D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Maxperson]

... If you entirely skip its 70% magic resistance, sure

And the wizard's low hit points to the high damage breath weapon.

 

[Mistwell]

Its not 1 particular build. Its any spellcaster using spells they probably would be using anyway. Tashas mindwhip for example would be a specific if boring build. You can use that one spell to naughty word down huge chunks of the MM. Even with "bad" wisdom saves (+1-+6 being "bad") behind the screen I noticed how much worse most creatures intelligence saves were.

See previous statements about Greater Magic Resistance taking care of all of these spells. Sould probably be added to CR 20+ critters and a lot of CR 10+ ones if they are a boss fight. Had a CR 19 Balor get pwned by a banishment spell once it ran out of legendary saves (spam command at it).

Uncommon +1 DC items can be crafted reasonably quickly as well now. My PCs didn't stack them but DCs were 1-2 points higher than theory craft. I think you may be able to get +6-+9 on your spell DC but that is more theory craft.

You're essentially dismissing it because you're not seeing it. Its almost as bad as 3.5 where you have DC 30 or whatever. Its not quite that bad but its not hard to have things fail saves 75-95% of the time.

Spellcasters and outsiders usually have better saves but not by much. And almost everything casts spells in 5.5 now or can do if they want it bad enough. Throwing a hold monster spell or twinning it doesn't require an exotic build or theory craft.

I agree that creatures intended for boss fights do on average need more magic resistance, better saves, more legendary resistances, etc.. They've done a better job in 2024 with that however.

But your average mook? I don't see the need for it. It's OK to let spellcasters shine sometimes with an upcast Command spell or whatever. I find no players I've played with will abuse this tactic. It's too boring to do it too often, but it's fun to do it for some battles sometimes.

As for magic item crafting, that's highly setting and adventure specific. I've noticed from your posts over the years your groups tend to be able to get short rests, long rests, and downtime more frequently than my groups allow for. I'm constantly playing in campaigns with at least some level of time pressure on the party. This drastically changes the tools available to players in that adventure between your groups and mine. It's not that we will never be able to craft, but it's relatively rare for us. I'm not dismissing its impact, but I am noting it's an element of your campaigns.

I've pointed out before how your view of the game seems to differ fairly greatly from the views of designers, experienced content reviewers and video optimizers, and poster experiences here. This does not make your view any more or less valid than any other view and I am not judging you for having a different view than mine, but it does color yours and other people's views of how well the rules function.

You seem to think the rules are not functioning well and everything is easy mode in your games. Many others don't have that experience, though there are some who do share you views. Like for example d4: D&D Deep Dive and his audience, which are focused on one combat per day, full long rest resources ready at the beginning of the fight and acceptable to expend all or most resources in that one fight in a matter of four rounds total. I like D4 Deep Dive just fine, but his one-fight-per-adventure-day assumption is so different from mine for adventures that I don't find his builds particularly useful for my table. I still watch him though, as he makes fun theoretical builds. Similarly, Pack Tactics seems to have similar views to yours concerning downtime for magic item crafting. He's another optimization creator who I enjoy watching but who doesn't seem to have assumptions similar to mine concerning typical adventures.

I'm suggesting the difference isn't experience playing the game, as you've said it is. I think it's setting and adventure assumptions common in your games and more rare in other people's games, on average. It would be much easier to change some of the assumptions in your game about adventuring time, safety of short and long rests, quantity of challenges in close proximity to each other, availability of downtime, time sensitive pressure on adventure goals, etc., than it would be to change all the monsters in your game. But, if you like the set of assumptions you're using, then yes tweaking the monsters is probably your best option.

 

[Maxperson]

I think people here have a lot of experience playing on average. Regardless, I'm not sure what that really has to do with the topic. If you agree with me that sometimes just doing damage is more fun than control spells, even if you're very experienced at the game, then it's irrelevant how experienced people are on ENWorld for this particular topic.

I agree with you about damage spells being fun and being used by experienced players. That has been my experience as well. It's not just control spells.

Also, given the discussions that I've seen here over the years, I think this site has a much higher percentage of people who DM/play to high levels than the average 5e player.

 

[Distracted DM]

With -1 wisdom saves Purple Worms have a lot more to worry about. CR 15 my ass.

With WIS -1 at least they have a tiny to small chance of saving for most levels of play. But INT -5, like most bestial foes, means that they're just screwed once you start giving PCs INT-targeting effects. And something like Hold Monster is using a higher-level spell slot, even higher if you want to upcast it for multiple creatures. Tasha's Mind Whip is 2nd level. And allows upcasting for more targets

 

[Mistwell]

And some of us run 3-6 games/week

Tasha's Mind Whip, though.. that was one of the things that made me stop allowing every 1pp in without checking it first. It trivialized a bunch of tier 3 encounters in late-game Night Below, because 5e monsters weren't designed with INT-targeting features existing in mind; few will have any chance against TMW. And those poor purple worms...

I game twice a week and have consistently since before 5e. I...don't think I could handle 3-6 games a week (and turned down a third). That's some serious time commitment there! And to be the primary DM, wow. Impressive.

Noteworthy, it's one of the spells not updated so far for 5.5e, and not included in the upcoming expansion books either. A lot of tables only allow 2024 material now, though it's fine to use prior material and some tables still do. I am not overly worried about a spell that hasn't been updated yet. I suspect it will be.

 

[Mistwell]

And the wizard's low hit points to the high damage breath weapon.

This is really noticeable for wizards at lower level. I am playing one, and took a dip in Ranger for armor proficiency and a few more hit points, but got my butt repeatedly kicked by Ankhegs who spit acid. It's a Dex save for half damage, but enough times of being in the stream of acid and it doesn't matter if you're making your save or not with that half damage. Those suckers kept recharging their acid spit against the odds, and had me playing the fire and take cover game just to stay alive. And as an illusionist, their Tremorsense was rendering a bunch of my tactics useless. And that's a CR 2 creature! As you say, it will be even rougher against a Dragon and I expect I will be missing the Evasion my old Rogue used to provide for me.