Now that 5E basic is out, how do we break it?

[Endarire]

Have we found a Pun-Pun yet? What about a general dominating stategy? Should we just go all Elf Wizards or go home?

[Yorrin]

Still too early for that. Caster dominance is a thing again, but not by as wide of a margin as 3.P was. Moreover stat caps make most/all races viable choices for Wizard (or Cleric, for that matter). But until we get access to feats, multiclassing rules, more subclasses, and more spells I doubt we'll find anything near punpun levels.

[Envyus]

Plus if a High Level Wizard and Fighter actually fought against each other I would say fighter wins 60% of the time. Still we need to see more monster math. Wizards are also better buffing allies then themselves and will never actually replace another class.

[1of3]

Depends on what you consider "high level". At 8th and 9th spell level there are effects that take out a single opponent without save. On the other hand a fighter won't do enough damage to take out the wizard in one turn, unless she crits several times.

[Felhammer]

Nothing super mega ultimate broken, yet. Thankfully.

[Chambers]

Play a wizard. [/thread]

With these Basic rules we're back to Gating in Solars to fight battles. Sure Gate is now Concentration duration but how many Solars do you really need to summon to overshadow the Fighter?

[Palegreenpants]

Well, my group of munchkins hasn't found a way to break it yet, and I think that fact is beautiful.

[Yuki Akuma]

Play a wizard. [/thread]

With these Basic rules we're back to Gating in Solars to fight battles. Sure Gate is now Concentration duration but how many Solars do you really need to summon to overshadow the Fighter?

Why should a Solar fight for you? They're under no compulsion to do anything for you.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Why should a Solar fight for you? They're under no compulsion to do anything for you.Yeah, the rules for Gate are much more clearly under the realm of player-GM negotiation in this edition.

[Chambers]

Why should a Solar fight for you? They're under no compulsion to do anything for you.

Correct, it depends on how the DM plays the Solar. Summoned by the forces of Good (i.e. PC's) in a fight against Evil the question changes from why should the Solar help you? to why isn't the Solar going to help you?

The answer is DM dependent, but even the fact that Wizards have the capability to summon a Solar (or whatever super angel is in the monster manual) trumps whatever a Fighter can do.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Oh, and also Gate isn't on the Wizard spell list in the Basic rules. It's only on the Cleric list. There is a very significant lack of cleric-wizards spell crossover, in fact.

The only spells that are on both lists are:
0 Level Light
1st Level Detect Magic
2nd Level Hold Person
3rd Level Dispel Magic, Protection from Energy
6th Level True Seeing

Noteworthy spells not on the Wizard list: Command, Silence, Freedom of Movement, Etherealness, Antimagic Field, Astral Projection, Gate.

Noteworthy spells not on the Cleric list: Comprehend Languages, Stoneskin, Stone Wall, Teleport, Sunburst.

Everything else missing are traditionally Divine (Healing/Prayers or Blessings), or Arcane (Illusions, Evocations). There is also a complete lack of any summoning, shadow Evo/Conjuration, or Planar Binding spells. I suspect that's partly due to the lack of published monsters, but it's still noteworthy. Wizards and Clerics can't summon tanks at the moment.

[Chambers]

Oh, and also Gate isn't on the Wizard spell list in the Basic rules. It's only on the Cleric list. There is a very significant lack of cleric-wizards spell crossover, in fact.

My mistake. Still trying to digest it all. So...play a Cleric.

Edit: Either spellcaster, really.

[Fwiffo86]

My first thought was to try any ideas presented thus far that try to capture the essence of what has ready been done. But honestly, my thoughts and the testing my group have done make all character types equally viable. Wizards due deal lots of damage OR take a single target out of a fight, but not both. The fighter, straight up deals way more consistent damage more reliably in our experience. To break it, allow free multiclassing. So the use of "dipping" is required instead of how it is presently detrimental to ultimate character potential.

[Slipperychicken]

Still too early for that. Caster dominance is a thing again, but not by as wide of a margin as 3.P was.

Fighters get nothing but tiny numerical bonuses (OH BOY, +6 to hit over 20 levels?!) and 3 extra attacks/round by level 20.

Wizards get similar magic spells as they did before.

Hooray for bounded accuracy!

[Palegreenpants]

In my 5E experience, the most munchkin-able class was the playtest Paladin. They were are to use spellslots to deal humongous amounts of damage on smite attacks.

[WickerNipple]

The Saving Throw and Skill systems seem inherently broken without any work on the players' part necessary.

[Inevitability]

The Saving Throw and Skill systems seem inherently broken without any work on the players' part necessary.

Why?

Stupid 10 character rule...

[Doug Lampert]

Still too early for that. Caster dominance is a thing again, but not by as wide of a margin as 3.P was. Moreover stat caps make most/all races viable choices for Wizard (or Cleric, for that matter). But until we get access to feats, multiclassing rules, more subclasses, and more spells I doubt we'll find anything near punpun levels.

My thought on a read through is that it looks like Wizard+Fighter+Cleric+Rogue is better than Wizard+Cleric+Cleric+Wizard at most levels.

As long as that sort of thing is true we don't actually have caster dominance. Imbalance yes, but not dominance, and not a really significant imbalance.

The problem in 3.5 is not that wizards are stronger than fighters, it's that even at low optimization a druid (for example) does everything a fighter does, better than the fighter does it, and casts spells too.

Note on gate: If you gate in a solar in my game to help your good party on the quest to save the world, it of course helps. Then it takes the loot (Hey, I did the work), and tells you that you are now obligated to send it home (I have other things to do after all, you're the ones who dragged me here without asking my consent after all).

But yeah, it solves that fight as long as the fight is something one solar can solve.

[Doug Lampert]

Why?

High level caster, +6 proficiency, +5 ability, +8 base, DC 19 to save.

Target of spell: About two saves with proficiency, so 4 without, those have maybe +1 to the save. Right now we have spells targeting 3 saves, which means that no one covers all 3, bets on how quickly the number of spells grows and the number of saves targeted?

Skills I'm not as clear on why he thinks they're broken. Broken weak seems more of a problem, the DCs are too high for the expected bonuses AFAICT.

[Jeraa]

Why?

Stupid 10 character rule...

Spell save DCs scale.

For saving throws, they only get better if you are proficient with a particular save. All others don't really improve at all from 1st level to 20th level (except for whatever stat increases you have put into the ability score). So for non-proficient saves, you have a +0 bonus at 1st level, and you still have a +0 bonus at 20th level (not counting what you get from your ability score or magic items).

[Sartharina]

Fighters get nothing but tiny numerical bonusesUntrue. Fighters get the best in-combat self-healing in the game, extra actions, the ability to impose disadvantage onto others, or deal significant damage, and more feats/ability score improvements than any other class, on top of up to quadruple the amount of attacks anyone else gets in a turn.

As far as saves go - Only player character saving throw DCs scale with proficiency. Monster saves do not.

[Kurald Galain]

Skills I'm not as clear on why he thinks they're broken. Broken weak seems more of a problem, the DCs are too high for the expected bonuses AFAICT.

Skills are brokenly weak, yes. Other than rogues, characters will never be able to consistently make "hard" checks. Of course, the whole skill system in the basic set is vague enough that every check is entirely up to DM fiat.

[Inevitability]

On the subject of caster imbalance:

I agree that casters can deal more damage and have more out-of-combat options and versatility than fighters. I personally think this is something bad, but at least it is acceptable.

In 3.5, WOTC practically acknowledged multiple times that casters were stronger than fighters. However, they erroneously assumed that a fighter would still be necessary for a balanced party.

Now, in 5e, casters are still stronger, but at least fighters are able to contribute to the party in a meaningful way. That shows on its own that WOTC is slowly learning about balance.

[obryn]

Some variant of "be a caster, max out your casting stat, take spells to target all defenses" seems to work.


Skills are brokenly weak, yes. Other than rogues, characters will never be able to consistently make "hard" checks. Of course, the whole skill system in the basic set is vague enough that every check is entirely up to DM fiat.
No worries! Your Wizard comes to the rescue again! And you don't even need to worry about scrolls or prepared spells, you can just ritual your way past all the obstacles!

Here's the list of Ritual spells as of the last closed playtest:

Alarm, Animal Messenger, Augury, Beast Sense, Chariot of Sustarre, Commune, Commune with Nature, Comprehend Languages, Contact Other Plane, Detect Good and Evil, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Divination, Drawmiji's Instant Summons, Feign Death, Find Familiar, Find Steed, Forbiddance, Gentle Repose, Identify, Illusory Script, Knock, Leomund's Secret Chest, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Creature, Locate Object, Magic Mouth, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Phantom Steed, Plant Growth, Purify Food and Drink, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Sending, Silence, Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, Spiritual Weapon, Tenser's Floating Disk and Unseen Servant

[Jeraa]

Well, you don't really want your wizard to cast Knock. Unless you are fine with telling anyone nearby you are there. Knock now creates a loud knocking noise that can be heard up to 300 feet away.

[Envyus]

Some variant of "be a caster, max out your casting stat, take spells to target all defenses" seems to work.


No worries! Your Wizard comes to the rescue again! And you don't even need to worry about scrolls or prepared spells, you can just ritual your way past all the obstacles!

Here's the list of Ritual spells as of the last closed playtest:

Alarm, Animal Messenger, Augury, Beast Sense, Chariot of Sustarre, Commune, Commune with Nature, Comprehend Languages, Contact Other Plane, Detect Good and Evil, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Divination, Drawmiji's Instant Summons, Feign Death, Find Familiar, Find Steed, Forbiddance, Gentle Repose, Identify, Illusory Script, Knock, Leomund's Secret Chest, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Creature, Locate Object, Magic Mouth, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Phantom Steed, Plant Growth, Purify Food and Drink, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Sending, Silence, Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, Spiritual Weapon, Tenser's Floating Disk and Unseen Servant

Knock is not a Ritual anymore. This all take 10 minutes to cast. And lastly you need to actually know these spells in order to cast them.

[Envyus]

Depends on what you consider "high level". At 8th and 9th spell level there are effects that take out a single opponent without save. On the other hand a fighter won't do enough damage to take out the wizard in one turn, unless she crits several times.

No the Figher does not need a crit to take out a Wizard in one turn. At level 20 they can have 8 attacks. Plus anything they use to lock an opponent down will take their concentration slot. (And the Fighter will be allowed a save next round as the Wizard can't capitalize on the locked down opponent alone.)

[Jeraa]

Knock is not a Ritual anymore. This all take 10 minutes to cast. And lastly you need to actually know these spells in order to cast them.

For a wizard, they just have to be in your spell book to cast them as a ritual. You don't need to prepare them, unlike if you are a cleric. So a wizard can get all of his combat-oriented spells, as well as all of the non-combat stuff as rituals. At least in 3.x, if he wanted both types of spells, he had to memorize both types of spells.

[da_chicken]

Some variant of "be a caster, max out your casting stat, take spells to target all defenses" seems to work.


No worries! Your Wizard comes to the rescue again! And you don't even need to worry about scrolls or prepared spells, you can just ritual your way past all the obstacles!

Here's the list of Ritual spells as of the last closed playtest:

Alarm, Animal Messenger, Augury, Beast Sense, Chariot of Sustarre, Commune, Commune with Nature, Comprehend Languages, Contact Other Plane, Detect Good and Evil, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Divination, Drawmiji's Instant Summons, Feign Death, Find Familiar, Find Steed, Forbiddance, Gentle Repose, Identify, Illusory Script, Knock, Leomund's Secret Chest, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Creature, Locate Object, Magic Mouth, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Phantom Steed, Plant Growth, Purify Food and Drink, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Sending, Silence, Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, Spiritual Weapon, Tenser's Floating Disk and Unseen Servant

Many of these are not arcane spells. Others are not particularly useful. How often does casting Magic Mouth or Find Familiar or Leomund's Secret Chest get you past an obstacle?

I still want to know what spells are save-or-die that outright win encounters. Landing spells and winning combats are not identical, and excepting a few Enchantment spells, I don't see any problems.

[da_chicken]

For a wizard, they just have to be in your spell book to cast them as a ritual. You don't need to prepare them, unlike if you are a cleric. So a wizard can get all of his combat-oriented spells, as well as all of the non-combat stuff as rituals. At least in 3.x, if he wanted both types of spells, he had to memorize both types of spells.

They still have to be in your spellbook, which isn't guaranteed.

[PinkysBrain]

A smart wizard player who concentrates on using illusions is probably the most game breaking at the moment.

[Palegreenpants]

A smart wizard player who concentrates on using illusions is probably the most game breaking at the moment.

Ah, but only an intelligently played Illusionist would be successful, or one being refereed by a pliable DM. Most of my players are forced to think really hard about, say Minor Illusion, before they actually cast it, because they know the realistic boundaries that I put in place for such trickery.

[Slipperychicken]

For a wizard, they just have to be in your spell book to cast them as a ritual. You don't need to prepare them, unlike if you are a cleric. So a wizard can get all of his combat-oriented spells, as well as all of the non-combat stuff as rituals. At least in 3.x, if he wanted both types of spells, he had to memorize both types of spells.

Those spells also need the (ritual) tag, which limits the shenanigans.

[T.G. Oskar]

Just at a glance, Web seems pretty nasty.

Failed your Dexterity save? You're restrained: you can't move, you have disadvantage on all attacks and Dexterity checks, your opponents have advantage on their attacks against you, and you have to make a Strength check now to escape. Both the Dexterity and the Strength check are against your spell save DC, so that's anywhere between 10 (8 + proficiency bonus) to 19 (8 + proficiency bonus + maximum Int modifier).

A Rogue can probably evade it, but a Fighter will get stuck pretty much always: with a Dex save of +5 at most, and most likely a higher Strength (still capped at 5, unless they have Belts of Giant Strength), they'll probably be stuck for a good while. Indomitable can help for only so much.

It's a Concentration spell now, though, so it all depends on having one of your allies (or you using a ranged weapon) deal enough damage to disrupt it.

Time Stop is just as broken as before, if not more. You still get 1d4+1 free turns (that is, move + action), so as long as you don't move far away from where you are or cast a spell that affects you. You can still create a Wall of Stone, for example, or cast buffs that require no Concentration (save for one, but only if it affects you) and then cast a damaging spell in your last action. There's really no change, and it still affects only you (not an ally of yours).

Suggestion is now a Concentration spell, but Mass Suggestion isn't.

Freedom of Movement is one of the few spells that has no Concentration check, and is almost as broken as before; you have to spend 5 ft. worth of movement to escape magical bindings, and you gain full immunity to paralysis and whatnot.

...On the other hand, Rogues also get some nice things. Uncanny Dodge is now like Defensive Roll but without restricted uses per day, Evasion remains like Evasion, and they get Blindsense. Oh yeah, and Expertise making Rogues better at Shoving people than Fighters: Expertise doubles your proficiency bonus on some skills and tools, and you can get Athletics as either a class skill proficiency or a background proficiency. Thus, at 20th level, a Rogue with the lowest Strength and the Athletics skill proficiency has the same bonus as a Fighter with the Athletics skill proficiency. The odd Rogue that gets Strength 20 (or a Belt of Giant Strength) will eclipse the Fighter with it. Then again, the Fighter can simply replace one of its multiple attacks to do so...

Still, such a Rogue can trip an opponent (with great ease, mind you), then spend a bonus action (if it gets another one, not the one from Cunning Action; say, the Haste version), you can make that bonus action into an Attack that deals Sneak Attack damage dice. Since Sneak Attack no longer has any restriction, that means you can deal potentially more damage in one turn than any other class, and give it a condition to boot. That also makes a Fighter 2/Rogue 18 pretty scary.

But yeah: so far, it's too early to break the system. Thing is, probably the most broken choices will be learned intuitively; the system lends itself to intuitive learning if you have experience in earlier editions.

[Slipperychicken]

Still, such a Rogue can trip an opponent (with great ease, mind you), then spend a bonus action (if it gets another one, not the one from Cunning Action; say, the Haste version), you can make that bonus action into an Attack that deals Sneak Attack damage dice. Since Sneak Attack no longer has any restriction, that means you can deal potentially more damage in one turn than any other class, and give it a condition to boot. That also makes a Fighter 2/Rogue 18 pretty scary.

I'm kind of wary about SA. Any disadvantage condition disables it, even if you have an advantage-granting condition to balance it out.



But yeah: so far, it's too early to break the system. Thing is, probably the most broken choices will be learned intuitively; the system lends itself to intuitive learning if you have experience in earlier editions.

Arguably, it's a good time for it, so we can report the errors to WotC and maybe they can correct some of them before they start building subsystems around the errors.

[Yorrin]

I'm kind of wary about SA. Any disadvantage condition disables it, even if you have an advantage-granting condition to balance it out.

Except that SA has that fun little line about adjacent allies also being a sufficient condition. Which basically just gives incentives to rogues to use ranged attacks, imo, unless you've got more than one rogue in the party.

[unwise]

In my 5E experience, the most munchkin-able class was the playtest Paladin. They were are to use spellslots to deal humongous amounts of damage on smite attacks.

The 5th level Paladin in my last game broke off a chair leg and beat a 7th level vampire to death with it in one turn. Anything vulnerable to radiant damage should know better than to be in the same room as a Paladin.

[T.G. Oskar]

I'm kind of wary about SA. Any disadvantage condition disables it, even if you have an advantage-granting condition to balance it out.

That might be somewhat balancing, given how advantage/disadvantage is so ubiquitous in this edition. That said: a Rogue that doesn't find a way to remove that disadvantage will have more than a problem with SA; it'll have a problem with breaking it at all.


Arguably, it's a good time for it, so we can report the errors to WotC and maybe they can correct some of them before they start building subsystems around the errors.

I still say it's too early because the Basic Set rules are incomplete. The ones that can do best playtesting are the people with the Starter Set using the Basic Rules to compensate. Until the DMG and the Monster Manual are released, you can mostly theory-craft your way out of it.

The most difficult thing to handle are the spells. The Fighter and Rogue are pretty easy to understand: the Fighter gets to move and attack, gets self-healing, reroll saving throws and get extra actions, while the Rogue deals Sneak Attack, doubles proficiency bonus in certain things, loves evasive defenses and gets to reroll just about anything by the end (even if only once). The Cleric and the Wizard are harder to grok, particularly because of the spell format and just how many buff/debuff spells are Concentration-based, so the only thing you can do is to figure out which ones aren't and toy with them. Having 6 spells that attack each defense won't work that well if you can have only one spell running at a time and always vulnerable to any attack (particularly since none of the casters so far have proficiency in Constitution saving throws...) Web (and from the playtest, Stinking Cloud) are as nasty as before, but both are Concentration so you can't have both at once (like before), and disrupting the caster when it does. Then again: Overchannel and whatever other stuff the rest of the arcane schools offer will mean a world of difference.

The best way to figure it out is to work how the Concentration routine works, and see if there'll be some sort of feat or special ability that allows sustaining more than one spell. As it stands, it's an incentive for "geek the Mage", which on its own could be a huge balancing factor.

Heh...sustaining spells. Not only do they take stuff from Dragon Age with the skill system, they take sustaining magic from Shadowrun (except with hard caps rather than penalties to rolls). Hope they don't create the equivalent to Sustaining Foci...

Aaaanyways: that's why I say it's too early. We have only a fraction of 1/3rd of the whole rules, so we can't know how to break the game without even knowing what we're facing. The Starter Set monsters should be a good guideline, probably.

[captpike]

Why should a Solar fight for you? They're under no compulsion to do anything for you.
they don't have to fight for you, they just have to fight against your enemies. and not want to kill you when they are done (or you have to have a way to win fast against them)



My thought on a read through is that it looks like Wizard+Fighter+Cleric+Rogue is better than Wizard+Cleric+Cleric+Wizard at most levels.

As long as that sort of thing is true we don't actually have caster dominance. Imbalance yes, but not dominance, and not a really significant imbalance.

The problem in 3.5 is not that wizards are stronger than fighters, it's that even at low optimization a druid (for example) does everything a fighter does, better than the fighter does it, and casts spells too.


that is not what it means they say that casters dominate.

the game should make fighters and wizards of equal power, although strong in different areas. just because there are situations that you want a fighter does not make him good. what would make him good is that those areas are equaled by the times you want a wizard, and are just as hard to get past without him.

meaning, not "we need a fighter so we can save spells for the important fights" more "we could use a good melee guy, the wizard just cant handle that many tough guys"


Untrue. Fighters get the best in-combat self-healing in the game, extra actions, the ability to impose disadvantage onto others, or deal significant damage, and more feats/ability score improvements than any other class, on top of up to quadruple the amount of attacks anyone else gets in a turn.


hp damage only matters so much. there are many more and better ways of wining, and once you get to that point it hardly matters how much damage you can do if its not "all"

and of course it matters even less if its possbile to summon better-then-fighters to fight for you


On the subject of caster imbalance:

I agree that casters can deal more damage and have more out-of-combat options and versatility than fighters. I personally think this is something bad, but at least it is acceptable.

In 3.5, WOTC practically acknowledged multiple times that casters were stronger than fighters. However, they erroneously assumed that a fighter would still be necessary for a balanced party.

Now, in 5e, casters are still stronger, but at least fighters are able to contribute to the party in a meaningful way. That shows on its own that WOTC is slowly learning about balance.

they fixed the problem in 4e, they learned how to make a fighter that worked and worked well. they are now regressing back to the 3e, they hardly get points for not slipping all the back.

also I don't want to just be able to "contribute" I want to be as important and powerful as the wizard, I want to have just as many cool and interesting things to do.


Well, you don't really want your wizard to cast Knock. Unless you are fine with telling anyone nearby you are there. Knock now creates a loud knocking noise that can be heard up to 300 feet away.

its ok, you have a wizard he can take care of anyone who tries to hurt you.

EDIT: also breaking a game implies it was working to start with, that seams not to be the case with 5e

[Arzanyos]

captpike, how is the wizard able to do all of this total overshadowing of everyone else? Practically all of his buffs are Concentration-linked, he has almost no save-or-dies, and there aren't any summoning spells currently. At least, I don't think so. A wizard can try throwing around fireballs, but anything he can't kill with a clean shot will probably take a nasty chunk of his health in retaliation.

But seriously, what are these massive broken spells the wizard has to steamroll encounters. I'm not seeing them.

[captpike]

captpike, how is the wizard able to do all of this total overshadowing of everyone else? Practically all of his buffs are Concentration-linked, he has almost no save-or-dies, and there aren't any summoning spells currently. At least, I don't think so. A wizard can try throwing around fireballs, but anything he can't kill with a clean shot will probably take a nasty chunk of his health in retaliation.

But seriously, what are these massive broken spells the wizard has to steamroll encounters. I'm not seeing them.

the biggest problem is that the wizard has his hand in too many pies, can do can some of everything, and can do some of that stuff too well. the fighter can and can only hit things with his sword.

on a quick go through, looking only at the biggest problems

Level 2
web: can end an encounter unless the map is really against you, or your targets have good dex saves. couple this with anything that grants DA and a good save from the wizard and you win.

Level 6
Otto’s Irresistible Dance: you have no movement until you save, and you have DA for all dex attacks. used right you are not in range or LOS to attack anything at all. its as good as a stun and it can last 10 rounds

level 8
maze: your banished with a DC20 int check to get out. you need a 15-20 to get out, and if you dumped int you can't get out unless the DM has a rule about 20's always working. this can be up to 10min, but 1min would be more then enough for the combat to be over and to either leave, or get ready to gib the guy when he gets back.

level 9
time stop...need I say more
meteor swarm: 140 average damage to everything on the board, one action. how many actions would it take for the fighter to do what you did to 3 targets?
gate: call in someone who is better then the fighter

I could go on, but I think that is enough.

[Sartharina]

the biggest problem is that the wizard has his hand in too many pies, can do can some of everything, and can do some of that stuff too well. the fighter can and can only hit things with his sword.

on a quick go through, looking only at the biggest problems

Level 2
web: can end an encounter unless the map is really against you, or your targets have good dex saves. couple this with anything that grants DA and a good save from the wizard and you win.

Level 6
Otto’s Irresistible Dance: you have no movement until you save, and you have DA for all dex attacks. used right you are not in range or LOS to attack anything at all. its as good as a stun and it can last 10 rounds

level 8
maze: your banished with a DC20 int check to get out. you need a 15-20 to get out, and if you dumped int you can't get out unless the DM has a rule about 20's always working. this can be up to 10min, but 1min would be more then enough for the combat to be over and to either leave, or get ready to gib the guy when he gets back.

level 9
time stop...need I say more
meteor swarm: 140 average damage to everything on the board, one action. how many actions would it take for the fighter to do what you did to 3 targets?
gate: call in someone who is better then the fighter

I could go on, but I think that is enough. So, the Wizard is a decent controller, like he was in 4e. Nothing there is game-breaking at all.

Level 8 and 9 spells are only once-a-day deals (At most, and competing with every other level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9th level spell as well for that slot!) So they better be good with the Kabooms. Level 6 spells are ALSO only 1/day until 19th level. So, you have one "PRoblem" spell, but all that does is lockdown foes and leave them able to counterattack if they have ranged weapons or anyone gets in close to melee them - they can still take other actions, and have a good chance of breaking out of the effect.

[captpike]

So, the Wizard is a decent controller, like he was in 4e. Nothing there is game-breaking at all.

except he does too much damage, and his control can be encounter long. meaning he can tell encounters "NO". once you do you that stop needing anyone else.

even strikers in 4e could do more then just attacking things with basic attacks, you had real options unlike with the fighter where you only option is "attack" or "don't attack"



Level 8 and 9 spells are only once-a-day deals (At most, and competing with every other level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9th level spell as well for that slot!)
So they better be good with the Kabooms. Level 6 spells are ALSO only 1/day until 19th level. So, you have one "PRoblem" spell, but all that does is lockdown foes and leave them able to counterattack if they have ranged weapons or anyone gets in close to melee them - they can still take other actions, and have a good chance of breaking out of the effect.

being high level is not a good enough reason to make anyone else useless.

only being able to tell the fighter he is useless and to sit in a corner 3 times a day is 3 times too much.

it also means that every important fight the fighter will not be needed because the wizard will take care of it. only being able to help because "its not important enough for my spells, have fun" is not good. it means every cool and important fight the fighter might as well be gone.

a range lockdown on a target without range is as good as a stun, its not like it would ever be used on anyone with range.

[Envyus]

except he does too much damage, and his control can be encounter long. meaning he can tell encounters "NO". once you do you that stop needing anyone else.

even strikers in 4e could do more then just attacking things with basic attacks, you had real options unlike with the fighter where you only option is "attack" or "don't attack"



being high level is not a good enough reason to make anyone else useless.

only being able to tell the fighter he is useless and to sit in a corner 3 times a day is 3 times too much.

it also means that every important fight the fighter will not be needed because the wizard will take care of it. only being able to help because "its not important enough for my spells, have fun" is not good. it means every cool and important fight the fighter might as well be gone.

a range lockdown on a target without range is as good as a stun, its not like it would ever be used on anyone with range.

You do know that everything you named there other then Meteor swarm requires concentration right. (Gate is also not on the Wizard spell list.) Meaning if you get hit or want to cast another spell like it will turn off.

Metoer Swarm is a big gun that is meant for Wipeing out masses of enemies because powerful elite monsters at that level are going to live through it. It's going to be useful and will deal quite a bit of damage but it would be your only level 9 spell slot and you need other people like the Fighter to keep you from getting squished after.

It does not make the fighter useless in fact you need the fighter to take advantage of the locked down opponent. (Of which Web is the only one that locks down more then 1 guy.) They can't just say no to encounters. If it's a cool and important fight the Fighter will be even more needed to prevent the Wizard from being killed. You are seriously overestimating or mistaking how the game works.

[Sartharina]

except he does too much damage, and his control can be encounter long. meaning he can tell encounters "NO". once you do you that stop needing anyone else.

even strikers in 4e could do more then just attacking things with basic attacks, you had real options unlike with the fighter where you only option is "attack" or "don't attack"



being high level is not a good enough reason to make anyone else useless.

only being able to tell the fighter he is useless and to sit in a corner 3 times a day is 3 times too much.

it also means that every important fight the fighter will not be needed because the wizard will take care of it. only being able to help because "its not important enough for my spells, have fun" is not good. it means every cool and important fight the fighter might as well be gone.

a range lockdown on a target without range is as good as a stun, its not like it would ever be used on anyone with range.

Those spells don't tell the fighter he's useless - those spells are used to keep enemies off the fighter's back, or let the fighter go in and take them out once the wizard locks them down for him.


An encounter can only end if someone's going to end it. Otherwise, you're just dragging it out. The only one approaching 'problematic' status is... none of them.

If the Wizard uses his concentration to completely remove one monster from play with Maze, he is severely restricted with what he can do about any buddies. If there's only one monster - well, you just spent a level 8 slot for what amounts to a few extra rounds of preparation. It can easily backfire by dropping a full-powered monster on the battlefield again after the party's been hindered by its allies and didn't get a good read on its abilities.


Otto's Irresistable Dance is just a single-target 6th-level Pathfinder-style "Hold Person" - but still allows the creature to attack and defend itself, albeit at a strong disadvantage. But it doesn't win an encounter - it's just one target. AND, it eats your concentration. AND can be broken on any round.

There is nothing to let Gate call in someone stronger than the fighter, unless the party happens to know someone stronger than the fighter who's willing to come through and fight them. As for being stronger than the fighter - its Damn Hard to find someone who has a greater sustained damage and durability output than a high-level fighter. YOu're most likely just going to call up you're fighter's best extraplanar friend for them to go all back-to-back badasses on the enemy together and be awesome. And, if the creature's really pissed off at being called through, once it solves the immediate issue, there's a good chance of it kicking your scrawny wizard ass for rudely calling it into a dangerous situation without any warning.

Meteor Swarm is a great blast (Finally). But a fighter gets to enjoy the fireworks, then get to cleaning up anything that survives. Your wizard is a glass cannon.

Time Stop has a lot of restrictions, but does break the action economy... but it's not game-breakingly powerful.

And Web isn't a problem, either. Any creature not afraid of getting singed (Even a restrained creature) can dispel it with a single action. On top of its other limitations.

[Arzanyos]

Okay, what if monsters have good saves. They don't work like players, so they can get arbitrary save bonuses because they're big honking dragons or whatever. If the monster makes their save, then you just lost one of your most powerful abilities, and did nothing. A fighter misses, whoop-de-do. He can attack some more. At least twice this turn, if your slinging around mazes.

TL;DR, If monster's saves or good, wizard is not op.

[Envyus]

There is nothing to let Gate call in someone stronger than the fighter, unless the party happens to know someone stronger than the fighter who's willing to come through and fight them. As for being stronger than the fighter - its Damn Hard to find someone who has a greater sustained damage and durability output than a high-level fighter. YOu're most likely just going to call up you're fighter's best extraplanar friend for them to go all back-to-back badasses on the enemy together and be awesome. And, if the creature's really pissed off at being called through, once it solves the immediate issue, there's a good chance of it kicking your scrawny wizard ass for rudely calling it into a dangerous situation without any warning.

And Web isn't a problem, either. Any creature not afraid of getting singed (Even a restrained creature) can dispel it with a single action. On top of its other limitations.

Anything I did not quote I agree with.

Web is also a Concentration spell and Wizards can't cast gate. (They may be able to in the PHB but right now they can't.)

[1337 b4k4]

Level 2
web: can end an encounter unless the map is really against you, or your targets have good dex saves. couple this with anything that grants DA and a good save from the wizard and you win.

Or if your enemies don't conveniently cluster themselves into a small group. Note that web affects all creatures, so dropping it in the middle of your party is a good way to take out your teammates as well.



Level 6
Otto’s Irresistible Dance: you have no movement until you save, and you have DA for all dex attacks. used right you are not in range or LOS to attack anything at all. its as good as a stun and it can last 10 rounds

It also allows a save every round. Not much different from most ongoing effects in 4e.



level 9
time stop...need I say more
meteor swarm: 140 average damage to everything on the board, one action. how many actions would it take for the fighter to do what you did to 3 targets?


One action and you just ended your timestop. Or did you miss the part of the spell that notes that it ends the moment you take an action or create an effect that affects another creature? Also curious how you're casting timestop and meteor swarm at the same time given that even at 20th level, you only have one 9th level spell slot.

[Leolo]

Improved Invisibility + Cantrips or spells that does not need concentration..

Opponents have disadvantage, you do have advantage. If you use this with ray of frost the target will not only be unable to see you, or to attack you with something effective - it also means a melee opponent can't even reach you.

In General Advantage/disadvantage abusing will be most likely the best way to optimize.

[rlc]

Last week, captpike was arguing that wizards are too weak. Now, he's arguing that they're too strong.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Rogue.

Cunning action allows for "use an item" or whatever... Using magic items and stuff count as an action under use an item.

Essentially you can take a bonus actions to use a wand each round. Soooo...

Wizard/Rogue 2:

Action: Cast Spell
Bonus: Cast spell from Wand/scroll

You don't need to rest or anything to get this ability back, screw you action Surge fighter :p

[Fwiffo86]

except he does too much damage, and his control can be encounter long. meaning he can tell encounters "NO". once you do you that stop needing anyone else.

even strikers in 4e could do more then just attacking things with basic attacks, you had real options unlike with the fighter where you only option is "attack" or "don't attack"



being high level is not a good enough reason to make anyone else useless.

only being able to tell the fighter he is useless and to sit in a corner 3 times a day is 3 times too much.

it also means that every important fight the fighter will not be needed because the wizard will take care of it. only being able to help because "its not important enough for my spells, have fun" is not good. it means every cool and important fight the fighter might as well be gone.

a range lockdown on a target without range is as good as a stun, its not like it would ever be used on anyone with range.

As has been established, he could do one, or the other. You can lock down person/spot A, but short of using damage spell B, you as a Wizard are pretty much stuck locking down said person/spot. Let us not forget the commonalities of high level play. It is unlikely that Meteor will ever be used and full damage is incurred (resistance to damage type, resistance to magic, etc). It is entirely feasible that the Fighter, with his repeated attacks, consistent damage and reliability will be the one dishing out the majority of the damage, basically being the exact opposite of useless.

Reducing a combat down to a single spell vs. a single attack is good when comparing the two, but not realistic when determining the effectiveness of combat between a party of four (the baseline calculation as clearly defined), and a suitable challenge (one big bad, or several smaller bads).

While you have valid points... you are lacking in actual battle calculation. As always, your input is appreciated.

[Envyus]

Rogue.

Cunning action allows for "use an item" or whatever... Using magic items and stuff count as an action under use an item.

Essentially you can take a bonus actions to use a wand each round. Soooo...

Wizard/Rogue 2:

Action: Cast Spell
Bonus: Cast spell from Wand/scroll

You don't need to rest or anything to get this ability back, screw you action Surge fighter :p

Nope it was confirmed that casting from a magic item like a wand or scroll is a normal action.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Nope it was confirmed that casting from a magic item like a wand or scroll is a normal action.

Did MM confirm this and will the rules be updated as such? Because as of right now, RAW, using a magic item is still part of item usage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm both ways on this. I don't have avvested interest in it.

Perhaps for a higher powered campaign the rules will go in the rogue's favored and low power it doesn't.

[Sartharina]

The problem I see is with multiclassing - as always. I prefer it when the game has 'multiclassing' be built through alternate features, and better synergies with abilities (Such as removing the 'ranged or finesse' restriction on Sneak Attacks to get more fighter-like Rogues by being a Dwarf with Heavy Armor proficiency, and feats and elfness granting spellcasting ability)

A rogue being able to use magic items as a bonus action just makes rogues more cool and unpredictable, but they don't have the consistency of wizards (Since they're burning consumables to use said bonus action)

[Yorrin]

A rogue being able to use magic items as a bonus action

I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing where we're getting this from? Cunning Action has been reduced to Dash, Disengage, and Hide. Item usage is no longer covered by it.

[Yuki Akuma]

A rogue being able to use magic items as a bonus action just makes rogues more cool and unpredictable, but they don't have the consistency of wizards (Since they're burning consumables to use said bonus action)

Consumables that, according to the starter adventure, recharge.

[Sartharina]

The Thief path expands the Cunning Action list to include opening locks and disarming traps (Making it a Bonus action instead of a minute-long action! Awesome!), make a Sleight of Hand check, and Use an Item.


... Dang, thieves are awesome!

[Yorrin]

The Thief path expands the Cunning Action list to include opening locks and disarming traps (Making it a Bonus action instead of a minute-long action! Awesome!), make a Sleight of Hand check, and Use an Item.


... Dang, thieves are awesome!

Ah, I guess I missed that because I was more interested in the other sub-classes. But that does actually give them a very distinct (if not very thief-ly) specialty with magic items.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The Thief path expands the Cunning Action list to include opening locks and disarming traps (Making it a Bonus action instead of a minute-long action! Awesome!), make a Sleight of Hand check, and Use an Item.


... Dang, thieves are awesome!

They are my favorite class so far. I really like giving them the Sage background from the PDF.

Now when fighters get maneuvers...

[Surrealistik]

Some first hand experience:

When it comes to Web, it's pretty broke for its level, and yes, in my experience it has often acted as an encounter breaker (at least at low levels) you can use _many_ times per day by casting it at different levels. That whole 'burning away the web' thing just doesn't come up very often in practice.

Shield, Mage Armour, and Mirror Image (none of which presently require concentration) I've all used to give me survivability that's comparable or better than a Fighter's in conjunction with high Dex.

Maze I really like in that it divides the encounter between the BBEG/boss character and his minions, making it much easier. Drop the minions, and ready actions to focus fire/wombo combo the boss character when he comes out of the maze.

Power Word Kill is ridiculously strong in that it will straight up end a BBEG no matter how hard he is to hit, how high his saves are, or what special traits he may have aside from magic immunity. Given that most 'epic' tier enemies have HP counts from 200-300 and some have HPs as low as 80, it is quite good. Personally I prefer to use Wish due to its immense flexibility, but this is a spell that probably should be revised.

Meteor Swarm is the damage master; yes, enemies can save, but your DCs will be fairly high, and unless those enemies also have a trait that negates partial damage, it takes the fighter a _long_ time to catch up with its output. In fact, I think it unlikely he does at all.

Higher level conjuration/summoning spells, Wish, Forcecage, Wall of Force are all encounter winners, or at minimum make encounters _substantially_ easier through divide and conquer/breaking the action economy with strong summons. Unfortunately I can't go into detail about them due to the NDA as they have not yet been made publicly available. Further, to be fair, any number of these spells may be changed before public release; several spells did change substantially in the basic PDF relative to their last update I received in the closed playtest.

[Envyus]

Some first hand experience:

When it comes to Web, it's pretty broke for its level, and yes, in my experience it has often acted as an encounter breaker you can use several times per day, at least at low levels.

Shield, Mage Armour, and Mirror Image (none of which presently require concentration) I've all used to give me survivability that's comparable or better than a Fighter's in conjunction with high Dex.

Maze I really like in that it divides the encounter between the BBEG/boss character and his minions, making it much easier. Drop the minions, and ready actions to focus fire the boss character when he comes out of the maze.

Power Word Kill is ridiculously strong in that it will straight up end a BBEG no matter how hard he is to hit, how high his saves are, or what special traits he may have aside from magic immunity. Given that most 'epic' tier enemies have HP counts from 200-300 and some have HPs as low as 80, it is quite good. Personally I prefer to use Wish due to its immense flexibility, but this is a spell that probably should be revised.

Meteor Swarm is the damage master; yes, enemies can save, but your DCs will be fairly high, and unless those enemies also have a trait that negates partial damage, it takes the fighter a _long_ time to catch up with its output. In fact, I think it unlikely he does at all.

Higher level conjuration/summoning spells, Wish, Forcecage, Wall of Force are all encounter winners, or at minimum make encounters _substantially_ easier through divide and conquer/breaking the action economy with strong summons. Unfortunately I can't go into detail about them due to the NDA as they have not yet been made publicly available. Further, to be fair, any number of these spells may be changed before public release; several spells did change substantially in the basic PDF relative to their last update I received in the closed playtest.

I don't think you read the new spells. Shield only lasts one turn and Mirror Image, Forcecage and Wish are not in the game right now. Meteor Swarm and Power Word Kill are strong spells but they are the only level 9 spell you would get to use and so would have to be really powerful. (Meteor Swam is best for taking out large amounts of enemies and Power Word Kill is good for finishing off strong enemies that are low on hp.) Also according to Mike level 20 monsters will have hp more in the 300 to 500 hp ranges.

[Surrealistik]

I read the basic PDF. Yes, Shield lasts one turn (this was true in the closed playtest and it's true now), but that's one turn you're basically not getting hit; it is a very strong L1 spell and one I always prepare.

Keep in mind that these experiences are based on the closed playtest. Though there are some epic/20 HD or so monsters with 300-500+ HP, they were definitely not the majority; this too could change.

Lastly, while the other spells I mentioned are not yet publicly released, they exist and will probably make the final cut. I admit that they may change from their existing implementation, but as things stand, they allow you to easy mode most encounters.

[obryn]

I read the basic PDF. Yes, Shield lasts one turn (this was true in the closed playtest and it's true now), but that's one turn you're basically not getting hit; it is a very strong L1 spell and one I always prepare.
It's also probably the best Level 1 pick for Spell Mastery that I can see. Casting Shield At-Will is incredibly strong.


Keep in mind that these experiences are based on the closed playtest. Though there are some epic/20 HD or so monsters with 300-500+ HP, they were definitely not the majority; this too could change.

Lastly, while the other spells I mentioned are not yet publicly released, they exist and will probably make the final cut. I admit that they may change from their existing implementation, but as things stand, they allow you to easy mode most encounters.
The saving throw gap at epic levels is my biggest concern, frankly, when it comes to spellcasting. Having an 11- or 12-point gap between good saves and bad saves is just unacceptable to me.

If you can answer,
(1) was this saving throw gap actually as big a deal in playtesting as it seems in theory-land, and
(2) how much - if any - did Concentration act to throttle spellcasting?

[Slipperychicken]

(1) was this saving throw gap actually as big a deal in playtesting as it seems in theory-land, and

The devs said outright that they're focusing on lower levels because people play those more.

[obryn]

The devs said outright that they're focusing on lower levels because people play those more.
Yeah, I know, but it's disappointing, because this looks like it will make higher levels terrible.

[Surrealistik]

On saving throws:

Player DCs range from 19 to 20 at the end game.

Monsters of that level have save modifiers ranging from +5 on the low end to +19 at the absolute max (some outliers were as low as +3; +19 is also an outlier).

Monster DCs in the meanwhile, tend to be 18-25 vs PC saves generally capping at +11 (without bonuses from buffs/magic items).

So yes, the gaps between bonuses and DCs tended to be quite high; getting wards and immunities, or at least advantage whenever possible is immensely preferable to being subject to naked saving throws.


On concentration:

Yes, it throttles casting substantially, and acts as a salient limiter. That said, casters are still very much capable of winning encounters or substantially diminishing them singlehandedly. Beyond that of course, there is the host of impactful activities/shortcuts a caster can do that a fighter never can via teleportation, immunizing against spells and certain effects, scrying, etc... Quadratic wizards, linear fighters is still very much a thing, though the curve for casters has been smoothed out substantially.

[Envyus]

On saving throws:

Player DCs range from 19 to 20 at the end game.

Monsters of that level have modifiers ranging from +5 on the low end to +19 at the absolute max (some outliers were as low as +3; +19 is also an outlier).

Monster DCs in the meanwhile, tend to be 18-25 vs PC saves generally capping at +11 (without bonuses from buffs/magic items).

So yes, the gaps between bonuses and DCs tended to be quite high; getting wards and immunities, or at least advantage whenever possible is immensely preferable to being subject to naked saving throws.


On concentration:

Yes, it throttles casting substantially, and acts as a salient limiter. That said, casters are still very much capable of winning encounters or substantially diminishing them singlehandedly. Beyond that of course, there is the host of impactful activities/shortcuts a caster can do that a fighter never can via teleportation, immunizing against spells and certain effects, scrying, etc... Quadratic wizards, linear fighters is still very much a thing, though the curve for casters has been smoothed out substantially.

Teleportion is a high level spell that can only be done twice a day at most. Also Max modifier is +10 stats cap at 30 now.

[Surrealistik]

Monsters can also get a 'proficiency bonus' to their saving throws, which allows them to have a save modifier as high as +19.

Further, you can cast teleportation at higher spell levels if you want, though generally, I can't see needing to cast it more than once or twice a day.

[archaeo]

Teleportion is a high level spell that can only be done twice a day at most. Also Max modifier is +10 stats cap at 30 now.

You've got to give credit where it's due, Envyus; obryn and Surrealistik are making reasonable points and I don't think either is likely to have made significant reading comprehension errors. Wizards are pretty strong in 5e, especially if they use their powers well.

I do think, however, that solving LFQW was not one of 5e's stated design goals; if it was, it would have been done. It's not rocket science to accomplish this, especially given that WotC proved over several years that it could balance wizards and fighters without any difficulty at all in an elegantly designed tactical system. Instead, 5e is much more concerned with the "feel" and "flavor" of the classes rather than seeking out some mathematical/qualitative balance between them. In Basic in particular, the classes serve to differentiate/describe the various levels of mechanical complexity, though I hope obryn is incorrect and finds the maneuver fighter build to be satisfactory when it comes out.

Personally, I'm more than fine with 5e's design philosophy and find the entire LFQW meme vaguely distasteful; it implies a sort of RAW fatalism that I'm uncomfortable with. I'm also tempted to say "wait for the DMG," but talk about your distasteful memes. :smallbiggrin:

It's also abundantly clear that a) breaking 5e will be a caster's game and b) reasonable people can have different opinions on this issue.

edited to add:

Further, you can cast teleportation at higher spell levels if you want, though generally, I can't see needing to cast it more than once or twice a day.

Well, unless you roll poorly on the percentage dice the first two times, anyway.

[Envyus]

You've got to give credit where it's due, Envyus; obryn and Surrealistik are making reasonable points and I don't think either is likely to have made significant reading comprehension errors. Wizards are pretty strong in 5e, especially if they use their powers well.

I do think, however, that solving LFQW was not one of 5e's stated design goals; if it was, it would have been done. It's not rocket science to accomplish this, especially given that WotC proved over several years that it could balance wizards and fighters without any difficulty at all in an elegantly designed tactical system. Instead, 5e is much more concerned with the "feel" and "flavor" of the classes rather than seeking out some mathematical/qualitative balance between them. In Basic in particular, the classes serve to differentiate/describe the various levels of mechanical complexity, though I hope obryn is incorrect and finds the maneuver fighter build to be satisfactory when it comes out.

Personally, I'm more than fine with 5e's design philosophy and find the entire LFQW meme vaguely distasteful; it implies a sort of RAW fatalism that I'm uncomfortable with. I'm also tempted to say "wait for the DMG," but talk about your distasteful memes. :smallbiggrin:

It's also abundantly clear that a) breaking 5e will be a caster's game and b) reasonable people can have different opinions on this issue.

edited to add:


Well, unless you roll poorly on the percentage dice the first two times, anyway.

Oh I know Wizards are strong. I did forget that monsters can get proficiency on saves. But Teleport is still a lot less useful then it used to be. You can cast it at 13 level which is high but you can only cast it twice at level 20. It's more of a get somewhere fast spell if we don't have time get there by other means.

[Yuki Akuma]

Oh I know Wizards are strong. I did forget that monsters can get proficiency on saves. But Teleport is still a lot less useful then it used to be. You can cast it at 13 level which is high but you can only cast it twice at level 20. It's more of a get somewhere fast spell if we don't have time get there by other means.

A 20th level Wizard can cast Teleport four times per day.

[Envyus]

A 20th level Wizard can cast Teleport four times per day.

Ok if they want to waste their 8th and 9th level spell slot.

[Surrealistik]

Well, unless you roll poorly on the percentage dice the first two times, anyway.

That's true, but you can always carry around small fragments from the places you need to go, like your hideout/sanctum, and the dungeon you just left. Preventative scrying also helps minimize the risk of a mishap.

[Leolo]

Plus: We do not know how scrolls and similar things will work.

[Wh0sthere]

The closest I am seeing to pun pun is multiclassing with good classes. Seeing as the extra attacks are based on levels in classes that get them. Casters straight are amazing, for a melee damage dealer it looks like berserker barbarian or the moon druid(with bear or cat getting +4 str/Dex.) The scary melee build I am working on will be a level 2 character for our first legit game. Being barbarian 1, monk 1. 10+Dex+con+wis to AC, flurry and rage. I will most likely do several builds for levels and if you want me to post them I can as well.

[Wh0sthere]

Also Max modifier is +10 stats cap at 30 now.

I see no way to get a 30 for players yet. No stat boosting spells yet, wishes can't do it unless your GM says so. The closest you can get is 24 str/Dex only with moon druids and 29 str only with a legendary magic item.
Play around with the idea that 20 is your cap for now. Optimization builds can still use this to better the character.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I think optimization in this edition won't be able to rely on ability score increases. It seems like for the most part, they want that out of the game.

But so far when I run a PC, I don't feel like I even need to optimize. All choices can be viable, for the most part, within 5e.

Optimization before was more POWER and I think now it will be MOAR power.

[Person_Man]

I think it'll take two or three supplements before they publish enough spells that we can easily break the math. But they've already laid the groundwork.

Foresight is a 9th level Wizard Spell that lasts for 8 hours, does not require Concentration, makes your target immune to Surprise, grants the target Advantage on all attacks/checks/Saves, and grants enemies Disadvantage on all attacks against the target.

Rope Trick and a lot of other spell restoration or Rest shenanigans exists, so there's no real limit on a spellcasters spells per day.

Arcane Eye gives you everything you need to prepare for "scry and die" tactics.

Finger of Death creates a zombie that you permanently control, with no limits on the number or types of zombies.

Cleric capstone ability grants automatic divine intervention which can explicitly mimic any spell.

I'm sure there are other examples. The short version is they created mechanisms for limiting magic, and then failed to actually implement them in a consistent way. Since players can choose spells, they can choose the more broken options, and then its up to the DM to try and fix things as they go.

[Inevitability]

Cleric capstone ability grants automatic divine intervention which can explicitly mimic any spell.

Any cleric (or cleric domain) spell. So nothing you can't accomplish with a bit of rest. It is useful, just not game-breaking useful.

[Jeraa]

Cleric capstone ability grants automatic divine intervention which can explicitly mimic any spell.

Not any spell. Just any cleric spell, and clerics still automatically know all spells on their list. So basically, it just gives the cleric an extra spell slot 1/week.

Really, its only powerful if you lower level cleric manages to use it, and gets a higher level spell ability. But as the effects are totally up to the DM, that can prevent abuse.

[Sartharina]

Rope Trick and a lot of other spell restoration or Rest shenanigans exists, so there's no real limit on a spellcasters spells per day.

You cannot benefit from more than one Long Rest per day.

[Surrealistik]

The closest I am seeing to pun pun is multiclassing with good classes. Seeing as the extra attacks are based on levels in classes that get them. Casters straight are amazing, for a melee damage dealer it looks like berserker barbarian or the moon druid(with bear or cat getting +4 str/Dex.) The scary melee build I am working on will be a level 2 character for our first legit game. Being barbarian 1, monk 1. 10+Dex+con+wis to AC, flurry and rage. I will most likely do several builds for levels and if you want me to post them I can as well.

You don't get to add your Wis and Con together; the rules specifically say that once you get Unarmoured Defense, you cannot get it again. That said, Rage alone is nice, and is one of the things I like dip for because it grants resistance to phys damage that can't be circumvented all encounter long.


@ Person_Man: Yeah, there's a lot of spells out there I didn't mention for the sake of brevity which are probably too strong; Foresight definitely stood out, and besides Arcane Eye there's also _actual_ scrying.

[Wh0sthere]

Ahh yes, the old wording of add wisdom and add con, now says your armor class equals. Back to looking at fighter + other class or straight 20 in any one class

@person_man foresight has been changed to 1 hour. Making that 9th level slot a little more balanced.

[Sartharina]

Right now, I think it will be hard to break D&D Next. It's still in a pliable "New Game" age

It'll break, like every other system, when it's been around longer and started to ossify - options bloat leads to game-breaking combinations, rules achieve a degree of unbreakable sanctity, and everyone plays the game enough that every single option is tested against almost every other option and gameplay issues are exacerbated.

[pwykersotz]

Ahh yes, the old wording of add wisdom and add con, now says your armor class equals. Back to looking at fighter + other class or straight 20 in any one class

@person_man foresight has been changed to 1 hour. Making that 9th level slot a little more balanced.

Where do you get that from? I re-downloaded the basic pdf to check, and it still says Duration: 8 hours

[m4th]

The closest I am seeing to pun pun is multiclassing with good classes. Seeing as the extra attacks are based on levels in classes that get them. Casters straight are amazing, for a melee damage dealer it looks like berserker barbarian or the moon druid(with bear or cat getting +4 str/Dex.) The scary melee build I am working on will be a level 2 character for our first legit game. Being barbarian 1, monk 1. 10+Dex+con+wis to AC, flurry and rage. I will most likely do several builds for levels and if you want me to post them I can as well.

Double check your RAW.
From the latest closed playtest packet:
Barbarian - Thick Hide: Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier.
Monk - Unarmored Defense: Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier.

They explicitly do not stack with each other, just as the spell Mage Armor does not stack with either. Neither of those classes are part of the Basic Release, so it is possible they will be rewritten, but unlikely.

Spells are similarly written such that the old abuses are largely removed from the game.

Some examples from earlier in the thread.
Web is escapable with either a Dex save or a Str save, terrain limited, flammable, and requires concentration. Potent controlling, but not game breaking.

Gate requires a single diamond worth 5000 gold every casting. That's enough to fund an Aristocratic lifestyle for 500 days, or a Wealthy lifestyle for 1250 days. Where exactly do you think you're going to find one of those? If the DM gives you a 5k diamond, its going to be a plot point, and you're going to need to use it in exactly the way he wants you too. Otherwise your DM is dumb, enough said. Deities can prevent gates from opening on their home planes, so you can't just waltz into Valhalla without a good reason. You would need to know a Solar's name in order to "target" it with the Gate spell, so this hypothetical cleric has a diamond the size of his own head and is on first name terms with an ancient unknowable being of pure good? I doubt it.

Additionally, Solars are generally not just sitting around waiting to get gated to somewhere on poo-world the material plane. They're doing something important in the service of their deity. As the DM, I would require the caster to bind the Solar against its will, otherwise the Solar will simply Gate back to whatever important task they were doing and put in a negative user review with the Cleric's deity.

Otto's Irresistible Dance doesn't work on enemies immune to charm (undead, constructs, elementals, many magical beasts), and doesn't limit Strength based attacks at all. Fighters and Barbarians are already going to get advantage any way they can, so that part of the spell is useful, but not amazing. Again, potent control, but not game breaking.

Maze requires concentration, banishes a single monster. Enough has been said about this already in this thread. Not a game-breaker.

Time Stop is only as broken as the self buff spells are powerful, which is not very. I could see casting multiple Delayed Blast Fireballs that all go off when the Time Stop ends, but now you've spent all your high level spells to be a blaster. I'll pass.

Improved Invisibilty... is not in 5E Basic. It's also not in the latest playtest packet. So...

I believe Rogues might be the most game-breaking. Hide as a bonus action, can use scrolls (and presumably wands, once they are introduced in 5E), able to spend gold + time to gain proficiency with poisoner's kit, disguise kit, and forgery kit. A single loose Rogue in a game world can break every social or political encounter, bypass combat encounters trivially, deal massive damage from safety while the fighter takes the hits, and just generally be cooler than the River Styx.

In the current release, casters are powerful utility characters in combat with a limited toolkit outside of combat. What happens once the clown shoe splat books get released remains to be seen.

[pwykersotz]

Improved Invisibilty... is not in 5E Basic. It's also not in the latest playtest packet. So...

It's called Greater Invisibility, and it's in the Basic PDF. FYI. :smallsmile:

[Yorrin]

I believe Rogues might be the most game-breaking. Hide as a bonus action, can use scrolls (and presumably wands, once they are introduced in 5E), able to spend gold + time to gain proficiency with poisoner's kit, disguise kit, and forgery kit. A single loose Rogue in a game world can break every social or political encounter, bypass combat encounters trivially, deal massive damage from safety while the fighter takes the hits, and just generally be cooler than the River Styx.

Hyperbole aside I'm encouraged that someone is getting this excited for a mundane class. It's clear to me that they've hit a good spot in mundane class design, to the point where I'm actually excited to see them play out, and people can get excited about what they're going to be able to contribute.

[Surrealistik]

I believe Rogues might be the most game-breaking. Hide as a bonus action, can use scrolls (and presumably wands, once they are introduced in 5E), able to spend gold + time to gain proficiency with poisoner's kit, disguise kit, and forgery kit. A single loose Rogue in a game world can break every social or political encounter, bypass combat encounters trivially, deal massive damage from safety while the fighter takes the hits, and just generally be cooler than the River Styx.

In the current release, casters are powerful utility characters in combat with a limited toolkit outside of combat. What happens once the clown shoe splat books get released remains to be seen.

I doubt it; Rogues are now strong in and out of combat (whereas before they only really excelled at the latter) thanks to recent buffs they received in the public PDF, but game-breaking? Kind of a stretch, at least as compared to casters.


As for casters having a limited toolkit outside of combat, what? These are the people with exclusive domain over things like city/structure destroying earthquakes and meteor showers, powerful illusions, shapeshifting, remote viewing, teleportation, animating undead servants, reshaping the earth, reversing gravity, bestowing flight and invisibility, summoning or binding extraplanar entities, immunizing against countless spells and effects, creating walls and fortifications, creating extraplanar spaces, traveling between planes, locating objects and creatures remotely, predicting the future, raising the dead, spontaneously creating food and water, instant fabrication and repair of goods, instantly removing curses and otherwise indelible afflictions, etc... And this is a _very_ partial and incomplete list of things casters can do which have out of combat use that by and large mundane classes cannot.

Meanwhile scrolls and magic items may or may not allow mundanes to access only a fraction of these abilities, and whenever they do, it will be at a substantial cost in monetary or other terms. If you find a 5k diamond to be expensive outside of DM provision, there's little doubt that such items will cost more.

[m4th]

It's called Greater Invisibility, and it's in the Basic PDF. FYI. :smallsmile:

Ah damn you're right. Good catch, how did I miss that?

More "broken" spell analysis:

Arcane Eye + Teleport: Arcane Eye is effectively limited to 18000 feet, or 3.4 miles (30 feet per round x 10 rounds per minute x 60 minutes per hour). You can visibly see further than that from my apartment window. The teleportation hazards are so severe that I can't imagine using this combo safely. Scry is not in the Basic PDF, but I'm sure it will be in the player's handbook. I still wouldn't ride a teleport to a scry'd destination, the chance of success is simply too low.

Finger of Death: deals an average of 31.5+30 necrotic damage, and you must get the killing blow to get a zombie out of it. As the DM, I'm begging you - please please please spend a 7th level or higher spell slot to deal 60 damage.

Rope trick: Not in the Basic Release, but according to the playtest it lasts one hour. So you can short rest safely. Okay, go ahead.

Foresight: An excellent spell that you may cast once daily. Better used on the Rogue or the Fighter, so I'll go ahead and say not game breaking. Just like Otto's, it only makes getting advantage easier. It's not like advantage is impossible to get otherwise.

Power Word Kill: Another excellent spell, requires the BBEG to have fewer than 100 hitpoints. It doesn't say current hitpoints, but it also doesn't say maximum hit points, so we can give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it is an excellent finishing move against a boss you've already been whaling on. It doesn't let the wizard simply extinguish the boss. 9th level, so once a day only.

I know there are more spells out there, and more to be released, but the real kicker here is that casters only get one eighth and one ninth level spell slot per day. Clerics get a bonus spell slot once per week through divine intervention. Without multiple castings of the highest level of power, spells that would otherwise be "broken" become tough decisions for the caster to make. Do you spend the 10,000 gold necessary to create a 20 HD talisman for Imprisonment when Meteor Swarm might be the better choice? Do you try to Gate away to safety, knowing that a Mass Heal might be the difference between total victory and total party kill?

I'd be surprised to see 5E get broken the way things are written now. Like I said earlier, splatbooks can change things.

[m4th]

I doubt it; Rogues are now strong in and out of combat (whereas before they only really excelled at the latter) thanks to recent buffs they received in the public PDF, but game-breaking? Kind of a stretch, at least as compared to casters.


As for casters having a limited toolkit outside of combat, what? These are the people with exclusive domain over things like city/structure destroying earthquakes...

Going AFK for now, but let me just say that yes, Earthquake is super overpowered, who wrote that spell, holy crap. Feel free to disregard my earlier comment about a limited toolkit outside of combat. :smallsmile:

[Surrealistik]

Arcane Eye + Teleport: Arcane Eye is effectively limited to 18000 feet, or 3.4 miles (30 feet per round x 10 rounds per minute x 60 minutes per hour). You can visibly see further than that from my apartment window. The teleportation hazards are so severe that I can't imagine using this combo safely. Scry is not in the Basic PDF, but I'm sure it will be in the player's handbook. I still wouldn't ride a teleport to a scry'd destination, the chance of success is simply too low.

Arcane Eye is useful for scouting out enclosed fortified/dangerous areas you normally can't move through without peril (pretty much any dungeon). Obviously you don't employ it when you have a clear sightline that equals its maximum travel distance; that's a pretty disingenuous argument against it.

Further, per the RAW you automatically get 'Very Familiar' odds when you can see the destination you're teleporting to, via a Scry or Arcane Eye, which is pretty acceptable. Once you're there, grab a piece of the decor, and you're set for subsequent teleports.


As for the other ones mentioned I don't really consider them broken, with the exception of PWK (because it just straight up wins) and Foresight in that it turns whatever it's on into a super resilient killing machine without even demanding your concentration. Even if you have to put it on a party member for maximum effect (who you also presumably Haste), that doesn't really diminish its power.

[Sartharina]

As for the other ones mentioned I don't really consider them broken, with the exception of PWK (because it just straight up wins) and Foresight in that it turns whatever it's on into a super resilient killing machine without even demanding your concentration. Even if you have to put it on a party member for maximum effect (who you also presumably Haste), that doesn't really diminish its power.

Power Word Kill is an automatic 100 points of damage at best.

[Surrealistik]

Power Word Kill is an automatic 100 points of damage at best.

Yes, and the end game monsters tend to have all kinds of confounding factors and protections that makes them problematic to deal with; resistance that can't be circumvented, ridiculously high saves/AC, the ability to automatically save, negating reactions, contingencies that spare them from death under certain circumstances. Being able to straight up say to one of these mobs that you've blown loads of resources on already to get as far as you have that he's a dead man and there's nothing he can do about it is pretty good. That said, there are better L9s; Wish is still the king in my view.

[Human Paragon 3]

What is the actual expected DPR for a level 20 fighter using a great sword and action surge?

[Psyren]

We'll break it once we find a spell to target each save (there are 6 of those now, and it's nearly impossible to make them all good.)

[Wh0sthere]

Is it RAW that TWF only gives one extra attack even with say...extra attack features?

[Human Paragon 3]

Is it RAW that TWF only gives one extra attack even with say...extra attack features?

Yes. The two-weapon attack is a bonus action, and you can never have more than one.

[spelley]

We'll break it once we find a spell to target each save (there are 6 of those now, and it's nearly impossible to make them all good.)

...and make sure they can also cast *other spells* as needed. And make sure they have the slots for them. And make sure they don't all need Concentration. And hope they don't run out of those slots (*3* guys who are weak to STR spells and I only have 2 slots left I can cast them in? ****."). And hope they don't run into a "mixed" group. And hope they never need to help an ally. And hope they don't just get Sneak Attacked/Out-ranged/Murdered with their lower HP...

Other than that Wizards are totally broken :P

[da_chicken]

What is the actual expected DPR for a level 20 fighter using a great sword and action surge?

With no magic vs AC 20 (60% of attacks hitting) and 15% crit? 73.98. (13.33 * 0.45 + 21.66 * 0.15) * 8.

With a +3 defender greatsword, a girdle of storm giant strength (Str 29), and playtest boots of speed vs AC 20 (95% of attacks hitting)? 246.756. (20.33 * 0.80 + 28.66 * 0.15) * 12. With a playtest Bard in the party? 320.856. (26.83 * 0.80 + 35.16 * 0.15) * 12.

[Human Paragon 3]

246.756.

That's good to know.

Also... want.

[Wh0sthere]

With no magic vs AC 20 (60% of attacks hitting) and 15% crit? 73.98. (13.33 * 0.45 + 21.66 * 0.15) * 8.

With a +3 defender greatsword, a girdle of storm giant strength (Str 29), and playtest boots of speed vs AC 20 (95% of attacks hitting)? 246.756. (20.33 * 0.80 + 28.66 * 0.15) * 12. With a playtest Bard in the party? 320.856. (26.83 * 0.80 + 35.16 * 0.15) * 12.

Take note that the x8 attacks per round is only for 2 rounds/rest

[Squirrel_Dude]

...and make sure they can also cast *other spells* as needed. And make sure they have the slots for them. And make sure they don't all need Concentration. And hope they don't run out of those slots (*3* guys who are weak to STR spells and I only have 2 slots left I can cast them in? ****."). And hope they don't run into a "mixed" group. And hope they never need to help an ally. And hope they don't just get Sneak Attacked/Out-ranged/Murdered with their lower HP...

Other than that Wizards are totally broken :PAlmost everything you listed are thigns that Wizards have always been weak to, and that didn't stop them from being the most powerful classes in games before 5e.

[Inevitability]

Take note that the x8 attacks per round is only for 2 rounds/rest

Doesn't matter when you have enough attack strength to kill anything during these two rounds. Although it more of a 'nova' then...

[Human Paragon 3]

246 damage is still better than a power word kill, even if it is 2/rest. PWK is 1/day.

[Sartharina]

Almost everything you listed are thigns that Wizards have always been weak to, and that didn't stop them from being the most powerful classes in games before 5e.Actually, in 3.5, wizards weren't particularly weak to these.

Ideally, a party without a wizard or cleric can still do well, and you'd want a party of a wizard, rogue, fighter, and cleric, instead of a party of Two Wizards and Two Clerics.

[Surrealistik]

246 damage is still better than a power word kill, even if it is 2/rest. PWK is 1/day.

Until the confounding factors I'd mentioned earlier come in; those DPR calcs are a good point of reference, but it pretty much assumes a vacuum in terms of enemy defenses excepting 20 AC, and a fairly optimal magic item loadout at that.

That said, yes, under favourable circumstances, with pimped out magic items, the Fighter can certainly outpace the Wizard's single target damage.


That all said, I would like to have a Rogue/Fighter at least until Teleport or something similar comes into play so the party can retreat to its sanctum for a long rest as needed for those endurance gauntlets. They're also good for dealing lots of damage quickly and consistently to single targets as noted above, especially when buffed.

Further, I think the Bard will ironically be amongst the most degenerate classes with its ridiculous ability to cherrypick spells from _any_ spell list and its well rounded capabilities combined with L9 casting.

[Human Paragon 3]

Until the confounding factors I'd mentioned earlier come in; those DPR calcs are a good point of reference, but it pretty much assumes a vacuum in terms of enemy defenses excepting 20 AC, and a fairly optimal magic item loadout at that.

That said, yes, under favourable circumstances, with pimped out magic items, the Fighter can certainly outpace the Wizard's single target damage.

That all makes sense and seems right. PWK has that 100hp restriction on it, which is a pretty big limiting factor.

With a wizard buddy buffing him, the fighter will get even better - also, the wizard can concentrate on a buff for his friend AND drop a meteor swarm.

I am getting the impression that party balance is actually pretty good, at least in Basic.

EDIT: I know nothing about Bard since I didn't see the playtest for it.

Rogue seems awesome to me, especially at low levels. Being essentially twice as fast as all other characters, zooming around the battlefield sneak attacking wherever it's needed most, taking an extra action every turn... seems beautiful and perfect to set rogue apart from the other classes. The already infamous push/trip rogue sounds awesomely fun to play, too.

[Yorrin]

Further, I think the Bard will be amongst the most degenerate classes with its ridiculous ability to poach spells from _any_ spell list and its well rounded abilities combined with L9 casting.

This is the first I've heard anyone mention this. I was wondering if that was the route they were going to take. Something to look forward to breaking, I suppose.

[Human Paragon 3]

How many spell slots does the Bard get?

[Surrealistik]

They get the exact same amount as other classes, 20 spells known, plus the 6-8 spells they poach/cherry pick.

Keep in mind though that their exact abilities/implementation may change in the public release.

[obryn]

We'll break it once we find a spell to target each save (there are 6 of those now, and it's nearly impossible to make them all good.)
Not just "nearly" impossible. Actually impossible even if you have straight 20's.

The best you can get is +11 vs. your "good" saves and +5 vs. your "bad" saves, absent magic items, spells, class features, or other considerations. Against a DC19, you're failing your bad saves on a 1-13 (65%) anyway.


246 damage is still better than a power word kill, even if it is 2/rest. PWK is 1/day.
It's also dependent on artifact-level magic items, with no way of buying or creating them, so...

[spelley]

Actually, in 3.5, wizards weren't particularly weak to these.

Ideally, a party without a wizard or cleric can still do well, and you'd want a party of a wizard, rogue, fighter, and cleric, instead of a party of Two Wizards and Two Clerics.

Especially since the Wizard could buff himself to high-holy-heavens and then do all that stuff. Here he is going to have a couple of basic defensive buffs if he has time to prepare, but nothing like this (http://ihititwithmyaxe.tumblr.com/post/27482211200/breaking-d-d-3-5-ac-50-and-higher-for-9th-level) which was quite possible. And the Wizard used to have more spell slots (if I'm not mistaken)?

[T.G. Oskar]

[...]

Some examples from earlier in the thread.
Web is escapable with either a Dex save or a Str save, terrain limited, flammable, and requires concentration. Potent controlling, but not game breaking.

I can give you the Concentration effect. However, not everyone will have good Strength and Dexterity saves. Even then, at the level you get it (3rd level), a Web save DC will be 10 + your ability score (most likely a +3, so DC 13). Your best save will be done at a +5 (ability score at 16 + proficiency bonus at +2), your worst save at around +1 ~ +2 (could be nothing, could be +3 from ability score, but going with elite array, you have 1 chance of getting a +2 to that save and 2 chances of getting a +1 to that save). So that's anywhere from a 40% to a 60% chance of failing the save. On maximum numbers, you're facing a DC 19 spell (8 + max ability score giving +5 + proficiency bonus of +6) against a best save of +11 and a poor save of...+1 to +2. The range goes from 40% to a staggering 85% chance of failing. If you for some reason fail that first save, you have to roll an entirely different save which you most likely have low. Fighters will most likely be restrained during 1 round, and Rogues that fail their saves will have to face their poorest save and be likely bound. Clerics won't have a chance against those two, unless they burn the web somehow. In fact, chances are you'll have to burn the web.

So yeah, I would still consider Web gamebreaking. Had the second "save" been turned into an ability check (Strength [Athletics] or Dexterity [Acrobatics]), it would have been less gamebreaking. As it stands, save proficiencies can only take you so far (or advantage on saves).


Gate requires a single diamond worth 5000 gold every casting. That's enough to fund an Aristocratic lifestyle for 500 days, or a Wealthy lifestyle for 1250 days. Where exactly do you think you're going to find one of those? If the DM gives you a 5k diamond, its going to be a plot point, and you're going to need to use it in exactly the way he wants you too. Otherwise your DM is dumb, enough said. Deities can prevent gates from opening on their home planes, so you can't just waltz into Valhalla without a good reason. You would need to know a Solar's name in order to "target" it with the Gate spell, so this hypothetical cleric has a diamond the size of his own head and is on first name terms with an ancient unknowable being of pure good? I doubt it.

Additionally, Solars are generally not just sitting around waiting to get gated to somewhere on poo-world the material plane. They're doing something important in the service of their deity. As the DM, I would require the caster to bind the Solar against its will, otherwise the Solar will simply Gate back to whatever important task they were doing and put in a negative user review with the Cleric's deity.

In the realm of RAW (which has usually fueled game-breaker discussions), "the DM says no" isn't a pragmatic answer. Certainly the game heavily suggests the DM to rein control over the game, but for the most part, it's the possibility that makes the spell so broken.

Let's see it in this way: the new version requires a gem worth 5k gold pieces. The 3.5 version of Gate costed 1k experience points per cast. In 3.5, the value is insignificant next to the power it offers, particularly the calling function which is the one sought the most. If you have the gem, it will be cast, and quite frankly, 3 chests or 1 hoard is enough to give you that (if going for the playtest method of item generation). Going by a hoard, at 17th level you can get enough precious gems to justify a single, flawless 5,000 gp gem on average. That's exactly at the same level you'd get Gate, and you can have the chance to get that gem one or two levels earlier at the same chance you'd be capable of escaping Web with your best save. So the mere existence of a 5,000 gp gem can be justified.

Then, the calling function. Most likely, if you use your Divine Intervention to Gate a Solar (by 17th level that's a 17% chance of pulling it off, so about a 1/6 chance; likely before the end of the week?), your Deity is entrusting the Solar with your protection. So you'll probably be in good terms with him. Ask the name, now you can summon him as long as you get that huge gem.

The third is enforcing Rule 0. If the Solar doesn't come in, then you've adjudicated that this particular Solar is breaking the rules, or that it has a way to bend them (maybe the Solar just gave you its title, and you assumed it was its name, or the Solar was subsequently summoned by ANOTHER person, or that the deity just revoked the spell at-will). However, without enforcing Rule 0, the Solar HAS to appear, because it's what the spell says. You summon one creature whose name you know, from wherever it is, no save allowed, no negotiation allowed, no HD CAP necessary (that was the restriction from 3.5, and further enforced in PF).

There was one simpler way to justify this: there are no Solars in the Basic Set so far (and probably not in the playtest either). The strongest thing you can summon is a Pit Fiend (because it has spellcasting, you know...), and chances are it won't obey your orders (the spell explicitly says it's not under your command, so...) Gate is as broken as what you can summon with it. However, ruling that DM fiat can restrain the spell is as good as saying that 3.5 is balanced because the DM can invoke Rule 0: that is subjective at best, since not all DMs will enforce that rule for X or Y reason (consistency, impartiality, the DM actually likes high-powered play, or even enforce it for you but not for its enemies!)


Further, I think the Bard will ironically be amongst the most degenerate classes with its ridiculous ability to cherrypick spells from _any_ spell list and its well rounded capabilities combined with L9 casting.

For real? Didn't they got up to level 5 spells, but they had an Extra Attack like the Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin and Ranger? Plus Expertise like the Rogue? I mean, a Bard with 9th level spells, Extra Attack and Expertise is a thundering nightmare. Casting up to 7th level spells is fine by me, though (as long as the Druid gets reduced to that same amount :smallamused:)

[spelley]

no negotiation allowed

From the Basic PDF:

Concentration, up to 1 minute
.....
You gain no special power over the creature,
and it is free to act as the DM deems appropriate. It
might leave, attack you, or help you.

-----------------------------------------------------------

So you can strong-arm a Solar into helping you the first time with DM intervention, get its real name (assuming it isn't pissed that you basically "went over its head to its boss," and gives you a false name), then summon it using your 9th level slot for (up to) a single minute that could be interrupted by being plugged by a single arrow, and only *after* you negotiate with it (assuming it doesn't just stay on friendly terms forever). I think that's fair.

[m4th]

Off topic: #sadbrazil

On topic:



Let's see it in this way: the new version requires a gem worth 5k gold pieces. The 3.5 version of Gate costed 1k experience points per cast. In 3.5, the value is insignificant next to the power it offers, particularly the calling function which is the one sought the most. If you have the gem, it will be cast, and quite frankly, 3 chests or 1 hoard is enough to give you that (if going for the playtest method of item generation). Going by a hoard, at 17th level you can get enough precious gems to justify a single, flawless 5,000 gp gem on average. That's exactly at the same level you'd get Gate, and you can have the chance to get that gem one or two levels earlier at the same chance you'd be capable of escaping Web with your best save. So the mere existence of a 5,000 gp gem can be justified.

The most valuable gem in the latest playtest packet, under precious stones 17-20 on a d20 roll is 2d4x100, maximum of 800 gold. 5000 gold gems simply do not exist. If you loot one million hoards, you still will never recieve a gem worth more than 800 gold. So the presence of a 5,000 gp gem is purely by DM fiat. Its not that you wont have 5000 gold worth of diamonds laying around at 20th level. The spell calls for a diamond worth 5000 gold. Therefore, the Gate spell is can only be cast by DM fiat, and evaluating its value as a game breaker spell assumes the existence of DM who is willing to give players a diamond of that size.

Edit:
The presence (or absence) of gems valued at more than 800 gold also makes Astral Projection and Resurrection impossible to cast without DM fiat. True Resurrection requires diamonds worth at least 25,000 gold, meaning you can cast it, if you get a hold of 50 average diamonds.

[Psyren]

Not just "nearly" impossible. Actually impossible even if you have straight 20's.

The best you can get is +11 vs. your "good" saves and +5 vs. your "bad" saves, absent magic items, spells, class features, or other considerations. Against a DC19, you're failing your bad saves on a 1-13 (65%) anyway.

Yep, and there will probably be a Spell Focus feat or a magic item (or both) that raises DCs further, if only by a small amount.


...and make sure they can also cast *other spells* as needed. And make sure they have the slots for them. And make sure they don't all need Concentration. And hope they don't run out of those slots (*3* guys who are weak to STR spells and I only have 2 slots left I can cast them in? ****."). And hope they don't run into a "mixed" group. And hope they never need to help an ally. And hope they don't just get Sneak Attacked/Out-ranged/Murdered with their lower HP...

Other than that Wizards are totally broken :P

I think we can find 6 spells, and we already have several that don't need Concentration either, like Mass Suggestion and Sleep (...no saving throw? Really guys?) with only more on the way. We haven't seen any of the Bigby's Hand line yet and those are bound to target Strength for instance.

[captpike]

The devs said outright that they're focusing on lower levels because people play those more.

did anyone point out that alot of people play low level more becuase high level stuff is often ill-tested and broken?


You cannot benefit from more than one Long Rest per day.

so there become two types of games 1) the GM hard-codes time limits into what you do, to force you to care about time or 2) the GM does not and casters never go more then two fights without a rest


Right now, I think it will be hard to break D&D Next. It's still in a pliable "New Game" age

It'll break, like every other system, when it's been around longer and started to ossify - options bloat leads to game-breaking combinations, rules achieve a degree of unbreakable sanctity, and everyone plays the game enough that every single option is tested against almost every other option and gameplay issues are exacerbated.

its like 3e all you need is spells. so play a caster and win

[Sartharina]

When you pray for Divine Intervention, you do not get to describe the style of aid you get - you request the goal of the aid instead. The means are up to the DM, whether it's sending you a powerful champion, to teleporting you out of a sticky mess, to a party-wide buff to let you overcome the challenge yourself.

If you get a Solar, it's because:
1. What you thought was a simple bad-guy-stomping day was actually an epic threat that required Solar intervention (With the Diety giving a "Thanks for the heads up/Support for the Solar on this one!" to you)
2. The Deity's trying to impress someone (Such as Thor trying to impress a girlfriend).
3. The Diety has a Solar sitting around doing nothing, and wouldn't mind a relaxing afternoon squishing goblins.
its like 3e all you need is spells. so play a caster and winYou are repeating a party line you don't understand the intricities or nature of. You don't "need" spells. You can win as a fighter (Hitting all the things and self-healing like a champ) or rogue(Every day I'm shufflin'!) as well. SPellcasters have advantages, yes, but they do not completely eclipse the other classes.
I think we can find 6 spells, and we already have several that don't need Concentration either, like Mass Suggestion and Sleep (...no saving throw? Really guys?) with only more on the way. We haven't seen any of the Bigby's Hand line yet and those are bound to target Strength for instance.Sleep is little more than an unreliable Power Word. It only affects 5d8 HP of creatures, which means it can't even reliably put a small squad of goblins to sleep. Doesn't kill them, doesn't take them all out of the fight, doesn't assist in taking them out of the fight faster if you divide incorrectly.

[1337 b4k4]

so there become two types of games 1) the GM hard-codes time limits into what you do, to force you to care about time or 2) the GM does not and casters never go more then two fights without a rest

Forget the casters. With characters getting all their HP back with a long rest, 5e will be the dawning of the two minute work day. As soon as the fighter gets scratched, he'll be demanding the party stop and rest for 24 hours so that he can be fully prepared for the next fight. After all, it's just optimal tactics, just like the 15 minute workday wizards.

Alternatively, we can realize that D&D is (and always has been to varying degrees) a game where time matters, and ignoring time is going to have side effects.

[Inevitability]

I once had an idea for a 4e dungeon. It involved a necromancer rising an undead army at the bottom of an abandoned mine. It started with the necromancer (an elite monster, as strong as 2 'normals') on his own, and after each short rest a normal monster would be create. Each extended rest would let him create an elite monster.

If the players took a short rest after all 4 encounters, he'd be an encounter meant for 3rd level adventurers. (the party was 2nd level) If they took 3 short rests and a long rest, he'd be an appropriate fight for a 4th party. I never got around to running it, though, but it seems like a good example of how to balance players' freedom and difficulty.

[obryn]

Yep, and there will probably be a Spell Focus feat or a magic item (or both) that raises DCs further, if only by a small amount.
I agree, there probably will be, which is pretty terrible.

I'm strongly considering - if I run the game - giving everyone Proficiency or at least half-proficiency in all saves. If I'm a Fighter, I'm already going to be terrible at Intelligence saves by virtue of my stats. I don't need that gap to widen, you know?


Sleep (...no saving throw? Really guys?)
Ehhhh, because it's going after hit points, it's really just a fancy way of dealing fake damage, with a few downsides. 3e was the first edition where it allowed a save.

[Psyren]

Sleep is little more than an unreliable Power Word. It only affects 5d8 HP of creatures, which means it can't even reliably put a small squad of goblins to sleep. Doesn't kill them, doesn't take them all out of the fight, doesn't assist in taking them out of the fight faster if you divide incorrectly.

5d8 at 1st level is absolutely going to take out a pack of enemies. The 2 hobgoblins you'll face at level 1 will get knocked out on just an average roll (22 vs. 22), no save, and we're seeing CRs much lower than 1/2 so we can assume there will be enemies with 1d8 or even 1d6 HP. Not only that, but the radius was doubled vs. 3e and the casting time was reduced to a standard.



Ehhhh, because it's going after hit points, it's really just a fancy way of dealing fake damage, with a few downsides. 3e was the first edition where it allowed a save.

Yes, exactly, it's effectively doing damage now. 5d8 damage in a 20ft. radius at 1st level to be precise, +2d8 damage every 2 levels.

[obryn]

5d8 at 1st level is absolutely going to take out a pack of enemies. The 2 hobgoblins you'll face at level 1 will get knocked out on just an average roll (22 vs. 22), no save, and we're seeing CRs much lower than 1/2 so we can assume there will be enemies with 1d8 or even 1d6 HP. Not only that, but the radius was doubled vs. 3e and the casting time was reduced to a standard.

Yes, exactly, it's doing damage now. 5d8 damage in a 20ft. radius at 1st level to be precise.
Yeah, it's pretty much working as intended if it takes out a pack of enemies because tradition. :smallsmile:

Really, it was always like dropping the nuke in BECMI and AD&D.

[Psyren]

Yeah, it's pretty much working as intended if it takes out a pack of enemies because tradition. :smallsmile:

Really, it was always like dropping the nuke in BECMI and AD&D.

I don't know how it worked in BECMI and AD&D, but in 3e it had the following limitations:

- 1 round casting time (so monsters could interrupt you, or worst case scenario, spread out before you finished and limit the effect)
- 10' radius, so you were much less likely to catch every goblin with a single cast.

5e mitigated both of those - now sleep gets out faster and hits wider. Yeah it has the HP limit, but it's not even a hard limit like color spray - it will count and hit as many as it can and so will take at least one enemy out of the fight with no save and no concentration for quite a while. Plus you can heighten it, so no need for Deep Slumber either.

[Inevitability]

- 1 round casting time (so monsters could interrupt you, or worst case scenario, spread out before you finished and limit the effect)

The monsters didn't know what spell you were going to cast unless they made a spellcraft check, and I've never encountered a single level 1 monster with ranks in that.

[obryn]

I don't know how it worked in BECMI and AD&D, but in 3e it had the following limitations:

- 1 round casting time (so monsters could interrupt you, or worst case scenario, spread out before you finished and limit the effect)
- 10' radius, so you were much less likely to catch every goblin with a single cast.
I expect it to be a strong spell at 1st level, but it will get progressively less useful - even cast at higher levels - as the game progresses. Remember that, unlike Burning Hands or Fireball, the hit points from the spell get used up. The 3d6 Burning hands or the 8d6 Fireball deal their damage to everything they hit. Sleep has a hard cap of the total HP that can be affected, and it goes after the least-dangerous targets first.

[Squirrel_Dude]

The monsters didn't know what spell you were going to cast unless they made a spellcraft check, and I've never encountered a single level 1 monster with ranks in that.I've never seen any player or monster go "Well, I don't know what spell the wizard is casting, so there isn't any point in me trying to interrupt it."

[m4th]

I expect it to be a strong spell at 1st level, but it will get progressively less useful - even cast at higher levels - as the game progresses. Remember that, unlike Burning Hands or Fireball, the hit points from the spell get used up. The 3d6 Burning hands or the 8d6 Fireball deal their damage to everything they hit. Sleep has a hard cap of the total HP that can be affected, and it goes after the least-dangerous targets first.

I'm not sure it gets less useful. Sleep cast as a level nine affects 21d8 (5d8 + 8 boosted spell levels x 2d8 per boosted spell level), for an average of 94.5 hp. Power Word Kill affects a single target of 100 hp or less.

So for a single target, use Power Word Kill. Against multiple targets, Sleep is probably stronger.

Edit:
Disintegrate cast at level nine deals an average of 106.5 damage on a failed save. Somebody at Wizards had their calculator out when they made these spell descriptions. I approve.

[obryn]

I'm not sure it gets less useful. Sleep cast as a level nine affects 21d8 (5d8 + 8 boosted spell levels x 2d8 per boosted spell level), for an average of 94.5 hp. Power Word Kill affects a single target of 100 hp or less.

So for a single target, use Power Word Kill. Against multiple targets, Sleep is probably stronger.
Yep, I was more talking against groups than against individuals.

Meteor Swarm, for comparison, does 40d6 (avg 140), save for half (avg 70 against DC 19). And it affects every creature in 4x40' radius blasts, within a mile. And you can even shield your buddies from it if you're an evoker.

[Psyren]

The monsters didn't know what spell you were going to cast unless they made a spellcraft check, and I've never encountered a single level 1 monster with ranks in that.

"He's chanting something, charge/spread out!" is not exactly neurosurgery as far as tactics.


I've never seen any player or monster go "Well, I don't know what spell the wizard is casting, so there isn't any point in me trying to interrupt it."

Yep.


I expect it to be a strong spell at 1st level, but it will get progressively less useful - even cast at higher levels - as the game progresses. Remember that, unlike Burning Hands or Fireball, the hit points from the spell get used up. The 3d6 Burning hands or the 8d6 Fireball deal their damage to everything they hit. Sleep has a hard cap of the total HP that can be affected, and it goes after the least-dangerous targets first.

That's just it though. Even if you pretend it is a single-target spell (i.e. that it's only going to take out one foe before using up its allotment), it's still going to be "just" another PWK - only this one isn't blocked by Death Ward, has 50% longer range, can be used all the way from level 1 and can be scaled down to lower levels when you know you'll be facing something weaker but would like to save your 9th slot for something else.

And there's always the chance that it isn't single target. Maybe the Fighter weakened them with a volley of arrows first, or the cleric went ahead of you and hit them with flame strike. Maybe your encounter consists of a collection of lower-CR enemies. Maybe you just rolled high on the d8s, landing somewhere near the 168 cap. (And we don't even know what the enchanter can do to this yet.) In those situations, it is a single-target spell that just might end up being more.

[m4th]

Yep, I was more talking against groups than against individuals.

Meteor Swarm, for comparison, does 40d6 (avg 140), save for half (avg 70 against DC 19). And it affects every creature in 4x40' radius blasts, within a mile. And you can even shield your buddies from it if you're an evoker.

Meteor Swarm feels over-budgeted to me. Most other spells preserve roughly equivalent damage numbers to their high level counterparts when scaled to match. Sleep/PWK/Disintegrate all affect about 100 hp of creatures when cast as level nines. Level nine fireball deals 14d6; level nine meteor swarm deals 40d6. In the playtest, both spells capped out at 12d6 damage.

Since we're here talking about high level spells, can somebody help me with Imprisonment?

Under Ending The Spell:

"During the casting of the spell, in any of its versions, you can specify a condition that will cause the spell to end and release the target. The condition can be as specific or as elaborate as you choose, but the DM must agree that the condition is reasonable and has a likelihood of coming to pass."

The text in bold bothers me. "Can" is not "must", "can" implies choice. If it said "you must specify a condition", then the condition to end the spell is part of the spell and cannot be skipped. But it doesn't say "you may specify a condition", which would mean that whether or not to include a spell-ending condition is entirely the casters decision. The word "can" falls somewhere in between "must" and "may" in my internal lexicon.

Based on the next sentence, that "the DM must agree that the condition is reasonable and has a likelihood of coming to pass," it sounds like the spell-ending condition must be a part of the spell, and therefore "can specify a condition" should be errata'd to say "must specify a condition." Any thoughts?

[Fwiffo86]

Fun with spellcasting....

Additional time. Meaning, all spells take longer to cast (greater chance of interruption, less breaking spells cast per combat, etc.) This is just an idea I used to use in 3rd.

Spell level 0 (Cantrips) - Cast time: 1 action
Spell levels 1-2 - cast time: 1 round
Spell levels 3-4 - cast time: 2 rounds
Spell levels 5-6 - cast time: 4 rounds
Spell level 7 - 8 - cast time: 5 rounds
Spell level 9 - cast time: 6 rounds

This presupposes you are in Combat mode and counting rounds. Outside of combat, time is relatively meaningless. It is important to say that some spells take significantly longer to cast (identify, resurrection, etc) and have their time listed as (x) and to be used as listed. Item activation was done as 1 step shorter, except for scrolls which were the same, and potions which were instant upon consumption.

It works ... ok I guess. The casters we heavily relying on their lower level spells for most things, with the "worthless" fighter types causing mass havoc in the in between casts. My caster players said it made their spells feel more potent and important to them, as they had to work harder to actually cast them. Opinions will vary. Some will simply say I'm being too hard on the casters. *shrugs* I had no complaints about the system.

[Psyren]

Imprisonment just sounds like they rolled it into Binding. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/binding.htm)

Also, it takes a minute to cast now so it's not going to be a combat spell anyway. It's a plot spell. I wouldn't worry about it.

[m4th]

Fun with spellcasting....

Additional time. Meaning, all spells take longer to cast (greater chance of interruption, less breaking spells cast per combat, etc.) This is just an idea I used to use in 3rd.

Spell level 0 (Cantrips) - Cast time: 1 action
Spell levels 1-2 - cast time: 1 round
Spell levels 3-4 - cast time: 2 rounds
Spell levels 5-6 - cast time: 4 rounds
Spell level 7 - 8 - cast time: 5 rounds
Spell level 9 - cast time: 6 rounds

This presupposes you are in Combat mode and counting rounds. Outside of combat, time is relatively meaningless. It is important to say that some spells take significantly longer to cast (identify, resurrection, etc) and have their time listed as (x) and to be used as listed. Item activation was done as 1 step shorter, except for scrolls which were the same, and potions which were instant upon consumption.

It works ... ok I guess. The casters we heavily relying on their lower level spells for most things, with the "worthless" fighter types causing mass havoc in the in between casts. My caster players said it made their spells feel more potent and important to them, as they had to work harder to actually cast them. Opinions will vary. Some will simply say I'm being too hard on the casters. *shrugs* I had no complaints about the system.

Interesting, but you have to bake all kinds of exceptions into the spell system. Feather Fall obviously can't take 1 round to cast. Furthermore, Concentration is now a straight Constitution save DC = half the damage taken while concentrating. Most damage is dealt in moderate amounts, resulting in Concentration DC's around 10 to 15: not impossible, but you're going to flub quite a few high level spells, and you don't get that many spell slots to begin with.

Edit:
I see you used this system in 3rd, when concentration was a skill and casters were far more relatively powerful. That makes sense. I still wouldn't recommend it for 5th. Casters have more than enough ways to kill themselves (I'm looking at you, Teleport.)

[The_Ditto]

Fun with spellcasting....

Additional time. Meaning, all spells take longer to cast (greater chance of interruption, less breaking spells cast per combat, etc.) This is just an idea I used to use in 3rd.

Spell level 0 (Cantrips) - Cast time: 1 action
Spell levels 1-2 - cast time: 1 round
Spell levels 3-4 - cast time: 2 rounds
Spell levels 5-6 - cast time: 4 rounds
Spell level 7 - 8 - cast time: 5 rounds
Spell level 9 - cast time: 6 rounds



Reminds me of this:
Power Word (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0306.html)

I'll pass :)

[m4th]

Reminds me of this:
Power Word (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0306.html)

I'll pass :)

It's Power Word SSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

[obryn]

That's just it though. Even if you pretend it is a single-target spell (i.e. that it's only going to take out one foe before using up its allotment), it's still going to be "just" another PWK - only this one isn't blocked by Death Ward, has 50% longer range, can be used all the way from level 1 and can be scaled down to lower levels when you know you'll be facing something weaker but would like to save your 9th slot for something else.

And there's always the chance that it isn't single target. Maybe the Fighter weakened them with a volley of arrows first, or the cleric went ahead of you and hit them with flame strike. Maybe your encounter consists of a collection of lower-CR enemies. Maybe you just rolled high on the d8s, landing somewhere near the 168 cap. (And we don't even know what the enchanter can do to this yet.) In those situations, it is a single-target spell that just might end up being more.
Yep, all of this can happen. The mitigating factors are still that (1) it goes after the lowest-HP guys first so minions before BBEG, and (2) any fractions are discarded.

It feels strong but not broken to me, but maybe I'm going into it with 1e/BECMI expectations.

[captpike]

Forget the casters. With characters getting all their HP back with a long rest, 5e will be the dawning of the two minute work day. As soon as the fighter gets scratched, he'll be demanding the party stop and rest for 24 hours so that he can be fully prepared for the next fight. After all, it's just optimal tactics, just like the 15 minute workday wizards.

Alternatively, we can realize that D&D is (and always has been to varying degrees) a game where time matters, and ignoring time is going to have side effects.

in some plots sure, but not all maybe not even most.

there also is something to be said for making the best strategies not the most boring strategies so you don't have to pick between making the choices your character would make (doing the best to stay alive) or what is the most fun (doing enough encounters per day to have them be a challenge)

[Human Paragon 3]

in some plots sure, but not all maybe not even most.

there also is something to be said for making the best strategies not the most boring strategies so you don't have to pick between making the choices your character would make (doing the best to stay alive) or what is the most fun (doing enough encounters per day to have them be a challenge)

The system in place does exactly that by letting fighters recover HP via second wind, letting wizards get spells back with arcane recovery, making cantrips at will, and providing an abundance of 1/encounter class features.

Let plot pick up the slack for the rest. If the party has the time to take a long rest before a big battle from time to time, that's not that big of a deal. Sometimes they will - and if they do, it's because the DM let them.

[Sartharina]

I'm still torn on Sleep's lack of defenses.

On one hand, it's useless if you cast sleep on a group it's supposed to affect and one saves. On the other, it feels really, really cheap to be affected by. However - it loses effectiveness quickly at higher levels - that 20' radius becomes a liability because it hunts down the least HP'd creatures it can find. And, it just costs an action to end the spell by anyone unaffected.

[1337 b4k4]

in some plots sure, but not all maybe not even most.

Out of curiosity, barring CRPG Take Your Time (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeYourTime) tropes and perhaps some time traveling plots, what plot doesn't have time as an important factor? Not necessarily on a minute by minute basis, but surely on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis? I mean even basic "clear this dungeon out of goblins" plots have time as a critical factor. If you attack the front door and then leave, you should expect traps and reinforcements when you return.

[obryn]

The optimal strategy in D&D has always - always - been to enter every situation at full resources. 5e is better than any edition other than 4e in this, since it at least gives some recovery during short rests.

The 15 minute workday has been part of D&D from the beginning, and 5e was not about to change it, because it requires major structural changes to recovery systems. If you can't make it work with your adventure, you'll have to do what I'm doing for 4e - either put time pressure on it, or find some way to weaken resting.

[m4th]

The system in place does exactly that by letting fighters recover HP via second wind, letting wizards get spells back with arcane recovery, making cantrips at will, and providing an abundance of 1/encounter class features.

Let plot pick up the slack for the rest. If the party has the time to take a long rest before a big battle from time to time, that's not that big of a deal. Sometimes they will - and if they do, it's because the DM let them.

Bolded for emphasis. This thread is about breaking the game, and too often it is said that DM interference doesn't/shouldn't count when evaluating how game-breaking something is. But its simply not a game without a DM, and DM's job is too keep the game from breaking so everyone can have fun.

As 5E currently stands, DM's have enough power and tools to prevent games from breaking. Except for Earthquake. Earthquake is ridiculous, whoever designed it should feel ashamed. Mega-Dungeon designed to take the characters from level 17 to 20? Earthquake. Villain threatening to invade your kingdom? How do your seige engines feel about Earthquakes? How does your home city feel about Earthquakes?

[Human Paragon 3]

Earthquakes

Most armies and cities are larger than a 100' radius spread. Also, the spell calls out that the DM controls where fissures appear, and determines whether they appear at all.

We also have no idea how many HP a building has.

It doesn't seem broken to me.

[Sartharina]

Bolded for emphasis. This thread is about breaking the game, and too often it is said that DM interference doesn't/shouldn't count when evaluating how game-breaking something is. But its simply not a game without a DM, and DM's job is too keep the game from breaking so everyone can have fun.And this relies on the tools given to DMs as well. There has to be a balance between player power and DM power. In 3.X, playing by the rules has the DM have to step in and change rules to stop players from breaking the game because the player's powers are unchecked.

In D&D 5e, the potentially-strongest powers and spells have a "You give the general idea, the DM gives the specifics" dialogue going on. When a cleric prays for divine intervention, the dice roll indicates that he does get intervention, and it's along the need of the cleric. However, the cleric isn't making a precise demand from his deity.


And, honestly, I'm glad we get Earthquake. Yes, it deals massive environmental damage. Yes, it can destroy areas... but it doesn't do any damage. My least favorite part about it, though, is that it's a dex save to avoid falling into the fissures. Falling in should be rarer than that.

Frankly, I'm glad we get army and environment-shattering high-level spells like Earthquake and Meteor Swarm.

[da_chicken]

That's just it though. Even if you pretend it is a single-target spell (i.e. that it's only going to take out one foe before using up its allotment), it's still going to be "just" another PWK - only this one isn't blocked by Death Ward, has 50% longer range, can be used all the way from level 1 and can be scaled down to lower levels when you know you'll be facing something weaker but would like to save your 9th slot for something else.

And there's always the chance that it isn't single target. Maybe the Fighter weakened them with a volley of arrows first, or the cleric went ahead of you and hit them with flame strike. Maybe your encounter consists of a collection of lower-CR enemies. Maybe you just rolled high on the d8s, landing somewhere near the 168 cap. (And we don't even know what the enchanter can do to this yet.) In those situations, it is a single-target spell that just might end up being more.

You're equating the effect of Sleep to be death. At low levels that is the case. At high levels, it really isn't. The effect of Sleep is:


Drop prone.
Drop what you're holding.
Attacks have advantage against you (negated by prone vs ranged).
Attacks within 5 feet cause a crit.
Lose your actions.


Those effects end as soon as you take damage (so best case is one crit) or someone kicks you awake (so unless you hit everyone, you might not get a full or any real effect). When the spell ends, the target will spend half his movement grabbing what he dropped and standing up.

Now, at low level when you have ~20 hp, that crit is basically just going to kill you. If you're at 100, though, a crit is still likely to do less than 20 damage to you. Even then, the Sleep is really only giving advantage on the attack roll and adding the crit dice. It still cost an action to make that attack, and the base damage is still wrapped into that action's cost.

Beyond that, you have no idea what a creature's hit points are at high level. It's easy to say that an orc is going to have ~10 hp max. A level 15 creature though? 100? 200? 300? You're going to gave to beat on it for awhile, probably, and that means your party has to move in to the possible area of effect! If you guess wrong and positioning is bad, you might burn a high level slot to make your own party member unconscious.

Don't get me wrong, sleep is super powerful at low levels, but there are a ton of mitigating factors that make it much more situational and much less controllable than it first appears.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Question, as I am on break at work and don't have the rules handy to me: What is the impact of being prone on a character? Unless a character upon being woken up is able to pick up all their equipment and stand up at the same time, the character is still going to be in a really bad situation.

[captpike]

The system in place does exactly that by letting fighters recover HP via second wind, letting wizards get spells back with arcane recovery, making cantrips at will, and providing an abundance of 1/encounter class features.

Let plot pick up the slack for the rest. If the party has the time to take a long rest before a big battle from time to time, that's not that big of a deal. Sometimes they will - and if they do, it's because the DM let them.
you will never be as powerful as you are in the first fight. given the nature of daily powers, your power drops off alot as you start to get lower. that might not be a big deal if spells were not so game-breakingly powerful but they are.
that means the only logical default strategy when fighting something that has a chance to kill or seriously hurt any one member of your party is to only fight once a day unless you have a overwhelming need to finish faster.

I can hardly think of a non-metagame reason to NOT do that unless your character dumped both int and wisdom.

the problem is that doing this, the most logical strategy, will result in non-casters being even more sidelined and fights that will likely either be TPKs or cakewalks.

there are ways to fix it, some of which 4e used, but I don't see any of them in 5e. if they include spells like rope trip they are actively making it worse, not better.


Out of curiosity, barring CRPG Take Your Time (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeYourTime) tropes and perhaps some time traveling plots, what plot doesn't have time as an important factor? Not necessarily on a minute by minute basis, but surely on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis? I mean even basic "clear this dungeon out of goblins" plots have time as a critical factor. If you attack the front door and then leave, you should expect traps and reinforcements when you return.

week to week does not matter, only daily. if you can wait a day between fights you should, no reason not to walk into every fight with enough power to win without contest if you can.

alot of situations yes, time will be an issue. but that is not always the case.

its not as much of an issue in 4e in large part because it effects everyone equally (at least if no one is using certain essential classes like the scout) so everyone is feeling the strain when your on your 8th fight for the day. you don't have wizards reduced to using their worst spells and fighters still being as capable as they were in fight 1.

the DM should determine how he wants to pace the game, then find a way to work it with the system not the reverse where the DM has to pace everything the same way because if you have 1 or 2 fight days the casters can dominate everything and the non-casters never get a chance to shine.

one situation that has come up alot in my campaign is when the PCs are traveling on their ship (glides on ice, or air now) and I want to have a fight in part to show their trip was long and not just go "and two months later you reach Dus" that is the only fight that day, and they characters know that (or at least know its unlikely for it not to be) so they can use almost all their powers.
there needs to be a way to handle that in 5e that does not amount to just letting the casters win it easily and not letting anyone else do anything of note.

[1337 b4k4]

Question, as I am on break at work and don't have the rules handy to me: What is the impact of being prone on a character? Unless a character upon being woken up is able to pick up all their equipment and stand up at the same time, the character is still going to be in a really bad situation.

From the post above yours:


When the spell ends, the target will spend half his movement grabbing what he dropped and standing up.

There are some other effects, but that's the cost of standing up.



that means the only logical default strategy when fighting something that has a chance to kill or seriously hurt any one member of your party is to only fight once a day unless you have a overwhelming need to finish faster.

I can hardly think of a non-metagame reason to NOT do that unless your character dumped both int and wisdom.

So like I said before, can we assume that all fighters will be demanding a long rest as soon as they're scratched given that a long rest restores all HP, or is this phenomena strictly limited to casters?



alot of situations yes, time will be an issue. but that is not always the case.


How about some examples.



one situation that has come up alot in my campaign is when the PCs are traveling on their ship (glides on ice, or air now) and I want to have a fight in part to show their trip was long and not just go "and two months later you reach Dus" that is the only fight that day, and they characters know that (or at least know its unlikely for it not to be) so they can use almost all their powers.
there needs to be a way to handle that in 5e that does not amount to just letting the casters win it easily and not letting anyone else do anything of note.

What encounter ending spells are your casters casting on a cramped ship? Sleep? Great, now who's flying the boat? Fireball? Yeah, there's a reason the navies of the world don't issue grenades to their sailors. Meteor Storm? I suppose if no-one wants to get to their destination alive. But beyond this, the problem is just as prevalent in 4e. If there's only one encounter per day and your players know it, your players are going to go nova.

And frankly, let's take a little aside to discuss these sort of "traveling encounters". In any modern D&D these are largely worthless. You as a DM are never going to make the encounter seriously challenging because it's not a primary encounter, and TPK at sea sucks a lot worse than TPK fighting the big bad (or getting there). You're also (as you stated) not going to have a bunch of these over the course of the day. And in any modern D&D game (3.x and above) any single rest which is not immediately followed by dangerous adventuring is a restoration of all lost abilities (including healing surges in 4e). In other words, these sorts of encounters are all the worst parts of random encounters with none of the good. They're effectively arena battles, which broke 4e too. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you're playing magic elf games wrong if you like these sorts of encounters, but they are not standard fair for the game, nor are they what designers have in mind when they made the game. Using these sorts of one off arena battles, implemented without any DM mitigations (i.e. the rocking motion of the ship has prevented you all from taking an adequate long rest) to measure the game system is really not going to give you an adequate picture. IMHO, if you're going to have a long journey, and said journey isn't going to be filled with encounters (combat or otherwise), then you're better off skipping the "one random encounter to show that things aren't all safe" and simply describe the events. You'll save precious gaming time and get back to the real story faster.

[Squirrel_Dude]

From the post above yours:Derp.

Thanks.

[captpike]

So like I said before, can we assume that all fighters will be demanding a long rest as soon as they're scratched given that a long rest restores all HP, or is this phenomena strictly limited to casters?

what?

first of all hp is binary, either you have enough or you don't. the only reason your hp would effect if your going into an encounter or not is if you think you will be knocked below 0 at your current total, but at full you would not be. once your above the "likely to be hurt to 0" point it does not matter.

secondly a fighters offense is in no way tied to their hp, a fighter at 1hp has the same options as a fighter at 100hp.
this is not the case with a wizard and their spells. a wizard with all his spells is a good bit more dangerous then one with only cantrips.

thirdly a wizard also has hp, there is no logic that would suggest a fighter would want to retire after every fight that he is not at full hp, that would not also apply to a wizard.



How about some examples.

off the top of my head from my campaign?

the major arc they just finished was trying to stop a rift to the abyss form being opened because a city was summoning too many undead. they found out about it 2 in game years before it was going to happen, with only 1 year of travel time to get there via the long way they needed to go.
I did that so they would have several options for how to deal with it, they could even try to raise popular support to get the leaders to change if they had wanted. if I had just given them enough time to get their and fight the warlock who was behind it then they would not have had any options.

The PCs were going to fight said warlock who was doing a slapped-together version of a ritual to open the portal early, he was three days away along a safe route, and because of what the PCs did he had no followers anymore. so that was the only fight of the day.

the PCs were approaching an outpost of a city, and spotted a distress arrow, so they went to help fight off a young dragon from attacking another ship. after that they were on land and ice controlled by the outpost, short of starting a brawl they would hardly have been able to get into another fight.

after a week of travel the PCs had reached the dwarvin tunnels, the last day or so of which was safe because it was monitored, when they slept they were jumped while in the VIP suite because a faction of the dwarves (incorrectly, but understandably) thought they were there to stop a drow-dwarf alliance



What encounter ending spells are your casters casting on a cramped ship? Sleep? Great, now who's flying the boat? Fireball? Yeah, there's a reason the navies of the world don't issue grenades to their sailors. Meteor Storm? I suppose if no-one wants to get to their destination alive. But beyond this, the problem is just as prevalent in 4e. If there's only one encounter per day and your players know it, your players are going to go nova.

And frankly, let's take a little aside to discuss these sort of "traveling encounters". In any modern D&D these are largely worthless. You as a DM are never going to make the encounter seriously challenging because it's not a primary encounter. You're also (as you stated) not going to have a bunch of these over the course of the day. And in any modern D&D game (3.x and above) any single rest which is not immediately followed by dangerous adventuring is a restoration of all lost abilities (including healing surges in 4e). In other words, these sorts of encounters are all the worst parts of random encounters with none of the good. They're effectively arena battles, which broke 4e too. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you're playing magic elf games wrong if you like these sorts of encounters, but they are not standard fair for the game, nor are they what designers have in mind when they made the game. Using these sorts of one off arena battles, implemented without any DM mitigations (i.e. the rocking motion of the ship has prevented you all from taking an adequate long rest) to measure the game system is really not going to give you an adequate picture. IMHO, if you're going to have a long journey, and said journey isn't going to be filled with encounters (combat or otherwise), then you're better off skipping the "one random encounter to show that things aren't all safe" and simply describe the events. You'll save precious gaming time and get back to the real story faster.
[/QUOTE]

if your going to judge someone, do so. judging someone, and calling the way they DM their game as stupid then saying its not your place to say that makes your either a liar or a hypocrite.

more to your point, why would you assume they were fighting someone on their ship, as opposed to from it? and why would you assume the fights were not connected to the plot?

for example I had a "random" kenku fight as the players neared a city that bordered a forest that had alot of kenku. the fact they attacked was odd, because the kenku rarely leave the forest. they learned a few sessions later that this is because the new kenku king issued a "join or die" proclamation and some choose to leave. the fact the kenku were leaving caused other effects as well, and lead into the main plot in an indirect way.

if by arena battles you mean PCs fighting other PCs then they did not break 4e, 4e was not made with that in mind. doing so no more breaks 4e then the fact your car is broken because it can't go 200 mph.

also "being able to handle days with only one fight, and everyone being useful in such a fight" is hardly niche or something that will hardly ever come up.

[da_chicken]

Derp.

Thanks.

To explain further, standing up from prone takes half your movement (Basic pp70-1) and you're allowed to interact with one object or environmental feature for free as a part of movement (Basic p70 has the example "pick up a dropped axe").

For completeness, being Prone (Basic p105) causes:


Disadvantage on your attacks (melee or otherwise)
Attacks against you within 5 feet have advantage, all others have disadvantage
You can only crawl to move, which costs double

[Arzanyos]

Yo captpike, there's a problem with your analysis. We just finished two pages of discussion that concluded that there really aren't that many game breaking encounter ending spells, and none that can allow a Wizard to singlehandedly win an encounter.

Also, HP is not as binary as you think. Whether you can take a hit and keep on going or not will radically alter your tactics. A fighter at 3/4 of her hp will probably be all to happy to charge into the fray, because she can survive getting hit a few times. A fighter at 3 hp will not step into melee, because he's one hit away from becoming Sir Useless McDeadguy.

[captpike]

Yo captpike, there's a problem with your analysis. We just finished two pages of discussion that concluded that there really aren't that many game breaking encounter ending spells, and none that can allow a Wizard to singlehandedly win an encounter.

Also, HP is not as binary as you think. Whether you can take a hit and keep on going or not will radically alter your tactics. A fighter at 3/4 of her hp will probably be all to happy to charge into the fray, because she can survive getting hit a few times. A fighter at 3 hp will not step into melee, because he's one hit away from becoming Sir Useless McDeadguy.

what? there are spells that take out targets for several rounds, web can just tell a half dozen enemies "NO" meteor swarm will single-handily make the wizard out damage the fighter for the encounter.

and of course the wizard has a choice, he can do damage if he wants, or he can do most anything else. the fighter can and can only do damage.

sure, I guess you could say a fighter who is one hit from down could just decide to stay out of the fight. but if you do your damage is the same. fighters have no offensive resources besides action surge. he is not going to be going at half strength when he is at half health.

btw I would contend that any fighter who will not get into melee is infact already useless.

[charcoalninja]

what? there are spells that take out targets for several rounds, web can just tell a half dozen enemies "NO" meteor swarm will single-handily make the wizard out damage the fighter for the encounter.

and of course the wizard has a choice, he can do damage if he wants, or he can do most anything else. the fighter can and can only do damage.

sure, I guess you could say a fighter who is one hit from down could just decide to stay out of the fight. but if you do your damage is the same. fighters have no offensive resources besides action surge. he is not going to be going at half strength when he is at half health.

btw I would contend that any fighter who will not get into melee is infact already useless.

Archers say hello.

[archaeo]

and of course the wizard has a choice, he can do damage if he wants, or he can do most anything else. the fighter can and can only do damage.

Gosh how can you edition warriors keep up this endless wizard vs. fighter argument.

For one thing, it's an imaginary limitation that requires a DM that always says yes and a player who purposefully chooses a class they will be unhappy playing. Out of combat, it's merely a failure of imagination; DMs get to design the adventure, and creating situations where the fighter will have the best toolkit for the task hardly seems impossible.

For another thing, I feel like fighter/wizard equality is poor game design. It goes without saying that the players aren't facing each other, but raw damage or out-of-combat flexibility are poor metrics for how "fun" something is in play. Having a diversity of mechanical and flavor hooks, all with built in varying degrees of crunch and complexity, make it possible for everyone to play the kind of character they want to play.

I hold myself mostly agnostic on how broken the Wizard is until I see it in play, but the impression I got from the rules is that a) the really broken spells are limited to the point that players will be feeling their spell slot limits and b) it's fun for lots of people to be a high-powered wizard and it's much easier from a DM standpoint to houserule out spells than it is to create all new ones.

[1337 b4k4]

first of all hp is binary, either you have enough or you don't. the only reason your hp would effect if your going into an encounter or not is if you think you will be knocked below 0 at your current total, but at full you would not be. once your above the "likely to be hurt to 0" point it does not matter.

secondly a fighters offense is in no way tied to their hp, a fighter at 1hp has the same options as a fighter at 100hp.
this is not the case with a wizard and their spells. a wizard with all his spells is a good bit more dangerous then one with only cantrips.

So you're telling me that when your fighter has 10 HP and when your fighter has 200 HP you play them the exact same way? Your tactics don't change at all? You don't get more risk averse as your HP decreases?



thirdly a wizard also has hp, there is no logic that would suggest a fighter would want to retire after every fight that he is not at full hp, that would not also apply to a wizard.

I'm fully aware of that. I'm just wondering if you think fighter players are going to act the same way as these hypothetical wizard players you keep bringing up. Since they now have a perfectly logical reason to behave the same way, it only follows that they would right?




the major arc they just finished was trying to stop a rift to the abyss form being opened because a city was summoning too many undead. they found out about it 2 in game years before it was going to happen, with only 1 year of travel time to get there via the long way they needed to go.
I did that so they would have several options for how to deal with it, they could even try to raise popular support to get the leaders to change if they had wanted. if I had just given them enough time to get their and fight the warlock who was behind it then they would not have had any options.


Of all your examples, this is the only one pertaining to time affecting the plot, not just an individual encounter. And even here, you demonstrate perfectly that your plot did indeed have a time limit. Yes, you gave them a full year of wiggle room. Which would have been consumed rather quickly if your party wizard demanded a full 24 hours rest after every single encounter. I mean, let's say along the way your players are going to get into a standard 5 encounter short "dungeon". With a days' travel time to and back, and 5 24 hour rests, you're players have just turned a 3 day event into a week long event.



if your going to judge someone, do so. judging someone, and calling the way they DM their game as stupid then saying its not your place to say that makes your either a liar or a hypocrite.

I said I wasn't going to tell you you were wrong, and I didn't. I did state that I thought you would be better off doing things differently, especially given your continued concerns about single encounter days, but whether you're right or wrong for your campaign is entirely up to you and your players.



more to your point, why would you assume they were fighting someone on their ship, as opposed to from it? and why would you assume the fights were not connected to the plot?

Well because I naturally assumed if you were fighting "from" the ship, you'd be using the ships weaponry, designed for ship combat. I apologize if that assumption was wrong. On the other hand, you did just state you think fighters who aren't in melee are useless, so I'm not sure what sort of melee your fighter is doing from a ship to a target at sea. As for plot connection, you stated yourself the purpose of the encounter was to do something other than "you get there safely". Sure you might have had a loose connection to your plot, but from that statement it's fairly reasonable to conclude this isn't a BBEG or a mini-boss.



for example I had a "random" kenku fight as the players neared a city that bordered a forest that had alot of kenku. the fact they attacked was odd, because the kenku rarely leave the forest. they learned a few sessions later that this is because the new kenku king issued a "join or die" proclamation and some choose to leave. the fact the kenku were leaving caused other effects as well, and lead into the main plot in an indirect way.

And was this fight intended to be challenging? Would you have allowed a player to die or a TPK for this fight?



if by arena battles you mean PCs fighting other PCs then they did not break 4e, 4e was not made with that in mind. doing so no more breaks 4e then the fact your car is broken because it can't go 200 mph.

By arena battle, I meant fully charged PCs vs opponents with foreknowledge (meta or not) that this was the only fight of the day. And those absolutely broke 4e because even 4e assumes that your PCs will ration their daily resources (powers and healing surges) rather than consume them all at once.



also "being able to handle days with only one fight, and everyone being useful in such a fight" is hardly niche or something that will hardly ever come up.

I suspect single encounter days are far more rare than multi-encounter days. Just like I suspect that most wizards don't demand a long rest after every battle.

[captpike]

Gosh how can you edition warriors keep up this endless wizard vs. fighter argument.

For one thing, it's an imaginary limitation that requires a DM that always says yes and a player who purposefully chooses a class they will be unhappy playing. Out of combat, it's merely a failure of imagination; DMs get to design the adventure, and creating situations where the fighter will have the best toolkit for the task hardly seems impossible.

For another thing, I feel like fighter/wizard equality is poor game design. It goes without saying that the players aren't facing each other, but raw damage or out-of-combat flexibility are poor metrics for how "fun" something is in play. Having a diversity of mechanical and flavor hooks, all with built in varying degrees of crunch and complexity, make it possible for everyone to play the kind of character they want to play.

I hold myself mostly agnostic on how broken the Wizard is until I see it in play, but the impression I got from the rules is that a) the really broken spells are limited to the point that players will be feeling their spell slot limits and b) it's fun for lots of people to be a high-powered wizard and it's much easier from a DM standpoint to houserule out spells than it is to create all new ones.

how one PC does in a fight against another is not relevant, nor is it the reason why balance matters.

if you want to play a simple fighter, the game should offer that choice, same with a simple wizard. same for complex versions of either class (or at least analogs). the game is not offering any choice right now. I could not play a tactical fighter if I wanted to.

if they are unwilling to give the fighter any flexibility the least they can do is make sure it is not possible to out damage him. even the use a Lv9 spell should not be enough to out damage a fighter of your same level.

[Shining Wrath]

you will never be as powerful as you are in the first fight. given the nature of daily powers, your power drops off alot as you start to get lower. that might not be a big deal if spells were not so game-breakingly powerful but they are.
that means the only logical default strategy when fighting something that has a chance to kill or seriously hurt any one member of your party is to only fight once a day unless you have a overwhelming need to finish faster.

I can hardly think of a non-metagame reason to NOT do that unless your character dumped both int and wisdom.

the problem is that doing this, the most logical strategy, will result in non-casters being even more sidelined and fights that will likely either be TPKs or cakewalks.

there are ways to fix it, some of which 4e used, but I don't see any of them in 5e. if they include spells like rope trip they are actively making it worse, not better.



week to week does not matter, only daily. if you can wait a day between fights you should, no reason not to walk into every fight with enough power to win without contest if you can.

alot of situations yes, time will be an issue. but that is not always the case.

its not as much of an issue in 4e in large part because it effects everyone equally (at least if no one is using certain essential classes like the scout) so everyone is feeling the strain when your on your 8th fight for the day. you don't have wizards reduced to using their worst spells and fighters still being as capable as they were in fight 1.

the DM should determine how he wants to pace the game, then find a way to work it with the system not the reverse where the DM has to pace everything the same way because if you have 1 or 2 fight days the casters can dominate everything and the non-casters never get a chance to shine.

one situation that has come up alot in my campaign is when the PCs are traveling on their ship (glides on ice, or air now) and I want to have a fight in part to show their trip was long and not just go "and two months later you reach Dus" that is the only fight that day, and they characters know that (or at least know its unlikely for it not to be) so they can use almost all their powers.
there needs to be a way to handle that in 5e that does not amount to just letting the casters win it easily and not letting anyone else do anything of note.

The classic way to make a party hurry is to have monsters that actually DO things. You clean out room #1, the guys in room #2 send for reinforcements, or leave with their treasure, or fortify their room, or sneak up on you while you're resting (now that Rope Trick is somewhat nerfed).

[captpike]

So you're telling me that when your fighter has 10 HP and when your fighter has 200 HP you play them the exact same way? Your tactics don't change at all? You don't get more risk averse as your HP decreases?

so long as you have enough to to get you through the encounter it does not matter.





I'm fully aware of that. I'm just wondering if you think fighter players are going to act the same way as these hypothetical wizard players you keep bringing up. Since they now have a perfectly logical reason to behave the same way, it only follows that they would right?

...offense is not the same as defense? the more offense you have the faster and more easily you can win the fight. defense is only important if it keeps you from hitting 0. having 5 more AC will not make your enemies fall down faster.

and yes you should rest between fights unless you have a reason not to, but this will not come up as often as doing so because of spells because of healing.



Of all your examples, this is the only one pertaining to time affecting the plot, not just an individual encounter. And even here, you demonstrate perfectly that your plot did indeed have a time limit. Yes, you gave them a full year of wiggle room. Which would have been consumed rather quickly if your party wizard demanded a full 24 hours rest after every single encounter. I mean, let's say along the way your players are going to get into a standard 5 encounter short "dungeon". With a days' travel time to and back, and 5 24 hour rests, you're players have just turned a 3 day event into a week long event.

it had a time limit, but not one that was short enough to stop the 5min work day problem.

yes in some situations time is a factor but the game should allow for situations where it is not. even if its rare, that does not mean it should not be allowed for. DMs should have the freedom to set the pace they want, not be forced to set the pace to what the game tells them to.



Well because I naturally assumed if you were fighting "from" the ship, you'd be using the ships weaponry, designed for ship combat. I apologize if that assumption was wrong. On the other hand, you did just state you think fighters who aren't in melee are useless, so I'm not sure what sort of melee your fighter is doing from a ship to a target at sea. As for plot connection, you stated yourself the purpose of the encounter was to do something other than "you get there safely". Sure you might have had a loose connection to your plot, but from that statement it's fairly reasonable to conclude this isn't a BBEG or a mini-boss.

I don't have any fighters in my group. and I said it was an ice ship, there are more then enough ways to have things around the ship when its on ice.



And was this fight intended to be challenging? Would you have allowed a player to die or a TPK for this fight?

it had a low to no chance of a TPK, but if every fight had a high chance if a TPK you would never get to level 5



By arena battle, I meant fully charged PCs vs opponents with foreknowledge (meta or not) that this was the only fight of the day. And those absolutely broke 4e because even 4e assumes that your PCs will ration their daily resources (powers and healing surges) rather than consume them all at once.

the difference is that in 4e everyone is just as hurt or helped by the length of the day, offensively at least. you dont have some classes who can nova and kill everything, and other classes who have no ability to nova at all.



I suspect single encounter days are far more rare than multi-encounter days. Just like I suspect that most wizards don't demand a long rest after every battle.

less common yes, but not enough to justify ignore it.

also alot of people meta-game it away by not resting when they should ("no I don't want to easily beat the next fight, we can do it today and risk death rather then tomorrow and easily win").


The classic way to make a party hurry is to have monsters that actually DO things. You clean out room #1, the guys in room #2 send for reinforcements, or leave with their treasure, or fortify their room, or sneak up on you while you're resting (now that Rope Trick is somewhat nerfed).

again, in some situations that works. but not all. being able to have only one fight a day and have it be fun for everyone is something that is important for the game to support.

[1337 b4k4]

so long as you have enough to to get you through the encounter it does not matter.

Pretty much bored with this conversation now, but: How do you know you'll have enough HP to get through the next encounter? Does your DM tell you the next encounter will have X enemies dealing Y damage and will only be attacking you Z times? If not, why would you not demand a 24 hour rest after every fight to ensure your best chances of survival?

[captpike]

Pretty much bored with this conversation now, but: How do you know you'll have enough HP to get through the next encounter? Does your DM tell you the next encounter will have X enemies dealing Y damage and will only be attacking you Z times? If not, why would you not demand a 24 hour rest after every fight to ensure your best chances of survival?

you make a guess, and yes you should rest after every fight unless your given a reason not to.

the difference is that its easier to get hp back between fights then spells. and having more hp does not make you hit harder.

[Arzanyos]

So wait, are you saying that you enter the dungeon, clear out the first encounter's worth of enemies, then make camp and take a long rest? Wouldn't the other enemies notice something was up and plan accordingly?

Imagine your party was raiding a hobgoblin encampment. You enter, take out the sentry, and clear the accompanying guardpost. Because he's a showboat, your wizard cast Web on the hobgoblins, and then had to burn several more spells to take out all of them, lest his party members become useful. Then the party stops to rest, even though the other members could keep going for a while. Couldn't you see this happening.

Hobgoblin 1: Eh, Kimo and his patrol never came in for dinner.
Hobgoblin 2: Yeah, and there was some noise over by there too. Like one Wizard or something.
Hobgoblin 1: Better to tell Kainalu to move the treasure shipment up to today, and send an ogre or five to that entrance. And then we better scram, and find one new base of operations.

Also, these gamebreaking spells you are talking about are still just phantoms. Web is good, yes, but it allows two saves, and can be burned out of. Meteor Swarm does tons of damage, but is your only level 9 spell for the day, has tons of splash damage, so you could easily kill yourself with it, and when you use it, either your party is glad, because they needed all the damage they could get against whatever you hit, or you just marked yourself forever as The Overkill Killer. As for those other spells, see the last 2 or so pages.

I think that in 5E, the Wizard is a very powerful enabler. He does awesome, unique things, but he needs the rest of the party to actually get things done.

[Wh0sthere]

So....just to ask, everyone is screaming caster or fighter then?

[captpike]

So wait, are you saying that you enter the dungeon, clear out the first encounter's worth of enemies, then make camp and take a long rest? Wouldn't the other enemies notice something was up and plan accordingly?

Imagine your party was raiding a hobgoblin encampment. You enter, take out the sentry, and clear the accompanying guardpost. Because he's a showboat, your wizard cast Web on the hobgoblins, and then had to burn several more spells to take out all of them, lest his party members become useful. Then the party stops to rest, even though the other members could keep going for a while. Couldn't you see this happening.

Hobgoblin 1: Eh, Kimo and his patrol never came in for dinner.
Hobgoblin 2: Yeah, and there was some noise over by there too. Like one Wizard or something.
Hobgoblin 1: Better to tell Kainalu to move the treasure shipment up to today, and send an ogre or five to that entrance. And then we better scram, and find one new base of operations.

Also, these gamebreaking spells you are talking about are still just phantoms. Web is good, yes, but it allows two saves, and can be burned out of. Meteor Swarm does tons of damage, but is your only level 9 spell for the day, has tons of splash damage, so you could easily kill yourself with it, and when you use it, either your party is glad, because they needed all the damage they could get against whatever you hit, or you just marked yourself forever as The Overkill Killer. As for those other spells, see the last 2 or so pages.

I think that in 5E, the Wizard is a very powerful enabler. He does awesome, unique things, but he needs the rest of the party to actually get things done.

I said you should rest between every fight unless you have good reason not to, being the middle of a dungeon would be a good reason not to.

anyone who is smart enough to have meteor swarm is smart enough not to use it in such a way as to kill themselves. the fact that you can out do the fighter at the only thing the fighter can do once a day is not a good enough excuse for out doing him.

when can the fighter out do the wizard at things the wizard does well?

you act like overkill is bad, its not.

the fact that the wizard "needs the rest of the party" is a very low bar. when does the fighter shine? when are the times you need a fighter and where nothing else will work. I see alot of situations for the wizard, none for the fighter unless you go for very long days (which you should only do if your backed into a corner).

[Arzanyos]

Nah man, the way to break 5E is this... Rogue. All the way. All day every day. Just spam disengage, and speedrun through dungeons. Pick locks with a bonus action. Scrolls. Sneak attack and then run away and then Sneak attack and then run away ad naseum. I can't even tell whether i'm joking or not. I need to reread the pdf.


EDIT: Okay, so you don't rest after every fight when you're in a dungeon. Cool, that will probably be often, for most people. As for times the fighter outdoes the wizard; damage. When? Before 17th level, and every single turn afterwards except the one round a day when meteor swarm is cast, and twice on sundays with action surge.

Also, the fact that a wizard needs a party with him is a big deal. I can't see a wizard soloing a dungeon. Attrition will get him, and it'll get him quick. Meanwhile, a fighter or a rogue could solo a dungeon, the fighter by being awesome at what he does, and able to heal whenever he wants, able to tank like a boss, and being able to block anything that does damage and kill anything that bleeds. hint.
The rogue can just go all Batman, as detailed above.

[Envyus]

So....just to ask, everyone is screaming caster or fighter then?

They are both good. Some people are just saying that the Caster will make the others invalid when he clearly won't.

[da_chicken]

So....just to ask, everyone is screaming caster or fighter then?

Oh, no, we decided by page 2 that we would have to wait for the PHB but that that most likely thing to break would be casters. Even then, we'll have to play it for awhile. There isn't enough material to make enough decisions where any party member would be considered "broken". There are a few spells of concern (hold, sleep, otto's irresistable dance, maze, any combat spell which has a non-instant duration and doesn't require concentration) and DCs are of apparent concern (since casters improve over 20 levels, but not all saving throws improve over 20 levels). However, nobody has played the game long enough to know.

The whole discussion of captpike vs everybody else about encounters per day is, as usual, a total tangent relatively unrelated to the actual topic.

[Callin]

Honestly I think its going to be the dip here and there to cherry pick low level class abilities that are not effected by whatever mutliclass penalty they impose on a Caster Chassis. Say Cleric 13, Fighter (or Paladin) 5, Rogue 2. Yea you need decent Stats, but if you only need a Decent Dex to Mulitclass Fighter then you got the Reqs in 2. Wis and Dex. If you need Str (or going Paladin) then you need 3 Stats which in all honesty is NOT that hard to get. You get 4 Stat increases with this set up. If your table uses the Feat Variant then you need to weigh that vs Stat Increase (Or depending on how good they are and build a Human can get a bonus at first to cover it). If not (since it is a variant) then yea you are going to get decent stats. +2 four times to stats up to 20 is awesome. Wis>Str=Dex>Con>Int=Cha.

The versatility of this is just Amazing (depending on full PHB release :p). (specualtion ahead) 7th lvl Cleric Spells, 13% Divine Intervention (so it will go off sooner or later), 3 Channel Divinities, All but your lvl 17 Domain Feature, Fighting Style, Second Wind, Action Surge, the First Martial Archtype ability, a Second Attack (all if you go Fighter, I dont know Paladin), Expertise with 2 skills, 1d6 Sneak Attack (meh lol), Thieves Cant, and yet more uses for your bonus action than you can shake a stick at. Not to mention (depending on how save profs work) Proficiency in every save. So a versatile as heck character that can actually make sense from a RP point of view as well. Give it a good background and OMG the skills haha.


Thats my point of view and 100% pure speculation hahaha but man does it get the blood a pumping in anticipation for the actual rules for multiclassing haha.

[Doug Lampert]

Yo captpike, there's a problem with your analysis. We just finished two pages of discussion that concluded that there really aren't that many game breaking encounter ending spells, and none that can allow a Wizard to singlehandedly win an encounter.

Also, HP is not as binary as you think. Whether you can take a hit and keep on going or not will radically alter your tactics. A fighter at 3/4 of her hp will probably be all to happy to charge into the fray, because she can survive getting hit a few times. A fighter at 3 hp will not step into melee, because he's one hit away from becoming Sir Useless McDeadguy.
I'll also add an experience from my first 3.0 campaign.

Me, after openly rolling for the hydra breathing on the character while he rolled saves: "That's 73 damage total."

Player: "I'm dead?"
Me: "Don't you have 69 HP? You should just be negative."
Player: "I didn't bother to heal the last seven damage from the last encounter, it might have wasted a healing wand charge."
Me: "You MORONS! This is the THIRD time someone has died in this campaign because they didn't use a wand of cure light wounds between encounters! That's almost 20,000 GP** down the tubes. Do you have any idea how many cure light wound charges you can buy or make for 20,000 GP!? Don't do that!!!"

**3.0 true resurrection material component was only 5,000 GP, worth it to avoid the level loss, but paying for spellcasting services made that 6,530. Hence a bit less than 20,000 GP for three extra uses.

If encounters are individually dangerous, then there's simply no "safe" level of HP. 3.x especially was full of "gotcha" instant death type encounters (orc barbarian critical hitting with his greataxe caused one of those other unnecessary deaths for example).

Thus if you insist that the wizards will always want full spell load-outs you should be equally adamant that the fighters will always want max HP.

Max HP are at least as necessary to the fighter as max spells to the caster. The reason that in 3.x the fighter's HP didn't cause the 15 minute workday is given in my observation from above. Between combat healing was cheap and easy to manage with items.

In practice parties will continue down a few HP or down a bunch of spells, as long as they have "enough" HP and "enough" spells; and "enough" is a judgment call. (Note that that 3.0 party continued to not "waste" healing wands when someone was down 4 or fewer HP, which I still thought was stupid of them, but it never again caused a death due to trivial fluctuations in HP numbers).

[Human Paragon 3]

The versatility of this is just Amazing (depending on full PHB release :p). (specualtion ahead) 7th lvl Cleric Spells, 13% Divine Intervention (so it will go off sooner or later), 3 Channel Divinities, All but your lvl 17 Domain Feature, Fighting Style, Second Wind, Action Surge, the First Martial Archtype ability, a Second Attack (all if you go Fighter, I dont know Paladin), Expertise with 2 skills, 1d6 Sneak Attack (meh lol), Thieves Cant, and yet more uses for your bonus action than you can shake a stick at. Not to mention (depending on how save profs work) Proficiency in every save. So a versatile as heck character that can actually make sense from a RP point of view as well. Give it a good background and OMG the skills haha.



That sounds awesome and fun, not broken. You still don't get the full attack power of a fighter (fighter 20 gets double the attacks!), or 9th level casting (not to mention auto-succeeding divine intervention at 20).

[Sartharina]

In my experience, players tend to value expedience far more than 'optimal effectiveness'. People want to get **** done in the few hours they have to play per session. DMs and other players tend to drag out 'downtime' far longer than is strictly 'necessary' by arguing OOC about how necessary it is or what happens during it.

The optimal strategy, therefore, isn't to hit everything as hard as you can from full (If so, you must hate 4e, because EVERYONE has powerful abilities limited to per-day usage, so the fighters, rogues, wizards, clerics and everyone demand to long rest after every battle to get their blown dailies back?), but to triumph over each encounter with as little resource expenditure as possible, and only stopping once completely out of resources.

[1337 b4k4]

In my experience, players tend to value expedience far more than 'optimal effectiveness'. People want to get **** done in the few hours they have to play per session. DMs and other players tend to drag out 'downtime' far longer than is strictly 'necessary' by arguing OOC about how necessary it is or what happens during it.

The optimal strategy, therefore, isn't to hit everything as hard as you can from full (If so, you must hate 4e, because EVERYONE has powerful abilities limited to per-day usage, so the fighters, rogues, wizards, clerics and everyone demand to long rest after every battle to get their blown dailies back?), but to triumph over each encounter with as little resource expenditure as possible, and only stopping once completely out of resources.

This is my experience too. While I have no doubt that some 15 minute workday players actually exist, I suspect they are a very small minority, and like most things, is a theoretical problem, not a practical problem.

[Callin]

That sounds awesome and fun, not broken. You still don't get the full attack power of a fighter (fighter 20 gets double the attacks!), or 9th level casting (not to mention auto-succeeding divine intervention at 20).

It is fairly powerful, but I was going more with the power of its Versatility. Since thats what most people here consider to be a good measuring stick. Spells to bypass encounters- Check, Skills to bypass encounters- Check, Combat Prowess to bypass encounters (aka kill)- Check. Solid AC and Solid Saves. Good out of combat healing, and the kicker of them all the Divine Intervention of your God (best used in downtime for a basic Auto Success given enough time)

[Human Paragon 3]

It is fairly powerful, but I was going more with the power of its Versatility. Since thats what most people here consider to be a good measuring stick. Spells to bypass encounters- Check, Skills to bypass encounters- Check, Combat Prowess to bypass encounters (aka kill)- Check. Solid AC and Solid Saves. Good out of combat healing, and the kicker of them all the Divine Intervention of your God (best used in downtime for a basic Auto Success given enough time)

Maybe I'm just biased because I like playing weird builds that gain a strange grab bag of powers. It's the kind of character I gravitate toward.

[Fwiffo86]

the fact that the wizard "needs the rest of the party" is a very low bar. when does the fighter shine? when are the times you need a fighter and where nothing else will work. I see alot of situations for the wizard, none for the fighter unless you go for very long days (which you should only do if your backed into a corner).

*cough* Anti-magic *cough*

[obryn]

*cough* Anti-magic *cough*
eeehhhnnn... Anti-Magic always struck me as a way to (temporarily) fix something the game itself broke, and I'd rather just not have a broken game in the first place, you know?

[Squirrel_Dude]

*cough* Anti-magic *cough*Always be careful with throwing anti-magic spheres/zones around as a way to make fighters important. Looking over Basic, expecting that magical gear will be less important that could certainly be a not-unreasonable tool in 5e.

However, keep in mind systems like 3.5/PF (I can't speak to 4e), where anti magic completely gimped the fighter and rogue and mundane classes because all of their magical gear suddenly stopped working.

[obryn]

However, keep in mind systems like 3.5/PF (I can't speak to 4e), where anti magic completely gimped the fighter and rogue and mundane classes because all of their magical gear suddenly stopped working.
At its core, anti-magic is a gamist conceit to change up the rules for a while and make it so the wizard can't just wizard everything to victory. In 4e, where wizarding is equally powerful with swording and stabbing and god-ding, it's not only unnecessary, it's pretty punitive. So there's very, very little antimagic.

[Lord Raziere]

At its core, anti-magic is a gamist conceit to change up the rules for a while and make it so the wizard can't just wizard everything to victory. In 4e, where wizarding is equally powerful with swording and stabbing and god-ding, it's not only unnecessary, it's pretty punitive. So there's very, very little antimagic.

which is something that 4e did right. we wouldn't need this way of temporarily depowering some classes to repower a bunch of others- it just trades non-magic players not having fun for magic players not having fun for a little while. and that is generally at high levels when anti-magic can start being used at all. not to mention that for the spell to used at all, there is at least ONE wizard somewhere who either cast it from a safe distance or got a minion to cast it through an enchanted rod or something instead. so even if its used, it means that there is still an enemy wizard out there who can kill the mundane classes easily, and just needed to get the party wizard out of the way. meaning its not really a game changer, since no mundane class can use it without some wizard being involved on some level, and a high level one that probably won't do it for free- I imagine that if you come to an enchanter and ask for a rod of anti-magic zone, the wizard will be suspicious of what you intend to use it for, and ask for more than just money to make it for you.

[Sartharina]

which is something that 4e did right. we wouldn't need this way of temporarily depowering some classes to repower a bunch of others- it just trades non-magic players not having fun for magic players not having fun for a little while. and that is generally at high levels when anti-magic can start being used at all. not to mention that for the spell to used at all, there is at least ONE wizard somewhere who either cast it from a safe distance or got a minion to cast it through an enchanted rod or something instead. so even if its used, it means that there is still an enemy wizard out there who can kill the mundane classes easily, and just needed to get the party wizard out of the way. meaning its not really a game changer, since no mundane class can use it without some wizard being involved on some level, and a high level one that probably won't do it for free- I imagine that if you come to an enchanter and ask for a rod of anti-magic zone, the wizard will be suspicious of what you intend to use it for, and ask for more than just money to make it for you.

To be fair, pre-4e had a LOT of depowering mechanics, from creatures that liked to sunder, disarm, and destroy weapons/armor or ignore physical attacks to shut down fighters, creatures with Sneak Attack Immunity and/or exotic senses to shut down rogues, and Antimagic/spell resistance to shut down mages. The idea is that those would shake up player complacency in their approach to conflict to try to punish min-maxing and crippling overspecialization. Unfortunately, a lot of those creatures seem to have been re-worked so that instead of shaking up encounter approaches, they relied on overpowering the exotic defenses with MOAR POWAR, along with creating a whole host of overentitled whiners who think that a character should never be put in a situation that they can't bring their most optimal strengths/tactics to bear against, disrupting the balance between narrow specialists and flexible generalists strongly in the specialist's direction.

Ideally, over a campaign, the specialist and generalist should be balanced against each other: The specialist is supposed to shine like a star in the situations that let him use his specialization with a balance of show-stopping and hanging in the background, but crash hard/sit out a fair amount as well, while the generalist lightly glows throughout the campaign, never fading into the background of inadequacy, but never show-stealing like the specialist can.

[Psyren]

At its core, anti-magic is a gamist conceit to change up the rules for a while and make it so the wizard can't just wizard everything to victory. In 4e, where wizarding is equally powerful with swording and stabbing and god-ding, it's not only unnecessary, it's pretty punitive. So there's very, very little antimagic.

AMF matters from a simulationist/narrativist perspective too. Without it, your band of heroes has to turn to slitting throats, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0399.html) because mundane incarceration simply does not cut it vs. magical foes.

[Lord Raziere]

To be fair, pre-4e had a LOT of depowering mechanics, from creatures that liked to sunder, disarm, and destroy weapons/armor or ignore physical attacks to shut down fighters, creatures with Sneak Attack Immunity and/or exotic senses to shut down rogues, and Antimagic/spell resistance to shut down mages. The idea is that those would shake up player complacency in their approach to conflict to try to punish min-maxing and crippling overspecialization.


Oh because that worked so well, with people optimizing into CoDzillas and batman wizards anyways and thus becoming godly, while rogues and fighters got left in the dust. yeah. REAL SUCCESSFUL THERE. DOUBLE THUMBS UP.

sure, everyone got such measures, but only the wizards could regulate their own weakness so that if a fighter ever came by, this could happen:

Fighter: hey, I need you to enchant me a rod of anti-magic zone
Wizard: ok um....I need you to go on a quest first. go fetch me some dragon's teeth from the red dragon on top of that mountain and I'll enchant it for you, for free.
Fighter: Okay.
*after Fighter is gone*
Wizard: he could kill me once he got that rod, I better get out of here! I just hope he doesn't realize I lied...
*Wizard gathers up all his possessions into his bag of holding*
*teleports away*

because once you think about it: there is no in character reason for wizards to make any such thing for anyone else. the weakness only comes about when other wizards use it. once they had that magic over to somebody else, they are potential target of that magic, and as Tippy himself once said, wizards get high enough level to even cast anti-magic zone by being the most paranoid and well-prepared people around. they are NOT going to hand anti-magic rods out to other people, especially to people who might want to kill him.

[Nizaris]

From the closed playtest, Illusion Wizard. Illusionary Reality + Illusion Master means you can trap any opponent in a cage (no save) and then spam your free level 1 or level 2 spells from Spell Mastery until the target is dead.

[Chaosvii7]

To be fair, pre-4e had a LOT of depowering mechanics, from creatures that liked to sunder, disarm, and destroy weapons/armor or ignore physical attacks to shut down fighters, creatures with Sneak Attack Immunity and/or exotic senses to shut down rogues, and Antimagic/spell resistance to shut down mages.

I just wanted to call out 5e's decision to not drain stats away because it's a dumb and archaic rules construct is probably my most favorite part of the game. I can't imagine it's ever actually been fun for anybody ever to lose them. My regular DM seems to have some strange interest in necromancers, because there's an excessive amount of them in games we play. Like, a lot of them. And it really bothers me. All we do is take ability score damage and drain and negative levels out the wazoo. It just feels really dirty and underhanded because it takes away all of the players' hard work(definitely moreso than just hit points, because they're designed to be traded away from combat) while also making encounters lose a lot of meaning very quickly.

Granted, this is a design philosophy adopted from 4e, and I am totally willing to acknowledge that because it's awesome(I mean 4e was cool overall, but when I learned that I'd never have to worry about becoming paralyzed forever from 0 DEX or turning into a wraith because I hit level 0 I was immediately sold.) That and keywords. If this edition had keywords we'd be golden. Like literally the perfect game in every way.

[obryn]

Chaosvii7, if the Shadow from the closed Monster Manual is any indication, ability damage is unfortunately back. :smallsigh:

There's hints of it in the Basic set when it talks about your Constitution being reduced, too.

[Fwiffo86]

I'll be honest. If your problem with Anti-magic is that you feel its simply a mechanic to make other classes feel powerful, instead of situationally forcing your Uber-Wiz to rely on something other than his spells, I don't think the problem is the Anti-magic. The problem is the Wizard. Anti-magic messes EVERYONE up. All magic items cease working, no cleric healing, no potion guzzling, no wand waving. This is the reason I like it.

I disagree with any Wizard knowing how to generate anti-magic fields. I understand the logic, we have scientists who know how to engineer diseases that can wipe out the planet after all. I would never put the capability to CREATE anti-magic in my players hands. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but every character should run into situations where their standard tactics are completely shut down. It forces the player to either rely on their compatriots, or think outside the box. If you have issues with this philosophy, I'm putting you in the category of delusional power-mongering. Does this change anything? No. Everyone is welcome to their opinion on the matter.

Somewhat related....

One of the things I have noticed on various forums over the years of 3e and on, is that people come up with these ridiculously broken builds, and then actually expect someone to allow it to be played. No, I'm not letting you play your Terrasque bull rushing halfling. Rules allow it? Sure, I can't argue with your build. I can argue that you don't get to use that character. If you don't like it, you don't have to play, I have 4 other players who are entitled to just as much fun without your Uberling dominating everything.

[Jeraa]

Chaosvii7, if the Shadow from the closed Monster Manual is any indication, ability damage is unfortunately back. :smallsigh:

There's hints of it in the Basic set when it talks about your Constitution being reduced, too.

The Greater Restoration spell very specifically says it removes any reduction to one of the targets ability scores. So ability loss must exist in some capacity.

[Inevitability]

The Greater Restoration spell very specifically says it removes any reduction to one of the targets ability scores. So ability loss must exist in some capacity.

I hope it remains solely for the monsters, even not accesible by PC's who summon a monster. We don't need another Shivering Touch.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I hope it remains solely for the monsters, even not accesible by PC's who summon a monster. We don't need another Shivering Touch.The issue with that is this: Is it unfair or unreasonable to expect a BBEG character who has class levels (be those wizard, fighter, cleric, or whatever levels) to be able to act like a monster and deal ability score damage?

[obryn]

I hope it remains solely for the monsters, even not accesible by PC's who summon a monster. We don't need another Shivering Touch.
I honestly don't want it in any form. I think it's overly burdensome and complex, compared to the benefits which it provides. Stopping the game to recalculate stats isn't fun to me.

[captpike]

*cough* Anti-magic *cough*

the second they put anit-magic into the game they are admitting that magic is too powerful, that it needs to be reined in. and of course the only way to that is use more magic..

arcane and divine magic should have just as many in built limitations as any power power source should. there should be things only marshal characters can do well, and that you have to use costly workaround if you don't have one.

[Inevitability]

The issue with that is this: Is it unfair or unreasonable to expect a BBEG character who has class levels (be those wizard, fighter, cleric, or whatever levels) to be able to act like a monster and deal ability score damage?

No. NPC's have access to power sources players do not have, for the sake of the Plot.

The warlock has sacrificed thousands of humans in an eldritch ritual, and as a result his touch is now deadly (constitution damage).
The cleric who worships a god of madness can invoke this same madness in his opponents (wisdom damage).
The psion who has made a terrible pact with an Elder Evil can eat his enemies' thoughts. (intelligence damage)

Just add such an ability to the monster's statblock and come up with a reason for it.

[Sartharina]

the second they put anit-magic into the game they are admitting that magic is too powerful, that it needs to be reined in. and of course the only way to that is use more magic..

arcane and divine magic should have just as many in built limitations as any power power source should. there should be things only marshal characters can do well, and that you have to use costly workaround if you don't have one.And the second they put in anti-martial (Such as incorporeality, or resistance, or etc...) it means that martial abilities are too powerful and need to be reigned in!

[captpike]

And the second they put in anti-martial (Such as incorporeality, or resistance, or etc...) it means that martial abilities are too powerful and need to be reigned in!

were it total negation that only applies to marshal then yes. where such in the game now they would be wrong, but that would be the statement they would be making. that they think marshal classes are overpowered.

they should try to make the classes work as is, rather then making some overpowered and then putting in situations where they become worthless.

[Sartharina]

were it total negation that only applies to marshal then yes. where such in the game now they would be wrong, but that would be the statement they would be making. that they think marshal classes are overpowered.

they should try to make the classes work as is, rather then making some overpowered and then putting in situations where they become worthless.Or, since it has both martial AND magic AND stealth negation mechanics, it's clear that the idea isn't that "X playstyle/class feature is overpowered, so we need to turn it off situationally", and more "Encounters should have diverse mechanics that encourage, discourage, or even shut down specific mechanics and playstyles to prevent player complacency"

A wizard that finds himself with curtailed magic ability isn't worthless - he has to use his other class features (Weapon Proficiency is a thing - his attacks hit almost as hard and accurately as a Fighter's, though he only gets one. There are also Tool and Skill proficiency), or find other ways to use his magic more creatively.

Antimagic was a problem in 3e because martial characters derived most of their power from magic items, and casters could get around antimagic with ease (Hello, SR-No spells and Instantaneous Conjurations!).

[Lord Raziere]

see this is why no one was believing of WotC when they said they were going to make a modular system: things like this. our viewpoints on how to reign in character abilities from being too overpowered are completely the opposite.

One side says that anti-magic is the way and it changes things up.

the other side says the anti-magic is unnecessary and that magic should be designed to be equal to the other classes.

...when the pro-anti magic side views not having it as boring and that its a part of a system of other anti-class effects designed to shut down certain tactics entirely.

....the anti-anti-magic side views it as stealing fun away from people since fighters and rogues not actually being as broken as wizards, don't actually need such anti-effects to constantly challenge them

.....when the pro side views wizard being useful enough with their magic to somehow satisfy them...

.....while I at least, don't. I don't play a sorcerer to not cast spells. if I'm not casting spells as a class designed for it, I'm not having fun.

not to mention that its possible for a GM to include ALL the anti-effects all at once to cause a party TPK. you add in such shut downs, you got to acknowledge that there might be killer DM's who might do just that, its assuming a competent DM when you can't assume that. sure the shutdown effects are good in the hands of competent DMs, but not every DM is competent or know how to use such things right. you have to trust the DM that he knows what he is doing when he uses those sorts of effects on the party. and if what we have so far on 5e is supposed to be about DMs just starting out....well, I'll just say this: do you trust them? not the DM you have that you have gamed with for years, but the new ones, who have no idea what they're doing with the system?

[captpike]

Or, since it has both martial AND magic AND stealth negation mechanics, it's clear that the idea isn't that "X playstyle/class feature is overpowered, so we need to turn it off situationally", and more "Encounters should have diverse mechanics that encourage, discourage, or even shut down specific mechanics and playstyles to prevent player complacency"

A wizard that finds himself with curtailed magic ability isn't worthless - he has to use his other class features (Weapon Proficiency is a thing - his attacks hit almost as hard and accurately as a Fighter's, though he only gets one. There are also Tool and Skill proficiency), or find other ways to use his magic more creatively.

Antimagic was a problem in 3e because martial characters derived most of their power from magic items, and casters could get around antimagic with ease (Hello, SR-No spells and Instantaneous Conjurations!).

were that the case they instead are saying "we have no idea what we are doing" because they are telling characters they main shick, the thing they made their character to do, they are now not allowed to do in any way.

there are subtle ways to do anything you want to do with antimagic. the only reason to use anitmagic is to tell a wizard they are nto allow to use their only important class features

you play a wizard to use magic.

when all you can do is use a weapon you don't have the stats to use you are worthless.
as a general rule if the best you can do is what any peon could do, then you are in fact worthless.

[Sartharina]

were that the case they instead are saying "we have no idea what we are doing" because they are telling characters they main shick, the thing they made their character to do, they are now not allowed to do in any way.

there are subtle ways to do anything you want to do with antimagic. the only reason to use anitmagic is to tell a wizard they are nto allow to use their only important class features

you play a wizard to use magic.

when all you can do is use a weapon you don't have the stats to use you are worthless.
as a general rule if the best you can do is what any peon could do, then you are in fact worthless.
1. No, it's saying to break out of your tunnel vision. Your character may have been made to do one thing, but he has a hell of a lot of other tools at his disposal as well. If he chooses to ignore them, the problem's on him. And, if you made your character only capable of doing one thing and you find that thing not practical, you suck at games. The risk of having your schtick shut down is not a secret, and complaints about not being able to do what you want are just as valid as complaining about being roasted to death by a dragon because you don't think it should be allowed to breath fire.

2. Wizards have other class features. Also, there are ways around antimagic (Dead magic zones suck, though).

3. I think you need to recalibrate your expectations and understanding of wizards. They aren't "ALWAYS MAGIC ALL THE TIME!" I suggest reading a few books to get a greater appreciation of spellcasters in fantasy:
Discworld by Terry Pratchett, especially the books involving Rincewind (Starting with The Color Of Magic and The Light Fantastic.)
The Exploits of Ebenezum by Craig Shaw Gardener
Myth Adventures by Robert L. Aspirin

Yes, they're all comical, but they also emphasize what a spellcaster is even without magic and limited spellcasting ability.

4. Peons are not worthless when they're in the right place at the right time with the right tool.

[captpike]

1. No, it's saying to break out of your tunnel vision. Your character may have been made to do one thing, but he has a hell of a lot of other tools at his disposal as well. If he chooses to ignore them, the problem's on him. And, if you made your character only capable of doing one thing and you find that thing not practical, you suck at games. The risk of having your schtick shut down is not a secret, and complaints about not being able to do what you want are just as valid as complaining about being roasted to death by a dragon because you don't think it should be allowed to breath fire.

its one thing to not be able to use fire magic, its another to not be able to use magic at all.

a pyromancer who can't use fire magic is a character who has to use some spells that he rarely uses, or has to use his powers indirectly

a wizard who can't use magic is not a wizard he is a guy in a robe who is unable to help you in any way



2. Wizards have other class features. Also, there are ways around antimagic (Dead magic zones suck, though).

yes but not important class features.



3. I think you need to recalibrate your expectations and understanding of wizards. They aren't "ALWAYS MAGIC ALL THE TIME!" I suggest reading a few books to get a greater appreciation of spellcasters in fantasy:
Discworld by Terry Pratchett, especially the books involving Rincewind (Starting with The Color Of Magic and The Light Fantastic.)
The Exploits of Ebenezum by Craig Shaw Gardener
Myth Adventures by Robert L. Aspirin

Yes, they're all comical, but they also emphasize what a spellcaster is even without magic and limited spellcasting ability.

how is that relivent to anything? sure alot, maybe even most fictional wizards don't use magic all the time, and if you want to play someone like that you should be able to. maybe a gish or something.

forcing every magic user to do so is a bad idea.



4. Peons are not worthless when they're in the right place at the right time with the right tool.

sure if a I see one running at my paladin with a +5 holy avenger he would be useful, or if I see an army of them willing to pledge themselves to me that also would be useful.

[Arzanyos]

A wizard out of spells can still set up the pick'n'roll flank for the rogue to be able to sneak attack.

[Lord Raziere]

let see, a Wizard in pathfinder without spells is:

a guy with some ranks in knowledge, spellcraft or linguistics- don't see much combat or adventuring applications there, aside from the knowledge thing, but then even then, thats kind of what we have a rogue for: to be the expert that solves things without resorting to swording it or spellcasting.

A wizard in 4e without spells is:
a guy with potentially ranks in diplomacy, insight, arcana, history, nature or religion, meaning they can be a diplomat if the spellcasting thing doesn't work out. but again, nothing a rogue can't already do by default, as they're the skillmonkey

A wizard in 5e without spells is:
a guy with ranks in two of these things: arcana, history, insight, investigation, medicine or religion. meaning they can no longer be a diplomat, but now they can be....a back up medic, at best.

so all in all, what is a Wizard without spells? a scholar who MIGHT have some mundane training in something practical like diplomacy or medicine, but no guarantees that they will be useful in a no-spell situation. if I wanted to play a mundane scholar with skills, I'd go for a rogue with ranks in knowledges I like, which can be made to work because a rogue is all about being smart without spells. wizard is all about being smart with spells. if I want a hybrid class that can be useful with or without spells, I go play a swordmage type of class, or a bard, or a Beguiler- things like that. not when I'm a Wizard. Wizard is for Wizarding, not roguing. If I want to both wizard it and rogue it, I play Beguiler or something like that. if I play a pure class I expect that purity to always be useful. if I want to prepare for the eventuality where spells are useless, why play a class where spells is the entire point of the class and nothing else?

and Rincewind is not a wizard, he is a rogue, who thinks he is a wizard. any sufficiently advanced and theatrical rogue is no different from a low-level wizard.

[Arzanyos]

Wizards still get quarterstaff proficiency, right? They can fight just as well as a rogue without sneak attack.

[Lord Raziere]

Wizards still get quarterstaff proficiency, right? They can fight just as well as a rogue without sneak attack.

or evasion, which is y'know, vital as well. or the armor the rogue gets. or any of the other potential combat advantages the rogue gets. again, if I wanted to both rogue and wizard it, I'd play a Beguiler or a Bard.

[Wh0sthere]

Mountain dwarf wizard with heavy armor mastery and without spells can be a decent non specialized melee combatant.

[pikeamus]

I can sort of understand the issue people have with anti-magic, but it really doesn't bother me. I think it's fun when you're sometimes stuck on the back foot, prevented from using your strengths, and you have to rely on the different specializations of your companions, and good decision making of your own, to make it through. It makes for a good story. But then, I always quite enjoyed games where each player gets their own chance to shine in turn, rather than all players contributing evenly to every encounter or event. I also enjoy games where struggling to survive or escape or circumvent obstacles, rather than tearing through everything head on, plays a major part.

The disagreement on this issue is just on preferred play style. I'm sure people arguing on both sides have played both 3.5 and 4e and seen how the thing they arguing in favour of plays out, so I don't really see anyone changing their mind, and I don't really think both sides can be satisfied with one set of rules.

[Psyren]

Oh because that worked so well, with people optimizing into CoDzillas and batman wizards anyways and thus becoming godly, while rogues and fighters got left in the dust. yeah. REAL SUCCESSFUL THERE. DOUBLE THUMBS UP.

The hypercompetent CharOp wizard is really a tiny minority of all the tables out there. I think fear of what might be has done more harm to this game than what has actually happened or is likely to happen.

Half of the anti-AMF tricks start with Invoke Magic (endgame tactic), Initiate of Mystra (extremely setting-specific - even in FR, not all of her worshipers get that) and Tinfoil Hat (there are no rules for wearing a tent that way so you're already in fiat territory.)



because once you think about it: there is no in character reason for wizards to make any such thing for anyone else. the weakness only comes about when other wizards use it. once they had that magic over to somebody else, they are potential target of that magic, and as Tippy himself once said, wizards get high enough level to even cast anti-magic zone by being the most paranoid and well-prepared people around. they are NOT going to hand anti-magic rods out to other people, especially to people who might want to kill him.

Yes they will actually, because wizards and even clerics cannot be arsed to waste all their precious time policing other wizards and clerics. Not when they can make an anti-magic stick, hand it to a muggle, and set him to stand guard over the now powerless miscreant, anyway.

[Lord Raziere]

The hypercompetent CharOp wizard is really a tiny minority of all the tables out there. I think fear of what might be has done more harm to this game than what has actually happened or is likely to happen.

Half of the anti-AMF tricks start with Invoke Magic (endgame tactic), Initiate of Mystra (extremely setting-specific - even in FR, not all of her worshipers get that) and Tinfoil Hat (there are no rules for wearing a tent that way so you're already in fiat territory.)



Yes they will actually, because wizards and even clerics cannot be arsed to waste all their precious time policing other wizards and clerics. Not when they can make an anti-magic stick, hand it to a muggle, and set him to stand guard over the now powerless miscreant, anyway.

the muggle then says "why should I take orders from you?" uses it on him, and kills him, and declares himself king.

[Fwiffo86]

the muggle then says "why should I take orders from you?" uses it on him, and kills him, and declares himself king.

so you are supposing the Wizard is king. That's interesting. And we have established that in 5e, the wizard is a better melee combatant than your average commoner, has more hit points than your average commoner, hits harder than your average commoner, and basically says... Ouch. *shank* Ok, which of you commoners wants to actually do what I asked instead?

[charcoalninja]

the muggle then says "why should I take orders from you?" uses it on him, and kills him, and declares himself king.

Or the muggle is his fighty friend that he's be adventuring and building an empire with for 20 years. Or his dumbass second cousin he gave a job to when nobody else would, or the Wizard is extremely kickass (in 5e he's actually a cleric) and pays his muggles well so they have no reason whatsoever to cross the exploding golden goose... etc.

[Lord Raziere]

your assuming for the best.

that never works out. politics desire for power and so on eventually make sure that anti-magic rod falls into the wrong hands. the wizard will die because of his stupidity of making that. all the other wizards in the land learn their lesson from the idiot, and just kill all potential rivals for the throne no matter what class they are, then never make any anti-magic rods ever again. its simply too dangerous for people like wizards and politicians. they are people of power. they don't do anything if they think there is a risk of losing said power. wizards are the same but with arcane power, learning to be cautious so that they can keep it. even a single anti-magic rod is a dangerous risk that could screw up everything. to paraphrase Xykon, if your power can be lost so easily, you never had any to begin with.

the worst case scenario is that you die because of your own stupidity of making an anti-magic rod. there is no reason to make one because of this.

[Psyren]

the muggle then says "why should I take orders from you?" uses it on him, and kills him, and declares himself king.

Because I'm sure whoever made the antimagic cells in Azure City was murdered upon completion. Why would anyone be that blatantly idiotic? You kill the one set of guys who can make all the things you depend on?

Also, why is the wizard "king?" King is a boring and mundane job that gets in the way of research, plane-hopping and such. Gandalf wasn't king. Merlin wasn't king. Milamber wasn't king. It's utterly nonsensical.

[Sartharina]

or evasion, which is y'know, vital as well. or the armor the rogue gets. or any of the other potential combat advantages the rogue gets. again, if I wanted to both rogue and wizard it, I'd play a Beguiler or a Bard.


its one thing to not be able to use fire magic, its another to not be able to use magic at all.

a pyromancer who can't use fire magic is a character who has to use some spells that he rarely uses, or has to use his powers indirectly

a wizard who can't use magic is not a wizard he is a guy in a robe who is unable to help you in any wayIf he's an elf, he can shoot a bow or swing a sword, and flank just fine. He probably also has above-average Dexterity, and decent Constitution on top of his INT.


how is that relivent to anything? sure alot, maybe even most fictional wizards don't use magic all the time, and if you want to play someone like that you should be able to. maybe a gish or something.

forcing every magic user to do so is a bad idea.No, a gish breaks the idea entirely. ...just read the damn books.


sure if a I see one running at my paladin with a +5 holy avenger he would be useful, or if I see an army of them willing to pledge themselves to me that also would be useful.Your standards are too high. You take what you can get.



your assuming for the best.

that never works out. politics desire for power and so on eventually make sure that anti-magic rod falls into the wrong hands. the wizard will die because of his stupidity of making that. all the other wizards in the land learn their lesson from the idiot, and just kill all potential rivals for the throne no matter what class they are, then never make any anti-magic rods ever again. its simply too dangerous for people like wizards and politicians. they are people of power. they don't do anything if they think there is a risk of losing said power. wizards are the same but with arcane power, learning to be cautious so that they can keep it. even a single anti-magic rod is a dangerous risk that could screw up everything. to paraphrase Xykon, if your power can be lost so easily, you never had any to begin with.

the worst case scenario is that you die because of your own stupidity of making an anti-magic rod. there is no reason to make one because of this.Assuming the worst is a lot worse than assuming the best. If the Wizard was the type to assume the worst-case scenario for any course of action, he'd still be level 1 doing nothing because he would never have taken the risk to go on an adventure in the first place. (Also - Wizards aren't the ones that make antimagic stuff in 5e. Clerics are, and they don't give a **** if you try to pull a fast one over them because they still have their hammers and armor and mundane asskicking ability)

Also - Tippy is wrong about how wizards get to their position.

[T.G. Oskar]

Mind if I say a little something?

I've seen this notion that if a Wizard cannot use its spells and is blocked by anti-magic, then it's unfair because the Wizard's main and ONLY thing is being supposed to cast spells. Thus, anti-magic is unfair and shouldn't be allowed.

Why, then, you don't think the same of a Fighter who cannot Fight? When your specialization is wielding a weapon with two hands because it's the most efficient way to fight (in your opinion; it could be because you like big weapons...) and the enemy suddenly flies, forcing you to use a sub-par weapon...you're not fighting at 100% efficiency.

Then, what happens when you simply can't fight the target? A Cleric with Astral Projection, if it works exactly like 3e, means the Fighter is no longer capable of fighting at all. Incorporeal creatures in anti-magic fields? Fighters cannot fight. Blur and Mage Armor (the latter has no concentration effect) at tandem against a Fighter?

The first involves that, no matter what you do, the Fighter is completely and utterly disabled: this is bad, because the Fighter has no tool in its list to work that out. The second is similar to the first, but since (at least in 3e; wonder what 5e will do to it) you should have a way to bypass that penalty and all of a sudden you're removed that, you're effectively left out of the fight, as the Fighter doesn't have the right tool for it. The third involves the Wizard using its own tricks to effectively remove the Fighter from combat, as it combines a strong defense with disadvantage, meaning the Fighter must be VERY lucky to land a hit.

This also includes three possibilities where the Fighter's main schtick (fighting) is disabled, and the Fighter can't react. I haven't seen yet the side that protests about unfairness thinking this is either fair or unfair, and this is just as much a problem as Wizards incapable of using spells. Please note that these involve some effort, but at least two of them are tools given to the other classes, AND that could be part of the DM's arsenal. Maybe one or two could have said that, but the bickering makes this difficult to follow.

I'm happy that the Fighter, a class I don't usually play (or play at ALL) but to which I can identify has a new assortment of cool tricks, such as Second Wind and Action Surge, but at its core, all they can do is Fight. I also like they have a wider assortment of skills, but judging what you say about Wizards (without spells, they're mundane scholars with some potential at healing; without the ability to fight, Fighters are really strong guys that might be good at finding things and maybe surviving in the wild, if not because one of their skills will rely on being great at climbing and swimming, something that can be eclipsed by a Rogue given enough time), Fighters are just as bad because what remains is being worse than a Rogue. A Cleric without spells can still fight reliably; a Fighter without the ability to fight is worse than nearly everyone else.

I mention this to put something in perspective: saying that anti-magic on a Wizard is unfair is not realizing just how unfair the magical world is to the mundane, and the Fighter is a superb example of this. Defensive magical spells are a good example of how the Fighter can be potentially removed from its utility, and yet you don't see people pleading for the removal of said effects. Worse: it's expected that mages do better than mundanes because, y'know, magic. And, to an extent, it's true: magic can do things mundanes can't not just because traditionally they can, but because magic isn't subject to the natural laws (only to their own). It requires something as drastic as anti-magic to remove the Wizard from play, something a mundane character cannot reliably access on its own, whereas removing a mundane character from play requires only using magic, which a Wizard can probably access. That's unequal, and it'll always involve a side which will benefit the most from another.

Think about this: a creative player removed of its main tools will probably improvise with others. This applies to all classes. If a Fighter has to do that when a character effectively removes him from combat, and all it requires is creativity from the player, so should a Wizard. Consider that the Wizard with a Crossbow and decent Dex is only about 1-3 points away from a Fighter with its best weapon and nearly max ability score in terms of attack rolls, and you can notice that they can still contribute to battle if they are magically disabled. A Fighter doesn't suddenly change from swordplay to spells when it can't fight (unless the Eldritch Knight archetype thing is true, and that's still on suspense). Before arguing that removing the character's main tool is unfair and focusing only on one side, consider what happens when you remove the character's tools from other people.

[Fwiffo86]

Excellent point. Especially since its FAR easier, and FAR more common to eliminate the main focus of the fighter than it is a Mage. I agree completely that this is generally being ignored. You have my thanks.

[Lord Raziere]

again, if I wanted to both sword it and magic it, I'd play a swordmage. if I want to play a pure caster, I expect to purely cast spells. I'd rather have my wizard character die from not having any spells than use a staff, and I'd rather leave the game than play with a DM that uses anti-magic on my wizard. why? because I don't play a wizard to whack people with staffs. that is just not my preference. if I invest into one thing and one thing only as a class, why the flip are you insisting that situations come up where all my investment has all been for nothing? I'm not flipping gandalf or merlin or whatever wise mystical old man you care to name. I'm the protagonist from kingdoms of amalur, I'm the sith apprentice from force unleashed, I'm the ninja from ninja gaiden, I'm a guy who has power and is going to use in many awesome and spectacular ways.

I'm my own wizard, my own fighter, my own rogue, and I want to show the world my might. none of this "use your power wisely, cautiously and with great care" bull, none of this "learn to fight like a normal, newb" bull. If I want to play a wizard, I expect to use my power. If I play a rogue, I expect my sneak attacks to work. If I play a fighter, I expect to be able to cut things in half with one stroke. if your just going to someday go "lolnope, I'm denying you the entire point why you play the class, do this other thing you don't care about and isn't fun for you" then don't DM for me at all. :smallannoyed:

I know why you consider shutdown effects fun, but guess what: that won't cut it with me. the argument that it might come up only rarely is not good enough. I don't want to be shutdown. period.

[PinkysBrain]

Tinfoil Hat (there are no rules for wearing a tent that way so you're already in fiat territory.)
There are rules for holding objects of specific sizes in hands ... so if the DM really wants to say you can't wear a hat shaped item made of cloth on your head you can just have an improved familiar hold it in it's hand.

[1337 b4k4]

that never works out. politics desire for power and so on eventually make sure that anti-magic rod falls into the wrong hands.

...

the worst case scenario is that you die because of your own stupidity of making an anti-magic rod. there is no reason to make one because of this.

And yet, none of the scientists anywhere in the world who made nuclear weapons are rulers, and a vast number of them are still alive. Me thinks you don't fully understand all the subtleties of power, but the long and short of it is that pure raw power does not guarantee an actual position of power.


if I invest into one thing and one thing only as a class, why the flip are you insisting that situations come up where all my investment has all been for nothing?

Because you're an adventurer in the world, and the world does not revolve around you. It's the same reason why every monster you encounter will not be a monster you can defeat with your raw powers (or even at all). It's the same reason why sometimes, you won't negotiate to release the prince. It's the same reason why sometimes, despite your best efforts, the kingdom will still fall. Because you are not the center of the universe around which the whole world revolves. Adventures, encounters and scenarios don't exist just to give you warm fluffy feelings. The exist because I have created a living and breathing world, of which you are one part.



I'm not flipping gandalf or merlin or whatever wise mystical old man you care to name. I'm the protagonist from kingdoms of amalur, I'm the sith apprentice from force unleashed, I'm the ninja from ninja gaiden, I'm a guy who has power and is going to use in many awesome and spectacular ways.

Er... all of your examples also had more tricks up their sleeve than "I magic it".



I'm my own wizard, my own fighter, my own rogue, and I want to show the world my might. none of this "use your power wisely, cautiously and with great care" bull, none of this "learn to fight like a normal, newb" bull. If I want to play a wizard, I expect to use my power. If I play a rogue, I expect my sneak attacks to work. If I play a fighter, I expect to be able to cut things in half with one stroke. if your just going to someday go "lolnope, I'm denying you the entire point why you play the class, do this other thing you don't care about and isn't fun for you" then don't DM for me at all. :smallannoyed:

Gladly. And I mean this completely without malice. Your way of playing doesn't strike me as any sort of fun, and it's clear that were I running a game, neither you nor I will have fun, so it is best if we don't game. You don't want to be forced to think and act outside of the specific boxes you've placed your character in. I want to create a world that lives and breathes and doesn't exist purely to demonstrate how awesome and unfailing my players are. And that's totally cool because there's no reason you and I must game, other than this weird obsession people have with combing everyone under one very specific banner. Since I don't have this obsession, you can continue to play your elf games, and I'll play mine, and we'll both be happy.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't see how "living breathing world" is any way related to "anti-magic" or why I can't have both living breathing world and my playstyle. don't exclude my playstyle from being sophisticated and good at roleplaying just because I prefer playing a barbarian over playing a fighter.

[1337 b4k4]

I don't see how "living breathing world" is any way related to "anti-magic" or why I can't have both living breathing world and my playstyle.

Because a world in which every adventure you go on and every challenge you face is neatly boxed to fall within the purview of your abilities and never makes things too difficult for you and never forces you to rely on skills and abilities that aren't you default is a world that is custom tailored to revolve around you. It is not a real, living, breathing world.


don't exclude my playstyle from being sophisticated and good at roleplaying just because I prefer playing a barbarian over playing a fighter.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't understand what you're saying here.

what I'm saying that your saying that just because I prefer to play a barbarian, a raging powerhouse of raw power rather than fighter, a tactical class of discipline and technique, that my roleplaying is somehow "lesser" :smallannoyed: I do not like that. not all of us want to play the subtle master of tactics, or a tactical master all the time, sometimes I just want to play a guy who blows things up or smashes them so hard awesome happens, that doesn't mean they're stupid or not well-rounded characters, just that they prefer their combat exuberant and artistic, rather than stale and tactical.

[1337 b4k4]

what I'm saying that your saying that just because I prefer to play a barbarian, a raging powerhouse of raw power rather than fighter, a tactical class of discipline and technique, that my roleplaying is somehow "lesser" :smallannoyed: I do not like that. not all of us want to play the subtle master of tactics, or a tactical master all the time, sometimes I just want to play a guy who blows things up or smashes them so hard awesome happens, that doesn't mean they're stupid or not well-rounded characters, just that they prefer their combat exuberant and artistic, rather than stale and tactical.

I did not say your roleplaying was lesser. In fact I specifically said that you and I having different play styles was perfectly cool. Nor did I compare a barbarian combat and a fighter combat. None of this has anything to do with AMFs or with the idea of taking a character and putting them outside their comfort zone. So I really don't get where this is coming from. :smallconfused:

[Squirrel_Dude]

No. NPC's have access to power sources players do not have, for the sake of the Plot.

The warlock has sacrificed thousands of humans in an eldritch ritual, and as a result his touch is now deadly (constitution damage).
The cleric who worships a god of madness can invoke this same madness in his opponents (wisdom damage).
The psion who has made a terrible pact with an Elder Evil can eat his enemies' thoughts. (intelligence damage)

Just add such an ability to the monster's statblock and come up with a reason for it.I find that to be an unsatisfying solution. It would be, through the medium of gameplay, a concrete statement that the DM's creations are playing with rules different than the players' characters. Certainly one could simply allow a player's evil psion to also make a terrible pact with an Elder Evil to gain the same power out of fairness, then we would only be at square one, with both sides having access to ability drain.

Only now the responsibility is fully on the GM to create, manage, and distribute these rules, shifted away from the designers.

[Inevitability]

Certainly one could simply allow a player's evil psion to also make a terrible pact with an Elder Evil to gain the same power out of fairness.

One could indeed do so. However, by doing that, the DM agrees to give a power intended for NPC's to PC's and suffer the consequences. The DM is houseruling by that point, and it isn't a particulary balanced houserule either.

Or as IC reason: DM's may be fair, but Elder Evils aren't. They might as well just make your head explode for trying to gain some of their power.

[Madeiner]

Wow, so many completely different playstyles.

At the start of my campaign, i told players to make characters that can do many things, because almost every session i WILL impose some penalties to one or more "things" in combat.

This monster is immune to magic.
This one is immune to physical damage.
This area has flight-disabled.
This area is completely antimagic.
This encounter is in a tornado, no ranged combat.
This monster deflect all rays.
This area is dimensional-locked.

Heck, i did one entire adventure in which all characters were trasmuted into animals with special powers and having to compete in a moba-like arena.

If you can do ONE thing, chances are, in my campaign, you won't get to it that often.

[Lord Raziere]

I did not say your roleplaying was lesser. In fact I specifically said that you and I having different play styles was perfectly cool. Nor did I compare a barbarian combat and a fighter combat. None of this has anything to do with AMFs or with the idea of taking a character and putting them outside their comfort zone. So I really don't get where this is coming from. :smallconfused:

no you see, tactical classes are symptomatic of the wider playstyle of being prepped for everything and treating it all as a tactical game. when there are characters I don't want to be tactical with, but forceful and wild like a barbarian. the AMFs are also a symptom of not supporting the playstyle I want, which doesn't care about that tactical sort of thing.

but whatever, I apologize for being angry and accusatory and unperceptive.

[Squirrel_Dude]

One could indeed do so. However, by doing that, the DM agrees to give a power intended for NPC's to PC's and suffer the consequences. The DM is houseruling by that point, and it isn't a particulary balanced houserule either.I don't think it's fair yet to assume that ability score damage is intended to be only used by Monsters or NPCs. All we can assume, judging from a spell description, is that it will be in the game in some form.

The DM is houseruling from the beginning of this scenario. By giving a character powers not native to their race, background, or specifically class in this case, he has already made houserules. Regardless of their nature as NPCs or monsters. Certainly custom monsters are a normal thing, but players are not expected to be able to play them. Giving a NPC with class levels ability score drain from those class levels, by comparison, is the equivalent to having classes that only the DM can played, unknown to and locked away from the player's use.

Again, that is a result that I am not particularly fond of.



The last IC character reason doesn't work either: Assuming that Psions are still an INT based class, then it is unreasonable to expect them to make a pact for such a minor power if it carried a high risk. Certainly it could be tied to a character's wisdom as well, but nonetheless the reason you presented comes of less as a natural rule of the world and more as just a warning from the DM to the players to not ask for special powers that he gives to the NPC.



Having posed the original question: I believe the best answer to the problem will be a where some kind of Summoning, Binding, or Dominate Monster took place.

[Inevitability]

I don't think it's fair yet to assume that ability score damage is intended to be only used by Monsters or NPCs. All we can assume, judging from a spell description, is that it will be in the game in some form.

I never intended to prove that, I just wanted to express that I wouldn't like to have ability damage up for grabs for players. Or at least if it is, to prevent monsters who are supposed to be strong (like dragons) from going down with one dose of ability damage.

[PinkysBrain]

Wow, so many completely different playstyles.

At the start of my campaign, i told players to make characters that can do many things, because almost every session i WILL impose some penalties to one or more "things" in combat.
So you want an all gish party?

[Squirrel_Dude]

I never intended to prove that, I just wanted to express that I wouldn't like to have ability damage up for grabs for players. Or at least if it is, to prevent monsters who are supposed to be strong (like dragons) from going down with one dose of ability damage.I understand your fear. That's as much an issue with monster ability score allotment as it is ability damage, though. Ability score damage has also always been a status effect much better suited to a video game, or some system where the player didn't have to recalculate all their scores on the fly.

Of course I think that 3.5, 4e, and PF would all be better with computer assistance to help keep track of all the modifiers for the player. I don't think 5e will work in this regard due to the more negotiated nature of the rules, but I would love if PF had a proper virtual table program designed from the ground up to run it.

[Sartharina]

Eh... 5e's simple enough that temporary changes to ability scores aren't hard.

Of course, I prefer ability penalties to ability damage - have effects that reduce ability scores overlap, not stack.

[Lord Raziere]

Wow, so many completely different playstyles.

At the start of my campaign, i told players to make characters that can do many things, because almost every session i WILL impose some penalties to one or more "things" in combat.

This monster is immune to magic.
This one is immune to physical damage.
This area has flight-disabled.
This area is completely antimagic.
This encounter is in a tornado, no ranged combat.
This monster deflect all rays.
This area is dimensional-locked.

Heck, i did one entire adventure in which all characters were trasmuted into animals with special powers and having to compete in a moba-like arena.

If you can do ONE thing, chances are, in my campaign, you won't get to it that often.

Kay, I'm playing a bard. Then I'm singing in Every Battle. :smallbiggrin:

[Madeiner]

So you want an all gish party?

I try to play with low optimization, so everyone is encouraged to be able to do many things.
The paladin in my group is a sword and board fighter, but also picked up proficieny with bows, because he knows there are times where melee isn't effective. Also, he wields some limited magic in times where bows are not optimal, to be able to buff, heal, or even do basic magic attacks.
The sorcerer always carries a gun, wands, and daggers in case magic is somehow disabled.

Being not that much optimized, it is more feasible to do things that are not your main style.
It also helps that we have houserule for training feats during downtime, but only those feats that give breadth of options and not specialization into something.

[LordFluffy]

If I want to play a wizard, I expect to use my power. If I play a rogue, I expect my sneak attacks to work. If I play a fighter, I expect to be able to cut things in half with one stroke.As a GM, I want my players who take the time to craft their individual Cool Thing(TM) to have a chance to do their Cool Thing(TM). In fact, I want each character to have at least one moment every so often where they feel their Cool Thing(TM) is what turned the tide of battle and saved the day.

That said, the thing that makes tabletop RPG's different than, say, a FPS where eventually you get your BFG9000 and using anything else is pointless, is that sometimes your Cool Thing(TM) doesn't fit the scenario.

It shouldn't be all the time. I also think it should be situational and something one can prepare for rather than something that get's sprung on the characters so they feel that none of their character's preparations or expertise is ever going to be of use, but often enough that the players/characters have to work around their temporary limitations so they can get back in a slot where they can do their Cool Thing(TM) again.

And yes, I'm including "casting spells" as a Cool Thing(TM).

Right now, 5E feels really like it's set up to define your Cool Thing(TM) based on your class, whereas I felt that there are a lot more Cool Things(TM) in 3.5 that you get to come up with on your own, so I'm looking forward to seeing the options in the expanded rules in the PHB/DMG.

But I don't see the hate for the DM not crafting every encounter so that that logical answer is "Do the Cool Thing(TM)"!

[Knaight]

that never works out. politics desire for power and so on eventually make sure that anti-magic rod falls into the wrong hands. the wizard will die because of his stupidity of making that. all the other wizards in the land learn their lesson from the idiot, and just kill all potential rivals for the throne no matter what class they are, then never make any anti-magic rods ever again. its simply too dangerous for people like wizards and politicians. they are people of power. they don't do anything if they think there is a risk of losing said power. wizards are the same but with arcane power, learning to be cautious so that they can keep it. even a single anti-magic rod is a dangerous risk that could screw up everything. to paraphrase Xykon, if your power can be lost so easily, you never had any to begin with.

the worst case scenario is that you die because of your own stupidity of making an anti-magic rod. there is no reason to make one because of this.

You're ignoring short term factors, allegiances, and a number of other things. Over the long term, it's better for wizards as a whole for there to not be anti-magic rods. Over the short term, it could very much be better. Maybe a particular wizard needs a particular other wizard gone, and actually has loyal subordinates or associates. Maybe a particular faction is dealing with entirely too many dangerous wizards, and anti-magic rods make sense to compete. Maybe a particular wizard knows that they will be attacked by other wizards, and wants them for defense. So on and so forth. It's easy to come up with particulars here - a city watch is underfunded, their wizard makes anti-magic rods to try and keep up with criminal elements in the city; a homestead is preparing for an inevitable assault by a personal rival (think vikings), anti-magic rods make sense in the short term for defense, etc.

To use a real world example - there have been various times wherein armor was often pretty restricted to certain classes (in the societal meaning of the word), often involving nobility, rich merchants, highly successful people in raiding cultures, etc. Yet people in this societal class were still involved in the development and proliferation of weapons that were effective against armor. Rich nobles who did their fighting in heavy armor in the early-high middle ages were among the people who pushed for crossbow use and proliferation during that period. The cold war featured a number of proxy wars in which the nations with tanks, planes, helicopters, and a lot of other military equipment gave other nations the tools to shoot them down. In the wizard analogy, that's like a couple of wizards deciding to settle their scores by distributing anti-magic rods, and instead of even giving them to actual allies, followers, etc. they just hand them over to people who don't even like them but detest their enemy more.

The idea that it would never happen seems ridiculous. People routinely do things to help themselves in the short term that backfire in the long term, and there are pretty decent equivalents of your situation that have actually happened. For that matter, not only have they actually happened, they're pretty much standard operational procedures.

[Sartharina]

Also - it's not the wizards that are making Anti-Magic rods in D&D Next, but Clerics, who are more than capable of Channeling Divinity and smashing people with hammers in full combat harness, so they aren't as concerned if someone tries using an AMF against them.

[PinkysBrain]

Are you guys still on this? Hard counters to entire character classes can be fun to fundamentally change up the game once in a while, but they aren't the common case. You balance for the common case.

[charcoalninja]

Also - it's not the wizards that are making Anti-Magic rods in D&D Next, but Clerics, who are more than capable of Channeling Divinity and smashing people with hammers in full combat harness, so they aren't as concerned if someone tries using an AMF against them.

Every time someone mentions a Wizard Gating in nasties in 5e I chuckle in the same way. I really like the diversification of the spell lists, I just wish Cleric got Globe of Invulnerability, though I understand why that isn't a good idea.

Also, Globe of Invulnerability seems outlandishly powerful as for a 9th level spell you become immune to all harmful magic while being able to still blast your own. Am I missing some nuance here?

EDIT: the cleric's making the AMFs actually solves the muggle backstabbing problem too. As all your muggles with anti magic are zealous soldiers of your religion and wouldn't dream of trying to kill the Pope (ie a cleric powerful enough to cast AMF in the first place).

[Lokiare]

Wait so the wall of <insert material here> + gate is still a thing in 5E. Facepalm. There is so much fail in 5E vancian magic I find it hard to post about it anymore. At this point 5E is basically a joke to me and my players. If we wanted nostalgia we'd play 0E, 1E, or 2E. If we wanted limitless broken options we'd play 3E. If we wanted balance and tactical choices we'd play 4E. There is literally no reason why we would want to play 5E at this point. Its got all the problems of previous editions and none of the solutions that later editions came up with.

There are quite a few encounter ending spells that work in combination or turn an encounter into a mop up:

Web (let's burn ourselves out or try to struggle against it while we get pelted with Cantrips that are 3/4 as powerful as anything the fighter can throw at us)

Any cloud spell + a relatively small room (around 40' x 40') + a closed door + Arcane Lock = death to entire encounter in a few minutes.

Charm Person/Monster in higher level slots can defeat an encounter before a single blow is landed.

Gate + Dominate Person in an 8th level slot can be devastating you get your own personal pet that is likely better than the fighter by that level that sticks around for up to 8 hours.

It appears that Fire Bolt is equivalent to a fighter with a d10 weapon since it gets extra damage at the same rate as the fighter getting extra attacks and they both get about the same attack bonuses. So cantrips appear to be 1/1 damage with a not perfectly optimized fighter. Except of course for 1-2 times per day when the fighter can double their attacks for a round, but then the casters have numerous daily spells to make up for that.

Fly against creatures without ranged attacks

A 5th or higher level flaming sphere is a marvel to behold being able to deal up to 5d6 fire damage to 1-8 creatures per round for a full minute. Even just a low level sphere + Fire Bolt is probably enough to out damage the fighter.

Hold Person at higher levels allows additional targets which means Hold Person + Fire Bolt to death is a good encounter ender.

Pass Wall used on the floor under any one creature can remove them from the combat until the duration passes with no save, worse if they have no ranged attacks you can effectively snipe them until you win with no danger.

Mordenkainen's Sword + Fire Bolt will outdamage a fighter at the same level, worse the Wizard can cast this spell in 3 out of 4 of the recommended combats of a day.

Fireball followed by Sleep (4th level or higher) can be a deadly combination that ends a fight.

Any of the permanent wall spells (10 minute concentration) + Fly + any of the cloud spells

And that's just in the basic PDF. I can't wait to see what a joke the PHB is.

[Human Paragon 3]

Above Poster:

I totally get your point of view, and everything you said is valid, but...

That all sounds fun to me. I think it will be fun for the wizard player who gets to do all that awesome stuff, and fun for the fighter player who gets to hack up the webbed monsters or whatever.

I also think it will be REALLY satisfying when the fighter gets to whack a spellcaster and ruin his concentration, dealing damage and knocking out the mordenkine's sword in one action.

I recognize it's still not balanced, but fun comes first for me.

[Fwiffo86]

I am taking "Encounter Ending" to mean use the spell, and the fight is done. Basically resolved in one combat round.



Web (let's burn ourselves out or try to struggle against it while we get pelted with Cantrips that are 3/4 as powerful as anything the fighter can throw at us)

And while we are doing that, lets shoot back at the party with our long range weapons too! At least 2 rounds, most likely more. Not encounter ending.


Any cloud spell + a relatively small room (around 40' x 40') + a closed door + Arcane Lock = death to entire encounter in a few minutes.

It takes like 2 rounds to break a door down. Less for beefy monsters. Not encounter ending.


Charm Person/Monster in higher level slots can defeat an encounter before a single blow is landed.

I'm pretty sure Charm doesn't work like it used to. I could be wrong. But I know I read someone stating that it didn't make friends anymore, it just moved their reaction modifier a couple steps towards friendly. One cast per monster, so average encounter 5 - 7 rounds/casts. Only encounter ending on a single target.


Gate + Dominate Person in an 8th level slot can be devastating you get your own personal pet that is likely better than the fighter by that level that sticks around for up to 8 hours.

You mean Dominate MONSTER don't you? No more encounter ending than having an extra party member.


It appears that Fire Bolt is equivalent to a fighter with a d10 weapon since it gets extra damage at the same rate as the fighter getting extra attacks and they both get about the same attack bonuses. So cantrips appear to be 1/1 damage with a not perfectly optimized fighter. Except of course for 1-2 times per day when the fighter can double their attacks for a round, but then the casters have numerous daily spells to make up for that.

Valid. But I equate Cantrip to basic attack, essentially meaningless over all. Which inevitably brings us to the fighter argument. Basically, turns wiz into ranged fighter. Not encounter ending.


Fly against creatures without ranged attacks

And what about the rest of the party? Makes the wizard safe, doesn't end the encounter unless the Wizard flees/bypasses.



A 5th or higher level flaming sphere is a marvel to behold being able to deal up to 5d6 fire damage to 1-8 creatures per round for a full minute. Even just a low level sphere + Fire Bolt is probably enough to out damage the fighter.

To stationary targets, this works quite well. Moving targets reduces the damage considerably. Which also reduces the number of targets you can actually effect with it, and it requires concentration. Not encounter ending.


Hold Person at higher levels allows additional targets which means Hold Person + Fire Bolt to death is a good encounter ender.

So is any lockdown spell and the rest of the party. Encounter ending for single targets.


Pass Wall used on the floor under any one creature can remove them from the combat until the duration passes with no save, worse if they have no ranged attacks you can effectively snipe them until you win with no danger.

Does passwall create a hole, or does it push the target through matter? The reason I ask would be if its just allows someone to pass through matter, sniping becomes useless unless you passwall the ammo. Not encounter ending.


Mordenkainen's Sword + Fire Bolt will outdamage a fighter at the same level, worse the Wizard can cast this spell in 3 out of 4 of the recommended combats of a day.

Agreed, but you can't counterspell a Fighter. Wizard becomes 2 fighters. Not encounter ending.


Fireball followed by Sleep (4th level or higher) can be a deadly combination that ends a fight.

Assuming they are all in one 20' area to be affected by both the sleep and the fireball, sure, this works. Not encounter ending unless you have really stupid targets who like to hug a lot.


Any of the permanent wall spells (10 minute concentration) + Fly + any of the cloud spells

Assuming you make a 5 sided wall (cube) with the allotted material, and cast cloud first (due to LOS [could be wrong about that though]), sure, this would work... I guess. Assume at least three rounds, one per spell. Not encounter ending.

I'm not seeing evidence of encounter ending spells here. All of these spells require additional work from either the Wiz or the rest of the party, probably both. Except against a single target.

[hawklost]

There are quite a few encounter ending spells that work in combination or turn an encounter into a mop up:


Web (let's burn ourselves out or try to struggle against it while we get pelted with Cantrips that are 3/4 as powerful as anything the fighter can throw at us)
-- 5 ft covering of the floor, hmmm, I think as that annoying wizard is shooting at me, I shall duck into this very tall webbing and be completely secure from him. Unless he wishes to free me by burning it of course.
-- Or maybe i should hit the mage with a ranged attack and disrupt his concentration check (even a pebble works if it hits him for a chance)
-- If the creature is say a halfling or goblin, the wizard couldn't hit him anyways, since he would be covered by the height of the webbing.


Any cloud spell + a relatively small room (around 40' x 40') + a closed door + Arcane Lock = death to entire encounter in a few minutes.
-- Funny, not seeing any cloud spells in the Basic PDF


Charm Person/Monster in higher level slots can defeat an encounter before a single blow is landed.
-- well yes, if you wish to walk past this encounter then it does work that way. of course, you haven't defeated the person/monster and they might just hold a grudge against you since they know you did it
-- I will give you this one for passing an encounter without a fight


Gate + Dominate Person in an 8th level slot can be devastating you get your own personal pet that is likely better than the fighter by that level that sticks around for up to 8 hours.
-- Yes, lets summon a creature from a different plane (as Gate requries) and then Dominate him, what could go wrong. Could it be he would get a saving throw EVERY TIME HE GETS HIT?!
-- Not sure about you, but I like my fighting creatures to NOT decide in the middle of the battle to turn on and wail on me


It appears that Fire Bolt is equivalent to a fighter with a d10 weapon since it gets extra damage at the same rate as the fighter getting extra attacks and they both get about the same attack bonuses. So cantrips appear to be 1/1 damage with a not perfectly optimized fighter. Except of course for 1-2 times per day when the fighter can double their attacks for a round, but then the casters have numerous daily spells to make up for that.

-- I must agree with you on the damage here. Although the Fighter has a chance to Crit on each of his attacks (negative he has a chance to miss) while the Bolt is an all or nothing damage. Note, that nowhere in Basic does it describe how a Crit works or if Spells CANT crit (not saying they cannot, just pointing out this fact)


Fly against creatures without ranged attacks
-- Or a Fast River between opponents, or a Cliff, or a Wall I am standing on. Yes, enemies without Ranged attacks need to do things like get behind cover from flying creatures, this doesn't change in any game
-- Note, you cannot using other concentration spells now


A 5th or higher level flaming sphere is a marvel to behold being able to deal up to 5d6 fire damage to 1-8 creatures per round for a full minute. Even just a low level sphere + Fire Bolt is probably enough to out damage the fighter.
-- It can harm a Single creature each turn while taking your concentration check. The other way it can hurt is if the creature Ends Its Turn next to it. Which is a choice of the creature


Hold Person at higher levels allows additional targets which means Hold Person + Fire Bolt to death is a good encounter ender.
-- Yes, Hold person is quite painful for humonoid creatures. They must make a saving throw each turn or let you pelt them for up to a minute
-- About as encounter ending as a PC using grapple to hold an enemy and let the wizard shoot him


Pass Wall used on the floor under any one creature can remove them from the combat until the duration passes with no save, worse if they have no ranged attacks you can effectively snipe them until you win with no danger.
-- Funny, I see no rules in the Basic saying whether or not you get a saving throw against trap doors (which this effectively is). I am sure a DM could rule that the creature gets no save, but they might also rule they do.
-- It is again true, a creature with who falls in and has no ranged attacks can be sniped


Mordenkainen's Sword + Fire Bolt will outdamage a fighter at the same level, worse the Wizard can cast this spell in 3 out of 4 of the recommended combats of a day.
-- True, combining a concentration spell and a cantrip does a lot of damage. Of course, the fighter doesn't have to worry about taking a hit and losing most of his damage each round
-- Also note that a ranged person can out walk that sword and just pelt you and laugh


Fireball followed by Sleep (4th level or higher) can be a deadly combination that ends a fight.
-- Why would you cast a 4th level sleep when you could cast a second fireball and probably kill more of those creatures, this combination doesn't make sense
-- Lets throw this against 1 lvl 7 fighter with max health (min level for 4th level spell, we will give you max rolls as well, so don't feel bad).
------ Assuming he fails his reflex of DC of 16 (8+3+5), which is aboiut a 75% chance if the fighter has no dex bonus or a 50% chance if he has +5 dex bonus, he would take 48 damage and have 57 health left (Not sure Remarkable Athlete works to add to his Dex save throw, or he gets an extra +1)
------ Now, assuming he uses Second Wind now, (or +17 health) to get to 74 hp - We will assume he doesn't use healing potions or anything here of course
------ Now, you have to roll almost maximum again to be able to make him sleep (88 max hp).
------ Yup, he is now asleep for 1 minute or until damaged. Do you have anything that can do 74 damage in one hit?
------ We gave the assumptions it was one wizard against one fighter with max of everything between health/stats and damage rolls
------ Of course a Fighter going all out in the same time would have 4-6 (4 if he doesn't attack first w/ action surge, 6 if he attacks first with action surge used)
----------- 17 damage per hit with greatsword and a 10% chance of critting each attack. Damage of 68 damage on 4(40% chance of critting once) attacks or 102 on 6(60% chance of critting once)
----------- or 13 damage per hit with longBow if wizard is flying and a 10% chance crit each attack. Damage is 52 damage (40% crit) on 4 attacks or 78 damage on 6 attacks
----------- a max wizard who is not a dwarf (we didnt use dwarf for fighter either) has 77 hp (wizard plus max Con of +5). So against a Fighter who attacks first this way, they are dead before they can use Sleep. So it comes down to initiative there
-- Also pray that there are not more creatures here or the fighter stays up anyways against sleep



Any of the permanent wall spells (10 minute concentration) + Fly + any of the cloud spells
-- Ignoring there does not appear to be any Cloud spells in Basic
-- If you are attempting to lock a creature in, they get a Ref to use Reaction to escape/
-- You must sit there for 10 minutes. In that time, ANY creature who does an average of 1.8 damage per round against AC of 15 could bust through one of your wall panels (30 hp per 1 inch thick, 6 inches thick max, 15 AC)
-- An enemy can attempted to climb out (10 ft high is not hard for a creature to get our if they are 5 ft tall, reach of 7.75 (1.5 times their height)) plus a jump of (3+str mod)/2. If they have a Str mod of +3 there is no check, or DM could give a Athletics check for a chance at higher (100 chances if they do it every round for 10 minutes)
-- After waiting all that time, assuming the creature hasn't destroyed a wall panel or climbed out, you then use a Concentration spell to cast fly. And then a Cloud spell that might or might not use concentration as well (if it is like darkness it uses concentration)


These are decent control spells IF the wizard is fighting a single or few opponents. If there is a party of enemies or the wizard has allies, these seem to be to mostly be foolish combinations just for arguments sake (and ignoring the counter rules like fighters hitting back or breaking a wall/door or even just having concentration checks for each minor damage).

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I am taking "Encounter Ending" to mean use the spell, and the fight is done. Basically resolved in one combat round.



And while we are doing that, lets shoot back at the party with our long range weapons too! At least 2 rounds, most likely more. Not encounter ending.



It takes like 2 rounds to break a door down. Less for beefy monsters. Not encounter ending.



I'm pretty sure Charm doesn't work like it used to. I could be wrong. But I know I read someone stating that it didn't make friends anymore, it just moved their reaction modifier a couple steps towards friendly. One cast per monster, so average encounter 5 - 7 rounds/casts. Only encounter ending on a single target.



You mean Dominate MONSTER don't you? No more encounter ending than having an extra party member.



Valid. But I equate Cantrip to basic attack, essentially meaningless over all. Which inevitably brings us to the fighter argument. Basically, turns wiz into ranged fighter. Not encounter ending.



And what about the rest of the party? Makes the wizard safe, doesn't end the encounter unless the Wizard flees/bypasses.



To stationary targets, this works quite well. Moving targets reduces the damage considerably. Which also reduces the number of targets you can actually effect with it, and it requires concentration. Not encounter ending.



So is any lockdown spell and the rest of the party. Encounter ending for single targets.



Does passwall create a hole, or does it push the target through matter? The reason I ask would be if its just allows someone to pass through matter, sniping becomes useless unless you passwall the ammo. Not encounter ending.



Agreed, but you can't counterspell a Fighter. Wizard becomes 2 fighters. Not encounter ending.



Assuming they are all in one 20' area to be affected by both the sleep and the fireball, sure, this works. Not encounter ending unless you have really stupid targets who like to hug a lot.



Assuming you make a 5 sided wall (cube) with the allotted material, and cast cloud first (due to LOS [could be wrong about that though]), sure, this would work... I guess. Assume at least three rounds, one per spell. Not encounter ending.

I'm not seeing evidence of encounter ending spells here. All of these spells require additional work from either the Wiz or the rest of the party, probably both. Except against a single target.

Pass wall works a lot like PF Create Pit, however I don't see any DM not allowing a Dex Saving Throw to avoid falling. Actually it would be correct to give one, just like if a trap opened up under a player. Heck you could give them advantage on the saving throw, pass wall may not be fast enough to be used offensively.

So while 4 squares of floor would dissapear (5' x 8' = 4 square cube in the floor) which can get a max of 4 enemies (or more tiny ones) I wouldn't call it encounter ending.

I have an idea for a boss encounter now >:D

[da_chicken]

Pass wall works a lot like PF Create Pit, however I don't see any DM not allowing a Dex Saving Throw to avoid falling. Actually it would be correct to give one, just like if a trap opened up under a player. Heck you could give them advantage on the saving throw, pass wall may not be fast enough to be used offensively.

So while 4 squares of floor would dissapear (5' x 8' = 4 square cube in the floor) which can get a max of 4 enemies (or more tiny ones) I wouldn't call it encounter ending.

I have an idea for a boss encounter now >:D

Don't forget 5e doesn't assume a grid exists. "Affecting 4 squares" isn't 5e terminology. Also, assuming that a grid exists and then that you don't have to align spells to the grid is pretty flawed reasoning. That's having your cake and eating it, too. If you want a grid to be used, you need to have grid-based targetting, too. Furthermore, it's not 4 squares. It's 4 partial squares or 1.6 full squares. I don't know any edition of the rules that allows spell effects to effect a target when the spell affects less than 50% of the square. I don't see any arrangement that immediately effects targets in more than 2 squares barring unusual monsters like gelatinous cubes.

[Callin]

Fly is a Concentration Spell. As is the Wall Spells before they become permanent. I am going to assume that Cloud Spells will also be Concentration. So yea... that combo is not going to happen.

[Dark Tira]

It appears that Fire Bolt is equivalent to a fighter with a d10 weapon since it gets extra damage at the same rate as the fighter getting extra attacks and they both get about the same attack bonuses. So cantrips appear to be 1/1 damage with a not perfectly optimized fighter. Except of course for 1-2 times per day when the fighter can double their attacks for a round, but then the casters have numerous daily spells to make up for that.



Ok, this is obviously not correct. You seem to be forgetting that although both use 1d10 the fighter also adds ability mod to damage. So at max level without optimization the wizard does 4d10 (average 22) while the fighter will be doing 1d10+5 four times (average 42).

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Don't forget 5e doesn't assume a grid exists. "Affecting 4 squares" isn't 5e terminology. Also, assuming that a grid exists and then that you don't have to align spells to the grid is pretty flawed reasoning. That's having your cake and eating it, too. If you want a grid to be used, you need to have grid-based targetting, too. Furthermore, it's not 4 squares. It's 4 partial squares or 1.6 full squares. I don't know any edition of the rules that allows spell effects to effect a target when the spell affects less than 50% of the square. I don't see any arrangement that immediately effects targets in more than 2 squares barring unusual monsters like gelatinous cubes.

No one said a grid had to be used.


Calm down, I messed up and typed 4 when I mas thinking 2, 5' one way and 8' the other. Which makes pass wall a bit weird and now that I think about it, probably shows that it was not meant to function as an attack spell, since all attack type spells have 3e terminology but still work perfectly on a grid (just like in 3.5 and 4e).

But it makes for a good template for Create Pit, actually create pit makes a good template for create pit. I was thinking a mage, barbarian, and rogue BBEG team that used a combination of create pit and pass wall to really give the players a hard time.

[charcoalninja]

To Lokaire:

You're not only ignoring the control mechanics 5e has set up to prevent those very things from happening but also expanding your issues to include more than one caster such as in the case of Gate + Dominate Monster.

To everyone that is worried about Wizards.

Thus far, Wizards. Cannot. Cast. Gate.

So your issue is that for the Wizard's only 8th level slot and the Cleric's only 9th level slot, the Party has summoned another combatant to help out. How on earth is that a problem? Especially when you realise that your new meatshield gets a save every time he gets hit to break your control, thus limiting the spell to creatures you actually have a prayer of affecting with your spells in the firstplace, unlike 3.P where you could Gate in Celestial Greatwyrm Dragons of doom stronger than the Party.

As Fly is Concentration it means you can either Fly, OR Wall, OR buff. You only get one Concentration slot, so yeah. Oh, Also, the Gate + Dominate trick means that you can't Fly and control your summoned lackey as well.

EDIT: Not saying it's perfecy by any stretch, my preferred edition is 4th, but they HAVE made considerable strides to reign in Magic while still keeping the feel of it that so many like, which is why I'm willing to give it a tray.