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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8755137" data-attributes="member: 6877472">It's really hard to judge the value of a social expert, since what you can do with high Persuasion/Intimidate/etc. is really DM dependent, and some campaigns don't have you interacting with many NPC's you can influence anyways.  This is generally why it defaults to one of the Charisma casters, since they likely have a decent bonus anyways.Exploration is a little more concrete, since locked chests, hidden passages, tough climbs, vital jumps, and of course, noticing ambushes, are things that will come up in games.  I've noted that DM's have a perverse love of putting characters at risk of falling, or worse, swimming (I'm also prone to this, and I'm not sure why, it just sort of happens).I'd like to avoid Schrodinger's Rogue here- a lot of what makes the Rogue good is Expertise, but it's not like the Rogue can get Expertise in every useful skill- they get three from their class.  So if you take, for example, Thieve's Tools, Stealth, and Perception, you're not going to get Persuasion, Athletics, Acrobatics, or Investigation.The idea of what the Wizard can do is what I like to call potential power.  There's no telling what spell a Wizard is going to have prepared at a given moment- they get a lot of them, but will your Wizard really have jump, or spider climb, or levitate on tap at any given moment?It depends on how much information they have been given about what they will need on a given game day.  But if you give them an opportunity to long rest, they can, like most spellcasters, completely reshape their spell loadout, and that has the possibility to trivialize some challenges.Now granted, Wizards don't automatically know their full spell list, like a Cleric or Druid, but arcane spells tend to be more flexible, and this is where the narrative power of a Wizard comes from.  Since it's not like they have pressing need to buy armor or weapons, most of the cash a Wizard gains will go towards either costly material components, or new spells added to their book.But adding spells isn't cheap.  During my year as an AL DM, I spent all of my bonus gold rewards for running adventures to fill my Wizard's spellbook- even though I prefer to specialize in a narrow spell list, I know there are problem solving spells that my parties will expect me to have access to, so I want to make sure to have as many as I can.Sure, the Wizard can use spells like Fabricate to quickly arm villagers with weapons or armor, or turn an old keep into a fortress with Guards and Wards, but again, the question of "do they have the spell" and "do they have the spell without a long rest" are limiting factors.For a Wizard player to consistently have solutions to problems is, again, dependent on the kind of game you're playing.  If you run a lot of adventures with few long rests, the Wizard will be forced to focus on solving the most basic of problems- ie, combat.  They will have to conserve their spell slots as well, and aren't likely to blow a Misty Step or Dimension Door on something trivial.If you're running an open world hex crawl game, however, the Wizard will frequently be a source of surprise and wonder.Thus, the answer to this thread is "maybe".  However, don't let that fool you- under the right circumstance, the Wizard can get a lot more accomplished than other classes.  As for their role in combat, no, they aren't as amazing when it comes to damage as people who swing swords.  But judging them by that metric isn't really understanding the Wizard's role.  Sure, they can blast mooks quickly, or soften up large swathes of foes, making the job of the warrior easier.However, they can also cut the threat of an encounter in half by hampering foes until the party is ready to deal with them.  Sleep, Web, Glitterdust, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm, Slow, Stinking Cloud- spells like this can be incredibly potent in turning an encounter with lots of foes into a cakewalk.The Wizard doesn't kill enemies as quickly as your friendly neighborhood cuisinart, but the difference between a party with a good Wizard and one without a Wizard at all is often quite dramatic.And again, because it bears repeating, the potential to do something quite dramatic that other classes cannot do, is always on the table, to some degree.I know a lot of DM's who, whether they intend to or not, create challenges that require magic to solve, and this is something, by the rules, some classes cannot do anything about.  And when these appear, then, yes, the Wizard can be all that.</blockquote>

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