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

[FormerlyHemlock]

Cool. The very fact that Owls have flyby should mean that the player should get opportunities (like Help) to use it.

Yeah, that's why analyzing initiative manipulation from the standpoint of how it affects low-level wizards specifically seems wrongheaded to me. It's also why Find Familiar is a bread-and-butter spell for low-level wizards, even though I always forget to actually USE the familiar in combat.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yeah, that's why analyzing initiative manipulation from the standpoint of how it affects low-level wizards specifically seems wrongheaded to me. It's also why Find Familiar is a bread-and-butter spell for low-level wizards, even though I always forget to actually USE the familiar in combat.

And this is one reason why I dislike certain aspects of 5E spells (especially wizard spells, but all classes have these issues). Level balance seems to be hit or miss. Find Familiar (and Sleep) is so useful that it practically forces wizard players to take that spell. That just feels forced (as does certain other combos or spells, or things like concentration that tend to influence wizards to be more blaster types, etc.). As a simple example, there is not a single mechanics useful illusion cantrip. Minor Illusion is so limited that it can rarely be useful in combat (yes, some tables give it more umph, but there is no mechanics that directly apply to it). Ditto for charm type cantrips (Friends cannot really be used in combat at many tables and there are no wizard enchantment cantrips that merely distract a foe like Vicious Mockery). Hence, players are practically forced to take blaster type wizard cantrips to be helpful.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I disagree that Sleep is a "forced" pick. I often don't take it. The opportunity cost is too high.

Technically, Minor Illusion is awesome in combat. You can create cover that is totally opaque to your enemies until they disbelieve, and transparent to your allies. Ergo, all your attacks are at advantage and theirs are at disadvantage. It's just like the Darkness/Devil's Sight combo except with more setup and no concentration requirement. I'm not sure I'd actually let this work, but that's how it is in RAW.

Friend is garbage compared to Enhance Charisma.

 

[Roux]

Is your party doing anything besides going from fight to fight? Is there any exploration or interaction opportunity to use magic creatively? If the campaign is just a series of combat encounters then I would probably want to play another class.

good question!

 

[mlund]

Barred school: necromancy?

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

there is not a single mechanics useful illusion cantrip.

Yes there is. All of them let you take the Help Action at range. Your Rogue is next to a foe? Use a minor illusion to create a shower of sparks to distract the foe and give the Rogue advantage, so they can use Sneak Attack.

Outside combat, illusions can bolster other skills. Your Bard is trying to influence a group of people. Use a minor illusion of people in the crowd yelling "right on, brother!" and "you tell 'em!", to help sway the crowd. Trying to con someone into buying an item for more than it's worth? Use a minor illusion to make it glow and seem magical. Need a bit of light to help pick a lock? Use a minor illusion of a lit taper. Want a safe place to rest for a few minutes? Hide behind an illusion of a closed door or rock wall.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes there is. All of them let you take the Help Action at range. Your Rogue is next to a foe? Use a minor illusion to create a shower of sparks to distract the foe and give the Rogue advantage, so they can use Sneak Attack.

Have you read the Minor Illusion spell? It does not give advantage. A DM could allow it to give advantage to a PC, but that's extremely generous use of the spell that the spell itself does not give. Advantage really should not be handed out with a cantrip, especially without some form of to hit roll or save.

Note: A real shower of sparks is not an object and is moving energy, nothing in the spell indicates that an illusionary object from Minor Illusion can actually move. Think of Minor Illusion as a photograph of an object. A photograph of a shower of sparks is just yellow motes hanging in the air (and of course, those sparks do not give off light).


Personally, I would not give advantage for a bunch of floating yellow motes. Just like I would not give advantage to the Rogue because a Web spell (also magic that just suddenly appeared) was cast next to the target.

Outside combat, illusions can bolster other skills. Your Bard is trying to influence a group of people. Use a minor illusion of people in the crowd yelling "right on, brother!" and "you tell 'em!", to help sway the crown.

Nor can Minor Illusion do this. There is nothing in the cantrip that indicates that the image can move like higher level illusions, nor can it do sound at the same time (image or sound, not both).

There are stronger illusions that might manage this, but not Minor Illusion.


Edit. Note: The sound could be done without the image, but any NPCs standing in that vicinity would probably be looking around wondering who was yelling this out.

Trying to con someone into buying an item for more than it's worth? Use a minor illusion to make it glow and seem magical.

First off, Minor Illusion cannot create light.

But even if it could, as the buyer tries to move the item upwards of 5 feet away, it stops glowing. Hmmmm. Worse yet, as the buyer physically interacts with the item, he immediately knows that there is an illusion (the roll is only needed if someone tries to figure out the illusion without physically interacting with it).

Want a safe place to rest for a few minutes? Hide behind an illusion of a closed door or rock wall.

This one would work.


The problem with Minor Illusion is that it is a stationary up to 5x5x5 image that doesn't interact. It's just an illusionary object (or, it's a sound), sitting there, a 3D photograph. It's not a movie. It does not move.


It seems like you are changing the cantrip to give it the umph that I stated that it does not have. Well yeah, if you give the cantrip more umph and versatility, then of course a Wizard casting it would be more versatile.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Have you read the Minor Illusion spell? It does not give advantage. A DM could allow it to give advantage to a PC, but that's extremely generous use of the spell that the spell itself does not give. Advantage really should not be handed out with a cantrip, especially without some form of to hit roll or save.

If you make an illusion of a wall spell, and your party knows you do this, it will appear as a wall to the enemy, blocking sight of the party member, giving them advantage, but be transparent to the party as they already know it's an illusion.

Because of how it's written it's a highly abusable spell.

As more spells get added Wizards will get better and better.

Note: A real shower of sparks is not an object and is moving energy, nothing in the spell indicates that an illusionary object from Minor Illusion can actually move.

Nothing says it can't. It says you can make sound that isn't static, so why would the image have to be static? Nothing says it can't be a moving or changing image.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's up to the DM. Please don't argue over something when both viewpoints are equally correct.

 

[KarinsDad]

If you make an illusion of a wall spell, and your party knows you do this, it will appear as a wall to the enemy, blocking sight of the party member, giving them advantage, but be transparent to the party as they already know it's an illusion.

Because of how it's written it's a highly abusable spell.

I wouldn't say highly abusable, but it could be abused once in a while. It's still a 5x5x5 cube max, so yeah good for a doorway, not so good out in the open.

As more spells get added Wizards will get better and better.

True dat.

Nothing says it can't. It says you can make sound that isn't static, so why would the image have to be static? Nothing says it can't be a moving or changing image.

Basically because:

a) higher level illusions explicitly have wording of "image of object or creature or other visible phenomena" instead of "image of an object"
b) it's called an image, not a moving image.
c) all of the examples are of stationary objects/images.
d) the authors went out of their way to make the sound non-static. That doesn't give the same property to the image.
e) if as you say, it is highly abusable, why would a DM want to allow it to be even more abusable?

I'm ok if someone runs it stronger at their table than the spell seems to indicate and yes, the cantrip does not explicitly call out a movement limitation, but I tend to go with RAI based on the writeup of Minor Illusion and the writeup of Silent Image (which is a first level spell where sound is taken away and the caster has to use an action to alter the appearance of the image to make it look like it is moving if the wizard moves the image). The writeup of Silent Image and Major Image indicate the ability to make the image seem real, so I don't give those properties to Minor Illusion which indicates that it is merely an image. Those writeups also explicitly discuss images of continuously mobile thing like a creature (or other visible phenomena).

To me, Silent Image allows for the illusion of a creek with water running in it (i.e. other visible phenomena), Minor Illusion does not (objects only). Minor Illusion is limited to objects that do not move, glow, spin, or do other things that the "visible phenomena / creature" clauses of the Silent Image and Major Image spells give to those spells.


I do think that the designers dropped the ball on this spell in this area.


But if Minor Illusion can do most of what Silent Image can do (and Minor Illusion also does not have a Verbal component), players would just spam Minor Illusion and only cast Silent Image once in a blue moon when they need a mobile illusion. That tends to make Minor Illusion abusable as you claim. I have this illusion of an archer firing arrows next to me in a combat. Sure, the foes lose track of the arrows, but since arrows move so fast, that can happen anyway. For the price of a cantrip, it gives the caster a fake buddy who might be attacked instead (and it doesn't need to be an archer, it could be a medusa or something worse). Hmmm. Pretty strong for a spammable cantrip.


So to me, an explicit reading of Minor Illusion does not have the "illusion of a creature or other visible phenomena" clause, so it does not get those properties.