D&D 5E Casters should go back to being interruptable like they used to be.
- Thread starter FallenRX
- Start date
I think a lot of people watch games and only remember the big cool scenes and never consider that melee is generally, reliable damage out and reliable damage soak. Wizards tend to be useful or useless rarely anything in between.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I tell you what, it's a good bet my next 5e character won't be a spellcaster. Between the constant struggle to have the right spells available when the party needs them, having to go over lists of spells to find the right ones, constantly asking the DM if there's a spellbook around every time we fight a caster NPC, and spending most of my money and free time scribing the damn things, I could use a change of pace, lol.
Gammadoodler
Hero
This is some weird needlessly binary logic. Wanting an additional situational fail-state to exist is not the same as wanting everything to fail.
Consider how many conditions exist that reduce the effectiveness of the "Attack" action, an action specifically for combat, basically all of them.
Now, bounce that up against conditions that can reduce the effectiveness of a save spell.
Frightened..nope,
Poisoned..negative,
Prone..LOL
Restrained..nuh uh
Grappled..hah
Exhausted..haha
Blinded..ok..sometimes
There is an existing asymmetry of fail-states between attacking and spellcasting. This asymmetry is also anti-thematic with genre fiction where magic should be difficult, and performed a safe distance from the men with pointy sticks. Introducing an additional potential fail-state in the form of interrupts helps to balance this asymmetry somewhat.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Well the thing is, when your spells do work, there is the risk of breaking an encounter in half. I can't say that hasn't happened a few times for me. I've managed to lock enemy casters out of being able to use their magic in several fights now, despite not even having counterspell prepared. I've gotten great mileage out of Slow and Sleet Storm in combats with lots of foes.
When I managed to tag an enemy spellcaster in my last session with my Wand of Binding, I really felt it when the DM sighed. I'm simply trying to keep us alive, but when the stars align, the DM is basically forced to go through the motions of combat, and I know how frustrating that is. I would be much happier if the Ranger or the Monk could save the day and feel like big shots- given my druthers, I'd rather be hero support instead of "guy who makes DMing less fun".
Or my favorite, your playing a good spellcaster and 70 percent of all the spells you find are a necromancer or sociopaths wet dream. Because "that's what those guys would use". It's so lovely to get spells that you can't sell or use because it would be an evil action to do so.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
It's true that being a melee character can be very frustrating in D&D. All of your actions are all or nothing- either you hit and do damage, or you sit on your hands. Enemies have lots of hit points, and they can do some horrible things to you. The first time I saw a 5e Chuul devour a Champion Fighter, I had no desire to enter melee, lol.
If there's some wacky status effect, chances are, the melee is going to suffer from it. If anyone is going to drop to 0 and need outside assistance to keep playing the game, it's probably the melee. And you're not really given the tools to deal with it.
Even in AD&D, Fighter-types had great saving throws all around, but not so much anymore. I can understand why a melee character would feel frustrated when the guy they're based with wiggles his fingers and ruins their day, and the only salvation they have comes from a pointy hat 50' away using counterspell.
But there's lots of other things monsters can do that aren't spells that are just as unfriendly, so any advantage gained runs the risk of making things worse for the players all around. Melee characters need survivability buffed more than casters need to have spellcasting made less reliable, IMO.
this is why most experienced DM's have backup encounters or fudge stuff behind the screen. I'm not a huge fan of fudging but if it's going to break the game sometimes the best choice is accept the best solution is the one you don't like. But sounds like your DM needs to get better at encounter design. It takes experience and time to learn to adjust things for your party. that just takes practice. but wizards are the chaos in the machine. they are designed to blow things up and force a reset on the battlefield. some DM's resist that Idea and it sucks for them.
