D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Oofta]

Forbiddance takes a month of casting everyday to be made permanent, so you'd need a caster willing to spend a 6th level slot for a month. Definitely doable, but should be a pretty steep price.

Building a castle was an insanely expensive undertaking that took thousands of laborers and could take a decade or more [1] to complete. Bringing in a caster for a month is a drop in the bucket. Maybe a fairly big drop depending on setting, but if you have PCs casting 7th level spells just do do a bit of exploration I don't think it's out of the question. If there is a significant risk of someone just teleporting in to the royal bedchambers to assassinate the king, I think many clerics would consider it their duty to cast the spell.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Building a castle was an insanely expensive undertaking that took thousands of laborers and could take a decade or more [1] to complete. Bringing in a caster for a month is a drop in the bucket. Maybe a fairly big drop depending on setting, but if you have PCs casting 7th level spells just do do a bit of exploration I don't think it's out of the question. If there is a significant risk of someone just teleporting in to the royal bedchambers to assassinate the king, I think many clerics would consider it their duty to cast the spell.

Like always with these things, it'll depend on the setting and how common these casters are. Etherealness and similar stuff existing just kinda forces the setting to have them be commonplace if you don't want the PCs getting anywhere they want when they reach that level.

Or you could homebrew some other stuff that blocks it as well, that'd probably be simpler, but they might find it unfair.

 

[Maxperson]

A lot of this conversation just sounds like a "Aha! Gotcha wizard! You memorized the wrong spells!" or "Aha! I'm going to force you wizard to stay and have this combat!" or "Aha! You can't use that here wizard, I have something in pace that negates that!" or "Aha! I am going to twist your words around wizard so your spell doesn't work like it should!"

No. It's just the balance to, "Wizards always have full spell slots to spend on social and exploration AND on combat so that they can dominate all three pillars AND they always have any spell they need memorized AND monsters fail every saving throw."

If that side of things argued reasonably what wizards are actually capable of, we wouldn't need to constantly point out how it's wrong and they often don't have the correct spell memorized at that moment and how monsters often do make saves.

 

[Maxperson]

The high level wizard can do all the other roles are an average or better quality all at the same time.

No it can't. Doing so requires the DM to actively make spells better than they are AND allow long rests after like a fight or two, so that the wizard has enough slots to do what you are saying. With DM complicity, yes the wizard is all that. Otherwise, no it isn't.

 

[Minigiant]

No it can't. Doing so requires the DM to actively make spells better than they are AND allow long rests after like a fight or two, so that the wizard has enough slots to do what you are saying. With DM complicity, yes the wizard is all that. Otherwise, no it isn't.

Sure it can.

A 15th level wizard has 20 spell prepared, 4/3/3/3/2/1/1/1 slots, 5 cantrips, recovers 7 levels of slots, has a ritual book, some magic items, and has a subclass.

Only combat roles are resource intensive and the wizard is bad at 2 of them. Devoting a 2 cantrips and a few slots to Damage, A few to Control, and a few to Support still leaves you with 20-40% of your slots to Explorer, Lockpick, Sage, Scout, Utility, and Face.

The wizard won't be as good at these roles as other classes but they'd be decent or better at them.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure it can.

A 15th level wizard has 20 spell prepared, 4/3/3/3/2/1/1/1 slots, 5 cantrips, recovers 7 levels of slots, has a ritual book, some magic items, and has a subclass.

Only combat roles are resource intensive and the wizard is bad at 2 of them. Devoting a 2 cantrips and a few slots to Damage, A few to Control, and a few to Support still leaves you

What it leaves you with is being mediocre in combat. A few slots to damage, a few to control and a few to support means that with the expected number of saves happening, the wizard is dealing most of his damage in 6-8 fights with cantrips and those + "a few slots" can't keep up.

 

[Scott Christian]

There are a few problems with etherealness though. You can't interact with the dungeon you're exploring, there's no way to end it before the 8 hours expires (it's not concentration, there's no "end as an action" clause), whether walls count as "objects" that you can pass through is up to the DM. In addition, there are monsters that do the ethereal thing like phase spiders and ghosts that can still attack you. Assuming the numbers were set up for the entire group, good luck trying to escape! Meanwhile, if the party is discovered by a patrol, they're down a wizard. Oh, there are also a few spells that would make your life difficult, at the level you're going to be casting this spell I assume many places will have things like private sanctum or forbiddence spell* permanently cast, which blocks entry by the material plane.

But I guess I don't see that big of an issue in my campaign because at most you'd probably know the layout. It's useful, but throughout history there has been an arms race where 1 type of weapon or technique was supreme only to be countered by some other technology. I assume the same would work with magic.

EDIT: I wouldn't do things like suddenly add forbiddence just to nerf a PC, I just think it's logical that if you're building a castle for example that it would just be part of the cost in a world where enemies could simply teleport into the throne room.

*The 1,000 GP cost for the materials for forbiddence is minimal in comparison to the cost of building so I have it in a fair number of structures. Private Sanctum also stops scrying, so it's another go-to for securing locations.

I'm confused.
Etherealness says "up to 8 hours" which implies it can end at any time.
It also says: "You ignore all objects and effects that aren't on the ethereal plane, allowing you to move through objects you perceive on the plane where you originated from." So if a DM suddenly had some magic doors or walls, go through the floor or ceiling. If those are blocked throughout the entire dungeon, I don't know what to say. I'd call BS.
As far as gathering information, it's up to eight hours of information! You could literally watch for hours. I would say that would give you a lot more than a layout.
I could get behind someone blocking a room or a creature seeing you. But even then, that's pretty rare. But what do I know? I tend to keep my dungeons oriented towards the logical side. I hate it when there is a ghost, something that can literally move through walls, and it never leaves to see the goblins running around, and besides the goblins is a bullette digging around, and by the front door there just happens to be a gelatinous cube.
(And yes, those looking to logically make that happen can. But the dungeon better have a 20-page backstory in my book to back it up.

 

[Oofta]

I'm confused.
Etherealness says "up to 8 hours" which implies it can end at any time.
It also says: "You ignore all objects and effects that aren't on the ethereal plane, allowing you to move through objects you perceive on the plane where you originated from." So if a DM suddenly had some magic doors or walls, go through the floor or ceiling. If those are blocked throughout the entire dungeon, I don't know what to say. I'd call BS.
As far as gathering information, it's up to eight hours of information! You could literally watch for hours. I would say that would give you a lot more than a layout.
I could get behind someone blocking a room or a creature seeing you. But even then, that's pretty rare. But what do I know? I tend to keep my dungeons oriented towards the logical side. I hate it when there is a ghost, something that can literally move through walls, and it never leaves to see the goblins running around, and besides the goblins is a bullette digging around, and by the front door there just happens to be a gelatinous cube.
(And yes, those looking to logically make that happen can. But the dungeon better have a 20-page backstory in my book to back it up.

Maybe that's just how I read it. There are other spells like wind walk that specify under what conditions you can end it, or invisibility that indicates what will cause it to end. Probably a question for sage advice.

As far as the rest, I do explain to people how I run things, as stated in a different post permanent spells that counter certain spells are not all that unusual in secured locations. It's not about specifically countering an ability, just trying to be logical about how things would work. Same way that a lot of fortified city walls have special ballista on gimbals that can optionally fire nets to counter flying creatures.

I also don't normally do dungeons, so there is that.

 

[Minigiant]

What it leaves you with is being mediocre in combat. A few slots to damage, a few to control and a few to support means that with the expected number of saves happening, the wizard is dealing most of his damage in 6-8 fights with cantrips and those + "a few slots" can't keep up.

That's the point, buddy.

If the wizard is doing almost everything, he's still mediocre in combat.That 9 Roles.

Imagine if someone takes 2 roles off his hands. The Wizard is suddenly doing 7 Role well.
And if the fighter optss to take the wizard's damage load... look the DM is crying in the corner.

 

[Maxperson]

That's the point, buddy.

If the wizard is doing almost everything, he's still mediocre in combat.That 9 Roles.

If you think mediocre is doing a role, that's something we disagree at. You end up with the wizard being mediocre at everything, making the rest of the party better than the wizard at everything.

Imagine if someone takes 2 roles off his hands. The Wizard is suddenly doing 7 Role well.

No. 7 mediocre. The wizard can do 2 roles well. Once you hit 3, it's doing decently. 4 or more and it's mediocre to bad at them.

And if the fighter optss to take the wizard's damage load...

Look, what the wizard and fighter do on their own time is their business...

But seriously, all 4 need to carry their weight in combat or you risk a PC death and towards the end of the adventuring day, a TPK. The wizard can't give up being good in combat or the entire party will eventually fail. That means that the wizard can't be good at more than one other role, and not even that one role if the wizard wants to be the combat god.