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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6433826" data-attributes="member: 5834">How is this different from 3E or 2E? I play a lot of wizards. Low level spells were always fairly narrow and low level wizards did very low damage.3E/Pathfinder1st level spell:Color Spray: If you weren't taking this spell, you were gimping yourself. Silent Image: Good for utility.Charm Person: Good for crowd control of a single humanoid target. Fog Cloud: Situationally useful.shield: Good defense.Mage Armor: Defense. There weren't any low level damage spells that were very good.It didn't improve a huge amount at 2nd level. 3rd level spells is when the wizard started to have a few good damage options. Even then, the effect wizard was much more powerful. The spells chosen were very narrow as well. Why does KD think something has changed is what I don't understand. The low level wizard in every edition of D&D I've ever played was a very weak damage dealer. In 3E the wizard as an inferior single target damage dealer that relied more on save or suck or no save or suck spells. I don't quite understand this strange expectation for a low level wizard. One of the biggest drawbacks to playing a wizard was the slow, painful leveling to five or so. Prior to that you weren't very strong. After that your power increased exponentially until a prepared wizard trumped everything else in the game. There seems to be this willful self-deception that the low level wizard was something other than it currently is. That is not the case. Never was. Levels 1 to 4 were always fairly painful for a wizard. Cantrips for 1d3 acid damage were far weaker than cantrips in this game, especially compared to the amount of damage martial characters were outputting. I never met a wizard save with high level metamagic that could match the damage output of a martial character save with aggregate AoE damage.So where exactly is Karin's Dad coming up with this damage and power disparity that is supposedly unique to 5E? As far as my experience goes, low level wizards have always been weaker than their martial counterparts. It is why so many players I know don't like to play them. Drives them nuts to have so few spells while the raging barbarian or archery ranger is killing everything. What exactly was the expectation for a low level wizard in 5E compared to previous editions?If you run the numbers, the damage capacity of a low level 5E wizard compared to their martial counterparts is closer than in any edition of D&D I've played. 1d10 damage versus 2d6+4 compared to 1d3 or 1d4+1 compared to 2d6+9 is much closer. At 3rd level a wizard using magic missile did 2d4+2 damage for an average of 7 points. An average melee with a 18 str and a two-handed weapon with Power Attack did 2d6+9 for an average of 16 points of damage. Even if she shot his burning hands 3d4 damage he did 7 points to a small group compared to 16 or more. If the martial crit, he utterly destroyed wizard damage.Damage is tighter in this edition between martial and caster than any other. Measuring solely cantrips doesn't take into account all the wizard can do. It's a false argument that doesn't stand up to the comparison to other editions. Low level wizards were always weak sauce. They are closer to the martials in damage in 5E than they ever were in previous editions save for perhaps 4E, which I have no experience with.</blockquote>

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