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

[KarinsDad]

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.

At 3rd level? In a single encounter? From 23 foes? Where a single high damage critical could knock a low hit point PC unconscious?

I get the whole combat as war, but at his level of results in a single encounter, that means that the DM gave the PCs a whole lot of help. Things like range/mobility and cover? Why don't the gnolls have that too? Are they just standing in a line, 200 feet apart, just waiting for a group of PCs to mow them down the line? I keep reading how tough his encounters are, but they must not be that tough if he gets results like this. One cannot get those results without the proper tools and the tools (like environment) are set up by the DM which means that the DM is making the encounters super tough monster-wise, but then giving the PCs an extremely powerful edge (allies, bottlenecks, traps, poison, nearly impregnable defensible positions) to win with. Sorry, even in a combat as war scenario, the DM is setting the bad guys up to fail, not succeed. Why aren't the bad guys using combat as war? Why is that a PC only possibility?

The really nasty DMs are the ones that can send a dozen goblins at a fresh 3rd level party and the PCs just barely manage to avoid a TPK (i.e. the goblins use combat as war). This DM sounds easy because he is obviously seriously helping them in some ways. When something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.

I find his claims and your claims on this to be totally suspect. If the silver dragon ally helped, it's not exactly a CR 8 encounter, is it? If the players said "is there a way to poison their water supply?" and the DM says yes and 2/3rds of the gnolls are killed or disabled before the encounter even starts, it's not exactly a CR 8 encounter, is it? It's two encounters. One basically to poison them with presumably limited risk (or the PCs would be swamped by the gnolls), and the second with less than half of the original gnoll force. If the DM has 2 gnolls come in every single round, it's not exactly a CR 8 encounter, is it?


Now, multiple encounters with short rests in between? That's a different story.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

At 3rd level? In a single encounter? From 23 foes? Where a single high damage critical could knock a low hit point PC unconscious?

I get the whole combat as war, but at his level of results in a single encounter, that means that the DM gave the PCs a whole lot of help. Things like range/mobility and cover? Why don't the gnolls have that too? Are they just standing in a line, 200 feet apart, just waiting for a group of PCs to mow them down the line? I keep reading how tough his encounters are, but they must not be that tough if he gets results like this. One cannot get those results without the proper tools and the tools (like environment) are set up by the DM which means that the DM is making the encounters super tough monster-wise, but then giving the PCs an extremely powerful edge (allies, bottlenecks, traps, poison, nearly impregnable defensible positions) to win with. Sorry, even in a combat as war scenario, the DM is setting the bad guys up to fail, not succeed. Why aren't the bad guys using combat as war? Why is that a PC only possibility?

Bolded the important part. Yes, even in combat as war, the DM sets the monsters up to fail. When my PCs were 3rd level, I sent them to investigate a vanished village, which led to them realizing that there was a group of neogi slavers (between 8 and 15 neogis, according to the lone witness, and a similar number of umber hulks) who were going to be coming back for their neogi babies when the moon was full next. It was 64,000 XP worth of enemies when the deadly threshold was 1200 XP. The PCs had the option of just reporting the results to the king and closing their investigation (letting the neogis get away), but they opted to go back for reinforcements (12 archers and 6 spearmen IIRC) and took them on. The enemy had catapults and an 8th level wizard with Fireball, and I honestly thought the PCs were all going to die, but between the traps they had laid for the neogis, the fact that they caught them in a dispersed formation, the ground the PCs had chosen to fight on, and a healthy dose of pure luck (the neogi wizard/leader was about to lauch a Fireball that would have wiped out half of the PC combat power, but something happened, I forget what, to make it illegal for him to do so)--between all those factors and a smidgen of DM mercy (declaring morale failure for the neogis after several of them were down, so they just broke and ran instead of continuing to fight smart), the PCs triumphed. So yes, I set the PCs up to succeed by giving them intelligence in advance instead of just, "boom, a hammership lands and suddenly you're surrounded by 15 umber hulks and then a Fireball roasts you to death," but they had to do all the rest of the setting up themselves, and if they hadn't done that they would have died horribly, and they might have died horribly anyway if things had gone just slightly different. I anticipate something similar in Celtavian's case. It's fairly unlikely they they just straight-up fought all of the gnolls in a giant melee of dice-rolling; that's just a death sentence at that level, and it's boring besides.

Why aren't the bad guys using combat as war? Why is that a PC only possibility?

Strategic initiative, mostly. In my campaign, the PCs are pretty insignificant still, and all the evil guys are mostly focused on each other and stealing as much land/gold/iron/slaves/brains from each other and the nice guys as they can. (My campaign is inspired by the strategy game Dominions 4, BTW.) If the neogi had somehow known the PCs were there, or if they'd managed to escape at the end and then take off without being wiped out by the PCs, they would either have avoided the place entirely or just "nuked the site from orbit" using the ballistas and catapults attached to their ship. Result: dead PCs. It didn't work out that way, but it could have. Again, the advantage I gave to the PCs was mostly about telegraphing the threat level, and I didn't give that advantage to the bad guys because I've set up my sandbox so the PCs have a high probability of being the heroes at the end of the story. Because it is also a game as well as a gameworld, and I want smart play to be rewarded with (a high probability of) success.

 

[The Wizard Dolomite]

First off, prone is not face down. Nothing in the description of prone indicates that. So most of the rest of your argument falls apart when you replace the prone condition with the "prone and restrained" condition. Your elaborate description is one of preventing the target from moving (or in most cases acting) at all.

Minor Illusion does not have that level of power.

Secondly, your description here is kind of funny. You make a box of stone. If Minor Illusion stops light, then the target cannot see the box, the spikes, or anything else and just stands up. If Minor Illusion does not stop light, then your description of "in a box with very little light" is invalid and not a feature of Minor Light (see this thread).

Minor Illusion and Light

And razor wire??? Seriously? Your DM allowed that in a D&D game? Barbed wire was not invented until 1867 in the real world and razor wire much later than that. How would a medieval wizard even know what razor wire is? Does your DM allow ray guns too?


Quite frankly, Minor Illusion does not have the "restrained" feature, so it doesn't get it. Just like Minor Illusion does not give advantage. There are some circumstances where Minor Illusion might give tactical advantage or even advantage for PCs on one side of it who know it is an illusion firing arrows through it, but a DM would be reasonable to state that arrows coming through an illusionary door is the same as interacting with the illusion and the PCs cannot keep doing that for multiple rounds.

It's a cantrip dude.

I'm all for the players being creative, but there should be limits to that. No Web spell equivalent for a Cantrip.

A player can make a chest, a chair, a pile of gold, a door. But razor wire surrounding the NPC (prone or not prone) is something that the NPC should get out of right away IMO.

Creative? Sure. But no way as a DM do I allow a cantrip to hand out the Restrained condition with no saving throw.

When and where does it state dnd takes place in the midevil times? And does not pathfinder have guns? And I ment the guy in that particular situation was down and I said low light not darkness and im assuming it blocks light since you can take cover behind it its obviously not see through. You must have the worlds most strict dm since everytime someone tells you how to do somthing on your wizard that isnt underpowered, or a way to use a power you always reply with "Dms discretion" or "Takes a lienent Dm". man maybe your dms your problem if he's so strict that the game isnt fun for you and nothing matters but how much dpr you can put out.

 

[KarinsDad]

and a smidgen of DM mercy (declaring morale failure for the neogis after several of them were down, so they just broke and ran instead of continuing to fight smart),

Sorry, but it doesn't sound like the neogis were fighting that smart in the first place. Even Umber Hulks have an int of 9 (probably about the range of the least intelligent PCs). Why wouldn't they just burrow under the ground and use their natural talents of burrowing and tremorsense to come up under the party and wipe them out? Traps shouldn't bother umber hulks. They should just burrow through them, around them, under them. Or did you give the PCs solid rock for hundreds of feet in all directions to fight on and not actually ground?


As for "the ground the PCs decided to fight on", I've seen that fail a lot. The players have a plan in mind and it doesn't materialize, or it only partially works, or it backfires. Not always, but often. The first casualty of any battle is usually the plan (for either side). The reason is that neither side has a real clue about what is going to happen, they just know what they expect to happen. Combat is usually fluid and unpredictable.


Course, if the DM forces the PC plan to materialize and forces it to work out just perfect for the PCs, then I guess it all works out. Personally, I prefer real challenges as opposed to "Oh, the NPC spell caster cannot actually cast his Fireball. Lucky for you guys.".

Sorry, but what you are describing here sounds like DM spoon feeding. If the DM creates such a overwhelming scenario, he's forced to fudge monster decisions and damage and such, just to make it a game. Not my cup of tea when the DM prevents the PCs from getting wiped by a vastly superior force (unless of course the PC allies were just as tough as the enemy in which case, why the heck are the players playing the game? To be outmatched by their allies?).

 

[KarinsDad]

When and where does it state dnd takes place in the midevil times? And does not pathfinder have guns?

Guns were invented in the 13th century.

The Industrial Revolution started in the mid-18th century. There's a reason why plate armor and two handed swords were created when they were, and barbed wire wasn't created until it was (and razor wire much later than that). Earlier manufacturing technologies could not manage it. Have all of the high tech stuff in your games that you want. But don't expect other people to think it plausible.

You seem to be going way out of your way to rationalize why your DM allowed a cantrip to give the restrained condition without a saving throw.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sorry, but it doesn't sound like the neogis were fighting that smart in the first place. Even Umber Hulks have an int of 9 (probably about the range of the least intelligent PCs). Why wouldn't they just burrow under the ground and use their natural talents of burrowing and tremorsense to come up under the party and wipe them out? Traps shouldn't bother umber hulks. They should just burrow through them, around them, under them. Or did you give the PCs solid rock for hundreds of feet in all directions to fight on and not actually ground?

The umber hulks did burrow... and then the archers started shooting at the neogis, who ordered the umber hulks back to the surface.

Traps were laid all over the place, but the primary impact was just at the very beginning of the fight, when the two neogi (including the leader/wizard) who had gone down to check on the younglings triggered a rolling stone trap that cost them some HP and kicked off the fight. No umber hulks were affected by bear traps or caltrops, as far as I recall.

The PC archers were fighting on rooftops. Umber hulks could have eventually collapsed the building, but by that time the PCs were winning.

I get the impression that you like to metagame. No doubt you wouldn't have enjoyed the neogi encounter, because I deliberately did not play the neogi like a well-oiled, telepathic machine making optimal countermoves to every PC move, whether or not they had any way to know the PC moves. I played them as what they are: intelligent but also selfish beasts, interested in money and slaves and status among their peers but ultimately also most interested in personal survival (hence: morale failure at a certain point) and not in "winning" the encounter with the PCs at any price. Also, they were taken by surprise in a town they thought was deserted; all the umber hulks were still on the ship when the football dropped, and the leader/wizard was in the basement checking on the babies. As I say, it almost went down quite differently with an enemy Fireball, but it didn't.

As for "the ground the PCs decided to fight on", I've seen that fail a lot. The players have a plan in mind and it doesn't materialize, or it only partially works, or it backfires. Not always, but often.

Yeah, but in this case it didn't backfire. Being on rooftops instead of solid ground was important (got them at least one extra round of archer fire IIRC), for example.

Course, if the DM forces the PC plan to materialize and forces it to work out just perfect for the PCs, then I guess it all works out. Personally, I prefer real challenges as opposed to "Oh, the NPC spell caster cannot actually cast his Fireball. Lucky for you guys.".

Sorry, but what you are describing here sounds like DM spoon feeding.

It was more like, "Fwoosh! Roll saving throws for ten of your archers! Oh look, they're all down. Wait. Argh. I said there's no window there, right? I guess he spends his turn running out the front door instead, looking for position." [I don't remember the real reason it was illegal. It wasn't a window, it may have been something to do with the initiative rolls I think.]

RE: "I prefer real challenges..." You've made it sufficiently clear what kind of combats you like. Combat As Sport, monsters played like chess pieces but with the force advantage in favor of the PCs per DMG guidelines, all PCs equally powerful. Sounds horribly unrealistic and a bit dull to me (I don't RPG for the die-rolling) but obviously you like it, so more power to you.

 

[Malovaan]

Is all this "my DM makes challenges harder than yours" "no, our party faces much more real danger" totally relelvent to this thread? What matters most in an encounter IMO is that it feels like it was challenging for the party to overcome.

If you guys really think that what your respective parties face is completely out there and would be totally unthinkable for the "average" gaming party to face, then perhaps you're actually playing the game in such a way that it alters your perception of how well balanced various things really are. Perhaps you are not best positioned to answer the queston of whether a low level wizard "sucks" or not, as what the average low level wizard faces and does may be completely different to what your low level wizard finds itself doing?

 

[KarinsDad]

RE: "I prefer real challenges..." You've made it sufficiently clear what kind of combats you like. Combat As Sport, monsters played like chess pieces but with the force advantage in favor of the PCs per DMG guidelines, all PCs equally powerful. Sounds horribly unrealistic and a bit dull to me (I don't RPG for the die-rolling) but obviously you like it, so more power to you.[/COLOR]

Force advantage in favor of the PCs? Seriously? At third level, our 6 PCs were attacked by 12 foes. Two of them were at least level 5 in plate (2 attacks per round), 2 were attack dogs with the stats (and pack attack hence knock PCs prone) of wolves. 2 were warhorses in barding with trample (again knock PCs prone), 2 were bowmen hiding in trees of at least level 5 (2 attacks per round), and the remaining 4 were about level 3 (based on hit points). So they outnumbered our attacks per round 16 to 6, they outnumbered our hit points 3 to 1, and 4 of them had better AC than anyone in the party.

This is a challenge. Action economy is way in the NPC's favor and only spells can barely make the difference (we ended up using up practically every resource and still just barely winning). The DM didn't hold back. Every foe attacked every round and used focus fire tactics. That's what I mean by a real challenge. The "neogis don't order the umber hulks back to the surface" to fight suboptimally and not with their best abilities in mind to be shot by archers from rooftops, neogis seek cover if they are getting attacked (like real troops in the real world) and let the umber hulks move in underground to take out the enemies. A set of bear traps and caltrops doesn't stop the enemies (we prepared with the best terrain available there too and we had traps set up in our fight too, but only one of them worked once, a trip wire, the first casualty of any battle is the plan). The enemies do not bring catapults to the fight but fail to have scouts out and guards with them at all times to protect themselves. High int neogis let the umber hulks do all of the fighting and only come in to mop up or come out and fight when they the risk to themselves is lower. They do not make suboptimal decisions. They make the best decisions the DM can think of because in reality, the DM himself might not have an int as high as the neogis should.


Fights like the one I describe here are memorable. I remember it to this day 6 months later. I remember the exact makeup of the foes and the terrain. Why? Because the DM threw a tough fight at us and did not hold back and it was just a hair away from a TPK. Fights like the one he described where "we beat them with relative ease because of the level of coordination and tactics" and "They defeated it with moderate difficulty. I think one cure wound spell. This is a pretty standard encounter for our group." where the foes should have killed his party 3 times over so obviously the DM made the bad guys lose do not sound as memorable, especially as a "pretty standard encounter".


Not too long ago, the 6 5th level PCs and 2 3rd level NPCs in our group were teleported into there different groups in Undermountain (totally random: 2 PCs 1 NPC in one group, 3 PCs in another group, 1 PC and 1 NPC in the third group). Each group teleported in naked with a (again totally random) pile of other PC/NPC gear next to them. After several preliminary combats each that used up some resources, all three PC groups ended up converging on an Orc defensive stronghold (designed to withstand attacks from the other local denizens) where they were outnumbered 20 to 8 (with a shaman and Orc leader) and the PCs couldn't cast about half of their spells because they did not have the proper material components and most of the PCs had weaker armor and/or weapons (a few had tad stronger) because (for example), the Rogue cannot wear plate mail, so he had nothing to wear; and the PCs were not even initially in the same rooms and able to assist each other if needed. All one single running nonstop encounter where the enemies were all fighting from round one and the PCs were hampered with coordination and spell selection and equipment.

Force advantage in favor of the PCs? Combat as Sport? Yes, the Orcs outnumbered the PCs by 5 to 2, but they were not 2 levels higher like in his example (in fact, 90% of them were 2 levels lower than most of the party) and did not outnumber them ~5 to 1 like in his example. Extremely challenging, but not so ridiculously so that the DM has to step in to save the day.


I get it that this style of "let's throw a bunch of high level monsters for the party level, but play the monsters suboptimally for their intelligence and give the PCs a bunch of cannon fodder allies so that the PCs have a fighting chance" works for your table. It just wouldn't work for my table. My players want a tough challenge, but not a ridiculous one where the DM then has to save their butts for them.

I do think that it's great that different tables find different ways to have fun. But if someone plays in a fairly non-standard game, then they should expect that different tactics and different spells would work better or worse for them because a significant portion of how the game is played is different.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Is all this "my DM makes challenges harder than yours" "no, our party faces much more real danger" totally relelvent to this thread? What matters most in an encounter IMO is that it feels like it was challenging for the party to overcome.

Sorry, I'll drop it. I don't think my group is unusual; if anything my point was more that you can ignore the encounter building rules completely and still have a fun game as long as the players accept challenges voluntarily.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I get it that this style of "let's throw a bunch of high level monsters for the party level, but play the monsters suboptimally for their intelligence and give the PCs a bunch of cannon fodder allies so that the PCs have a fighting chance" works for your table. It just wouldn't work for my table.

Congratulations, you've just rediscovered the difference between Combat As Sport and Combat As War. In Sport, the encounter begins when initiative is rolled. In war, it begins with the recon you conducted two weeks earlier. Acquiring "cannon fodder allies" is the PCs' responsibility. Anyway, you're right, you would hate that kind of game.