D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Mort]

If the 6-8 fight rule is so critical they really should have a red letter warning in every book published saying "classes are balanced on 6-8 fights per long rest, and short rests every 2 fights. Find a way to make this happen or your games, especially at high level, may be reduced to a steaming pile of doo doo".

Keep in mind it's 6-8 encounters or equivalent. With the 6-8 based on "hard" encounters. If you overclock your CRs and push much harder threats you can do less. But you have watch it. So called "deadly" encounters may easily not be - as in they can be cakewalks with a bit of proper spell use and luck. Right up until you overclock the CRs just a bit too much and then you go from winnable to likely TPK, FAST.

That's one huge difference between martials and casters. You KNOW what martials will be brining to any given encounter. With casters, it depends on what happened earlier in the adventure, what resources (spells) they are willing to expend and how well they time them (as well as a bit of luck re: saves etc.) - the difference (especially as levels increase) can be as dramatic as a cakewalk encounter vs. a TPK/near TPK encounter.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Which is why my dungeons are stocked with cats.

I know this was a bit of a gotcha response.

But some kind of familiar-hunting critters patrolling secure locations would be a reasonable low-cost measure in fantasy settings.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not everyone ascribes to that policy, certainly not anyone running "standard' adventures and adventure paths.

But even if you do, it's still usually winds up in that direction. The world may not "level up to the PCs" but PCs will gravitate towards the parts that fit their abilities and skill sets. So whether it's the world adjusting to the PCs or the PCs adjusting to and making their niche in the world - things tend to go in that direction.

It seems I was unclear.

I utterly loathe the "eVeRyThInG lEvElS uP tO mAtCh tHe PaRtY" argument. I am opposed to it in most forms, and find that it is almost exclusively used as a dismissal and thought-terminator rather than something actually containing serious thought.

I cited it because numerous people have specifically used it as a reason why 5e is better than alternative options, because it (allegedly) doesn't do that, because the world is totally indifferent to what the party composition is. That is was supposed to be a huge selling point of 5e.

If those first level PCs want to hunt down an arch-demon in Avernus, they're free to attempt it in my campaign. On the other hand, 20th level PCs don't get hired to take out the rats* in the basement in my campaign either. So I fail to see your point. If you want the PCs to be challenged, you have to design encounters with those PCs in mind. I don't see why that would be controversial.

*It's never really rats.

Then you have either forgotten or completely ignored an enormous swathe of discussion regarding game design over the past 15 years.

It is--or, well, it was, when it served folks with an agenda--EXTREMELY controversial to even suggest that you "have to design encounters with the PCs in mind." Controversial to the point that it was a major edition war talking point that games should never, EVER do that.

You yourself have very explicitly used some of this language. For example, mocking such stuff as being a "treadmill."

 

[Bill Zebub]

Improved Range - sure, maybe Pete the town guard and Cleo the cleric can only accurately hurl a javelin 30', but Conan should probably be able to manage significantly more

I'm six hours and six pages late, but yeah that's a good idea. I wouldn't make it more than a bow, but certainly a lot more than the annoyingly short ranges that are the default.

 

[Undrave]

That said, I still remember the time we were facing a horde of devils, convinced it was a TPK, and he whipped out a spell scroll that only dealt damage to things like devils (but absolutely huge damage) and basically ended the encounter before it began

That's the kind of high Wizard players constantly chase. They're addicted to it!

They aren't holding 6 swords in two hands, especially with the need to have one hand free. If they have time before the battle, you get 1 sword in hand which still makes it a subpar choice to turn into. It takes time to get the other 5 swords.

How long is a round in 5e? 3-6 seconds? It would take about a minute for a Wizard to turn into a Marilith and like... fetch some short sword the Barbarian is lugging around for him in place of chainmail. Or the mule. Or steal them from the corpses of the enemies they just defeated before the rest of their colleague descend upon them like a horde of wild beasts!

Like, I get the situation has to be very precise for the whole Marilith thing to play out perfectly, but it's not like it's an impossible scenario, just a rare one. It still means a Wizard could attack 8 times if they wanted to.

Mostly ... ?

Oops, I got distracted mid posting and started up again at the following quote. I meant to say mostly for every day usages. Stuff like Mend and Sending and stuff. The kind of services you could sell in a big city.

Dont make me look it up! Remind me how the 4e disease track worked?

So basically it places you on this continuum with various stages of the condition and after every long rest you either make an Endurance check or someone performs a Heal Check (or Arcana if Magical) and depending on the result you either go up a stage towards being cured, stay where you are, or go down toward the worse outcome (usually death). Certain diseases had more stages, some had easier results, some harder, some stage might make the check harder or easier, but they usually all had consequences. Could be as simple 'start the day with less Healing Surge' or be basically useless shivering in your bedroll. It was an interesting design!

I would say that it begins around 5th level, but doesn't become a major discrepancy until around 11th. And, as @Mort says, it will also depend on the DM. One factor that hasn't yet, to my knowledge, been brought up is the prevalence of magic items. In a campaign where the fighter is blinged out with a Helm of Teleportation and a bunch of other useful items, the divide is much narrower than in a "low-magic" campaign where the 11th level fighter's prize possession is his +1 sword.

It doesn't help that 5e refuses to give you any sort of indication on how to handle magic items and pretends like you don't need them at all.

 

[Reynard]

It doesn't help that 5e refuses to give you any sort of indication on how to handle magic items and pretends like you don't need them at all.

5E:"You don't need magic items."
MM: Half the creatures are resistant to nonmagical attacks.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I know this was a bit of a gotcha response.

But some kind of familiar-hunting critters patrolling secure locations would be a reasonable low-cost measure in fantasy settings.

As long as you don't mind your dungeon smelling of cat urine. Although I suppose that might deter adventurers.

"Ugh. I don't care HOW much treasure you say the crazy cat hag is hoarding! I'm going to go try to kill Doomkill the Murderflame. There's no way a dragon's lair could smell anywhere near this bad!"

 

[Gammadoodler]

As long as you don't mind your dungeon smelling of cat urine. Although I suppose that might deter adventurers.

"Ugh. I don't care HOW much treasure you say the crazy cat hag is hoarding! I'm going to go try to kill Doomkill the Murderflame. There's no way a dragon's lair could smell anywhere near this bad!"

I assume these very dungeons are where young wizards are trained to use prestidigitation.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

A Marilith uses Large Longswords, so those would be a bit harder to carry around, but still, by level 17 that's basically a non-issue.

 

[Yaarel]

Oops, I got distracted mid posting and started up again at the following quote. I meant to say mostly for every day usages. Stuff like Mend and Sending and stuff. The kind of services you could sell in a big city.

"Services in the city" can be rituals, without being spells. Even a background can allow characters to do these kinds of things.

So basically it places you on this continuum with various stages of the condition and after every long rest you either make an Endurance check or someone performs a Heal Check (or Arcana if Magical) and depending on the result you either go up a stage towards being cured, stay where you are, or go down toward the worse outcome (usually death). Certain diseases had more stages, some had easier results, some harder, some stage might make the check harder or easier, but they usually all had consequences. Could be as simple 'start the day with less Healing Surge' or be basically useless shivering in your bedroll. It was an interesting design!

It doesn't help that 5e refuses to give you any sort of indication on how to handle magic items and pretends like you don't need them at all.

Sounds good.

I would love a system that can handle both exhaustion and wounds.

One way to do it in 5e is, the ailment (disease or other injury) reduces the PROFICIENCY BONUS. If the proficiency bonus becomes a negative number, the proficiency is instead zero and the character must make death saves.

A full rest restores the proficiency bonus by 1. Other things, might also help restore the proficiency bonus.