D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[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).