D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Scott Christian]

There is either consensus here that the Wizard, at high levels, is vastly superior to martials, or the people who believe so are just the most strident and incessant in expressing their opinions, but either way I don't see much pushback against that narrative.

However, I'm not so sure.

Some caveats for the following:
1) I recognize this doesn't address the complaint that casters get to do "cool things" while martials just get to make attack rolls. This is about the supposed difference in actual power/effectiveness in combat.
2) I have literally zero experience above level 15, so this only addresses tiers I to III
3) In the absence of magic items my argument would change, but while a goal of 5e was supposed to be that magic items are optional, I've never actually seen in played that way.

Here are my observations:
- First, the most powerful spells use saving throws, not attack rolls
- Monsters tend to make saving throws much more easily than they dodge weapon attacks (that is, than PC's miss with their weapon attacks)
- Far more magic items give bonuses to weapon attack rolls than to saving throw DCs
- More magic items boost Strength than Intelligence above 20
- Martials get advantage on attack far more frequently than monsters get disadvantage on saves
- Concentration prevents many of the best spells from being used simultaneously
- Casters have concentration broken fairly easily
- Two words: "legendary resistance".
- While many creatures have resistance/immunity to mundane weapons, resistance/immunity to magic weapons is very rare. Meanwhile, resistance/immunity to magical damage types is at least as common, if not more so, but can't be negated by picking up a magic wand (maybe it should).

What all this adds up to (again, in my experience, below tier IV) is that monsters too frequently make their saving throws, and casters end up contributing very little. And when they do contribute a lot it is not by themselves, but in synergy with a martial. For example, they banish the boss while the martials kill the minions. Or they haste the martial who then novas on the boss.

I asked myself: would I rather have a group of all martials, or a group of all casters? And except for some edge cases, in most battles I would rather have all martials. If you get extremely lucky on dice rolls a group of casters could win a tough fight, but it's far more likely that a couple monsters make their saving throws, they attack the casters who are trying to concentrate, and the whole thing turns into a rout. A group of martials is going to take a lot of damage, but they are also going to pump out a lot of damage, and overall have a better chance of winning. (Once again, my opinion.)

But of course what I really want is a mix of the two. Which kind of suggests the game is working as intended.

To answer the OP title - Yes.

While it boils down to resource management, there is no other class that can "do everything" in all pillars as well as the top tier classes of those pillars. So yes, they are all that.

 

[Maxperson]

assuming the DC is 18-21 targeting dex is about 50/50 targeting Int they need a 14-17 and cha is 1 WORSE then that

50/50 for damage spells that he is likely resistant to. He's resistant to three energies and immune to poison. But you don't know where the weak saves are unless you've read the books.

 

[DND_Reborn]

My point is that those slots are fine where they are and don't need to be pushed up to epic levels.

Ok, thanks for clarifying your opinion.

As for the bolded portion, if the DM isn't doing that, the caster power problem is his fault.

Nah, but that can be your opinion as well.

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Yaarel]

LOL, Ha! I suspected as much! (j/k)

For me, ideally, D&D would be three tiers:

1-10 "Mundane"
11-20 Heroic
21-30 Superheroic/ Epic

I agree there are meaningfully different tiers. But they are more incremental.

1-4 and 5-8 are recognizably "reallife" − substitute Fireball for grenade.
9-12 and 13-16 are "heroic", beyond normal but perhaps hypothetically possible.
17-20 and 21-24 are clearly "superheroic", Wish spell!

There is a reason I call the 17-20 tier "legend".

Given the nature of the Fighter (or Martial) vs Wizard (or full Caster) concerns, they are out of sync sort of.

When I think of spells like Time Stop, Resurrection, and such, I see them as truly EPIC spells. They belong in the tier where Thor and the Hulk are doing Epic feats of strength, demi-gods and the like is what the PCs are. They have truly ascended beyond any sense of normal.

Time Stop rarely happens because most campaigns never reach the 17-20 tier. In any case the 5e version of Time Stop is severely nerfed − more comparable to slot 6 spell. The caster gets 2-5 actions BUT the spell ends if "one of the actions affects a creature other than you" !!! This 5e spell is no longer old school Time Stop.

Resurrection is a terrible spell. It too is underpowered for its level. Too painful. Once the Revivify spell at slot 3 enters the game at level 5, Resurrection will never happen. The only thing that might happen is slot-9 True Resurrection, a legend tier spell, at level 17, that becomes necessary to continue the game for a character whose body has completely disintegrated.

Spells such as Teleport (AD&D, not Teleportation Circle) at 5th level is Heroic

5e Teleport Circle is great, and convenient for everyone. I treat Circles like modern airports, complete with security, coffee, waiting times while the Circle switches to a new destination, the works.

5e Teleport is only useful if the caster is "familiar" with location, which is less useful for combat, unless planning to attack ones own home or favorite ale pub.

and such spells are potentially earthshaking,

Actually, no. Not in 5e. Indeed, the spells you mention are nerf-mobiles.

Raise Dead and the like are the stuff of awe and wonder,

Raise Dead never happens. Because. Revivify.

but within the realm that normal commoners can comprehend and believe-powerful but possible (as opposed to the Epic stuff which is incomprehensible, etc. to them).

The "Mundane" (for lack of a better term) is standard fantasy fare. Spells such as Fireball, Fly, and Revivify are the pinnacle here. Commoners have heard of or even seen such "mighty magic" in operation and respect its power.

I agree, tiers 17-20 and 21-24 are beyond the scope of day-to-day life that tiers 1-4 and 5-8 can represent well enough.

Currently, we have Martials mostly limited to the Heroic concept,

But whose fault is that? In Norse mythology, Thor is an example of an epic warrior. (He is a caster too, but those stories are rarer.) Superhero Thor is maybe tier 17-20? We can get an idea of what these kinds of Fighter levels might look like.

while with such powerful spells, Casters can easily fall into the Epic concept.

Wish really is a big deal, because it is clearly better than other slot-9 spells.

I prefer it be a singular slot-10 spell, or else a "capstone" that any caster can for its level 20 class feature.

But the other spells are manageable.

 

[Maxperson]

To answer the OP title - Yes.

While it boils down to resource management, there is no other class that can "do everything" in all pillars as well as the top tier classes of those pillars. So yes, they are all that.

Wizards, Sorcerers and Clerics don't do social as well as bards and rogues, and they can't do top level work in any tier without giving up entirely on a tier or two. If the caster decides to be decent in social and exploration, he's going to be pretty behind everyone else in combat as he's spreading multiple slots into both of those other pillars just to be decent.

 

[Maxperson]

Nah, but that can be your opinion as well.

If the game is balanced around 6-8 fights and the DM is deliberately breaking that balance, whose fault is that then?

 

[Bill Zebub]

In most editions of D&D I want the high level wizards gone when I run things because they make it so I can't reasonably get the campaign world to work in my head. I also want the high level clerics and druids and bards and monsters gone too. The teleportation, long distance scrying, communing, resurrecting, mind dominating, castle negating, and army defeating spells make it hard for me to picture why any of the medieval trappings are there. And if the high level casters are gone, I'm not sure why I want a fighter with 200 hp either going around single handedly defeating armies.

If there are lots of high level baddies around I wonder how everything isn't hell on earth. If there aren't, then I wonder why the high level good guys haven't teamed up to clear the countryside of the moderate level ones. And if there aren't other high level good guys then I wonder why the high level bad opponents don't appear until the party is high level. Or if they were there why they haven't nuked anything that might develop into a threat. Bleh.

And so to stop myself from overthinking in my world building and campaign running I'd like the whole thing to stop earlier.

If I'm playing in a game? Meh, I can deal with the world not making sense (in the sociological, political, economic, warfare kind of ways) as long as the DM can put up with my questions about exploiting the gaps. So I'm good with the high level wizards there.

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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.

Yeah, I can definitely empathize with this. The biggest problem with magic, and maybe especially with wizards, is that when trying to design challenges it’s so easy to overlook a magical loophole in your plans. And I really dislike inexplicable “none of this kind of magic works here” hand waving. It reminds me of the old Sam Kinnison (sp?) line about black boxes on airplanes: “Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?”

 

[DND_Reborn]

If the game is balanced around 6-8 fights and the DM is deliberately breaking that balance, whose fault is that then?

Oh no you don't! Find someone else to argue ad nauseum with.

Cheers!

 

[Maxperson]

Oh no you don't! Find someone else to argue ad nauseum with.

Cheers!

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

 

[Scott Christian]

Wizards, Sorcerers and Clerics don't do social as well as bards and rogues, and they can't do top level work in any tier without giving up entirely on a tier or two. If the caster decides to be decent in social and exploration, he's going to be pretty behind everyone else in combat as he's spreading multiple slots into both of those other pillars just to be decent.

Not true. Like I said, it is resource management. So for that session they are not as good, but they can be great at everything if they choose to during a session. This is especially true if you have a creative player that uses spells uniquely.