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

[Tony Vargas]

Eh, the druid's using 2 1st level slots for good berries each day, at 9th level. That's not exactly breaking the bank _or_ hurting her ability to interact effectively with encounters.

Like a 9th level anecdote is relevant to the relative effectiveness of 'low level wizards.'

Even at 2nd level, it didn't affect her ability, since she was a wolf or bear then.

It'd meaningfully reduce the number of slots you had left at first or 2nd.

Damage you don't take, because the enemy is incapacitated or dead, is the most proactive form of healing possible.

Seriously, heard it a million times going back to 3.0, no need to repeat it.

In some ways that is true, but the wizard suffers from some awful legacy spells which _are_ its fault. For example, there's no reason Burning Hands had to be such a tiny AE that put the wizard at such risk.

I suppose that's arguable, but for two things. 1) 5e is all about legacy, and 2) if you don't like that spell, don't take it.

Similarly, cantrips don't need to be as awful as they are

Meh, cantrips do more damage than they did in 3e, and they're at-will.

You're conflating two posters here - KarinsDad has multiple healers. My group has no one healing.

Sorry, it's the 'K.' So your group is 9th level, and has no bearing on the discussion, and his has a glut of healers sharing out the burden?

You are almost certainly making the combats more difficult through your use of cure wounds. It is possible that's not the case, of course.

Celtavian and his crew seem to be pretty competent optimizers, facing scaled-up challenges.

 

[keterys]

Like a 9th level anecdote is relevant to the relative effectiveness of 'low level wizards.'

True, but that healing discussion is fairly tangental. Also...

Sorry, it's the 'K.' So your group is 9th level, and has no bearing on the discussion, and his has a glut of healers sharing out the burden?

While our group is 9th _now_, it did start at 1st level, so it's still very applicable.

Further, his group being full of healers _who don't heal_ is still probably relevant. I mean, nobody really expects the Ranger to be casting cure wounds often, even if he's capable. I can't speak for how often his group heals, though, since I have not observed it myself.

Celtavian and his crew seem to be pretty competent optimizers, facing scaled-up challenges.

Weirdly enough, the _more_ optimized you are, the less valid cure wounds becomes. "Do 100 damage to the enemies or heal 20 hp" is a really tough comparison to make. It's all about action economy though. If you have a cleric who can do little other than heal, and he's got an optimized archer and great weapon fighter who are getting knocked down, it is _absolutely_ worthwhile for him to spend his action to get them up. It's not like his sacred flame can remotely compare.

Though you still face the range issue. If you're taking an opportunity attack or opening up an ally to an attack by moving, that's a big problem.

Then you face the "does it actually make a difference problem", and the answer is that optimized monster damage is far higher than the amount you're healing, typically blowing past the difference between cure wounds and healing word straight back to 0 hp.

Finally, you have the final result of "2 hp per spell level" more healed, which is trivial to make up even if you drop a monster even a single action earlier.

 

[Celtavian]

You are almost certainly making the combats more difficult through your use of cure wounds. It is possible that's not the case, of course. There is a narrow window that requires some or all of the following:
1) Person is dropped again because of the 2 hp difference between healing word and cure wounds (ie, is hit for 6, has 5 hp from word vs 7 from cure wounds)
2) Tactical presence was not depreciated (for example, maintaining a bottleneck) due to needing to move to apply cure wounds
3) The cleric's attacks (made in addition to the healing word) did not result in fewer monster attacks

The odds of that are really grim. Tiny, even, but there do exist circumstances where it's true. Perhaps 1/6 of the time at most, but it happens.

Once again this is specific to our group. We make encounters much tougher than normal. We do CR encounters that aren't even measurable on the table and I'm doubtful most would survive them, yet we beat them with relative ease because of the level of coordination and tactics. For example, our last encounter at level 3 was against a Gnoll chieftan (Claw of Yennoghu), two pack leaders, and around 20 gnolls. I believe it was a CR 8 Deadly Encounter. They defeated it with moderate difficulty. I think one cure wound spell. This is a pretty standard encounter for our group. I think we average more deadly encounters than anything else and above deadly when we want truly deadly.

There are times we need to get someone above a certain hit point threshold we calculate at the table. We also calculate hit points by spell slot. Healing Word falls further behind each level spell slot higher you use. 4.5 per level for Cure Wounds and 2.5 for healing word up to level 5 where you are more likely to use mass cure wounds or 6th level when you using heal. We build encounters specifically with the intent to require healing. As in no one that plays this game the way we do could survive without a healer. It is impossible without extraordinary luck.

The reason we do this is because we found the standard method of play unchallenging and boring. If we run encounters according to the challenge rating recommendations in the book, we would have too easy a time. We don't like a lack of challenge.

Some of it is dependent on how much damage the creature does. Our primary calculation is bang for the buck per spell slot. Memorizing Cure wounds rather than healing word provides you with a higher value option in a spells known slot which increases flexibility when choosing spells known.

That's our thinking behind it. I imagine you're right in standard play and healing word due to the bonus action would be moderately more effective than cure wounds. In general, the cleric stays out of combat to avoid the breaking of concentration on bless. The martials act as a wall of flesh and steel to stop the cleric from being accosted. The primary value the cleric provides to the group is as a power battery providing key buffs and healing to keep the group at maximum effectiveness while occasionally dropping a sacred flame or weapon attack to add some damage. They add more damage by staying out of harm's way and keeping buffs active than by attacking with their fairly weak damage sources.

 

[Celtavian]

Many of our encounters are fairly tough, but Cure Wounds is not the solution for us. It wastes an action that can be used to do something else (like attack or help or disengage).



Really? Dropping 2 average points of healing at range with a bonus action and typically without using any part of the Move action is less bang for the buck?

+2 hit points for ally vs. attack enemy and possibly change action economy.

Hmmm. That's a tough one.


Wow. I don't understand this POV at all. The +2 hit points are typically only useful out of combat. 2 extra hit points will rarely keep someone up if they are attacked again, and higher level slots are really only needed if the foes do a ton of damage and you want the PC to be able to absorb at least one of them. Otherwise, higher level slots are mostly a waste.

For our table, Healing Word is a LOT more valuable in combat than Cure Wounds.


Now granted, at high level, using a 4th level slot for Cure Wounds over Healing Word is 8 extra points of healing, but it still requires an action in combat. At high level, a single cheap Healing potion could make up a fair portion of that out of combat.

When you look at the spell as only a 1st level spell, then your logic applies. When you look at the spell as possibly being used with a 2nd to 4th level slot that view changes. We don't like to spend "spells known" slots doubling up on spells that do the same thing. We don't want cure wounds and healing word on the spell list. So we choose the one that provides more bang for the buck not only with a 1st level slot, but 2nd to 4th if needed. The cleric's spell slots are almost all used for healing. You lose more damage to your group losing a higher damage player than you do by spending an action to heal them.

Our clerics often don't engage in combat for a variety of reasons you may not practice with your group:
1. Once the enemy determines the cleric is the healer or providing an active powerful buff, they become the target for as many attacks as the enemy can muster. Our DM's work under the assumption for all but the dumbest creatures that they are aware that killing the cleric often hampers the group in a Deadly Encounter far more than any other class save perhaps the arcane caster. He is second on the list if the cleric is down, first if he proves more problematic.

2. That means it is essential for the martials to keep the arcane and divine caster in a position they cannot be attacked. Since we use the Ready action quite actively for both PCs and enemies, they can't always show their face in battle with archers or opponent ranged attackers readying to hammer them as soon as they do.

We have adequately determined that cure wounds works better for our group. I do understand it may not for other groups that run easier encounters with less efficient tactics used by the enemy. My feeling reading message boards is that if most players were to play at our table, they would have a lot of WTF moments at what they were fighting such as the 4,000 hit point Crag Linnorm or an Army of 50 hill giants mounted on war mammoths. It's how we like to play. See how far we can push encounter design to challenge our group.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One of the things about a thread like this, that looks into a blanket judgement about a class is that campaigns are going to vary wildly - with styles, and with different interpretations of the rules, let alone optional rule modules or acknowledged variants. It's not going to be quite as cut-and-dried as 3.5 with RAW & oberoni, or 4e clarity/balance.

In a sense that means campaign anecdotes matter even less - in another sense it means RAW doesn't matter at all.
:shrug:

 

[KarinsDad]

Once again this is specific to our group. We make encounters much tougher than normal. We do CR encounters that aren't even measurable on the table and I'm doubtful most would survive them, yet we beat them with relative ease because of the level of coordination and tactics. For example, our last encounter at level 3 was against a Gnoll chieftan (Claw of Yennoghu), two pack leaders, and around 20 gnolls. I believe it was a CR 8 Deadly Encounter. They defeated it with moderate difficulty. I think one cure wound spell. This is a pretty standard encounter for our group. I think we average more deadly encounters than anything else and above deadly when we want truly deadly.

Not to call shenanigans, but I'm calling shenanigans.

For 5 PCs who average 10 points of damage each at third level (if they hit every time) doing 440+ points of damage to the 20 gnolls, it would take 9 rounds to take out just the Gnolls if every single attack hits (and for most PCs, the chance to hit a Gnoll is about 55%). This does not even take into account misses, the hit points/AC of the chieftain, or the hit points/AC of the two pack leaders, or any special abilities the gnoll leaders have. An encounter like this should take about 20 to 25 rounds (assuming that none of the PCs goes unconscious).

Even if the PCs average AC 18, the gnolls would get at least 200 attacks (and probably more) against the PCs in 20+ rounds and do well over 400 points of damage in return. How exactly do these third level PCs suck up 80 points of damage each with a single cure wounds spell?

What does your DM do, send 4 gnolls at a time against you?

You keep claiming how tough your DM is, but does he knock your PCs prone and pin/grapple them there and kill them with his superior numbers with advantage? Evidently not. It sounds like the tactics of the party are a lot better than your DM's if he cannot manage to kick your butt with 23 higher level foes.


The DM has 23 foes. Are you telling us that he never crits? He never swamps a squishy PC and takes him out?

Or does he do this in a 5 foot wide corridor so that you guys fight one gnoll at a time? Why bother?

Sorry dude, but this sounds totally farfetched and unbelievable.


Btw, if this is some sort of "we shoot down at them from the top of the cliff face" and we can jump back into total cover (and get partial cover against their readied bows) and we suck down a bunch of healing potions in total safety when injured and they cannot melee us and we fake them out with a Minor Illusion of a scarecrow bowman to get some of their readied attacks to miss us type of scenario, then you are misleading people here.

 

[keterys]

I think one cure wound spell.

One cure wounds from a cleric who is primarily hiding to keep bless going, while fighting a super deadly encounter? Sure, sounds different from normal play, which is why I caveated that it could happen, but was unlikely.

That said, you're actually backing up the theory that offense trumps, still. The bless is probably more important than the cure, and the cure is only one of his many actions in a major battle. That could have likely been accomplished with a healing potion, and it's entirely possible for the DM to make the cleric having to get into touch range for that cure far more costly than the couple of points of difference (2 or 4 depending on the spell level).

I'll say, against monsters that do real damage, like those hill giants on war mammoths, a good berry is just as effective as a cure wounds, and 10+ times as efficient.

Healing Word falls further behind each level spell slot higher you use.

This is absolutely true. Mind you, cure wounds falls behind to Prayer of Healing, since it sounds like your bigger concern is total healed per slot. Mass cure and heal are, indeed, very different beasts than cure wounds.

Why does your cleric not have a spare spell known? Honestly, in the games I've run, having cure wounds over healing word would get someone killed more often than the hit point difference, because of the range. That's so critical.

As in no one that plays this game the way we do could survive without a healer. It is impossible without extraordinary luck.

If you replaced your cleric with a sharpshooter and bought a few potions, you'd probably see pretty similar results. Especially at the number of enemies you're talking about, since keeping someone up when healed from down is tremendously difficult, and you're already worried about your casters being exposed to combat.

Either way, an invisible imp still does wonders for giving out a heal, and might be less danger for your cleric

The reason we do this is because we found the standard method of play unchallenging and boring.

Makes sense. We had a similar problem, though found that just adding tons of enemies didn't really save things. The group that cared more started playing 13th Age more instead, and the other just toned itself down a little.

 

[Erechel]

It is certainly possible to make fights much more difficulty than their CR suggests both ways. Luck, situation, optimization, good tactics, good equipment, good characters, intimidation and a strain of creativity renders the players much more than simple maths. Maths are a guide for average play, but as a DM I usually fall in two categories with the "expected" CR:
a) the players beat the foes after a couple rounds.
b) The foes are utterly annoying and unbeatable.
Take account that D&D is not a computer game were optimized maths rule, but an Tabletop RPG, where multiple factors come across the game, and a tactic may differ situationally (let's say, for example, that the players roll over the gnolls with giant boulders, or prepare an ambush with oiled ground, or pit them through a hole on the ground, or gain a strategical situation). Of course, the DM too can think in clever tactics, but he is much more limited by the fact that he is one head against 4-5. If the group of players came around for a lot of time, they think faster and better than the DM most times, no matter how clever or nasty he is. Not to say that gnolls and simple-minded monsters won't be believable if they think as military geniuses perfectly adapted to the party. Not to say that they aren't accostumed to deal with the supernatural (most gnolls won't survive this type of encounters)
And KarinsDad, you are very, very focused on math balance over other possibilities. I know that they matter, but many of the strengths of wizards won't come from a purely mathematical point, but from a "think outside the box" possibilities. A hard-boiled, dissociated mechanic and metagaming thinking over magic is not verosimile, as it is a force that usually breaks the boundaries of other most mechanical classes (that also can think creatively, but ultimately they are more limited with their resources). And I'm speaking about basic dynamics that I can think without much effort: the same way you throw fire to the gnolls, that can save themselves, you can throw it to oiled ground, dry folliage, or frost water courses; you can use abundant cover, clever traps and bottle necks; you can create obstacles and divertions of many types, and overall think creatively AND NOT only focused on DPR (almost all your arguments are based on this mechanical point of view). For example, if a campaign is setted on dangerous mountain ranges, a grease spell is far more powerful than usual. If you are in an icy landscape, the cantrip Shape Water or Scorching rays are a key to victory as you can manage to pitfall enemys to frozen lakes or simply under a lot of snow. A forest provides abundant cover, stealth possibilities and lots of burnable stuff. A druid can make vines strangle the foes, and the upper hand in any fight compels an inteligent or semi inteligent foe to run or at least to do a morale check.
Battles are not a struggle to render all foes to 0 hp. It is even stated in the books (although I cannot recall the specific page, there are rules for morale in the DMG, and it is not the only call to resolve the encounters creatively).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

We have adequately determined that cure wounds works better for our group. I do understand it may not for other groups that run easier encounters with less efficient tactics used by the enemy. My feeling reading message boards is that if most players were to play at our table, they would have a lot of WTF moments at what they were fighting such as the 4,000 hit point Crag Linnorm or an Army of 50 hill giants mounted on war mammoths. It's how we like to play. See how far we can push encounter design to challenge our group.

The mammoths sounds fun. They'd also be relatively easy to kill for a mid-level group, while also providing enough XP (150K) to be worth the effort, probably boosting everyone a level. The reason they're easy to kill is that they're straightforward meat bags with low Int. Once you've proved you can kill five, you can kill fifty the same way--but the player still feels awesome for doing something big.

5E is a good edition for leveraging quantity. I'm currently trying to work out the economics for how much a company of 50 Onis from the Long Fangs would charge a hobgoblin nation to join in the war against the good guys, if the PCs start winning. In general I think high-level play should lean more on powerful organizations than lone powerful individual villains.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Not to call shenanigans, but I'm calling shenanigans.

For 5 PCs who average 10 points of damage each at third level (if they hit every time) doing 440+ points of damage to the 20 gnolls, it would take 9 rounds to take out just the Gnolls if every single attack hits (and for most PCs, the chance to hit a Gnoll is about 55%). This does not even take into account misses, the hit points/AC of the chieftain, or the hit points/AC of the two pack leaders, or any special abilities the gnoll leaders have. An encounter like this should take about 20 to 25 rounds (assuming that none of the PCs goes unconscious).

I can't speak for Celtavian, but my guys will defeat them in detail, recruit allies/summons, poison them, or leverage range/mobility and cover in a fight like this. You don't just walk up to the enemy and start hammering away. Combat as war.