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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack the Lad" data-source="post: 6362722" data-attributes="member: 6777377">Just another gentle reminder that you’re the only one engaging in purely abstract white room arguments here (e.g. 'but casters won't always have access to their spells!').I’ve given gameplay examples of many different situations in which a caster obsoletes a Fighter, and I will compile them for you here, by level:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 1: Faerie Fire contributing more damage over the course of an  encounter by giving the entire party Advantage than the Fighter does. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 1: Jump allowing even casters with 8 or 10 strength to outjump even a Champion Fighter with Remarkable Athlete. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 3: Wizards using Counterspell to shut down enemy casters entirely. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 3: Wizards using Levitate to be safe from melee-only opponents. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 5: Wizards using Fly to be safe from melee-only opponents and trivialise environmental barriers and challenges. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 7: Fabricate obsoleting mundane crafting by instantaneously creating things it would take a Fighter 300 days to create. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 7: Wizards using Animate Dead to summon skeletons that do more DPR than  the Fighter and that only cost the Wizard a bonus action to command, meaning they  can continue to cast alongside those attacks. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 9: Fabricate serving as a way to quickly make thousands of gold per day. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 9: Wall of Force allowing you to trap enemies under an inescapable barrier through which you can ping them down with cantrips at your leisure. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 9: Contagion's Slimy Doom option stunning enemies (including - for instance - CR16 and CR17 dragons with Legendary Saves) for 3 rounds, guaranteed - more than enough time to kill them. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level 17: True Polymorph obsoleting the Fighter entirely past level 17 by allowing the Wizard to permanently turn into a CR17 Adult Red Dragon designed to be a challenging encounter for an entire party. </li> </ul>I've also given an example of a day's prepped spells, a way to simply and easily beat an encounter with a 'nearly impervious to spells' Stone Golem with a single spell, and a general overview of what a mid-level Wizard can do.If you refuse to accept other people's experiences as valid and you refuse to accept an analysis of the game math as valid, what's left? Seemingly only your opinion.Yet again: no. I don't know how to explain this without repeating myself, unfortunately, but you can beat encounters with a single spell (see above) and encounters last ~3 rounds in 5e. Is it your experience that encounters take longer than this?You don't need every spell for each scenario. As I've said, repeatedly and with examples, it's easy to pick and prepare suite of powerful, versatile spells that will serve you well in any situation. Also, I can't help but feel that it's worth reiterating because it's rather fallen by the wayside; The Fighter has no access at all, ever, to utility effects like Knock, Fly, Disguise Self, Water Breathing, Detect Thoughts, Invisibility etc. A Wizard hypothetically unable to cast those spells is merely in the same situation that a Fighter always is.My group does not take short rests after every encounter, and that's not the reason I asked if yours does. I asked because you've said that your group regularly has 5+ encounters in an adventuring day, causing casters to run out of spells.If your players are taking damage in those encounters and they're not getting short rests between them in which to spend Hit Dice and refresh things like Second Wind and Superiority Dice, I find it extremely difficult - verging on impossible - to understand how that works. What difficulty of encounter on the experience budget table have you used most frequently?Also, it's absolutely bizarre to say that whether your players get to rest isn't up to you. You control the monsters. You control what the party encounters and when. DMs are not binary, deterministic, mechanistic simulation engines mapping and calculating the minute-by-minute offscreen movements of every creature in a dungeon by interpreting their monster manual entries and/or rolling dice, and I find the idea both confusing and depressing.D&D is driven by imagination. It's about the DM and the players creating an exciting story of bold adventurers who confront deadly perils. DMs are a game's lead storyteller and referee. They create adventures for the characters, determine the results of their actions and narrate their experiences. Because the DM can improvise to react to anything, D&D is infinitely flexible.That is how the game is designed to be played. For you to say that what happens to your players' characters isn't up to you is inexplicable.I'll repeat myself: I would probably learn and prepare Knock. You are the one who decided that our hypothetical Wizard should pick Flaming Sphere. Flaming Sphere is a pretty bad spell.That said, if we had a Rogue in the party, I might decide to take another spell instead - that's just intelligent use of resources. But I could take it and obsolete the Rogue if I wanted to - or if there wasn't a Rogue in the party, which otherwise would mean the only option in terms of locked doors, manacles etc would be breaking them. Knock has a 60 ft range and a 100% success rate even against magical effects. By casting it, you can say "I unlock the door" and have that just happen. It's straight up better than needing to roll.This is you moving the goal posts yet again. You proposed a scenario that you felt illustrated your point that Wizards do not always have the proper tools available to them - one who has picked Web and Invisibility instead of Flaming Sphere - which, as I mentioned, is actually pretty bad - as their level 2 spells and then found themselves in a fight with some Giant Spiders.I demonstrated that by casting Burning Hands, a level 1 spell, the Wizard can still easily outperform the Fighter.You're now claiming that even though the Wizard has outperformed the Fighter, the fact that it only did so by using a spell means that it isn't as good as the Fighter. Somehow. Again, a baffling argument.This is a total non sequitur.  Look at your points in the context of character level.a. never learned the right spell<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A level 1 Wizard knows 6 spells. A level 20 Wizard knows 44. Do you genuinely believe that a level 20 Wizard is no more likely to have learned a spell relevant to a given situation? </li> </ul>b. never prepped the right spell<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A level 1 Wizard can prep 4 spells. A level 20 Wizard can prep 25. Do you genuinely believe that a level 20 Wizard is no more likely to have prepped a spell relevant to a given situation? </li> </ul>c. don't have the slots available any more to cast the spell<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A level 1 Wizard has 2 spell slots. A level 20 Wizard has 22, plus up to 10 from Arcane Recovery, plus a level 1 and a level 2 spell as at-wills, plus two level 3 Signature Spells. Do you genuinely believe that a level 20 Wizard is no more likely to have the slots available to cast a given spell? </li> </ul>Claiming that it doesn't matter whether a Wizard is level 1, 10 or 20 is completely nonsensical.I'm sorry, but you've changed your story or claimed that you meant something else when your original meaning was clear several times over the course of this thread. The giant spiders/burning hands thing is only the latest example.how many opponents are actually affected by an AOE spell<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You choose when to cast it, and I would only cast an AoE spell if I could hit at least 2 targets. I said this in the giant spiders/burning hands example. </li> </ul>if that puts the caster in to melee, he or she is so squishy they won't last a couple rounds<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A level 3 Wizard has 16 AC and 20 HP. A level 3 Fighter has 16 AC and 28 HP. The Fighter can take 1 more hit from a Giant Spider than the Wizard. Unless the Wizard uses Shield to negate 1 or more hits, in which case they are again ahead. </li> </ul>how many scenarios would require a spell but it was never prepped or learned?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You tell me. Despite my repeated requests, you've presented a single scenario all thread, and I have proven that the Wizard still outperforms the Fighter. </li> </ul>What do you mean when you say interrupted? You have answered this question in several different ways in this thread, and I would like to pin you down to one before I address it.Wish is an extremely powerful spell, though your level 9 slot may be better spent on True Polymorph, Shapechange or Foresight depending on what exactly you want to accomplish.Starting at level 17, you can cast it once a day to poach any of the 141 level 8 or lower spells not otherwise available to a Wizard with no downside whatsoever. Saying that you can never cast it is flat out false and I'm not sure what you're basing that on.You don't even need Thunderwave.A level 3 Great Weapon Fighter with a maul deals between 10.6 and 3.8 damage per attack, depending on the target's AC, which averages 7.2.A level 3 Wizard with a longbow deals between 6.8 and 2.3 damage per attack, depending on the target's AC, which averages 4.5.We'll be generous and assume that the Fighter can attack every round - which is by no means guaranteed in actual play.We'll be even more generous and assume that the Wizard picked non-combat spells when he leveled up and gained access to level 2 spells.We'll allow the players a short rest - or rather the monsters will, somehow entirely outside of the DM's control. After all, as you've told us, it's 'player entitlement' to expect rests after encounters.If we're talking 5 encounters of 4 rounds (which also strikes me as generous - as I've said multiple times, encounters most often last 3 rounds, and last 2 rounds more often than they do 4) the Wizard is 54 damage behind on basic attacks. Each time the Wizard casts Burning Hands at 2 enemies, they can expect to do an average of 17.01 damage, which is 12.51 more than a longbow shot. Casting 6 Burning Hands over the course of this hypothetical adventuring day therefore deals an extra 75.06 damage. The Fighter can Action Surge twice for an extra 14.4 damage.Final score after 5 encounters of 4 roundsWizard: 165 damageFighter: 158 damageAnd the Wizard still has both level 2 spell slots for Knock/Invisibility, or potentially, if he had picked combat spells (e.g. Crown of Madness, Scorching Ray) for far, far more damage on top and outperform the Fighter at his own role to an even greater extent.What if you knock the Fighter out? Or paralyse them? Or kill them? Or stop them from moving? Wizards are not the only ones vulnerable to status effects.In fact, by dint of spells like Fly, Levitate, Shield, Mirror Image etc and even simply by dint of not being on the front line, they're less vulnerable to them than a Fighter who seeks out and engages in melee combat every encounter.</blockquote>

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