D&D General Why Do You Think Wizards Are Boring?

[aco175]

They can easily outshine other classes since they can do anything with magic. Why try to con or bribe a guard when you can just charm them. Why wade through the horde of goblins when you can just fireball them. Why search when you can just cast find secret doors.

They don't heal others well, but everyone has their own healing now since clerics complained.

A thread on bards being boring would be more than one with wizards.

 

[Tonguez]

Spam casting, auto-success spells, too much homework,can do too much, spells are too strong

- spellcasting needs to be a skill test with a chance to miss in the same way melee combat works, and Wizards need to be more focussed so they arent filling every niche in the game with a ‘ok, done it’ spell

 

[Lord Shark]

A hundred pages of spells (and dozens more spells in every supplement), and the majority of them are so situational or so poorly designed that they will almost never be used.

 

[ad_hoc]

They require a lot of engagement with the rules on the part of the player.

I enjoy having a big list of narrow but useful spells and needing to carefully select the ones I think we will need.

But I don't think most do.

They are also highly invested in knowledge abilities and learning new spells. Those things may not be fun or available in some games.

If a player just wants to cast fireball they may find that it is just too much work and not all that interesting anyway.

Personally diviners have always been my favourite and I love their Portent ability.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

2) Prep Casting
In stead of just having your spells, you have homework each game day in which you try to guess what the DM is going to throw at you and react to that.

Wizards are a little boring in combat
Round 1 : cast a concentration spell
Rounds 2+ : cast a cantrip or dodge.

Hey y'all, so my question here is that these seem like problems with other full casters, too? Druid and cleric both have prep casting, and both have the issue of having mostly concentration spells, while spamming cantrips every other round. Is there something uniquely bad about the wizard regarding these concerns?

Lack of options.

Their utility is restricted to battle: once their spell slots are used up, they might as well be a commoner.

That's an interesting take! When a wizard's spells are done, don't they still have cantrips? I know that's generally not what you want to rely on (especially if you want a ton of options), but they're hardly commoner level. Can you talk to me about the times you've seen wizards run out of spell slots, especially what assumptions about level ranges and encounters per day they were operating under?

 

[SteveC]

I'm just going to start playing a 12th level on in my friend's Shackled City game that we switched from 3.5 to 5E. We will have to see how it goes. The character I built looks fun with lots of options ... I guess I'll have to see for myself.

Edited to add: I'm playing a goblin bladesinger, so that should be crazy fun roleplaying.

 

[Zardnaar]

They lack extras charisma vases casters in part get. Sorcerers get Metamagic, bards get bard dice plus other abilities.

Most of their class features are higher level much like fighters.

They have the most versatility but same well slots as everyone else. Rituals are theoretical mostly.

There's alao been a lot of power creep in in Bards and Sorcerers in Tashas. Intelligence is so so out of the ability scores.

For the first 6 levels pretty much every other similar class has more resources (spells plus bard dice/,invocations/wildshape).

Charisma classes are more fun imho often have better saves, Prineville sta matters more in social interactions.

And it's now linger the best in its primeroll blasting stuff or if they are it's a marginal advantage vs light clerics, fiendpact warlocks, sorcerers.

And great abilities like Enchanters level 10 ability come in to late where campaigns are winding down.

 

[Tonguez]

Hey y'all, so my question here is that these seem like problems with other full casters, too? Druid and cleric both have prep casting, and both have the issue of having mostly concentration spells, while spamming cantrips every other round. Is there something uniquely bad about the wizard regarding these concerns?

Clerics and Druids get other things to do besides casting - Druids Wildshape, Clerics get combat skill, channel divinity and destroy undead

Wizards get more spell slots

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I think they have lost flavor.

There is a lack of mystery to me
In their magic. In Star Wars, I thought the force was cool. Until they started talking about midichlorians or whatever they were.

Wizards have spells to get around most everything and the “weave” and a proposed science of magic is less interesting than an art that is pieces together, dangerous and inexact.

That’s the deal for me anyway. I liked the red wizards in the movie and that brought it around for me a little but they are just a bit predictable.

For me it is not mechanics as much as flavor and image.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Over the editions the admittedly cumbersome and tedious limitations on a wizard's ability have been steadily removed. While versatility was their main strength, they didn't used to have enough spells to have an answer to every situation. Like others, I don't think wizards are boring, but it can be easy in their current incarnation to throw shade on their comrades.

As for the tedium of lists, I'm one of those that had two or three lists pre-made depending on what I expected to be doing; Delve, Travel, Battle.

In order to manage the degree of versatility, I also developed some curated spell lists and techniques for different guilds.