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

[ECMO3]

It comes down to a few things. One, it messes with bounded accuracy by allowing you to boost your AC by a huge amount for 1 round. That's not a big deal at low levels, but it doesn't take long before you have a lot of level 1 slots and you're now doing much of substance with them, so there's really no cost to loading up on Shields.

Two, it basically can take away a monster's turn as a reaction. It's generally only used when you would take a hit, and then you not only turn that into a miss retroactively, the +5 AC has a good chance to turn off their other attacks as well. Most enemies want to target your AC, and this means that Shield can be better than Counterspell, especially since it protects against OTHER enemies attacking you.

And then there's just the general hatred some DM's have for being told "um, actually", lol. Messing with their die rolls, forcing rerolls, or simply saying "nuh uh, you miss!" just rubs some people the wrong way (go find a Silvery Barbs debate if you want proof).

And finally, it's easy to get the ability to use Shield even if you're not playing a class that gets it natively.

I'm not defending any of these stances; personally, I have yet to use Shield because I want more mileage out of a spell slot than a one-turn safety net, and I don't have an issue with it, but these are complaints people have. I'm also not going to say my point of view is "correct"; it just doesn't suit my playstyle.

I'd love to go back to Shield just being an AC buff for the combat instead of this weird "counter attacks and oh magic missile too" spell.

You can push the edges of bounded accuracy but you need to build for that if you want to have lots of slots to do it with and there are tradeoffs for that.

I agree with a lot of the rest of that, but don't see it as much of a problem, especially when enemy casters have it too.

One thing I disagree with is that it is always easy to get shield. That depends on the class. It is super easy for a Bard, Paladin or Artificer and pretty easy for a Warlock (although they will not have a lot of slots). It is more difficult to get on more than a once a day cast for most other classes that don't have it on their list. You could design for it with a full or half caster, but you need to either pick specific subclasses or maintain a high intelligence or Charisma. Not terribly difficult, but not automatic either.

I have played other versions of the game and I like the current shield a lot better.

 

[M_Natas]

I think the biggest problem to wizard's (and all casters) in 5e is, that magic doesn't really feel magical. It feels more like reliable science. It always does what you want it to do without failure (wild magic sorcerer, teleport and wish spell the notable exceptions). Also you can't really change it (Order of Scribe the noteable exception). It feels more like Button pushing than magic.
I know that all is part of the fantasy super hero Design, which wouldn't work is msgic was unreliable, but it takes away the mystical aura.
One of the reasons that Harry Dresden ir Harry Potter feel so magical is the unpredictability of magic.

If I would do it from scratch, I would put something like the misshap table of the teleport spell in every spell.

 

[tetrasodium]

I would say half the Wizards I have seen played get Lemunds Tiny Hut and most of them do not prepare it. So that only leaves them 7 3rd and 4th level spells they can prepare unless they have found magic items, gold and had enough time to scribe more.

That aside, yes you may have a Wizard that does that but I think there are actually more that do the opposite - prepare maybe 3 or 4 3rd and 4th level spells with the rest spent on 1st and 2nd level spells and I would argue this is actually a more powerful build.

Here are a couple examples:

Example 1 (your example): Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, Mage Armor, Misty Step, Fear, Fireball, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Greater Invisibility, Psychic Lance, Evards Tenticles, Polymorph

Example 2 (better): Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, Mage Armor, Protection from Evil and Good, Magic Missle, Tasha's Mind Whip, Suggestion, Misty Step, Counterspell, Fear, Polymoprh

Example 2 is objectively better IMO. The reason is the first example has the best 1st and 2nd level spells in the game but the opportunities to use them may not come up enough to actually use all the slots. Sure you will cast mage armor, you will cast shield every time you are hit, you will cast silvery barbs if you are critted or an enemy fails a save on your crowd pleaser (but you are not casting a lot of them) and you will use misty step if you need to escape something. Basically the first character has some great spells he can cast and then a bunch of conditional spells. The second guy has a LOT more flexibility. Guy #1 has Greater invisibility, one of the best spells in the game, but then he is going to go invisible to spam cantrips!

Will guy 2 miss having fireball? Maybe. Will he miss Psychic Lance? Probably not when you can use Tasha's mind whip on 3 enemies with the same slot and still be able to spam it on single enemies with a 2nd level slot. Will he miss Dispel Magic? Absolutely he will, but he will miss it just as much if he has it prepared and used all his 3rd level slots. Will guy number 2 ever use PEG? I think he has a good chance of it being useful and a significant chance of it being gamebreaking.




Shield is one of my favorite spells in the game. I don't understand the hate.

The game doesn’t end at level 8, that's just the breakeven point where the problem accelerates. It continues on for another several levels where a pc who once made big gains in low level spell slots & prepped low level spells that have been scaling by caster level & are now are just expanding well beyond the tiny number of high level slots they have.

 

[Aldarc]

If I would do it from scratch, I would put something like the misshap table of the teleport spell in every spell.

As someone who hates mishap tables, that sort of punishing fun-killing design would certainly stop me from playing casters.

 

[James Gasik]

As someone who hates mishap tables, that sort of punishing fun-killing design would certainly stop me from playing casters.

It's something you should be able to opt into, like Wild Magic. I loved playing Wild Mages, but it's not for every group.

 

[Aldarc]

It's something you should be able to opt into, like Wild Magic. I loved playing Wild Mages, but it's not for every group.

I agree. FWIW, I'm also turned off by the whole magic corrupts the body of the caster. I understand the trope. I'm fine with magic having negative consequences; however, I'm not a fan of body horror. I have passed over many otherwise great games that had that sort of thing.

 

[M_Natas]

As someone who hates mishap tables, that sort of punishing fun-killing design would certainly stop me from playing casters.

But if you don't do it you have the current system where magic doesn't feel magical. It is mundane, reliable and a bit boring.

If magic is 100% reliable and reproducible it is just science.

 

[Aldarc]

But if you don't do it you have the current system where magic doesn't feel magical. It is mundane, reliable and a bit boring.

If magic is 100% reliable and reproducible it is just science.

Honestly, this feels like a false dichotomy, as options exist between and beyond the two postions that you present. I seriously doubt, FWIW, that the only way for magic to feel magical is for magical mishap to exist. In fact, magic feels just as magical in many other fantasy books without such magical mishaps. This doesn't necessarily even require that such characters to feel like superheroes.

I have played in games with magical mishap tables and the like. I can tell you from my own experience is that it didn't make magic feel magical at all to me; instead, it simply made magic feel punishing. Whatever sense of the magical wonder you may imagine exists in such a magic system was completely lost on me.

Moreover, even if magic feels as reliable as science, that is not always a bad thing, especially when it comes to the ability for players to make informed decisions when it comes to playing a game. So it may not actually be a "problem" at all. Indeed, some here would likely consider that a feature rather than a flaw.

 

[Digdude]

I think there are two fixes for the wizard, one is easy, the other is more extensive. Full casters all need to drop to lower hit dice. Bring back the d4 for wizards and maybe even d6s for divine casters. Make the tradeoff for all that power a more fragile build and makes martials more important to have around to protect them. Secondly, a total spell level revisit and drop all the old sacred cow spells. Move sleep, charm person, and invisibility, spells up in level and bring down some of the more niche higher-level spells down. Really look at what a 1st level spell should be capable of doing when going up against beginning encounters and build all the rest accordingly. I think some spells should also have different DC rolls to cast depending on function. But basically, all spells need a fresh look and total rewrite. I dont see this happening for 1dnd though but I hope they do.

 

[James Gasik]

And let's not forget, spells are not always 100% reliable. You could miss your spell attack roll. The enemy could make a saving throw or have a resistance or immunity you didn't know about. Or have a reaction ability that counters or lessens it's impact. Or Legendary Resistance.

So there's already uncertainty on many spells you'd want to cast. Then on top of that, let's say there's a 1 in 20 spell mishap roll, where the options are basically "random thing happens, maybe good, maybe bad, maybe useless".

Oh and of course, there's expensive material components as well.

That feels like a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not a spellcaster does anything at all on their turn, and of course, if the spell doesn't work, you're most likely down a spell slot.

Now that's not a unique position for a class to be in, though most classes have some protections; a Battlemaster or Paladin isn't going to waste a resource on a failed attack roll, for example.

The Monk doesn't have these protections, but they regain Ki on a short rest.

 

[James Gasik]

I think there are two fixes for the wizard, one is easy, the other is more extensive. Full casters all need to drop to lower hit dice. Bring back the d4 for wizards and maybe even d6s for divine casters. Make the tradeoff for all that power a more fragile build and makes martials more important to have around to protect them. Secondly, a total spell level revisit and drop all the old sacred cow spells. Move sleep, charm person, and invisibility, spells up in level and bring down some of the more niche higher-level spells down. Really look at what a 1st level spell should be capable of doing when going up against beginning encounters and build all the rest accordingly. I think some spells should also have different DC rolls to cast depending on function. But basically, all spells need a fresh look and total rewrite. I dont see this happening for 1dnd though but I hope they do.

Here's the thing though; what ability do the martials have to protect the spellcasters?

Imagine you're a monster, there's a pointy hat about to ruin the day of you, your friends, and anyone you have ever met. So you don't really care if you go out in a blaze of glory, that was going to happen anyways.

Opportunity attacks? Highly unlikely they're going to kill you.

You need a specialized build to do much of anything, and most of the options you'll need aren't available at 1st level. The "classic" party has 2 spellcasters, a Fighter, and a Rogue. The only way you can physically block enemies would be with the old "stand in a dungeon door" scenario, and that still won't do more than grant soft cover against ranged attacks.

So squishier casters might just lead to no casters, which isn't really helping the game's balance, because so many problems in the games have only one solution: throw magic at it.

 

[Digdude]

Here's the thing though; what ability do the martials have to protect the spellcasters?

Imagine you're a monster, there's a pointy hat about to ruin the day of you, your friends, and anyone you have ever met. So you don't really care if you go out in a blaze of glory, that was going to happen anyways.

Opportunity attacks? Highly unlikely they're going to kill you.

You need a specialized build to do much of anything, and most of the options you'll need aren't available at 1st level. The "classic" party has 2 spellcasters, a Fighter, and a Rogue. The only way you can physically block enemies would be with the old "stand in a dungeon door" scenario, and that still won't do more than grant soft cover against ranged attacks.

So squishier casters might just lead to no casters, which isn't really helping the game's balance, because so many problems in the games have only one solution: throw magic at it.

Martial fixes is for a different thread but you are right they need some tanky sticky fixes to help this.

 

[James Gasik]

Martial fixes is for a different thread but you are right they need some tanky sticky fixes to help this.

Thank you, I've been saying that ever since 2e, but a lot of people still like to argue with me that I'm wrong.

There's also the fact that martial players don't necessarily want to tank either...

I don't think this is irrelevant to the discussion, since we can't just "fix" casters in a vacuum. We need to really grok the reason they are the way they are; because so many things in the game require "magic bullets", and those almost always come in the form of magic items or spells...and someone decided to lie and say magic items aren't needed for the game, so that pushes everything onto the spellcasters.*

You got killed, polymorphed, feebleminded, turned to stone, blinded, poisoned, diseased? Man, hope you have someone with the right spell handy!

Weird puzzle, trap, trick, magical thing, impossible task? Yep, need a spell for that too!

*by default, at least. One would hope the DM makes some other solution available, but there's no guarantee that they will.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And let's not forget, spells are not always 100% reliable. You could miss your spell attack roll. The enemy could make a saving throw or have a resistance or immunity you didn't know about. Or have a reaction ability that counters or lessens it's impact. Or Legendary Resistance.

This touches slightly on a berserk button of mine. .

Why doesn’t the wizard know about the resistances or immunities of the monster before it? It seems that the first thing most people would do when confronted by a creature would be to ask “what do I know about it?” This is doubly the case for a class that can easily vary the types of attacks it makes based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent. Furthermore, a wizard, having high Intelligence, often training in multiple Lore skills, AND generally story reasons to find out about monsters, really is the person most likely to attempt and succeed at those rolls.

One answer could be “but what if the DM doesn’t allow players to find out about monsters?” and to be fair, some DMs do that. My response to that is “but is that a good practice by those DMs? Is that something we want to encourage?”.

Overall, having players investing in finding out about monsters is a good thing: it encourages more tactical play, it increases immersion in the world, and it can generate adventure hooks.

Oh and of course, there's expensive material components as well.

Expensive spell components applies to very few spells. Many of the worst offenders among the “power spells” have components that can be replaced by a spell focus.

 

[James Gasik]

This touches slightly on a berserk button of mine. .

Why doesn’t the wizard know about the resistances or immunities of the monster before it? It seems that the first thing most people would do when confronted by a creature would be to ask “what do I know about it?” This is doubly the case for a class that can easily vary the types of attacks it makes based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent. Furthermore, a wizard, having high Intelligence, often training in multiple Lore skills, AND generally story reasons to find out about monsters, really is the person most likely to attempt and succeed at those rolls.

One answer could be “but what if the DM doesn’t allow players to find out about monsters?” and to be fair, some DMs do that. My response to that is “but is that a good practice by those DMs? Is that something we want to encourage?”.

Overall, having players investing in finding out about monsters is a good thing: it encourages more tactical play, it increases immersion in the world, and it can generate adventure hooks.


Expensive spell components applies to very few spells. Many of the worst offenders among the “power spells” have components that can be replaced by a spell focus.

Actually, I've found a lot of the "offenders" are things like Restoration, Raise Dead, etc., that are required to keep the game going, but YMMV.

As for monster knowledge, well, for two editions there were rules for these sorts of things, that were removed precisely because DM's wanted to be able to have "gotcha" moments as Gygax intended, I presume, thinly veiled by "it doesn't make sense that any Wizard trained in skill X would know about Y creature".

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think a notable part of wizard issues is that they're geared up for multiple encounters worth of spell use yet very rarely actually achieve participating in all those fights before resting overnight and getting it all back again, and so have more spell slots than they'll really need for most of the game experience.
i'd either cut their number of spell slots in half or enforce gritty realism as standard recovery method

 

[tetrasodium]

Here's the thing though; what ability do the martials have to protect the spellcasters?

Imagine you're a monster, there's a pointy hat about to ruin the day of you, your friends, and anyone you have ever met. So you don't really care if you go out in a blaze of glory, that was going to happen anyways.

Opportunity attacks? Highly unlikely they're going to kill you.

You need a specialized build to do much of anything, and most of the options you'll need aren't available at 1st level. The "classic" party has 2 spellcasters, a Fighter, and a Rogue. The only way you can physically block enemies would be with the old "stand in a dungeon door" scenario, and that still won't do more than grant soft cover against ranged attacks.

So squishier casters might just lead to no casters, which isn't really helping the game's balance, because so many problems in the games have only one solution: throw magic at it.

Basically none. Removal of 5 foot step or provoke AoO &standard+move action only (ie no full round attack action) where multi/extra-attack equivalent existed). did a lot to make it trivial for combatants to ignore anything wanting to be sticky.

Now 5e movement rates & ranges of vision/abilities are so high that it almost never matters if Creature A is in the way of creature B's path to creature C. Even if it does somehow matter it crumbles on one of two situations where the cost of eating a single attack to take a full move speed move & entire multi/extra attack chain or the creature that can't be ignored made so many sacrifices in their build that their impact doesn't really make much difference.

 

[Redwizard007]

Basically none. Removal of 5 foot step or provoke AoO &standard+move action only (ie no full round attack action) where multi/extra-attack equivalent existed). did a lot to make it trivial for combatants to ignore anything wanting to be sticky.

Now 5e movement rates & ranges of vision/abilities are so high that it almost never matters if Creature A is in the way of creature B's path to creature C. Even if it does somehow matter it crumbles on one of two situations where the cost of eating a single attack to take a full move speed move & entire multi/extra attack chain or the creature that can't be ignored made so many sacrifices in their build that their impact doesn't really make much difference.

This was a sacrifice of sticky game mechanics, but it allows a more cinematic and action filled turn. It also fits the (relatively) rules-light concepts of 5e quite well. There are still sticky features scattered throughout the sub-classes, fighting styles, and feats that can create a functional tank.

 

[James Gasik]

This was a sacrifice of sticky game mechanics, but it allows a more cinematic and action filled turn. It also fits the (relatively) rules-light concepts of 5e quite well. There are still sticky features scattered throughout the sub-classes, fighting styles, and feats that can create a functional tank.

Yeah but you're probably not doing it at level 1, barring a Variant Human with Sentinel (if Feats are allowed). Tunnel Fighter fighting style is UA content (and only really shores up OA focused builds like Sentinel and Battlemaster), Protection and Interception uses your reaction, so it's once per turn and you can't make opportunity attacks, and Superior Technique gives you one crummy Superiority Die.

Nothing is baseline, and most of these options are Fighter-only. Then add to that the fact that, like I said, not every martial wants to be a protector, and will probably build for "the damage", and very little really protects the casters at all, often forcing them to protect themselves.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I seriously doubt, FWIW, that the only way for magic to feel magical is for magical mishap to exist.

Right, it doesn't have to be mishaps. Sometimes it's exhausation, aging, selling your soul, collatoral damage, very hard to get ingredients, etc.

The point is that outside of supers many many times great magical power comes with some downside.

That said, my take on primarily why wizards aren't great design is they are too broad in powerset. It would probably be fine if wizards got AOE damage and 1 other thing like transport modes, charm/emotional control, divination, etc. Even with the same spells as today, that might still be ok.

Also having some "price" for the more spectacular non-combat stuff might work too. Although I agree, this is a novel so having too much of a price might not be fun as a player of a game.