Yeah, I don't think anyone is arguing that Wizards have superiority over the rest of the party at the same time in all fields. The argument I've seen made goes more in the vein of this: I'm looking at party composition for a party I'm looking to join. They don't have a Rogue or anyone who can effectively scout. I could go with a Rogue, -or- I could go with a Wizard. I could still have proficiency in thieves tools, but if a lock can't be opened non-magically, I have knock to fall back on. I still have proficiency in stealth, but I also have invisibility to fall back on. I have the same options they do, plus options they do not have access to.
So the wizard is going to take thieves tool proficiency and stealth, rather than things like Arcana, investigation, history and other skills that the wizard is much better at and the party need as much or more?
Plus, then I can help the party teleport / plane shift / whatever when needed.
Right, because THAT'S going to be true for most of the campaign. 90 something% of games don't make it past level 10. And even if you are in one of those very rare games that do, you aren't getting etherealness until level 13, plane shift until level 13 and teleport to level 13. With two level 7 slots, you certainly aren't doing all of those today, and those are given as the solutions to a lot of common things that come up.
In a fight, I might be doing less damage than a Rogue would (Maybe, big if) but I'll also be contributing with stuff like Tasha's taking things out of a fight entirely, which a Rogue could never hope to do, because the rules do not support them doing so with any means other than HP damage. Thus, taking a Wizard would be a superior choice over taking a Rogue.
By the time you are casting plane shift(before actually), everything and its mother have magic resistance and/or good saves and/or legendary resistance. You could get lucky with Tasha's, but the reality is that a lot of the time you're just wasting your round at that point.
Rinse and repeat for the other classes. Not that they can replace the whole party at once, but that for a given party member, they could serve the same roles they serve as or more effectively if they are full casters instead of whatever else. A Wizard wouldn't normally be the face. But a Bard sure could be, and would likely do the job far more effectively than a Paladin would. So on and so forth.
No. They can serve effectively. They cannot serve more effectively. They do not have the expertise of rogues, dodge traps hit while scouting like rogues, avoid damage like rogues and on and on. They do not have damage ability of paladins, or the ability to grant huge save bonuses to all saves, magic resistance to all saves vs magic, cure diseases, neutralize poisons and heal with a touch, and on and on.
A wizard can be a wizard and be okay at other roles, but it can't replace any other class that specializes in those roles.
Sure, Mansions can be dispelled, if something is capable of seeing invisible objects, finds wherever it was stashed away, and does so successfully. But what rational beings would do so, having blind faith they can totally still take whatever pops out, after expending spell slots or abilities to achieve the above? How does it make sense from the perspective of the creature doing the dispelling?
you specified high level(which 90something percent of people never see), which means creatures capable of things like that. As for the rationale, is it better to dispel the mansion and prevent the rest, or fight a fully rested whatever it is? I'm going to go with disturbing the rest.
And again with the scouting, you continue to argue that "using other means to stay out of sight" is better than doing the exact same thing while also being invisible, which is just factually inaccurate.
How often do the invisible people in your game say that they are hiding behind the couch, or making sure to stay low to the ground and behind things?
Rogues -are- sturdier than Wizards, slightly.
Majorly. Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, better hit points, and since you are using high levels Blind Sense, Slippery Mind, Elusive are all designed to keep rogues alive while scouting. And that doesn't include subclass abilities that could help.
On average, with similar setups, they'll have 1 more HP per level, and often 1 more AC as well. But they can't misty step or otherwise bamf out of there if something does notice them, so I disagree that it's less likely they will be knocked out by something which notices them.
Why not? Arcane Trickster is a rogue subclass and can pick spells from any school at 8th, 14th and 20th level. Misty Step and Dimension Door are available to rogues. Not that the rogue needs that magic to be a better scout than the wizard.