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

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Once a feat is selected, you can't change it easily. If you decide to take Weapon Focus, Specialization, and the Greater WF/WS feats, you've invested a large chunk of resources into a single type of weapon without the ability to apply them to anything else you find. (Unless you happen to be a Warblade, who can do that.)

I'm not talking about changing feats or heavily investing in them - just that with a magic bow, maybe a +1 stat bonus, and at most a feat or two like weapon focus a fighter can keep a bow in his toolkit.

If you choose to specialize in two weapons, say the Greatsword and Longbow, not only do you have to pump three stats (Str, Dex, Con), but you have to buy into at least two different feat chains. This means that when you need to use a Greatsword, you're not doing it as well as someone who spent all their feats on Greastwording. A similar problem occurs with archery, which you need to spend a lot of feats on in order to be functional. (Though having a ranged option is never a bad idea, just not necessarily an effective one.)

We could, of course, test this out with an example build. Fortunately, I have one. What monsters could such a fighter be expected to face and "tank" in a classic 4 person party?

I don't think you have to pump Dex to keep a bow useful. I don't think you need 10 feats to make archery functional - you don't need precise shot or rapid shot or shot on the run to contribute at long range - with a lot of those short range feats, if the target is close enough to qualify for these, you should be charging it with your greatsword anyway. What you're describing would be trying to max out in two weapons and I agree that's tough to do. I'm just talking about the many times that I saw fighters see their signature weapon as the only one they could use, and that even in 3E it's not that difficult to keep something like a bow useful, even if it's not maxed. If you can shoot with a similar bonus to say a Cleric, you can still contribute to the fight, even if the flying beastie refuses to come within melee range. Without it, all you're really good for is providing a cover bonus for the spellslinger : )

In Next, I'd say a tanking fighter takes "Tactical Warrior" for their first feat regardless of weapon choice.

I'm shooting (heh) way off topic here - the original topic was wizards in Next, anyway, and blasting wizards at that. I've probably said enough on that topic, though the long-ranged shooting wizard might benefit from the Shield Master feat given the way things are written now. I'm assuming that will change down the road but it's interesting for now.

 

[Dandu]

But if you just keep a +1 bow on hand, without pumping Dex, you're going to have three attacks at +17/+12+9 for 1d8+5 damage each, going by my example character.

Let's try to quantify this contribution to an encounter: What monsters would one reasonably expect to fight at a range at level 12, and how much AC and HP do they have?

Offhand, we have the following core CR 12 monsters.

Adult Brass Dragon - AC 27, 152 HP, casts as a 5th level spellcaster, which could augment its defensive or offensive abilities.

More Dragons.

Colossal Monstrous Scorpion - AC 26, 300 HP.

11 Headed Cryo or Pyro Hydra - 21 AC, 118 HP. Not much defense, but will have fast healing 21.

Abyssal Greater Basilisk - 17 AC, 189 HP.

Leonal - 27 AC, 114 HP. DR 10/Evil

Roper, Frost Worm, Purple Worm, Elder Black Pudding - Seems unlikely you'd fight these at a range, given their environments/methods of attack. Archery causes Black Puddings to split.

I'm just not sure picking up a bow and going at it will do much at higher levels. You'd just end up annoying most enemies of your CR.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

But if you just keep a +1 bow on hand, without pumping Dex, you're going to have three attacks at +17/+12+9 for 1d8+5 damage each, going by my example character.

Let's try to quantify this contribution to an encounter: What monsters would one reasonably expect to fight at a range at level 12, and how much AC and HP do they have?

-snip-

I'm just not sure picking up a bow and going at it will do much at higher levels. You'd just end up annoying most enemies of your CR.

Again I don't want to get into fighter builds in a wizard discussion, but I can keep it simple: At 12th a Cleric (or rogue) is a +9/+4 BAB. A fighter is at +12/+7+2. Assuming similar magic weapons, the lack of a dex bonus drops the fighter's bow shot down to being about as effective as a Cleric with a +3/+4 stat bonus on his attacks. Again, this isn't his primary attack, but if the cleric has any chance at all to hurt it, so does the fighter using his backup weapon. It's not optimal, no, but if all you have is a greatsword and the target is 100' in the air or across a chasm and throwing spells or ranged attacks you have zero chance to hurt it.

Maybe it was just my neck of the woods but I used to see this kind of specialization = one trick pony problem a lot and I'm hoping Next thins it out.

 

[N'raac]

@N'raac I think you have many good points, but I do think it's more a fault of the way the game is designed than player decisions. There is so little overlap in what's useful for ranged/melee that trying to make a character that is good at both ends you up with a character that's mediocre at both instead. Take Ranger's for instance, you get to choose archery OR two-weapon fighting.

Yes, clearly, as note near the end of this pretty solid guide at http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/comm...monks-lab/test2/treantmonk-s-guide-to-rangers, trying to be both a melee and ranged combatant is a poor choice. He doesn't use 2 weapon fighting (and he's Pathfinder), but he seems a pretty effective character build.

The big question is defining "good", "mediocre" and "overpowered".

The funny thing is that my last 3.5 character had the following starting stats: str 14, dex 12, con 14, int 10, wis 14, cha 14 (+spellcasting prodigy feat, which more or less gives +2wis). It worked out really well, mostly because codzilla is so overpowered to begin with that nerfing yourself a bit with the stats isn't really a big problem. If more classes had this option - to be well rounded - I think 5e will be a success. Heavy specialization is something I think they should try to avoid when designing classes.

My first 3rd Ed character was a Spiked Chain Fighter with, IIRC, STR 16, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 14, Wis 10, Ch 8. He spent 3 skill points per level on Craft (Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Blacksmith) and focused feats on combat expertise, improved Trip and Disarm, and the Dodge chain. He may have had Weapon Focus, definitely not Specialization. He was certainly not optimized for damage. His job, as he developed, became "Get the Rogue a flanking bonus". He did all right.

I never said it was odd, I was just making an observation that the hyper-specialization was mainly a fighter issue.

For Rogues, finesse weapons mitigated the two-stat issue in a lot of cases.

Doesn't help damage, although for a Rogue the actual weapon damage is a small part of a Sneak Attack.

Martial classes did have a combat attribute that is the same for both melee and ranged: the attack bonus. I don't think the issue was being equally good at both options as much as it was being extremely good at one and forgetting the other one existed. If I have a greatsword fighter it makes sense to focus on str and take wpn focus & wpn spec in that weapon, but picking up a magic/strength bow is still a good idea at a minimum, even if their dex mod is zero. If it comes up semi-frequently, then using a feat for WF:Bow is an easy upgrade too.

Exactly. At L10, your BAB is +10. A 14 to 20 STR is a +3 difference - that doesn't seem make or break by comparison. The Mighty Cleric has a +7 BAB - the exact same 3 point difference - and he's viewed as overpowered. Clearly, +3 doesn't make that substantial a difference.

Once a feat is selected, you can't change it easily. If you decide to take Weapon Focus, Specialization, and the Greater WF/WS feats, you've invested a large chunk of resources into a single type of weapon without the ability to apply them to anything else you find. (Unless you happen to be a Warblade, who can do that.)

Yes. You have made the choice to be hyper-invested in a single weapon, and you have spent FOUR feats on it to get +2 to hit and +4 damage. If you wanted to be more versatile, I can think of a lot of places you could invest those feats. Would your fighter be just useless with +2 less to hit and +4 less damage? If we drop it to +1/+2, he can have the same +1/+2 with his Longbow. If +1/+2 is so valuable, why isn't it valuable on the bow?

If you choose to specialize in two weapons, say the Greatsword and Longbow, not only do you have to pump three stats (Str, Dex, Con), but you have to buy into at least two different feat chains. This means that when you need to use a Greatsword, you're not doing it as well as someone who spent all their feats on Greastwording. A similar problem occurs with archery, which you need to spend a lot of feats on in order to be functional. (Though having a ranged option is never a bad idea, just not necessarily an effective one.)

Emphasis added. True. That makes the question, which I thought I posed above, where is the baseline? Maybe the person spending all their feats on Greatswording deserves to get caught short by foes who fight at range, or challenges that rely on something other than combat. He chose to spend all his feats on Greatswording, so one interpretation is "He is competent at Greatswording and sucks at everything else". Another would be that he is overspecialized, and that the guy who has 2 or 4 less STR, devotes half his feats to Greatswording(5 at L10), and the rest to Archery (say 3) and to skills (the other 2 at 10th level, unless he's human) is very good at Greatswording (or melee if he didn't pick "only with one weapon" feats), good at archery and competent at combat with other weapons. And we don't feel sorry for the guy who dumped all else to focus exclusively on the Greatsword - he chose to be a one trick pony.

I'm not talking about changing feats or heavily investing in them - just that with a magic bow, maybe a +1 stat bonus, and at most a feat or two like weapon focus a fighter can keep a bow in his toolkit.

If he wants Dodge (or Whirlwind attack) he needs a 13 DEX, so 14 gets you that extra +1.

I'm shooting (heh) way off topic here - the original topic was wizards in Next, anyway, and blasting wizards at that. I've probably said enough on that topic, though the long-ranged shooting wizard might benefit from the Shield Master feat given the way things are written now. I'm assuming that will change down the road but it's interesting for now.

I think the real topic is "we want blasting to be competitive with other Wizard options", and it has grown to "we want non-Wizard and Wizard options to be competitive". Maybe "ultrafocused" is well beyond competitive in the focused area, and is not competitive in flexibility - and maybe that's what we should be aiming for.

But if you just keep a +1 bow on hand, without pumping Dex, you're going to have three attacks at +17/+12+9 for 1d8+5 damage each, going by my example character.

Let's try to quantify this contribution to an encounter: What monsters would one reasonably expect to fight at a range at level 12, and how much AC and HP do they have?

Offhand, we have the following core CR 12 monsters.

Adult Brass Dragon - AC 27, 152 HP, casts as a 5th level spellcaster, which could augment its defensive or offensive abilities.

With those to hit bonuses, I need a 10/15/20 to hit. Not loving my second and third shots. Maybe I should keep moving to stay between it and my caster friend, while harrying it with a bit of damage each round. Or maybe I should use that Rapid Shot feat. If I fire one arrow, I have a 55% shot at one hit. A full attack action without RS gives me a 70% chance at hitting at least once, while Rapid Shot bumps that to 77%. or I Delay and hope it comes in to attack... Rapid Shot gives me just shy 11 average damage per round - not huge, but way better than the 0 I get if I just stand there and whine that it won't come in range of my hyperspecialized melee brute. What if I dump the three L1 archery feats in favour of WF, WS and GWF, Longbow? Now I have an extra +2 to hit and damage, and 82% likely to get at least one hit per round. Average damage now 11.5 instead of 9.5, so I average 13.8 damage per round. Maybe I get rid of Seeking in favour of an elemental Burst damage to get some more damage in when forced to archery.

Even if it lands, how useful are your investments in Combat reflexes, Trip, Sunder or Bull Rush? How useful is Precise Shot for a melee guy?

More Dragons.

Colossal Monstrous Scorpion - AC 26, 300 HP.

11 Headed Cryo or Pyro Hydra - 21 AC, 118 HP. Not much defense, but will have fast healing 21.

Abyssal Greater Basilisk - 17 AC, 189 HP.

Hitting a lot more with these lower AC's.

Leonal - 27 AC, 114 HP. DR 10/Evil

That DR is problematic. That Burst could help a bit here, but this one will be tough without aligned weapons.

I'm just not sure picking up a bow and going at it will do much at higher levels. You'd just end up annoying most enemies of your CR.

It's a lot more effective than whining "my melee brute is useless", though. Quite a bit more fun as well.

That said, Pathfinder's Deadly Aim feat (Power Attack for ranged weapons) should be imported to level the field between range and melee.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Not sure whether it has been covered earlier, but I hope that this time they will attempt to balance evokers damage vs others per adventure rather than per encounter. Per-encounter balancing tends to over rate the benefit of area attack spells vs lots of enemies going by 3e and 4e IMO.

Now, one thing that will improve the general situation for wizards in 5e is the way that you prepare spells then choose how you will use them amongst your slots (and that many spells can be used across many slots too)

I, like the OP, would very much like to be confident that fireball and lightning bolt will remain effective choices for wizards.

I also hope that wizards won't be overshadowed in the blasting department by clerics and Druids again (three words. Incense. Of. Meditation).

 

[Blackbrrd]

At level 1 the difference between a specialized an non-specialized character isn't so big (in 3.5), the to-hit and damage is about the same. The delta is maybe +2 to hit/damage due to worse stats and lack of feats. Later on it gets worse.

From your posts above, you might lack those +1hit/+2damage from feats*, +2hit/damage from stats** and you are maybe lacking +1hit/damage because you have lower enhancement bonuses to your weapon. You will probably have to get a lower stat boosting item as well, so +1hit/damage there as well. Total: +5hit/+6damage. I think the delta will be even higher.

Let's say an optimized character has a 70% chance of hitting and do 1d8+16 damage for a dpr of 14. The unoptimized character gets a 45% chance of hitting and does 1d8+10 damage for a dpr of 7.

Most of the problem in my opinion comes from the progression while the leveling. The delta is there to begin with, but it's maybe 20%. Later on the gap widens to something like 50% that's just harsh. A better game design is something I think is needed. They have done something about it in 5e though, removing the assumed magic item scaling, and stopping it at +3. That was probably accounting for half the delta in the equation above.

In 4e they added an optional rule for magic items, where you get inherent bonuses to hit/damage/defenses at certain levels (that didn't stack with magic items) and they did away with stat boosting items or magic. I am going to use the inherent bonuses for my next 4e game (if I get there) and try to make finding a magic item really magical again.

*getting single specialization instead of double
**getting 2x 16 instead of a 20

 

[N'raac]

From your posts above, you might lack those +1hit/+2damage from feats*, +2hit/damage from stats** and you are maybe lacking +1hit/damage because you have lower enhancement bonuses to your weapon. You will probably have to get a lower stat boosting item as well, so +1hit/damage there as well. Total: +5hit/+6damage. I think the delta will be even higher.

Let's say an optimized character has a 70% chance of hitting and do 1d8+16 damage for a dpr of 14. The unoptimized character gets a 45% chance of hitting and does 1d8+10 damage for a dpr of 7.

Let's see...first off, I rarely use WF and WS because, frankly, +1 to hit isn't that huge, and +2 damage doesn't impress me much. +1 from the weapon? OK. Stat boosting? Maybe, maybe not. But one +6 item costs 36k vs 2 +4 items costing 16k, so let's use that. Where is the baseline? Do I need 14 dpr to be competitive, or is 7 good enough, and 14 overkill? The charaters don't exist in a vacuum. Your aproach, above, has much higher dpr in his area of expertise. How do the two characters compare in dpr against an opponent who stays out of range?

Let's look at Dandu's sample character instead. Let's divest of the three archery feats and the EWP so he can have WF and WS with longbow and Greatsword. We'll ditch Seeking as well, and get a Lightning Burst on the bow. Now his Melee is +20/+15/+10 for 2d6+13 and Range is +19/+14/+9 for 1d8+7 + 1d6. Dandu provided us with a number of CR 12 opponents for this fellow, and the best AC on the list was 27, so he has a 70% chance to hit (not 45%) with his first melee attack, and 65% with the bow. That's against the high AC equal CR opponent.

So, assuming full round actions and no criticals, that's 27 DPR in melee and 18 at range.

Now, let's specialize in the sword - we'll swap over the Longbow feats for greater WF and WS +1/+2), drop his DEX from 14 to 10 so we can bump STR up 2 (not 4, since he'd want that higher STR from the outset, and it costs more to bump that high stat under point buy), so that's +1/+1 and -2/-0. Ditch the gloves of DEX and the magic bow and he gets 12,800 gold back - not enough to upgrade his Belt of STR, but let's give him that one. So another +1/+1, and lose 1 to hit with the bow. Where does that leave us?

Looks like his melee is +23/+18/+13 for 2d6+17 and Range is +15/+10/+5 for 1d8+4. That pumps his melee dpr up to 45.6, and drops his ranged dpr to 5.95. Congrats - now he's considerably more effective in melee (he can get rid of that dragon in 4 rounds for sure, instead of 6 - assuming it lands. If it stays at range (and still assuming an investment in a bow that takes advantage of 18 STR), it will take 26 rounds (!) instead of 9 - hope he didn't pawn the cloak of resistance and the amulet of health to get that +6 STR belt. He's also a much more negligible threat, so a smart Dragon can leave him until the more effective targets are dead. If he didn't pawn the Boots of Speed, maybe he can at least run away...

Are there errors in my logic or my math?

 

[Blackbrrd]

Are there errors in my logic or my math?

I think your math looks ok. I do think the difference gets a even bigger when you get to layer on with feats like improved crititcal, power attack and use a two-handed weapon like falchion with 18-20x2 crit (or 15-20x2 with the feat). But, as a basic comparison I think it does a good job.

It does look good if you are a blaster wizard though. An empowered* scorching ray doing 1.5x3x4d6 damage with about 95% hit chance for a DPR against a single target at 60 is pretty decent. Attacking a single target is about as bad a situation you can get as a Wizard, and here the wizard will outshine even the "optimized" melee guy at it.

*Easy to do with a lesser empowered metamagic rod that costs 9k or one for maximize that costs 14k for even more damage, or just use some higher level spell slots. You have plenty at level 11 and later on with int of something like 26 with magic items you have so many spell slots you just don't care.

So, my original point still stands. The blaster wizard in 3.5 wasn't bad at all, even in unfavourable circumstances and that they have reduced one part of the quadratic scaling of 5e wizards is something I think will be good for the game.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Exactly. At L10, your BAB is +10. A 14 to 20 STR is a +3 difference - that doesn't seem make or break by comparison. The Mighty Cleric has a +7 BAB - the exact same 3 point difference - and he's viewed as overpowered. Clearly, +3 doesn't make that substantial a difference.

The cleric is considered overpowered because he doesn't care what his base attack is, he uses divine power to get a base attack equal to his caster level, using either persistent or quickened metamagic, on the second round you cast a quickened divine favour and lastly you might add a quickened rightous might as well. You burn spell slots, but end up being a better fighter than the fighter - and you can cast heal on yourself if need be.

My 3.5 cleric mentioned above often had such a high attack bonus from buff spells that he couldn't miss, especially if the opponents where spotted far away, allowing for buff time for spells like bless, prayer and so on. I remember fighting a dragon and I couldn't miss except on a 2 until I got to my third and forth attack.

It was a bit fun for the fighter with power attack too though, he had the feats and proficiencies to use a falchion with power attack and with the buffs (haste, prayer, bless, some spell from dragonlance), he usually used something like power attack 10, for 2d4+35 damage and a 15-20x2 crit range. Quite often he critted to-three times for 4d4+70 damage each time every round. A quite nice one-trick pony.

 

[N'raac]

The cleric is considered overpowered because he doesn't care what his base attack is, he uses divine power to get a base attack equal to his caster level, using either persistent or quickened metamagic, on the second round you cast a quickened divine favour and lastly you might add a quickened rightous might as well. You burn spell slots, but end up being a better fighter than the fighter - and you can cast heal on yourself if need be.

I always love the "spot them far away, buff for a few minute" tactic. With all that magic in the world, I'd expect a competent tactician to get "spotted" far away.

"What are they doing now?"
"Still gesturing and jabbering, sir - oh wait, they've stopped. Looks like they're headed this way."
"OK, men, pull back. We'll retreat back to the battleground we prepare earlier, five minutes back, while their spells dissipate."

If the PCs follow, great, we get to attack them on ground we prepared after their spells wear off. If not, we attack at their location, but still after their spells wear off. And that's without considering use of Dispels as the PC's approach. Good thing no one but PC's ever thinks of incorporating magic into their tactics...

I guess a 10th level spell slot for a persistent Divine Power should be no problem for most clerics...I also note that two of the three spells have had their benefits reduced, according to D&DWiki, so some of that is solved.

My 3.5 cleric mentioned above often had such a high attack bonus from buff spells that he couldn't miss, especially if the opponents where spotted far away, allowing for buff time for spells like bless, prayer and so on. I remember fighting a dragon and I couldn't miss except on a 2 until I got to my third and forth attack.

It was a bit fun for the fighter with power attack too though, he had the feats and proficiencies to use a falchion with power attack and with the buffs (haste, prayer, bless, some spell from dragonlance), he usually used something like power attack 10, for 2d4+35 damage and a 15-20x2 crit range. Quite often he critted to-three times for 4d4+70 damage each time every round. A quite nice one-trick pony.

Buffs that affect the entire group are great - they bump everyone's power, not just the cleric's. What kind of Feebleminded dragon just stands there and lets the obviously magically enhanced biped go to town on him, anyway?