D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Undrave]

I couldn't quite figure out how to put into words, but here goes. I think wizards are both overestimated while still being arguably the most powerful class in the game. White room discussion does often ignores hurdles that wizards have to face in game (having/prepping the right spells, figuring out which spells will be most effective in certain situations, legendary resistance/successful saving throws), but the arguments are technically right that a perfectly played wizard could do everything that is being argued. I'm sure after 9 pages this has probably already been mentioned to be fair.

Another issue is that it often feels like the designers have a Wizard bias.

We've been told that the lead designer for 4e had to FIGHT his team to not make the Wizard overpowered! The 5e Wizard had EIGHT subclasses in the PHB (even though most of them could have been collapsed into a single subclass), the Spell section is HUGE and the Wizard gets the lionshare of that section of the book, geting more exclusive spells than any of class, in fact, more than the Paladin, Ranger and Bard COMBINED... meanwhile the Sorcerer has ZERO exclusive spells. (that is, out of the data of the PHB1). Spells are continuously added through the various books, but it took until Tasha to see a new Fighting Style? Or a good selection of feats?

And the Wizard fans often seem very vocal and will actively send feedback to WOTC and get listened to (see the uproar over the Sorcerer getting just a FRACTION of the Wizard's flexibility!).

It's hard to look at that and not feel like the Wizard is the Golden Boy class, rght? I think that feeling feed into that overestimation you mentionned.

All that for a class who's entire flavor text can be reduced to 'Is a nerd, has a book with extra spells in it."

 

[James Gasik]

That's why you have to lengthen long rests to once a week or just when 6-8 encounters are done. You can't leave it at 24 hours.

Wouldn't this approach wreak havoc with spell durations? A spell that lasts 8 hours, like Mage Armor, suddenly becomes a lot less useful if I don't a long rest for 2-3 days. I always assumed 5e was built with an assumption that 1 game day = 24 hours.

 

[Maxperson]

Wouldn't this approach wreak havoc with spell durations? A spell that lasts 8 hours, like Mage Armor, suddenly becomes a lot less useful if I don't a long rest for 2-3 days. I always assumed 5e was built with an assumption that 1 game day = 24 hours.

They have time variants in the DMG that lengthen it, so the game must be designed to handle it. And yes, it does make Mage Armor less useful, but it's a small price to pay to have better overall balance among the classes and vs. the monsters.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

Another issue is that it often feels like the designers have a Wizard bias.

We've been told that the lead designer for 4e had to FIGHT his team to not make the Wizard overpowered! The 5e Wizard had EIGHT subclasses in the PHB (even though most of them could have been collapsed into a single subclass), the Spell section is HUGE and the Wizard gets the lionshare of that section of the book, geting more exclusive spells than any of class, in fact, more than the Paladin, Ranger and Bard COMBINED... meanwhile the Sorcerer has ZERO exclusive spells. (that is, out of the data of the PHB1). Spells are continuously added through the various books, but it took until Tasha to see a new Fighting Style? Or a good selection of feats?

And the Wizard fans often seem very vocal and will actively send feedback to WOTC and get listened to (see the uproar over the Sorcerer getting just a FRACTION of the Wizard's flexibility!).

It's hard to look at that and not feel like the Wizard is the Golden Boy class, rght? I think that feeling feed into that overestimation you mentionned.

All that for a class who's entire flavor text can be reduced to 'Is a nerd, has a book with extra spells in it."

Kinda yah. I think there is probably a lot to it. The Wizard is one of the "core 4", so to speak, and going back even further is one of the first two classes the game had. It gets a lot of legacy love. In addition, the flavor text you mention is pretty helpful, in that basically the wizard's flavor text is "Good with magic." That means it's pretty easy to justify adding a spell to their list unless it again, doesn't match the legacy (No Healing for You!) or is designed as an exclusive spell. And it's very simple to come up with a idea for a new spell, as we can see in every new splatbook.

 

[Dausuul]

I couldn't quite figure out how to put into words, but here goes. I think wizards are both overestimated while still being arguably the most powerful class in the game. White room discussion does often ignores hurdles that wizards have to face in game (having/prepping the right spells, figuring out which spells will be most effective in certain situations, legendary resistance/successful saving throws), but the arguments are technically right that a perfectly played wizard could do everything that is being argued. I'm sure after 9 pages this has probably already been mentioned to be fair.

The flip side is that casters have a lot more tools to take advantage of unusual features of an encounter--the sort of thing that doesn't show up in white rooms.

In our last session, we were examining a murdered elf lord's body and triggered a magical trap where the body became a gateway to another plane and monsters started coming through. There was a room nearby that was warded against planar travel; I grabbed the corpse, cast dimension door to teleport to a spot right outside the warded room, and shoved the corpse inside, cutting off all but the couple of monsters that had already come through.

A noncaster would not have been able to take advantage of that situation. Obviously that was a one-off... but I've seen a lot of one-offs like that. (Dimension door is responsible for quite a chunk; it's one of the best spells in the game IMO. Yet in a white room, spending your entire turn and a 4th-level slot just moving from point A to point B looks like an awful waste.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

The flip side is that casters have a lot more tools to take advantage of unusual features of an encounter--the sort of thing that doesn't show up in white rooms.

In our last session, we were examining a murdered elf lord's body and triggered a magical trap where the body became a gateway to another plane and monsters started coming through. There was a room nearby that was warded against planar travel; I grabbed the corpse, cast dimension door to teleport to a spot right outside the warded room, and shoved the corpse inside, cutting off all but the couple of monsters that had already come through.

A noncaster would not have been able to take advantage of that situation. Obviously that was a one-off... but I've seen a lot of one-offs like that. (Dimension door is responsible for quite a chunk; it's one of the best spells in the game IMO. Yet in a white room, spending your entire turn and a 4th-level slot just moving from point A to point B looks like an awful waste.)

Wow. How strong is your wizard?

We had a situation recently where we had to flee, and the 16 Str barbarian grabbed the unconscious warlock, and the DM made him make an athletics roll.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It was a simple question, not an attempt to argue endlessly.

Sure, but that is how it always begins with you.

You've declared that the DM intentionally breaking game balance is not the DM's fault, so I'm just curious whose fault that is.

No one has to be "at fault", it is simply the experience of things. High level spells are simply more powerful than what martials PCs are capable of. Many people don't like that and find it unbalanced.

So, that's all you get. Any more would just start feeding into the "endless argument." Cheers.

 

[DND_Reborn]

No offense intended. It was just surprising timing, when more than one person asked.

Ok, thanks, that is reasonable. I just found it odd.

I do like your Fighter stuff. I think you have a knack for both its flavor and balanced mechanics.

The "seriously" part is. Why not use your talent to design Fighter features that function well alongside casters at tiers 13-16 and 17-20?

It depends on how far the Fighter features have to go before they are deemed to "function well" along side 7th-9th level spells.

I've proposed features that IMO already do, but many times receive little response about them. For example, if a tier 4 STR 20 Fighter could lift over 4000 lb., run over 40 mph, and leap well over 100 feet, is that "enough"? If they could attack 12 times a round, is that "enough"? And so forth.

In some of the things people have posted related to Anime-style features, it is so incredibly over the top that it holds absolutely no appeal for me. Such things are not "D&D" to me.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That's why you have to lengthen long rests to once a week or just when 6-8 encounters are done. You can't leave it at 24 hours.

So, just so you know I gave you a "Laugh" for this because I find it so ironic. You say things are balanced as they are, but then enforce changing them (bolded).

 

[DND_Reborn]

Wow. How strong is your wizard?

We had a situation recently where we had to flee, and the 16 Str barbarian grabbed the unconscious warlock, and the DM made him make an athletics roll.

In 5E a STR 8 character can lift, drag, pull up to 240 lb, so not that strong really.

IMO you DM really probably shouldn't have asked for the roll unless there were other circumstances. Maybe they wanted the roll just to make the situation more tense?

 

[Aldarc]

I think it's interesting in the Dying Earth books* where they only get around 4 spells slots max, should think carefully about which ones to take, and then also think about what equipment they're bringing for helping with the rest.of their adventure.

And so I wonder how it would be in D&D for a class that only had 4 spell slots**, cantrips, and the ability to do rituals from their books.


* We'll, the first three books. In the fourth they're summoners of wackily powerful things.

** Maybe have an exertion track so that in a pinch they could restudy without a long rest, but it would wear them out.

An Aside: Invisible Sun has a spellcaster called the Vance, which is very much inspired by proper Vancian magic. However, the Vance player has a mini-mat that comes with different sized spell cards representing spell level. They can only fit so many of those cards in the box on that mini-mat, which represents the number of spells they can commit to their mind. But as they rise through their Order, they can also expand the size of the box. It's pretty neat. Image below:

Spoiler

 

[Aldarc]

I wonder what would happen if they harkened back to the old basic line way of dividing things. Say the PHB1 was sort of like BE and 1/2 C with the rules for the characters for that, and PHB2 was the rest of C and MI with all of the things of that level. So the first book focusses on characters dealing with the local area, cities, and kingdoms, and the second focusses on the world and the planes beyond.

Selfishly I could just use the PHB1 when running things. And then if I was playing I could use both.

I would LOVE it if the game was actually broken up into Levels 1-10 (as per many D&D adjacent games) in a PHB1 and then have WotC publish Levels 11-20 in a separate book. Same with MM1 & MM2 or DMG1 & DMG2.

 

[briggart]

The two variable factors are AC and saving throw modifiers, of course. But lets look at orc.

Assuming a 16 in the PC's primary stat, and no other modifiers (magic weapon, etc) a level 1-4 PC has:
+5 to hit
Saving Throw DC of 13

Chance to miss orc with weapon attack: 7/20
Chance of orc making a Dex save: 9/20
Chance of orc making a Con save: 11/20
Chance of orc making a Wis save: 8/20

Now, I'm sure one can find monsters with high AC and low stats where this is inverted.* But my experience is that they make saving throws far more often than weapons miss.

It's become a running joke in our group that monsters are largely immune to Sacred Flame. On the rare occasion where it does damage we all cheer.

*One of my projects is that I want to find a dataset of 5e SRD monsters and computationally generate and graph all these odds. If anybody knows of such a dataset, let me know.

I haven't read all the posts, so apologies if somebody already pointed this out. There was a nice series of blog posts on the Kobold Press website which analyzed the stats of all MM creatures (can't remember if NPCs were included). It's not the full database you were looking for, but I think it's an interesting read. Also. this was during the Tome of Beasts Kickstarter, so things like Volo, Mordenkainen, etc. weren't out yet.

Incidentally, Sacred Flame should scale very well with level, as the distribution of average monster dexterity is mostly flat between CR 0 and 30, so keep at it and it will eventually pay off

 

[Bill Zebub]

In 5E a STR 8 character can lift, drag, pull up to 240 lb, so not that strong really.

That’s a maximum. You are encumbered, and have reduced movement, far below that. It does not mean that a Str 8 character can casually sling 240 pounds over their shoulder, or can manipulate such an object as a free action.

Or maybe you were describing several turns. It sounded like it was all one turn.

IMO you DM really probably shouldn't have asked for the roll unless there were other circumstances. Maybe they wanted the roll just to make the situation more tense?

See above. The player wanted to both grab the unconscious warlock and take the dash action.

 

[Reynard]

That’s a maximum. You are encumbered, and have reduced movement, far below that. It does not mean that a Str 8 character can casually sling 240 pounds over their shoulder, or can manipulate such an object as a free action.



See above. The player wanted to both grab the unconscious warlock and take the dash action.

Also, anyone who has ever lifted weights for sport or pleasure knows that you don't always automatically hit your max. Some days it just isn't there. And some days you manage to pull off a PB that is noticeably outside your regular range. Same goes for running, climbing and other physical activity: your performance can change significantly based on variables you aren't even aware of. So I think making folks roll athletics or whatever when operating at the top end of what their strength says they can do is perfectly reasonable.

 

[FarBeyondC]

So, just so you know I gave you a "Laugh" for this because I find it so ironic. You say things are balanced as they are, but then enforce changing them (bolded).

Where's the irony?

I see Max saying the game is balanced around a certain amount of encounters before a long rest, someone else saying that the stated number of encounters is hard to consistently implement in a way that makes sense, and him replying with a suggested change that could make meeting the goal of getting that number of encounters per long rest easier/possible.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Also, anyone who has ever lifted weights for sport or pleasure knows that you don't always automatically hit your max. Some days it just isn't there. And some days you manage to pull off a PB that is noticeably outside your regular range. Same goes for running, climbing and other physical activity: your performance can change significantly based on variables you aren't even aware of. So I think making folks roll athletics or whatever when operating at the top end of what their strength says they can do is perfectly reasonable.

True, but for the sake of simplicity I wouldn’t try to model that.

But just because an 8 Str character can lift, drag, or push 240 pounds does not mean it’s easy (which maybe is your point). And there’s a difference between what you can do out of combat, when you are not tracking time, and what you can do as an action in combat.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Sure. They could potentially be great at everything for a session, but a game day is spread out over multiple sessions. Being great in all three for an entire session means burning through a lot of slots. They're going to be behind in the other sessions, so it balances out.

Does it? Even if you assume that adventure days are balanced around 6-8 encounters, that still favours wizards. Even if you’re balancing around 6-8 encounters, you are still going to get more days with 3-4 encounters than 10-12.

But let’s look at your second claim, that the wizard who uses his spell slots in social and exploration doesn’t have them available for combat.

11th level wizard. He doesn’t know how many combats he is going to have in the day, so say, for the sake of argument he reserves his 5 highest spell slots for combat.

He is still left with 2 4th level spells, 3 3rd level spells and 3 2nd level spells. There are some massive game changers there: invisibility, major image, enhance ability, suggestion…

So it sure doesn’t seem like the wizard is suffering too much from contributing a lot in all pillars.

 

[Reynard]

True, but for the sake of simplicity I wouldn’t try to model that.

Not to model, but to justify calling for that check is all.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

The flip side is that casters have a lot more tools to take advantage of unusual features of an encounter--the sort of thing that doesn't show up in white rooms.

In our last session, we were examining a murdered elf lord's body and triggered a magical trap where the body became a gateway to another plane and monsters started coming through. There was a room nearby that was warded against planar travel; I grabbed the corpse, cast dimension door to teleport to a spot right outside the warded room, and shoved the corpse inside, cutting off all but the couple of monsters that had already come through.

A noncaster would not have been able to take advantage of that situation. Obviously that was a one-off... but I've seen a lot of one-offs like that. (Dimension door is responsible for quite a chunk; it's one of the best spells in the game IMO. Yet in a white room, spending your entire turn and a 4th-level slot just moving from point A to point B looks like an awful waste.)

True, although it does require the player to come up with the idea to do so. However, I played in a game in which we, the players, reached 20th level and actually played at that level for a bit. The wizard definitely had the most ability to effect the course of the game compared to the rest of us (I, the cleric, was a distinct second place I think. Possibly the Druid/Warlock could have been argued for that spot though).