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

[keterys]

Let's just say a 3rd level wizard is very effective in a hallway choked off.

I've really not seen this be the case. There may be some table variation, though. For example, someone tried to use flaming sphere to keep back reinforcements in one game and it just resulted in the enemies avoiding it, but it's not like it's a wall of stone or even a cloud of daggers, so it was no real impediment to moving past.

In the case of your gnolls, is there any particular reason they didn't:
a) disengage and/or dodge past your meat grinder
b) have part of their force circle around, so that you had to deal with them coming from both sides and couldn't do full cover tricks
c) call you out to face them, and just wait you out with readied actions (at least until flaming sphere ends)

a: If it's a 10-ft wide not too tall corridor and you've got a monk/rogue and fighter/warlock side by side, that would certainly limit their options but mean that they could ignore the fighter. If they're not side by side then you can just eat a single opportunity attack from each in order to get past, or no OAs if the disengage action is worth doing. Since the same number of them get to attack from the front no matter how many go past, it's reasonable for any number of them to do so.
b: presumably you picked a spot they couldn't do so, but by picking such a spot there likely should be little reason for them to engage you at all...
c: in the same way that you're taunting them to attack you at a certain point, they can taunt you to attack them. there's no logical reason for them to deprive themselves of 80+% of their force, if neither a or b works.

 

[keterys]

You are exactly right. We consider keeping the bless up a better offensive option than using the cleric as a damage dealer.

With optimized damage dealers, it absolutely is.

Bless is frustratingly good, since it dodges bounded accuracy and in most groups hits everyone who matters. It also discourages the cleric from engaging directly with an encounter, because of concentration.

Clerics are weak damage dealers

Agreed, especially if you have optimized damagers, though, again, every bit helps. If you're reducing monster damage to negligible amounts, it's harder for cancelling a monster action to bridge that 2-4hp gap.

Better not to fall against creatures with multiple attacks in our games.

Yep. You're getting amazing mileage out of your tank, too. It's extremely rare that it's possible to do so in most games of 5E I've played; in fact, monsters so notoriously ignore tanks to go for other targets that the situation you describe is hard for me to fathom except in a 5-ft corridor chokepoint situation. A 10-ft corridor often results in monsters just streaming straight past.

10 minute casting time on prayer of healing. I do keep it memorized. It is good bang for your buck when you need a heal between a short rest and immediate healing. Prayer of Healing is useless for combat healing.

Agreed, just making sure it had a use for out of combat. Aid is a solid response, as well. I think I'd drop Bane for Healing Word in your setup, all the same, but having aid at least gives _some_ answer to the melee conundrum.

The options the trickery cleric has are amazing. The trickery cleric is going to be vicious at higher level.

Agreed. Our least optimal member was trying one out in another game, and even there I was pleasantly surprised.

Unfortunately, that game was using Expeditions and frankly the adventures, or the DM - one of those - did not cope well with deviations from their expected and planned encounters.

I figure each group finds the level of challenge and play-style they enjoy and makes it happen. At the end of the day, having fun with your buddies is the main goal.

Absolutely agree. Honestly, I'm most curious about this thread because I've seen two local gamers give up on the wizard at low level. One of whom I tried over and over to guide to better spells, cause he was doing things like taking witch bolt and burning hands, and it never went well.

It's been very good getting this additional data point.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

a: If it's a 10-ft wide not too tall corridor and you've got a monk/rogue and fighter/warlock side by side, that would certainly limit their options but mean that they could ignore the fighter. If they're not side by side then you can just eat a single opportunity attack from each in order to get past, or no OAs if the disengage action is worth doing. Since the same number of them get to attack from the front no matter how many go past, it's reasonable for any number of them to do so.

There's also the goblin conga line. All 23 gnolls can attack you in one round if the first one is willing to eat an opportunity attack. I would have to decide whether gnolls are smart enough to do that--they're hyena-derived, so I'd probably watch some videos of hyenas fighting to decide. Orcs don't have the right temperament to fight cooperatively like that, but hobgoblins do (except they would just shoot you instead) and scro definitely do.

Remember that Flaming Sphere has a duration of only one minute. If gnolls have any institutional knowledge at all about magic, they should know that you can sometimes just wait for it to go away. (Where there are narrow corridors, there are probably also corners behind which to lurk with total cover until the magic goes away.)

None of the above is intended as a criticism of Celtavian's DM. It's just me pointing out some of the things I deliberately don't do for monsters that aren't disciplined and well-trained. That's also why my invading army is hobgoblins and not orcs--hobgoblins are smarter and more interesting for me to run.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes. We didn't give him a choice. We rarely give the DM a choice as to where the battle will take place. We aren't players that walk into a room and spread out attacking as individuals. We're a coordinated group. We choked them in a hallway around a corner to prevent missile attacks. The wizard set up a flaming sphere in a 10 foot wide hallway, so the gnolls couldn't mass to start archery fire from behind without getting burned. The wizard as I told you we do, stayed around the corner so that his concentration couldn't be broken. He used his bat familiar hiding up in a corner and action to look through its senses to coordinate hitting with his flaming sphere to control the gnolls.

Actually, you control your DM in a different way.


Fangs have an Int of 10.

Fang: "We all stay here till magic fire run out. Then we fight."


Alternatively, just use the Shove action. Run up and shove the Monk or Fighter 5 feet out of the way behind the other PC and move into his space. The two gnolls in front each get one shove per round. Sure, it might not happen the first round (Gnolls are pretty strong though), but sooner or later, the gnolls break through. Narratively, 23 Gnolls of 14 and greater strength just push through the line of the Monk and Fighter. Mechanically, the two gnolls in front push the a PC 5 feet back behind the other PC and then all of the Gnolls move down the congo line through that breach as far as their movement allows them. One of them will take an OA from the Monk and one of them will take an OA from the Fighter, but many of them break through nonetheless in a single round.

This is what would narratively happen when 23 200+ pound gnolls rush down a corridor. They would overwhelm the two defenders at the end of it. It's not that the Gnolls are so smart that they would use the Shove action instead of attacking, it's that mechanically, this is the main tool that the 5E game system gives DMs and players to have a group of rushing characters (PC or NPC) bust past a front line.

Have you ever seen a panicked crowd rush down a hallway? That is what should happen here.

The monsters shouldn't just calmly wait at the other end of the corridor, waiting for their turn to die.


Sorry, but your DM is not using the tools at his disposal.


Your group of super tacticians and optimizers would be so smoked at my table if you begged me to throw CR 8 challenges at you at level 3.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is what would narratively happen when 23 200+ pound gnolls rush down a corridor. They would overwhelm the two defenders at the end of it. It's not that the Gnolls are so smart that they would use the Shove action instead of attacking, it's that mechanically, this is the main tool that the 5E game system gives DMs and players to have a group of rushing characters (PC or NPC) bust past a front line.

The DMG variant rule for overrunning would be more appropriate.

 

[KarinsDad]

The DMG variant rule for overrunning would be more appropriate.

Actually, it's less appropriate.

It would work, but then every single gnoll would have to attempt it individually (because the Monk and Fighter would not actually move, so they would continue to hold the line), and the number of rounds it would take would result in a lot of OAs. The normal shove allows a flood of them through. Overrun is a good tool for one or two large creatures like Ogres to push past a line and still attack, but is a lot less useful for a mass mob.

Shove is also the more narrative solution in that a group of 6 int gnolls wouldn't fight like Montoya and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride, dueling and parrying and following Queensbury rules of etiquette in fighting. One gnoll wouldn't push through and then the second would wait his turn to push through. They would just slam through the two guys in their way.


Gnoll 1: "Oh I'm sorry chap, where you going to move into that square to avoid the Flaming Sphere and squeeze past that fellow there? My bad. Please, go ahead. I'll wait my turn here and get a little crispy while you try to see if you can sneak past these chaps in front of us. That's a good lad."

 

[KarinsDad]

Theres also the fact that there wasnt much need for it to be invented before the mass settling of the open spaces of the western united states, along with the cattle farming.

Are you kidding? One of the best uses of barbed wire is for military applications. 15th century soldiers would have killed to acquire barbed wire.

There was a huge need for it pre-1870s, it just couldn't be made with the materials at the time. And yes, people back then were just as smart and imaginative as people today. If they could have figured a way to do this, they would have. Callinicus came up with Greek Fire about 700 AD. Dionysius invented the catapult about 400 BC.

So if your claim is that there was no need for barbed wire pre-the mass settling of the western US, then why does your PC know about it?

As I said, the way its done to mass produce it perhaps but it can be done in midevil times just not on a large scale. Here is a video of it being made, a smith could twist this wire, it doesnt take the industrial revolution to make barb wire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OfWmUEV5B8. Industrial revolution is when everything was industrialized, not when everything was invented.

Holy Crap! You just posted a video of a machine making barbed wire out of modern materials.

I guess you showed me.


Do you think there was stiff wire, stiff enough to create barbed wire before maybe 1800? Yes, once one HAS the actual materials, one can make barbed wire by hand at maybe 1 foot a minute. But iron wire is brittle (pre-industrial revolution alloys). It takes special alloys to get strong stiff basically bendable wire for the longer lengths and unbendabe wire for short lengths of barbed wire. Yes, today we have those materials in spades, but 300 years ago, they didn't exist. Metal cable did not exist before 1830.

It really sounds like you are going to extremes to try to prove an unprovable point. Your argument is like a group of PCs stranded on a mountaintop and one of the players says "Hey, let's build a hot air balloon and fly away.". It just wouldn't happen in my game.

A box with daggers in it to try to keep the guy down? Sure. But he minimally gets a saving throw to accidently put his hand through it and for some types of creatures (like wild animals), they might just try to lift or break out of the box and stand up even without a save.


I'm done with this silly argument. My whole point was none of this, just that a cantrip that doesn't give the restrained and blinded conditions should work without a saving throw. You want a cheap way to restrain foes in your game? Great. Do so. I find it an extreme stretch of the power of cantrips when even first level spells are not this strong (Entangle, Ensnaring Strike, and Web for example get a saving throw and a Strength check to get out), but if your DM is not knowledgeable enough about game balance to allow you to do this at will without a save, have at it. Enjoy your trick.

 

[KarinsDad]

Superior spells and special abilities are what we call a "force advantage". D&D 5E encounter design is designed to give the PCs a force advantage in almost every combat, because dying half the time in not fun in a game where combats are intended to be frequent. Not just the DM, but the game designers themselves are going easy on you. I think that's a boring way to play, so I don't use the encounter design rules.

I just had a fight with a Red Dragon (half way between a young one and an adult one in every category) with double the Cha spells of the MM against 5th level PCs. It had superior spells/abilities: Invisibility, Fireball (the PC wizard is multiclassed and will not get this until level 7), traps, terrain, breath weapon, even Feather Fall.

The force advantage is not on the spells being superior (the Dragon actually had as good or better spells and breath weapon), it's that of HP attrition.

The Dragon cannot heal itself (typically, I have had Dragons in the past with a cleric template). The PCs can.

The Dragon dies at 0 hit points. The PCs do not.

In the case of solos like Dragons (assuming no underlings, in this case, the PCs killed all of the Ogre underlings before making it to the Dragon), it doesn't necessarily always have allies that can buff it or heal it or run interference for it.

Much of the force advantage that you talk about can easily be given to monsters as well (and I often do, the PCs fight PC-like NPCs typically at least once a level in my game). A Dragon with evil NPC cleric followers and wizard followers and a small cadre of Ogre front line fighter types. NPCs can use choke points and terrain and all of the other force advantage options as PCs. Every single one.


Except those that are PC specific. The NPCs still typically die at 0 hit points. The NPCs are handled by one person who is mentally handling a lot of activities. The PCs are typically handled by one person each who have time to think up tactics or look at options on his character sheet when it is not his turn. The NPCs are typically not optimized and are typically not designed to improve over time. The PCs are often optimized and are designed to shore up weaknesses and build upon strengths over a long period of time. The NPCs are not always designed as a team. The PCs are often designed as a team (rarely do you see 5 PC wizards at a table, but you see 5 NPC goblins or 5 other single monster types a lot).

Much of the force advantage that you speak about can be done by NPCs as well, it's just that most NPCs do not have these few force advantages that nearly every PC or group of PCs has.

 

[KarinsDad]

There's also the goblin conga line. All 23 gnolls can attack you in one round if the first one is willing to eat an opportunity attack. I would have to decide whether gnolls are smart enough to do that

I view it as mob mentality. A bunch of people loot and throw rocks and overturn cars and do a lot of stupid stuff during mob mentality. They don't analyze whether they will take an OA, they just do that stupid stuff. Do you think that there are never educated people with high school and/or college diplomas in a mob who would normally analyze a situation, but don't in that frame of mind? Do you think that the rioting Kentucky students setting fire to stuff two weeks ago cared about OAs?

Int 6 gnolls would do even more stupid stuff. Gnolls (and many other humanoid monsters) in my games drink alcohol beverages of various types and often fight with each other (not to the death), are belligerent, and just plain obnoxious. They're monsters. Some are dumb, some are crafty, but they are almost all out to fight with intruders (be those other invading monsters, or PCs).

The main PHB mechanic for busting through a line of foes in 5E is the shove, so a large mob of creatures (smart, dumb, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, it doesn't matter) running down a hallway shove foes out of their way and shove their allies in front of them through a line when they get to them. The main mechanic to emulate that in 5E is the shove, so as a DM, that's what I use. Whether any given creature in the flood takes an OA is mostly irrelevant. They have a Flaming Sphere behind them. Why would they care about an OA?


In every movie of ancient warfare, two deep and long lines of foes rush each other. The guys in the front get run over, stabbed, killed, whatever and the two line merge into a blur of foes without them worrying about OAs. One line doesn't stop the other line and the foes do not stop just because one of their allies in front of them stops. They keep going.

23 against 2 holding the line is like playing chess, not combat. Yes, there have been historic cases of a few soldiers holding a small area, but there are limits to plausibility.

 

[The Wizard Dolomite]

Are you kidding? One of the best uses of barbed wire is for military applications. 15th century soldiers would have killed to acquire barbed wire.

There was a huge need for it pre-1870s, it just couldn't be made with the materials at the time. And yes, people back then were just as smart and imaginative as people today. If they could have figured a way to do this, they would have. Callinicus came up with Greek Fire about 700 AD. Dionysius invented the catapult about 400 BC.

So if your claim is that there was no need for barbed wire pre-the mass settling of the western US, then why does your PC know about it?




Holy Crap! You just posted a video of a machine making barbed wire out of modern materials.

I guess you showed me.


Do you think there was stiff wire, stiff enough to create barbed wire before maybe 1800? Yes, once one HAS the actual materials, one can make barbed wire by hand at maybe 1 foot a minute. But iron wire is brittle (pre-industrial revolution alloys). It takes special alloys to get strong stiff basically bendable wire for the longer lengths and unbendabe wire for short lengths of barbed wire. Yes, today we have those materials in spades, but 300 years ago, they didn't exist. Metal cable did not exist before 1830.

It really sounds like you are going to extremes to try to prove an unprovable point. Your argument is like a group of PCs stranded on a mountaintop and one of the players says "Hey, let's build a hot air balloon and fly away.". It just wouldn't happen in my game.

A box with daggers in it to try to keep the guy down? Sure. But he minimally gets a saving throw to accidently put his hand through it and for some types of creatures (like wild animals), they might just try to lift or break out of the box and stand up even without a save.


I'm done with this silly argument. My whole point was none of this, just that a cantrip that doesn't give the restrained and blinded conditions should work without a saving throw. You want a cheap way to restrain foes in your game? Great. Do so. I find it an extreme stretch of the power of cantrips when even first level spells are not this strong (Entangle, Ensnaring Strike, and Web for example get a saving throw and a Strength check to get out), but if your DM is not knowledgeable enough about game balance to allow you to do this at will without a save, have at it. Enjoy your trick.

"Its just a cantrip, its just a cantrip lololololol you think a cantrip can restrain a low lvl baddie for a turn or 2 lollolo way overpowered lolololol waaay more powerful then a fighter rolling a melee attack and killing a baddie, then moving to another in the same turn and rolling a melee wep attack and killing him lololol" .......Im going to bow out now of this 88 page thread of you crying now. As clearly has been demonstrated for 88 pages now, no one can tell you anything, you've been playing since the dawn of time, are all powerful, all knowledgeable, and severly butthurt over not being able to invis/fly at the same time. But man, a cantrip that has a shot at stopping someone for a couple turns if well thought out, IMBALANCE!