Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5431937" data-attributes="member: 2011">How often does this happen in the second half of the encounter when most of the PC Encounter powers are used up, foes are becoming bloodied, and most foes are no longer bunched up for an area attack, the point in time where Magic Missile frequently becomes more important?You seem to be assuming that low level Wizards do significant control right and left with their At Will powers?-2 to hit?Slow?Extra damage?Slide 1?Do any of these really "control an important enemy who might be threatening elsewhere"? Is Storm Pillar really going to stop a Brute from pounding on the Ranger that he pounded on last round in most scenarios?None of this is hard control. Stun is hard control. Blocking Terrain is hard control.Most of this other "control" that you are supporting is not control at all. It's mostly debuffing or increased damage, and a low percentage chance that the debuffing actually does something real.As for it being or not being the Wizard's turn, remember that the Wizard can typically target any foe on the map, especially with Magic Missile. Melee PCs tend to be limited to whomever they are currently fighting. And any PC without an autohit can have a fair chance of missing, even if they are targeting the same bloodied foe as the Wizard. It's not always possible or even desirable for someone else to take out a given foe.So not only can the player of the Wizard say "I got that one" when a bloodied foe gets heavily damaged and might be in single digit hit points, there are often circumstances which can lead to him being one of the few PCs capable of targeting the bloodied foe. For example, if the Striker hits the blooded NPC for a lot of damage and the NPC is still standing, it will often be an entire round before the Striker can hit that foe again (shy of using an Action Point or getting an Opportunity or Immediate Action).The premise that "the Defender must be defending every round, and the Leader must be buffing/healing every round, and the Striker must be doing a lot of damage every round, and the Controller must be controlling every round" is in error.Yes, the Striker should often be doing a lot of damage, but it sometimes makes sense for the Striker to take out a foe with very few hit points remaining, wasting all of that extra damage. Ditto for every other role.Roles are jobs that each PC should often be doing. But, they aren't straightjackets, preventing any given PC from helping in multiple different ways.I sometimes send my Wizards into the middle of an encounter, just in order to suck up some of his healing surges instead of the Defender's healing surges. I've seen a lot of parties where the Defender have virtually none of his healing surges remaining and most of the rest of the PCs with a lot of their surges, just because some people got it into their minds that the Defender should always be up front and everyone else should always hang back. Err, no. It's better if the entire party use up their healing surge resources at approximately the same percentage rate.</blockquote>

Verification