D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Deekin]

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),

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Etherealness
7 transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Target: Self
Components: V S
Duration: Up to 8 hours
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You step into the border regions of the Ethereal Plane, in the area where it overlaps with your current plane. You remain in the Border Ethereal for the duration or until you use your action to dismiss the spell. During this time, you can move in any direction. If you move up or down, every foot of movement costs an extra foot. You can see and hear the plane you originated from, but everything there looks gray, and you can’t see anything more than 60 feet away. While on the Ethereal Plane, you can only affect and be affected by other creatures on that plane. Creatures that aren’t on the Ethereal Plane can’t perceive you and can’t interact with you, unless a special ability or magic has given them the ability to do so. You ignore all objects and effects that aren’t on the Ethereal Plane, allowing you to move through objects you perceive on the plane you originated from. When the spell ends, you immediately return to the plane you originated from in the spot you currently occupy. If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved. This spell has no effect if you cast it while you are on the Ethereal Plane or a plane that doesn’t border it, such as one of the Outer Planes.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 8th level or higher, you can target up to three willing creatures (including you) for each slot level above 7th. The creatures must be within 10 feet of you when you cast the spell.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

When I mean mediocre, I mean furfilling the role but not exceptionally. A party of a wizard, a healer, and the rest pure damage monkey functions.

Again, 5e was designed that you could technically run all fighters. Such a party will be mediocre at a lot of things.

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.

Most noncombat roles can be filled decently with 1-3 spellslots and a skill. D&D's noncombat at base is not resource intensive. The 6-8 encounters is most to drain combat resources.

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.

I said combat. A Fighter with proper short rests outdamages a Wizard by a lot unless the DM offers tons of fireball bait. Same with barbarians, paladins, rogues, and rangers.

If the wizard lets the martial deal with dealing damage, sticks to cantrip, goes forControl+Support, and only fireballs when given juicy juicy targets, that frees up a LOT of spell slots for other roles.

The only reason why this doesn't happen often is because wizard players are pyromaniacs and can't help themselves. They gotta FIREBALL.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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.

Yeah but those old school illogical dungeons were fun.

 

[Oofta]

????

Etherealness
7 transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Target: Self
Components: V S
Duration: Up to 8 hours
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You step into the border regions of the Ethereal Plane, in the area where it overlaps with your current plane. You remain in the Border Ethereal for the duration or until you use your action to dismiss the spell. During this time, you can move in any direction. If you move up or down, every foot of movement costs an extra foot. You can see and hear the plane you originated from, but everything there looks gray, and you can’t see anything more than 60 feet away. While on the Ethereal Plane, you can only affect and be affected by other creatures on that plane. Creatures that aren’t on the Ethereal Plane can’t perceive you and can’t interact with you, unless a special ability or magic has given them the ability to do so. You ignore all objects and effects that aren’t on the Ethereal Plane, allowing you to move through objects you perceive on the plane you originated from. When the spell ends, you immediately return to the plane you originated from in the spot you currently occupy. If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved. This spell has no effect if you cast it while you are on the Ethereal Plane or a plane that doesn’t border it, such as one of the Outer Planes.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 8th level or higher, you can target up to three willing creatures (including you) for each slot level above 7th. The creatures must be within 10 feet of you when you cast the spell.

D'oh! Read the spell before I had enough caffeine. My bad.

The rest of the issues remain, a lone PC is in a potentially dangerous situation while scouting and there are spells that can block it.

 

[Scott Christian]

Yeah but those old school illogical dungeons were fun.

I agree. They were. But now they are annoying, or, for the optimist in me, full of questions.

But if I am designing one, I find it hard to do. I do try to add surprises though, but very purposefully lay it out in the lore. For example, my vampire crypt that has a flesh golem. (The vampire, pre vampire days, was the kingdom's greatest tailor.) So he sewed the pieces of his kills together. The banshee (a varied version), that was his daughter, that he murdered after his change. She is trapped by him, constantly sobbing. She also has dolls everywhere with heads torn off (tailor again). (Side note - that is how the PCs can free her.) And the dungeon also has a bunch of zombies in a corridor. (There is a secret door around them that the vampire's lackeys take.)

So hopefully, the dungeon still has surprises, but also seems varied. At least, that is what I was going for.

 

[Oofta]

I agree. They were. But now they are annoying, or, for the optimist in me, full of questions.

But if I am designing one, I find it hard to do. I do try to add surprises though, but very purposefully lay it out in the lore. For example, my vampire crypt that has a flesh golem. (The vampire, pre vampire days, was the kingdom's greatest tailor.) So he sewed the pieces of his kills together. The banshee (a varied version), that was his daughter, that he murdered after his change. She is trapped by him, constantly sobbing. She also has dolls everywhere with heads torn off (tailor again). (Side note - that is how the PCs can free her.) And the dungeon also has a bunch of zombies in a corridor. (There is a secret door around them that the vampire's lackeys take.)

So hopefully, the dungeon still has surprises, but also seems varied. At least, that is what I was going for.

I will do haunted houses (or castles) now and then with the requisite mad scientist/artificer or vampire host and so on. Usually fo my Halloween themed sessions.

In most of my games the locale is designed around the adversaries the group will face. Old school dungeons alway seemed to do it the other way around.

 

[Maxperson]

When I mean mediocre, I mean furfilling the role but not exceptionally. A party of a wizard, a healer, and the rest pure damage monkey functions.

Mediocre means not very good.

Again, 5e was designed that you could technically run all fighters. Such a party will be mediocre at a lot of things.

If you use arrays, sure. If you roll stats, random being what it is, you will likely have at least one smart fighter, one wise fighter and one charismatic fighter. Since you can select skills, the group should be fantastic in combat and decent to good at exploration and social. It's unlikely to be mediocre at any pillar, but random also being what it is, it's possible.

Most noncombat roles can be filled decently with 1-3 spellslots and a skill. D&D's noncombat at base is not resource intensive. The 6-8 encounters is most to drain combat resources.

It depends on what you find to be decent. Most of the wizard's social spells also get him in trouble, arrested or killed, since they involve mind control/charm or invading thought and mind. Those spells would almost certainly be illegal and harshly punished in any civilized country. The social spells are poor, not even rising to the level of mediocre.

I said combat. A Fighter with proper short rests outdamages a Wizard by a lot unless the DM offers tons of fireball bait. Same with barbarians, paladins, rogues, and rangers.

If the wizard lets the martial deal with dealing damage, sticks to cantrip, goes forControl+Support, and only fireballs when given juicy juicy targets, that frees up a LOT of spell slots for other roles.

That's fine, but when you go for control, it's all or nothing. There will be many rounds where the wizard simply wasted his turn and a spell slot. It's great when it works, but it sucks when it doesn't. Great + Suck = Mediocre.

The only reason why this doesn't happen often is because wizard players are pyromaniacs and can't help themselves. They gotta FIREBALL.

There is that. Not just fireball. Elemental damage in general appeals to people.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Forbiddence is a 6th level spell, 11th level clerics while rare are available when it comes to things like protecting the kingdom in my games. You only need a 7th level caster for private sanctum. In addition the spell literally lasts forever unless dispelled, so all it takes is 1 cleric over potentially hundreds of years to guard against many threats.

P.S. This has nothing to do with martials, not sure why we have to keep bringing up "fighters suck" in every other thread.

The thrust of the thread is "are wizards really all that" with the goal of discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the wizard relative to other classes. It's right there in the OP.

That you need a minimum 7th or 11th level caster to address one of the things a wizard can do, when you can use a 0th level common tradesman to address what most martials can do at any level 1-20 is at least was the point I was highlighting.

Outside of that, availability of 7th and 11th level NPCs will reasonably vary per table per setting. But whatever frequency it is, there are probably fewer of them than there are stonemasons.

 

[Oofta]

If the PCs have high level magic, I assume their opponents are prepared to counter it. Just like they'll have locks on a door or traps on a chest. Magic counters magic.

That doesn't elevate wizards one way or another, just that different counters will be used.

 

[Scott Christian]

I will do haunted houses (or castles) now and then with the requisite mad scientist/artificer or vampire host and so on. Usually fo my Halloween themed sessions.

In most of my games the locale is designed around the adversaries the group will face. Old school dungeons alway seemed to do it the other way around.

Very cool. I like it.