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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8326100" data-attributes="member: 6790260">...that is literally the fundamental benefit of the spell. Area denial. As I specifically said earlier.But they have to take some kind of action to do it. The grease spell just...works. It doesn't need anyone attending to it. It doesn't need the Wizard to spend one of his fire bolt dice. It just happens.I wasn't--and as far as I could tell, you weren't--talking about that. You were talking about comparing damage outputs, and treating both the casters and the Fighter as having identical accuracy. This is not true, because casters have a choice: they can attack AC, or they can target any save for which they have an appropriate spell. Most saving throw bonuses are significantly lower than AC bonuses. This is recognized by the rules themselves; it's precisely the reason why big bad nasty creatures have Legendary Resistance, because if they didn't, they'd get squished by stuff based on saving throws (usually debuffs/conditions, because these tend to be much more powerful than merely inflicting damage, but that's a separate issue). Pretending that spellcasters definitely always have the same accuracy values is false, and will lead to mistaken analysis, because most of the time, a reasonably-prepared caster has at least one option that target's a monsters bad save, whereas (just as I said) the Fighter has no choice but to target AC (or Athletics/Acrobatics, for Shove, or, if a Battle Master, a Strength or occasionally Wisdom saving throw).I have.The fact that you think I haven't is very frustrating.Then I dispute the argument as fundamentally in error. A caster can do most of those things, if we make the Fighter's mechanics into a spell. And then the next round, if it suits them, they can do something much better than the Fighter. Or they can do something about half as good, safely at range.And how many times per day do you get that "2nd wind" effect? How many spell slots are we talking about?Even if I granted this (which I don't, I still think you're pretty heavily over-weighting things and ignoring maintenance-action costs), even if I gave you that it was legit actually the equivalent of a 3rd-level spell (which I emphatically do not), you're talking about three-ish 3rd-level spells per day at 5th level (depending on number of short rests). You know how many 3rd-level spells a Wizard has at 5th level? Two (potentially three, via Arcane Recovery--every other spellcaster has two). A mere one level later, and all casters have three such spell slots. So the Wizard is already matching a clearly favorably-viewed version of the Fighter's special powers, even without considering cantrips, rituals (if applicable), and 1st and 2nd level spells. With some 20ish spells a day, and several of those spells being dramatically more powerful than anything in the Fighter's arsenal, I'm not seeing the power you talk about. I'm seeing a Fighter that gets some reasonably good stuff early on, which mostly scales poorly (a very common problem with Fighters across editions), and which the Wizard can reasonably match at level 6.Plus...don't forget the Wizard's class features. Spell Mastery at 18th level literally DOES let you cast a (chosen, but changeable) 2nd level spell at-will. So even that is something the Wizard eventually gets for free, albeit at quite high level (but still two levels before the Fighter gets a third extra attack!)Then you shouldn't have said...You were very specific about turning these things into actual spells, back then. That specifically rendering these effects as spells would create an "instant difference in perception." I've done the described task, and did not see the described result. Now you're saying you meant some other task. That's very frustrating to me. (Particularly since the actually-powerful things, like Second Wind and Action Surge, are not at-will.)Being able to replace one attack with an attempt to knock a single target prone is not a powerful effect. If that were an at-will spell, it would be pretty bad. Sapping sting, as mentioned earlier, attempts to knock prone and do damage, just as the Fighter's shove already can. It's, admittedly, relatively light damage (d4 per tier), but...it already fits the bill, there's already a spell that does very nearly what you're talking about, and nobody's freaking out about it. Attempting to do 5 damage (2d4, take half damage on a save) and simultaneously knock prone is certainly less than doing 13.33 damage and separately attempting to knock prone, but not a vast gulf. I would not be looking in shock and confusion if sapping sting was based on d8s instead of d4s (frankly, I actually think d4 is a little weak, but since I appreciate spells that are weaker than non-spell options, don't take that as a complaint).Doing 13.33 damage with a single melee attack instead of (about) 6 damage with a single ranged cantrip attack is, likewise, not a huge deal. Is it better? Yes, certainly. But don't forget that the Warlock can do 1d10+5 damage per hit at-will by spending something innate to their class (exactly like choosing a maneuver or a fighting style). Some people dislike that spellcasters (mostly Bard and Sorcerer) can dip for eldritch blast + Agonizing Blast, but you aren't hearing people throwing a fit because there's a cantrip that can deal 10.5 damage per hit at range and throw an opponent back 10 feet per hit, or slow each hit target by 10 feet (non-stacking), or the like. It may not be absolutely perfectly 100% identical to doing 13.33 damage on a melee hit and being able to trade doing that damage for knocking the target prone, but it's NOT worlds apart from what the Fighter does, and there isn't, and has never been, a chorus of voices complaining that eldritch blast is ridiculously OP plz nerf.The Shove action, presented as a spell, is weak. Plain and simple. The Shove action, presented as a rider on top of a cantrip you can already cast at the cost of reduced damage, would be...situational, even as a ranged attack. It certainly wouldn't be seen as horrendously overpowered--nor "10x stronger" than what the Fighter does.Again, I have yet to see a single thing that does so. People have often bellyached--we literally had a thread about it just recently!--at how cantrips make Wizards do comparable damage to Fighters and that that's dumb because Fighters should be unparalleled AWESOME at fighting.You're arguing I've missed something. This is entirely possible, I'm human and make plenty of mistakes. Given this, would you be willing to point back to the specific posts where you did so, so I can re-read them and try to find what I missed?</blockquote>

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