D&D 5E 5e fireballs

[Wormwood]

I don't know. 4e managed to handle spellcasters that did more damage than the fighter without the fighter being jealous. .

I believe the metaphor he used was: the wizard is jealous of the fighter most of the combat, the fighter is really jealous of the wizard once.

Old-school but workable if applied through all levels of play (which the old school wasn't able to).

 

[Banshee16]

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.

How do you define that though? If a wizard wiggles his nose, coughs and says some mumbo jumbo and a door unlocks is that or is it not magic? He's doing it "look ma, no hands" which should mean it's magic.....but he's undoing a lock, which a rogue coukd do....so it's not magic.

I think part of the problem is the implicit threat that a wizard could fill any other class' role better than they could. But I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Instead of getting rid of something like the Knock spell....just change it. It no longer automatically opens the door....instead it just gives a sizable bonus to a single untrained skill check. Yeah, he might get that one door open......but the thief will be as good, and able to do it over and over.

Banshee

 

[Ainamacar]

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 sounds very promising. The number of spells that could be written once at low levels and scale (either automatically or by spending a minor character resource) to fit the spell slot they are put in is quite large. This would make spell descriptions a little longer, but spell lists much shorter. I'd also like to believe it means that when a spell is written greater consideration is taken of how it works at all levels of the game. I would particularly like it if there were multiple options for upgrading spells, so each one presents its own little spell tree of the "metamagic" effects which actually work with the spell.

I hope 5e is the edition where almost any spell can become the signature spell that grows with the caster. And perhaps the edition where a spellbook is less like a full-grown garden than a packet of seeds.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I'd say that there isn't enough information at this point to make such a determination.

It's possible that there may be damage modifiers. Bonus damage might increase the damage to where it should be.

We also don't know whether fireball is still a 3rd level spell (17 points of AoE damage is pretty potent at 1st level, even in 4e). As far as I'm aware, it's possible that they dropped it down to a 1st or 2nd level spell.

And, of course, it's also possible that hp are just lower in 5e.

Lower than what? 3e? I hope so, but even if they are on AD&D levels, a fireball will quickly become useless. As you say, we lack information, but taken at face value, it doesn't look promising. Useful on 1, maybe 2 hit die creatures and nothing else. A fireball that kills nothing and wounds several creatures is a waste of a round.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Lower than what? 3e? I hope so, but even if they are on AD&D levels, a fireball will quickly become useless. As you say, we lack information, but taken at face value, it doesn't look promising. Useful on 1, maybe 2 hit die creatures and nothing else. A fireball that kills nothing and wounds several creatures is a waste of a round.

No, actually I meant lower than 4e hp.

I disagree. Given the (classically) large area of effect, a fireball that kills equal level opponents would be quite overpowered.

You should never have a (non-improvisational) use of a spell that ends combat before it begins. If you find a clever way to use spell x to drop a giant statue on a group of enemies killing them instantly, great! If you can instantly kill your enemies just by casting fireball, what's the point of even bringing along the party?

Besides, everyone here is assuming that fireball allows a save for half damage. There's no guarantee that it does. This is a new edition after all.

As for fireballs that quickly become useless, that's only if hp scale as quickly as they did in 3e/4e. And since you can use a higher level spell slot to boost fireball's output, fireball should be able to remain competitive for as long as you want it to (assuming that they get the math right, of course).

There are a lot of ways they could make this work.

 

[Oni]

How do you define that though? If a wizard wiggles his nose, coughs and says some mumbo jumbo and a door unlocks is that or is it not magic? He's doing it "look ma, no hands" which should mean it's magic.....but he's undoing a lock, which a rogue coukd do....so it's not magic.

I think part of the problem is the implicit threat that a wizard could fill any other class' role better than they could. But I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Instead of getting rid of something like the Knock spell....just change it. It no longer automatically opens the door....instead it just gives a sizable bonus to a single untrained skill check. Yeah, he might get that one door open......but the thief will be as good, and able to do it over and over.

Banshee

The problem isn't that a wizard could do things like cast Knock and open a door or whatever else have you, that takes up valuable resources that could have been put to something else if you'd just let the Rogue do his job. The problem was that 3e/3.5e took away the resource cost by making wands and scrolls so incredibly easy to come by and produce.

 

[Ahnehnois]

How do you define that though? If a wizard wiggles his nose, coughs and says some mumbo jumbo and a door unlocks is that or is it not magic? He's doing it "look ma, no hands" which should mean it's magic.....but he's undoing a lock, which a rogue coukd do....so it's not magic.

I would cite Knock as a great spell (or a frequently taken spell), but it is different when you can open a lock wihout using lockpicks or taking time (just like a fireball is different from a bomb).

I think part of the problem is the implicit threat that a wizard could fill any other class' role better than they could. But I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Instead of getting rid of something like the Knock spell....just change it. It no longer automatically opens the door....instead it just gives a sizable bonus to a single untrained skill check. Yeah, he might get that one door open......but the thief will be as good, and able to do it over and over.

Ideally, this is how it's supposed to work. This idea kind of reminds me of complex locks from UA, where Knock provided a certain number of skill check successes but wasn't guaranteed to open tough locks.

I can see where the 'implicit threat' is there; I never saw it play out much in 2e or 3e, but some design to again impose more limitations on the spellcaster in this case would be an improvement.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

Fighters going back to glorified speedbumps for their Wizard masters is a dealbreaker for me. If it happens...I'll either find a group that plays 4E or just play Pathfinder. I already have the Pathfinder books and Paizo is better with naming conventions.

 

[mhensley]

I hope not. Lighting bolts are supposed to have the electric current take the path of least resistance to the ground, not bounce off walls.

Bouncing lightning bolts ruin verisimilitude.

I disagree. Few things are funnier to a 1st or 2nd edition dm than when a wizard kills himself with a badly aimed lightning bolt.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

As for fireballs that quickly become useless, that's only if hp scale as quickly as they did in 3e/4e. And since you can use a higher level spell slot to boost fireball's output, fireball should be able to remain competitive for as long as you want it to (assuming that they get the math right, of course).

In 1e/2e, a 5d6 fireball is useful for about 2 levels. Then it's useful against goblins and kobold slaves. That's it. It will do 8 points of damage on average if a save is made. So your average 3 hd creature is still up, wailing away on the party. I suppose the fighter can get an AOO on the ogre while it's helpless from laughter, though.