerful.

Look, what I am saying is this: spells too powerful isn't just a Wizard issue. To many (such as yourself?) it seems like that because Wizards get access to many of those "too powerful spells". The bigger issue (no pun intended) is the "Too Large a Spell List" which Wizards have. Do I expect them to have a larger spell list? Certainly, but not as huge as it is!

This is why in our groups Mod for 5E we redistributed the spells as follows:


If you focus on the Total and Original lines at the bottom, this shows the change in number of spells for each class. The original spell list we used had about 460 spells and the final had one or two less IIRC. This means Wizards originally had access to nearly 65% of all the spells in the game at that time! Now, they have access to less than 42% (still large, but not nearly as bad!).

Bards went down quite a bit, but we reduced them to half-casters so that is why. If you look at their "original" for just 1st-5th levels, it was 93, so they gained a couple spells in the end (going to 95 spells of 1st-5th levels).

Otherwise, Clerics gained over 10%. Druids lost about 10%. Paladins gained 10%, and Rangers lost about 5%. But Wizards lost over 35% of their spells!

Of course, Sorcerers and Warlocks were designated to subclasses of Wizard and Cleric, respectively.

We also reduced overlap from nearly 75% of all spells had at least two classes that can cast it, to just about 35% of spells with two or more classes having access.