D&D 5E So it looks as if the mountain dwarf will still make the best overall wizard.

[Majoru Oakheart]

Depends on the scenario. Wouldn't the local Duke send bands of armed men out led by a local tracker, looking for bandits?

Probably not. At least in most of my games, the entire point of adventurers is that most of the actual guards are completely incompetent so they can't find anything or don't have the resources to find anything. Most of the time in these situations, the answer is "we'd love to send some people after the bandits, but we only have 5 guards and they need to stay here to protect the village. Guess we have to write off what was stolen."

Which is why most of my bandits are extremely surprised when the PCs show up actually trying to stop them.

But if your wife is screaming bloody murder in your kitchen, every other awake (and possibly asleep) member of your family hears it in every other room, regardless of doors.

I don't live in a cave with 5 foot thick stone walls. Also...my girlfriend HAS yelled bloody murder in my kitchen and I haven't heard it from my basement or living room before. She keeps trying to talk to me from our bathroom about 10 feet away and I can't hear her through the walls even with the door to the bathroom open. It...has become a thing.

Most of the time even when I here loud noises in my house, I write them off as something not important. Likely the cat knocked something over, my gf dropped something, my roommate fell out of bed.

I'm not really talking about that though. I'm talking about modules where nearly every single door in the place being closed every single time. I'm talking about doors being these thick barriers like from a medieval castle so that little sound gets through, but the door is unlocked. I'm talking about broken down buildings where nobody seems to hear the noise in the next building or two over.

I think most people keep their doors shut, if only to avoid drafts, noise from people in the other room, or just to keep their privacy. People mind their own business most of the time as well. You hear a noise from your neighbours house, I bet most people ignore it since it isn't their business. Especially in a bandit camp where fighting amongst its members might happen on a regular basis or some of their members might bring "friends" over which might make noise.

Also, why call out an alarm when you can kill the intruders on your own and have the glory of defeating them all to yourself? Or at least the loot off their corpses. Also, it's likely that you're too far away for anyone to hear your calls anyways.

Besides, most maps are set up in such a way that the encounters are 30-50 feet apart with walls and doors between the two of them. The people in the other rooms are almost always doing something fairly noisy like talking to each other or drinking boisterously. There's rarely a good reason for the other encounters to have heard. And very little good reason for most people to actively rush towards the source of the alarm. Even if they hear an alarm, many people are going to hole up in their corner of the dungeon and watch the doors to see if anyone breaks in.

In the real world, crack houses have really thick fortified outer doors and shuttered windows for when the special ops team of commandos come knocking.

Don't have any real knowledge of real life crack dens. I saw one in the newspaper. It didn't have any of those things though. It looked just like every other house on the block. They relied on obscurity for their security, just like most people.

 

[Jack99]

Toughness = 2 hit points per level? That's fairly potent. It jumps average Wizard HP up to Fighter HP and bypasses average Cleric HP.

We are going by the last playtest packet. And yes, it's pretty much a must-have as it is - or was. We'll see if it has been changed.

 

[KarinsDad]

We are going by the last playtest packet. And yes, it's pretty much a must-have as it is - or was. We'll see if it has been changed.

Technically speaking, the wizard should probably have fewer than 102 hit points.

The Tough feat in the leaked Alpha states 2 hits points when acquired and each level afterwards. Assuming he used his level 4 Ability Score Improvement to acquire Tough, he should have 6 fewer hit points for that. If he used his level 8 ASI, then it's 14 fewer hit points.

All in all, he probably should have about 6 to 14 points fewer. Not a big help for you as a DM, but every bit helps.

 

[Jack99]

Technically speaking, the wizard should probably have fewer than 102 hit points.

The Tough feat in the leaked Alpha states 2 hits points when acquired and each level afterwards. Assuming he used his level 4 Ability Score Improvement to acquire Tough, he should have 6 fewer hit points for that. If he used his level 8 ASI, then it's 14 fewer hit points.

All in all, he probably should have about 6 to 14 points fewer. Not a big help for you as a DM, but every bit helps.

Yeah. Not gonna change his character based on the alpha. Will just wait for the PHB. With that said, the permanent aura of disadvantage vis-a-vis melee attacks is a much bigger problem for me as a DM. Mostly because I use monsters that suit the "story", not because they can bypass annoying PC-abilities.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Technically speaking, the wizard should probably have fewer than 102 hit points.

The Tough feat in the leaked Alpha states 2 hits points when acquired and each level afterwards.

If that's the way it's worded, then it would be very poor design, and almost certain to be changed -- the feat would give fewer and fewer hit points the later it's taken.

 

[The Black Ranger]

Im seeing a lot of player coddling being used as a argument to minimize the need for HP, AC, and Concentration.

Just confirms, in my opinion, why the MD is the better option.

 

[Mistwell]

Technically speaking, the wizard should probably have fewer than 102 hit points.

The Tough feat in the leaked Alpha states 2 hits points when acquired and each level afterwards.

It says twice your level.

 

[Kobold Stew]

That makes much more sense.

 

[Joe Liker]

Im seeing a lot of player coddling being used as a argument to minimize the need for HP, AC, and Concentration.

Just confirms, in my opinion, why the MD is the better option.

Coddling? Because it's not always the most tactically sound decision to attack the back-row unarmored guy?

In most cases, the monsters' first priority should be self-preservation, not murder. It is not normal to go after weak-looking targets who are behind cover and have not shown themselves to be a credible threat when there are closer, uncovered, stronger-looking guys who are waving weapons.

Furthermore, at level 1, a wizard with Dex 14, mage armor and half cover has an effective AC of 17. He's not actually any easier to hit than a great weapon fighter in splint mail on the front row. So the "monsters like easy targets" rationale is a little bit flimsy. (And I guess so is the perception that wizards need more AC.)

If a foolish wizard stands out in the open, sparks a-flying, then yes. By all means, focus fire on him. But it's not coddling to have most monsters focus on the more obvious threat when players use a smarter formation.

ALSO ... there's the situation where the party is up against a single big monster (or maybe two of them). There's no way that thing's getting past the front line to eat the wizard -- another situation where the wizard's resources are better used in areas other than AC. Not every battle is a skirmish between small armies.

 

[Jack99]

It says twice your level.

I think he is talking about the leaked alpha-playtest, which differs somewhat from the last official playtest.