Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Ill advised characters
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8544243" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>I played a couple of Wizards with an 8 on their spellcasting stat.</p><p></p><p>In 5e this affects the efficacy (chance of success) of almost all your offensive spells, because your spellcasting ability modifier applies to your spells DC and attack rolls. That means simply, don't focus such character on direct magical attacks, but build your tactics on buffing allies and manipulating the combat environment to their advantage. </p><p></p><p>Still, there are even a few direct offensive spells which are not affected by a low spellcasting ability score, for example Magic Missile and Sleep, and they are even scalable, so you still have options for direct attacks, just not the most optimized weapons as this kind of character is not supposed to have.</p><p></p><p>And of course an adventure is a lot more than combat, so focus spells which give you the spotlight in other pillars. </p><p></p><p>Now for the REAL downside I've encountered... that was the very low number of spells prepared! That is equal to your level + modifier, which was -1 for me, so I was stuck with only 1 prepared spell until level 3, yikes! That really sucked. I thought I would compensate with rituals (which a Wizard doesn't need to prepare) and that's when I learned there aren't actually that many rituals in the game besides stock stuff like Detect Magic or Identify (useful of course but not exactly exciting) so I had to be creative to get out as much as possible from Unseen Servant and Floating Disk. At some point I gave in a bit and just asked the DM to let me buy some scrolls... <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🙄" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" title="Face with rolling eyes :rolling_eyes:" data-shortname=":rolling_eyes:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></p><p></p><p>I can see myself next time trying an absent-minded 8-Wis (or even less) Cleric. Domain spells being always prepared would help a lot, and there are for example many domains with channel divinity options that aren't based on your Wisdom score. For example I am pretty sure a War Cleric can be pretty powerful even with low Wisdom, although it would be a subpar healer.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 8544243, member: 1465"] I played a couple of Wizards with an 8 on their spellcasting stat. In 5e this affects the efficacy (chance of success) of almost all your offensive spells, because your spellcasting ability modifier applies to your spells DC and attack rolls. That means simply, don't focus such character on direct magical attacks, but build your tactics on buffing allies and manipulating the combat environment to their advantage. Still, there are even a few direct offensive spells which are not affected by a low spellcasting ability score, for example Magic Missile and Sleep, and they are even scalable, so you still have options for direct attacks, just not the most optimized weapons as this kind of character is not supposed to have. And of course an adventure is a lot more than combat, so focus spells which give you the spotlight in other pillars. Now for the REAL downside I've encountered... that was the very low number of spells prepared! That is equal to your level + modifier, which was -1 for me, so I was stuck with only 1 prepared spell until level 3, yikes! That really sucked. I thought I would compensate with rituals (which a Wizard doesn't need to prepare) and that's when I learned there aren't actually that many rituals in the game besides stock stuff like Detect Magic or Identify (useful of course but not exactly exciting) so I had to be creative to get out as much as possible from Unseen Servant and Floating Disk. At some point I gave in a bit and just asked the DM to let me buy some scrolls... 🙄 I can see myself next time trying an absent-minded 8-Wis (or even less) Cleric. Domain spells being always prepared would help a lot, and there are for example many domains with channel divinity options that aren't based on your Wisdom score. For example I am pretty sure a War Cleric can be pretty powerful even with low Wisdom, although it would be a subpar healer. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Ill advised characters
Top