D&D 5E [SPOILERS] Final encounter in Tyranny of Dragons and playing a wizard for 16 levels

[Tony Vargas]

I see a lot of criticism for WotC here for poor adventure design, but let's not forget that this was Kobold Press that designed the adventure.

While I wasn't impressed with HotDQ, this report is the only thing I've heard of ToD's capstone scenario, and it doesn't sound that bad. Maybe some aspects were (or were perceived as) heavy-handed, like the dragon-slaying sword and spell immunities. But, they seemed to do the job.

Also re: magic, the free form creativity of prior edition spells does make its return here, so I'm not sure why I'm seeing a lot of of criticism of that in this thread. Everyone is entitled to their opinions though.

Of course. It's all relative. Relative to 3.5, when casters were at their most profoundly, game-breakingly overpowered, 5e is a major come down. Compared to the other extreme, when casters were at their most nearly balanced, it's quite a leap forward. Glass half full kinda thing.

And if 4E allowed wizards to do much outside of blasting or controlling the play field, I certainly didn't see it. Granted, I dumped my books early on and it may have been patched in

The comment about 4e was only for emphasis, but, yes, even taking into account moving the goalposts from "casters just had blasting and buffing" to "wizards just had blasting and battlefield control," your concern would have been unfounded, even in 4e. I'll accept that you didn't 'see' it - such blindness was a common edition-war injury, I just hope you've recovered enough of your vision to see 5e for what it is, and potentially could be in your hands were you to DM it.

Any concern for casters in general or wizards in particular lacking for options, flexibility, versatility and/or power in 5e is unfounded. Neo-Vanican casting combines the flexibility of 3.5 spontaneous & prepped casting in one package that the familiar-from-3e core Tier 1 full casters (Wizard, Cleric, Druid) all get. Spell slots are fewer, but the added flexibility means fewer slots are wasted. Spell damage scales with spell level instead of caster level, but save DCs scale with character level instead of spell level. The details of the mechanics are different, the points at which classes and encounters might be balanced are different, but casters get many spells, can swap them out via preparation, and spells are powerful, described in natural language that leaves plenty of room for player creativity & DM interpretation, and should feel like they're really magical.

Wanting more creative play outside of narrow parameters isn't the same as wanting anything to be "profoundly broken,"

Then you should have no problem with 5e.

Not a defensible design. It's railroading, plain and simple: "Don't do what the author wants you to do, even if it doesn't occur to you or it's just plain dumb? Too bad."

You'll note that Celtavian's party succeeded, in spite of not jumping through said hoop. So, apparently, it wasn't that bad.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the concentration rule is what makes it so the wizard can't screw around too much with the environment.

Concentration does change the way you'd play a wizard relative to 3.5 - you can't layer the 3 or 6 or 12 or more most-useful buff/protective/whatever spells on yourself and/or your party. You have to choose the best spell for the situation among the concentration spells you have prepared. Spells without that limitation, you can still layer, of course. The up-shot is that the selection of that spell is a more meaningful choice, and, that you are likely to expend fewer slots even when firing up a nova or combo of some sort.

I'm hoping when they come out with a magic book we get some feat options that allow a bit of customization with the casters. All but one feat in the PHB is geared towards martials or general.

Well, feats are optional, so even if you got 'em published, as a player, there's no guarantee you'd get to use 'em.

As far as relative customization options, though, there are 5 purely-martial archetypes and something like 30 for casters. All classes have some sort of casting or magic-using archetype/sub-class. So there are already a tremendous amount of customization options just in picking your class and domain/school/etc, not to mention known spells (when you don't just automatically get the know your whole spell list) and spells you choose to prepare and cast (if you allow yourself to consider RP as well as optimal effectiveness in those choices).

You also have far fewer spell slots and must use them sparingly. You don't have easy access to scrolls or potions, so no additional spell reservoir. It all makes playing a manipulation wizard extremely difficult.

It's not like it was easy in 3.5 - you had so many spells to choose from, so many slots, and so many potential combos to choose from, implement and track. Concentration, fewer slots, and no item make/buy leaves you with less to track and manage, but more interesting and meaningful decisions to make. Less difficult in the sense of tedious, more difficult in the sense of challenging.

It's definitely a different experience than 3E. It's nowhere near as weak and limited as 4E, but it's nowhere near as powerful as 3E.

Again, to put the edition comparisons in perspective, 4e gave martial classes more and more varied abilities than any ed before or since, and 4e casters were only a little superior to them, while, in 3.5, casters were overpowered to and beyond the point of casually dominating play without even trying at all but the lowest levels. 5e could indeed, be said to be between those two extremes - to start. It does, however, encourage an attitude of acceptance towards variants that leaves open the possibility that a DM open the floodgates to a more 3.5 style of play experience, or try to fix it up to a level of class and/or encounter balance closer to that of 4e, or tweak it a little further towards classic Gygaxian dungeon-crawling.

I don't mind it myself. I had fun with powerful 3E casters. It's fun to have to work to find ways to be effective. I started using a spell I've never used before: animate objects. I destroyed some opposing creatures with it. Ten darts flying around a battlefield stabbing people is kind of fun.

I had heard of the surprising relative effectiveness (due, apparently in part to Bounded Accuracy) of that classic spell in this edition. Don't expect I'll get to try it anytime soon, but I'm glad you got to have some multi-attacking DPR type fun with it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Wanting more creative play outside of narrow parameters isn't the same as wanting anything to be "profoundly broken," to quote your strawman. Phantasmal Force/Silent Image isn't "profoundly broken" outside of some very narrow circumstances, nor is Prestidigitation, both of which give players the power to do something surprising at the table, as are other spells without narrowly defined roles. Some, obviously, like Polymorph and Wish (and their counterparts) do need careful moderation so you don't end up with 3E silliness, which gives me as much of a migraine as anyone else, but for me, part of magic in D&D is the metaphorical ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat and surprise the DM and the rest of the table with creative problem-solving.

Not a defensible design. It's railroading, plain and simple: "Don't do what the author wants you to do, even if it doesn't occur to you or it's just plain dumb? Too bad."

1.) 5E has Prestidigitation and Polymorph. No worries on that score. Magic in 5E is generally more reactive (shorter duration, sometimes castable as a reaction, not easily stackable) and smaller-scale than AD&D magic, but it's about the same in scope. It's not restricted to blasting/buffing.

2.) Rise of Tiamat is indeed railroadey, but in its defense, "not occur to you/just plain dumb" isn't likely to be a problem. "Kill the evil wizards who are trying to summon Tiamat, and steal the artifacts they are using" are the key elements required to weaken Tiamat. Pretty obvious really. The only thing that puzzles me is that even if you shut them down completely, Tiamat comes anyway, she's just weakened to be somewhat on par with a normal adult dragon. So you can't actually succeed in stopping her, but you can succeed in making the fight more anticlimactic. Seems like the worst of both worlds to me.

 

[Sacrosanct]

True. But WotC is the one contracting them for adventure design. I know I may be one of the few, but I want them to find someone that does it as well as Paizo. I'm missing out on amazing Paizo adventures for this stuff. Giantslayer just came out. I'm betting it will be a blast. I want adventures like that.

Then go play it

Seriously, this is one of the oddest statements I ever read. You're missing out? How? Is WotC coming to your house and preventing you from playing pathfinder? You want to know the honest truth? As soon as I saw this thread title and you were the one to create it, I knew it would be nothing but complaining about 5e.

You keep saying how PF does all these great things, and how 5e keeps failing you. So why don't you go play PF and leave 5e to the people who enjoy it? Clearly most 5e players do not look upon Angel Summoner as a good thing, as is the vibe I keep getting from you.

PLAY THE GAME YOU ENJOY. It's really that simple.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The comment about 4e was only for emphasis, but, yes, even taking into account moving the goalposts from "casters just had blasting and buffing" to "wizards just had blasting and battlefield control," your concern would have been unfounded, even in 4e. I'll accept that you didn't 'see' it - such blindness was a common edition-war injury, I just hope you've recovered enough of your vision to see 5e for what it is, and potentially could be in your hands were you to DM it.

I'm not an edition warrior. Please stop with the strawmen attacks.

You'll note that Celtavian's party succeeded, in spite of not jumping through said hoop. So, apparently, it wasn't that bad.

Bad design doesn't have to stop play cold to be bad design.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You also have far fewer spell slots and must use them sparingly. You don't have easy access to scrolls or potions, so no additional spell reservoir. It all makes playing a manipulation wizard extremely difficult. It's definitely a different experience than 3E. It's nowhere near as weak and limited as 4E, but it's nowhere near as powerful as 3E.

I don't mind it myself. I had fun with powerful 3E casters. It's fun to have to work to find ways to be effective. I started using a spell I've never used before: animate objects. I destroyed some opposing creatures with it. Ten darts flying around a battlefield stabbing people is kind of fun.

That does sound fun. That's what I mean about going all Kobyashi Maru on a scenario. Can't hurt something with direct magic? Use it to drop a boulder on the enemy, summon something to smack them, or make them think they need to surrender.

I don't disagree that 3E went too far -- one of the many reasons I'm not running it any more and am not particularly wild for playing it (although it's still good to build monsters, spells and treasures in, before converting them to other systems) -- but it's possible to fix the math without nerfing the options. I'm glad to hear it's not quite as bad as described by others.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not an edition warrior.

I'm glad to hear it. I suppose I was fooled by the way you kept bringing up 4e, and repeating the kinds of things edition warriors tended to say. I'm sure you just heard them, and didn't know any better. Now, hopefully you do.

I also hope you'll keep an open mind about the new edition this time around, instead of putting too much credence in overzealous critics.

Any concern for casters in general or wizards in particular lacking for options, flexibility, versatility and/or power in 5e is unfounded. Neo-Vanican casting combines the flexibility of 3.5 spontaneous & prepped casting in one package that the familiar-from-3e core Tier 1 full casters (Wizard, Cleric, Druid) all get. Spell slots are fewer, but the added flexibility means fewer slots are wasted. Spell damage scales with spell level instead of caster level, but save DCs scale with character level instead of spell level. The details of the mechanics are different, the points at which classes and encounters might be balanced are different, but casters get many spells, can swap them out via preparation, and spells are powerful, described in natural language that leaves plenty of room for player creativity & DM interpretation, and should feel like they're really magical.

Bad design doesn't have to stop play cold to be bad design.

Surely 'bad' design isn't /as/ bad in that case. But, really, even if it were bad design, by some criteria of design quality, to work in a limitation on some class or strategy so that others could have a chance to shine, it's a 'bad' design that has worked for D&D for a long time. Classic D&D was /full/ of such tricks. 5e actively tries to evoke the feel of classic D&D as one of its major goals.

Looks like success.

 

[evilbob]

To be fair, it sounds like the fly spell was the most important thing that happened in the entire battle. So, assuming that was you, you actually won the battle for the team with just that one spell. And as you said, if the battle had gone sour you would have been the only reason it wasn't a TPK. So really, it sounds like you were more like the "3.5 bard" of the party.

All the same, thanks for the feedback. As our group is slowing getting deeper into the spells, the "concentration economy" is becoming more and more apparent. Virtually anything you want to do other than throw damage at something requires concentration. This also makes multiple casters extremely potent (typically) because having more than one concentration spell up at a time is amazing.

But legendary creatures seem designed to make sure that martials get their day in the sun as well. To be fair, your entire OP could have been a fighter complaining that the wizard ended the battle in 2 rounds in a 3.5 game - as I'm sure you know. I still remember the time our wizard powdered the BBEG with a super-lucky 15%-chance-to-succeed disintegrate. I guess they're trying to avoid those situations now as much as possible.

 

[Celtavian]

To be fair, it sounds like the fly spell was the most important thing that happened in the entire battle. So, assuming that was you, you actually won the battle for the team with just that one spell. And as you said, if the battle had gone sour you would have been the only reason it wasn't a TPK. So really, it sounds like you were more like the "3.5 bard" of the party.

All the same, thanks for the feedback. As our group is slowing getting deeper into the spells, the "concentration economy" is becoming more and more apparent. Virtually anything you want to do other than throw damage at something requires concentration. This also makes multiple casters extremely potent (typically) because having more than one concentration spell up at a time is amazing.

But legendary creatures seem designed to make sure that martials get their day in the sun as well. To be fair, your entire OP could have been a fighter complaining that the wizard ended the battle in 2 rounds in a 3.5 game - as I'm sure you know. I still remember the time our wizard powdered the BBEG with a super-lucky 15%-chance-to-succeed disintegrate. I guess they're trying to avoid those situations now as much as possible.

Bard cast the fly. He has an item that allows him to have two concentration spells at once. Fly and bless are the two spells we used the most. Pretty much every major fight against dragons. bless is the most powerful group blessing in the game. Not having it means you're inferior to any class that has it. fly is necessary for any battle with flying creatures and reach or ranged attacks unless you have a ranged heavy group. Then you have some latitude. That's why Dex-based martials are better than Str-based on this edition. Switch hitters have a huge advantage over Str-focused or limited classes.

 

[ashockney]

**SPOILERS**
Two key points to make in response to the original poster. As a point of background, I'm the DM of a 5e campaign, and we completed the scenario in discussion, and have been an alpha playtester throughout. I also played 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, extensively.

First point - your primary concern is about high-end game design, and the addition of immunity to 1st-6th level spells. True! Resistance to all would have played much more elegantly, with the notable exception of my second point. It's worth considering in the future. 3e's epic design played this way, and on the whole, it wasn't fun. Agreed. 4e high-level fixed this flaw, and it should be considered even for big bosses. At a minimum to make them "last" longer - give them triggered or lair effects to maintain a heaping helping of high level hit points. There's always more than one way to design through the obstacle, and your point is this solution isn't very fun for wizards. I agree with your point.

Second point - Prism mentioned it, but it should be reinforced - my reading of the last encounter was ENTIRELY different than what you described. As I ran it, you were NOT supposed to fight Tiamat, but PREVENT her from being summoned. There were ARMIES, including "as many dragons as you want", purple-robed cultists, giants, and even dragon leaders in ten different temples throughout the massive Well of Dragons. You had only 10 rounds to outsmart the armies, guardians, defeat the cultists, stop the summoners, and ultimately confront and defeat Severin. For us, this was ultimately a raucous slogging climb, resources completely spent, finally reaching Seveerin, their deadly leader, with one chance to kill him before he unleashed his full wrath on one PC at a time, eliminating them. I found it a fantastic captsone fight to the end of our campaign. All the villians I described were all susceptible to all forms of magic, and abilities from the characters, and it took everything they could muster to survive the death march. Also, our highest level character was 14, with average party being around 12. It sounds like you had a decided advantage on our PC's.

 

[Jester David]

I imagine the immunity to spells 6th level and lower made design sense but forgot to take into account the limited number of spell slots.
Still, I can't imagine the fight lasting more than 2-4 rounds, so it's not like it'd be that bad for too long.

While it's annoying to be out of the final fight, it's still a small fraction of the entire campaign. One of a good hundred encounters.

Legendary resistances are also a necessary evil. It's not fun for the player to have their spell auto-fail, but it's no fun for the DM to have their Boss monster dropped by a single failed save that leaves them paralyzed.