D&D 5E (2014) I Told Ya So 2014!! (or not)

[AaronOfBarbaria]

With the massive known list bards get...

Massive? Interesting use of the word.

 

[Falling Icicle]

He can easily craft his spell list to be wizardly+. With the massive known list bards get having a spell book and preparing isn't much of an advantage.

Bards are stuck with the spells they know (except for being able to exchange a single spell each time they level). Wizards can prepare different spells each and every day. That is a big advantage for the wizard in versatility. Bards learn 22 spells by level 20. A 20th level wizard can prepare 27 spells at a time, including his signature spells. Even if a wizard chooses to stick with the same spells every day, the wizard still ends up having 5 more spells at his disposal than the bard. The ability to change your spell selection is also an advantage. With the right spells and some good planning, a wizard can adapt to almost any challenge.

And they get access to spells a wizard never will.

The opposite is also true. In fact, the wizard spell list is the largest in the game, dwarfing the bard spell list in size. Bards can cherry pick a few spells with magical secrets, but wizards can still end up having a much larger total selection of spells than bards, and that gap will only continue to widen with every new book that introduces more spells to the game.

Want to summon things in one action instead of one minute boom take the Druid spell.

That's true, though wizards can do similar things with spells like Bigby's hand, animate objects, etc. Not every wizard (or bard) wants to be a summoner, though.

Wizards other gimmick is lore and intelligence but the bard can beat them in that easily since they can get double proficiency bonuses. There are a couple wizard specialties that add something valuable to their spell casting but overall a bard matches them there and maybe trumps them as they can throw in a few out of class spells. But all the non spellcasting stuff you might envision about your wizard. A bard will do it better. So overall IMO if you have a image of a wizard in your head play a bard.

Okay, you have a point there. I do wonder why they didn't give wizards expertise with arcana. I think it's really odd that lore bards and knowledge clerics can be better at arcana than wizards. Still, wizards are usually going to have a higher Int score than bards do, so their total bonus will usually end up being within a couple of points of a bard's for those skills.

Wizards are also among the best ritual casters in the game, second only to tome warlocks. If a bard wants to be able to cast a ritual, he has to know the spell, and it counts against his limited number of spells known (which is already a smaller number than the number of spells a wizard can prepare). Wizards, on the other hand, can learn every ritual spell on their list, and more importantly, they can cast them without preparing them, so they don't count against the number of spells they have available to cast. That gives the wizard a tremendous edge in out-of-combat flexibility that bards can only match at the very high cost of a feat.

There's also arcane recovery, which gives wizards some extra spells per day.

Wizards also get some really nice subclass features that make them better at their chosen school of magic. Wizards can do things like cast fireballs without harming their allies, conjure objects at will, animate stronger and larger undead armies, or get free twin spell with enchantments. Bards can't do any of those things.

I don't think bards are better spellcasters than wizards are. They're a great class, and they can certainly fulfill the role of arcane caster in a party, but they don't make wizards obsolete.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Bards are generalists. They can do lots of things, and can do a lot of them well, but they don't beat the specialists. As pointed out above, Wizards can know more spells (their spellbooks are not limited to a specific number like the bard) and can change their spells prepared daily (the bard only gets to change their spells prepared/known when they change levels, and even there they can't do wholesale changes). Also, Wizards are the only class that has the class feature of being able to cast rituals without having the spell prepared (they just need it in their spellbook). When you only have a limited number of spells, that's a very powerful feature. It effectively gives the Wizard one or two extra "spells known" per day, depending on what they're doing.

I'm playing a lore bard at the moment and I love the class, but I'm not silly enough to think that they can replace the other pure spellcasting classes. You can do a reasonable job of replicating some of the abilities of the other classes once you get Magical Secrets, but you can only replicate a small part of those classes. The power of the bard lies in flexibility in character design. They're not as flexibility in the characters themselves because you're still limited in how many skills you have, how many you take expertise in, how many spells you pick up through Magical Secrets, etc.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Sorry about the double post. It got a strange error message and clicked "post" a second time...

 

[Megalith]

Sharpshooter is hardly op. In fact, my DM relies on my character to come through with the damage when the rest of the party is having trouble with the encounter. Every DM makes mistakes, and when he throws something at us that's a bit overwhelming, he counts on me to rip out the extra damage to even out the combat.

 

[happyhermit]

Much of what I was going to say has been said, but I appreciate your response, because I have heard similar things before.

He can easily craft his spell list to be wizardly+. With the massive known list bards get having a spell book and preparing isn't much of an advantage.

Yes, they can be very much like a wizard (and/or a fair bit like a cleric), but I don't see how this makes them more-so.

And they get access to spells a wizard never will. Want to summon things in one action instead of one minute boom take the Druid spell.

Yeah, but that doesn't seem especially wizardy to me, it seems like a druid or a particular type of magic user.

Wizards other gimmick is lore and intelligence but the bard can beat them in that easily since they can get double proficiency bonuses.

There might be something there, Lore seems very much like a bard thing though, and intelligence has always been a stat that isn't necessarily tied to just wizards.

There are a couple wizard specialties that add something valuable to their spell casting but overall a bard matches them there and maybe trumps them as they can throw in a few out of class spells. But all the non spellcasting stuff you might envision about your wizard. A bard will do it better. So overall IMO if you have a image of a wizard in your head play a bard.

See this is where we really disagree I guess;

All wizards get arcane recovery.
All wizards get a bigger spell list of classic wizardy spells
They have no limit on the number of spells they can know.
They have more cantrips than bards.
At higher levels they are casting spells as cantrips.

That says wizard way more than a Lore Bard as is IMO, add in the arcane traditions and the comparison gets even more one-sided.

 

[Zardnaar]

IDK if a Bard is better at being a spellcaster than a Wizard but I think you could make a good argument a bard is a better class than a wizard. All I know is that wizards are rare in my group and I currently have a level 6 wizard (diviner) and it seems a bit underwhelming compared to Bards/Sorcerers/Clerics.

IN the lore bards case I thinkit is because you can build a better baster than say an Invoker. One can pull this off by stealing spells like hex, eldritch blast, destructive wave off other spell lists. One can also claim a spell casters true power is not in damage but in save or suck spells and bards can steal them as well and have decent ones on their class list already with several nice buff spells as well that wizards lack. A wizard can throw a burning hands spell for middling damage vs a game changer like Faerie Fire. Who cares if you lack versatility when you can take Ranger and Paladin spells 7 levels or so before they can cast them. Blaster bard picks up a cantrip (Eldritch Balst) via a feat, steals hex and fireball and destructive wave invoker cries in corner.

The lack of spells a Bard knows is kind of negated by a few spells I would consider light blue or gold in 5E. Pick the right spells or cast them to a better effect (Sorcerers) can often make wizards fell a bit meh. Twinned Greater Invisibility/Haste. Inspiration dice at 5th level also refresh on a short rest so Bards do not have to pace themselves as much as wizards, they have more hit points, and they can steal spells as well so a bard can make a decent healer or whatever in addition to normal bard stuff that wizards can't do.

Bards also enable the -5/+10 feats via inspiration dice and spells like faerie fire/Blindness/greater invisability/foresight enabling advantage easily. Which stacks with inspiration dice. It might not be Bards are OP but wizards are underpowered now compared to Clerics and arguably lore bards. There are also a handful of level 1 spells in the game that scale well into the higher levels and 2 of them are bard spells. Off the top of my head those spells are Bless, Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire, Shield and bless is worth stealing at level 6 for some Bard builds. Hell bless is so good it seems to make a lot of cleric level 1-3 spells obsolete and if you have a 6 person party it puts a few 4th level spells to shame as well.

 

[Uchawi]

My opinion is the bard is one example of a 5E class taking the best from all editions. I just wish I could state the same for a class like the fighter.