D&D 5E Sell me on Wizards

[mcintma]

I suspect both limited high level slots and the arcane recovery limitation are there to address the "quadratic wizard" issue.

With bounded accuracy, the low-mid level spells stay viable longer. The high level spells really should be limited resource encounter enders.

I suspect it will work best this way. If not, well it's much easier to tweak by giving more than by taking away.

We'll see.

It certainly might, I'm interested to see how it plays out; if you look at any other ed of D&D (4e excepted, for obvious reasons) this is 1/4 or less of the slots level 7-9th AND plus you need to use these same rare slots to make your lower spells (e.g. fireball) relevant. It's such a drastic reduction. But the system is different so the proof will be in the playing ...

 

[raleel]

Identify can wait. How many magic items are you likely to find at 1st level?

My votes would be sleep, shield, find familiar, disguise self, burning hands, feather fall. I could see swapping in detect magic for one of those, though.

I had entirely missed that you can ID items with a short rest. screw them, ID your own stuff!

 

[Stalker0]

I was talking about the spells at their base spell levels, but yes, that is a big advantage, and that's why hold person is well worth preparing at higher levels. If you encounter humanoids, it can give you a decisive advantage. If not, oh well, it's just one of your dozen or so prepared spells.

I think its important to keep this is mind. We are in many cases looking at spells at their "base level" and saying "this is what a wizard can do at that level".

But, the wizard also has access to all of those scaling spells, and the versatility they offer. That can't be discounted.

 

[KarinsDad]

It certainly might, I'm interested to see how it plays out; if you look at any other ed of D&D (4e excepted, for obvious reasons) this is 1/4 or less of the slots level 7-9th AND plus you need to use these same rare slots to make your lower spells (e.g. fireball) relevant.

I'm not convinced of that a spell caster needs to use up high level slots in all cases for lower level good spells.

A level 3 slot Fireball does 8D6. A level 9 slot Fireball does 14D6.

It would seem that a 5E arcane spell caster could easily just throw out two 3rd level spells and do 16D6, save his 9th level slot, and get more or less the same or better result. Sure, it's two rounds, but it's not like the spell slingers have to take all of the foes out in a single round.

 

[raleel]

I'm not convinced of that a spell caster needs to use up high level slots in all cases for lower level good spells.

A level 3 slot Fireball does 8D6. A level 9 slot Fireball does 14D6.

It would seem that a 5E arcane spell caster could easily just throw out two 3rd level spells and do 16D6, save his 9th level slot, and get more or less the same or better result. Sure, it's two rounds, but it's not like the spell slingers have to take all of the foes out in a single round.

I would not be surprised if some are better than others on this account. Hold person, if fighting humanoids, is pretty worth it on the higher level slots, as the effect is rather complete and debilitating in and of itself. Fireball? Maybe not. It's not like 14d6 is necessarily going to kick you over some threshold into lower damage from the monster (unless it kills) necessarily.

 

[KarinsDad]

I would not be surprised if some are better than others on this account. Hold person, if fighting humanoids, is pretty worth it on the higher level slots, as the effect is rather complete and debilitating in and of itself. Fireball? Maybe not. It's not like 14d6 is necessarily going to kick you over some threshold into lower damage from the monster (unless it kills) necessarily.

Agreed.

Spells that add more foes becomes a lot more useful in higher level slots. Ones that do more damage, not so much.

Still, I can easily see some players throwing fireballs in 5th or 6th level slots at 17th level. Throw in a few extra points of damage, but don't use up the highest level slots.

 

[mcintma]

I'm not convinced of that a spell caster needs to use up high level slots in all cases for lower level good spells.

A level 3 slot Fireball does 8D6. A level 9 slot Fireball does 14D6.

It would seem that a 5E arcane spell caster could easily just throw out two 3rd level spells and do 16D6, save his 9th level slot, and get more or less the same or better result. Sure, it's two rounds, but it's not like the spell slingers have to take all of the foes out in a single round.

I hear ya, I would probably not blow a 9th slot for FB. I was just comparing to older editions, there are now in 5e two pressures on your 1 and only 7th-9th slot: 1) you are reduced to 1/4 of these slots now and 2) your lower spells no longer 'level-up' for free and may compete for these slots in 'epic' encounters.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm finding the wizard enjoyable. Minor Illusion cantrip is pretty fun to get creative with. Constant damage from Fire Bolt isn't too bad. Sleep spell is nasty. I like spontaneous casting with variable spells prepared. Very powerful combination with the wide array of spells available to the wizard. Wizards still have the best capacity for new strategies given time to prepare. Fine Familiar is also quite a potent scouting spell. For someone like myself that enjoys creative play, the wizard has been enjoyable. I think the class displays the same ability to turn the tide of battle without doing so with ease and excessive long duration spells. It feels very much like the days of AD&D where you sat on your spells until a time when they were needed, then unleashed them turning defeat into victory. I like that feel to the wizard. Feels appropriate.

 

[was]

There's a sale on 2014 models..25% off each or buy 2 and get one free.

 

[transtemporal]

No, 11th level Ftr can attack 6 times per round before/without using bonus action or reaction or accounting for possible TWF, haste, magic items, etc. This is using Action surge (once per short rest). And I only single out Ftr for convenience, other martials have mean stuff too, not saying Ftr or martials are OP. Like I said I just suspect not enough caster slots 7th-9th to keep up, but could be wrong.

Come on now... you're misrepresenting that man. That's 6 attacks for one round per short rest. Otherwise it's 3 attacks per round, or 4 if you want to take a DPS hit and go TWF. Don't get me wrong, that's still pretty significant but again its single target damage and fighters never get AoE abilities, whereas casters have them for Africa.

Yes, meteor swarm might "only" do 65 dmg (which is about 15 more than my tank fighters average damage at 20 on a single target per round btw) but you can potentially apply it to dozens of monsters. That's a damage spike that my fighter can't hope to match, even if you can only do it once per long rest.

If you could cast it more than once... yikes.

Casters do need to marshal their slots and choose carefully but I think this is preferable to the old 1e days where it wasn't worth your time to cast a spell below 6th level because you had so many spell slots.