D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Fanaelialae]

It’s interesting that some of the same people who claim the wizard is OP also decry anything the NPCs might do to counter the threat of magic as DMs punishing wizards.

In a world in which magic is common, and familiars are easy to get, you would think anti-familiar measures would be common place. As common as locks in a world full of thieves. Every evil mastermind would tell their minions “and make sure to pick up a familiar-hunting terrier from Target!” Except those novice masterminds who don’t realize minions need to be told everything.

I mostly skimmed the debate upthread about castle construction, but I think @Oofta had it about right.

There is an inherent contradiction between the claim that wizards are the terror of Faerun (or wherever) and the claim that attempts to counter that threat would not be commonplace.

I have no problem with familiar countermeasures existing if they makes sense for your world building. Infallible countermeasures are another thing entirely, and highly suspect.

Thieves (rogues) exist and would be an issue for these same peole, right? So why isn't the rogue encountering perfect countermeasures when he scouts ahead? That also makes sense from a world building perspective.

If you have one but not the other, then you're probably not doing it for the sake of world building.

 

[Bill Zebub]

(bold added)

This is the important clause here.

In my D&D worlds, for example, magic is most certainly not common! Wizards are rare, and not every one has a familiar. Most peasants would go their entire lives without personally meeting a wizard. They might see one, or know of one nearby, etc. but that is it.

Certainly, some locations, especially those with rival casters, would have countermeasures though.

That’s the sort of flavor I prefer. I like low-magic worlds. However…

1. Every official supplement, and the vast overwhelming majority of unofficial ones, describes the opposite. The whole “a typical peasant would go their whole lives without seeing magic” is a compelling trope, but there’s no evidence in the game to support it.

2. Given that, if one were to home brew a world in which magic is extremely rare, you now have a wizard designed for a world expecting him running around in a world that does not. Caveat emptor.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I have no problem with familiar countermeasures existing if they makes sense for your world building. Infallible countermeasures are another thing entirely, and highly suspect.

Thieves (rogues) exist and would be an issue for these same peole, right? So why isn't the rogue encountering perfect countermeasures when he scouts ahead? That also makes sense from a world building perspective.

If you have one but not the other, then you're probably not doing it for the sake of world building.

Of course you don’t want perfect countermeasures. The DM is supposed to ultimately be on the side of the PCs. At least that’s what I believe.

But monsters should at least be smart enough to take out that annoying owl. They will know that trick.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Of course you don’t want perfect countermeasures. The DM is supposed to ultimately be on the side of the PCs. At least that’s what I believe.

But monsters should at least be smart enough to take out that annoying owl. They will know that trick.

@ECMO3 said that every time the familiar tries to scout it ends up dead. I'm not sure if that was hyperbole or not, but if not it doesn't exactly make a lot of sense unless either he is being careless with that familiar (it doesn't try to sneak), or the DM is hard blocking a character ability. Maybe there's a third possibility I'm not seeing?

A familiar is not as good a scout as the rogue, but far less risky (I'd rather have a dead familiar than a dead rogue). So it becomes a risk/reward assessment about which to use. Or you can combine them and have the familiar ride on the rogue's shoulder in order to mitigate some of the rogue's risk (real time video vs "I'll be back in 5 minutes").

That said, I think that if the familiar dies every time you send it to scout then either you're having a really bad streak of luck or the DM really is out to get you.

 

[Bill Zebub]

@ECMO3 said that every time the familiar tries to scout it ends up dead. I'm not sure if that was hyperbole or not,

I assumed it was.

Hyperbole does not make these discussions any easier.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I assumed it was.

Hyperbole does not make these discussions any easier.

Fair enough. I was responding under the assumption that it wasn't hyperbole.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That’s the sort of flavor I prefer. I like low-magic worlds. However…

1. Every official supplement, and the vast overwhelming majority of unofficial ones, describes the opposite. The whole “a typical peasant would go their whole lives without seeing magic” is a compelling trope, but there’s no evidence in the game to support it.

Yeah, I know, but even when I run some official material I tone it down a lot for my games.

"Carnival" type entertainer magicians is plausible, but assuming a magic-common world breaks things down a lot.

For example, I am a 1st-level caster with the light cantrip. Consider the simple torch, 1 cp, burns for 1 hour (same as the cantrip's duration). Instead of adventuring, I find some local taverns or inns and offer my services to go around their premises touching sconces with the light cantrip. If each establishment has 10 torches, that is 30 an hour, or assuming 8 hours 240 torches. Even at 25% off the cost of a torch, that is 180 cp or 1.8 gp per night. Maintaining a modest lifestyle is 1 gp per day, leaving me a profit of 8 sp per night or about 288 gp per year in net profit.

Why bother adventuring?

Now, if you want to play in a world were your lantern-lighters are going around casting light for hours on end, or have an old city where the taxes paid for continual flame hundreds or thousands of time to light the streets, that's fine but not what I would want to play in.

(I know you said you prefer the sort of low-magic game I described, the above point was "you" in general.)

2. Given that, if one were to home brew a world in which magic is extremely rare, you now have a wizard designed for a world expecting him running around in a world that does not. Caveat emptor.

And in that light, wizards are uncommon and often respected or feared, as are other casters. But they know they are powerful but also fallible, so understand that even enough commoners could defeat them given sufficient numbers.

The world knows the wizard is out there, and the wizard knows some places it will be prepared for him.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Yeah, I know, but even when I run some official material I tone it down a lot for my games.

"Carnival" type entertainer magicians is plausible, but assuming a magic-common world breaks things down a lot.

For example, I am a 1st-level caster with the light cantrip. Consider the simple torch, 1 cp, burns for 1 hour (same as the cantrip's duration). Instead of adventuring, I find some local taverns or inns and offer my services to go around their premises touching sconces with the light cantrip. If each establishment has 10 torches, that is 30 an hour, or assuming 8 hours 240 torches. Even at 25% off the cost of a torch, that is 180 cp or 1.8 gp per night. Maintaining a modest lifestyle is 1 gp per day, leaving me a profit of 8 sp per night or about 288 gp per year in net profit.

Why bother adventuring?

Now, if you want to play in a world were your lantern-lighters are going around casting light for hours on end, or have an old city where the taxes paid for continual flame hundreds or thousands of time to light the streets, that's fine but not what I would want to play in.

(I know you said you prefer the sort of low-magic game I described, the above point was "you" in general.)


And in that light, wizards are uncommon and often respected or feared, as are other casters. But they know they are powerful but also fallible, so understand that even enough commoners could defeat them given sufficient numbers.

The world knows the wizard is out there, and the wizard knows some places it will be prepared for him.

Yeah, I have no issues with Faerun or Eberron existing, but I prefer PC-style magic be much rarer than that.

Otherwise you lose the ability to tell lots of different stories. It doesn't make much sense for a plague to be threatening the kingdom if there's a high level cleric on every corner who can cast Lesser Restoration. You end up having to justify it with, well, this plague is immune to magic! This can have some unintentional consequences though, speaking as a player who lost a character I really liked to such a magic resistant plague. Speaking from experience, that is not a fun way for your character to go out. I think that DM realized it too, since in the decade since that he hasn't reused the trope.

I much prefer to have a low magic world that was once much higher in magic. Spellcasters are quite rare. There are places in the world that were built to defend against casters, but these are rare and as their defenses fail the people of this time generally lack the knowledge to repair them. Certainly not everyone who would like to have such a sanctuary possesses one.

Moreover, the evil necromancer you're hunting may have ordered his skeletal minions to crush every animal they see, but your typical orc isn't going to waste his or her entire day playing rat-whacker on the off chance that rat might be a familiar. To demonstrate a real world equivalent, there could be spyware on whatever device you're posting to this forum from. Do you spend significant amounts of time digging through your directories looking for suspicious files? Probably not. I have anti-virus software on my devices, but many people I know don't even have that (or they don't bother to update it so it's basically worthless).

Furthermore, if there are high level casters around every corner, it begs the question of why they haven't solved the problems the PCs are trying to solve. IMO, the most sensible solution is that casters (particularly high level ones) are rare and there aren't enough of them to go around.

 

[Scott Christian]

I would disagree with this.

In 1E in the mid to late 80s (post unearthed Arcana) the Fighter (to include Cavaliers, Rangers and Paladins) was the strongest at all levels. Yes the Wizard had some powerful abilities, but those that did not get a save (like power word kill) did not work on equivalent level fighters (too many hit points) and those that did get a save he only needed a 3 or a 6 to save (before magic rings and stuff that made it even lower). Also casting spells in combat was very difficult to do and the Wizard would usually lose his spell.

Spells were not flexible, you prepared specific spells and there were no slots. If you memorized levitate and you never had a chance/need to levitate that is one less second level spell you got to cast that day. As a result, usually you only used about half your spells in a day and often one or two of them were wasted because you got hit while casting. There were also dead levels where you had no great spells and memorizing a lower level spell was not an option.

Fighters got higher strength and constitution bonuses and Paladins and Cavaliers abilities increased every level (no other class got this in 1E).

At high levels many enemies had magic resistance, meaning you had to beat the magic resistance before they even had to roll a save. Meanwhile, at 20th level a fighter could take down a lessor Gods in a round or two by himself. We played the D-2 Descent onto the depths and our fighter killed Lolth in the boss fight in one round. Meanwhile our 11th level Wizard had literally half his spells just plain fail to affect the normal everyday Drow in the city and underdark because of their magic resistance. He did not even try against Lolth and if I remember correctly she had nearly 100% resistance to his spells and if he beat that insanely high magic resistance she still had great saves.

Finally at high levels a Wizard requires more experience than a fighter and a Wizard can be up to a full level behind.

I think these are all valid points. Enough to sway me.
But to be clear, I was specifically talking about the fighter vs. wizard scenario, not bad guys. But still, the fighter's improved resistances probably would have won him the day. Thanks for making me think.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I much prefer to have a low magic world that was once much higher in magic. Spellcasters are quite rare. There are places in the world that were built to defend against casters, but these are rare and as their defenses fail the people of this time generally lack the knowledge to repair them. Certainly not everyone who would like to have such a sanctuary possesses one.

This is pretty much my default.

It explains why such rare magical places exist, why such powerful artifacts of legend are out there, and even "high magic" (6th+ spell levels) scrolls and items can be found, but the knowledge of such mighty magics is lost to the ages.

Minor or lesser magics and items are more common and have limited effect. I try to make every item in my game unique somehow. You generally won't find a +1 dagger, but might find a dagger which allows you to become invisible 1/day.

I prefer to keep the +x items to the mastercraft/mundane items in general.