D&D 5E What is REALLY wrong with the Wizard? (+)

[DND_Reborn]

Worth noting that the nomagical immunity is only to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing attacks, usually. Fall damage still works, so would burning oil or acid, so those are options they could have as well, although to burn a monster's hp with those would take a while.

Yep, which is why resistance if good, of course, but not really much of a hurdle IME. Like I mentioned upthread, Vecna was defeated with an anti-magic field, grappling, and torches, (yes, Improved Divine Smite was ruled non-magical, is it sped up the process, but wasn't essential).

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Then there is no point in bringing up creatures like Pit Fiends or Balors if you aren't talking at least tier 4 PCs.

Fair enough, although I have seen those posts about a group of like level 7 or so PC's bringing down a Balor, so maybe that's in the cards for someone out there. (Don't remember the exact level, mind, I just remember that a Balor was way outside of their weightclass and they made it look like a chump)

Non-magical damage immunity IS (and was) the issue. Resistance is not really a big issue IME since PCs can deal so much damage really. YMMV, of course.

You'd still have to deal about twice as much damage to it to actually put it down though, and if it has a way to get back that health, like healing spells or some flavor of Regeneration, then that stuff goes even farther.

Remember, there's a reason why Bear Totem Barbarians are the most popular barbarians, and it's not because people like hair.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Fair enough, although I have seen those posts about a group of like level 7 or so PC's bringing down a Balor, so maybe that's in the cards for someone out there. (Don't remember the exact level, mind, I just remember that a Balor was way outside of their weightclass and they made it look like a chump)

All I can say then is the DM played the Balor like a little b**** then.

A common mistake IME is for DM's to run boss fights like they have to stand toe-to-toe with the party. While it is possible for a group of PCs to dish out insane amounts of damage, such uneven encounters should not end with the PCs winning IMO.

You'd still have to deal about twice as much damage to it to actually put it down though, and if it has a way to get back that health, like healing spells or some flavor of Regeneration, then that stuff goes even farther.

Sure, but with the damage potential of many parties that really isn't an issue, and in an anti-magic zone, it won't be recovering any hit points during the fight.

Remember, there's a reason why Bear Totem Barbarians are the most popular barbarians, and it's not because people like hair.

LOL true enough, but if you reverse the script, even Bear Totem Barbarians can be taken down relatively quickly.

 

[bloodtide]

Wait, what? What have I done to "mundane" characters that I wouldn't do to a wizard? I used the wind wall example as something I wouldn't do with any degree of regularity. I'm a firm believer in Grod's Law: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.

When you said you'd have a ranged encounter with a melee ranger, but would never do anything similar to the wizard.

If the Wizard is problematic, making it more annoying to play one isn't the answer. That either leads to one of four scenarios.

• The disruptive munchkin ignores it, argues it, or forces the rest of the group to suffer through it. His power remains the same, and he gets more annoying to play with.
• The inappropriate powergamer figures out how to circumvent the restriction. His power remains the same.
• The reasonable player either figures out how to circumvent the restriction (rendering it moot), avoids the class (turning it into a ban) or suffers through it. His power remains the same and/or his enjoyment goes down.
• The new player avoids the class or suffers through it. His enjoyment goes down.

Well, the world is not limited to four scenarios.

 

[Baron Opal II]

2 spells per level pus 4 more 1st level spells is enough to get access to most of the important effects in the game.

It doesn't grant the ability to have to the strongest version of every effect at once without help but you can get a pretty full library.

I disagree with your overall premise, but I do agree that 2 free spells per level is too much. If you allow the caster to incorporate spells from captured spellbooks and scrolls, one free spell per level allows for the player to customize their wizard and make it fairly unlikely they will have the perfect spell for the occasion. (If they happen to prepare it in the first place.)

 

[James Gasik]

When you said you'd have a ranged encounter with a melee ranger, but would never do anything similar to the wizard.



Well, the world is not limited to four scenarios.

Oh I see what you're saying! Yeah I can see how that sounds- I will occasionally use a ranged or flying encounter when I have a melee-only guy in a party. Just as I will occasionally use an enemy who has legendary resistance or something.

And yeah, I suppose that might "turn off" the melee character in a way I wouldn't turn off a spellcaster (by depriving them of magic entirely). Although.

There are ranged options a melee specialist can employ. While they may not be as good as swinging a sword (I have never ascribed to the "just switch to a bow and you're fine" rhetoric- I understand that building to use a bow with any degree of accuracy or effectiveness can be an issue for some characters- though it's certainly a lot easier in 5e, which doesn't require composite bows or precise shot, and doesn't require Dexterity to be your very best ability score in order to hit), they do exist.

I will admit that there is an analogy to "not being able to use a weapon" to "not being able to use a spellbook", though I don't think it's quite apt because the special abilities of a Fighter are never turned "off" simply because they don't have a weapon handy.

Not in the same way as a Wizard being turned into a commoner with more hit points, at least. Which is the fundamental difference, in my mind, at least. A Fighter without his sword is still a Fighter, if a hampered one. A Wizard who has had all his magic removed is...not really a Wizard.

I just don't like heavy handed solutions to balance issues. "Because antimagic" "because rust monsters" "because removal" "because blue counterspells"...ah, sorry, getting a bit removed from D&D there...aren't really answers to me.

I look at the Wizard's issues as a consequence of the game's long history of creating tons of very specific spells to deal with various situations, and not bothering to give those to "mundanes" (not a fan of that term either, but it's perhaps less loaded?) at the same time, "because that's what casters do".

Put another way, a 7th level Wizard can take raw materials (stone, maybe some wood) and create a 2 story tower inside of 10 minutes once per day. Now that's not terribly useful in all situations, but when it comes up, it's amazing. And it's not like the spell is called "create small fortification" either. It has other potential uses.

Tell a veteran soldier, a 7th level Fighter, to build fortifications out of thin air, and it's going to take hours or days. And probably ability checks, where all our Mason Wizard needs is tool proficiency. This is, to me, the core issue.

I don't mind a Wizard doing cool things with magic- the limited amount of spell slots per day is usually a limiting factor. I don't mind that spells like Fabricate exist. I mind that all of these "silver bullet" and "narrative answer" effects are limited to spells only. That only spellcasters get them because it would be "unrealistic" for characters who don't access spells, and that, by design, the only thing really stopping a spellcaster from acquiring said spells is for a DM to step in and say "that's not available".

And there are frequently situations where "spell slots per day" are not a limiting factor, which gives Wizard great narrative power. As a video I just watched pointed out, a Fabricate using Wizard could potentially jump start an industrial revolution or wow the world with the equivalent of a mass produced Gutenberg Bible or something. And that's just one single spell out of an ever-growing list.

Anyways, enough reiterating the same points. As to your response about there being more than the 4 possible results of Grod's hypothesis- what else is there?

 

[Minigiant]

I disagree with your overall premise, but I do agree that 2 free spells per level is too much. If you allow the caster to incorporate spells from captured spellbooks and scrolls, one free spell per level allows for the player to customize their wizard and make it fairly unlikely they will have the perfect spell for the occasion. (If they happen to prepare it in the first place.)

My point is just that you can't give a class 90% of effects on their spell list then let them choose so many of them as their list AND collect spells as treasure

The cleric and druid can swap all their spells because their class spells list has a ton of holes.

 

[James Gasik]

I disagree with your overall premise, but I do agree that 2 free spells per level is too much. If you allow the caster to incorporate spells from captured spellbooks and scrolls, one free spell per level allows for the player to customize their wizard and make it fairly unlikely they will have the perfect spell for the occasion. (If they happen to prepare it in the first place.)

On the other hand, too much limitation on spells ends up with the Sorcerer, where you have to carefully plan out each spell you want to grab to get the most versatile and efficient one, because your opportunities to get spells is so limited.

And then you still have to turn your sights to the next two problematic spellcasters, the Cleric and the Druid.

 

[James Gasik]

My point is just that you can't give a class 90% of effects on their spell list then let them choose so many of them as their list AND collect spells as treasure

The cleric and druid can swap all their spells because their class spells list has a ton of holes.

Since I just made a comment about this, I'm curious- how limited do you feel the Cleric and Druid are in this edition when it comes to their available spells?

 

[bloodtide]

I will admit that there is an analogy to "not being able to use a weapon" to "not being able to use a spellbook", though I don't think it's quite apt because the special abilities of a Fighter are never turned "off" simply because they don't have a weapon handy.

Well, don't go so overboard to only compare a ranged encounter to an anti magic zone. There are lots of encounters.

I think you might put too much focus on the idea that doing "anything" is a direct personal attack on the player and their wizard character.

And notice how your just fine doing all sorts of things in the game....as long as they are tailor made so the wizard can overcome or ignore them with ease. The group walks into an area of darkness. Most non magical characters will have a hard time in magic darkness...but you will toss that at them offen as it's part of the game. Of course most spellcasters have spells to lessen or negate magic darkness....but you ignore that.

Why? Now take another twist:

The area is filled with overwhelming magical bright light. Most of the non magical characters will be effected exactly like in the magical darkness. And..well, wait, the spellcaster or wizard does not have an easy spell to cast to see in bright blinding light. So...really most of the characters would be effected the same. Yet...somehow...you would resist this idea. For the poor spellcaster player character to be effected by something, it just does not feel right. A fighter character, sure you'd let them stumble around in the light or dark.....but not that poor wizard character.

Anyways, enough reiterating the same points. As to your response about there being more than the 4 possible results of Grod's hypothesis- what else is there?

Well, first you have to toss out the wrong grod hypothesis...
5.The reasonable player accepts that sometimes things will effect their character during that game and they accept it like an adult

 

[Minigiant]

Since I just made a comment about this, I'm curious- how limited do you feel the Cleric and Druid are in this edition when it comes to their available spells?

The Cleric and Druid have big holes in their base class lists. They can fill some via subclass but you only get one.

The Cleric can only really expand their blasting, summons, skullduggery, or utility. Not all four.

The Primal Druid spell list are also every focused and reliant on subclass to expand.

I mean, it's telling that every caster but the wizard and bard has subclasses that expand their spell list. Thebard has that as a base feature and has/had one subclass.

 

[James Gasik]

Well, don't go so overboard to only compare a ranged encounter to an anti magic zone. There are lots of encounters.

I think you might put too much focus on the idea that doing "anything" is a direct personal attack on the player and their wizard character.

And notice how your just fine doing all sorts of things in the game....as long as they are tailor made so the wizard can overcome or ignore them with ease. The group walks into an area of darkness. Most non magical characters will have a hard time in magic darkness...but you will toss that at them offen as it's part of the game. Of course most spellcasters have spells to lessen or negate magic darkness....but you ignore that.

Why? Now take another twist:

The area is filled with overwhelming magical bright light. Most of the non magical characters will be effected exactly like in the magical darkness. And..well, wait, the spellcaster or wizard does not have an easy spell to cast to see in bright blinding light. So...really most of the characters would be effected the same. Yet...somehow...you would resist this idea. For the poor spellcaster player character to be effected by something, it just does not feel right. A fighter character, sure you'd let them stumble around in the light or dark.....but not that poor wizard character.



Well, first you have to toss out the wrong grod hypothesis...
5.The reasonable player accepts that sometimes things will effect their character during that game and they accept it like an adult

Uh, that isn't my doing. The game gives spells to spellcasters to create light. So if I were to use an area of magical darkness, what's the solution? Light spells. What's the non magical solution? Oh right, there isn't one, beyond poking and prodding things with 10' poles and tying everyone together with ropes and hoping there's no monster lurking in there.

Which is why I wouldn't use that as a challenge unless I also took steps to give players some other way to deal with it.

And your 5 is ridiculous. Grod is saying that you don't solve a problem by making it a nuisance. This has nothing to do with whether or not a player accepts that they might encounter difficulty. This has everything to do with the idea that we should somehow just give magic the ability to outright fail because we don't like it.

The solution is to rework the mechanics so that they are balanced in the first place, not to make people regret their choice of being a Wizard.

 

[ECMO3]

Then, in response to the the bolded sections: When have you seen a Fighter completely trivialize an encounter? A Rogue? A Ranger? When have you seen any martial class shut down an encounter the way a Wizard (or any spellcaster really) can?

Fighter - Trip attack on a flying dragon making him plummet to the earth and die.

Action Surge to kill a near dead boss before he goes or gets another legendary many times.

Final example (and this admittedly required a feat and a magic item)- While wearing a Ring of Feather Fall, Misty stepped (using Fey touced) into the air above a Giant vulture with a cultist rider. Threw a net on that vulture which then plummeted to the ground along with its rider.

Rogue - First example is Mage Hand Legerdemain to steal enemies weapons and occasionally a spell focus. Combined it with disarm from the DMG quite a bit if the person was holding the item and it was not being warn.

Also had a Half Elf Rogue that had expertise in 7 different skills and proficiency in another 5. He completely trivialized all the wilderness/navigation stuff because he automatically made the all the checks from 3rd level on (expertise in both Survival and Nature). Also never missed an investigation check or a charisma check (expertise in Deception, Investigation and Persuasion). It actually caused a rub because with a 14 wisdom and charisma he was substantially better at charisma checks and survival checks than the Warlock and Ranger respectively who expected to be the best at those checks. I will also add though he was a glass cannon with a 10 constitution, and while he did ok damage with sneak attack he was hands down the weakest party member in combat.

Ranger - Goblin Fey Wanderer using (abusing) concentration-free Summon Fey (Mirthful) and Beguiling Twist just completely dominated the "difficult" encounters. If you want to talk about OP spells, that is about the most OP I have seen in tier 3. You are throwing outmultiple 1-round Charm Monster equivalents over and over every round with your Feys are getting attacks (and you after the 2nd round) are then you are twisting a save if someone makes it. The combination of multiple pets on the battlefield controling space, multiple attacks and multiple bonus action charms, every single round and then thrwoing frigthened anytime someone saves makes it the best controller I have seen in play through tier 3.

Another example from the same Goblin, a Foolish DM tried to have a Dragon use Frightful presence on us. Twisted the Frightened back on him. Then the party pelted him from range until he died.

Third example - Ensnaring strike to make a flying Chimera plummet to the earth where he was heavily damaged from the fall and then hacked to death by melee martials.

Yes, Wizards have weak spots, especially in 5e where they have taken good measures to nerf that class down to more acceptable levels, but any smart wizard player will have taken measures to either mitigate those weak spots or remove them entirely.

Sure, at a price though.

Also, no Wizard is giving up anything for getting Counterspell, it is a serious contender for "best spell in the game" specifically because it can shut down other spellcasters. And if something needs something that heavy handed in order to bring it down a peg or two, then there is something seriously wrong.

It depends on the game. If you are playing enemies casting spells and they are doing it in situations where a Wizard can get within 60 feet without using other reactions, then yeah sure. But that is situational. In those situations it is king. However, if you have counterspell prepared a lot of nights you will go to sleep without using it. Fear on the other hand is almost always useful, so you are giving up on the power of CS to be less situational.

I will also add that an Arcane Trickster can be almost as good at shutting down casters by taking either their component pouch or their focus and doing on a bonus action without using a spell slot.

 

[ECMO3]

So I'm not going to target spell foci, components, or spellbooks unless I want to make a point (I think I posted about an incident like this upthread) or for story reasons- and if I do take away your ability to cast spells temporarily, I will make sure you're left with something to do.

Why not?

As a PC I target enemies Foci and spell components all the time and as a PC Wizard I have lost my spellbook and components in two campaigns (in one I lost the spellbook permanently). Those were both published WOTC adventures, so the WOTC writers intended for them to be taken.

 

[ECMO3]

Uh, that isn't my doing. The game gives spells to spellcasters to create light. So if I were to use an area of magical darkness, what's the solution? Light spells. What's the non magical solution? Oh right, there isn't one, beyond poking and prodding things with 10' poles and tying everyone together with ropes and hoping there's no monster lurking in there.

First off Blindsight, which is available to any 1st level fighter or 2nd level Paladin or Ranger, works in magical darkness

Second magical light does not always work in Magical Darkness either. It does not work in Hunger of hader and I don't think it works on Shadow of Moil either.

Finally the best easiest counter to magical darkness, that is available to any class is to damage the caster and break concentration. I daresay in play the Wizard is going to end up going with this method a lot more than with a light spell.

 

[ECMO3]

I disagree with your overall premise, but I do agree that 2 free spells per level is too much. If you allow the caster to incorporate spells from captured spellbooks and scrolls, one free spell per level allows for the player to customize their wizard and make it fairly unlikely they will have the perfect spell for the occasion. (If they happen to prepare it in the first place.)

So it depends on what is fun for your party. Many on here are claiming that a Wizard makes the game not fun because they are too powerful. Those people would presumably prefer more balance.

Personally I have never encountered this problem at a table, but I am certain it exists for others.

So if "Wizard power" is a problem at your table then affording that character things like spellbooks and scrolls will only make this problem worse.

If you table is like those that I have played at (and I believe the majority of tables); where a Wizard that is more powerful than everyone else is not a problem and if that does not hinder the enjoyment, then hand out lots of scrolls.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you table is like those that I have played at (and I believe the majority of tables); where a Wizard that is more powerful than everyone else is not a problem

~Looks at entire rest of the thread.~

~Looks at every Wizard thread on every forum~

~Looks at the entire twenty years of my experience with this game~

Seriously?

No, see this right here is the problem with wizards. Wizard players dominating the play space both at the table and in the discourse and deciding that once everyone is shouted down that means there's no problem.

 

[James Gasik]

Why not?

As a PC I target enemies Foci and spell components all the time and as a PC Wizard I have lost my spellbook and components in two campaigns (in one I lost the spellbook permanently). Those were both published WOTC adventures, so the WOTC writers intended for them to be taken.

I had a problem occur in my game when a player asked if they could do it, and it started getting out of hand. Especially when I decided to monsters would play too, and had a goblin snatch the Cleric's holy symbol. In the end, everyone was happy to agree to cease such shenanigans.

 

[FrozenNorth]

On the other hand, too much limitation on spells ends up with the Sorcerer, where you have to carefully plan out each spell you want to grab to get the most versatile and efficient one, because your opportunities to get spells is so limited.

I tend to find Sorcerers and Warlocks the best balanced of the fullcasters. They clearly play like fullcasters, but the holes in their list means they tend to work best in a team.

 

[ECMO3]

~Looks at entire rest of the thread.~

~Looks at every Wizard thread on every forum~

~Looks at the entire twenty years of my experience with this game~

Seriously?

I do not believe the people posting on this forum are a representative sample of all the people playing D&D and I do not believe their reported experiences are congruent with the majority of people playing D&D.

I stand by what I said - I do not believe Wizards are a problem on the majority of tables and there is no objective evidence to refute that opinion. There are lots of anecdotes, but that is all.

By the way, I have been playing D&D since 1980, which beats your 20 years by more than double ..... not that it matters to this discussion.

No, see this right here is the problem with wizards. Wizard players dominating the play space both at the table and in the discourse and deciding that once everyone is shouted down that means there's no problem.

Yet shouting others down is exactly what those who claim there is a problem with Wizards are trying to do. I readily admit that Wizards are a problem at some tables (which I believe are a minority), based on the testimony on this thread and forum.

However, there are other people on this forum that use superlatives like "this is why Wizards dominate every encounter" and "Players can't have fun with them in the party".

Both of these statements are objectively false, they are not a matter of opinion, yet those that say them get upvoted as if they were true statements that were somehow relevant to this discussion. This represents the epitome of shouting others down and trying to use the popularity of an argument, and a factually false premise, instead of using reason and the underlying logic of the argument.

Finally, I will note that homebrew and choosing/limited magic items are easy available avenues to nerf a Wizard to meet your needs if this really is a problem at your table, and these are both generally easier to do mechanically than it would be to go the other way and add back in mechanics for things that are removed.