D&D 5E (2024) The Great Wizard Extinction.

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't think you see fewer Wizards because they are boring, or because they are weak. I think the reason you see few Wizards is the reliance on Intelligence. Being a Wizard forces you to take a high Intelligence and that is not very attractive for three reasons:

1. Intelligence is the least mechanically valuable ability overall. In a point buy game it is universally dumped by everyone not playing a Wizard or Artificer. Even most Eldritch Knights dump Intelligence. It is the weakest of the four saves and the skills tied to it are mediocre.

Maybe...at least you don't have to intimidate the dungeon to reveal their secrets...

2. Intelligence is not fun in RP. Charisma is king of the Roleplay abilities. Then Dex, Wisdom and Strength. Intelligence only beats Constitution.

If knowledge is not for your...

3. It is a very difficult multiclass and this is even more so when you look at mechanical synergies in 2024. The class that has the most mechanical synergy with Wizard is Paladin, but this is a very difficult multiclass unless you roll at least one 15 and 2 more scores of 14+ and even if you do manage that; if Paladin is your main class Bard, Sorcerer or Warlock is still going to work better. Ranger is the second best in terms of mechanical synergy and that is a little easier than Paladin but not a lot easier. On the other hand Charisma and Wisdom are great stats with a wide range of multiclass options, making classes that use these stats more desirable.

Agreed.

 

[ECMO3]

Deduct the one attack the cleric does not make (which is boosted either by divine strike or is a level 5+ cantrip, maybe enhanced by wis to damage), lets count that as 1 to 1.5 attacks.

Which more or less nullifies any benefit gained by bless offensively if cast at a level 1 spell. And the damage is shifted toward the end of the combat which might allow a creature to survive an extra round. And if concentration is somehow broken, or you need to cast a different concentration spell, the bless has a negative effect.

An attack is not the same as a hit. This varies based on AC, but an attack is only worth maybe .7 of a hit on average and a lot less than that on a very high AC enemy where Bless is at its best.

For example: 8th level Cleric fighting a 22AC enemy:
Cleric Swings his axe for 12 damage on a hit (1d8+1d8+3) with a +6 attack. His DPR is 3. He loses 3 damage in round 1 casting bless.

After he casts bless his DPR goes up from 3 to 3.9 so, so in a 3 round fight he does 7.8 vs 9 damage so it cost a little more than a hit point of damage for him to cast bless.

The fighters he cast it on get 4 attacks a round combined (if they don't action surge). At 8th level they are doing 12 damage too and are doing it with a +8. So their DPR is 8.4 (two attacks). With bless it goes up to 10.2. That is each, so overall it is 16.8 vs 20.4. per round.

So in the very first round they have already made up everything the Cleric lost casting Bless. Over the course of 3 rounds the damage is 59.4 no bless vs 69 with bless.

This also does not consider weapon masteries or damage buffs or anything else that would make the numbers even bigger and it doesn't consider the save bonus you get either.

The question is: what could a different spell (or cantrip or attack) have done for the party instead.

This is a legit question. I don't think a Cleric Cantrip is generally going to do better in tier 2 unless the enemy is already damaged and has a very weak Wisdom save. Other leveled spells might work better, but other first level spells using a first level slot only situationally so.

Magic Missile is a pretty solid 1st level spell especially against a high AC, if the Cleric has it and casts it round 1 vs that 22AC baddie that is 66.9 vs 69.

Witchbolt is a good 1st level spell. If he casts that on round 1 65.5 vs 69

Chromatic Orb is a solid spell generally, assuming 2 enemies is 61.7 vs 69.

Guiding Bolt which is the only one of these options most Clerics have is 62.2 vs 69

 

[UngeheuerLich]

An attack is not the same as a hit.

And water is wet.

This varies based on AC, but an attack is only worth maybe .7 of a hit on average and a lot less than that on a very high AC enemy where Bless is at its best.

Not necessarily. If you don't hit a lot anyway, instead of trying to hit AC, casting a spell that forces a save or deals automatic damage might be better.
If you increase your chances to hit from 5% to 17.5% you still suck at hitting.

For example: 8th level Cleric fighting a 22AC enemy:

An extreme outlier, but go on.

Cleric Swings his axe for 12 damage on a hit (1d8+1d8+3) with a +6 attack. His DPR is 3. He loses 3 damage in round 1 casting bless.

Yeah. No good idea to attack.

After he casts bless his DPR goes up from 3 to 3.9 so, so in a 3 round fight he does 7.8 vs 9 damage so it cost a little more than a hit point of damage for him to cast bless.

Sure. Sounds like the cleric understands the game.

The fighters he cast it on get 4 attacks a round combined (if they don't action surge). At 8th level they are doing 12 damage too and are doing it with a +8. So their DPR is 8.4 (two attacks). With bless it goes up to 10.2. That is each, so overall it is 16.8 vs 20.4. per round.

Ok. So against hypothetical enemy that has AC 22 and 65 HP, you win over 3 instead of 4 rounds.
Congratulations. You really outsmarted the DM.

So in the very first round they have already made up everything the Cleric lost casting Bless. Over the course of 3 rounds the damage is 59.4 no bless vs 69 with bless.

Oh no, if the enemy has 70 HP, that does not save you a single round.

This also does not consider weapon masteries or damage buffs or anything else that would make the numbers even bigger and it doesn't consider the save bonus you get either.

Correct. If you get a weapon mastery hit in, that might help. Except for graze, which deals damage on a miss, and which is extremely good in this situation.

This is a legit question. I don't think a Cleric Cantrip is generally going to do better in tier 2 unless the enemy is already damaged and has a very weak Wisdom save. Other leveled spells might work better, but other first level spells using a first level slot only situationally so.

Yeah. Level 1 cleric concentration spells are not that great.

Magic Missile is a pretty solid 1st level spell especially against a high AC, if the Cleric has it and casts it round 1 vs that 22AC baddie that is 66.9 vs 69.

And it does not cost concentration.

Witchbolt is a good 1st level spell. If he casts that on round 1 65.5 vs 69

It targets AC, so I would hesitate to use it here.

Chromatic Orb is a solid spell generally, assuming 2 enemies is 61.7 vs 69.

Same.

Guiding Bolt which is the only one of these options most Clerics have is 62.2 vs 69

Same.

So. Lets sum it up:

Bless just allowed you to deal 20% more damage in a combat against a very high AC foe.
The net benefit however was just 10 damage which can be made up by a single cast of magic missile not costing concentration which might get broken or needed otherwise.

Weapon masteries might have a positive effect, but also a negative (graze!) on the calculations.

So if that enemy is a spellcaster that targets the party's saves a lot, bless is great here. If the fighters use topple mastery, getting a single hit in allows for attacks with advantage afterwards. A very good combination. Now you start hitting a lot despite the high AC.

But still the question is: would it have been better to cast hold person on the enemy, granting advantage and automatic crits to the fighters on the failed save? A level 8 cleric probably has a spell save DC of 15. A fighter type enemy sometimes has less than +0 on their wisdom saves. That is a 70% chance to paralyze the target, probably ending the fight right there if the enemy just has 70hp.

And since the enemy did not hit bqck and wounded your fighters, it might not even be a higher spell slot investment, because you save up healing resources (which might be needed or not).

TLDR Is it a bad spell? No. Not by far. Is it overrated? Yes. Because it is often best in situations where a different tactic yields way better results.

 

[Maxperson]

They may get more spells but they don't get very many spells slots.

Rituals lean heavily towards exploration pillar.

You know the pillar most people neglect or don't care about.

The games I run and play in are probably 50/30/20 Exploration/Social/Combat. Exploration is far and away the biggest pillar.

 

[TwoSix]

Bless for example has alwaways been overrated. It eats up concentration and an action. So it better turns a few misses into hits or helps keeping up a concentration. On average, bless turns every 8th miss/failure into a hit/success.
This has to make up spending an action doing nothing and doing no direct damage with your concentration slot.

The ideal usage of bless is to have a non-caster, or very limited caster, cast it to fill their otherwise unused concentration slot, AND to precast it just before the combat starts.

 

[Maxperson]

High level games are 1% of games WotC numbers.

I tend to go to level 9-12. Current ones might hit 13 but there's 3 or 4 sessions left.

That's higher than most games according to WotC, all games locally and most games here at ENworld it seems.

10% of games reach levels 10+. That's 10% of like 40 million players, or.... Millions of players. Even at 1% that's still 400,000 people.

 

[Seramus]

2. Intelligence is not fun in RP. Charisma is king of the Roleplay abilities. Then Dex, Wisdom and Strength. Intelligence only beats Constitution.

It's pretty beneficial to have at least one person in the party with strong Intelligence skills. Being the "Exposition Person" is attractive to some people, and making those critical knowledge rolls can save a lot of time and grief. It IS true that you don't need those skills, especially if your DM includes alternative ways to solve problems (or you just crash through everything), but even saving 20 minutes of table time not shmucking around due to lack of information can add up to a couple extra sessions worth of time over a year or two.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The ideal usage of bless is to have a non-caster, or very limited caster, cast it to fill their otherwise unused concentration slot, AND to precast it just before the combat starts.

Agreed. Bless is not bad at all. Just not as good as people think it is.
At least in 2024.
In 2015 it was better, because you could artificially lower your chances to hit with GWM and Sharp Shooter.

 

[James Gasik]

Don't forget that bless does more than just increase attacks- that saving throw bonus can be quite clutch as well. It's a little harder to quantify, as you can't accurately model how often you'll end up using it- there are enemies who force saves every turn (or sometimes multiple times per turn), not to mention lair or legendary actions some monsters employ, but by the same token, there are lots of monsters who don't force saves at all.

That the saving throw bonus also boosts concentration (including the caster's checks to maintain bless itself) can also be quite beneficial in caster heavy parties.

 

[Zardnaar]

10% of games reach levels 10+. That's 10% of like 40 million players, or.... Millions of players. Even at 1% that's still 400,000 people.

That number was on beyond. The 40 million number was over D&Ds lifetime.

5E you level up a lot faster.

Average out over 50 years that's 8k a year so maybe 2000 groups a year hit high level.

Beyond numbers are gard data, 40 million thing is soft data ak an estimate that's varied at least twice somewhat recently.

Active players is another thing. Im betting theyre lower that that number (beyond it was 1in 6 or 7 iirc).

Very casual players probably wont hit high level at all.