D&D 5E Analyzing 5E: Overpowered by design

[Celtavian]

Because you play this game as a group, you don't play it individually to see who can do the most pew pew. What you are describing is what I said originally, that the Wizard is the most useful class overall. Yes monsters enemy NPCs can attempt to do this and that, but a high level party that has such a damage machine with them (remember his AT WILL damage is as high as your best spells) will work together to enable him to continue fighting, with counter spells, dispels, buffs, whatever.

The Wizard in my game hasn't bothered wasting the time and cost on Simulacrum for reasons I have stated. He has the gold for it, but it will probably last one fight (if that). If he cast Simulacrum on the Paladin for example, it would have about 60 hit points. That's not enough to survive very long, considering the average DPR of a creature at this level is around 100. Not worth it for 1500 GP and 8 hours casting time.
Summoning a Goristro is also pretty worthless as it will be banished pretty quickly by enemy spell casters (+2 saving throw won't help it even with magic resistance). At this level they're fighting casters with high DC's. It's also huge and they're in the underdark, so there's a lot of places it won't fit. Yeah you'd get some fun out of it, but it's not a viable long term strategy for them.

So the mechanics of the enemies are screwing the wizard. Which is why I feel you need to balance differently in this edition. Wizards get their damage equal to martials by using multiples sources like Simulacrum and binding a creature. Why isn't your opponent caster banishing your archer? Did you allow stats to be rolled in such a fashion that the archer has no weak stats? This is once again screwing your wizard over. By the way, the wizard can counterspell banishment if the opponent caster uses it. To my knowledge banishment is a level 4 slot that cannot be raised. Your wizard can use his reaction to counterspell with one of his three 4th level slots should it be used against his summoned creature.

Simulacrum is not best used on a martial with caster abilities. It is best used on a pure martial. Simulacrum's cannot recover spell slots. I would go even further to say it is best used on a ranged martial for the reasons you stated, it is easier to kill if it is out in front. If you're allowing huge damage from creatures, you're screwing the wizard very badly eliminating one of their most powerful spells from play. Why aren't you doing the same to the Crossbow Expert? If you're going to screw the wizard with encounter design, wouldn't it be in your best interests to do the same to the other characters?

Wizards get to match the damage of martials through damage layering. That means having a summoned creature and simulacrum up while casting a Bigby's Hand and blasting with scorching ray or fire bolt. If you're screwing the wizard by making opponent casters spend their spells to eliminate his summoned creature and simulacrum while they just smile and eat the Crossbow Expert Eldritch Knight's bow attacks and the paladin's smite, then it is you going out of your way to make the wizard weak and not the class itself.

Custom designed monsters that screw one class in favor of another don't make one class more powerful than the other. Banishment can work on a Crossbow Expert. If your creature is capable of killing the simulacrum in one round, then why can't he kill your paladin or Crossbow Expert Eldritch Knight in two? Why is he focusing on the Simulacrum rather than the Crossbow Expert or Paladin himself? So you can screw the wizard? Do you hate them or something?

I was adding the damage my evoker can do as a nova at high level, it was pretty nasty:

Maximized Bigby's Hand: 37 damage on a hit (74 on a crit if I'm lucky)
Maximized Fire Bolt: 45 (90 on crit) 0 level spell, does no damage when using maximize capability, though counts as use of it for day so you can't maximize anything else.
Summoned elemental: Potential 20 plus points per round
Simulacrum of Archer. Potential 40 plus points per round easily, possibly more with Action Surge and the like.

In a short nova burst, a wizard could do 45+37+20+40 = 142 a round with boosts for Action Surge and higher damage due to rolls. I think that is a pretty good nova capability myself. I could easily beat that 160ish damage your guy is doing.

Are you doing AoO damage every round that kills the simulacrum, but somehow doesn't kill the party? I don't much understand that.

Then there is versatility of summoned creatures I can bring. Need a creature immune to fire, I can get it. Need one immune to poison, I can get it. This is with the initial release PHB and DM's guide. I guarantee they will release magic and monster books with more spells and monster options for me to take advantage of.

What it sounds like to me is your group hasn't spent much time optimizing a wizard and/or you're creating encounters that screw the wizard, but somehow allow the other characters to live through your insane AoE damage from round to round. Not sure how they're doing it considering the cleric only has one level 9 slot to cast a mass heal or power word heal, but somehow they are.

Here's the reality, Dave. You sound like you're a pretty good min/maxer. I truly suggest you sit down and min/max a wizard. I mean do like you're doing with Crossbow Expert. Follow the letter of the rule rather than the spirit. You will find the wizard is a nasty bastard with a lot of power, just like old editions. He does way more damage than your wizard is doing. He can convert gold to power better than any class in the game at the moment. As with any edition, the path to wizard power isn't easy or straight-forward, but it's there. You need to build and prepare right to bring the pain.

You are vastly underestimating the wizard. You could even make a simulacrum of a Sorlock. That would be weak unless you're only intent is to use the Eldritch Blast as a sort of artillery battery. It's almost always better to find an archer of some kind. As far as equipment goes, use general equipment. You don't want to completely make a PC feel obsolete. You want to layer on damage from all your available sources so that the aggregate allows you to match what the other classes are doing. I believe the designers intended for it to be this way. The wizard is a damage layer guy, whereas other classes are burst damage guys.


Just as an FYI, it took a while for me to figure out the means to optimize the wizard. I freely admit it takes some preparation, then again I'm used to this as a wizard. The more straight-forward path to power useable at will or in bigger bursts more often is the Archer or Great Weapon Fighter or Sorlock. The wizard's path to power takes preparation and investment. In my opinion that is what I expect when I play a wizard. The wizard wouldn't be very fun if the path to power was easy. I love complex play whether it be figuring out ways to do damage as a wizard or solve some other problem like defeating a creature that can't be beaten due to seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It's why I play wizards more often than any other class. There's always some interesting means to get the job done that isn't straight-forward that a wizard can usually figure out.

 

[Celtavian]

Then it's not overpowered. It's exactly as powered as it should be, and this topic serves no purpose.

The purpose of the discussion is to accept that all classes are overpowered by older standards.

The problem with previous editions was that casters were overpowered compared to martials. Martial vs. caster disparity was a huge problem with previous editions, especially 3E. In 4th edition WotC neutered magic making casters like every other class causing a mass of people to leave.

Well, the designers of 5E went in a different direction. What they did was say, "Ok, casters are overpowered, but players like overpowered casters. So how do we make the other classes overpowered?" Overpowered meaning powerful enough to easily kill and defeats monsters while suffering minimal risk of death themselves.

It seems to me they sort of found a great middle ground. The lowered the power of casters. They increased the power of martials. They lowered the power of wizards and increased the power of other caster classes. They boosted the fighter and rogue substantially. They basically created a game where every single class has what might be considered overpowered options by the standards of previous editions.

For example, in 3rd edition being able to avoid attacks while doing damage meant you were either an archer or a caster using fly and invisibility. Now you can build a highly mobile rogue capable of doing the same thing with melee combat and stealthing at level 2 and up.

What I'm trying to say is the game is balanced in a fashion that made everyone powerful rather than everyone weaker.

 

[Celtavian]

It shouldn't be so hard to influence others. These subjects seem very hard for people to deal with. I am not sure why. The more we fight foolish assumptions, and edition-bashing the better.

I learned you either like what you're playing or you don't. If you don't, you find a way to fix it or you find a different game. There are really no other options.

 

[SirAntoine]

I learned you either like what you're playing or you don't. If you don't, you find a way to fix it or you find a different game. There are really no other options.

I don't know what you mean. I'd guess you have had some tough experiences.

 

[Zardnaar]

The purpose of the discussion is to accept that all classes are overpowered by older standards.

The problem with previous editions was that casters were overpowered compared to martials. Martial vs. caster disparity was a huge problem with previous editions, especially 3E. In 4th edition WotC neutered magic making casters like every other class causing a mass of people to leave.

Well, the designers of 5E went in a different direction. What they did was say, "Ok, casters are overpowered, but players like overpowered casters. So how do we make the other classes overpowered?" Overpowered meaning powerful enough to easily kill and defeats monsters while suffering minimal risk of death themselves.

It seems to me they sort of found a great middle ground. The lowered the power of casters. They increased the power of martials. They lowered the power of wizards and increased the power of other caster classes. They boosted the fighter and rogue substantially. They basically created a game where every single class has what might be considered overpowered options by the standards of previous editions.

For example, in 3rd edition being able to avoid attacks while doing damage meant you were either an archer or a caster using fly and invisibility. Now you can build a highly mobile rogue capable of doing the same thing with melee combat and stealthing at level 2 and up.

What I'm trying to say is the game is balanced in a fashion that made everyone powerful rather than everyone weaker.

I kind of liked different levels of xp progression in older TSR editions although AD&D did not do a good job of it BECMI nailed it.

 

[SirAntoine]

The purpose of the discussion is to accept that all classes are overpowered by older standards.

The problem with previous editions was that casters were overpowered compared to martials. Martial vs. caster disparity was a huge problem with previous editions, especially 3E. In 4th edition WotC neutered magic making casters like every other class causing a mass of people to leave.

Well, the designers of 5E went in a different direction. What they did was say, "Ok, casters are overpowered, but players like overpowered casters. So how do we make the other classes overpowered?" Overpowered meaning powerful enough to easily kill and defeats monsters while suffering minimal risk of death themselves.

It seems to me they sort of found a great middle ground. The lowered the power of casters. They increased the power of martials. They lowered the power of wizards and increased the power of other caster classes. They boosted the fighter and rogue substantially. They basically created a game where every single class has what might be considered overpowered options by the standards of previous editions.

For example, in 3rd edition being able to avoid attacks while doing damage meant you were either an archer or a caster using fly and invisibility. Now you can build a highly mobile rogue capable of doing the same thing with melee combat and stealthing at level 2 and up.

What I'm trying to say is the game is balanced in a fashion that made everyone powerful rather than everyone weaker.

I would not accept that. Once a DM made his mind up, I'd play happily, but given an opportunity to give feedback I might suggest several changes. Not all require much work. My thread, by comparison, was made to work out changes someone wants to make.

 

[DaveDash]

Ì

So the mechanics of the enemies are screwing the wizard. Which is why I feel you need to balance differently in this edition. Wizards get their damage equal to martials by using multiples sources like Simulacrum and binding a creature. Why isn't your opponent caster banishing your archer? Did you allow stats to be rolled in such a fashion that the archer has no weak stats? This is once again screwing your wizard over. By the way, the wizard can counterspell banishment if the opponent caster uses it. To my knowledge banishment is a level 4 slot that cannot be raised. Your wizard can use his reaction to counterspell with one of his three 4th level slots should it be used against his summoned creature.

Simulacrum is not best used on a martial with caster abilities. It is best used on a pure martial. Simulacrum's cannot recover spell slots. I would go even further to say it is best used on a ranged martial for the reasons you stated, it is easier to kill if it is out in front. If you're allowing huge damage from creatures, you're screwing the wizard very badly eliminating one of their most powerful spells from play. Why aren't you doing the same to the Crossbow Expert? If you're going to screw the wizard with encounter design, wouldn't it be in your best interests to do the same to the other characters?

Wizards get to match the damage of martials through damage layering. That means having a summoned creature and simulacrum up while casting a Bigby's Hand and blasting with scorching ray or fire bolt. If you're screwing the wizard by making opponent casters spend their spells to eliminate his summoned creature and simulacrum while they just smile and eat the Crossbow Expert Eldritch Knight's bow attacks and the paladin's smite, then it is you going out of your way to make the wizard weak and not the class itself.

Custom designed monsters that screw one class in favor of another don't make one class more powerful than the other. Banishment can work on a Crossbow Expert. If your creature is capable of killing the simulacrum in one round, then why can't he kill your paladin or Crossbow Expert Eldritch Knight in two? Why is he focusing on the Simulacrum rather than the Crossbow Expert or Paladin himself? So you can screw the wizard? Do you hate them or something?

I was adding the damage my evoker can do as a nova at high level, it was pretty nasty:

Maximized Bigby's Hand: 37 damage on a hit (74 on a crit if I'm lucky)
Maximized Fire Bolt: 45 (90 on crit) 0 level spell, does no damage when using maximize capability, though counts as use of it for day so you can't maximize anything else.
Summoned elemental: Potential 20 plus points per round
Simulacrum of Archer. Potential 40 plus points per round easily, possibly more with Action Surge and the like.

In a short nova burst, a wizard could do 45+37+20+40 = 142 a round with boosts for Action Surge and higher damage due to rolls. I think that is a pretty good nova capability myself. I could easily beat that 160ish damage your guy is doing.

Are you doing AoO damage every round that kills the simulacrum, but somehow doesn't kill the party? I don't much understand that.

Then there is versatility of summoned creatures I can bring. Need a creature immune to fire, I can get it. Need one immune to poison, I can get it. This is with the initial release PHB and DM's guide. I guarantee they will release magic and monster books with more spells and monster options for me to take advantage of.

What it sounds like to me is your group hasn't spent much time optimizing a wizard and/or you're creating encounters that screw the wizard, but somehow allow the other characters to live through your insane AoE damage from round to round. Not sure how they're doing it considering the cleric only has one level 9 slot to cast a mass heal or power word heal, but somehow they are.

Here's the reality, Dave. You sound like you're a pretty good min/maxer. I truly suggest you sit down and min/max a wizard. I mean do like you're doing with Crossbow Expert. Follow the letter of the rule rather than the spirit. You will find the wizard is a nasty bastard with a lot of power, just like old editions. He does way more damage than your wizard is doing. He can convert gold to power better than any class in the game at the moment. As with any edition, the path to wizard power isn't easy or straight-forward, but it's there. You need to build and prepare right to bring the pain.

You are vastly underestimating the wizard. You could even make a simulacrum of a Sorlock. That would be weak unless you're only intent is to use the Eldritch Blast as a sort of artillery battery. It's almost always better to find an archer of some kind. As far as equipment goes, use general equipment. You don't want to completely make a PC feel obsolete. You want to layer on damage from all your available sources so that the aggregate allows you to match what the other classes are doing. I believe the designers intended for it to be this way. The wizard is a damage layer guy, whereas other classes are burst damage guys.


Just as an FYI, it took a while for me to figure out the means to optimize the wizard. I freely admit it takes some preparation, then again I'm used to this as a wizard. The more straight-forward path to power useable at will or in bigger bursts more often is the Archer or Great Weapon Fighter or Sorlock. The wizard's path to power takes preparation and investment. In my opinion that is what I expect when I play a wizard. The wizard wouldn't be very fun if the path to power was easy. I love complex play whether it be figuring out ways to do damage as a wizard or solve some other problem like defeating a creature that can't be beaten due to seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It's why I play wizards more often than any other class. There's always some interesting means to get the job done that isn't straight-forward that a wizard can usually figure out.

I believe what you are saying. You've found a way to make the Wizard bad ass. But I still feel like there are lot of ifs and conditions on that bad arseness. And you know what, that's ok, because if you work for it, the power should be there.

On the other hand the problem builds just work out of the box, and they work well in a lot of situations. But they will never have the versatility of a Wizard, that much is true.

 

[Pickles JG]

Couple of rules errors in the OP.
Hunter's Mark & Swift quiver are both concentration to the chagrin of any high level ranger (I would lose it from Swift Quiver as that spell only catches the Ranger up to the Fighter, on a part time basis)
Rogues who attack give away their position so are cannot kill you without being seen unless they one shot you, certainly possible with assassins.

I agree with you points though your terminology is unfortunate as seen by the way so many people missed the point of your original post. The Power level of 5e is dialled pretty high compared to 1e 2e and 3e at the lower levels (except 1st & maybe 2nd)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I was surprised at how fast then went down even with a 23 AC. Against 4th level PCs. Sort of reminded me to keep in mind that I shouldn't feel too bad about bumping up the AC of some monsters to give a slightly longer fighting chance.

You must have smart players. I'm guessing that they found a way to remove the ranged disadvantage? (Cover by itself is okay; cover + long range is fantastic.)

I advise against bumping up AC or HP directly--at least for me, that breaks suspension of disbelief. Instead, bump up monster quantity. Bonus: that telegraphs to the party the increased difficulty, so they can choose to engage.

"There's a whole platoon of hobgoblins in that fort," says the old man, spitting out his tobacco. "Ain't nuthin' gonna budge 'em till the army gets here. You think you can root 'em out anyway, be my guest. Reckon that would be worth some kind of reward, say half this fall crop."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This doesn't mean he thought faster was better. I would think the new edition still has all the mechanics for playing for longer sessions, including longer combats if desired.

My combats always run long for some reason. Last session, spent probably a full hour fighting a death slaad in disguise. Probably the toughest fight the party has had (first death! and first real defeat). 11 combatants total.