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

[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.