D&D General The Beautiful Mess of 5e

[FitzTheRuke]

I know I'm late to the party, but...

Fireball can't be an "Encounter Ender" when we're in an edition where you get to do it multiple times a day.

It also used to have the drawback of being difficult to place without the sacrifice of 'friendly fire'.

 

[mamba]

I've DMed a lot of different groups over the years and I see no way a game with the complexity of flexibility of D&D can avoid having a DM make adjustments for their group and style of play. Whether that's the level of challenge the group faces, how often they get rests, what treasure they receive. The only way around that is to have strict guidelines on styles of play

such as 6-8 encounters per long rest and 2 short rests between long ones?

I think a lot can be done via such guidelines, encounter building, rests, treasure per level, etc. Some of it obviously has to come from decent game balance, that is the prerequisite for the guidelines to exist

limited options for people to choose from, more generic builds where all the classes that work much the same

should be avoidable to a degree, they do not all have to work the same, but their power levels should be comparable.

If we cannot accomplish that with the current class design, I am perfectly fine with have more similar design across classes, starting with harmonizing the subclass progression across classes, something 5.5 should have done anyway

 

[mamba]

It's wild to me that a rogue could be considered overpowered. Frankly, I don't believe it. I am planning for an upcoming campaign that will have a thief rogue and I will be showering them with magic items just to see what happens.

give them plenty of wands, they can ‘cast’ two fireballs per round, so consistently do double the damage of a wizard with the right equipment

 

[Charlaquin]

RE: Upscaling blast spells, honestly I don’t think this needs fixing. I’m ok with casting spells that are natively higher level being more effective than upcasting lower level spells. Fireball is fine when you get it and gets worse at higher levels? Good! That means you’ll have a reason to want to use your new, higher-level spells when you get them instead of just sticking with upcasted Fireball forever. Upcasting shouldn’t be a go-to tactic, but a backup option in situations where your higher level spells are for some reason not going to work (e.g. you’re fighting an enemy with resistance to the damage type your higher level spell deals).

 

[Zardnaar]

RE: Upscaling blast spells, honestly I don’t think this needs fixing. I’m ok with casting spells that are natively higher level being more effective than upcasting lower level spells. Fireball is fine when you get it and gets worse at higher levels? Good! That means you’ll have a reason to want to use your new, higher-level spells when you get them instead of just sticking with upcasted Fireball forever. Upcasting shouldn’t be a go-to tactic, but a backup option in situations where your higher level spells are for some reason not going to work (e.g. you’re fighting an enemy with resistance to the damage type your higher level spell deals).

Already exists with synaptic static.

I'll take a 8d6 synaptic static over a 10d6 fireball most of the time

 

[I'm A Banana]

Exactly. Use the right tool for the right job. It's not meant for hitting 1-2 big bags of hit points, it's meant for quickly clearing the room of minions...and it's amazing for that.

One of the issues, I think, is that this runs up against how a lot of DMs design their combats.

1. I am probably only going to have like 1-2 encounters before the party does a long rest, I better make them DEADLY!
2. OK, I've got this XP budget to spend on monsters. What's the deadliest monster I can get for that budget?
3. Example: At level 5, your high XP budget is 4,400 for a party of 4; DMG recommends not using creatures with a CR higher than the party's level, so for CR 5 we've got two CR 5 creatures and 800 xp leftover.
4. OK, great, I've got a deadly monster, and some left over XP, what's the deadliest companion I can get for that monster? for the example, that gives us one CR 3 creature.
5. A hard fight with 3 creatures, sounds manageable, that's the fight.

Anyone who brings Fireball into that setup is not going to drop anything. 28 points of damage won't even halve the hp of the CR 3 critter. And if I make most of my encounters like this....that fireball never gets to shine. Action denial against one of the CR 5 creatures is definitely the better play, since even a reprieve from 1 round of attacks is significant breathing room.

If I try to make a hard encounter with CR 1 monsters, I'm looking at, say, 8 of 'em for only 1,600 XP and then I've got an encounter at the end of the day with probably 10-12 monsters, a headache to run, and those 8 CR 1 creatures only stick around for a round or two anyway. Bah, not worth the time in a lot of cases.

Any spell designed to nuke minions runs up against the fact that minions are a hassle in 5e. Not that it never happens, but, like, if I'm going to spend an hour of playtime in a fight, I'm going to want to not waste that time on transactional lil' guys that boof the moment someone sneezes hard.

 

[darjr]

I think the raw math says something interesting. I don’t dispute it. However in actual play I’ve found fireball to be very effective as a player.

As a DM too, but I think that’s a different story.

 

[billd91]

RE: Upscaling blast spells, honestly I don’t think this needs fixing. I’m ok with casting spells that are natively higher level being more effective than upcasting lower level spells. Fireball is fine when you get it and gets worse at higher levels? Good! That means you’ll have a reason to want to use your new, higher-level spells when you get them instead of just sticking with upcasted Fireball forever. Upcasting shouldn’t be a go-to tactic, but a backup option in situations where your higher level spells are for some reason not going to work (e.g. you’re fighting an enemy with resistance to the damage type your higher level spell deals).

Moreover, if upcasting was an optimal strategy for D&D damage spells, then why have the upper level damage spells at all? Just introduce spells like "energy rays", "energy ball", "energy cone" and make them fully generic in damage and/or damage type and just set those variables based on the level of the spell slot expended.
It might be effective form a mathematical standpoint, but it would pretty much suck the D&Dness atmosphere out of the room.

 

[TwoSix]

RE: Upscaling blast spells, honestly I don’t think this needs fixing. I’m ok with casting spells that are natively higher level being more effective than upcasting lower level spells. Fireball is fine when you get it and gets worse at higher levels? Good! That means you’ll have a reason to want to use your new, higher-level spells when you get them instead of just sticking with upcasted Fireball forever. Upcasting shouldn’t be a go-to tactic, but a backup option in situations where your higher level spells are for some reason not going to work (e.g. you’re fighting an enemy with resistance to the damage type your higher level spell deals).

Exactly right. 5e certainly has flaws, but the interplay between known spells and upscaling combined with the overall spell design is one of the system's main strengths.

 

[SlyFlourish]

It's wild to me that a rogue could be considered overpowered. Frankly, I don't believe it. I am planning for an upcoming campaign that will have a thief rogue and I will be showering them with magic items just to see what happens.

Backstabbing for a ton of damage and then firing off telekenesis and keeping it up as a bonus action was pretty gonzo.

Another problem that we had a conversation about is the ability to use two magic items the same turn or even the same magic item twice because the rogue can use both an action and bonus action Magic action.