D&D 5E (2014) 5e fireballs

[Reynard]

Yeah, the statement of damage is meaningless without more information. What is interesting, though, is that it is static and more damage requires higher level abilities. This may be a method of balancing casters against non casters -- it suggests that damage output for fighters goes up at benchmarks as well -- and may also play into the concept of "relevant orcs" because it suggests you will be using you level x abilities to fight your level x enemies, even when you are level x+2.

 

[Roland55]

Game reports imply that hit points have been scaled back.

Monte wants a wizard to be able to do damage in a single round equivalent to nearly a combat's worth of fighter attacks.

I think fireball may be scary again.

I've been checking on what I could every few days. Admittedly, not much time to do that ... it's been spotty.

Everything I heard has been giving me that old "tingly" feeling.

I know it's too soon, but I'm feeling mighty positive.

 

[frankthedm]

Monte wants a wizard to be able to do damage in a single round equivalent to nearly a combat's worth of fighter attacks.

So we are going back to fighters being glorified bodyguards so casters can get their spells off? No thank you.

Monte's bias towards spell casters has me gravely concerned for this edition. If a caster wants to have a single spell equal to five rounds of a fighter's attacks, then the spell should have a five round casting time.

 

[thedungeondelver]

nvm

 

[Ahnehnois]

So we are going back to fighters being glorified bodyguards so casters can get their spells off? No thank you.

Monte's bias towards spell casters has me gravely concerned for this edition. If a caster wants to have a single spell equal to five rounds of a fighter's attacks, then the spell should have a five round casting time.

Isn't that the whole point of playing a spellcaster in any brand of D&D? That you can do things that others can't, but only under certain limitations? I don't see how that's Monte Cook's bias. Gary Gygax's maybe.

 

[avin]

Isn't that the whole point of playing a spellcaster in any brand of D&D? That you can do things that others can't, but only under certain limitations? I don't see how that's Monte Cook's bias. Gary Gygax's maybe.

Cook loves Wizards. See 3.5. See the classes he joke to be overpowered in 5e (Wizards, Locks, Assassins).

The point of being a caster in D&D can't be "do everything others do, but better" as it has been.

 

[Szatany]

I think it is important to keep in mind that it was said higher level slots could provide more damage. So it seems that if you know fireball, as soon as you gain 4th levels spells you instantly "know" L3 fireball and L4 fireball. (obviously assuming here that fireball is level 3, but you get the point).

I like the idea that a L3 spell SLOT is always a L3 spell slot. So it doesn't matter if a L5 wizard or a L10 wizard uses it. And it could still be that the L10 wizard has more tricks he can apply to that slot, may have more range, etc...

To me it looks like some of Monte's Arcana Unearthed stuff, only without being tied to the D20 core system so it goes further in rebuilding. Which MIGHT be really cool.

Need more time to get more detail. But I'm interested here.

It shows promise. If every spell is described as having effects since its initial level up to maximum level available in the game, then casters have more freedom in choosing what they want to cast, and how powerful version they want to invoke.
What they said about losing lower level slots for higher level abilities would also work very nicely with this idea. Why? Lets assume you're a 15-level wizard with access to 7th level spells. All your level-1 spells are castable with 7th level slots and lower, so if you give away all your 1st-level slots, you can still cast all your 1st level spells.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Cook loves Wizards. See 3.5. See the classes he joke to be overpowered in 5e (Wizards, Locks, Assassins).

The point of being a caster in D&D can't be "do everything others do, but better" as it has been.

That would be unfortunate (although I don't think that has been the case). Hopefully, they'll increase the limitations on magic and reduce the number of effects each individual caster has access to.

But if your spell doesn't do something you couldn't do without magic, then it isn't magic.

 

[Wormwood]

So we are going back to fighters being glorified bodyguards so casters can get their spells off? No thank you.

I agree, but the scenario he described was that over the course of an encounter combat, the fighter is [bad-ass] every round, the wizard is a [bad-ass] x 3 once or twice.

Works in theory.

 

[ferratus]

So we are going back to fighters being glorified bodyguards so casters can get their spells off? No thank you.

Monte's bias towards spell casters has me gravely concerned for this edition. If a caster wants to have a single spell equal to five rounds of a fighter's attacks, then the spell should have a five round casting time.

I don't know. 4e managed to handle spellcasters that did more damage than the fighter without the fighter being jealous. Warlocks and Sorcerers did far more damage than the fighter, but the fighter had an equally important job and an equal degree of power in the party.

So I think the problem isn't that the fighter is a bodyguard, but that the fighter at higher levels is inferior or less powerful. The way to handle that of course, is to make the fighter durable enough to tear off the spellcaster's head if the spellcaster gets uppity, and to not allow spells that make the fighter redundant or helpless.

The fact that the wizard's damage is being capped by spell level is a huge step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.