D&D 5E Why does Wizards of the Coast hate Wizards?

[Leatherhead]

If this was true, it would be nice. Do you have a source?

It's in this video:


The caveat being the numbers are based upon people who are buying the new splat books, not the ones who are just using the PHB or the free Basic rules.

It indicates that with the new rules, Sorcerers, and especially Warlocks who top the popularity charts, are in a good place now.

 

[Ashrym]

no, not only 3,5 comparison. Wizards only need a ritual spell in their spellbook to ritually cast it while every other class with ritual caster needs to prep it.... except warlocks can have a version that lets them add ritual spells from any class and there is no scribing cost.

There's no scribing cost for the 2 rituals initially in the book of ancient secrets but they pay for each after that. Wizards don't pay for the rituals in their initial spell book either, and don't pay for additional rituals gained leveling up.

The int skills should be a point of pride for what is currently the only printed int based class but compared to charisma(deception, intimidation, performance, persuasion) & wisdom (animal handling, insight, medicine, survival perception) based skills... int based(arcana, history, investigation, nature, religion) skills are barely a ribbon even if they weren't things that other classes do just as well if not better if those skills are going to be important to the campaign....

How many proficiencies do you think these other classes have? Rogues get 4 skills and 2 from the background. None of the 4 rogues skills are INT but investigation, and the typical rogue will have 12 INT maybe. Even assuming a oddball background like sage (the Indiana Jones trope) looks something like this:

Proficiencies: arcana, history, investigation, stealth, perception, deception; expertise investigation and thieves' tools.

INT skill bonuses: arcana +3, history, +3, investigation +5, nature +1, religion +1

Compared to the wizard with the sage background it's better in all INT checks except investigation. Those are only ribbons if that's how the DM uses them. Arcana can be used for magical traps (the only reason a rogue would typically take it in the first place) and nature is used for harvesting poison (the only reason a rougue would typically take it in the first place).

The next round of complaints turns into "wizard can find traps better than rogues" and "druids can harvest poison better than rogues", and "rogues should be better at those things". That happens because recalling lore and spellcasting aren't the same thing.

The area that wizards unquestionably excel without peer is the ability to sink more coin into their spellbook than the rest of the party spends combined & continue needing massive amounts of coin even as the other classes move beyond it.. that area is something that players absolutely see when they consider wizard & it lacks any kind of shiny points of unquestionable pride for the class to counter it.

Except spells gained via level up are free and initial spells are free. A wizard could never scribe a single spell and still have an advantage there. Most of the discussion regarding wizards only considers the benefits of the free spells because that's enough.

Buying new armor to replace the free initial armor isn't cheap, however.

 

[Ashrym]

The problem is that medicine is an unnecessary skill which as written has practically no use and if changed steps on Nature's toes.

Knowledge of anatomy is not wisdom for example.

Just use INT (medicine) instead. It's a good example of an alternate ability score use. We use medicine to diagnose and treat illness if it's a mass scale. It's not like we can go into a disease ridden neighborhood as part of the quest and use spells on everyone there. Not enough slots.

Medicine treats a lot of people per day in comparison. It's annoying that it's not well supported and a lot of DM work, but it's still got it's oddball uses. It becomes a lot more prominent in a no-magic campaign, for sure, a hedge case outside of DM work.

It's a solid NPC skill, however, in a low magic setting.

I would say I take it for flavor but someone might get mad that someone not using magic can do something that should be a cleric thing.

 

[ad_hoc]

Just use INT (medicine) instead. It's a good example of an alternate ability score use. We use medicine to diagnose and treat illness if it's a mass scale. It's not like we can go into a disease ridden neighborhood as part of the quest and use spells on everyone there. Not enough slots.

Medicine treats a lot of people per day in comparison. It's annoying that it's not well supported and a lot of DM work, but it's still got it's oddball uses. It becomes a lot more prominent in a no-magic campaign, for sure, a hedge case outside of DM work.

It's a solid NPC skill, however, in a low magic setting.

I would say I take it for flavor but someone might get mad that someone not using magic can do something that should be a cleric thing.

Low magic is definitely not the standard 5e game.

It just shouldn't have been a skill. In most campaigns it will never come up. If it does only once or twice.

I always highly recommend players to not take it because I don't want them out out by a skill they won't use. It makes sense in a world of clerics and apothecaries too. It's just not in the correct genre.

As someone who has studied medicine the Nature description makes the most sense for knowing about bodies.

 

[tetrasodium]

Low magic is definitely not the standard 5e game.

It just shouldn't have been a skill. In most campaigns it will never come up. If it does only once or twice.

I always highly recommend players to not take it because I don't want them out out by a skill they won't use. It makes sense in a world of clerics and apothecaries too. It's just not in the correct genre.

As someone who has studied medicine the Nature description makes the most sense for knowing about bodies.

It's also entirely irrelevant thanks to a 5gp/10 use item.
Medicine A Wisdom (Medicine) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness.
Healer’s Kit. This kit is a leather pouch containing bandages, salves, and splints. The kit has ten uses. As an action, you can expend one use of the kit to stabilize a creature that has 0 hit points, without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check.

If the benefits of the healer feat were baked into the skill then it might be meaningful, but adding a feat tax to give any value to a skill proficiency is pretty absurd

 

[Ashrym]

Low magic is definitely not the standard 5e game.

It just shouldn't have been a skill. In most campaigns it will never come up. If it does only once or twice.

I always highly recommend players to not take it because I don't want them out out by a skill they won't use. It makes sense in a world of clerics and apothecaries too. It's just not in the correct genre.

As someone who has studied medicine the Nature description makes the most sense for knowing about bodies.

Low magic is definitely not the norm, but I think there's a place for it in mass combat rules, tbh. I give it to NPC's all the time. A midwife delivering a baby would make use of it, for example, and there's no spell for delivering babies. It's just that players don't deliver a lot of babies.

I've used it as a check to notice or determine the health of individuals as well, but that's still not common enough players want to invest in it.

It' just super super niche for PC use. Too off topic here though.

 

[Ashrym]

It's also entirely irrelevant thanks to a 5gp/10 use item.
Medicine A Wisdom (Medicine) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness.
Healer’s Kit. This kit is a leather pouch containing bandages, salves, and splints. The kit has ten uses. As an action, you can expend one use of the kit to stabilize a creature that has 0 hit points, without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check.

If the benefits of the healer feat were baked into the skill then it might be meaningful, but adding a feat tax to give any value to a skill proficiency is pretty absurd

People use medicine to examine bodies too. Cause of death, time of death, any useful details that might be relevant.

There are actual uses for it. They just only tend to come up in certain types of campaigns. If a person wants to play the character like a CSI that's one of the skills that might be appropriate. It's the medical examiner / detective trope. Murder mystery isn't the D&D norm either. It's more murder hobo.

 

[ad_hoc]

Low magic is definitely not the norm, but I think there's a place for it in mass combat rules, tbh. I give it to NPC's all the time. A midwife delivering a baby would make use of it, for example, and there's no spell for delivering babies. It's just that players don't deliver a lot of babies.

I've used it as a check to notice or determine the health of individuals as well, but that's still not common enough players want to invest in it.

It' just super super niche for PC use. Too off topic here though.

The rules are for PCs though.

NPCs don't need PC creating rules. You can just decide that they're good at delivering babies (or whatever). No skills needed.

We could have 100 skills for NPC purposes and we still wouldn't have enough.

But you're right, skills that shouldn't be is off topic. 5e did a pretty good job overall on skills just a couple stand out with Medicine being the worst offender.

People use medicine to examine bodies too. Cause of death, time of death, any useful details that might be relevant.

There are actual uses for it. They just only tend to come up in certain types of campaigns. If a person wants to play the character like a CSI that's one of the skills that might be appropriate. It's the medical examiner / detective trope. Murder mystery isn't the D&D norm either. It's more murder hobo.

That's Nature.

 

[tetrasodium]

People use medicine to examine bodies too. Cause of death, time of death, any useful details that might be relevant.

There are actual uses for it. They just only tend to come up in certain types of campaigns. If a person wants to play the character like a CSI that's one of the skills that might be appropriate. It's the medical examiner / detective trope. Murder mystery isn't the D&D norm either. It's more murder hobo.

The same goes for all of the "but it doesn't matter that the int based knowledge skills are pretty washed out & could be taken by other classes in ways that meet or exceed a wizard in those skills because they can't take them all." Those skills range from barely meaningful for most games to having 1 maybe two of them being extremely important to a campaign "in certain types of campaigns".

 

[Ashrym]

The same goes for all of the "but it doesn't matter that the int based knowledge skills are pretty washed out & could be taken by other classes in ways that meet or exceed a wizard in those skills because they can't take them all." Those skills range from barely meaningful for most games to having 1 maybe two of them being extremely important to a campaign "in certain types of campaigns".

INT skills are a method of DM's sharing information so they tend to get use in that way, and investigation sees a lot of use.

Your complaint is actually why rogues don't take those skills.

Nature for poison and arcana for traps or to identify spells cast do see more use than medicine.