D&D (2024) My wishes for 6e: less dark vision and spellcasting classes

[Undrave]

Hey, if WotC really wanted to nerf wizards, they would do it. More people like crazy magic powers than not.

That's not exactly what the D&D beyond stats say... Wizards were in 4th place beyond Fighter, Rogue and Cleric. Fighters are the most popular and yet it feels like Wizards are the ones getting all the toys...

 

[James Gasik]

Well look at the classes. Clerics cast spells and fight. Bards cast spells, fight and inspire. Wizards cast spells and...uh...cast more spells. Since they don't have a secondary role, all support for Wizards is basically more spells.

 

[Jer]

Because, somehow, the words of Wizard players have been given WAY too much weight. They decided they were the 'canary in the mine' of D&D and the sole keeper of what is 'True D&D'. If the Wizards player are unhappy, apparently your game will be slandered and tanked like 4e.

To be fair - the 4e Wizard was the worst design of all of the 4e initial classes in the PHB in many ways. They created a "Controller" role for the class without really knowing what it meant and the various builds in the PHB for the Wizard are among the least interesting and the least tied to creating a distinctive play experience when compared to the other builds. They eventually figured out what they wanted the Controller to be, but it just wasn't there when the PHB came out.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, it was, but there were still spells that had nothing to do with the role, like fireball and magic missile. It took them awhile to realize evocation-style damage spells can control as well, like one of the best things to come out of Essentials, Fountain of Flame.

But of course, they never took anything away from the Wizard either, so they had tons of powers that supported their role dubiously. Which is really noticeable if your table has, say, an Invoker or Psion as well as a Wizard.

 

[Jer]

I mean, it was, but there were still spells that had nothing to do with the role, like fireball and magic missile. It took them awhile to realize evocation-style damage spells can control as well, like one of the best things to come out of Essentials, Fountain of Flame.

The big problem was that when they created the Wizard they didn't really know what a Controller was. What they created was more like a combo of Striker and Leader than what the Controller eventually became. And by the time they fixed it most of the folks who really liked Wizards had already moved on.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Given the limitations of Darkvision (disadvantage on Perception checks that require sight), I never understood why people thought it was a big deal. I once had a party who thought they could not bother with light sources and rely on Darkvision, and they blundered into so many traps (disadvantage on Perception lowers passive Perception by 5) that they finally broke down and started using light spells. Sure you can see in dim light without penalty, but that's not really a huge advantage in my book.

And it only extends to 60 feet, which usually doesn't matter. Maybe darkvision could be reduced to 30 feet. That way we could have our cake but have to eat it too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's not exactly what the D&D beyond stats say... Wizards were in 4th place beyond Fighter, Rogue and Cleric. Fighters are the most popular and yet it feels like Wizards are the ones getting all the toys...

Fighters are the easiest class to play, and veteran players inevitably steer newbies (who now far outnumber the vets) into fighter for their first PC. Also, new players are unlikely to make their feelings known to WotC (respond to polls and the like) making those already invested in the game have a weightier vote than their numbers would indicate.

 

[Undrave]

To be fair - the 4e Wizard was the worst design of all of the 4e initial classes in the PHB in many ways. They created a "Controller" role for the class without really knowing what it meant and the various builds in the PHB for the Wizard are among the least interesting and the least tied to creating a distinctive play experience when compared to the other builds. They eventually figured out what they wanted the Controller to be, but it just wasn't there when the PHB came out.

That's fair! But we know the designer had to fight the team constantly to not make the Wizard the best class in the game. I guess they over-tuned in the other direction. And because 1 class out of the lot was not as good, and it was the WIZARD, the whole game was lambasted. The Monk in 5e sucks but nobody is decrying the whole edition because of it.

 

[Undrave]

Fighters are the easiest class to play, and veteran players inevitably steer newbies (who now far outnumber the vets) into fighter for their first PC. Also, new players are unlikely to make their feelings known to WotC (respond to polls and the like) making those already invested in the game have a weightier vote than their numbers would indicate.

It took until Tasha's to get new maneuvers while Wizards got spells at every opportunities, usually far more than any other spell casting classes too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's fair! But we know the designer had to fight the team constantly to not make the Wizard the best class in the game. I guess they over-tuned in the other direction. And because 1 class out of the lot was not as good, and it was the WIZARD, the whole game was lambasted. The Monk in 5e sucks but nobody is decrying the whole edition because of it.

That is deeply reductive. The relative weakness of the wizard was far from the only thing people complained about in 4th edition.