D&D 5E What's this about the Mountain Dwarf being a better wizard?

[The Black Ranger]

This stuff is a huge pet peeve of mine. Talking about classes and races in theory is fine, but people seem to only dissect classes in a vacuum with no regards to the setting at all. Is the mountain dwarf a bit better in certain situations? Sure, I'll concede to that, so then you have to ask yourself. Why does there exist a dwarf wizard in the first place? The vast majority of dwarves are going to focus on martial classes because they have synergy with the bonus. I'd imagine in just about any world (7dwarves taken as is) you aren't going to see dwarf wizards often. Sure you can make your special snowflake and go against the flow but the big question is, why would you even want to? These class theory threads who prove dwarven wizards are the better wizard usually implies people saying "Why create a high elf wizard if the dwarf wizard is better?". The thing about that argument is self defeating, why would you play a dwarf wizard if dwarves make the best fighters?

Well I can tell you why someone playing a Mountain Dwarf may not choose fighter or any other martial class. I would say it's because they lose one of their racial abilities since the martial classes grant armour proficiency. They would only gain their +2 to STR. By going wizard, they are able to gain armour without having to cast Mage Armour everyday, have a better chance at keeping concentration, more HP, essentially have another spell slot available since they don't need MA, able to weild melee weapons as a last resort. You don't really need actual play to see the benefits.

 

[keterys]

High Elf wins on initiative compared to the dwarf, which is a pretty serious concern too, and the longbow is a better backup weapon than a battleaxe.

It's a pretty hard sell to say that defense wins over offense in D&D, in general, but some folks will claim it, and for them dwarves may be the best almost everything. Good for them.

 

[Evenglare]

You don't really need actual play to see the benefits.

Just to be clear, you are saying that dwarves should be wizards rather than fighters.?

 

[Mistwell]

You don't really need actual play to see the benefits.

This statement is sometimes false, and there is no real way to know in advance if you're dealing with part of the rules where it is true or false.

 

[doghead]

... but for once, rolling stats is pretty clearly a better way to get the stats you want than point buy.

That sort of depends on what you want.

A 16, 17, or 18 before adjustment?
* Point Buy: 0%
* Rolling:
* * At least one 16: 56%
* * At least one 17: 30%
* * At least one 18: 10%

Point Buy won't get you a 16, 17, or 18. Rolling may. But it also may not.

A good selection of Stats?
* Point buy standard array is: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 08 (27 points)
* Roll median result is something like: 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 09 (30 points assuming 11 points for a 16)

So over a large enough set, the Rolled character will probably have better on Stats on average than the Point Buy character. But that's no guarantee that a particular character will have better stats.

All of the above is assuming that people stick to the rules when rolling stats. If the DM is going to allow players to just keep re-rolling until they get what they want, then he may as well just house rule it so at least its the same for everyone.

thotd

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This statement is sometimes false, and there is no real way to know in advance if you're dealing with part of the rules where it is true or false.

There's no way to be completely certain, true, but you can work it through with reasonable certainty, if you look at it with sufficient care (and debate it to see what you've missed! ). That said real play experiences can be misleading or unrepresentative, too.

Here, the big "known unknown" is the real value of AC in 5E. Concentration spells mean that it may be a bigger deal than previous, otherwise-similar editions.

I think it's very safe to say that a Mountain Dwarf makes a very solid Wizard, comparable with High Elf, who is probably better than Human, but "better" generally? Needs much more examination.