Well, if your DM is going to allow a 5 foot wide spell to hold a 10 foot gap, then yes, your wizards will do better.
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D&D 5E Low Level Wizards Really Do Suck in 5E
- Thread starter KarinsDad
- Start date
Well, if your DM is going to allow a 5 foot wide spell to hold a 10 foot gap, then yes, your wizards will do better.
It's just how True Strike works, ""On your next turn, you gain advantage on your first attack roll against the target, provided that this spell hasn't ended.".
Only one concentration spell at a time and the moment the caster casts a second concentration spell, the first one ends. True Strike has explicit wording in about when it does not work.
transtemporal
Explorer
I dunno if wizards have ever been fun to play at low level tbh. I always remember needing to piggyback off my comrades until 5th and 6th level at which point they kinda became fun, and eventually ruled the roost.
I agree. At least for single targets. Its only when wizards start saying "I want to deal twice the damage of everyone else... and I want to deal that damage to every creature in a 30ft radius!" that I start to balk a bit. I remember the days of maximised room-clearers... would rather not have a return to those days.
Cannyjiggit
First Post
Who said anything about the DM creating perfect enemy placements? This is players (sometimes) trying to work together to get the best out of each other. The fighter types try to make themselves targets without letting anything past, the rest of us try to be in the most advantageous positions we can for what we do best. I know the paladins protection fighting style so try to position myself next to him if I'm getting up close and personal for whatever happens next. It doesn't always work but one or other of us often gets some benefit from trying to work together.
Our DM is one of the most tactically astute people I know. He has won a number of wargaming awards and competitions in the past but he is also an excellent roleplayer and doesn't allow monsters/NPCs to learn from things they have not seen/experienced. In most scenarios if characters make themselves a target, the melee types on the other side will take the opportunity to swamp them. It worked best against a swarm of giant rats, but then the giant rats in our campaign aren't tactically aware other than they know swarming on things kills them faster
As would ours be (and often are anyway) if we didn't try to work together. You'll note I said TRY. This doesn't always happen, the fighter has missed attacks that could have been had trying to get enemies grouped together and yes in large featureless rooms it is impossible to make any sort of choke point.
As for the last scenario, I can categorically tell you that whilst technically not breaking any rules of the game, that is not how fights happen. I practice HEMA with friends and if you tried to force your way between 2 of us standing a few feet apart you would be in a whole world of pain. Of course if you run everything in exact multiple of 5 feet then maybe there would be space
In any event, if you are not prepared to accept other peoples testimony of how these useless spells you have can actually be rather useful then I would suggest you talk to your DM about it instead and find a class you will be happy with. I'm certainly happy as a light domain cleric using some of the spells you dislike and my wife is also happy with her wizard. Maybe we're looking for different things from the game though
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Cannyjiggit
First Post
Again, game rules combined with logic. If there is a 2.5 foot gap between a wall and a massive ball of magical fire and characters can only travel single file in a 5 foot space then if they can get through at all they will surely be slowed, therefore treat as difficult terrain and 50% movement. The DM decided that the area covered would mean characters/creatures would have to be accutely aware of the rules to avoid ending up in the area of effect and so allowed movement past it at full speed but with some chance of being hurt. We don't actually know what this chance is yet as neither the players nor the kobolds tried it. I suspect half usual damage with a save for none but that is yet to be seen.
Technically by the rules of course, I couldstroll right through the middle of it and take no damage whatsoever as long as I end up at least 5 feet from the edge. Everyone thought this was absurd.
I do not recall feeling so "less useful" in earlier editions. Is it possible that the other classes are "more useful" in 5E (10+ points of damage would have been more rare in 1E to 3E, it happens from one or more PCs in the group nearly every single round now)?
Granted, my memory is weak with age, but even so, I remember having a lot of fun with wizards. It has always been my favorite class until now. Maybe I should have taken the Sleep spell.
When I look at Scorching Ray and envision a lucky two rounds hitting with 6D6 damage on round one Scorching Ray and D8 damage on round two with Chill Touch, I think "Wow, I can do 26.5 average points of damage". I then realize that with using a once per encounter ability, the Fighter can do two attacks for a total of 4D6 (reroll ones)+6+D8 or 26.2 points of damage and had advantage on one of the two attacks.
I had 4 attack rolls to make, he had 2 attack rolls one having advantage. I used up a Daily spell. He used up an Encounter ability. We did the same effective damage. He can do this 4 times between short rests, I can do this 4 times per day (if I am lucky enough to hit that often).
Granted, he is in melee, but still. I do something that for my PC is amazing and for his PC is fairly pedestrian with minor resource use. It happens many times a day for him day in and day out, I'm lucky if I roll great and it happens once per day for my PC out of 4 attempts. And the Rogue does this level of damage in two rounds about half of the time without using up any resources.
Not feeling the wizard love here from WotC.
Agreed. I don't need to shine all of the time. I just need to contribute somewhat when I cast a spell. It often doesn't happen.
Me: "I cast Fog Cloud around us to protect the other PCs."
DM: "It doesn't help. The enemies knew which hexes the PCs were in and the spell doesn't affect their to hit at all. Advantage cancels out disadvantage. And, the PCs are now at disadvantage to attack."
Me: "WT?"
I would allow difficult terrain past the sphere on either side. No damage, just a squeeze. The spell doesn't actually have the attributes that your DM is assigning to it. One more square of movement per NPC.
Yes, if your DM uses his "common sense" to make your spells stronger, they will be stronger.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
You might find this guide helpful to sprucing up your wizard a bit. I know we've played the game a lot, and our Wizard player is not encountering the issues you're encountering:
http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4157906
http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4157906
Yup. Again, if you adjudicate with some set of real world aesthetics that the rules do not actually have, then yes, a lot more "players talk the DM into gaining an edge" things are possible in the game.
I will point out that we use hexes in our game, so some of the stuff that you talk about just do not work for our table.
Plus, there are always examples where "Woo Hoo, the wizard did great.". In 20 encounters and about 60 to 70 rounds, I've seen it happen about 5 times. Maybe.
I'm starting to thing that the main way to shine with a low level 5E wizard is with the Sleep spell or with Illusions. Everything else is just so situational and subpar. Even good sounding spells like Grease are SO situational, In a small area, yeah, Grease can help. In a large area? Really situational.
My wife has a Bard and took Silence as her second level spell. She took Silence for one reason and one reason only. To slow up enemy spell casters. That's it. She faced off against an enemy Cleric and could not even cast the spell. The cleric was some distance back in a larger room (about 60x80) and all the cleric would have had to do each round was move out of the area of effect. My wife would have had to cast the spell 3 times to guarantee a result.
The main purpose of the spell historically in D&D, totally defeated by the 5E rules. And yes, if the DM rolls for a random direction for the Cleric to move (and ignores the fact that the DM knows where the spell effect is) and my wife would have known to not center the spell on the Cleric, it could have prevented the Cleric from casting for a single round. But still, that's a stretch. The spell is farily situational. It only works real well if the enemy cannot move 25 feet and get out of it (like in a smaller room with no exits on the other side). Unfortunately for my wife, that was not the case that day. She had gone out of her way to handle this one situation and the one time it happens, the spell is for all intents and purposes useless because WotC nerfed 5E spells.
Edit note: Silence is a concentration spell that cannot move, so it is impossible for a single caster to cast it 3 times. Not only has it been nerfed to not be cast on a foe with a save, and nerfed to no longer be movable, and nerfed to be broken with a concentration check, but also nerfed with regard to how often it can be cast. Once. It is now almost totally limited to small areas where the foe does not have an exit. If you can lock down a foe in a small area and prevent the PC casting Silence from getting damaged, Silence can work. Most of the time, it's more or less useless.
Silence is listed on the WotC Bard optimization page as light blue. It's nothing of the sort. It's so situational. If the party can lock down an enemy caster, then it can work. But there are so few ways to do that anymore. Most of the lockdowns have been nerfed. An enemy can sometimes disrupt a grappling Bard using it with a single weapon attack (and of course, a grappling Bard needs 2 actions to get this combo even started).
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Yup. Read that (multiple times). Lots of good advice in there. Not always practical, but well thought out.
Thanks.
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