D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[Clint_L]

But, I have found that latter to be more of a theoretical concern than an actual one. The limits on spell preparation mean that a wizard can't do everything everyone else can do on a moment's notice. Sure, they can do it, but they have to go back home to take a long rest and prepare, and come back tomorrow and do it. Meanwhile, the situation they'd be facing has probably changed, such that their preparation doesn't meet the new needs. Nor, as a practical matter, do they seem able to out-do other classes at their own shtick for very long.

This. There are absolutely situations where powerful spellcasters (not just wizards and sorcerers) can dramatically alter the game. But there are also plenty of situations where they wind up contributing very little, due to having the wrong spells selected, clutch saving throws being made (or legendary saves being used) and so on.

Wizard/sorcerer is a high risk, high reward kind of a class. I think a lot of the reason they are seen as so powerful is because humans are biased to recall and overvalue the importance of exceptional events. So the fighter consistently doing and tanking damage in combat after combat is a lot less memorable than that time the wizard's clutch spell saved the day.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wizards can be quite powerful under the right circumstances. Can they go nova, burning off spell slots willy-nilly?

Yes, because 5e is not designed in a way that supports meaningful punishment for this, unless the DM becomes actively hostile and clearly playing fast and loose with diegesis (because three hour-long short rests have no consequences, but one eight-hour long rest is totally a bridge too far, every time, forever? And that's somehow not blatantly and aggressively gamist?)

Do enemies always approach in fireball formation?

The way 5e combats are designed? I mean kind of. Fireball has a 20' radius. That's easily 40 five-foot squares. Not hard to catch the enemy in a 20' radius explosion.

Ignore that the fireball sets unattended object on fire?

Not sure how that's actually relevant. The vast majority of locations aren't meaningfully occupied with flammable objects to begin with.

Are their spells never countered?

Rarely, because counterspell is both dull and tedious. There's a reason it's frequently complained about by 5e DMs.

Are the monsters resistant or immune to the spell damage type?

Then pick a different spell. Two or three solid damage spells is enough to avoid most relevant resistance. E.g. fireball and, say, ice storm.

Can the wizard target the enemy without affecting allies?

I find many Wizards do not consider this a meaningful disadvantage.

8d6 isn't really all that much when the fighter can do just as much damage to an individual every round all day.

What Fighter is this? Because 8d6 to a single target is only if you hit with all four attacks with a great sword at max level. Even if we factor in static damage (so 2d6+5), you're still talking about an 11th level Fighter, at which point the Wizard is dropping (up to) four fireball*s a day, plus three 4th level spells, two 5th, and one 6th. Even if the Wizard is foolish enough to waste a *fireball on just two targets, and one of them saves (or three targets that all save), that's still 12d6 = 42 damage from an action they can perform four times a day (without considering Arcane Recovery.) 168 daily damage. At that level, a Fighter even with a 75% hit chance (70% hit, 5% crit) is doing .7(12)+.05(17) = 9.25 average damage per attack, or 27.75 damage per round. It takes her five rounds, counting Action Surge, just to make up for one poorly-used fireball. That's 20 rounds of combat per day, just to keep up with 4th level spell slots used in fairly inefficient situations, despite assuming extremely high accuracy and a high rate of enemy saving throws (50%). Champion doesn't meaningfully affect this (hence why it's not a very good subclass), BM helps but not a ton, as it rarely gets more than about half the described fireball (two targets, one saves, or three targets where all save), at 82.5 average extra damage per day.

And that's JUST using four (rather poor) *fireball*s and otherwise leaving all other resources untouched. This Wizard can bring two more *fireball*s, or an extra 5th and 1st spell, with just one short rest, and has several 4th level spells to bring to the party as well. And all their 1st and 2nd level slots can be used for... whatever. Without even considering rituals on top of that.

When paired with the fact that most groups don't actually have 6+ combats per long rest, nor 2+ short rests per long rest, I think you can see the shape of the issue. And yes, this is a real thing. Crawford himself explicitly said so, when talking about how some classes, like Warlock, get left behind because they aren't given enough short rests to keep up with Wizards.

People wanted nearly the same rules as 3e, without LFQW and the 5MWD. And guess what we got! Wizards still grow faster than Fighters can keep up, and the 5MWD is still a pervasive problem.

 

[Alzrius]

Don't excuse bad game design just because it's fun.

The idea that "if everyone is having fun with it, then by definition it's not bad" is both widespread and reasonable (with regard to recreational pastimes), that I've seen.

Maybe you don't care about the Wizard being overpowered, but do do you think it's faire the Wizard (and Cleric) had TONS of pages dedicated to a like 8 subclass each in the PHB while all the others only got 3?

I don't know what you mean by "fair" here, or what the practical impact of that is with regards to table play. Are you saying that if wizards and clerics had fewer subclasses, that would necessarily translate into other classes having more? Because that's a counterfactual with nothing to necessarily back it up; those pages might have gone to new equipment, new feats, new monsters, etc. Heck, why not presume that a class not needing myriad subclasses means that the class itself is designed very well, with no niches left to fill?

Heck, didn't the Ranger only have 2? and one of them had to be fixed to be more functional? and then WotC went and produced a whole supplement set in a Magic School... You're telling me the caster bias doesn't impact your fun use because you don't care about power level?

I've met, and still play with, plenty of people for whom the answer to that question is a resounding "yes." Even if we presume that there's a "bias" (for? against?) spellcasters, there seems to be an awful lot of people for whom that doesn't make a difference, or at least not in a substantive way that it's ruining the game for them.

Almost every book had new spells, mostly for the Wizard, but we had to wait for Tasha to get new Maneuvers for the Fighter, does that sound fun to you?

Yes. I know plenty of people who haven't even looked at Tasha's, and enjoy their fighters just fine. So clearly, that's not a problem for them. And I suspect that they're not outliers, given how popular 5E seems to be.

But the thing is we're not talking about preferences or these people's criteria here. They are irrelevant to the discussion. We're talking power ONLY. It's actually pretty clear it's what we talked about.

I'd say that "we" clearly are, since it's under discussion now, and seems quite relevant to what you and I and several other posters are talking about. So in that regard it's certainly clear; but it's never been about "power only," because that's not what people play D&D for; they play it to have fun.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wizards can be quite powerful under the right circumstances. Can they go nova, burning off spell slots willy-nilly? Do enemies always approach in fireball formation? Ignore that the fireball sets unattended object on fire? Are their spells never countered? Are the monsters resistant or immune to the spell damage type? Can the wizard target the enemy without affecting allies?

Change some of those assumptions like I do? Wizards aren't all that. A fireball can be awesome, but when the dice are rolled, 8d6 isn't really all that much when the fighter can do just as much damage to an individual every round all day.

Under the right circumstances is three things:

1. You aren't playing a tactical wargame. If you restrict classes to just skills out of combat the wizard is about fourth in the PHB (behind rogue, bard, and ranger but with a great primary stat that everyone else dumps). And then you get cantrips and rituals before spending slots.
2. You aren't tier 1
3. Your combat isn't largely single target beatdowns. The fighter can match that 8d6 damage in a round - but that's only against one target. A dozen targets from one fireball is plausible.

The more you change the assumptions from a succession of single target beatdowns the harder the wizard wins and the harder the fighter loses. (To single target beatdown the wizard wants to summon)

I play the Solasta video game which implements D&D rules while records all the damage done. The only time the wizard was at the top of the list for damage dealt was when I played a mod where they handed out a couple of wands of fireball and almost every encounter was a roomful of lower level monsters all grouped up nicely in formation. Other than that? Wizards are never at the top of the list, they're frequently 3rd.

Wizards are the strongest utility class in the game and still third on the damage table?

 

[Retreater]

Have you ever considered milestone levelling?

I love it, precisely because it takes the emphasis off doing things that are needed to "earn experience" (i.e. grinding) and puts it on developing the story.

I was using milestone exclusively until I had a revolt about giving rewards "willy-nilly."
But honestly, levelling up 6 characters in 4e is such a headache for me (having to pick out magic items, print out character sheets for everyone, etc.) that I wouldn't want to do it much more frequently than it already is.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

The way 5e combats are designed? I mean kind of. Fireball has a 20' radius. That's easily 40 five-foot squares. Not hard to catch the enemy in a 20' radius explosion.

I cannot address all of that but I can answer this, because I kinda connected to what I said about the Marilith, and how the supposedly "useless" spell like connect with the movement and obscurement possibilities the monster has.
I think here instead that there are a lot of assumption about terrain not being uneven or enemies not being able to ambush, scatter, and regroup. Sometimes is easy and cool to get the chance to place a good shot but not always.

And personally, I love Concentration. I feel like it forces interesting and meaningful choices

I think this is a perfectly valid reason to like it even if I have different preferences.

 

[overgeeked]

Under the right circumstances is three things:

1. You aren't playing a tactical wargame. If you restrict classes to just skills out of combat the wizard is about fourth in the PHB (behind rogue, bard, and ranger but with a great primary stat that everyone else dumps). And then you get cantrips and rituals before spending slots.
2. You aren't tier 1
3. Your combat isn't largely single target beatdowns. The fighter can match that 8d6 damage in a round - but that's only against one target. A dozen targets from one fireball is plausible.

The more you change the assumptions from a succession of single target beatdowns the harder the wizard wins and the harder the fighter loses. (To single target beatdown the wizard wants to summon)

Wizards are the strongest utility class in the game and still third on the damage table?

Exactly. The best utility of any class and still high up on damage charts. Hmm. It's almost like they're overpowered or something.

 

[mamba]

The easiest fix, I think, is to split combat and non-combat spells as they did in 4E and give everyone fairly easy access to non-combat spells via a 4E-style ritual system. The wizard only loses exclusive access to the most powerful spells.

I am not interested in reinventing the wheel, how about we remove half of those spells and nerf the others significantly instead…

 

[Belen]

Maybe you don't care about the Wizard being overpowered, but do do you think it's faire the Wizard (and Cleric) had TONS of pages dedicated to a like 8 subclass each in the PHB while all the others only got 3? Heck, didn't the Ranger only have 2? and one of them had to be fixed to be more functional? and then WotC went and produced a whole supplement set in a Magic School... You're telling me the caster bias doesn't impact your fun use because you don't care about power level? Almost every book had new spells, mostly for the Wizard, but we had to wait for Tasha to get new Maneuvers for the Fighter, does that sound fun to you?

Except that DM’s buy most of that content. It is not for players. Players are not the people buying the books.

I also do not care that casters get more content. Most of it goes unused.

It can be a drawback for many players because it adds a lot of complexity.

I just do not see a lot of people play full casters.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wizards can be very powerful. You'll get no argument from me on that.

And, the wizard spell lists do contain a bunch of stuff that does allow them to solve issues other classes would traditionally be called on to solve, sure.

But, I have found that latter to be more of a theoretical concern than an actual one. The limits on spell preparation mean that a wizard can't do everything everyone else can do on a moment's notice. Sure, they can do it, but they have to go back home to take a long rest and prepare, and come back tomorrow and do it. Meanwhile, the situation they'd be facing has probably changed, such that their preparation doesn't meet the new needs. Nor, as a practical matter, do they seem able to out-do other classes at their own shtick for very long.

This is why for 3.x I bring up the wizard with the loose leaf ring binder full of frequently home-made spells. And who spent equivalent gold to the fighter's +1 sword (2300GP on scrolls or wands.

In 5e the wizard can't do everything. But they, uniquely, don't even need a spell prepared to use it as a ritual. And as mentioned are generally the most useful non -specialist with skills due to stat spread.