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

Staffan · Mar 25, 2025

I think it's a sad state of affairs that fireball (and direct damage magic in general) has been so devalued to the point where it has become a situational spell. I vaguely recall opening a thread on the topic back in the 3e days (summary: boom magic still does the same 1d6/level as in AD&D, but everything has 2-3 times as many hp now so save-or-suck is now relatively much more powerful, particularly with all the ways you could pump your save DC back then). The situation is both better and worse now. On one hand, the hp disparity is much greater, but on the other hand the DM guidelines and bounded accuracy make hordes more of a valid threat than they were in 3e.

After all, if fireball isn't the answer, you are asking the wrong question.

But what could one do to make boom magic more useful and control magic less? I'm leaning toward the 13th age solution, which is to give hp caps to control-type spells, at least to those with significant effects. You could probably also combine that with a bit of damage even on those types of spells (so they contribute directly to the usual end state of your opponents: 0 hp). So something like hold could be "Deal X points of psychic damage (save for half). If the target has Y hp or fewer left, they are paralyzed for 1 minute (save each round to break)." That way you'd need to put a hurtin' on your opposition before being able to cheat them out of the fight. Of course, this would require significant rebalancing of the game, so best left to the next full edition.

Savage Wombat · Mar 25, 2025

Zardnaar said:
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.

The thing is, though; if WotC wants to use fireball as the benchmark for 3rd level spells, doesn't that imply that Spirit Guardians is, in fact, overpowered?

I think the real failure is that WotC doesn't really want to tell us how decisions about game balance get made.

Zardnaar · Mar 25, 2025

DEFCON 1 said:
At some point I think the DM just needs to man up and deal with it.

Sometimes the DM just has to risk the "oh-so-difficult" situation of sliding 24 counters across a grid every half-dozen sessions just so that the Wizard who loves fireball actually gets a chance to decimate enemies with it. I know that can be a hardship for some people [sarcasm intended] but at some point it is not inappropriate to ask the DM to every once in a while to work a little harder if they want to create exciting or different challenges for their players. That's what the job is.

Somehow we have DMs that seem perfectly happy with putting together and running high-level games with monsters that have piles upon piles of different features and abilities plus reacting to the players who have the same... and yet we also have DMs that think sliding two dozen tokens of 4 HP monsters across a grid is like asking them to having their teeth pulled. It's kind of silly in my opinion.

Counting on DM to feed mooks into a fireball to make it effective kinda proves the point.
It's wotc official encounters. 24 mooks in 5E tend to have more than 4hp you would have to use CR 1/8th to do it 5th level minimum.

Encounter like that save the spell slot. Barbarians probably getting 3 or 4 attacks, fighter action surge can get 6, lower level spell like dragons breath lower opportunity cost than fireball slot.

So in a scenario where fireball is theoretically useful there's other better ways of dealing with it.

Eve if enough mooks survive to deal any damage just heal it via short rest or potion etc.

It's a two wound combat probably espicially if clerics using spirit guardians. That'd the new mook killer and you can often get 2-4 combats out of it.

It's a B tier spell A or S right party.

Zardnaar · Mar 25, 2025

Willie the Duck said:
I think this last part is not emphasized enough when people mention that the devs called it overpowered. I don't have the actual quote from them, but the reasonable interpretation is that they thought they had overpowered fireball with regards to AoE spells in general because it was iconic. And it is -- it does higher damage than thunderwave and shatter and similar would suggest was the standard AoE damage progression, and with a serious uptick in area. It does what people expect out of an AoE spell, and is iconic for good reason (once again). Whether that makes it a good spell overall or not is a separate question.

And the answer to that is, generally, only in specific situations. Most notably when DMs use hordes of enemies, but also when players choose evoker or careful-spell sorcerer (or otherwise let them target their own front line in their blast radius). And, most notably, when the other options aren't going to be the optimal choice. This shows up frequently with groups that haven't gotten the so-often-touted crowd-control spells to work as well as the white rooms keep saying they are. That can be because they don't end up using them at the right time or they don't end up preparing the right ones compared to the challenges they will face or the rest of their party is not built to (or simply doesn't) capitalize on the control the spellcasters put down. Fireball is best for beer&pretzel gaming, but hey... a lot of people play beer&pretzel D&D.

2e is probably the peek for fireball -- hp totals are still low, the area of effect is as big as it will get, it auto-scales*, and people likely have figured out how not to accidentally blow up their own party. Most importantly, without assumed gp=xp, you were less likely than the rest of the TSR era to accidentally vaporize all your precious xp in the winning of the fight.
*up to 10d6-only, but honestly how frequent were you actually getting off 28d6 (or whatever) fireballs in 1st edition?

Probably B/X then 2E. 2E fireballs could get funky.

20d6 fireballs were about the worst it got via death knights. Above 10d6 was normally aimed at PCs via NPCs.

Playing 2E tomorrow. One players been reading sun sphere domain Spells.
Evaluating the danage I've told her to double or triple the danage in 5E terms to get an idea how effective they are.

"Whats an undead to do vs these type of spells". Get destroyed horribly was my answer.

10d6 2E fireball would need to be around 24d6 in 5E to have same effect.

Vampire average hp 2E 36. In 5.5 192. 5th level wizard 5d6 would need to deal said 25d6 to have same impact.

Zardnaar · Mar 25, 2025

Savage Wombat said:
The thing is, though; if WotC wants to use fireball as the benchmark for 3rd level spells, doesn't that imply that Spirit Guardians is, in fact, overpowered?

I think the real failure is that WotC doesn't really want to tell us how decisions about game balance get made.

Spirit Guardians is fine it's only 3d8 damage vs 8d6!!!!!

Fulfills same roll as mook killer though. 3d8 is often 6d8 in 5.5 as well. Per round and radiant.

DEFCON 1 · Mar 25, 2025

Zardnaar said:
Counting on DM to feed mooks into a fireball to make it effective kinda proves the point.
It's wotc official encounters. 24 mooks in 5E tend to have more than 4hp you would have to use CR 1/8th to do it 5th level minimum.

Encounter like that save the spell slot. Barbarians probably getting 3 or 4 attacks, fighter action surge can get 6, lower level spell like dragons breath lower opportunity cost than fireball slot.

So in a scenario where fireball is theoretically useful there's other better ways of dealing with it.

Eve if enough mooks survive to deal any damage just heal it via short rest or potion etc.

It's a two wound combat probably espicially if clerics using spirit guardians. That'd the new mook killer and you can often get 2-4 combats out of it.

It's a B tier spell A or S right party.

But we're not talking about you and how you would theoretically deal with it... we're talking about tables for whom there's a player who has fireball and wants to use it. So that's up to the DM to design encounters that let players make use of the actions and spells they have. It doesn't matter a lick if you can think up two or three "better" ways to deal with two dozen mooks... you're not at that table with them.

Mannahnin · Mar 25, 2025

Maialideth said:
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 )

Fireball blowing up stuff was indeed an older rule- first codified in the 1978 PH and 1979 DMG for 1E AD&D.

The 1991 D&D Rules Cyclopedia doesn't mention it because that's a compilation of the 1983-1985 BECM D&D rules, which are simplified, and never included item saving throws.

Zardnaar · Mar 25, 2025

DEFCON 1 said:
But we're not talking about you and how you would theoretically deal with it... we're talking about tables for whom there's a player who has fireball and wants to use it. So that's up to the DM to design encounters that let players make use of the actions and spells they have. It doesn't matter a lick if you can think up two or three "better" ways to deal with two dozen mooks... you're not at that table with them.

I'm at the table using official adventures usually tweaked. Read tgat as buffed encounters.

One guy is trying to use it has fireball first type mentality. The encounters it would be good he's competing with 4 other players turns. Basically he also needs to win initiative.

His radiance of the dawn ability has been out performing it as it's radiant damage, doesn't hit friendly's and can be used with spiritual weapon.

He's 13. Dad's helping him out. Had conversationwith dad who disappeared ge rarely casts it in say BG3 and he's noticing how good other speks are relative to it.

You just don't cone across 20 mooks often in official adventures and even if I DMed them in other players woukd deal with it or he could just use radiance of the dawn instead as it's better in that scenario anyway and lower opportunity cost.

4/5 PCs have AoE abilities as well.

The experienced players aren't using it anyway they know it's meh outside narrow situations.

ezo · Mar 25, 2025

Maialideth said:
AD&D 2e Cone of Cold didn't damage items

Citation? I don't see anything in the spell description about it not damaging items.

Amrûnril · Mar 25, 2025

I have a very hard time conceiving of fireball as an underwhelming spell. At levels 5-10, 8d6 damage (half of it guaranteed) is more than a Rogue deals when sneak attacking and similar to an action surging Fighter (depending on subclass abilities and target AC). Even against a single target, that can sometimes be a good use of a spell slot.

Lots of spells in D&D are powerful in specific niches but weak or even useless outside of them. Hold Person and Counterspell, for instance, are rightly considered game changing spells, yet they do nothing against the majority of creatures in the Monster Manual. Fireball, in contrast, is a respectable spell in situations opposite those it was designed for, and it only improves from there.

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

Staffan

Legend

Savage Wombat

Hero

Zardnaar

Legend

Zardnaar

Legend

Zardnaar

Legend

DEFCON 1

Legend

Mannahnin

Scion of Murgen (He/Him)

Zardnaar

Legend

ezo

Hero

Amrûnril

Hero

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