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

[KarinsDad]

However a victim who believes themselves to be trapped in a cage, manacles, or behind a wall will NOT simply try to step through or leave the area, though they might attempt to break free from or through such an impediment. Since this latter usage limits movement, it also limits the victim's ability to kite and/or direct melee attacks at various PCs.

But not for a flying dragon (or any flying creature that does not have hover). The flying creature just flies through it by accident, or even if it slams on the brakes, it still falls through it.

 

[KarinsDad]

My group is very close to 15 now. They will be next session.

Wizards power comes from their versatility. They are the Rogue of the casters. They cannot win encounters with "save or die" effects as much (there's still a few spells in there), but they can effect the outcome of every battle significantly.

My Wizard player does like to complain from time to time that he doesn't do the damage a Paladin (or monsters) can do, but he doesn't realize he is ALWAYS effective and his spells have saved the parties bacon time and time again. Whether it be detect magic finding that harm trap, or leomunds hut protecting them from a night time ambush, wall of force allowing them to escape when badly hurt, or sunbeam blinding tough enemies in a BBEG fight.

Well, the thread here is about low level wizards, not 14th / 15th level wizards. If a 14th level wizard is not contributing, then that probably says something about the player. This is not necessarily true about a low level wizard, especially if the player does not just want to spam Sleep.

 

[Kikuras]

I remember playing low-level wizards that had to dive into combat to contribute because there was nothing else left to do (no spells). With a d4 hit dice, and DEX for AC. Not to mention the fact that you probably weren't going to do any good, but if you could take a hit and survive, or otherwise distract the enemy, you and your companions might live. Fire Bolt alone has removed the need for that kind of risk, and does a d10 where normally a wizard would be lucky to do a d6 in physical combat (higher chance to hit as well).

 

[DaveDash]

Well, the thread here is about low level wizards, not 14th / 15th level wizards. If a 14th level wizard is not contributing, then that probably says something about the player. This is not necessarily true about a low level wizard, especially if the player does not just want to spam Sleep.

Sounds like you have the low level Wizard confused with a low level Sorcerer.

 

[KarinsDad]

Sounds like you have the low level Wizard confused with a low level Sorcerer.

How so?

Have you actually played a low level wizard in a lot of situations? Even DMing a group with a wizard in it is not the same. As the DM, you have more knowledge of the situation and can sometimes come up with a plan that might work. As a player, one can just sit there and go: "Option A: nope, option B: nope", etc. At low level, the list of options tends to be short.

There is also the casualty of every battle. The plan. As a player of a low level wizard PC, I would sometimes think, "Ok, on this round I will do x and the next round, I will do y". So I do x and then suddenly the situation is changed so much that y is now out of the question. In fact, I have had situations where x was not suddenly a bad idea because of what other players have done since I did x.

As an example, we were in a tough fight, but we had one of the tough foes somewhat locked down. My PC was only second level, so he had only a few spells per day. I decided to move up and cast True Strike on the locked down tough foe, and then Witch Bolt (which btw, I have realized since then does not work anyway since it requires concentrating on two spells at the same time, if only for an instant of time). I figured that I could take out that foe in a few rounds with a single spell and free up other PCs to attack other NPCs. Since I had so few spells, I did not want to cast Witch Bolt and miss (and trust me, at that point in the career of the wizard, he missed a LOT on attack rolls). Suddenly, the situation changed so drastically that the wizard had to cast Fog Cloud the next round, or the party would have gotten wiped out. The action of casting True Strike was totally negated.

Granted, this type of thing can happen at higher level as well, but with the larger number of spells and spell slots available at higher level, the need to plan out for a longer period of time than just the next round is not as critical. There is almost always a viable spell at higher level and almost always plenty of spell slots to go around. This is not true at lower level. Total apples and oranges which is why I mentioned that a 14th level wizard is not the same beast at all.

 

[DaveDash]

How so?

Have you actually played a low level wizard in a lot of situations? Even DMing a group with a wizard in it is not the same. As the DM, you have more knowledge of the situation and can sometimes come up with a plan that might work. As a player, one can just sit there and go: "Option A: nope, option B: nope", etc. At low level, the list of options tends to be short.

There is also the casualty of every battle. The plan. As a player of a low level wizard PC, I would sometimes think, "Ok, on this round I will do x and the next round, I will do y". So I do x and then suddenly the situation is changed so much that y is now out of the question. In fact, I have had situations where x was not suddenly a bad idea because of what other players have done since I did x.

As an example, we were in a tough fight, but we had one of the tough foes somewhat locked down. My PC was only second level, so he had only a few spells per day. I decided to move up and cast True Strike on the locked down tough foe, and then Witch Bolt (which btw, I have realized since then does not work anyway since it requires concentrating on two spells at the same time, if only for an instant of time). I figured that I could take out that foe in a few rounds with a single spell and free up other PCs to attack other NPCs. Since I had so few spells, I did not want to cast Witch Bolt and miss (and trust me, at that point in the career of the wizard, he missed a LOT on attack rolls). Suddenly, the situation changed so drastically that the wizard had to cast Fog Cloud the next round, or the party would have gotten wiped out. The action of casting True Strike was totally negated.

Granted, this type of thing can happen at higher level as well, but with the larger number of spells and spell slots available at higher level, the need to plan out for a longer period of time than just the next round is not as critical. There is almost always a viable spell at higher level and almost always plenty of spell slots to go around. This is not true at lower level. Total apples and oranges which is why I mentioned that a 14th level wizard is not the same beast at all.

I have played a low level Wizard actually, and I party with a low level Sorcerer in another game.

And based on your criteria on what 'sucks' at low level, the Sorcerer is way worse, as they literally don't have any options other than spamming the same spells over and over, usually cantrips.

The problem isn't that low level Wizards suck, it's that your spell selection sucks. True Strike and Witch Bolt have to be some of the worst spells in the game.
Where's your find familiar spell cast as a ritua? If you had Find Familiar and an owl familiar, you could achieve the same thing as True Strike without wasting an action. That offers amazing utility in and out of combat, you can be a better scout than the Rogue. What about other ritual spells that don't consume spell slots (alarm, water breathing, detect magic, etc) that all have great utility while dungeoning? What about preparing spells that DON'T miss like Magic Missile? What about utilizing the best spell selection IN THE GAME (even at lower levels) to cast the right spell against the fight foe? Acid splash vs Dex save, Firebolt vs low AC, etc etc.

 

[KarinsDad]

I have played a low level Wizard actually, and I party with a low level Sorcerer in another game.

And based on your criteria on what 'sucks' at low level, the Sorcerer is way worse, as they literally don't have any options other than spamming the same spells over and over, usually cantrips.

Agreed.

The problem isn't that low level Wizards suck, it's that your spell selection sucks. True Strike and Witch Bolt have to be some of the worst spells in the game.

No doubt. It was a cool combo (when I thought it worked) and has some real potential when fighting a BBEG that the rest of the team has locked down for limited resources (especially for a wizard that did not have the Fire Bolt cantrip).

Witch Bolt does suck when fighting normal encounters, but when the wizard is doing D8 damage with his cantrips, it increase his overall damage by a lot when fighting a locked down BBEG. It's a specialty spell. In this scenario, it's 4.55 DPR round one, but 6.5 DPR every round after that (if it hit). That's slightly double the average DPR of a D8 cantrip (3.15) for a single first level spell.

Have a group of second level PCs fight a Troll and Witch Bolt suddenly shines as it partially auto-negates the Troll's regeneration. Magic Missile only negates the regeneration for a single round and then the caster is often stuck with lesser damaging cantrips again which are hit or miss. Sure, the Troll can (in many scenarios) back away from the caster (or even come attack the caster), but he eats up an OA from every front line melee PC doing so and at the same time, attacking the caster means that the Troll is not focusing fire (and is spreading out damage amongst more PCs). It's all about action economy.

Yup. A wizard with Fire Bolt could on some rounds negate a Troll's regeneration. Assuming the BBEG is a troll (and assuming the DM didn't create his own specialized type of troll). Other BBEGs? Not so much help.

Where's your find familiar spell cast as a ritual? That offers amazing utility in and out of combat, you can be a better scout than the Rogue. What about other ritual spells that don't consume spell slots (alarm, water breathing, detect magic, etc) that all have great utility while dungeoning? What about preparing spells that DON'T miss like Magic Missile? What about utilizing the best spell selection IN THE GAME (even at lower levels) to cast the right spell against the fight foe? Acid splash vs Dex save, Firebolt vs low AC, etc etc.

I did have Find Familiar. I did have Detect Magic. Neither of these really help out in a fight. Sure, the familiar can use the Help action which gives +4 or +5 equivalent to a fellow PC. But such a use of a familiar often means that the familiar gets destroyed in the fight and it costs 10 GP (not an inconsequential amount of money at low level) and a short rest (plus 10 minutes) to get it back. It's not as if wizards are not already spending a lot of gold on adding spells to their spell books (in our game, we had two wizards, so both of them were copying spells from each other at a considerable GP cost). Plus some DMs require that players buy the appropriate components for the spell ahead of time, so reacquiring a familiar at many tables might be limited to a certain number of times total when adventuring away from town.

Yes, the famiilar can be used (/abused) for Help actions and touch spells (course, some players roleplay their PCs that familiars are beloved companions to not be temporarily sacrificed like this). This means that the wizard cannot scout with his familiar and such until he gets it back. The familiar goes from being an available resource to being an expended resource.


Plus, how does one know in 5E (where combats are often 3 to 4 rounds if that) that a foe has a low Dex or a low AC? By the time someone rolls the same type of attack and rolls low and lets the player of the wizard know that a given foe is susceptible to a given attack. Yeah, mooks have low AC (but they also often have low Dex unless they are goblins). BBEGs tend to have high AC. Brutes, low Dex. There are sometimes indications, but spamming cantrips is often still boring because of the low damage. "Oh boy! I did 4 points of damage this round. Woo hoo!!!"

When a player rolls 1 or 2 total points of damage, it can be very anticlimatic. He actually hits and he often still does not contribute because the next PC who downs the foe would have still downed the foe without the extra 1 or 2 points of damage. zzzzzzzzzzzz

The issue is not using the same attack over and over again (melee classes do this all of the time). It's doing so for half the damage of other classes and feeling like the PC is not contributing much at all.

If that is enjoyable to you, great. Not my cup of tea. A lot of people write here on the boards that cantrips make spell casters fun. I find the opposite to be true. Just because you and I find different aspects of wizards to be fun (and unfun) do not mean that you are right and I am wrong. It means that our expectations and experiences are different.

In earlier versions of the game (pre-4E), wizards could not spam cantrips (or at least ones that did anything real). But if a foe failed a save (and in some editions/cases got past spell resistance), the spell contributed for multiple rounds of the encounter. The wizard contributed. In 5E with concentration and saves every round, the wizard does not seem to contribute much at all. Obviously, YMMV. And with concentration, the ability to combo spells is basically gone completely.

DM: "You want to buff the fighter and cast a non-instantaneous spell? HAHAHAHAHA You want to use two non-instantaneous spells at a time? What do you think this is? 1E to 4E???"

 

[Kikuras]

There is also the casualty of every battle. The plan. As a player of a low level wizard PC, I would sometimes think, "Ok, on this round I will do x and the next round, I will do y". So I do x and then suddenly the situation is changed so much that y is now out of the question. In fact, I have had situations where x was not suddenly a bad idea because of what other players have done since I did x.

So wizard suckness is dependent on battle performance? That seems rather narrow considering for as long as I remember the wizard has been the out-of-combat master. And now that they have a way to contribute beyond the first two rounds of battle, you're not happy because the options they have are limited?

And the 'plan' changes for all characters. The rogue may plan on engaging with one guy his next turn, and doing something cool, but then battle shifts and he can't do that anymore. What of it? I have the Great Weapon Master feat, and I plan on dropping a guy on my turn, then getting the bonus attack on his buddy, but then the guy in front of me goes down from someone's arrow. Do fighters suck now?

 

[KarinsDad]

So wizard suckness is dependent on battle performance? That seems rather narrow considering for as long as I remember the wizard has been the out-of-combat master. And now that they have a way to contribute beyond the first two rounds of battle, you're not happy because the options they have are limited?

And the 'plan' changes for all characters. The rogue may plan on engaging with one guy his next turn, and doing something cool, but then battle shifts and he can't do that anymore. What of it? I have the Great Weapon Master feat, and I plan on dropping a guy on my turn, then getting the bonus attack on his buddy, but then the guy in front of me goes down from someone's arrow. Do fighters suck now?

The difference is that wizards are almost totally reliant on daily spells. If a fighter loses an opportunity to use the Great Weapon Master feat, who cares? He can use it again the following round or the round after that, or the encounter after that. He only loses the opportunity, not the ability. If a wizard casts Web and then gets hit by an arrow and loses the spell, everyone in that Web spell is now free AND the wizard lost the spell slot.

Clerics and Bards have limited spell slots too, but they also can just go up and fight a foe in melee or with ranged attacks. Them using up a spell slot does not use up the same percentage of potential of the PC.

Spells are pretty much everything for a wizard. They have lousy AC, lousy to hit, lousy damage, and lousy hit points. They can have some cool special abilities in combat, but most of them are still related to spells.

If a spell is wasted, it is a much bigger resource lose for a low level wizard PC than if an at will opportunity or encounter ability is lost temporarily by another PC. So yes, the loss of the plan when a wizard has already cast a spell is more of a loss. D&D 101.

 

[Kikuras]

The difference is that wizards are almost totally reliant on daily spells. If a fighter loses an opportunity to use the Great Weapon Master feat, who cares? He can use it again the following round or the round after that, or the encounter after that. He only loses the opportunity, not the ability. If a wizard casts Web and then gets hit by an arrow and loses the spell, everyone in that Web spell is now free AND the wizard lost the spell slot.

Clerics and Bards have limited spell slots too, but they also can just go up and fight a foe in melee or with ranged attacks. Them using up a spell slot does not use up the same percentage of potential of the PC.

Spells are pretty much everything for a wizard. They have lousy AC, lousy to hit, lousy damage, and lousy hit points. They can have some cool special abilities in combat, but most of them are still related to spells.

If a spell is wasted, it is a much bigger resource lose for a low level wizard PC than if an at will opportunity or encounter ability is lost temporarily by another PC. So yes, the loss of the plan when a wizard has already cast a spell is more of a loss. D&D 101.

Sure the concentration stuff makes battlefield control a bit more difficult, but D&D 101 also says that combat is only part of the game. And since we're talking low-level combat, a wizard can do 1d10 hitting as often as a fighter who (with shield) does 1d8. An archer does 1d8 and a wizard does 1d10, and no ammunition rules. All as infinite as the fighter's sword-swinging. By the time either fighter gets a second attack, wizard has fireball. Wizard AC sucks, but it always has. And if you are worried about the concentration checks, get War Caster to increase.