Is Spell Blasting Doomed to Suck Even More in Next than it did in 3.x?

[N'raac]

First off, I agree we've drifted far from our original topic. I think we moved from "make Blasting a competitive choice to other Wizard choices" (ie in-class balance) to "make the classes competitive - don't make the wizard overshadow the fighter" ) (ie cross-class balance), which could mean "drop Blasting a bit and other options more to bring them down to the level of the fighter, rather than enhancing Blasting to be just as (over)powerful as other Wizard options".

I don't find Blasting a great selection for wizards in 3e on, but I never liked the idea of spells that just do damage in any edition - let the fighters handle that while the spellcasters do things the fighters can't. I agree with the initial poster that Blasting should be a competitive choice. To me, that means Blasting as a specialty should be as powerful as any other specialty. It also means a non-specialist should find a Blast spell or two just as useful as the occasional spell from any category outside their area of specialization.

I also note that your recent posts have talked a lot about Buffs, but not a lot about those Dragons being Blasted out of the sky after being spotted a few moves away. That, to me, also says something about how powerful Blasting was as an option.

To the dragons, a "tactical" move would be the BW as a strafing run, but their description makes it clear they are overconfident, and tend not to lead with the BW for fear of damaging the treasure. If they can see the little bipeds casting spells and standing their ground rather than panicking, are pelted with arrows which are having a real impact (most little biped groups would have a pretty tough time hitting, much less hurting, a dragon with arrows) and maybe doing some harm with a Blast, I think that would cause such highly intelligent creatures to reconsider their tactics. Maybe swoop in with that breath weapon, maybe try a spell or two of their own (and if I were a red dragon, I wouldn't learn a lot of fire damage spells - maybe another type or two for you loaded for bear fire resistant dragon hunters...). If that's ineffective, maybe wheeling back up to reconsider is more appropriate than charging blindly into the meat grinder and becoming Dragon sausage.

A lot of this discussion has been about overpowered abilities, but any ability looks overpowered if the opposition consistently plays right into its strengths. If the GM thinks only in terms of two dimensional melee, a lot of the Dragon's options, and thus its strengths, get ignored. If every opponent is noticed at a good distance, obviously hostile, and immediately closes for battle, right into melee, then a melee brute and close range buffs seems very pretty effective choices. If some opponents fight from range, delay or stall out spell durations, and otherwise adopt tactics that aren't best opposed by buffed melee brutes, those choices start to look less effective.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I think the most interesting part of your post here is the number of monsters that have a viable ranged alternative. I don't think there are many monsters in that class, and it's one of the reasons that I prefer playing a specialized melee character instead of a melee/ranged hybrid.

This is only true for the non-casters though. For casters in 3.5 you often had so strong options that the need for specialization is a lot lower. It's one of the reasons the blaster is a good alternative in 3.5, even if the save-or-die monkey is better (both mixing in utility spells).

3.5 had some wonky features, like a lot of monsters being immune to sneak attack (rendering rogues close to useless) or monsters with high DR making archers and twf characters very sub optimal. The character that didn't suffer from any of these problems is the thf. 4e actually did away with this to a large degree and it's one of the big improvements in my opinion. There is a reason the Wizard in 4e is called a "controller" instead of a striker. Now you can make a decent blaster out of the wizard in 4e, but it's a specialized Wizard, not the one you end up unless you put some work into it.

Anyway, I don't see any problem with them reducing the blasting power in 5e compared to 3.5, making it more in line with 4e. Instead let the wizard fill the niche of the utility character - always useful, instead of the all powerful character he was. This leaves a lot more room for powerful non-casters, or non-casters that don't have to specialize into melee brutes to be effective.

Let the player who wants to play a blaster in 5e give up some of the utility, making you sacrifice if you want to be a specialist. If they do, I think there will be easier for players to make well-rounded characters instead of the typical specialists you got in 3.5.

... Personally, I much prefer playing the generalist, but I only think it's ok if I stay within 70-80% effectiveness of the specialist [in their specialized field]. If the delta is too large, I would rather play a specialist.

 

[N'raac]

I think the most interesting part of your post here is the number of monsters that have a viable ranged alternative. I don't think there are many monsters in that class, and it's one of the reasons that I prefer playing a specialized melee character instead of a melee/ranged hybrid.

Here again, the mix of opponents matters. And the hybrid can do more than just charge forward or wait while the enemy charges forward.

This is only true for the non-casters though. For casters in 3.5 you often had so strong options that the need for specialization is a lot lower. It's one of the reasons the blaster is a good alternative in 3.5, even if the save-or-die monkey is better (both mixing in utility spells).

Specialization by school was pretty common, but that still left lots of room for spells of various functions. Dropping Evocation, at the extreme, still leaves direct damage spells available.

Anyway, I don't see any problem with them reducing the blasting power in 5e compared to 3.5, making it more in line with 4e. Instead let the wizard fill the niche of the utility character - always useful, instead of the all powerful character he was. This leaves a lot more room for powerful non-casters, or non-casters that don't have to specialize into melee brutes to be effective.

Let the player who wants to play a blaster in 5e give up some of the utility, making you sacrifice if you want to be a specialist. If they do, I think there will be easier for players to make well-rounded characters instead of the typical specialists you got in 3.5.

... Personally, I much prefer playing the generalist, but I only think it's ok if I stay within 70-80% effectiveness of the specialist [in their specialized field]. If the delta is too large, I would rather play a specialist.

It doesn't seem unreasonable that the generalist would be, say, 75% as effective as a specialist in that specialized field. That makes the specialist 1/3 more effective in that area. How much effectiveness should the specialist lose in other areas as compared to the generalist? A similar drop means the specialist is what, 75% as effective as a generalist, or maybe half as effective as a specialist in the other area. That seems a very wide spread. The tradeoffs have to be reasonable, and this could work if the intent is that specialists be real specialists - a lot better at their specialty area, but their non-specialty areas suffer greatly, and become pretty situational.

If everyone keeps utility spells, and the specialty areas are broad (eg. Blasting as opposed to a Fire Blast specialist), this could create specialists that feel very different from generalists, which would be an interesting dynamic. It does beg the question where the sorcerer and the dabblers in arcane magics fit into the mix, but ripple effects are unavoidable.

 

[JasonZZ]

That is one thing I always hated about 3.5. Buff buff buff and the players really screamed at the DM if the monsters did not serve themselves on a platter once buffing was done.

There's a legitimate complaint there, though. The monsters not serving themselves on a platter with buffs implies that they would be unbeatable without; it makes a cleric (or other buffer) mandatory, and a team of them better than a mixed team.

 

[Dausuul]

There's a legitimate complaint there, though. The monsters not serving themselves on a platter with buffs implies that they would be unbeatable without; it makes a cleric (or other buffer) mandatory, and a team of them better than a mixed team.

It's only a legitimate complaint if you assume the DM is planning the adventure without knowledge of the party's capabilities. Most DMs I know get a feel for what the PCs can handle, then ratchet up the threat level until it matches that, because otherwise it's boring as heck for all concerned.

 

[N'raac]

It's only a legitimate complaint if you assume the DM is planning the adventure without knowledge of the party's capabilities. Most DMs I know get a feel for what the PCs can handle, then ratchet up the threat level until it matches that, because otherwise it's boring as heck for all concerned.

Yes and no - it begs the question whether the "20% of party resources" an equal CR encounter uses up is assumed to include Buff spells (in which case the PC's should have them). This is more a flaw in the CR system, though - I remember a CR in a Dungeon monster being justified as "well, yeah, it has lots of hp for its 5 CR, but it's likely to get smacked with a Lightning Bolt or Fireball before it closes". Really? Even if the party's arcane caster is a L5 sorcerer? The CR assumptions aren't well documented in the rules, so who's to say my GM is applying those CR's appropriately?

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

I think the most interesting part of your post here is the number of monsters that have a viable ranged alternative. I don't think there are many monsters in that class, and it's one of the reasons that I prefer playing a specialized melee character instead of a melee/ranged hybrid.

I think this is an important point - the more viable ranged monsters there are, the more valuable a ranged (blasting) character is. This is something else 4E did well - added a specific monster role for ranged combat and then included a bunch of them in the books. In our games there is usually some ranged exchange of fire going on as well as melee for quite a bit of the battle.

Earlier editions were better than 3E at this too - without stats one of the easy ways to customize monsters was to give them different equipment. There was no reason to not give a gnoll a bow when you didn't have to calculate his Dex or feats or anything else into the math - he used the same 2+ HD column to hit with a bow as he did anything else. Then 3E comes along and while giants can still throw rocks they have half of the hit bonus that they do in HTH.

I notice in Next that the hit bonuses for melee and ranged attacks are much closer together for a given creature and most creatures have a melee and a ranged ability built-in. I'd say that's a positive move for the blasting wizard.

 

[N'raac]

Oddly, party size influences this as well. Blasting is far more effective if there are lots of opponents (a couple dozen trolls, rather than just a couple) since they all take damage. After 1e/2e, monster hp rose, and monster and character melee damage rose a lot, but spell damage largely stayed about the same. Fewer monsters taking less of their total hp per hit made blasting less effective. A larger PC team also makes multiple target buffs a lot more desirable. Giving everyone +1 to hit in melee is a lot more effective if you have a group of 7, 4 of whom are melee attackers, than a group of 4, only two of whom are melee attackers. Smaller enemy groups make single target spells (which tend to have more effect on their single target than an equal level spell has on each member of a group) more valuable.

A lot of assumptions have to be made to "balance" things - and the further we stray from those assumptions, the further the balance tends to shift out of place.