D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Mort]

Only an issue if the characters are mounted or have pack animals, which is quite rare.

Really?

Whenever we're doing overland campaigns or ones where lots of travel is needed - riding/pack animals are a staple.

No they can’t. If an intelligent predator comes upon a dome of force in the wilderness, they don’t know squat.
First, « intelligent predator » doesn’t mean knowledgeable about 3rd level wizard spells.
Second, even assuming the predator recognizes the spell, he doesn’t know if the dome was placed 5 minutes ago or 7 hours ago. Sitting around for 7 hours hoping for a meal generally isn’t a great idea.
Third, suppose the intelligent predator decides to wait. He won’t last very long as the party can just snipe at him from inside the dome which he can’t breach (or skirmish if he is outside the immediate range of the dome).
Fourth, in all cases, it is still better than then « a tent » , the martial alternative.
Fifth, even if the spell is less effective against intelligent predators, it is still incredibly powerful against everything else (including environmental hazards), that’s still extremely good for a class feature that costs you a single spell known and zero spell slots.

Intelligent predators also includes monsters in the game world.

But yes, the spell is a lets ignore the harsh environment sort of spell. It's basically there to handwave that sort of thing away. If the DM wants to focus on it? Ban or change the spell accordingly.

Pretty sure the DM’s role isn’t « to mess with the characters ».

It was a turn of phrase. The DMs job is to provide fun and interesting challenges/situations for the PCs. I haven't seen this spell interfere with the DMs ability to do that. But if it does - discuss it and change/ban it.

 

[Mort]

Fourth, in all cases, it is still better than then « a tent » , the martial alternative.

Mostly but:

A tent doesn't dump the occupants onto the ground if they oversleep by 1 minute.

A tent doesn't simply vanish (and dump everyone out) if the owner steps outside for some reason (no bathroom breaks for the casting wizard!).

Frankly next time someone takes this in my group - I'm tempted to play it for laughs.

 

[Oofta]

Only an issue if the characters are mounted or have pack animals, which is quite rare.

No they can’t. If an intelligent predator comes upon a dome of force in the wilderness, they don’t know squat.
First, « intelligent predator » doesn’t mean knowledgeable about 3rd level wizard spells.
Second, even assuming the predator recognizes the spell, he doesn’t know if the dome was placed 5 minutes ago or 7 hours ago. Sitting around for 7 hours hoping for a meal generally isn’t a great idea.
Third, suppose the intelligent predator decides to wait. He won’t last very long as the party can just snipe at him from inside the dome which he can’t breach (or skirmish if he is outside the immediate range of the dome).
Fourth, in all cases, it is still better than then « a tent » , the martial alternative.
Fifth, even if the spell is less effective against intelligent predators, it is still incredibly powerful against everything else (including environmental hazards), that’s still extremely good for a class feature that costs you a single spell known and zero spell slots.


Pretty sure the DM’s role isn’t « to mess with the characters ».

First, define "intelligent predator". Second, the first time anyone snipes the predator it just runs away or hides. Third, if the group is in a hut, why is the predator interested at all? Fourth, nobody said all classes have or should have exactly the same abilities. Fifth ... umm so magic that's effective is bad?

It's reasonably effective for most animal intelligence predators. But predators can also lie in wait for hours depending on the predator to catch prey. Human intelligence or higher monsters in my campaign generally have an idea how magic works, just like the PCs and will react appropriately.

 

[Oofta]

Mostly but:

A tent doesn't dump the occupants onto the ground if they oversleep by 1 minute.

A tent doesn't simply vanish (and dump everyone out) if the owner steps outside for some reason (no bathroom breaks for the casting wizard!).

Frankly next time someone takes this in my group - I'm tempted to play it for laughs.

I also rule that the hut has no floor. Things like bullettes can still be a threat.

 

[James Gasik]

.

I also rule that the hut has no floor. Things like bullettes can still be a threat.

It was incredibly dumb for Crawford to say it did, IMO. "It's a hemisphere, not a dome!". Bah. Cut a hollow glass sphere in half and plop it on the ground and show me where the floor is. All I wanted to do was surprise the party with some shadows, was that really so bad?

 

[overgeeked]

Pretty sure the DM’s role isn’t « to mess with the characters ».

There seems to be two broad schools of thought on that.

First, the referee's job is to run the world and whatever interactions happen between the world and the PCs just happens. No malice and no intent beyond running the world.

Second, the referee's job is to run the characters through something vaguely resembling a story...and in stories the main characters face hardship after hardship after hardship...so you could easily rephrase that as "messing with the characters," i.e. putting thematically appropriate obstacles in their path.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's, like, the impartial referee or judge (70s wargaming) settling disputes between competitive players, but applied to an RPG (which, I mean, Judge's Guild called itself that while publishing unauthorized product for D&D for a reason)
vs the 90s 'ROLE not ROLL' Storyteller, who is judge, jury, an- I mean, Writer, Dircetor & Producer - and the PCs are lucky to get speaking roles.

Then there's the DM, who's job is to extensively screw over the PCs in his hideous dungeon of doom. Or, alternately, put them through a cakewalk for powerful magic items. Or, sometimes, both.

GM is not relevant, of course, because this is a D&D forum.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It was a turn of phrase. The DMs job is to provide fun and interesting challenges/situations for the PCs. I haven't seen this spell interfere with the DMs ability to do that.

That's because you're not considering the DMs who think 'fun and interesting' applies only to them and whether the players dislike or are annoyed by it or not is secondary at best.

 

[Mort]

That's because you're not considering the DMs who think 'fun and interesting' applies only to them and whether the players dislike or are annoyed by it or not is secondary at best.

I prefer not to really think about such adversarial DMs because no amount of system fixing will really be enough. The key with adversarial DMs, IMO, is simply to avoid adversarial DMs.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I prefer not to really think about such adversarial DMs because no amount of system fixing will really be enough. The key with adversarial DMs, IMO, is simply to avoid adversarial DMs.

The difference I've noticed between good and bad systems when it comes to bad - in the sense of actively malevolent - DMs, is that it's just more obvious you're dealing with a bad DM under the good system.