D&D 5E Low Level Wizards Really Do Suck in 5E

[FormerlyHemlock]

On this, I'm more sympathetic to [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION]. Or rather, whatever the details about typical GMs targetting this or that, I think he's right to think that his group is not entirely typical in its tactical/mechanical acumen.

I think the same is definitely true of [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION], and [MENTION=6787650]emdw45[/MENTION], and from your posts I think it's true for you as well.

Thanks for the compliment, but I don't think it quite fits us. It might fit me if I were a player (uncommon lately), but my players' brilliance is more lateral than tactical. That is, less "the tactical value of covering chokepoints is obvious" and more "I've got this bag of devouring which sucks you in if you put a limb in, and I've got this gigantic chainworm eating my dead buddy that I want to run away from--hey DM, can I run up, hit the chainworm with Stunning Strike, and then put one of its limbs in the mouth of the bag?"

My group doesn't really understand the defensive importance of dispersed formations in 5E, and we don't have a healer at all any more let alone grok the superiority of Healing Word over Cure Wounds... but they are awesomely brilliant in their own way and we have fun.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is what aid says.

Your spell bolsters your allies with toughness and
resolve. Choose up to three creatures within range.
Each target’s hit point maximum and current hit points
increase by 5 for the duration.

Nothing about stacking issues. You cast the spell and it replaces the hit points. If you're already at zero hit points and can't go negative (which you can't in this game), then aid restores five hit points. It will pop you back up and you're good to go for your attacks. A 1st level healing word does 1d4+5 for an average of 7 to 8 hit points (3 points more if a life cleric). The difference between 5 and 7 when you're using the spell to pop someone up from being down isn't substantial.

In this game you can't healing word someone and cast anything else other than a cantrip. So I'm not sure why Karinsdad is arguing this is such a substantial benefit. At best the cleric can cast his sacred flame cantrip or hit with a weapon attack in any round he casts healing word. How often are you going to cast healing word that the loss of damage would in anyway seriously affect the outcome of a battle. Anytime you use a Bonus Action spell, you can only cast a cantrip in that round or make a weapon attack.

First off, we were comparing Healing Word with Cure Wounds earlier, not with Aid. You kind of shifted the goal post by now comparing Aid with Healing Word.


Second, one has to compare a Healing Word bumped to second level with an Aid spell due to the second level spell slot requirement.

And yes, +5 hit points to three PCs (if 3 PCs are within range) is typically better than +8 (or +10) hit points to one PC. But if someone is going to cast Aid, then doing it at the beginning of the adventuring day often makes more sense. It then costs zero actions to cast it in combat and all of your ally targets do not have to be within 30 feet.

And your comment that a caster can only cast a cantrip with Healing Word doesn't make sense. With Aid, a caster cannot cast anything else either and is limited even more (no attack action, no cantrip spell). Plus, we are talking Aid and Healing Word here. The two classes that have both of these are Cleric and Paladin. At least in our game, both the Cleric and the Paladin use melee attacks.

So an attack action plus 8+ heal of Healing Word > no attack action plus 15 heal of Aid in most circumstances (the main exception is if multiple PCs are unconscious). In fact for the Cleric, a cantrip plus Healing Word > Aid in many circumstances.


Now granted, at higher level slots, Aid starts pulling ahead. Even in a third level slot, Aid does 30 total to Healing Word's 11 or so. But as a general rule of thumb, it's still often better to cast it at the beginning of the adventuring day (i.e. if the PCs suspect that they are going to get into fights, just before going into the dungeon, or into the sewers, or goes to confront the Duke, or whatever, not immediately when the party wakes up).

The pros and cons of doing that are: Pros, no need to cast in combat, no chance of only 1 or 2 PCs being within 30 feet, PCs are Aided even if the Cleric goes unconscious, the extra Aid points might prevent a PC from going unconscious from a given attack or dying from a huge damaging attack; Cons, might not have the PCs who need it the most, if a PC gets hit with a huge damaging attack, the extra Aid points were not necessarily helpful at all.


However, Aid > Cure Wounds as well once one bumps it to level 3 (+10 to 3 PCs vs. ~+17 to 1 PC). Unless we are talking a single PC getting injured, Aid tends to work better than the Cure Wounds or Healing Words spells at higher level and is a bit irrelevant to the Healing Word vs. Cure Wounds discussion.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is what aid says.

Your spell bolsters your allies with toughness and
resolve. Choose up to three creatures within range.
Each target’s hit point maximum and current hit points
increase by 5 for the duration.

Nothing about stacking issues. You cast the spell and it replaces the hit points.

The no-stacking rule is on PHB 204. "The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine, however. Instead, the most potent effect--such as the highest bonus--from those castings applies while their durations overlap."

So if you have Aid on you already, the only way to get more Aid is to cast it at higher level.

 

[KarinsDad]

Is this the thread where we were talking about how wrong the DMG is to say that adding a few wizard levels to a dragon doesn't change its difficulty? Shield and Blur are transformative for dragons, and the above is exactly why. It's pretty much guaranteed to survive for twice as long if it has Shield access, even with only 2 or 4 first-level slots.

Dragons do not get spell slots like Wizards (if using the additional dragon spell rules in the MM which I double the number of).

Based on the MM rules, if the DM gives the Dragon multiple Shield spells, then yeah, it will typically survive longer.

If the DM gives the Dragon a single Shield spell (each spell can only be cast once per day) and a single spell x and a single spell y, etc., then the Shield spell increases the Dragon's survivability by less than a single round unless the Dragon happens to recharge his breath weapon during that additional partial round (in which case, Shield could seriously turn around combat). But a single extra round of non-breath weapon attacks is typically not going to make or break an encounter unless it is already really close (it'll make more of a difference for a dragon with lair actions).


Giving class levels to a Dragon (like 3E did with Sorcerer levels) bumps the CR of a dragon up really quick.


I did avoid giving both Shield and Blur to my last Dragon. I did not create the dragon to fight the PCs, I created the Dragon with spells I thought a Red Dragon would take (he took: feather fall, detect magic, invisibility, scorching ray, web, fireball, and two others I cannot remember off the top of my head). The dragon considered himself strong enough to win fights and had the extra fire spells because he likes fire and to fill in the range gap if his breath weapon wasn't recharged. I tried to "think like a dragon" (web is for temporarily sealing his emergency escape route out of his lair more than anything else, but it also has minor capture instead of kill uses) and even gave him spells increasing in level as he aged. I didn't give him the best defensive spells. I might do that for a cowardly white dragon in the future.


Note: I am all for dragons having spells. I think that the Dragons in the MM without spells are just big flying brutes.

 

[KarinsDad]

The no-stacking rule is on PHB 204. "The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine, however. Instead, the most potent effect--such as the highest bonus--from those castings applies while their durations overlap."

So if you have Aid on you already, the only way to get more Aid is to cast it at higher level.

Well, this might help explain why his group can take on mega-CR encounters.

If one has an Aid spell up for 5 current and 5 total, it should not even replace the 5 current if they are lost. That spell is still up.

Granted, at 0 hit points, a given DM might rule that it does, but in my mind, if the spell is still up, it's still up. The new 5 current hit points is not more potent than the original 5 current hit points, so it does not replace them. If a 5 point Aid were replaced with a 10 point Aid, I would then only allow the 0 hit point PC 5 additional current hit points. A different DM might give out the 10.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Dragons do not get spell slots like Wizards (if using the additional dragon spell rules in the MM which I double the number of).

...

Note: I am all for dragons having spells. I think that the Dragons in the MM without spells are just big flying brutes.

No, we're talking about the DMG monster-building rules where it says that adding wizard 5 to an adult red dragon (IIRC) didn't change its CR. In this scenario, it can cast the same spell multiple times.

I agree that dragons sorely need spells to be interesting. The variant dragon is standard in my campaign too, though the PCs have yet to meet one up-close.

P.S. Re: "think like a dragon", if I were a red dragon I'd make spells for dominating/fighting other dragons a priority, even moreso than terrorizing humans. So spells like Shield and Blink for defending against physical attacks are important, and so are espionage-type spells like Clairvoyance/Scrying. I also like Message for dragon wizards (who therefore get cantrips).

 

[KarinsDad]

No, we're talking about the DMG monster-building rules where it says that adding wizard 5 to an adult red dragon (IIRC) didn't change its CR. In this scenario, it can cast the same spell multiple times.

I agree that dragons sorely need spells to be interesting. The variant dragon is standard in my campaign too, though the PCs have yet to meet one up-close.

P.S. Re: "think like a dragon", if I were a red dragon I'd make spells for dominating/fighting other dragons a priority, even moreso than terrorizing humans. So spells like Shield and Blink for defending against physical attacks are important, and so are espionage-type spells like Clairvoyance/Scrying. I also like Message for dragon wizards (who therefore get cantrips).

Ah. I'm not sure it was in this thread. There are rules to add spells to dragons in a sidebar.

I'm not keen on adding class features.

A Dragon with 5 levels of fighter which can get an extra attack in and can also parry attacks and give advantage/extra damage to a given attack would also be pretty tough.


And obviously adding class levels to a monster is often going to affect its CR.

A Dragon that can heal itself is tougher than one which cannot. A Dragon that can go invisible can escape easier than one that cannot.


As for thinking like a Dragon, I would generally agree with you. This is a Red Dragon that was stuck in Undermountain since it was very young. It's first spell was Feather Fall (a fairly obvious pick for many dragons) and many of the rest were due to its inability to escape its current location (which consisted of quite a few caverns / areas, but it was still trapped, its "escape route" did not allow it to actually escape to the surface). It didn't need defensive or Charm type spells to intimidate the local Ogres that worked for it, even when it was younger. Or at least that was how my thoughts went at the time. It had gotten attacked by adventurers once, part of its backstory and explained why it had Red Dragonscale armor, a potion of fire resistance, a potion of extra healing, and some other minor magic plus part of the treasure in its lair. It had defeated the "adventurers" that had purposely come looking for it, so it then devised traps for future adventurers, just in case. The Red Dragonscale armor is the hook for one of the PCs that went into Undermountain, so the PCs did eventually find it.

 

[keterys]

It doesn't have to stack. It replaces. When at zero hit points, the five from the maximum hit points is gone. If you're using it to get people back up from zero, it works fine. Sure, saving a 1st level slot isn't bad.

Expect table variation there.

Mind you, I'd also expect table variation on what happens to someone with an aid spell on them, takes damage, then has the aid dispelled.

At lower level the cleric hides. As we get higher, the cleric has more hit points and can stay in melee range.

Honestly, we found the opposite to be true. At low level, the cleric is as tough or tougher as anyone else, and the monsters have fewer options. At higher level, the monsters have more mobility, more damage, more AE, etc.

Clerics obviously don't always heal. The reality is we don't always do things one way. I imagine your (and every other) group is the same. It's a matter of assessing what needs to be done at a certain point in time that is most important.

Ayep.

Your party must be quite large to hold multiple tactical points. We can manage two at the most with five unless we're using a wall spell, then maybe three if we seal one off with a wall or similar impediment.

Not really - varying number of people show up. Always at least 3, sometimes 4, sometimes 5. We just had a player change, so I suspect 5 and 6 will be more normal rather than the 4 that was more normal before.

But, really, that's kinda the point. The party is stretched thin as a general rule, with more things to do, but fewer raw numbers. We tried the whole "fight the entire orc tribe of 40+ orcs at once" thing, but honestly we found that the game gets really really boring after a couple rounds of that. Your mileage clearly varies.

Lower level encounters allow for less combat healing.

Again, experience differs. We had to use more combat healing at low level than high level.

Unless you're using a higher level spell slot. Then the healing gap is quite a bit worse. You seem to be using healing word at 1st level all the time using weeble-wobble heals. Our DM killed that tactic. Unless you do use it with higher level slots.

The difference is 2 per spell level. So, when I say the difference is fairly minor I really do mean over the entire course of the spell. 4 or 6 hp difference is less than a single hit's difference. Depending on the type of combat, that might round in your favor, and it might not.

And, to reiterate, I'm just talking about the spell Cure Wounds. Aid and Mass Cure Wounds are different stories. If you gave Cure Wounds just slightly more oomph, I'd even be on board with it, but otherwise _for most groups_, it's misleading advice that could get them in trouble.

The most trouble I've ever seen groups have with D&D is when they overfocused on defense and healing, and just couldn't take care of threats. Attrition starts out in favor of the PCs, but numbers and hp pools almost always go to the monsters. Your group is not in that boat, but many others get there.

I design dragons specifically to be epic fights meaning they will last as in not die by the third round. If you have a party capable of outputting 500 points a round, you will fight a dragon with 5000 hit points.

I've been there (see the work I did for Epic 4E LFR), but that's not a stance I feel works in 5E. Give the characters more interesting options and I can be on board, but otherwise it just devolves to mathing the time away for me.

 

[sithramir]

I'm surprised to hear a sell for cure wounds over healing word. At lower levels the ability to attack the same round, have range, not move, etc is huge.

I don't understand how the cleric isn't forced into melee thus making cure wounds hard to use in combat.

However at higher levels with spirit guardians up I definitely see cure wounds having more use because you have other bonus actions to use. I use a bard so being able to do small healing while attacking or staying out of melee is huge. Maybe as a cleric its a bit different.

But I only think of healing as bringing the PC back up because that lost round of attack you give up "can" be huge depending on the foe.

 

[Staffan]

I'll grant you the medusa and the werebear as I wasn't looking at CR.

But, do you say the same for the lich? A Mummy Lord?

The lich needs a bit of softening up before coming into PWK range. Not much, but a bit. It also has counterspell to avoid it.

The mummy lord is CR 15. If a 17th+ level party runs into one, it's either meant to be a cakewalk, or part of a larger encounter. In the former case, taking it out in a single round is how things are meant to be, and using a 9th level spell on it is a bit of a waste. In the latter, well, you only defeated part of the encounter using your most powerful magic, so again I don't see the problem.

Also, both these monsters have features that allow them to return to unlife unless the PCs find their particular weakness.

Sure, easy or medium ones. But hard or deadly ones? Is a lich a medium encounter for a 4 PC party of level 17 adventurers? No, it's deadly, but it can be taken out in round 1 or 2. Two Rakshasa or two Vampires goes from a hard encounter to an easy encounter in the first round.

You could have gotten much the same effect with a wall spell of some sort, by splitting the encounter in two, and at a much lower cost than using a 9th level spell. Of which you have one per day, unlike in 3e where a 20th level wizard would probably have 5-6.

And in most cases, players do not know their opponents' hit points. They have no way of knowing that they just need to get one good shot in on the lich before putting it in PWK range. That makes its use essentially random, though in a different way than using die rolls.