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

[KarinsDad]

This is not accurate. Read the spell description - the creature thinks and behaves as if the phenomenon is real. The example of a victim falling through a Phantasmal bridge happens SPECIFICALLY because the victim acts appropriately on their belief. A dragon (or anything else) caught in a Phantasmal Force-Web feels the stickiness of the webbing on its body, feels the tension of the strands on its limbs, smells the adhesive (or whatever spider web might smell of) coating the webbing, rationalizes ways in which it is entangled. It doesn't just try to flap its apparently entangled wings out of the webbing any more than a PC typically walks straight into a wall of force, ice, or stone that appears when a caster waves their hands without good reason to suspect an illusion. Escape attempts from nets, grappling foes, restraining spells use an action, not mere movement. A strong creature might try to ram an apparent wall with the intention of knocking it down, might ignore an elemental that doesn't seem to inflict much damage, might examine a creature after an attack or two fails to hurt it, might investigate webbing that appears to be holding it without being attached to any floors or ceilings, or why a cage is floating in mid-air.

Not a flying dragon.

Maybe one standing on the ground, but even then, how does the DM adjudicate it?

Most dragons do not hover. The spell indicates inside it that there is a 10 foot cube and later on indicates that an illusion of a creature can only harm the target if the target is within the area of the spell. It's a non-mobile spell. No flying elementals. No putting a mobile cloud of darkness around the head of a dragon. In fact, the concept of a visual phenomena could be read to mean not spells, just water, lava, poison gas, etc. How does one adjudicate other spells within a Phantasmal Force spell? How do creatures make saves against a spell that does not exist? The spell does not state that it can emulate the power of other spells.


The dragon believes that the web is real, but gravity still works in the web example, just like it does on the bridge example. The dragon falls through the web, thinks that it avoided the web (just like a creature making its save thinks that it avoided a web against a real web spell), and continues on with a DM who rules that the Dragon stops trying to fly.

For a DM that rules that the Dragon keeps flying on, it flies through the web, again, thinking that it avoided it. The DM could state that the dragon slowed up (difficult terrain) but continued on.

There isn't actually anything there to hold the Dragon up in the air. There isn't actually a Dex saving throw for the Dragon to fail such that it thinks that it is stuck.

Put a 10x10x10 net around the flying dragon (course, dragons with lairs are huge), it still falls / flies through it. Nothing real is there. A huge or larger dragon on the ground would think that the net is real and might use its intelligence check action to try to break through it (not a strength check action) because the target knows what a net is and might think it is trapped (a huge dragon also might care less about a 10x10x10 net and ignore it, thinking that it is not enough of a hindrance, when the dragon moves on, the "net" falls off). But not a flying dragon that cannot hover. It is forced to move through the illusion and when it does (by accident), it thinks that it avoided the net in some way.


I don't personally think that a second level illusion spell should be able to emulate the power of other spells. Phenomenon should mean things like water or lava, not spells. It's too difficult to adjudicate spells because there is no actual web there and the target might be unaware of what the web spell does anyway, no actual faerie fire there (how does one adjudicate advantage by attackers in the mind of the target?), no actual darkness, etc. How does the target know how the fake spell works? How does the target emulate the effects of a spell? The Phantasmal Force spell is just a simple visual illusion in an immobile 10 foot cube that is easily overcome by falling through it, not an elaborate high level illusion.

Obviously, a given DM can adjudicate any way he wants to. But based on the examples and text within the spell, people here are trying to make that spell a lot more powerful than the designer's appear to have intended.

 

[KarinsDad]

Karinsdad,

I gave up on discussing the subject with emdw45. There's always a few guys on any forum that think they know better how things work than other people. I always read early on and then wait until I personally experience it. Just like with anything, theory doesn't mean anything once the bullets start flying.

There are all kinds of logistical issues with magic. You don't have any time to burn down Legendary Resistance casting spells that "help the party while hurting the creature." Not many of those spells exist and you need to get in action quick and hard or the dragon will out damage the party and kill everyone. That is my experience. Same with the non-dragon legendary creature. If I hadn't layered on some damage, he would have killed the fighter in two rounds.

Then there are the concentration problems. They are not just spell limitations. Wizards are practically forced to take either Warcaster or Resilient Con. Otherwise you have a 14 to 16 Con and a +2 to 3 Con save. Concentration checks for even 1 point of damage are DC 10. That means you only maintain concentration on a 7 or 8 or better. That is 65 to 70% of the time on any hit that allows a DC 10 Con save. Between lair actions and legendary actions, you have to make one or two concentration checks a round against a Legendary Creature a lot of the time.

I bought Resilient Con because I wanted a good Con save for other purposes like cold and poison attacks. Cleric bought warcaster. I think the bard bought Resilient Con. Losing concentration at higher level when spells like fly even on multiple targets requires touch and protection from energy requires touch means you don't want to lose it and then try to move into melee combat range to get it back up.

It's a much tougher game on casters. I'm still trying to figure out the best means to bring my magic to bear on a Legendary Creature while maintaining a flexible spell list for dealing with other dangerous threats and the odd non-combat problem we have to deal with. That's why I always have to chuckle when I get these suggestions about how to use my spell resources as though I can prepare my list solely for the legendary dragon, when there are other concerns than the single legendary creature that must be taken into account when preparing a spell list. What if the creature has minions with him? What if you have to kill all his lair guardians on the way to him? What if there are serious terrain issues within the lair to deal with? The martials can't handle these types of problems. For all their great damage dealing capabilities, they are still very limited in what they can do. It's up to the casters, usually the wizard, to have the proper spell selection for dealing with the variety of combat and non-combat problems that a party must deal with.

One example is see invisibility. I didn't have this spell memorized because of the limited spell selection at level 4. Then we fought an invisible creature. It was tearing us up and not even legendary. I have never taken that spell off my memorized list since that fight. An invisible mage able to move, cast, and move is hard to pin down. Misty Step I keep on their for similar reasons having dealt with difficult terrain and harsh AoO attacks from tough creatures. It's a different world for casters now, that is for certain. I'm still in the learning stages of 5E caster mastery.

Arm chair quarterbacking.

We all do it, just some people cannot see that their experiences in the game are different than other people's.

There often is no one right answer, but part of the reason I started this thread is because of similar concerns to what you brought up. My focus was on low level casters, but the handcuffs for casters are there to see. Many spells have been heavily watered down. Not only that, but if a DM does not see the caster limitations, then its not that hard to put out an encounter that TPKs the party unintentionally. A simple group of flying creatures with ranged attacks that never melee can invalidate a lot of melee damage of a party, disrupt a lot of concentration spells, and just generally minimize a party's retaliation. There are not a lot of ways to bring flying creatures to the ground. Healing tends to be limited in 5E for minor amounts of healing, so outlasting foes by using up healing resources does not always work. Tactics that have worked for decades at a table are no longer valid, or at least no longer that effective.

A lot of this is DM dependent. A DM who is used to putting out a lot of tough encounters in 3E and 4E is probably going to TPK a 5E party more often. It's just a lot easier to do accidentally. A DM who typically makes most encounters moderate is not going to have an issue in 5E that often. At least IME.

 

[HarrisonF]

I don't personally think that a second level illusion spell should be able to emulate the power of other spells. Phenomenon should mean things like water or lava, not spells. It's too difficult to adjudicate spells because there is no actual web there and the target might be unaware of what the web spell does anyway, no actual faerie fire there (how does one adjudicate advantage by attackers in the mind of the target?), no actual darkness, etc. How does the target know how the fake spell works? How does the target emulate the effects of a spell? The Phantasmal Force spell is just a simple visual illusion in an immobile 10 foot cube that is easily overcome by falling through it, not an elaborate high level illusion.

Obviously, a given DM can adjudicate any way he wants to. But based on the examples and text within the spell, people here are trying to make that spell a lot more powerful than the designer's appear to have intended.

I believe you are quite wrong in your interpretation of how the spell works.

Using your example, it would create an illusionary net within the 10'x10'x10' size in their mind, both visually, physically, and audibly, and move with them. There is nothing that says that it can't move outside of a 10' cube area, just that the max size of the phenomena is a 10' cube. So you could create an unbreakable chain net that wraps the dragons wings for example. It would then fall since it can't fly with the net on it for the duration. Since it is unbreakable, they could certainly use investigation to attempt to realize that it isn't really there.

If you compare it to Tasha's Hideous Laughter, it isn't really significantly more powerful than the first level spell. If Tasha's hits on a dragon, it would do similar (actually better since the dragon won't get actions at all). PF targets a different save and it is slightly harder to break since it doesn't get an extra save each time it gets damaged which seems about right for a higher level spell.

 

[KarinsDad]

I believe you are quite wrong in your interpretation of how the spell works.

Using your example, it would create an illusionary net within the 10'x10'x10' size in their mind, both visually, physically, and audibly, and move with them. There is nothing that says that it can't move outside of a 10' cube area, just that the max size of the phenomena is a 10' cube. So you could create an unbreakable chain net that wraps the dragons wings for example. It would then fall since it can't fly with the net on it for the duration. Since it is unbreakable, they could certainly use investigation to attempt to realize that it isn't really there.

If you compare it to Tasha's Hideous Laughter, it isn't really more significantly powerful than the first level spell. If Tasha's hits on a dragon, it would do similar (actually better since the dragon won't get actions at all). PF targets a different save and it is slightly harder to break since it doesn't get an extra save each time it gets damaged which seems about right for a higher level spell.

I don't have the PHB in front of me, but the spell states that the illusionary creature can attack the target if the target is in the area of the creature. This seems to imply that the illusionary creature is stationary. The illusion is within a 10x10x10 cube. Nothing in the spell states that the illusion moves. The third level Major Image illusion can move if the caster moves it, but this spell seems to indicate otherwise.

An illusion of an unbreakable net is no different than an illusion of an unbreakable bridge. The dragon still falls through it because it isn't there. If the Dragon thinks it cannot fly, it starts to fall. It then rationalizes in its mind that it escaped from the unbreakable net. The net doesn't go with it, just like the bridge doesn't go with it. The spell does not indicate that the illusion moves and implies that it doesn't.

I could be wrong. But when I read the entire spell description, this appears to be the intent.

Btw, the reason we are discussing a Phantasmal Force in a discussion of Dragons is because of the type of save. Tasha's is much easier for most Dragons to save against.


With the interpretation that the illusion moves with the dragon, there is no reason for the 10 foot cube limitation on size. If it is all in the mind of the dragon and the magic is not physically attached to one actual location, the illusion should be any size. What does that matter if the illusion magic is only in the dragon's mind?


Edit: I have a hard time interpreting the sentence:

"Each round on your turn, the phantasm can deal 1d6 psychic damage to the target if it is in the phantasm's area or within 5 feet of the phantasm, provided that the illusion is of a creature or hazard that could logically deal damage, such as by attacking."

as mobile. If they wanted a mobile illusionary creature to attack, this sentence should state that the illusionary creature moves to the target, even if it has to fly to get there as opposed to this language the implies a set location.

 

[Celtavian]

I stated earlier that Fireball was better than Fire Bolt assuming the caster's primary concern is doing damage as fast as possible without regard for using up their resources like spell slots, in other words damage per action, not damage per slot. When you are in a combat where you are expecting to be dead in a few rounds if you don't take down the enemy, you pull out all the stops and throw everything you have into defeating the enemy before it can kill you. That 3rd level slot you save by casting Fire Bolt won't do you any good once you are dead.

And since you seem to be having trouble understanding the math, I'll break it out for you.

I'm not having any trouble understanding the math. You're having trouble understanding opportunity cost. That the minor difference between firebolt and fireball isn't the difference between life and death. Your math analysis doesn't take into account the 3rd level slot versus cantrip. I can do more with that 3rd slot in other ways. I have adjusted for it in the future by taking scorching ray. That should up my damage in a fashion the dragon cannot resist.

The we can agree to disagree. I don't find the Con save for poison and cold breath any less realistic than the idea that a rogue could somehow stand naked in the middle of a house size blast of fire with no cover and without moving out of the area, and somehow be completely untouched. By having some breath weapons target Con instead of Dex, it means the a rogue will need to pay attention to what type of dragon they are fighting, and it leaves an opening in the game design space for abilities like the 3.5 "mettle".

We will disagree.

If getting the magic items you want isn't possible in your game, how did your wizard get a Staff of Power, and why can't the player of the martial do the same thing to get the GM to give them the substantially less valuable Boots of Flying?

From the dragon's hoard. The DM decided to drop something in there useful to the wizard after 10 levels. I just received it. I hadn't had a very good magic item prior. We'll see how much it helps. Next sessions is when I get to start using it.

If you really want a devastating spell combination while conserving your slots, have the cleric cast Spiritual Weapon and send it against the dragon, then you use you use a level 5 slot to cast Wall of Force as a sphere around the dragon (can be cast in mid-air and has no save) and the spiritual weapon and then leave the line of sight to make it harder for the dragon to target you with lair actions (freezing fog can only be targeted where the dragon can see, and falling ice can only target creatures the dragon can see). The dragon can do nothing to escape the Wall of Force until either you lose concentration (up to 10 minutes) or willingly drop it, and it can do nothing to stop the Spiritual Weapon from attacking for its full duration (if cast as a L5 spell it is doing 3d8+Wis per hit, and the cleric can be benefiting from bless on the attack rolls). If the cleric's hit chance is as good as yours, you are looking at likely 7 hits doing a total of 21d8 plus 7 times their wisdom modifier damage for a total of somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 damage. Depending on how your DM rules, the cleric may be able to recast Spiritual Weapon inside the sphere since Wall of Force is worded that nothing physical can pass through it, but the spiritual weapon can appear anywhere within range. If the DM rules that the spiritual weapon can't be summoned inside the sphere, I would have issue with them if they also ruled that the dragon could still use lair actions from within the sphere. Even if you only get one cycle of damage like that, you will have done over half the dragon's hit points in damage with little risk to the party. If you can recast Spiritual Weapon inside the sphere, then the dragon will be dead long before the duration of the sphere ends.

Designers have already indicated that you can't cast anything through a wall of force. I'm assuming that includes maintaining a spell like spiritual weapon. Then again we can ask them if your strategy works. If it does, I might give it a shot. The bard did take spiritual weapon We tend not to spend any of the cleric slots on anything other than healing. We've found healing to be hard to come by in combat and extremely necessary.

Martials without decent ranged attacks had the same issue in earlier editions. A 3.5 adult white dragon was over twice as fast (fly 200'), had access to Flyby Attack, Wingover, Hover, and Snatch, and could cast spells as a 1st level sorcerer (mage armor and shield were a prime choices).

Did you really just write this? Knowing casters weren't the same and could maintain a fly spell, invisibility, and other spells at the same time and the party could purchase or magic items easily? And movement didn't work the same? C'mon now. 3E wizards could practically annihilate a dragon alone. I don't want to go back to that. I want some more latitude in options for the 5E wizard.

If the dragon is flying moving 80' with melee attacks in the middle, then it should be around 40' away between attacks. In that case, it won't have targets close enough for tail attack or wing attack legendary actions. If it is close enough for those actions, then it is also close enough to be vulnerable to reach and/or thrown weapons. If it is making a full attack, then it is close enough that when it moves away it will draw an attack of opportunity. The dragon's freezing fog is big, but smaller than the breath so if the party has spread out to reduce exposure to the breath, it will only get one or two people with the fog. There are some disadvantages to spreading out, but letting the dragon hit multiple targets with its most powerful attack at no additional cost will drop PCs quickly. I've said many times that yes this is a brutally hard fight, but part of that is that this particular fight is not one that your party is well suited for. That happens, I don't think I've ever seen a party that didn't have something that they had trouble dealing with.

You just told yourself why it does what it does. It forces either the spread out or the group up. Only the fighter and paladin can generally stand up to a breath weapon, legendary attack, and lair action followed up next round by a round of melee. Important buffs are touch spells, so are many heals. Positioning is of the utmost importance as is buff timing.

I'm going to leave this to your experience. I believe if you have strong ranged, you'll be ok. If you don't, you might suffer some huge pain if your DM plays the dragon in a ruthless fashion strafing you and trying to draw you apart for the kill or moving into melee and tail slap moving 40 feet quickly on someone else's turn. You let me when you cross that bridge.

[sblock]
She should have given you a ring of cold resistance and two arrows of dragon slaying that she crafted, as well as being a source for extensive knowledge of the dragon and its capabilities. I'm sure having another party member who was taking half damage from the breath weapon, freezing fog, and any other cold creatures and environmental effects would have been useful. If there is even one person in the party who is reasonably competent with a bow (maybe a rogue or even a bard), the arrows will give them a decent chunk of extra damage. The arrows do an additional 6d10 damage (DC 17 Con save for half) to the dragon and their magic isn't expended if they miss. I assume the dragon will make its save, but even making the save the arrows will do an average of an extra 16 damage each on top of any damage the attacker would normally do. And if the attacker was a martial with extra attacks, both arrows could be fired in a single attack action.

We gave the ring of cold resistance to the cleric. It was immensely helpful. It kept him up healing longer than he would normally have been up. We did fire one arrow. I believe it hit for 38 damage. Pretty nice damage. That's probably why that fight easier than the previous one where three of us died.

Also if the DM felt the party was outmatched and wanted to give them something to help balance the encounter, this would have also been a perfect opportunity to do it since the NPC was already established as being capable of producing magic items.
[/sblock]

Our DM has already been kind distributing magic.

 

[Celtavian]

This is not accurate. Read the spell description - the creature thinks and behaves as if the phenomenon is real. The example of a victim falling through a Phantasmal bridge happens SPECIFICALLY because the victim acts appropriately on their belief. A dragon (or anything else) caught in a Phantasmal Force-Web feels the stickiness of the webbing on its body, feels the tension of the strands on its limbs, smells the adhesive (or whatever spider web might smell of) coating the webbing, rationalizes ways in which it is entangled. It doesn't just try to flap its apparently entangled wings out of the webbing any more than a PC typically walks straight into a wall of force*, ice, or stone that appears when a caster waves their hands without good reason to suspect an illusion. Escape attempts from nets, grappling foes, restraining spells use an action, not mere movement. A strong creature might try to ram an apparent wall with the intention of knocking it down, might ignore an elemental that doesn't seem to inflict much damage, might examine a creature after an attack or two fails to hurt it, might investigate webbing that appears to be holding it without being attached to any floors or ceilings, or why a cage is floating in mid-air.

ETA - Re: Wall of Force, presuming that a creature has some way of visualizing a Wall of Force...

Once you turn the phantasmal force into a restraining effect, it acts like one. That means it would become a Str save to break it.

I don't doubt the use of phantasmal force for restraint. I doubt it would do it very well against a dragon. Once you cast it, the dragon's strength becomes what it is working against. It still breathes, does its lair and legendary, and dishes out a ton of damage that will kill your party fairly quick. You do 1d6 and you're concentration slot is used. Or it decides to fly out of range until your spell ends.

 

[Celtavian]

I believe you are quite wrong in your interpretation of how the spell works.

Using your example, it would create an illusionary net within the 10'x10'x10' size in their mind, both visually, physically, and audibly, and move with them. There is nothing that says that it can't move outside of a 10' cube area, just that the max size of the phenomena is a 10' cube. So you could create an unbreakable chain net that wraps the dragons wings for example. It would then fall since it can't fly with the net on it for the duration. Since it is unbreakable, they could certainly use investigation to attempt to realize that it isn't really there.

If you compare it to Tasha's Hideous Laughter, it isn't really significantly more powerful than the first level spell. If Tasha's hits on a dragon, it would do similar (actually better since the dragon won't get actions at all). PF targets a different save and it is slightly harder to break since it doesn't get an extra save each time it gets damaged which seems about right for a higher level spell.

You cannot make something unbreakable with phantasmal force. There is no way for the dragon to know anything cast on it would be unbreakable. You could create a steel net or some effect it could understand. You cannot tell the dragon its qualities. The dragon reacts as it would to any net attached to it. It uses strength to break it. So now you're dealing with a Str check against the spell DC to restrain it.

 

[KarinsDad]

Once you turn the phantasmal force into a restraining effect, it acts like one. That means it would become a Str save to break it.

Does it? The spell does not mention a Str check. If you create an illusion of a wooden wall over a doorway and an Ogre tries to ram that wooden wall in an attempt to break it, the Ogre would just go through the doorway because the wall isn't there. Granted, a given DM might still make this an Intelligence check action and if the Ogre makes it, the spell ends, and if the Ogre does not make it, he thinks that the wooden wall moved out of his way when he rushed it and then moved back, but it wouldn't require a Str check. Just like the Ogre would fall through the bridge that is not actually there no check required, the Ogre would move through the wall that is not actually there no check required.

Str checks are not part of the spell. Trying to break through the illusion works every time. The illusion is not actually there.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

It is not at all clear that str checks automatically succeed. The sensations of the spell persist - so a dragon would still feel like it is entangled. The ogre would still feel that the wall was there and still find some way to rationalize its continued presence.

This is all beside the point, however. The POINT of using the spell in this manner is that once the Dragon makes a strength check to get out of the webbing or once the ogre tries to ram the wall they have used up their action for the turn. The dragon can't breathe or attack outside of lair/legendary actions as normal that round. The ogre can't smash someone's face. You use the spell for action denial, not the piddly 1d6 damage.

 

[HarrisonF]

I don't have the PHB in front of me, but the spell states that the illusionary creature can attack the target if the target is in the area of the creature. This seems to imply that the illusionary creature is stationary. The illusion is within a 10x10x10 cube. Nothing in the spell states that the illusion moves. The third level Major Image illusion can move if the caster moves it, but this spell seems to indicate otherwise.

An illusion of an unbreakable net is no different than an illusion of an unbreakable bridge. The dragon still falls through it because it isn't there. If the Dragon thinks it cannot fly, it starts to fall. It then rationalizes in its mind that it escaped from the unbreakable net. The net doesn't go with it, just like the bridge doesn't go with it. The spell does not indicate that the illusion moves and implies that it doesn't.

I could be wrong. But when I read the entire spell description, this appears to be the intent.

Btw, the reason we are discussing a Phantasmal Force in a discussion of Dragons is because of the type of save. Tasha's is much easier for most Dragons to save against.


With the interpretation that the illusion moves with the dragon, there is no reason for the 10 foot cube limitation on size. If it is all in the mind of the dragon and the magic is not physically attached to one actual location, the illusion should be any size. What does that matter if the illusion magic is only in the dragon's mind?


Edit: I have a hard time interpreting the sentence:

"Each round on your turn, the phantasm can deal 1d6 psychic damage to the target if it is in the phantasm's area or within 5 feet of the phantasm, provided that the illusion is of a creature or hazard that could logically deal damage, such as by attacking."

as mobile. If they wanted a mobile illusionary creature to attack, this sentence should state that the illusionary creature moves to the target, even if it has to fly to get there as opposed to this language the implies a set location.

From my interpretation, the phantasm you create is mobile, but within limitations of what you created. For example, a pool of acid won't chase after someone (so it uses the area of 10' effectively), whereas an Ogre would have a run speed, and a swarm of bees would have a fly speed (both of which would need to be within 5' of the target to deal damage). So if the target used a dimension door to get away from the Ogre, it would get away and not take damage until the ogre caught up.

As for the size limit, being limited to a 10' cube has a lot of impact. For example, you can only create medium or large-sized creatures. You mentioned one earlier with regards to making a phantasmal air elemental. If it is a 10' sized elemental, the dragon will just ignore it and attack the summoner. If it was a 100' air elemental overlord, the dragon probably wouldn't be able to get to the caster. As another example, it limits the chains to the dragons wings and not his entire body. There are quite a few options that get limited due to the 10' cube without additionally saying it can only exist within the 10' cube.

With your interpretation of how the spell works, I am having a really tough time seeing why anyone would ever use it. When a creature sees something scary around it, most targets will immediately move away from it, with a total net impact of doing 1d6 damage and forcing a creature to move 15'.