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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cthulhu42" data-source="post: 6587852" data-attributes="member: 6792361">So it will come as no surprise that I have not read all 70+ pages of this thread, and chances are I won't add anything that hasn't already been said, but our situations are so similar I thought I'd chime in, just in case. I, too, am playing a 4th level wizard in HotDQ, but I must say that my experience compared to yours is night and day. I've consistently been able to, not just contribute, but be a major player in combat as well as lots and lots of other situations.  Furthermore, compared to a low level 3.x wizard (which I played quite a bit of) the 5e wizard is just as, if not even more powerful/handy.We played a session tonight where my familiar (a hawk) was able to fly on ahead of our caravan and alert us of an ambush some three miles down the road, enabling us to prepare for it. And when the hobgoblins made their move on us I was able to incapacitate eight of the nine of them via sleep.Later on, during another fight, I was able to land 3 scorching rays on a bad guy, and even nailed a crit on the third ray (we do allow crits at our table for spells with a physical manifestation that require an attack roll, so that might not apply to you) which translated to 30+ points of damage. When someone in our caravan stole our rogue's new, magic bow, I was able to track it down with detect magic. Earlier in the campaign our rouge had to murder a bad guy and I was able to help cover up the crime by using prestidigitation to clean up all the blood, and levitate to make to body easily movable into the forest where I hid it high in the branches of a tree. Earlier still, my familiar (this time in spider form) came in handy again as a spy in the egg hatchery, crawling along the ceiling ahead of us, allowing me to scope out rooms ahead so that we could prepare. I've also saved lives and valuables with levitate. Firebolt has been a bread and butter combat spell, which came in especially handy when we were captured once and I was able to still use it to cause a distraction and help our escape. Everyone else had been stripped of weapons, but I still had firebolt. Forgive me if you've already been drubbed over the head with this, but it seems to me that you might be denying yourself the best tools available in the name of character flavor. There's nothing wrong with that, but you can't really fault the design of the game if you refuse to use the best weapons available. As I think someone already pointed out way, way back at the beginning of this thread, it's kind of like playing a fighter and insisting on only using daggers, or a sap. The plain fact is, if you don't use the heavy guns that are provided, you just aren't going to be as effective. Honestly, and this is strictly my opinion, I think a characters true flavor comes from personality traits, morality, and quirks than what weapon or spell he might use. If these last 70 pages haven't changed your mind already, I would urge you to give spells like sleep, and scorching ray, and firebolt, and find familiar a chance. They're just means to an end. In a lot of ways, I really do empathize. It's taken me awhile to get out of the 3.x head space. I know that my 5e wizard, at high level, will never be as powerful as my 3e wiz was. But in the context of the rest of the game, it seems to work, at least thus far. Especially at these low levels. I'm sure you remember the first three or four levels of life as a 3e wizard, when basically all you did was cower at the back of the party and try to get lucky with a crossbow, and maybe toss out a sleep or magic missile at the end of the day, when you hoped that the party was due for a rest pretty soon. Now we get to spam firebolts to our hearts content!And finally, while I also feel you with regard to spells like hold person having every round saves, and how difficult it is to make them stick for very long, I remind myself that it works both ways. In 3e, god help you if your PC got tagged with a hold person. At best, you got to sit out the fight and watch your companions have all the fun, and at worst, you got to watch a bad guy stroll over and lop your head off with no chance of saving yourself. So yeah, it sucks that I can no longer more or less require a bad guy to save or die, but neither can they, and I think it's not a bad trade off. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Apologies again if this is already well covered ground.</blockquote>

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