Erechel
Explorer
Both from a DM's and a player's perspective, dealing with spellcasters is difficult. This difficulty don't reside on raw power, but instead on their flexibility. One never can be too prepared to them: Have you achieved somehow Fire resistance? The wizard hits you with a ligthing bolt. High Dex saves? Hold Person. Etc.
Nevertheless, spellcasters in 5e are limited in three main ways: Spell slots, Concentration and action economy. The last two of them are intrinsecally linked: if you have concentration, you can't prepare a lot and break Action Economy with pre-battle buffs. At best, as a wizard you can have two pre-battle buffs (mage armor, and any Conc. buff), and you need to expend the slots. Furthermore, many concentration buffs have very short durations, so you need to cast them as close to combat as you can. A 1 minute spell, like Haste, will pass shortly after being cast.
As a player, I 've being dealing with casters since level 1. Priests, mages and hobgoblin Devastators are enemies with I've being dealing with. I have a big advantage: I'm a Strength fighter, human, with the Shieldmaster feat. This allowed me to improve my action economy. Furthermore, any effect that allows me to pass a Dex saving throw to halve my damage, I receive no damage instead as a reaction (and if said effect is directed against me only, it allows me to add the Shield bonus to my DST). But the main factor is the action economy: knocking prone spellcasters as a bonus action is incredibly useful. I use the following tactic: knock, grapple, choke. Choke isn't an action described on any manual, but it could be considered both as an attack and as a grapple. Succesfuly choking someone should silence and suffocate it, doing minimal (disarmed) damage. My DM usually considers it as a grapple at disadvantage (as it is more specific).
Other ways of disabling casters may be:
1) Heavy smoke: heavily obscures an area, so impedes casters to make targets or choose the point in which cast their targets. Also, it can provoke suffocation, thus "silence" creatures inside the area.
2) Sand in the eyes: Blinded condition doesn't allow to see, so any spell that requires to see the target can't.
3) Disarm: Any spell that requires material components and any caster with a Spellcasting focus such as a staff could be disarmed. That renders many powerful spells useless.
4) Kill them with lots of damage before they cast. Obviously.
Thougts? Ideas?
Nevertheless, spellcasters in 5e are limited in three main ways: Spell slots, Concentration and action economy. The last two of them are intrinsecally linked: if you have concentration, you can't prepare a lot and break Action Economy with pre-battle buffs. At best, as a wizard you can have two pre-battle buffs (mage armor, and any Conc. buff), and you need to expend the slots. Furthermore, many concentration buffs have very short durations, so you need to cast them as close to combat as you can. A 1 minute spell, like Haste, will pass shortly after being cast.
As a player, I 've being dealing with casters since level 1. Priests, mages and hobgoblin Devastators are enemies with I've being dealing with. I have a big advantage: I'm a Strength fighter, human, with the Shieldmaster feat. This allowed me to improve my action economy. Furthermore, any effect that allows me to pass a Dex saving throw to halve my damage, I receive no damage instead as a reaction (and if said effect is directed against me only, it allows me to add the Shield bonus to my DST). But the main factor is the action economy: knocking prone spellcasters as a bonus action is incredibly useful. I use the following tactic: knock, grapple, choke. Choke isn't an action described on any manual, but it could be considered both as an attack and as a grapple. Succesfuly choking someone should silence and suffocate it, doing minimal (disarmed) damage. My DM usually considers it as a grapple at disadvantage (as it is more specific).
Other ways of disabling casters may be:
1) Heavy smoke: heavily obscures an area, so impedes casters to make targets or choose the point in which cast their targets. Also, it can provoke suffocation, thus "silence" creatures inside the area.
2) Sand in the eyes: Blinded condition doesn't allow to see, so any spell that requires to see the target can't.
3) Disarm: Any spell that requires material components and any caster with a Spellcasting focus such as a staff could be disarmed. That renders many powerful spells useless.
4) Kill them with lots of damage before they cast. Obviously.
Thougts? Ideas?
